Southern slavery shaped every aspect of society, not just labor relations

Evidence

Virginia and the rest of the American South constituted one of just five “great slave societies” in the history of the world, according to the historian David W. Blight. This meant that the colony did not simply engage in slavery as many nations had for centuries before; it created a culture where, as Blight puts it, “slavery affected everything about society,” its social relationships, laws, customs, and politics. And that is why we simultaneously deify Virginians such as Washington, Madison, and Jefferson as champions of freedom while marginalizing the slaveholding region they came from as exceptionally backward, as not reflective of the real America. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 110

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core ‘great slave society’ concept and the foundational-vs-peripheral reframing: slavery saturated all social institutions.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s stated goal: this is the reframing thesis (slavery foundational, not peripheral) that the Wilentz debate centers on. — connects to: Southern slavery was a culture and social order, not only an economic system — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1255