A Conversation With... History Professor Ira Berlin

Q - How does Generations differ from other histories about slavery?

A - Most other histories have concentrated on the relationship between the master and the slave. What I'm interested in, in Generations of Captivity, is how that relationship changes over time and how the lives of black people change over time, and how, by being a slave you're not one thing but you're many different things.

Q - How important is slavery to American history?

A - Slavery is at the center of the history of the United States. We can't understand the history of the United States without slavery. Slaves were central to the economy of the United States. The American colonies, the republic that was formed out of the colonies, the tobacco, the rice, indigo, sugar, eventually the cotton they grow brings capital into the United States. That capital becomes central to the creation of the economy that we enjoy today. The people who controlled that economy were able to translate their economic power into political power.

If we look at the history of the country from the history of the republic to the Civil War, most of our presidents are slaveholders and very substantial slaveholders. Our Supreme Court was controlled by slaveholders. The Congress, for a good part of this period, is controlled by slaveholders.

I think that the fact that these people could control our politics made them very central in shaping our values. And I think it's no accident that slaveholders make freedom a central value in American society. They understood what it might mean to be a slave. So they were extremely conscious about freedom.

Q - What about reparations as a way to help set the record straight?

A - There are no panaceas here. There's no silver bullet here. I think the best we can hope for is coming to terms with it and understanding it and appreciating it and appreciating that there are many things in our past that we're quite proud of - the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson and other founders on questions of equality and decency and fairness. There are many parts of American history we are rightly proud of. There are some parts of American history, probably, frankly, most of us wish didn't happen. But they did and they're as much a part of American history as the parts that we're pleased to have and pleased to boast of. The point is that we, as a people, are composed of both of those things... and we have to come to terms with both. This is not unusual in human history. Other people have things they're very proud of and things they wish didn't happen.

Credentials - internationally known expert and author of many books about slavery, Berlin has won numerous awards for his efforts. Most recently he was awarded the 2004 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his text Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves. He is the founder of the Freedmen and Southern Society project, which he directed until 1991. He was named the Outstanding Public Humanities Scholar of the year by the Humanities Council of Washington in 1999. He sits on a number of editorial boards, was interviewed for the February 2005 PBS series Slavery and the Making of America , consulted for programs like Ken Burns' Civil War, and has held office in national historical organizations. He has held an NEH Junior Fellowship, has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar in France, and lectured as a Ford Foundation Fellow. He has also served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Maryland. Current project is looking at immigration.
Contact - (301)-405-4286 (office); iberlin@umd.edu
Web Site -www.history.umd.edu/Bio/berlin.html