Part I, Chapter 2, Masters and Slaves Summary and Analysis

Sometime in the spring of 1834, South Carolina Planter, Thomas Bauskett, bought a young negro slave for his son, John Bauskett. The boy was named Ruben. The elder Bauskett owned 221 African-Americans. Ruben would later take the Bauskett name because Bauskett was the first master he could remember. In the early twentieth century the name became Bosket.

Slavery only added to the culture of violence since violence was needed to enforce bondage; it arguably brutalized both slaves and masters. No state was more involved in slavery than South Carolina, as it had slaves present from its founding. Due to the slave trade, South Carolina's whites became the richest people in North America, if not the world. But the large numbers of slaves raised the threat of rebellion. Despite the violence of the 1760 to...