Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/866

 8S2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

linas, also deserves much space. It is difficult for us to realize that the South was once the "West" of the new-comer to America, that there one traveled scores of miles in well-settled regions without hearing a word of English ! It is easy to understand then that the new-comer, the German, the French, and the Scotch-Irish, was once "a problem" in that region. It is unfortunate that we have so little about this element.

But "short and simple are the annals of the poor," and perhaps Professor Phillips found it impossible to obtain in greater abundance material illustrative of the life of these great masses of the southern people, just as a hundred years hence the investigator will easily find the records of our capitalist regime but will with difficulty locate the evidences of the life and activity of the rest of us. And of course it must be said that the story of the common people of the South finds some place in the accounts of the plantation.

The treatment of the plantation is thorough and the documents are unusually well selected. One now sees what the aristocratic South was, what men like Washington did with their Negro slaves ; how slaves regarded themselves, both on the plantation and as they were driven hundreds of miles from old to new lands; how the overseer did his work and what he thought of both master and slave. And what makes the picture the more complete is the inclusion of indentured servants, the run-away Negroes, free Negroes, criminals — in fact the "seamy side" is given with reasonable fulness and accuracy. Never before have the records of the plantation been so clearly and historically put before us.

The sources of this vast amount of material are the contemporary newspapers, the various southern magazines such as De Bow's, pub- lications of local historical societies, and scores of private collections to which historians have hitherto not had access. No student of American history has a better acquaintance with the materials bear- ing upon the Old South than Mr. Phillips ; certainly none has made a closer search for such data and none has been so well rewarded. If there are any omissions it has been because the materials eluded the searcher and not because he was unwilling that they should come to the light. There are some surprises in the book ; and many who have written history will find it necessary to revise certain opinions.

Some will say that the institution of slavery appears in too favorable a light, that there are no brutal overseers, few plantation tragedies, and little of the wickedness and immorality so commonly