Bathed in Blood: Hunting and Mastery in the Old South »

Nicolas W. Proctor is Assistant Professor of History at Simpson College.

The hunt, like the church, courthouse, and family, played an integral role in southern society and culture during the antebellum era. Regardless of color or class, southern men hunted. Although hunters always recognized the tangible gains of their mission — meat, hides, furs — they also used the hunt to communicate ideas of gender, race, class, masculinity, and community. Hunting was very much a social activity, and for many white hunters it became a drama in which they could display their capacity for mastery over women, blacks, the natural world, and their own passions.

Nicolas Proctor argues in Bathed in Blood that because slaves frequently accompanied white hunters into the field, whites often believed that hunting was a particularly effective venue for the demonstration of white supremacy. Slaves interpreted such interactions quite differently: they remained focused on the products of the hunt and considered the labor performed at the behest of their owners as an opportunity to improve their own condition. Whether acquired as a reward from a white hunter or as a result of their own independent — often illicit — efforts, game provided them with an important supplementary food source, an item for trade, and a measure of autonomy. By sharing their valuable resources with other slaves, slave hunters also strengthened the bonds within their own community. In a society predicated upon the constant degradation of African Americans, such simple acts of generosity became symbolic of resistance and had a cohesive effect on slave families.

Proctor forges a new understanding of the significance of hunting in the antebellum South through his analyses of a wealth of magazine articles and private papers, diaries, and correspondence.

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Regardless of color or class, men in the Old South hunted; the meat, hides, and furs they brought home reinforced the hunters' claims to patriarchal authority as providers for their households. During the antebellum era, many white men also began using the hunt as a venue for the display of increasingly complex ideas about gender, race, class, and community. Proctor (history, Simpson College) explores the social drama of the hunt as it was conducted between 1800 and 1860, through accounts in books, letters, journals, and periodicals. He looks at the historical developments that shaped hunting as well as interactions between men and women and between owners and slaves. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)