Slavery
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The book, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, was written by Stanley M. Elkins. In this book, Elkin's main goal is to abandon the traditional methods used by historians on the argument of slavery. Historians depend on diaries, journals, plantation records and sources of that nature to base their arguments on. Elkin's, however, didn't think these documents were sufficient evidence, due to the fact that most slaves couldn't read or write and many plantations were burned down, which means all of their records were destroyed as well. Because of this, Elkins decided to take a different approach and use the social sciences to develop and support his opinion.
During his research, on thing that he found common among slaves was a subservient personality, also known as the "sambo personality". Sambo was said to be the typical plantation slave. it was described as loyal but lazy, docile but irresponsible. It was a childlike behavior...