When looking in contemporary times, all people, as long as no state law excludes it, are given the right to be allowed to gamble. Unfortunately, slaves during the antebellum times were not afforded these rights. Differing reasons originate when trying to determine why exactly the practice of gambling by slaves was so shunned. Prohibiting gambling minimized slaves being able to interact with other classes, regulate violations of curfews, and became a means to Christianize their slaves with certain moral values. All areas, including Athens, Georgia, limited access to gambling for the above reasons. By excluding slaves from certain activities like gambling, the masters controlled their property; their restriction of gambling became a means of social control.
Restrictions on gambling would reduce curfew violations. Some structural reasons guided the masters and authorities to be tough on gambling. One in particular dealt with the masters being able to produce enough goods for the market. A general trend of slaves on plantations is that they liked to sneak out after curfew. They played “possum” to trick their overseers, so they could go to parties, which sometimes lasted to all hours of the night.1 Breaking curfew to go and do these activities could cut down on the efficiency of the plantation.2 The first reasoning for the masters restricting gambling is fairly simple. When doing activities like gambling, the slaves stayed out to all hours of the morning. The potential output of work for the next day may have been sacrificed. To eliminate losing the efficiency of the plantation, the master’s livelihood forced the masters to restrict gambling. This method of social control became one of necessity, if the planters wanted to have goods for the market. In addition, slave conspiracies always scared masters. If slaves gambled and associated with other slaves to all hours of the night, they might think of plans to overthrow their masters, or possibly chose to run away. Restricting the gambling after hours both improved the efficiency of the plantation system, as well as attempted to eliminate slave insurrections. Would we be able to say that the Athens authorities and masters sought cracking down on curfew violators? We can speculate that masters in Athens would invest large amounts of money, often on credit, to be able to purchase slaves too. After spending money, the “investors” do not want to lose money. They are forced to crack down on the late night activities like gambling, if they want to achieve maximum output on their plantations and farms. Athens authorities would also want to minimize any chances of slave conspiracies. Looking to literature of the time,we see that the government passed an ordinance that included issues in regards to slaves. The ordinance contained a clause that vested power in the marshal to target curfew violators.3 This would lead the reader of the ordinance to believe that the owners of the slaves saw great importance to protecting their investments; hence, the Athens’ government targeted these late night activities like gambling, trying to socially control their slaves.
Activities must be prohibited if they bring together certain classes. On the surface, certain repercussions came from the simple fact of slaves gambling. One of these things was that by gambling, certain classes joined in the activities of the slaves. Specifically, the poorer whites joined the slaves,4 as well as the free blacks.5 The mixing of these two classes unsettled many; having whites bonding with slaves could not possibly be a good thing. To try and stop this shared bond over gambling, laws passed in “December 1856 and January 1857 tried to eliminate interracial gambling in Negro taverns.”6 Authorities did anything to stop the two classes meeting. Bartenders could be fined if it came to the attention of the authorities that they allowed the two classes play a game of cards together, for example. They could be fined up to a maximum of one hundred dollars. In the same way, slaves could have fines assessed upon them for violating the new laws. They could be “fined from twenty-five to one hundred dollars.”7 The free blacks represented a similar problem and their potential fine was around the same as the slaves. Authorities again passed laws to not allow the two groups to congregate to gamble. 8Most areas fell into this reasoning. Does the general trend hold for Athens? From gambling, slaves are bonding with the free blacks and poor whites. We can speculate that, if we are the upper-class rich oppressors that we would not like the two discriminated groups aligning with the slaves. Separating these groups is a very intelligent choice. When a majority of disadvantaged groups align, even to join in leisurely activities, problems could occur. Rebellions occur when the discriminated group realizes that the oppressors are such a minority; the upper class is extremely smaller, compared to the combination of the slaves, free blacks, and poor whites.Again, social controlling their slaves is present. Masters wanted to limit chances of slaves bonding with other oppressed classes.
Going along with these new friendships with other oppressed classes, gambling allowed slaves access to other vices. Again, socially controlling the slaves is present. These different groups brought with them access to different things. For one thing, bonding with the poor whites gave slaves access to liquor and other vices.9 The masters wanted to keep control over their property, and the only way to accomplish that goal would be to maintain the apparent dominance present in the master-slave relationship. Access flouts the dominance established. For one thing, gambling with the free blacks and poor whites gives the slaves some independence. To uphold the established structure, the masters had to take away anything that helped bring the slaves out of the dependent class. In addition, the access to gambling would lead to further problems. It seems that by having the masters target the gambling acts would potentially alleviate other problems: like drunkenness and fighting. All a master needs is his slaves being drunk and gambling until all hours of the night. When we try and apply the trend to Athens, we can speculate that the masters would not like to have their slaves out drinking, since these acts could lead to acts of disobedience, as well as would just not be productive. Masters in Athens would want similar things as other slave owners wanted; therefore, it would help to restrict gambling in Athens to be able to control their lives, since it would limit access to these other vices.
Gambling led to other crimes. For example, slaves in South Carolina had a practice of taking from their masters, and then they turned and traded the goods: “[they] think it [is] right to steal from us.. . .”10 In analysis, why might slaves need to steal things to trade. Possibly, the slaves might have been coerced into these actions by their new friends: free blacks and poor whites. These stolen goods might be a way for the slaves to have assets to gamble away. To stop these acts of thievery, masters wanted to control as much as possible. By targeting the gambling specifically, the other crimes might be reduced, if not done away with. Restricting gambling went along with controlling slave’s lives. Since it induced slaves possibly to act against their masters (possibly stealing), the act itself needed to be targeted. Did Athens have problems of slaves stealing to gamble? In theory, I am sure that the trend would hold up. I did not find any published records from the time period stating that slaves had been stealing from their masters. Reasoning could come from the fact that the slaves’ owners in Athens decided to deal with the problems on the plantation. It may have been embarrassing in smaller areas to show that the master had allowed disobedience on the plantation. The planters would not want to lose respect of the other members of the city.
In addition to keeping order on the plantations, restrictions on gambling would hold up to the evangelical trend of the time. Along with social control, the masters started changing their own personalities. Before this time period, a man’s prowess and superiority were shown through his ability to fight and participating in activities like going to cock fights and racetracks, or basically gambling. Slowly, these old concepts of manliness started to change. Evangelicals initiated an attack on these new norms; they pushed to change the old values to ones that could be characterized as “Christian” virtues. In the same way that the masters fell susceptible to these new ideas, they started to impose them on their dependents; slaves obliviously fell in line to receive their master’s new values.11 The masters did not want the slaves to be off gambling. If they did not participate in these activities, their property should not do them as well. The imposition of these values was not necessarily intended to breed these new little Christians, but the masters simply wanted to maintain social control. They saw the potential benefits of imposing these values. If the slaves fell into this passive mindset established in this new religion, they could better control their property. It stands to reason that the only reasoning of limiting the access to gambling to slaves would be to control them. By limiting the act, they could stop any of the potential ramifications of allowing them to gamble.
Possibilities arise to the idea that these new values might be trying to evangelize the slaves. Can we conclude that the imposition of slaves to Christian virtues was merely for creating passive slaves? The reasons are a little more complex than that. For example, one historian poses the idea of why masters would subject their slaves to their new found religion: “It is virtually impossible to dissect the Christian conscience and delineate where altruism left off and self interest began, for in the many cases where masters favored the religious instruction of slaves . . . .”12 Basically, it is hard to distinguish the motives of pushing the Christian virtues, in other words: did they truly care about the slaves' salvation, or were they purely only acting in selfish ways. When trying to determine what the motives of masters imposing their religion on the slaves, the answers are complicated. The above quote sums up the problem in a nutshell. A clear-cut way of saying their reasons were this does not exist. Therefore, we cannot say for certain that planters sought the slaves taking up the Christian virtues for worrying about the slaves' fait. All we can say is that a blend of self-interest and possibly worrying about the slaves’ salvation. Examples of both ways exist, I am sure. If the masters limited gambling for creating docile slaves, they were acting in terms of their self-interest. When trying to apply the trend of extending Christian virtues to the slaves, Athens would like a place where this would happen. The evangelical movement spread all over the country. Certain citizens in Athens did see the moral obligation of limiting gambling. Gambling is a wrong that could be corrected.13 As stated earlier, reasons for imposing these virtues cannot be determined. But in practical terms, having docile servants would be a good thing. Problems would be less likely to arise.
With the above arguments for restricting gambling, one would get a sense that masters and the governing authorities hated the act of gambling, yet this is not so. Prohibiting slaves from gambling did not specifically target the actual act of gambling. Gambling to the upper classes became and was a part of their culture at this time. For example, people saw gambling embodying the “gentry values.”14 This source places the gentry greatly supporting horse racing. Besides horse races, gentry loved to “[play] cards, backgammon, billiards, ninepins, and dice.”15 The wagers on these games reached astronomical proportions, where the size of them basically excluded every class except the gentry. So, when looking at stress on the gentry culture to gamble, as well as being able to afford the license fees, people of money gambled. These two examples show the social control that the masters placed on their property. Really, a double standard is present: it is not okay for a slave to gamble, but it is okay for whites to gamble, as long as they could afford to pay a license fee. The apparent social control is present. Slaves were not allowed to gamble for the mere fact that the masters could keep better control over them, since they were not being distracted with activities like gambling. Gambling was an activity that the masters could limit, and they chose to limit it, since they were other aspects that they could not control.16 Limit what you can. When looking at Athens in particular, the minutes of Town Commissioners show that the leaders were not targeting gambling as a wrong. They are more worried about how much a license should cost. For example, proponents wanted to increase the billiards parlor from “$50 to $75.”17 After analyzing this potential license fee change, one can see that the elites making legislative decisions were not ostracizing gambling in particular; this activity became one privileged through having a certain class distinction. In addition, one article had a section in the paper commenting that the President was going to come and visit a local office. It basically said that since it was an office, the workers needed to work in a respectable manner. Their behaviors should not include activities of “playing of billiards and [playing] cards.”18 The reasoning fell on the simple fact of these behaviors not being appropriate for a work environment. When trying to see if the general trend still applies, it looks like it does in Athens. The article is not specifically targeting gambling as wrong, but it cares more about gambling being done at the appropriate time. Since it is a work environment, gambling should not be done. They uphold the apparent double standard seen in the general pattern. Gambling is all right, as long as the person is an upper class white person, and he gambled at the appropriate time.
In summation, authorities tried to limit the act of gambling. They used the restriction as a means of social control. Differing reasons occur that would motivate the masters and authorities to try and pass this legislation, yet all of them focused on the control aspect. The question of masters restricting gambling in efforts to better the morals of their slaves does not hold up; the culture of the gentry embodied too many of the gambling practices for this argument to hold up. The restrictions focused more on efficiency in the plantation and restricting slaves from bonding with free blacks and poor whites, rather than wanting religious slaves. If anything, the imposition of these Christian virtues probably fell closer to gaining docile slaves. The moral arguments are present in the general trends and in the case study of Athens, yet this argument does not lead to any policy concerns of restricting gambling. The ones that made these policy decisions enjoyed gambling too much; therefore, the restriction of the act only sought to benefit the masters and authorities themselves.
1. Rawick, The American Slave, Georgia Narratives, VOL. IV, No. 2, p. 25, quoted in David K. Wiggins, “Leisure Time on the Southern Plantation: The Slaves Respite fro Constant Toil, 1810-1860, ED: Donald Spivey, compiled in “Sport in America: New Historical Perspectives,” (Westport: Greenwood Press: 1985): 28-29.
2. Rawick, 28.
3. Athens, The Athenian, February 01, 1828.
4. Henry I. Leovy, The Laws and General Ordnances of the City of New Orleans, together with the Acts of the Legislature, Decisions of the Supreme Court , and Constitutional Provisions. Relating to the City Governments (New Orleans, 1857), 46,.quoted in Roger A. Fischer, “Racial Segregation in Ante Bellum New Orleans,” American Historical Review, 1969 74(3): 926-957.
5. No. 3, p. 105 (May 13, 1793); No. 4, p. 252 (March 11, 1799); No. 12, pp. 300-301 (May 13, 1816). quoted in Marianne Buroff Sheldon, “Black-White Relations in Richmond, Virginia, 1782-1820,” The Journal of Southern History Vol. XLV, No. 1, (February 1979) 31.
6. Fischer, 935.
7. Ibid, 936.
8. 9. Sheldon, p. 31. 10. Wood, Black Majority, 212-217; quoted in J.H. Easterby, ed., The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston (Chicago, 1945), 213; Johnson v. Wideman, Rice 325 (1839) at 342 (10 S.C. 137). See also Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 599-612, quoted in Michael S. Hindus, “Black Justice Under White Law: Criminal Prosecutions of Blacks in Antebellum SouthCarolina,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 63, No. 3., (December 1976) 584.. 11. Joan Scott, “Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” in Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1998), 42-43, quoted in, Janet Moore Lindman, “Acting the Manly Christian: White Evangelical Masculinity in Revolutionary Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, Volume 12. J. Hamilton Couper, Theo B. Bartow, and George Adams, “Premium Essay, on the Treatment of Slaves,” Soil of the South 3 (March 1853): 458-459, and lines “Slaves and Churchmen,{ p. 82, quoted in Blake Touchstone, “Planters and Slave Religion in the Deep South,” ed. By John B. Boles, (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988): , 101-102. 13. Athens, The Athenian, March 3, 1829, quoted in Ernest C. Hynds, “Antebellum Athens and Clarke County, Georiga,” (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974): 40. 14. T.H. Breen, “Horses and Gentlemen: The Cultural Significance of Gambling among the Gentry of Virginia," The William and mary Quarterly, Vol. XXIV (April 1977), pp. 239-57, quoted in Donald Spivey, Ed., "Sport in America: New Historical Perspectives," (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Pres, 1985), p.6. 15. Ibid, 9. 16. Kulikoff, "The Origins of Afro-American Soceity in Tidewater Maryland and Virginia, 1700-1790," ibid., XXXV (1978), 230-231, 2 240-245, and Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Cheseapeake, 1680-1800 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986), 320-334, quoted in Jean Burenhoff Lee, "The Probelm of Slave Community in the Eighteenth-Century Cheapeake," William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 43, No.3 (July 1986), pp. 338. 17. Athens, Southern Banner, January 19 1839, p. 3, Col. 3. 18. Athens, The Athenian, July 07, 1829.