'Death to the Masters!': the role of slave revolt in the fiction of Robert E. Howard

Garstad, B. (2010). 'Death to the Masters!': the role of slave revolt in the fiction of Robert E. Howard. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/01440391003711099
Title

'Death to the Masters!': the role of slave revolt in the fiction of Robert E. Howard

Author(s) or Creator(s)
Garstad, Benjamin
Date

2010

Peer Reviewed?

Yes

Keywords

Robert E. Howard
slavery
Jim Crow
slave revolt
Texas Revolution
Thomas Jefferson
Tocqueville
John Brown
critic of slavery
Conan story

Description

The fantasy fiction of Robert E. Howard reveals a number of largely unspoken assumptions about the historical role of slavery and its consequences in Jim Crow Texas. Howard traced a trajectory that led from slavery through miscegenation and servile uprising to the destruction of civilisation. The descriptions of slave revolts in his fiction depends upon a paranoid rhetoric which developed in the South before and after Emancipation to respond to the fact of servile insurrection, outlining the consistent features of such revolts and explaining their causes and historical implications. As documents offering insight into the segregationist mind, Howard's stories are invaluable.

Publication Information

Garstad, Benjamin. “‘Death to the Masters!’: the role of slave revolt in the fiction of Robert E. Howard.” Slavery & Abolition 31 (2010) 233-256.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/01440391003711099

Type of Item

Journal Articles

Language

English

MacEwan Users Only

https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/31h/50529546

Rights

All Rights Reserved