How far were the enslaved able to destabilise the institution of slavery?

Though owned, strictly speaking, by their masters, the identity of the slave was politically manufactured to the extent that much of his or her existence was irrefutably bound by the workings of politics, the economy and those in power. That is not to say that personal identity was non-existent; the widespread failure of Southern slave masters to get slaves to conform to their ideal image of paternalism and to directly control all aspects of slaves’ lives is testament to this.

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