Hubbell Prize Awarded

Christopher A. Luse has won the John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article published in Civil War History during 2007. His study on "Slavery's Champions Stood at Odds: Polygenesis and the Defense of Slavery" was selected by a committee at the Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University. The prize earns the recipient a $1,000 award.

Luse's article earned distinction for delving deep into the intricacies of American race relations, examining of the little-studied anomaly of proslavery Southern Christians' opposition to the growing power of scientific racism and the advancement of polygenesis—the belief that those of African descent were a separately created species with a fundamentally different origin and nature. White Southern Christians viewed polygenesis as a direct threat to the orthodox interpretation of the creation account in Genesis, and part of a broader attack on a conservative and religious worldview. Proslavery Christians vigorously defended the humanity of black slaves, ironically employing some of the same arguments as abolitionists, and at the same time, campaigned against its "abuses."

With the defeat of the Confederacy and the destruction of slavery, however, appeals by proslavery Christians for benevolent race relations based on old paternalist rhetoric fell on deaf ears. A new more severe form of racism based on "biblical polygenesis" flourished and, along with lynchings and legal segregation, represented "the South's contribution to the triumph of harsh racism throughout the Western world." In the end, Luse argues, the proslavery Christian position could not prevail against the power of polygenism. "On questions ranging from the internal slave trade, fears of racial mixing, and advocacy of white democracy, the new ethnology provided a firmer foundation for white supremacy. Another way of expressing it is that proslavery Christians defended slavery in the abstract, while the ethnologists justified slavery in the concrete."

Luse is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Emory University, and teaches part-time at the University of Georgia. His dissertation, "'The offspring of Infidelity': Polygenesis and the Defense of Slavery," is currently under the direction of James L. Roark having previously been under the supervision of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. He originally presented "Slavery's Champions Stood at Odds" at the Southern Historical Association convention in November 2005.

Awarded annually and funded by a donor through the Richards Civil War Era Center at Pennsylvania State University, the John T. Hubbell Prize recognizes the extraordinary contribution to the field of its namesake, who served as editor of Civil War History for thirty-five years.