Over the past twenty years, American historians have witnessed it virtual explosion of interest in African American slavery.l The black revolution of the 1960s inspired numerous scholars to probe the origins of white racism and its accompanying institution, chattel slavery. But the fascination of slavery for historians is no new phenomenon. Back at the turn of the century, and throughout the Progressive era, slavery held the focus of many students.2 During these years dissertation after dissertation on slavery emerged from the Johns Hopkins University and other pioneer graduate schools. Slavery held a curious attraction for historians in this period. Many found it analogous to the conditions of labor in both the industrial North and the agricultural South.3 Others investigated slavery because it fitted well into the legal-institutional focus of the new "scientific" history.4