Does Orlando Patterson's social death thesis, that slavery is defined by an enslaved person's severance from kinship rights and genealogical continuity, accurately capture the lived condition of enslaved people, or did enslaved communities retain meaningful social and kinship ties that the thesis un

Patterson defines slavery as one of the most extreme forms of the relation of domination, approaching the limits of total power from the viewpoint of the master, arguing enslaved people underwent both external markers of severed identity and internal severance from kinship rights and genealogical continuity, social death. Named critics dispute this: V. P. Franklin objected to Patterson's refusal to define slaves as property; Michael Fellman argued Patterson failed to compare enslaved people's treatment to other marginalized groups; and Michael Craton noted the thesis rests on too little primary testimony from enslaved people themselves about their own experience of honor, domination and community.