Posted on 10/13/2014 5:56:54 AM PDT by armydawg505
An “extremely rare” Civil War-era photograph of the enslaved woman who helped save Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Virginia home has been obtained by the National Park Service after a volunteer spotted the image on eBay.
The previously unknown photograph depicts Selina Gray, the head housekeeper to Lee and his family, along with two girls thought to be her daughters. The photograph was unveiled Thursday at the Arlington House plantation overlooking the nation's capital that was home to Lee and dozens of slaves before the Civil War.
An inscription on the back of the image reads "Gen Lees Slaves Arlington Va."
Park officials said this is only the second known photograph taken of slaves at Arlington.
"It's extremely rare to have an identified photo of an enslaved person," said National Park Service spokeswoman Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles. "Since slaves were considered property, it's very rare to have a photo where you can identify the people in the photo."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
A stereo opticon picture! The two images side by side overlap...see the hem of the dress in the lower left hand corner on the left and how the corner of the hem disappears in the right image. This was early 3d. you can also use the ‘crossed eyed’ method of viewing the two photos together by staring at the exact center(you may need to enlarge the photos together on you monitor) crossing then letting you eyes slowly uncross thus revealing a three d image composite of the two photos.
From what I've read by the terms of the will the slaves had to be freed within 5 years of Custis's death. Custis also left a lot of debts so Lee would up freeing them over time, and in the interim he rented them out and used the income to repair the family finances. He was two months late in freeing the last of them but since it was in the middle of the Civil War and he had his attention on other things then we can't blame him for being just a little tardy.
White families that owned at least one slave varied from around 20% in the border states to about half in the Deep South, with two states, SC and MS, having a majority of white families owning at least one slave.
It was not nearly as uncommon as some would think.
Most importantly, buying a slave was a crucial first step upward on the social and economic scale. The great majority of southern investment for 50+ years went into slaves. This resulted in their price peaking in 1860.
If slaves were a luxury item only, southern investors didn’t seem to realize it.
Women were tough back then! Think of those whalebone “stays” which pinched the waist down to 17-18 inches.
Not likely. The CSA Constitution specifically prohibited importing slaves from any country except the USA. Upper South slaves like VA would have objected strenuously to a renewal of imports, which would reduce the price of the slaves they sold off to the South.
In any case, the US Navy and Royal Navy would have had something to say about whether slave trading could be renewed or not.
Not likely. The CSA Constitution specifically prohibited importing slaves from any country except the USA. Upper South slaves like VA would have objected strenuously to a renewal of imports, which would reduce the price of the slaves they sold off to the South.
In any case, the US Navy and Royal Navy would have had something to say about whether slave trading could be renewed or not.
Grant only ever had title to one slave, probably a gift from his father in law. He freed him a couple of years before the War, at a time when he was in dire financial straits, and the price of a slave was somewhere between $25,000 and $100,000 in today’s terms.
Julia Grant may or may not have had title to slaves. Certainly some worked to help her around the house, but it isn’t known if her father transferred title to her, or merely lent them to her. No records.
In any case, they were all freed by MO state action well before the 13th Amendment.
For some people, the war of Northern Aggression, is on-going...
Some people need to get a life then.
She still thinks she’s a slave battling for freedom. LOL!
In ways we are slaves now to the federal government. Sharecroppers would probably be more accurate for most Americans but slave fits others. Painful but true.
While I understand why ardent Union folks want to fob it off on his wife, the truth is that legal title was held by the husband under law of the time, so they were Grant’s regardless of how they came to him.
You are correct. If the Civil War had never happened slavery would have died its natural death within 15-20 years as it is a good deal cheaper to just pay some immigrant almost nothing to work than to purchase, feed, clothe and care for a slave.
The good example still exists today. Which would you rather do pay some paco $5 an hour to work or pay $10,000 for a slave and then have to clothe them, feed them take them to the doctor and make sure they can’t run off? Plus if they get sick and die or run off you are out $10,000. Its basically a terrible plan.
Not likely. The CSA Constitution specifically prohibited importing slaves from any country except the USA. Upper South slaves like VA would have objected strenuously to a renewal of imports, which would reduce the price of the slaves they sold off to the South.
...
Thanks. I learned something new.
The great slavers, then and now, are muslims.
Which had been going on in North America for hundreds of years and which, in 1861, the Confederate leaders expected to continue for generations. They must not have thought it was all that terrible.
To this day, I've got to wonder what those nitwits who fired on Ft. Sumter were thinking when they launched that costly war.
Lincoln had actually proposed a very reasonable plan to buy the slaves from the sale of public land, an idea he'd borrowed from a minor party candidate for president in 1844. It would've been a whole lot cheaper than the war. The process would have accelerated after the price of slaves started to plummet.
In the afternoon of the day when I reached New Bedford, I visited the wharves, to take a view of the shipping. Here I found myself surrounded with the strongest proofs of wealth. Lying at the wharves, and riding in the stream, I saw many ships of the finest model, in the best order, and of the largest size. Upon the right and left, I was walled in by granite warehouses of the widest dimensions, stowed to their utmost capacity with the necessaries and comforts of life.
Added to this, almost every body seemed to be at work, but noiselessly so, compared with what I had been accustomed to in Baltimore. There were no loud songs heard from those engaged in loading and unloading ships. I heard no deep oaths or horrid curses on the laborer. I saw no whipping of men; but all seemed to go smoothly on. Every man appeared to understand his work, and went at it with a sober, yet cheerful earnestness, which betokened the deep interest which he felt in what he was doing, as well as a sense of his own dignity as a man.
To me this looked exceedingly strange. From the wharves I strolled around and over the town, gazing with wonder and admiration at the splendid churches, beautiful dwellings, and finely-cultivated gardens; evincing an amount of wealth, comfort, taste, and refinement, such as I had never seen in any part of slaveholding Maryland.
Every thing looked clean, new, and beautiful. I saw few or no dilapidated houses, with poverty-stricken inmates; no half-naked children and barefooted women, such as I had been accustomed to see in Hillsborough, Easton, St. Michael's, and Baltimore. The people looked more able, stronger, healthier, and happier, than those of Maryland. I was for once made glad by a view of extreme wealth, without being saddened by seeing extreme poverty. But the most astonishing as well as the most interesting thing to me was the condition of the colored people, a great many of whom, like myself, had escaped thither as a refuge from the hunters of men.
I found many, who had not been seven years out of their chains, living in finer houses, and evidently enjoying more of the comforts of life, than the average of slaveholders in Maryland. I will venture to assert that my friend Mr. Nathan Johnson (of whom I can say with a grateful heart, "I was hungry, and he gave me meat; I was thirsty, and he gave me drink; I was a stranger, and he took me in") lived in a neater house; dined at a better table; took, paid for, and read, more newspapers; better understood the moral, religious, and political character of the nation,--than nine tenths of the slaveholders in Talbot county, Maryland. Yet Mr. Johnson was a working man. His hands were hardened by toil, and not his alone, but those also of Mrs. Johnson.
_____________________________________________________
Many historians say there were more slaves owned by black or mixed race slave owners than white. A fact that is not often heard in today's society. Some apologists will say that blacks bought their family members to protect them from servitude but more recent studies say the vast majority of black and mixed race slave owners owned slaves as a commercial venture.
Slavery is and was a vile and immoral act. Anyone who participates in it today knowing what we know should be punished forever.
There is and cannot be an excuse for slavery. I realize that people were lead to believe that the black African was sub human, not much different than an ape, but, by the time of the Civil War there were many educated blacks that should have dispelled that belief. While slavery was suffered by white Europeans mostly they were indentured servants ranging in time of servitude from several years to a few decades but were normally freed after a time unless they died, as many did, in servitude.
Should we apologize or offer some form of reparation payment to descendants of slaves? Heavens no. None of us today were guilty of slavery, none of us alive today, our parents or our grandparents were guilty of it. Descendants of slaves are likely much better off than their brothers and sisters that remained in Africa and should be grateful for their good fortune at being here.
If there should be any reparations it should be to the families of the men who fought for the freedom of slaves and lost life or limb in that fight. I had a 5th great grandfather who died of exposure from the war. Who helped raise his children or cared for his wife?
Nearly all slaves sold into slavery from Africa were sold by black slave holders. Today the majority of slave holders are in Africa and are black. White owned slave markets developed after international slave trading was outlawed in the US. That is when the children of slaves became highly prized because inexpensive African slave ships no longer provided the (comparably) cheap slaves they once did.
Sometimes we need to change the angle we look at things from. .
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