Posted on 02/22/2020 11:06:26 AM PST by kathsua
The initial forced labor in the British North American colonies involved indentured servants who served a limited amount of time and were then freed. Many whites volunteered to serve a period of time in exchange for funds to pay for their trip to North America. Although these indentured servants were only temporary slaves, they were slaves in every sense of the word. Owners could mistreat them and even choose their sexual partners. Use of indentured servants continued through April, 1775, when prominent Virginia planter George Washington advertised a reward for the return of 8 white and 2 black runaways. s The Africans and many Irish were forced to travel to the British colonies. Irish were sometimes sentenced to "transportation to America" for illegal acts. Over 300,000 Irish were sent to North America and the West Indies as slaves. . Thousands of children from London streets were rounded up and sent to the Americas.
Most indentured servants were white, particularly Irish, but some were Africans like Anthony Johnson who like white indentured servants was given some land after being freed. Johnson used indentured servants on his land.
Later when a decision was made to allow people to be held as permanent slaves, only Africans could be permanent slaves because they were foreigners. The law didn't allow British subjects to be permanent slaves. However, initially black children of indentured servants could be treated as permanent slaves because the mother's status as free or nor free determined the child's status. If the mother was a slave the child woul be a slave. This practice differed from the traditional practice of having the father's social status determine the child's status. A white slave child would be considered an indentured servant. A black slave child would become a permanent slave.
By the time permanent slavery began whites and blacks had been having relationships for years and produced children of mixed ancestry. Some plantation owners forced white female indentured servants to mate with black men so the children would become permanent slaves. This practice increased the portion of the slave population that had European [white] genes as well as African [black] genes. The slave population received additional white DNA from slave owners and overseers.
The relationships among those of mixed ancestry and between those with mixed ancestry and whites were producing children who could " pass for white " in the 18th Century. Some with a slightly dark complexion might have claimed to be of North American or Mediterranean ancestry to gain acceptance as whites.
The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his sister-in-law and virtual wife Sally Hemings provides an example of this situation. Hemings was the daughter of a union between Jefferson's father-in-law John Wayles. and a slave. Wayles took Hemings' mother as his concubine after his first three wives died. Hemings was legally classified as "white" and had long straight hair, but the social situation and laws governing slavery likely made an actual marriage impossible. Some of their children later passed for white after being freed and leaving Virginia.
This situation demonstrates that slavery was no longer about "race" or "color" in 1800. Even though Hemings was the "white" daughter of a plantation owner, she was still considered a slave who became part of the property of her father's estate when he died in 1774.
Various accounts in the following years indicate that household servants were often of lighter complexion than field slaves. Many suggest this situation indicates color prejudice. The more likely explanation is that the household servants had lighter complexions because they were related to the plantation owner.
By the time of the Civil War there were 5,000 black slave owners and many slaves who were light complexioned or even white.
The strange case of Jane / Alexina Morrison demonstrates that slavery wasn't necessarily about color. According to the slave trader who sold her in Louisiana the blonde haired blue-eyed young woman he called "Jane" was born a slave. The woman who called herself "Alexina" sued him for kidnapping her after she escaped from him. The case bounced around the Louisiana courts just before the Civil War with juries siding with the woman and the courts with the slave trader. It apparently is still technically before the courts. Regardless of which person was telling the truth, the fact that the courts even considered the possibility of Morrison being a slave demonstrates that white slaves were a part of southern slavery by the start of the Civil War. Some of the escaped slaves whose narratives were published before the Civil War mentioned having seen white slaves. Harpet's Weekly in January carried a picture of slaves recently freed by the Union army who were white.
I agree. This author of the piece being discussed may be a long-time blogger, but he appears to be more of a janitor, his chosen profession, than a true historian, despite his statements about taking many history courses. In my view, he garbles the facts badly here. Years ago, when I was lurking (before I signed onto FR), someone posted a thread to discuss some somewhat grainy photostats of the original Crown Court case in Virginia (?Thomas v. Johnson) that altered the status of African indentured servants in the British colonies. The photostats were hard to read, but still legible. This case led to a change,from Africans having bondage durations identical to those white bond servants, to that of becoming lifetime slaves. Why? Slaveowner Johnson (a freedman from Angola who obtained his manumission in the 1630s, acquired some land, worked hard, and became affluent, and then purchased Thomas) argued that under the traditional slavery practiced in subSaharan Africa, he as an African owned Thomas for life, as well as Thomas’s offspring. For the full story, if you cannot locate that original discussion thread (I could not do so quickly), I suspect you would have to read accounts written by legitimate historians 30-40-50 yrs ago or more. For instance, Samuel Eliot Morrison’s Oxford History of the American People (written in the late 1960s, and a major work at the time) may suffice. Morrison was an eminent Yale professor of maritime history, and the book has several tidbits of information that true believers in the more current/revised versions of the history slavery in the US would find to be either eye-opening or shocking. And not supporting of the ongoing animus. To me, the plain truth is that modern political correctness imposes its own twisted biases and falsehoods on historic revisionism.
All I can say is that for me, I find the half-truths and yarns that today pass for actual history are sad. Very sad.
Is it not interesting that there are those who are resistant to the fact that there were white slaves and that indentured servitude was, for all intents and purposes, slavery during the term of indenture.
Whenever the subject of white slaves comes up, the majority of blacks angrily deny it.
Why is that so?
They should make a movie about the “Plantation Cities” with indentured servitude and slavery .... they could use Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, LA, or any other Progressive Ghetto.
Because of the Christian victory at the battle of Lepanto, thousands of Christian galley slaves on the Turkish ships gained their freedom.
I've been following WBTS (Civil War) threads on FreeRepublic for about 10-12 years now. When I make a claim and I'm corrected I never make that claim again (some might call that learning from my mistakes).
But there are some here who make a claim, see it corrected by someone else, and a week or two later make the same claim again. That's what I find sad.
Yes, there were slaves who looked white and there were black slave owners. African and native American slaves were treated as slaves. Whites were indentured servants, which was worse than a slave but temporary. By the 19th century, there were not many indentured servants. There is no evidence from primary sources that white women endured servants were made to mate with blacks.
BTW, the case you refer to is Anthony Johnson vs Parker, concerning the servant John Casor. Here is a link to the document you referenced:
https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Court_Ruling_on_Anthony_Johnson_and_His_Servant_1655
Sorry, but that does not look like the posting I remember. It was considerably longer, and the details of the case were different. If I have time and can find it, I will post a link.
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