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Former slave testimonials
Ohio Historical society ^ | 4/8/2015 | Ohio Historical society

Posted on 04/08/2015 8:17:16 AM PDT by cripplecreek

Last night I stumbled across a collections of interviews conducted in the 1930s with blacks who had been born into slavery. They're kind of hard to read since they're written as the words were spoken with a heavy southern black accent.

Most interesting to me is the lack of anger from these former slaves. In fact, some spoke quite fondly of their former owners. At worst, they spoke with indifference of their former owners.

None of this matches the rage filled narrative of today with the endless claims of payment due.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History; Society
KEYWORDS: freedom; slavery; society
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To: cripplecreek

Why would a black person from Africa come to racist America?


61 posted on 04/08/2015 10:31:00 AM PDT by Leep (To put it in laymen's terms liberal/progressive ist coo coo.)
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To: Oliviaforever
Not all of them were forced to do hard labor. Not all of them had children or had them taken away and sold.

You have seen too many episodes of "Roots."

As other posters have pointed out, slaves were expensive and vital to the success of the vast plantations of the South. It would make little sense to spend that kind of money on something so important, then take it home and break it.

Now, admittedly, the institution of slavery is, by its very nature, an offense against humanity. But the overblown image of slaveowners as sadistic brutalizers is largely fiction cooked up by abolitionists to outlaw the practice. Many slaves were better off before they were freed than afterward, thanks to Democrat policies that made them second-class citizens and left them to fend for themselves.

62 posted on 04/08/2015 10:31:11 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: cripplecreek

Bookmark


63 posted on 04/08/2015 10:42:54 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: Leep

Why would a black person from Africa come to racist America?.....For an opportunity they don’t have in their own country? To be able to eat three meals a day? To enjoy electricity, clean water, hospitals and transportation? If you actually knew Africans (not the imported Somali Islamics) you would find they despise our homegrown thugs.


64 posted on 04/08/2015 10:45:31 AM PDT by Safetgiver ( Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: cripplecreek

lots of white privilege going on there


65 posted on 04/08/2015 11:04:28 AM PDT by GeronL (CLEARLY CRUZ 2016)
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To: DoodleDawg
I've read a number of these narratives. One thing to bear in mind is that most of the former slaves who were alive in the 1930s had been pretty young when slavery ended so they didn't have the personal memory of what it was like to be an adult slave, although they would have seen how their older relatives were treated.

It seems that most of the interviewers were white so some of the former slaves may have been guarded in what they said. In some cases they may have feared that if they were too outspoken they would lose government benefits.

One case was found where a woman was accidentally interviewed twice--once by a white interviewer and once by a black interviewer. When speaking to the white person she made it sound like she had been treated well. When talking to a young black man she laid it on thick how bad it had been for the slaves.

66 posted on 04/08/2015 12:34:13 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

Thanks—that is very interesting and insightful.


67 posted on 04/08/2015 1:19:13 PM PDT by Hieronymus ( (It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. --G. K. Chesterton))
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To: cripplecreek

Very few of us would likely understand Old southern speech, as it was regional to the point of being local. Though as late as the early 1960s, some master linguists could tell to within 50 miles where you had been raised in the US, television rapidly homogenized the language.

There are several good collections of southern speech of these various regions, and those who were raised there have their own subset of expressions for their area, and those outside of their area are still alien to them.


68 posted on 04/08/2015 1:20:34 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: Hieronymus
The interviewers had a list of questions to ask.

Since this was during the Depression, a lot of these elderly folks were getting some government assistance and may have been unclear about the purpose of the interview, and afraid of jeopardizing their handout.

One man had not had a surname as a slave and then needed to pick one when he was freed (the questions also covered the period after emancipation). He had heard the white people talking about Jefferson Davis all the time and figured that was a good name, so he took Davis as his surname.

69 posted on 04/08/2015 1:45:35 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: DoodleDawg

As someone on these threads noted years ago, the one thing you won’t find in the narratives is anyone wishing they were still a slave.


70 posted on 04/08/2015 1:57:05 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: cripplecreek

Did they interview and of the thousands of blacks who owned slaves?


71 posted on 04/08/2015 1:58:54 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: cripplecreek

1936 - 1865 = 71

WTF?


72 posted on 04/08/2015 2:01:50 PM PDT by NorthMountain ("The time has come", the Walrus said, "to talk of many things")
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To: ladyjane

huh? sorry, I’ll try again.

Did they interview the thousands of blacks who owned slaves?


73 posted on 04/08/2015 2:03:52 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

Actually I have read that after the slaves were set free some of them found it very difficult to survive on their own and petitioned the courts to go back into slavery. Whether there is truth to that I don’t know.


74 posted on 04/08/2015 2:05:34 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: cripplecreek

The portrayal by the left of daily beatings, etc. is ridiculous and false. Slavery is bad but has been with humans forever and still exist in most of the world today in one form or another.

Slaves were more expensive than horses back then and no land owner would starve and beat his horse or mule. So why a slave?


75 posted on 04/08/2015 2:12:19 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The GOP is dead to me! McConnell and Boehner can drop dead!!)
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To: Jumper

Great points.


76 posted on 04/08/2015 2:13:30 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The GOP is dead to me! McConnell and Boehner can drop dead!!)
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To: Fledermaus
Slaves were more expensive than horses back then and no land owner would starve and beat his horse or mule. So why a slave?

So the slaveowners who wrote in their own diaries of whipping slaves were lying?

77 posted on 04/08/2015 2:32:45 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

No. I made it clear SOME did but not ALL.


78 posted on 04/08/2015 2:37:48 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The GOP is dead to me! McConnell and Boehner can drop dead!!)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

oops, I meant to. Sorry..


79 posted on 04/08/2015 2:40:29 PM PDT by Fledermaus (The GOP is dead to me! McConnell and Boehner can drop dead!!)
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To: Fledermaus

Been there.


80 posted on 04/08/2015 3:03:58 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep
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