The Truth About Slavery - Part 1

Janitor's view ^ | 02/24/19 | Reasonmclucus

[kathsua]

Many Americans believe slavery only involved white people owning black people. They believe the master race was white and the slave race was black. North American slavery actually involved relatively rich people,[e.g. land owners] owning poor people who might or might not be of the same color.

There were two types of forced laborers brought to North America: indentured servants and permanent slaves. Most of the primarily Irish indentured servants were forced to travel to North America, but some were volunteers. The first Africans were treated as indentured servants but were eventually treated as permanent slaves. Members of the two groups worked together and the historical account indicates there was sufficient sexual contact between the two to produce a hybrid group of permanent slaves whose members could be called "black Irish".

Unfortunately,the fact that most slaves were black and most owners were white led to a belief among some whites that this situation meant blacks are inferior to whites. This belief began during the slave era in part as a way to justify treating some people as slaves in an otherwise free country.

The first Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619 only 14 years after the founding of the settlement. During the two centuries of the Atlantic slave trade only about 500,000 additional Africans were imported into North America. Britain led the way to ending the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and the United States quickly followed to outlaw the importation of slaves without prohibiting the internal slave trade

Initially North American forced laborers were white temporary slaves called "indentured servants" who served for a specified term such as 5-10 years. The first Africans who arrived at Jamestown were treated as indentured servants . Anthony Johnson arrived in 1620 and received some land from the Virginia colony after he was freed. In 1651 he owned five indentured servants (four white and one black. man named John Casor, was considered a permanent slave).

The term "indentured servant" is deceptive because during their period of indenture "servants" could be brutally mistreated like regular slaves. Some owners treated much cheaper Irish indentured servants worse than ;lifetime slaves. Africans cost from 20-50 pounds Sterling compared to about 5 pounds Sterling for an Irishman.

Owners could even choose who servants would mate with like they were breeding horses. Owners might use whites to breed lighter colored slaves to be sold. Raising slaves for sale would become a signaficant part of the plantation economy. Light colored females would eventually be sold as "fancy slaves" to be prostitutes or concubines who might command a higher price than a prime field hand.

Many servants were children picked up from London streets. The exploitation of children in the North American workplace would continue into the 20th Century.

Europe didn't have a large enough population to support large scale agriculture in the Western Hemisphere when colonization began. The British used the colonies to relocate the Irish, but Ireland only had a population of 1.5 million. The Spanish use of African slaves had begun before the discovery of land available for settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

Africans had been capturing, enslaving and selling each other for thousands of years before Christopher Columbus discovered a huge new market for African slave traders. Africans continued to enslave each other after the end of North American slavery. There are reports that Africans still practice slavery.

The career of Englishman John Newton demonstrates not only that whites could be slaves, but that those who engaged in the slave trade could also be slaves. Newton was a sailor on a slave ship whose shipmates sold him to a West African slave trader because they didn't get along with him. A friend of Newton's retired ship captain father arranged to free Newton. Newton evenstually got a position as the captain of a slave ship. A religious experience convinced Newton to become a Christian minister and become active in the movement to abolish slavery. He wrote the popular hymn "Amazing Grace" which according to gospel singer Larnelle Harris uses a west African sorrow chant for the melody.

[Nifster]

Agreed.

Biblical consistency is hard for some

[eastexsteve]

There are many falsehoods about slavery taught in our public schools. I am a descendant of slave-owners who owned a large sugar cane plantation. Unlike all the BS being taught in public school, the slaves were treated well, were the first to eat at every meal, and were the first to receive medical care. A schoolteacher came in twice a week to teach them to read and write. And, when emancipation happened, they were each offered 40 acres and the chance to stay on the farm and work for pay. Nearly all of them stayed.

[rjsimmon]

A schoolteacher came in twice a week to teach them to read and write.

This was illegal in many of the Southern States. Specifically, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia all had laws prohibiting the education of blacks. The caveat was religious education.

[eastexsteve]

This was illegal in many of the Southern States. Specifically, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia all had laws prohibiting the education of blacks. The caveat was religious education.

I have heard that. Nonetheless, they paid her, and they put it right in the ledger. I can only surmise that my ancestors had a different attitude towards slaves than the earlier slave holders. They inherited the plantation, and the slaves with it. They couldn't just turn them loose, even if they wanted to. That was highly illegal. I know my grandmother spoke of an old slave woman named Artielia who lived on the plantation. And, Artielia could read an write, because she taught my grandmother.

[rjsimmon]

What State? As I had indicated, each law had the caveat of religious education, meaning that blacks could be taught to read and write in the context of biblical education. This is how many blacks were taught, to include Frederick Douglass, who also taught other blacks to read the New Testament.

[neverevergiveup]

Great point. It’s also remarkable that socialists/Communists have been able to perpetuate the myth that they are somehow on the opposite end from Fascists on a linear political spectrum. They are both controlling, authoritarian, dictatorial systems that concentrate power in the politically connected ‘elites’. No matter what political ‘scientists’ and other academics try to sell us about how under socialism/Communism power is concentrated ‘in the people’, it never is.

[wardaddy]

You can say anything you wish

Be anything you pretend to be here

But I’ve watched you post forever

Race baiting and demonizing my southern ancestry as Nazis or even Commies etc is your schtick here

I’m going to let you in on a secret

All that sound and fury may give you and Ben Shapiro and D’Souza a sense of self righteousness

But it won’t bring one black voter to conservatism

[Albion Wilde]

IRISH: THE FORGOTTEN WHITE SLAVES

[Nifster]

You are so far over the top it isn’t even funny. I have done nothing you describe

Breathe. Your blood pressure is obviously through the roof

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Read about serfdom, and how widespread it was. It was another form of slavery, and plenty of white people toiled under it. The reality is that human beings can be very cruel to one another, and those things that were done wrong in the US were not unprecedented. That doesn’t excuse them, but they weren’t in any way the exclusive sins of the US.

In the second half of Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Thomas Sowell discusses the fact that no other time and no other culture rejected the institution of slavery than the Christian, especially Protestant and especially English-speaking ones in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries.

Christianity turned against the institution of slavery despite the existence in the Bible of the Epistle to Philemon which condones it.

The reason for the (near) abolition of slavery in the world was the Nineteenth Century influence of the British Empire, which covered 2/3 of the world’s land. Without any monetary incentive, the British created a squadron of the Royal Navy which was dedicated to the abolition of sea-borne trade in slaves from Africa. Sowell reports that although that squadron would enter ports in Africa, their seamen were not given shore leave there because they would see the human trafficking going on there, and they would inevitably riot.

Sowell also acknowledges - even emphasizes - that the only pro-slavery literature in history was produced in the American South. He makes the point that the institution never needed any defense at any other place in any previous time. I would add that the American South was, among Christians, uniquely situated to be “the last to get the word” on the immorality of slavery.

Due to commercial electricity and electrical appliances, air conditioning and central heating, plentiful and high-quality food, commercial transportation and automobile/fuel production, plastics, health care technology, etc., an American secretary today would have to think hard before swapping circumstances with Queen Victoria. If you reflect on that fact, and consider how owning “servants” would ameliorate conditions which we ourselves would find intolerable in the absence of the above amenities, you can see where slaveowners might consider the abolition of slavery to be an imposition similar to our being ordered to abide by the “Green New Deal.” Or worse.

William Wilberforce

Slavery and the Civil War.

[eastexsteve]

What State? As I had indicated, each law had the caveat of religious education, meaning that blacks could be taught to read and write in the context of biblical education. This is how many blacks were taught, to include Frederick Douglass, who also taught other blacks to read the New Testament.

Texas.

[Pelham]

“”For example did you know that before the civil war only dems owned slaves?””

The difference between you and Dinesh is that he knows that a lot of what he says is crap. He deals in polemics, and calls it “history”.

This a list of antebellum Presidents who had owned slaves at some point, and their party as President:

1.George Washington, no party
3.Jefferson, Democratic-Republican Party
4.Madison, Democratic-Republican Party
5.Monroe, Democratic-Republican Party
7.Andrew Jackson, Democrat
8.Martin Van Buren, Democrat
9.Wm Henry Harrison, Whig
10.John Tyler, Whig
11.James Polk, Democrat
12.Zachary Taylor, Whig
17.Andrew Johnson, National Union/Democrat
18.Ulysses Grant, Republican