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The Real Story of Slavery - Part 1
Janitor's view ^ | February 21, 2020 | Reasonmclucus

Posted on 02/21/2020 12:36:50 PM PST by 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, who 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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Society
KEYWORDS: africans; indenturedservants; irish; slavery
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To: SauronOfMordor

How many indentured servants verses slaves were listed in the 1860 census


21 posted on 02/21/2020 3:07:08 PM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: kathsua

I remember reading/seeing a piece that basically started:

They arrived in chains, in the steerage of ships and upon arrival were put to work doing menial jobs...

The ‘punch line’ was they were IRISH arriving in NY.

Like the interred Japanese get ‘top billing’, we seldom hear of the Italians or Germans interred on the East Coast in early WWII and the Germans in WWI interred or ‘forced’ to register and not able to live near military facilities.


22 posted on 02/21/2020 3:19:20 PM PST by xrmusn (6/98"HRC is the Grandmother that lures Hansel & Gretel to the pot")
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To: Bull Snipe

You’re mistaken.


23 posted on 02/21/2020 3:26:00 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Agatsu77

Serfdom was derived on the Norman French word for slave.

The word slave is derived from Latin.

Same thing.

Things never change. A certain percentage of humans desire control over others. We once used slavery. Now we use governments.


24 posted on 02/21/2020 3:30:52 PM PST by lizma2
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To: SauronOfMordor

The Irish were wayyy cheaper. Expendable.


25 posted on 02/21/2020 3:34:34 PM PST by lizma2
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To: blueunicorn6

The Inquisition and fate of the Knights Templar were not particularly nice.


26 posted on 02/21/2020 3:52:30 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: kathsua

Indentured servant descendant here.


27 posted on 02/21/2020 3:53:25 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: KrisKrinkle

It’s a silly comparison. Sure, indentured servitude was often bad. Many servants were abused and exploited. Some were petty criminals, street urchins and unwanteds sent to the colonies rather than spend the King’s money to keep and feed them in jail, while other were just paying off the passage. But it wasn’t slavery. They were not property to be kept in chains and bought or sold. Their children were not slaves by birth. A slave was a slave for life, as were his children and grandchildren. The typical indentured servitude was 4 to 7 years. That is not slavery by any stretch, and for many, indentured servitude was better than the life of an impoverished subject of the crown.

Our ancestors fought an ugly and bloody war over 150 years ago that ended slavery. Slave owners were not our parents, or even our grandparents. There is no reason for people today to feel guilt over slavery, nor to try to minimize it. It is not our burden unless we want to dig up the corpse of slavery and drag it around with us. Obviously some want that.


28 posted on 02/21/2020 3:55:18 PM PST by ETCM
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To: Bonemaker

So you think that the history of Christianity is awful?


29 posted on 02/21/2020 4:15:45 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

30 posted on 02/21/2020 4:35:05 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Bonemaker

I don’t need to see your gym pictures.


31 posted on 02/21/2020 6:51:54 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Bull Snipe

As a black man who minored in African American history, I don’t find this topic difficult!

The majority of black slave owners were members of the mulatto class, and in some cases were the sons and daughters of white slave masters. Many of the mulatto slave owners separated themselves from the masses of black people and attempted to establish a caste system based on color, wealth, and free status. According to Martin Delany, the colored community of Charleston City clung to the assumptions of the superiority of white blood and brown skin complexion.

These mulattoes of the old free Black elite did not attend church with the dark-skinned blacks of Charleston City. They not only formed congregations which excluded freedmen of dark complexion, but they only married among other mulattoes to “keep the color in the family.”

Large numbers of free Blacks owned black slaves in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society. According to the federal census of 1830, free blacks owned more than 10,000 slaves in Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. The majority of black slave-owners lived in Louisiana and planted sugar cane.

Slave holding among the mulatto class in South Carolina was widespread according to the first census of 1790, which revealed that 36 out of 102, or 35.2 percent of the free Black heads of family held slaves in Charleston City. By 1800 one out of every three free black recorded owning slave property. Between 1820 and 1840 the percentage of slaveholding heads of family ranged from 72.1 to 77.7 percent, however, by 1850 the percentage felt to 42.3 percent.

According to the U.S. Census report in 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. Out of a population of 27 million whites only eight million lived in the South, and out of this population fewer than 385,000 owned slaves. In short, the total white population own about 1.4, while the southern white population own about 4.8 enslaved Africans.

On the other hand the black population in 1860 was 4.5 million, with about 500,000 living in the South. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. In New Orleans over 3,000 free blacks owned slaves, about 28 percent of the free Black population in the city.

The majority of urban black slave owners were women. In 1820, free black women represented 68 percent of heads of households in the North and 70 percent of slaveholding heads of colored households in the South. The large percentage of black women slave owners is explained by manumission by their white fathers, or inheritance from their white fathers or husbands. Black women were the majority of slaves emancipated by white slave owning men with whom they had sexual relations. Thirty-three percent of all the recorded colonial manumissions were mulatto children and 75 percent of all adult manumissions were females.

(I credit this information to one of my early professors in AA history ... Dr. Joseph E. Holloway)


32 posted on 02/21/2020 6:51:57 PM PST by justme4now (Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it)
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To: justme4now

Thanks.


33 posted on 02/21/2020 7:33:43 PM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: blueunicorn6

So, most of the slave owners in the United States did not profess to Christians?


34 posted on 02/21/2020 8:26:00 PM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe

Nope.


35 posted on 02/22/2020 6:14:17 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

My Post 14: “The vast majority of slave owners were white and Christian.”
Your Post 23: “Your mistaken”
My Post 34: “So most of the slave owners in the United States did not profess to be Christians?”
Your Post: 35 “Nope”

Can’t have both ways. Either the majority of slave owners in the United States professed to be Christians, or they did not. Your choice.


36 posted on 02/22/2020 6:42:06 AM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe

Read your post 34 again.


37 posted on 02/22/2020 7:03:12 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

my bad, correct reading of post 34 is in post 36. your answer is?


38 posted on 02/22/2020 7:25:09 AM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe

What was your question again?

Something about professors?


39 posted on 02/22/2020 7:30:41 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

Did the slave owners in the United States claim to be Christians?


40 posted on 02/22/2020 7:54:32 AM PST by Bull Snipe
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