Posted on 11/15/2004 12:05:16 PM PST by nosofar
African slavery is so much the outstanding feature of the South, in the unthinking view of it, that people often forget there had been slaves in all the old colonies. Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant's Coffee House of New York. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people. The family of Abraham Lincoln himself, when it lived in Pennsylvania in colonial times, owned slaves.[1]
When the minutemen marched off to face the redcoats at Lexington in 1775, the wives, boys and old men they left behind in Framingham took up axes, clubs, and pitchforks and barred themselves in their homes because of a widespread, and widely credited, rumor that the local slaves planned to rise up and massacre the white inhabitants while the militia was away.[2]
African bondage in the colonies north of the Mason-Dixon Line has left a legacy in the economics of modern America and in the racial attitudes of the U.S. working class. Yet comparatively little is written about the 200-year history of Northern slavery. Robert Steinfeld's deservedly praised "The Invention of Free Labor" (1991) states, "By 1804 slavery had been abolished throughout New England," ignoring the 1800 census, which shows 1,488 slaves in New England. Recent archaeological discoveries of slave quarters or cemeteries in Philadelphia and New York City sometimes are written up in newspaper headlines as though they were exhibits of evidence in a case not yet settled (cf. “African Burial Ground Proves Northern Slavery,” The City Sun, Feb. 24, 1993).
(Excerpt) Read more at slavenorth.com ...
Slavery in the South, on the other hand, occurred in this country within it's own history and among our own people.
Actually Newport RI was one of the junctions of the slave triangle (Newport/Africa/Caribbean).
I think over the next 4 years, there will emerge a Democratic strategy to divide the Republicans based on the issue of slavery. The Democrats realize support from the disenfranchised minorities is slipping fast and its lack of message and definition is astounding. I think we will see more articles like this for a long time to come.
I WANT MY REPARATIONS! :-P
My problem with all this is..IT WAS ALMOST 150 YEARS AGO!!!
Yes, I'm from the south.
Yes, my ancestors owned slaves.
It's NOT MY FAULT...it was almost 150 YEARS AGO!!!
Why can't we get past thisand work together to make this a better world to live in?
If the people who whine about slavery (150 years ago!!!) would get off of their lazy butts and get out there and make something of themselves instead of blaming their situation on someone else, everyone would be better off.
I worked hard to get where I am today. Nobody gave me anything.
IT'S OVER...GET OVER IT!!!
Slavery in the South, on the other hand, occurred in this country within it's own history and among our own people.
But the slaves in the South didn't get there by swimming across the Atlantic Ocean. The people who settled the South were not known for their seamanship either. For the most part, it was Yankee sea captains and crews who transported Africans across the Atlantic. In 1808 Congress abolished the African slave trade. So what did the Yankee ship owners and captains do? They started shipping opium to China. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's grandfather made his fortune shipping opium to China to buy Chinese goods to ship back to the US.
Well, the future is certainly bleak for Democrats so they may as well stay focused on the past. Whatever works for 'em.
My impression was the crews on the slave ships were all Southerners.
Look, we have our own issues with the Roosevelt family, particularly Teddy who was half-Southern through his mother!
Then, when you get back into the mid 1750s, my people who had already settled the Ohio Valley definitely weren't looking forward to letting any New York or Massachusetts Riff-raff in to mess stuff up.
What you need to do is examine American history a bit more carefully and pull yourself away from that pablum they fed you in highschool. It's much more complex and interesting than the North/South dichotomy!
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's grandfather made his fortune shipping opium to China to buy Chinese goods to ship back to the US.
John Kennedy's pop making a fortune in boot leg wiskey, is there a pattern here in the Demonrat leadership?
Well, my ancestors owned slaves and were slaves, fought Indians and were Indians, exploited what existed and were exploited by what existed. Ironically, all 6 entities still exist in the world today. Conservatism, is the world's only answer to humanly address all interest. But when you have the best system and are thus successful because of it, you can expect "hits" from less successful people from less successful systems.
One of my ancestors had 90 slaves when he died. I hope my cousins are living well!
Pubdate: June 28, 1997
EDITORIAL NOTEBOOK / By KARL E. MEYER
The Opium War's Secret History
Losers rarely name wars, an exception being the conflict between Britain and China from 1839 to 1842, known bluntly ever since as the Opium War.
To most Chinese, a century of humiliation began with this war, in which Westerners sought to force a deadly drug on an Asian people, and then imposed an unequal treaty that pried open their country and annexed the island that became Hong Kong.
In embarrassing truth, that is essentially what happened. As Hong Kong reverts to China at month's end, many of us for the first time may see a bit of history from a different end of the telescope. Yet a further point needs making.
Even the authors of the Opium War were ashamed of it, and Western protests against it marked the beginning of a concern with international human rights that in a fresh turn embarrasses today's leaders in Beijing.
Along with the slave trade, the traffic in opium was the dirty underside of an evolving global trading economy. In America as in Europe, pretty much everything was deemed fair in the pursuit of profits. Such was the outlook at Russell & Company, a Boston concern whose clipper ships made it the leader in the lucrative American trade in Chinese tea and silk.
In 1823 a 24yearold Yankee, Warren Delano, sailed to Canton, where he did so well that within seven years he was a senior partner in Russell & Company. Delano's problem, as with all traders, European and American, was that China had much to sell but declined to buy. The Manchu emperors believed that the Middle Kingdom already possessed everything worth having, and hence needed no barbarian manufactures.
The British struck upon an ingenious way to reduce a huge trade deficit. Their merchants bribed Chinese officials to allow entry of chests of opium from Britishruled India, though its importation had long been banned by imperial decree. Imports soared, and nearly every American company followed suit, acquiring "black dirt" in Turkey or as agents for Indian producers.
Writing home, Delano said he could not pretend to justify the opium trade on moral grounds, "but as a merchant I insist it has been . . . fair, honorable and legitimate," and no more objectionable than the importation of wines and spirits to the U.S.
Yet as addiction became epidemic, and as the Chinese began paying with precious silver for the drug, their Emperor finally in 1839 named an Imperial Commissioner to end the trade.
Commissioner Lin Tsehsu proceeded to Canton, seized vast stocks of opium and dumped the chests in the sea. This, plus a melee in which drunken sailors killed a Chinese villager, furnished the spark for the Opium War, initiated by Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, and waged with determination to obtain full compensation for the opium. The Celestial Empire was humbled, forced to open five ports to foreign traders and to permit a British colony at Hong Kong.
But as noteworthy, the war was denounced in Parliament as "unjust and iniquitous" by 30yearold William Ewart Gladstone, who accused Palmerston of hoisting the British flag "to protect an infamous contraband traffic." The same outrage was expressed in the pulpit and the press, in America and England, thereby encouraging Russell & Company and most other American businesses to pull out of the opium trade.
Warren Delano returned to America rich, and in 1851 settled in Newburgh, N.Y. There he eventually gave his daughter Sara in marriage to a wellborn neighbor, James Roosevelt, the father of Franklin Roosevelt. The old China trader was closemouthed about opium, as were his partners in Russell & Company. It is not clear how much F.D.R. knew about this source of his grandfather's wealth. But the President's recent biographer Geoffrey Ward rejects efforts by the Delano family to minimize Warren's involvement.
The family's discomfort is understandable. We no longer believe that anything goes in the global marketplace, regardless of social consequences. It is precisely this conviction that underlies efforts to attach human rights conditions to trading relations to temper the amorality of the market a point that, alas, seems to elude the Socialist soontobe masters of Hong Kong.
Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
And Russell and Company became the Russell Trusts, which is the holding company for Skull and Bones.
I believe what this article is attempting to highlight is the fact that slavery was not strictly a southern idea. In most history classes throughout this country they teach that the civil war was fought by the north to free the slaves being held in the South. In reality, slavery wasn't an issue until the north, fearing they were losing the war and support for it, made it an issue. Most souhterners didn't own slaves, and were fighting to be free from federal government tyranny and oppression. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1863, almost halfway into the war and when prospects for victory were the bleakest for the North. The proclamation, contrary to popular belief, only freed slaves in states that were in opposition to the federal government and not controlled by union forces. All slaves in northern controlled areas were not freed by this, which included a large number of blacks in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kentucky, and western Virginia.
Who will inform the Hispanics that they are going to have to pay reparations?
The Roosevelts (Dems) were enriched by dirty opium; the Kennedys (Dems) were enriched by dirty booze. Sounds like the stalwarts of the Democratic Party have a long and dirty history.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.