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To: muawiyah; nosofar
For the most part the history of slavery in the North occurred in a different country in a different time among different people.

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.

8 posted on 11/15/2004 12:24:24 PM PST by Paleo Conservative (Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Arlen Specter's got to go!)
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To: Paleo Conservative
Interesting how one of the Roosevelts would be able to sneak around behind the backs of the Brits ad snatch a piece of the Chinese opium trade ~ NOT!

My impression was the crews on the slave ships were all Southerners.

10 posted on 11/15/2004 12:29:05 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Paleo Conservative
All of which raises a question in my mind why it is that Southerners think they can insult Northerners by pointing to Franklin Roosevelt's ancestors' sins?

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!

11 posted on 11/15/2004 12:33:33 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Paleo Conservative

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?


12 posted on 11/15/2004 12:33:40 PM PST by MissAmericanPie
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To: Paleo Conservative
For the most part, it was Yankee sea captains and crews who transported Africans across the Atlantic.

Not even close to being true. The "Yankee" slave traders were very late comers to the game. The British monopolized the North American trade before the Revolution.

Americans slave traders existed from the end of the Revolution until 1810 when the trade was outlawed by the US. Some continued but were considered "pirates" under US law and subject to trial by drum-head and confisication of their ships if caught.

American slave traders (Yankee and otherwise, including ships from southern ports) were a distant 5th place to the British, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and French slave traders in the overall slave trade. In fact, very very few of the slaves transported to North America were from American ships. The "Yankees" generally off-loaded their African cargo in the British and Dutch Caribbean colonies in exchange for molasses which they took home to New England to make rum, a portion of which they used to exchange for more slaves on their next voyage to Africa. That was the meaning of the "triangle" trade.

29 posted on 11/15/2004 1:45:41 PM PST by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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