What’s puzzling to me is that most people seem to
think that the 1880’s southern states were entirely
populated by only rich white plantation owners and
black slaves. As though there were no free blacks
and there were no poor white folks.
All of my Georgia ancestors from that time were poor
white share-croppers, not one of whom ever owned a
piece of land, much less a slave and most of whom were
of not much higher social status than the slaves were.
Prior to that they came here from England as indentured
servants to work on the plantations to either pay off
debts or as a trade off to a prison sentence.
I have no white guilt.
I assume you mean 1800’s instead of 1880’s (since the later is post-Civil War (to use the northern term)). Otherwise the sentence would make no sense.
That aside, I do agree with your sentiments.
Based on college classes taken and independent research I have done over the years, it is clear that nearly all of the rank and file soldiers (along with a smaller but still significant number of their officers) of the Confederate States were not slave owners. Whether or not they personally agreed with the institution of slavery was a moot point; at the time, the “peculiar institution” was legal and a part of the economy of the South. Rather, they were men who responded to a summons to colors issued by their elected state governments and they responded as good citizens are expected to do and usually do when the state calls them to service.
In discussing this subject, I often point out that if a reasonable person sat down and wrote out a list of the possible ways to bring slavery to an end in the South, fighting a devastating war that destroyed the economy of the South, killed hundreds of thousands of able bodied men on both sides, corrupted government processess in the North and the South, and created a century or more of spiteful bitterness in the South would surely have to rank toward the bottom (if not be at the very bottom) of such a list.
So how is it that the very worst choice is the one that happened?
(BTW, is it reasonable to assume that your male Georgia ancestors, if able, did serve in one of the Confederate armed Forces?)
True. At times, as many as 75% of the population of some colonies were under terms of indenture, during the early colonial period.