Reparations for Slavery? The Bill Was Paid–in Blood

True/Slant ^ | April 24, 2010 | Jamie Malanowski

[2ndDivisionVet]

In yesterday’s Times, the estimable scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. had an odd op-ed article entitled “Ending the Slavery Blame Game. ” What made it odd was its construction. At the heart of the piece was Gates’ very interesting summary of recent scholarship about the complicity of African tribes in capturing African people and selling them to European and American slave traders. Sandwiching this summary, however, was Gates’ bid for op-ed relevance, which was his assertion that this fuller understanding of a broader criminal enterprise would give President Obama “a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.”

Is the idea of reparations still contentious? I guess it is–if somebody brings it up. But reparations seems to be an idea that had a heyday of argument a decade ago, and was then shelved in favor of ideas more vital. But even at the time of its greatest urgency, it seemed to be one of those self-evidently good ideas that became less good once you got into the practicalities. For one thing, there was the question of where the money should come from. No doubt some of the great slave trade fortunes of the 17th and 18th and 19th have been carefully cultivated and survive, but many have been used up, or, more significantly, destroyed during the Civil War. Moreover, it seems hardly equitable to charge the people whose ancestors arrived on these shores after the Civil War with the cost of paying for slavery. It’s very hard to think how my Malanowski forebears, for example, who arrived here in 1905, profited by the institution of slavery. On top of this is the fact that a great many people struggled against slavery and died fighting it. It may seem logical to argue that the descendants of slaves should be compensated by those who supported the institution, but if that is so, is it not just as logical to argue that the descendants of slaves and others should pay compensation to the descendants of the Union troops who died fighting for their liberation? I wonder how Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan would feel about that.

But what really rankles about the idea of reparations is that is turns slavery into a civil tort–an argument over back pay. Of course it was something much worse, something profoundly more evil, a society-wide, systematic criminal conspiracy. And in his second Inaugural, Abraham Lincoln specified precisely the price that terminating the conspiracy would exact. Speaking a little more than a month before Robert E. Lee’s confederate forces would surrender, LIncoln said “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Was all the wealth sunk? Well, Richmond was burned, and Atlanta was burned, and the Shenandoah Valley was torched, and the tremendous value embodied by two and a half million slaves was struck from the books. Was every drop of blood drawn by the lash paid for another drawn by the sword? At least 620,000 soldiers were killed during the Civil War; with the limitations on record-keeping, this figure could easily be as high as 700,000. That was out of a population of 30 million. This does not include the physically or psychologically wounded, or civilian deaths caused by combat, or civilian deaths caused by a lack of food or medicine. And it in no way includes the incredible economic devastation wreaked upon the south, destruction so complete that for a century the south was poorer and more backward than the rest of the country (and let’s face it, Mississippi and Alabama still are.) The destruction fell on north and south alike: sons of southern slaveholders and sons of northern slave ship owners both died, as did the sons of families north and south who did not engage in the slave trade but who acquiesced in its existence.

And of course, some of the last blood shed belonged to Lincoln, in a futile effort to achieve the long-lost war aims of the south. Lincoln saw that the evil was not civil but moral, that the evil perpetrated was Biblical in its proportions, and that the price that had to be paid was stupendous. Those who seek reparations should visit the Union cemetery at Gettysburg or Hollywood cemetery in Richmond or any of dozens of other graveyards: there is your treasure.

[revo evom]

Great post! Thanks for taking the time to write it and help me rethink my perspective.

[KMG365]

African-Americans of today should be thankful for slavery. It brought them to civilization, instead of living in a world of famine, disease and brutality.

[MsLady]

It needs to be said. First off, slavery was horrific, I can't even imagine. Second, there isn't a slave alive today. Thirdly and most importantly, as awful as slavery was, would they prefer living in Africa at any time in African history? Or living here?

I was thinking yesterday, what are the odds of being born in America? What a gift, it's like winning the lottery.

[Non-Sequitur]

It brought them to civilization, instead of living in a world of famine, disease and brutality.

Have you checked out Africa lately? Should we try it again?

[Cacique]

As a Slav, for whom slavery was the root word I demand my aberrations Well ahead anyone elses. I get first dibs. Yeah let’s open up that can of worms. let’s all sue each other for slights endured during the caveman era.

[SZonian]

"It brought them to civilization, instead of living in a world of famine, disease and brutality."

Seen an inner city lately?

Ducking for cover.

[Cheetahcat]

NOW I want paid for my Ancestors who had to fight a War for these ungrateful people.

[bert]

The bill was paid in Caucasian genes

[manc]

great post, GREAT POST

[manc]

the best post I have read on here
thank you for pinging me to this

[AuntB]

“reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.”

Unpaid labor and bondage...well let’s see...

My grgruncle from the south died fighting for the Union at Ft. Lewisburg....many other of my ancestors also.

Or that Indian tribe that I’m descended from...

My grandmother was an indentured servant until she was 16 and BOUGHT by my grandfather for $100 (I have the papers)...1/4 Cherokee ..when her mother died, the tribe wouldn’t keep her...she was too ‘white’.

Face it, mongrels like us don’t count. Sometimes I think the animosity toward Americans is because we’re just not ‘pure’ enough.

[MadelineZapeezda]

And don’t forget when a black man is tops in golf and black sisiters are /were the tops in the game of tennis!!!!!

[manc]

funny how they forget or they have not been told how blacks were also slave owners and one so bad to his slaves that his slaves would run off to a white man.
the results was that the black slave owners named Anthony Johnson went to court and basically got slavery legalised
they forget how it was bloacks who sold blacks into slavery and funny how those blacks in central and south America don’t moan about slavery like some blacks here do.

why is that?
Is it because they are not told down in south and central America how they should be given free things because of what happened years ago.
How they are not raised with a give me and all about me attitude there.

They are told this by the white elitist stuck types from the left

[Abby4116]

....I am the g-grandson of 4 Confederate soldiers...I would agree to one time reparations in the form of say a voucher to go to college, voucher to start a small business, voucher to start a farm ect....no cash payments!....and in return...no EOC hiring...no set asides or carve outs...no preferential college admissions...no minority preference contracts ect...those are already ‘reparations’ and need to end.

I am the great-granddaughter of 2 union soldiers. I consider any "debt" paid in full.

[manc]

do they get paid off those people who had ancestors who sold their ancestors into slavery?
Do they get those blacks who had ancestors who were slave owners .
over 3000 blacks were slave owners so how about tracking their family down today and getting them to pay.?

This is all a crock to stoke up race again now the rats are falling down in their numbers and they know that blacks will come out and vote like they did for bozo .
But of course stoke up that race card and more will come out and vote

[Dianer0839]

At great risk to themselves, my ancestor's hid, fed and clothed runaway slaves in the underground railroad. They asked for nothing in return so now their desendants demand that we continue to be forced to fed and clothe their decendants?

[gthog61]

Did anybody else point out the laughable description of henry gates as an “eminent scholar”?

Isn’t that beer summit henry gates?

I think we should expose te academic fraud that is “african-american studies”? Tell me why someone who majors in that much less someone who “teaches” that would EVER be motivated to admit that race relations were acceptable. It’s like expecting a global warming “scientist” who lives off government grants to ever say it isn’t a “crisis”.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

“Those who seek reparations should visit the Union cemetery at Gettysburg or Hollywood cemetery in Richmond or any of dozens of other graveyards: there is your treasure.”

I’ve ben saying this for years here on FR.

[AuntB]

"Next problem!"

Exactly...when does this end??? Many slaves were compensated.

Here's a little ancestor history for you. The southern Cherokee owned slaves, and fought for the Confederacy..well, we know how that turned out.

During the treaty of 1866 after the war, some of their land was taken, naturally, but the Cherokee delegates insisted that Indian land allotments be given to their former slaves. They opened their schools (some of the best in the nation, btw, at that time) to the former slaves. My grgrgrandfather bought their crops and taught them commerce. They also insisted that those former slaves and their descendants could always be members of the Cherokee Tribe.

I suppose the descendents of those slaves don't have a clue that all happened.

It is interesting, though, a black gentleman bought my book about all this history, and found one of his ancestors, who had been one of the Cherokee slaves. It was a wonderful correspondence with that man.

Southern Cherokee Delegation in Washington D.C. Fall 1866

L-R, John Rollin Ridge, Saldin Ridge Watie, Richard Fields, Elias Cornelius Boudinot, William Penn Adair...Stand Watie not pictured.

http://jesusweptanamericanstory.blogspot.com/

[SZonian]

Outstanding post!