[TwelveOfTwenty]

This is what the CW was about.

Here's the story behind that image. It reports he escaped the South to Union soldiers.

There's plenty more where that came from.

[FLT-bird]

Sorry but no. It wasn’t. In this example there was a particularly sadistic owner. That was not the norm. Scars on a slaves would indicate a slave who was either disobedient or who tried to run away. Both would lower the sales value of the slave.

The truth is slaves had been getting whipped for hundreds of years. Northerners didn’t care - just like they didn’t care that Yankee slave traders treated slaves far worse. It wasn’t a morality play no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise.

[DiogenesLamp]

There's plenty more where that came from.

I very greatly doubt it. That is pretty much the most widely circulated picture of a slave's whipped back.

I have long thought of examining this particular point with a discerning eye. This picture has obviously been used for propaganda purposes to "prove" that slaves were mistreated, yet there aren't that many pictures of slave's whipped backs.

There were 4 million slaves. Given the narrative put forth, one would think there would be thousands of pictures of slave's whipped backs, but this one particular photo is the one which is almost always used. I think I may have seen other photos of slaves showing scars from whipping or torture, but not very many.

So is this particular photo deliberate propaganda, and is actually spreading a deliberate lie? Or does this photo represent the norm?

So how many photos are out there of abused animals? Are these representative? Should we look at one of those and conclude that all Americans commit horrible depravity against animals?

I think most people know that the vast majority of Americans do not treat animals badly, but if you listen to the *KOOKS*, they will try to convince you otherwise.

So is this photo representative, or is it a tool to spread a deliberate lie?

When I think someone is deliberately lying to me, I think they are not deceiving me for my benefit, but for theirs.

[wardaddy]

You have to be utterly brainwashed to think the Union army invaded the south to free the nigras as they called them ...contrary to Ted Turners polemics lol....they invaded to stop my ancestors from seceding. And they were successful. A question settled by arms as Grant said succinctly.

However I will follow your logic and submit that following such logic I would be justified in waging war against the vaunted negro in America simply for this alone....and as you say ....there is more where that comes from....btw....given your disdain for flogging would you have also waged war against the US Navy or the Royal Navy for said offense....or perhaps you would have preferred they simply hanged him...

[wardaddy]

Have you ever read the unabridged North Carolina slave narratives done by the WPA in 1930s

The overwhelming proportion of it was reltold with fondness for the masters...by those slaves still alive then

Today the woke....your people ....only publish that cherry picked with stuff like your Simon Legree transgressions

I’ll find u a copy if you’d like....I bought one at oak alley ten years ago before the turned it into a horrid woke freak show of a tour run by utterly ignorant activists....it’s disgusting to be honest ...lies lies and more lies just like the media

I bit my tongue knowing more about the history of the plantation than the guide...however earnest she was ...did

I did ask her did she know the last house servant slave who stayed with the family forever and had her own drapery business which she made a small fortune with had left all her estate to the children of the masters family she’d helped raise and is buried next to them

Nope...not a clue...of course not.

[woodpusher]

This is what the CW was about.

[image of person identified as "Gordon."]

Here's the story behind that image. It reports he escaped the South to Union soldiers.

There's plenty more where that came from.

Wars are about money and power.

Your image is hotlinked from blogspot and the link for the cited anonymous/uncredited story goes to:

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/scars-of-gordon-whipped-louisiana-slave-1863/

In short, your fantastic, uncredited story is unsourced. It is also quite discredited by a real, award winning history professor.

There's plenty more where that came from.

Of particular note, apparently the "only images that might rival the 'scourged back' are the photographs of Wilson Chinn, 'a branded slave.'" Apparently you just made that claim up and decided to include it because, to you, it sounded good, even though it has no basis in fact. However, you are invited to present the "plenty more where that came from."

The image is especially famous from its appearance in Harper's Weekly in 1863 for its Fourth of July issue, accompanied by three pictures purporting to be of Gordon. The images were "Gordon Under Inspection," "Gordon as He Entered Our Lines," and "Gordon in His Uniform as a U.S. Soldier." The article was "A Typical Negro."

The image of "Gordon Under Inspection" is apparently the image of Peter. A copy at the National Archives identifies the subject as Peter.The image of "Gordon as He Entered Our Lines" is apparently Gordon. Neither is apparently related to Peter Asher, or had help from JPG&R. Artist Vincent Colyer also featured two of the images in his volume, Report of the Services Rendered by the Freed People to the United States Army, in North Carolina. here they were identified as Furney Bryant, the Refugee, and Furnee Bryant, 1^st North Carolina Colored Troops.

In the field of real historians, not of the Holiday Inn Express or Wikipedia type, there is Dr. David Silkenat, Ph.D., senior lecturer in American History at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. His 2019 book Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, and was named the best Civil War book of 2019 by Civil War Monitor magazine. Books of his in 2011 and 2016 won the North Caroliniana Society Book Award for the best non-fiction published those years. He is chair of chair of the Scottish Association for the Study of America. Dr. Silkenat has also received has also received the William F. Holmes Award from the Southern Historical Association and the Harry E. Pratt Memorial Award from the Illinois State Historical Society.

https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/22082113/Silkenat_A_Typical_Negro_Revised_22_June_2014.pdf

In 2014, Dr. Silkenat published a peer-reviewed paper on the Harper's Weekly story, "A Typical Negro."

Citation for published version:Silkenat, D 2014, “A Typical Negro”: Gordon, Peter, Vincent Colyer, and the story behind slavery's most famous photograph', American Nineteenth Century History, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 169-186.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2014.939807

“A Typical Negro”: Gordon, Peter, Vincent Colyer, and the Story Behind Slavery’s Most Famous Photograph David Silkenat

University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh Research Explorer

david.silkenat@ed.ac.uk

Abstract

The image of the “scourged back” remains one of the most visually arresting depictions of slavery. Based on a photograph taken in Baton Rouge in April 1863 and later published in Harper’s Weekly, it has become one of the most widely reprinted and recognizable images of American slavery. However, despite the image’s ubiquity, we know relatively little about the image and the man featured in it. Most historians who have examined the image accept the narrative in the accompanying Harper’s article as an accurate account of the subject’s life and the image’s origins. This article argues, however, that there is good evidence to suggest that the accompanying article was largely fabricated and much of what we think we know about “Gordon” may be inaccurate.

The full 28pp article is available at the link.