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Unfortunately, some participants in this thread will probably not be interested in learning any nuances and will not take kindly to the idea that slave owners were individuals too and not all of them treated their slaves the same. Note that my comment is not a claim for the morality of the institution of slavery itself.
There is an interesting discussion about Finding your Roots, the pbs ancestry show. The last few seasons, those involving slaves got rather preachy. At the same time, early on, the poor of any color could end up indentured, and held as if they were a slave. They were not treated better, but just more labor. In some areas at least half died before they could be freed. Sometimes they got used for dangerous things. They might ultimately leave. A slave would still remain. If it might end up with a damaged or dead worker, an indentured worker was more expendable.
But you don't hear a lot of people calling them short term slaves, though they were. Given half never made it, it wasn't so much 'better'.
The episode this morning was good, three early cases of slavery, one indentured. The host seemed to have changed his tune. He even explained what an indentured servant was, and how they did not have anything easier, and so on.
The truth was both were owned, servants for a space of time, but they had no rights until then, and if they happened to die it wasn't condemned.
It was a bad time for the poor, and a time when those who had and could did use their slaves and their servants for whatever needed doing. Forced labor as a fixture of society did not die in the South either. After the Civil war, prison populations were held basically under slavery and cost them nothing. This practice lasted for decades before it was made illegal, ironically under a law making indentures illegal.
I would reccomend the documentary The Civil War be watched if you really want to understand all the why's and events. It not only shows why the North fought, but the South.
In the end it is a tragedy which took the lives of thousands.
It was no tragedy for Black people. Just like the Revolutionary war it was central to making democracy real in America, to civil rights for Black Americans. We should celebrate the win for America.
Yes it did and thus America finally banned the uncivilized practice of holding people as property and joined the rest of humanity.
You seem to be judging historical people according to our own moral and ethical standards. It's not necessarily wrong to do so, but one must be careful. Just as an analogy, there are likely practices we currently condone and even celebrate that people a century or two from now will look back upon and wonder why we were so greedy, ignorant, unenlightened, etc.
Obviously I cannot forsee the future, but just off the top of my head, one example seems to be the use of fossil fuels. Obviously such use is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and causing global warming. The real question that our hypothetical future observer might ask is why we would continue to do such a thing when we knew the harm we were doing. No matter what your current opinion on this issue, you ARE using fossil fuels, so you are part of the problem, and you are fodder for criticism by our future historian. Of course, it's much easier with hindsight to look back on what SHOULD have been done, but it is far more difficult to see during the time in question how to completely revamp a social and economic system.
This is a particularly apt analogy in this case. Completely ceasing to use fossil fuels would require a completely new economic an social system to be implemented. The same could be said about the South and slavery. The entire social and economic system in the South was based on slavery. Ending slavery forced a complete change in those systems.
You also seem to think that somehow the North was more enlightened, less evil, whatever than the South because they didn't have slavery. That, as I pointed out in an earlier post, was not really the case. The North lacked slavery because slavery did not work well economically in the industrial economy of the North. The addition of cheap immigrant labor was an additional factor mitigating against slavery in the North. At the time, though, slavery was largely accepted as at least a necessary evil in the North. The North did try to limit the expansion of slavery into the territories, but this was largely a political battle rather than a recognition of the inherent evil of the practice. The Federal government had to date largely been dominated by the South, and limiting expansion of slavery into the territories promised a route for the North to reduce that dominance. Abolitionists were really just a vocal minority in the North. Most were quite content to allow the South to keep their slaves and continue on the status quo. Others, such as low-skilled workers, actively wanted slavery to continue lest freed slaves begin to compete with them for jobs.
Secession eventually came because the South recognized the political advantage of expansion of slavery and the North's opposition. Once an anti-expansion candidate in Lincoln was elected, the South felt threatened enough to leave the Union. By itself, that did not necessarily result in war. Lincoln maintained that secession was illegal and that the Southern states were still part of the Union. He contended therefore that he had the right to reestablish Federal authority in the South, and called for troops to be raised to do so. Once SC seized Ft. Sumter by force, the shooting war began. The war aim for the North was to restore Federal authority, not to end slavery. The end of slavery came because it was realized that ending slavery would cause irreparable harm to Southern society and would aid the war effort. It also prevented the European powers from diplomatically recognizing the South as and independent nation and providing aid. Eradication of slavery was a positive good, but let's not pretend that the North entered the war for this noble aim; emancipation was primarily a military tactic, not a war aim.
Why did slaveowners in the southern states treat their slaves brutally instead of paying them wages/treating them like human beings? First of all, the very notion of slavery is brutal and evil; but it became 'custom' in those states, though not everyone owned slavery. Second, possibly there were some slaveowners who treated their slaves with more kindness (within an admittedly evil framework of keeping people as slaves in the first place) than others, but I would think that might have been the exception rather than the rule. If you accept the ridiculous idea that humans can be property and equated with a horse or cow or hound, you give yourself permission to buy, sell, overwork/punish/whip/kill your 'property'.
I am not a history expert; but I would think there might have been some other countries at that time, possibly in the Mid East and parts of Africa, that had slavery in the 18th and 19th century. The thing is, Colonial and pre-Civil War United States people usually believed themselves to be better - more enlightened, Christian, etc. - than 'heathen' cultures/countries that were not European. (it's not 'enlightened' to buy and sell people and keep them as slaves)
You are not aware that the European powers had slave colonies throughout the Caribbean and most of Latin America in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that they were in charge of the international slave trade to the New World?
You seem to be judging historical people according to our own moral and ethical standards. It's not necessarily wrong to do so, but one must be careful. Just as an analogy, there are likely practices we currently condone and even celebrate that people a century or two from now will look back upon and wonder why we were so greedy, ignorant, unenlightened, etc.
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Cruelty, murder, rape have always been wrong and sinful per all religions and their texts. How far back do you want to go in history of civilization? The South at the time did not use the poor white people as cattle. Their work however humble was honored, their families respected.
Your analogy of holding people as property and using torture, rape, and murder to keep them in bondage and use of fossil fuel is cynical, disingenuous, and false.
The south could have made several choices. Refused to buy slaves and used available labor. Or PAID the imported/immigrant labor wages and kept their hands off their bodies and their babies, as you rightly point out which is what the North did. Many people considered slavery immoral, against God, and sinful even at that time, even in the South. So slavers were not exactly ignorant and pre-historic as you paint them. They also could have developed other industries as the North did, and used machines. They did not because they could make huge profit by abusing human beings to work the lands stolen from Native Americans, out of greed, stupidity, and laziness.
The North is not without blame for the continued existence of slavery even though they knew what hell was occurring in the South, and for the evil compromises they made with the South. The entire country is complicit in cruel wars conducted on their own people be it Native Americans or the Blacks. The greatest sin today is in not acknowledging this truth, and keep pushing this wrong narrative about the REAL REASON for the civil war. Doing that is simple racism and disrespectful to those Americans who endured this inhuman treatment.
The way I understand it, the Union wanted the Southern states to stop expanding slavery. The slave states, having huge lands stolen from Native Americans and profiting from free slave labor, refused, decided to secede, and fired the first shot, an act of treason. The South lost the war, and the Union was restored. Much much later monuments were erected to glorify the people who died in the lost war. Slaves were eventually freed, Reconstructions started. The original slave states took revenge on the black people and started the KKK.
You can't talk about the Civil War without mentioning:
- Slaves escaping to the North
- The Constitution's fugitive slave clause
- 1850 Fugitive slave act
- Northern states "Personal liberty laws" to protect free black people
You can't talk about the Civil War without mentioning:
- Slaves escaping to the North
- The Constitution's fugitive slave clause
- 1850 Fugitive slave act
- Northern states "Personal liberty laws" to protect free black people
Slave labor was not FREE.. far from it and it had a lot to do with the South Seceding but had little to do with the North engaging in a Civil War...
Not sure what you're trying to say here. The south seceded because slave labor wasn't 'free' and this cost had little to do with the North engaging in a Civil War?
Regarding the expense slave owners showered on their slaves, you do have a point, nothing in life is free. First off you have that cruise from Africa to America and we've all seen the, 'not free' accommodations they were provided. Then if they survived the crossing, the transportation costs to the plantation and the shacks they were thrown into were not free either.
This leaves the single biggest expense their masters had to shell out for, their slaves never ending need to eat. And we all know how much unwanted food scraps or the more accurate term, 'swill' cost. Just ignore the fact that their masters didn't have the stomach to eat it.
Pig and oxen butts, pigs feet, chicken necks, hog jowls, gizzards, fatback ham hocks and that well known delicacy, pig intestines (chitterlings). Having to give their slaves their trash, must have been heart breaking. If they could have feed them pig s__t to keep them alive they would have.
But there was an upside that made up for all the money spent on their slaves. If their masters were in a randy mood, they could have all the free sex their slaves could provide...
Last edited by sd-bound; 12-14-2017 at 12:05 PM..
Reason: Emphasis added
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