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What was the deal with the South, what caused this ethnocentric willingness to consider other races less than human?
I'd just ran across this thread and would like to return to the original poster's question.
Research information on Louis Agassiz, a scientist in the 1800s that promoted polygenesis, the idea that blacks, browns and reds were a separate species of people then white. Aggasiz's theories, most popularized by measuring the size of skulls and skeletons attempted to show that non-whites were inferior peoples, thus justifying genocide, forced marches/relocations, tortures, terrorism, and forced assimiltion.
The theories of Aggasiz and his associates were embraced by slaveholders in the South, those struggling with the Negro populations and the growing notions of emancipatuion and equality. Thinking that a group of people are subhuman and inferior justifies the treatment of them. But these ideas were not relegated to the South. We see it in the North and everywhere else. These ideas were not restricted to the scientific world but expanded among the populous. Just look at James Fenimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans," a work of popular literature read by the mass--a grand example of Indians who are either "noble savages" or ones that cannot be assimilated/made white (and therefore demonized) --a story that demonstrates the fate of the American Indian -- extermination. (Surprise though--Indians were never exterminated nor never fully assimilated).
BTW, this is very complicated materials as many have mentioned here.
Very interesting and thought provoking replies thus far.
Would like to add some fodder to the discussion, seems well into the 20th century that slavery was still practiced in the south, to include the sale of African American's to various corporate entities to be used as forced labor.
I've not read this book but listened to an interesting interview with the author, the crime of "vagrancy" was reserved for blacks and those who were charged with bogus offenses (being unemployed) could then be sent to jail, where someone else "bailed them out" and sent them into coal mines to work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day
Would like to add some fodder to the discussion, seems well into the 20th century that slavery was still practiced in the south, to include the sale of African American's to various corporate entities to be used as forced labor.
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Well, I've been to Sierra Leone and yes, I talked with many experts there.
Slaves were exported to the US and Cuba until 1910.
The last Confederate general to surrender during the Civil War was a full blooded Cherokee, Stand Watie. I suspect he was the only non-White general in the entire war.
And for the record, look at history regarding Indian wars in the US from early colonization all the way to the late 19th century. Seems to me that people in the day had a least some reason to distrust native populations. Jackson himself was also involved in several skirmishes with native Americans throughout the South.
The last Confederate general to surrender during the Civil War was a full blooded Cherokee, Stand Watie. I suspect he was the only non-White general in the entire war.
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Ole Stand Watie was part Euro through his mother, intermarriage of prominent Cherokees with Euros being quite common.
Cherokees owned Black slaves and Watie's family was slave owning. Slave ownership was one reason why the Cherokee usually sided with the rebellion while many other Indians in the Indian Territory sided with The United States, there was a little inter Indian civil war going on out there within the bigger civil war.
Why is it that the south, already home to the institution of slavery and now the reason that Jackson's plan to forcibly remove the democratic Cherokee nation and cause the ethnic cleansing of a peaceful people based on southern help? This viewpoint on white supremacy and the subjugation, enslavement, murder or forcible relocation of non white people was the predominant viewpoint in the south at that time, leading to the destruction of the cultured and peaceful Cherokee nation.
Why were views on race so polarized din this nation during these times? I cannot understand, from a cultural standpoint, why the nation was completely divided on the subject of race along almost geographical boundaries. The southern views were polar opposite of their New England counterparts in the House and Senate (even if the attitudes on race were often depressingly similar in both north and south).
What was the deal with the South, what caused this ethnocentric willingness to consider other races less than human?
I attribute it to an excessive consumption of lead, the prevalence and preference for inbreeding, mental and emotional developmental impairment, a vile and barbaric nature as direct undiluted descendents of the Neanderthal, uncontrollable lust, deviant, and perverted sexual tendencies, and deep, deep insecurity and lack of self-worth. Beasts cannot relate to human beings as human beings, but beasts.
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