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For those of you that have studied the civil war at the college level or are one of those blue collar history buffs that loves history you are probably aware of the fact that Abraham Lincoln wanted to not only free the slaves but he wanted to send them back to Africa as he felt even after slavery was abolished the black man would still always be at a great disadvantage in this country due to the roots of slavery. In the end He was met with enormous opposition and eventually let the matter go.
My question is what do you think Africa would be like today had the majority of the slaves been released back to the mother land.
Lincoln wasn't relocating slaves because he was compassionate, he was relocating them so they'd cease to be a political issue. One of the larger issues between the North and the South was slavery. The simple solution was to relocate them.
The far more challenging solution was to assimilate the 2nd largest group of people in America who were at the time almost entirely uneducated, illiterate and basically not trained to do anything but slave labor. The exceptions were just that: Exceptions. The southern blacks who were educated that attempted to assimilate into mainstream America in the 1870's and work in government and other high-level jobs soon became acquainted with the KKK. After Reconstruction backfired Jim Crow was instituted and the "equal" part of separate but equal was soon forgotten about. All one has to do is compare the schools.
Black schools:
White schools:
No matter if you were a doctor or a share cropper, your kids had to go to the same ****ty schools that were only successful at producing field laborers. When schools became integrated, there was massive white flight from the cities to the suburbs and the schools became segregated again.
This current generation (ie 18 years old and younger) are the first generation of blacks with a somewhat level playing field education wise, and that's only in certain places. Socially, the schools are segregated as ever... sad cases like the segregated proms in parts of Mississippi are a reminder that these attitudes are still seen as normal in some parts of the country.
In the end He was met with enormous opposition and eventually let the matter go.
Um, he was assassinated 5 days after Lee surrendered. That's why he let the matter go.
Up until the time Lincoln died, there were three Reconstruction Plans, not two. When Lincoln died, his plans for Reconstruction died and the supporters of his plan kind of fell away.
His Reconstruction Plan was actually the best, taking a few of the better elements from the two opposing views on Reconstruction in addition to his own views on Reconstruction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redfish1
My question is what do you think Africa would be like today had the majority of the slaves been released back to the mother land.
It would have been the best thing to happen to Africa.
Most people hold the false belief that the majority of slaves worked on plantations. Not true. The majority of slaves lived in cities and towns.
You probably wouldn't have recognized black slaves in town. Some of them would have been dressed in suits and ties. You'd have thought they were businessmen. Your only clue would have been when they stepped off the boardwalk to let you pass or wouldn't look you directly in the eye when you spoke to them.
Those slaves worked as cobblers, tailors, smiths in black-smith shops, tin and copper shops, grain mills, printing presses, warehouses and general stores. Some of them also ran shops in town, worked as engineers, book-keepers, and even river boat pilots (and one was even captain of a river-boat on the Mississippi).
So the black slaves had a wide range of skills, and that doesn't even include the many free-black towns and villages throughout the South which of course had black mayors and city council members.
Had they gone back to Africa, they could have very quickly transformed many regions of Africa. The Europeans did not begin colonizing Africa until the late 1880s early 1890s and by that time, it's unlikely Europeans would have been successful in colonizing Africa.
The former slaves certainly would have maintained diplomatic and commercial ties to the US, and with many blacks having military experience including leadership experience (and even naval experience), they could have developed a standing army to defend against European colonization. The US surely would have helped them and probably even issued a "mini-Monroe Doctrine" to bar Europeans from colonizing Africa, or at least those areas of Africa where former US slaves were living and conducting trade with the US.
The implications of that are of course, astounding.
Um, he was assassinated 5 days after Lee surrendered. That's why he let the matter go.
Up until the time Lincoln died, there were three Reconstruction Plans, not two. When Lincoln died, his plans for Reconstruction died and the supporters of his plan kind of fell away.
His Reconstruction Plan was actually the best, taking a few of the better elements from the two opposing views on Reconstruction in addition to his own views on Reconstruction.
It would have been the best thing to happen to Africa.
Most people hold the false belief that the majority of slaves worked on plantations. Not true. The majority of slaves lived in cities and towns.
You probably wouldn't have recognized black slaves in town. Some of them would have been dressed in suits and ties. You'd have thought they were businessmen. Your only clue would have been when they stepped off the boardwalk to let you pass or wouldn't look you directly in the eye when you spoke to them.
Those slaves worked as cobblers, tailors, smiths in black-smith shops, tin and copper shops, grain mills, printing presses, warehouses and general stores. Some of them also ran shops in town, worked as engineers, book-keepers, and even river boat pilots (and one was even captain of a river-boat on the Mississippi).
So the black slaves had a wide range of skills, and that doesn't even include the many free-black towns and villages throughout the South which of course had black mayors and city council members.
Had they gone back to Africa, they could have very quickly transformed many regions of Africa. The Europeans did not begin colonizing Africa until the late 1880s early 1890s and by that time, it's unlikely Europeans would have been successful in colonizing Africa.
The former slaves certainly would have maintained diplomatic and commercial ties to the US, and with many blacks having military experience including leadership experience (and even naval experience), they could have developed a standing army to defend against European colonization. The US surely would have helped them and probably even issued a "mini-Monroe Doctrine" to bar Europeans from colonizing Africa, or at least those areas of Africa where former US slaves were living and conducting trade with the US.
The implications of that are of course, astounding.
Sadly, I'm going to have to call this post as I see it... naive.
Perhaps the biggest error is making the assumption that America would have or want ANYTHING to do with blacks the moment they didn't have to see them, which they already didn't anyway thanks to Jim Crow. There is absolutely nothing that suggests America would have even considered going through the trouble of spending the $ to ship them back. Once Lincoln died, that idea died too. And who's to say that the English-speaking black Americans would be welcomed with open arms by the rest of Africa anyway?
Sadly, I'm going to have to call this post as I see it... naive.
Perhaps the biggest error is making the assumption that America would have or want ANYTHING to do with blacks the moment they didn't have to see them, which they already didn't anyway thanks to Jim Crow. There is absolutely nothing that suggests America would have even considered going through the trouble of spending the $ to ship them back. Once Lincoln died, that idea died too. And who's to say that the English-speaking black Americans would be welcomed with open arms by the rest of Africa anyway?
This post is very naive.
This is all monday morning quarterback stuff, but if Lincoln had lived and I were his right hand gal I'd be offering this newly freed population an option. The Liberian option was real, but like the dysfunction that allowed slavery to happen on their shores, compounded by European baggage brought to USA through white immigrants, the dysfunction just got muddier and muddier. Liberia didn't have much of a shot because the same illness of supremacy came in their bags. No amount of money could fix that there or here. This poison in the ear of men is with us still, finding political pockets to exploit unmercifully. American Taliban.
But it all needed to be their choice. Stay or go. Be a citizen or not. Either choice you commit to is a rock or a hard place the same way immigrants running away from Europe ran headlong into fledgling liberty struggling to be born. Before they ever had a chance to realize what liberty fully was, the jackals were scheming to usurp it all. KKK needed to be treated as terrorist organization the moment they engaged war on American citizens. When blacks saw justice denied, it deeply harmed their faith, but it deeply harmed everyone's faith in the system right along with them.
If we're going to would of should of could of forever, what would America look like today if the task of healing a nation the day Lee surrendered were left to northern, southern, and black women to work out together? None of them had a right to vote, all of them paid the heaviest price- their life's work- their husbands/ children/ families.
This question has already been answered for you. See: Liberia.
I'm well aware of Liberia. What I'm talking about would have been on a much larger scale.
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