Tag: slavery

Categories
History

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Touched-Off the Civil War

Harriet Beecher Stowe Illustration

“So you are the little woman who started this big war!” Abraham Lincoln reportedly said to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Actually, that never happened.

The book was an overwhelming bestseller, both in America and in Britain. One million copies were sold in the United States in the first year alone.

Stowe, an avid abolitionist, published it to inspire readers to embrace the abolitionist cause. This was a very unpopular, far left position when she wrote the book in 1852.

So, who were all of these readers?

Abolitionists snapped it up, of course. Beyond that, it was a crackerjack story! I love it! It makes me cheer and it makes me cry. How many non-abolitionist readers became radicals? There is no way to know. Not too many. Abolitionism was still unpopular when the Civil War erupted.

So, did it touch off the Civil War? No.

That said, let’s look at the book as literature.

First, was it historical fiction or contemporary fiction? I’ve found no clue from Stowe, and there are no dates within the book. That makes the casual reader think that the story occurs at or near the time of printing.

Let’s look at a timeline:

Early 1800sAn African-American slave is said to have invented the first machine for help harvesting. This is “George” in the book. We know there were improvements in 1824 and 1836. This is more in line with later book-related dates, but that slave who was African and Native American, unlike George.

1816 Tom Lincoln, father of Abraham, left Kentucky for Indiana. Was he the Tom Lincoln referred to by Stowe? If not, why invent the character? He wasn’t important.

1830s Each state south of the Ohio River and westward passed legislation stating and protecting the rights of slaves. The state congressmen would have included many of the plantation owners, because only they had the time and money to dabble in politics.

1831 The slave trade was abolished. This did not abolish slavery already within the states.

1831 The Nat Turner Rebellion slaughtered whites on several plantations.

1833 Stowe made her only trip from her home in Cincinnati across the Ohio River into Kentucky. While there, she observed one auction and visited one plantation.

1838 The real Eliza crossed the Ohio River on ice blocks to save her son from being sold.

1850 The Compromise of 1850 was passed, which contained the Fugitive Slave Law that inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.

From this timeline, we can ascertain these points:

  1. There is no logical date for the story. We don’t know if it is historical fiction or contemporary fiction. She lets readers assume the latter.
  2. The historical timeline was completely skewed to serve the story. This would never stand in today’s historical fiction.
  3. The main characters and events were drawn from actual individuals whom she interviewed.
  4. Her knowledge of auctions and plantations was limited to one trip across the Ohio River in 1833 and descriptions given by interviewees. This indicates that her views of the southern states was likely frozen in time before the states’ slave rights legislation took hold. Reports of interviewees would have verified this in her mind, since the majority escaped cruel masters and a few other escapees ran to avoid being sold down the river. Interviewees did not run from kind masters otherwise. So, in reality, Uncle Tom’s Cabin could be said to be set in 1833.
  5. Southern plantation owners are portrayed either as evil or as cowards who are absent when slaves they have sold are picked up. She does not mention what is in the congressional record that family servants were not auctioned, but handled as compassionately as possible in private sales.
  6. Stowe gives the briefest of acknowledgements that the north had anything to do with slavery.
    1. She notes that Legree was from New England, but does not enlarge on how this affects his behavior. The real Legree, Richard McAlpin, was from Connecticut.
    2. Ophelia is made to admit that there is not enough interest in the northern states to handle the flood of blacks due to complete abolition. She admits that northern states had a problem of its own with workers caught in the Industrial Revolution. No more is said about either of these points.
    3. Nothing is said about slavery in the north.

In summary, while this is an intriguing story, it does not meet today’s fiction standards.

Categories
History

Northern States Never Compromised About Slavery

fugitive slave law illo

The truth is that the United States compromised from the Compromise of 1850 through the Emancipation Proclamation. This is the first attempt.

The issue of the westward expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners were addressed in this important document. It contained five separate bills.

  1. California would be admitted as a free state.
  2. Slavery in New Mexico and Utah would be determined by white voters when applying for statehood.
  3. Texas would be paid ten million dollars for the disputed boundary with New Mexico.
  4. Buying and selling slaves was abolished in Washington (D.C.), but the practice of slavery would continue.
  5. The Fugitive Slave Act demanded that lawmen and all U.S. citizens assist in the capture and return of fugitive slaves.

(By the way, this was true also of sailors of any race, although not on this law. Sailors were considered to belong to the ship in the same way that slaves belonged to the master’s land. However, it was for only one voyage.)

 

Categories
History

Southern States Were Poorer Than Northern States before the Civil War

coins stacked

This is another lie that was implied rather than told: the southern states were considerably poorer than northern states with the exception of plantation owners.

This is an extremely skewed statement.

First, “wealth” must be defined in the terms of pre-Civil War years, not by today’s standards. That’s a basic historical rule.

Slaves were legally defined as a kind of property and therefore valuable and easily turned into cash. Both north and south had slaves. The Northwest Territory states were created slave-free and there were several northern states in the process of emancipation with each state determining its own path. Overall, however, there was greater wealth due to slaves in the south, centered in the plantations.

Farming, in general, was more efficient in the south, despite that after initial outlay, farming machinery was more efficient than slaves, because slaves required continued expenditure until dead or sold—unlike factory workers of the north. Machines didn’t. Also, slaves, like horses used in most farming, reproduced and contributed to further wealth.

Manufacturing wealth was decidedly in the north’s favor. There was some manufacturing in the south, but not nearly to the extent of the north. However, the northern manufacturing was often not self-sufficient. The buyers were limited because Europe had its own Industrial Revolution and the southern states were interested but not frequent buyers of manufacturing.

States with more plantations were more self-sufficient. Beside the cash crops of tobacco and cotton, plantations grew their own food and livestock feed. Extra food and feed were sold to local people. This meant that the general public was eating more healthily than in the northern cities, where there were shortages of fresh, healthy foods.

Considering all of this, the average per capita income of the southern states was double that of northern states.

Another source of wealth that I have not seen in the data was the first gold rush. It was in Virginia! Although discovered earlier, commercial extraction of gold began in 1804 at a rate of $500,000 per year! That is not usually figured into the per capita income.

Please recall that before the Civil War, the United States followed the constitution, which included that “state” meant a separate political entity. That’s still the dictionary definition. I looked.

Therefore, all of the gold belonged not to the United States, but to the state of Virginia.

No, the southern states were not poor. They were comparatively wealthy. And avarice bloomed in the northern states. They wanted that wealth!

According to southern historians, that greed was the root cause of the Civil War.

Follow the money!

 

Categories
History

The South was Racist, but the North Wasn’t

 

black and white figures on wall

That doesn’t fit the facts.

There are numerous written documents referring to northern states as being much more racist. Here are some examples:

1818-1822: South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne described his personal observation of the fate of Southern blacks who fled north: “…there does not exist on the face of the whole earth, a population so poor, so retched, so vile, so loathsome, so utterly destitute of all the comforts, conveniences, and decencies of life, as the unfortunate blacks of Philadelphia, and New York and Boston.”

1831: French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “Whosoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise drawn nearer to whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.”

1837-1841: English writer James Silk Buckingham toured the United States and Canada, visiting all but two states. He wrote, “the prejudice of colour is not nearly so strong in the South as in the North.”

1841: English Quaker Joseph Sturge wrote, “In the course of conversation, the Governor [of Illinois] spoke of the prejudice against colour prevailing here than in the slave States. I may add, from my own observation, and much concurring testimony, that Philadelphia appears to be the metropolis of this odious prejudice, and that there is probably no city in the known world, where dislike, amounting to hatred of the coloured population, prevails more than in the city of brotherly love!”

Early 1853: Connecticut landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted wrote, “The railroad company advertise to take colored people in second class but servants seem to go with their masters everywhere. Once, to-day, seeing a lady entering the car at a way-station…I offered my seat which had several vacancies round it. She accepted it, without thanking me and immediately installed in it a stout negro woman; took the adjoining seat herself, and seated the rest of her party before her…They all talked and laughed together; the girls munched confectionary out of the same paper, with a familiarity and closeness of intimacy that would have been noticed with astonishment, if not with manifest displeasure, in almost any chance company at the North.”

1862: Massachusetts justice of the peace John S. Rock wrote, “We are colonized in Boston. It is five times as difficult to get a house in a good location in Boston as it is in Philadelphia, and it is ten times more difficult for a colored mechanic to get employment than in Charleston.”

1862: English writer Edward Dicey wrote, “I hardly ever remember seeing a black employed as a shopman, or placed in any post of responsibility. As a rule, the blacks you meet in the Free States are shabbily, if not squalidly  dressed; and, as far as I could learn, the instances of black men having made money by trade in the North, are very few in number.”

There you have opinions stated by black and white, north and south, foreigner and citizen. They all say the same thing: northern states were decidedly more racist than southern ones.

 

 

 

Categories
History

The South Wasn’t Serious about Emancipating Their Slaves

 

Combine: developed from the McCormick Reaper
Combine: developed from the McCormick Reaper

This was a point of view that was represented without data.

Here are the facts:

  1. The South had led early emancipation efforts, especially in Virginia.
  2. The South’s money crops were cotton and tobacco.
  3. Crop rotation was known and practiced at least to a limited extent because plantations were self-sufficient, growing food for people and livestock.
  4. The cotton gin made slaves’s lives easier, and fewer were required.
  5. Now, in 1831, the first practical reaper was invented by Cyrus McCormick, who was born in Virginia. This cut time and slave effort for standing crops, such as wheat.
  6. Few people owned slaves.
  7. The South was markedly less racist than the north, as noted by many travelers, both foreign and domestic, throughout the years.

Against the facts were these issues:

  1. Although the South was less racist, it was difficult for free blacks to make a living. This had to do with paying blacks less for equal work and certain work not being available to blacks—just as in the North. Southerners felt responsible for the slaves and knew that they lacked the understanding of the enormity of the task of complete self-care. They needed to be taught these things and to be allowed to increase self-care gradually—as was being done by Northern states even into the Civil War.
  2. The plantations, where almost all slaves lived, looked rich, but the wealth was not in cash: it was in land, livestock, and slaves. Many struggled with cash flow, even taking severe economies when not extending hospitality (when it didn’t show). The plantations would not continue to exist with simultaneous loss of slave wealth plus wages required for replacing them—even with the former slaves. In that case, everyone was out of a job. Where would they go to make a living?

The answer, of course, was mechanization. But this was a slow evolution.

  1. The planter had to find money to buy a cotton gin—impossible on plantations that were already mortgaged.
  2. The workforce had to be carefully reduced. The slaves knew the hard times of free blacks. Many, especially house slaves, prided themselves on the plantation to which they belonged. So, after eliminating some positions with the cotton gin (unless the owner bought more land), it would be field hands who were sold. The positions could also be eliminated by the natural attrition of deaths.
  3. The reaper would vacate fewer positions because those crops were grown on fewer acres, but there would be some sales.
  4. But the final emancipations would need to be slaves who paid for their own freedom but chose to stay as paid employees.

That was the only way the plantations would survive. The South was willing, but it wanted to do it its own way and in its own timing—just as Northern states were doing.

All the South wanted was the state independence already allowed to the North.

 

 

Categories
History

Compensated Emancipation Was Never Tested in the Americas

pile of currency

Well, not in the United States. And not on continental North America.

In 1833, the British Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, abolishing slavery in British colonies, such as those on Caribbean islands.

It pleased no one except some hardcore abolitionists.

1. Slave owners complained that the compensation was so low that it was a bad joke. Compensation was especially inadequate to cover mortgaged estates and did not cover the costs of owners as employers of laborers during the adjustment period. This included continued costs for food, clothing, lodging, and medicine.
2. Slaves did not like that they were not immediately emancipated. Slaves more than six years of age were to work as apprentice laborers without pay as a transition to freedom in 1838. They remained tied to estates, although they could buy their freedom even over the opposition of their employer.
3. British subjects were furious that they were responsible for compensation costs of $20 million: 40% of the national budget! The debt would not be paid off until 2015!

No wonder U.S. Southerners were leery of compensated emancipation!
By the way, Britain also began factory inspections in 1833.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

 

Categories
History

Nat Turner’s Revolt Was of Limited Importance

Nat Turner Revolt Illustration

And so it would seem by the short time it was taught in class and the small amount of space describing it in the textbook.

What I Learned

The short version is this: The slave Nat Turner, a preacher and self-proclaimed prophet, observed signs in the sky and said he experienced visions which he interpreted as calling him to eradicate slavery.

From August 21-22 in Southampton County, Virginia, he and his men killed 55 men, women, and children. Turner’s men were killed or detained within a few days. Nineteen were hanged. Twelve had their sentences commuted by the governor because of extenuating circumstances, such as their youth. Turner was captured on October 30 and hanged November 11.

The result of Turner’s actions was psychological terrorism of the local population and, to a lesser extent, to all communities with a significant number of black inhabitants. In response to Turner’s revolt, laws were passed that severely limited Negro rights.

Reviewing the Times

Everyone knew about successful events of rebellion on shipboard and in the Caribbean, one resulting in an African-American nation.

In the early 1830s, southern states were writing laws to protect slaves from misuse.

Blacks could be called as witnesses in some cases, but not to serve on juries.

Plantation owners did not expect “our people” to revolt against, much less murder, their master’s family. They counted on the slaves’ loyalty because of kind treatment. However, whites were keenly aware of how many more blacks there were, especially on plantations.

What Were the Results of Turner’s Revolt?

  1. An immediate backlash of whites killing blacks indiscriminately (about three dozen).
  2. Laws were enacted in southern states to restrict freedom of blacks.
  3. Lincoln would have known of this revolt and its failure. He was twenty-two, starting out on his own, and just dipping his toe into politics. He was born in Kentucky, lived in Indiana which was initially settled by Kentuckians, and later resided in Illinois, which territories were sympathetic to the slave states. Yet, Lincoln employed the same strategy in the Emancipation Proclamation!

Resources Available

I found very few resources, and not all of them were good.

The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia is a written copy of Turner’s confession to the author, Gray. It is in too much detail to summarize here. Here are some questions I had:

  1. How do I know this confession was voluntary? Nat pleaded not guilty. The booklet contains a note that it is “as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray in this prison where he [Turner] is confined, and acknowledge by him to be such when read before the Court of Southampton.” It is sealed by the Clerk of the District as deposited and “is a true copy from the record of the District Court.”
  2. Can I read the booklet for myself, and why didn’t my teacher assign the reading of this primary source? I cannot answer the second question. The booklet can be read at https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/turner.html .
  3. Is there proof that the confession was read to the court? Yes. In a statement by the six justices of the peace presiding as members of the court hearing the case of Nat Turner and verified by their seals on the document, they acknowledge that and also that he said he had no defense against the death sentence besides what he had told Mr. Gray. Furthermore, James Rochelle, Clerk of the County Court, placed his seal on the above document, testifying that these men were, indeed, members of the court trying Turner.
  4. Why did Turner plead not guilty yet also acknowledge his confession in court? Turner replied that he was pleading not guilty “because I did not feel so.”
  5. How much of the confession was edited, perhaps for clarity. In an author’s note, Gray states that he “published them, with little or no variation, from his own words.” This note was also under seal. In that case, Turner is a remarkably good speaker, quite believable from a preacher.
  6. What did Gray think of Turner? Is there a bias? In the same note as above, Gray describes Turner as a “gloomy fanatic” having a “dark, bewildered, and overwrought mind.” Could it be that Turner was mentally ill during the planning and execution of the revolt?

What did the firebrand pacifist Garrison think of the Nat Turner Revolt? According to “The Agitator” article by the National Endowment of the Arts, Garrison wrote,” I do not justify the slaves in their rebellion; yet I do not condemn them, and applaud similar conduct in white men.” https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/januaryfebruary/feature/the-agitator

A History of Racial Injustice includes a short article about Nat Turner. The trial is called “rushed.” I wonder if this source is biased.

  1. Was it? One guarantee of justice is a speedy trial. Secondly, evidence had been gathered about him from all of the trial of his co-conspirators. Thirdly, Turner had confessed in detail and acknowledged the confession in court. Fourth, there were no defense witnesses to call. Fifth, when asked why he confessed and yet pled not guilty, Turner’s answer was because he did not feel guilty. It is possible to have a rapid trial that is just.
  2. “Conditions of enslavement worsened for thousands of enslaved Black people as more cruel, barbaric, and traumatizing forms of control were implemented.” Considering that laws were going on the books in southern states to prevent actual cruelty to slaves, this is a distorted statement.

“Nat Turner’s Rebellion: Horrific or Heroic?” on America’s Black Holocaust Museum is a much better article because of its frequent references. However, the wording is very biased, as well as the refusal to consider more than one option. See what you think: https://www.abhmuseum.org/nat-turners-rebellion-horrific-or-herotic

  1. Turner was literate. Why didn’t he write his own confession? Good question. Maybe he was on suicide preventions and not allowed sharp pens and pencils. Maybe it was because Turner knew he had no connections to publishers. I don’t know. Nobody asked him.
  2. Gray transcribed and published the confession because he was in debt and knew the booklet would sell. So? That does not mean it is not reliable.

“Nat Turner’s Revolt (1831) by Encyclopedia Virginia is a very good overview of the revolt, although much is from Confessions of Nat Turner. In its words, the article is sometimes biased, such as calling Turner a “self-styled” prophet, however it’s overall good. https://encyclopediavirginia.org./entries/turners-revolt-nat-1831

  1. Was there any other reason that Turner revolted? This article suggests an interesting, although unsupported, option. “In February 1831, just days before Turner approached his future conspirators, Reese’s son John W. signed a note the put Turner’s son up as collateral for a debt that he, Reese had struggled to pay.”

So, that’s what we know. What do you think is the truth?

Categories
History

Darwin Had Nothing to Do with the Civil War

evolution illustration

Darwin sailed on the Beagle in 1831. He subsequently would organize his findings into the Evolutionary Theory in 1838. Publication of The Origin of Species in 1858 was immediately sold out, indicating that there was enormous interest and discussion around it. Plus, it was condemned by the Christian church, both Protestant and Catholic.

The vaunted (and overstated) closeness between man and ape in Darwin’s theory was immediately used to “prove” the “scientific basis” for slavery.

It was argued that because everything—including humans—continued to evolve, it was logical that the three races (oriental, occidental, and negroid) occupied different points on the evolutionary journey.

It was further argued that by simple observation, it was obvious that the order of evolution was occidental (white) as the most evolved, then the oriental race. The negroid race was clearly the least developed and in need of direction and supervision until it was ready to “join the human race.”

Realize that this was the belief of the great majority of Americans, north and south. The blacks were not yet quite human. They were closer to apes than to white people.

Thus, science was added to the Bible, whose note that “Ham shall serve his brothers” was interpreted as a command instead of a statement of fact, to build a case for slavery of the black population.

Categories
History

Mormonism Had Nothing to do with the Civil War

In March 1830, the Book of Mormon was published in Palmyra, New York. In April, the Church of Latter Day Saints was organized. Are you surprised that Mormonism began in New England?

To begin in New England was to receive maximum attention immediately. It was well covered in newspapers and church property.

For the newspapers, it was juicy because of its command to practice polygamy and the equally juicy blazing condemnation of heresy from every denomination. Ecumenism at last! At least on this topic. And that meant a huge increase in the number of newspaper copies sold.

But what does Mormonism have to do with the Civil War? The connection is indirect.

Throughout the flood of articles and books covering Mormonism and specifically polygamy (including a 1000 page tome in my personal library!) is the correlation drawn between polygamy and slavery, in that people simply could not understand how any red-blooded American girl would participate in polygamy without being forced into it by the men.

The next step was when early women’s rights advocates loudly proclaimed that polygamy was not unique. It was only one way that women in America were enslaved to the men in their lives under an unjust system of laws which were created, voted on, and enforced by men.

And with the repeated word of “slavery” as related to women, the connection to Negro slavery was unavoidable. Activists of all stripes: social, political, and journalistic congealed around the expanded use of the word slavery.

Categories
History

The Civil War Began at Fort Sumter

Trade: Deal / War

This is one of many lies by omission. True historians admit that there are many candidates for the title, depending on what is meant by “began the Civil War.”

Here are the biggest three: Northerners often blamed it on the secession of South Carolina, arguing that without the secession, the re-supply of Fort Sumter would not have been an issue.

The Lincoln Administration pushed the CSA firing on Fort Sumter as the beginning of the war.

But the South has a longer memory. It point to the beginning of abuse of the Constitution by what it called the Treaty of Abominations.

Realize that in 1828, the south controlled the majority of imports and exports because they grew crops valued by the world: tobacco and, first and foremost, cotton. The north struggled with imports and exports, especially after the law against the slave trade. Their lands were not optimal for growing those prize crops.

Another factor is the enormous influence of New Englanders with their wealth and their connections socially, industrially, and politically.

So what’s in the 1828 Treaty of Abominations, and why did it upset southerners?

It’s actually called the Treaty of 1828. It was the South that called it the Treaty of Abominations. The new country had imposed tariffs previously to pay down the national debt of the Revolutionary War. But there were three important differences in this treaty:

1. There was no stated common purpose for the tariff.

2. The amount of this tariff went as high as 50% to protect New England’s industries.

3. The tariff did not benefit all of the states. The federal government represented all of the states. Its policies should have been good for all. But this treaty was good for the New England and Mid-Atlantic states at the expense of the Southern economy.

The South had direct economic ties to Great Britain. Tobacco and cotton were extremely popular products. However, as the prices went up with the Tariff of 1828, demand dropped.

Also, the south was trying to increase mechanization. Machines were bought from Britain because New England could not compete in free trade. It was easier for the South to trade tobacco and cotton directly with Britain for machinery and other manufactured goods.

With the tariff, the prices were so high that the South could not purchase the machines it needed, extending the need for slave labor as an economic necessity beyond expectations.

The result of the Treaty of 1828 was an explosion across the South. Although the percentages of the tariffs were lowered in the next tariff act, one following it reintroduced high rates.

Results included South Carolina’s first stab at secession. (She was not the first to do so. Massachusetts and other states had also explored this option for various reasons. No one had been upset about those threats.)

The doctrine of Nullification, propounded by Vice President Calhoun, lit the explosion. The Nullification Doctrine stated that if the federal government could annul state laws that infringed on constitutionally named responsibilities, then states could nullify federal laws that applied to areas not ceded to the federal government by the Constitution.

South Carolina nullified the 1828 treaty and the following one. In 1833, the treaty with lowered tariff rates was passed and also the Force Act empowering the President to collect tariffs by force, if necessary. South Carolina removed the nullification acts on the earlier treaties, since the new rates were now acceptable, then nullified the Force Act.

There is a theory that all wars begin with money, or in a wider sense wealth including land. In the Southern point of view, this was true of the Civil War.