Look Away!!! Politically Incorrect Information About Slavery in the old South

[Tolkien R.R.J]

I don't believe that my response was in any way emotional. It was simply a statement of fact that slavery is wrong. Wrong then, wrong now. It matters not how well a slave might have been treated, slavery is about considering another human being to be your property and you can attempt to window dress that fact as much as you like but slavery will still be wrong. There you go, nothing emotional about that, just a cold hard statement of fact!

apologies if i misread. but your post indicated to me you had no interest in what historical slavery was like in the old south [topic of thread] when you said "Slavery was wrong and it is still wrong. Nothing more to be said!"

That indicated to me that because slavery was "wrong" nothing else matters and we need not talk on the subject or what it was actually like. The whole point of my thread is to show they were not viewed/treated as property. I would like you to read a section and have an actual discussion rather than your moral boasting letting us all know you think slavery is wrong, as we all do.

 

[Par5]

apologies if i misread. but your post indicated to me you had no interest in what historical slavery was like in the old south [topic of thread] when you said "Slavery was wrong and it is still wrong. Nothing more to be said!"

That indicated to me that because slavery was "wrong" nothing else matters and we need not talk on the subject or what it was actually like. The whole point of my thread is to show they were not viewed/treated as property. I would like you to read a section and have an actual discussion rather than your moral boasting letting us all know you think slavery is wrong, as we all do.

Moral boasting for saying slavery is wrong? Am I also guilty of moral boasting if I say that murder is wrong? Slavery in the old south is part of history and cannot and should not be erased but stand to remind us of how we mistreated other human beings. You have drowned us in reams of information about slavery that seems aimed at showing us that it wasn't really as bad as we think. Scrape away the veneer of that information and you are still left with an activity that claims ownership of another human being.
What other atrocities committed by man against his fellow man can we show wasn't really as bad as we thought? How about the holocaust?

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Moral boasting for saying slavery is wrong? Am I also guilty of moral boasting if I say that murder is wrong? Slavery in the old south is part of history and cannot and should not be erased but stand to remind us of how we mistreated other human beings. You have drowned us in reams of information about slavery that seems aimed at showing us that it wasn't really as bad as we think. Scrape away the veneer of that information and you are still left with an activity that claims ownership of another human being.
What other atrocities committed by man against his fellow man can we show wasn't really as bad as we thought? How about the holocaust?

Once more your understanding is based solely on emotional reaction to the idea of slavery. This thread is on historical slavery in the old south. If you wish to portray your emotional understanding of slavery as rhetorical, than support it. Show how slavery in the old south was like the Holocaust.

Perhaps maybe even you will read a section of my op [say first one] and comment on it. And we can go from there.

 

[DaisyDay]

It does seem like some of your quotes are quote mined, truncated and taken out of context to illustrate your seeming point that slavery was actually beneficial to the slave.

A case in point, John J. Zaborney on slave renting:

...By the 1850s slave hiring was so commonplace that rental agreements were standardized and preprinted, as were insurance policies for hired slaves working in especially dangerous occupations. Drawing on deep archival research and weaving many compelling anecdotes into a coherent whole, Zaborney demonstrates how the hiring process shaped the lives of white Virginians, the enslaved, and the institution of slavery itself....

...Zaborney gives examples of some slaves who earned significant sums of money through incentives for overtime, or turned the competing economic interests of owners and hirers to their own advantage. But he also reports cases in which slaves' attempts to exert agency resulted in whipping or sale as punishment, arguing that slaves' agency remained sharply curtailed in most situations. Moreover, even when slaves successfully used opportunities created by hiring to exert more influence over their own lives, it was generally with the goal of mitigating problems resulting from being hired out in the first place, such as family dislocation and brutal work conditions. As Zaborney shows, slaves always struggled to preserve a level of stability and autonomy in their lives, but hiring created at least as many problems as opportunities.

...Throughout his book, Zaborney touches on connections between slave hiring and the domestic slave trade. Slave owners and hirers viewed renting slaves as an alternative to the domestic slave trade; slaves were more likely to be hired out at least once than they were to be sold; and slaves who created trouble for their owners or hirers might be sold as punishment.
​

Does anyone else see a continuation between slave renting and prisoner renting?

 

[DaisyDay]

“Dey had to feed us an plenty of it, cause us couldnt wuk if dey dident feed us good.”
-Alec Bostwick Georgia Slave Narratives

Slave Narrative of Alec Bostwick | Access Genealogy

“What you talkin’ ’bout Miss? Us didn’t have no money. Sho’ us didn’t. Dey had to feed us an’ plenty of it, ’cause us couldn’t wuk if dey didn’t feed us good.

“Us et cornbread, sweet ‘tatoes, peas, home-made syrup an’ sich lak. De meat wuz fried sometimes, but mos’ of de time it wuz biled wid de greens. All de somethin’ t’eat wuz cooked in de fireplace. Dey didn’t know what stoves wuz in dem days. Yes Ma’am, us went ‘possum huntin’ at night, an’ us had plenty ‘possums too. Dey put sweet ‘tatoes an’ fat meat roun’ ’em, an’ baked ’em in a oven what had eyes on each side of it to put hooks in to take it off de fire wid.

“No Ma’am, us didn’t go fishin’, or rabbit huntin’ nuther. Us had to wuk an’ warn’t no [slave] ‘lowed to do no frolickin’ lak dat in daytime. De white folkses done all de fishin’ an’ daytime huntin’. I don’t ‘member lakin’ no sartin’ somethin’. I wuz jus’ too glad to git anythin’. Slaves didn’t have no gyardens of dey own. Old Marster had one big gyarden what all de slaves et out of.

...“‘Bout dat overseer he wuz a mean man, if one ever lived. He got de slaves up wid a gun at five o’clock an’ wukked ’em ’til way atter sundown, standin’ right over ’em wid a gun all de time. If a [n-word] lagged or tuk his eyes off his wuk, right den an’ dar he would make him strip down his clo’es to his waist, an’ he whup him wid a cat-o-nine tails. Evvy lick dey struck him meant he wuz hit nine times, an’ it fotch da red evvy time it struck.

...“No Ma’am, dey warn’t no schools for de [black enslaved folk] in dem days. If a [black person] wuz seed wid a paper, de white folks would pretty nigh knock his head off him.

...“Miss, in slav’ry time when [slaves] come from de fields at night dey warn’t no frolickin’. Dey jus’ went to sleep. De mens wukked all day Sadday, but de ‘omans knocked off at twelve o’clock to wash an’ sich lak.

...“Chilluns what wuz big enough to wuk didn’t have time in week days to play no games on Marse Bostwick’s place. On Sunday us played wid marbles made out of clay, but dat’s all...

...Yes Ma’am, dere wuz one thing dey wuz good ’bout. When de [slaves] got sick dey sont for de doctor. I heered ’em say dey biled jimson weeds an’ made tea for colds, an’ rhubarb tea wuz to cure worms in chillun. I wuz too young to be bothered ’bout witches an’ charms, Rawhead an’ Bloody Bones an’ sich. I didn’t take it in.

...“When de Ku Kluxers come thoo’, us chillun thought de devil wuz atter us for sho’. I wuz sich a young chap I didn’t take in what dey said ’bout Mr. Abyham Lincoln, an’ Mr. Jeff Davis. Us would a been slaves ’til yit, if Mr. Lincoln hadn’t sot us free. Dey wuz bofe of ’em, good mens. I sho’ had ruther be free. Who wants a gun over ’em lak a prisoner? A pusson is better off dead.
​

 

[DaisyDay]

"Old massa have doctor for us when us sick. We's too val'ble
-Abmstead Barrett Texas Slave narratives

Gutenberg: Abmstead Barrett Texas Slave

"Old massa have doctor for us when us sick. We's too val'ble. Jus' like to de fat beef, massa am good to us. Massa go to other states and git men and women and chile slaves and bring dem back to sell, 'cause he spec'lator. He make dem wash up good and den sell dem.

"Mos' time we'uns went naked. Jus' have on one shirt or no shirt a-tall.

"I know when peace 'clared dey all shoutin'. One woman hollerin' and a white man with de high-steppin' hoss ride clost to her and I see him git out and open he knife and cut her wide 'cross de stomach. Den he put he hat inside he shirt and rid off like lightnin'. De woman put in wagon and I never heered no more 'bout her.

"I didn't git nothin' when us freed. Only some cast-off clothes...
​

 

[DaisyDay]

I saw your whole cut and paste diatbe on CivilWarTalk forum. Are you "1stvermont"? If not, this is plagiarism, not attributing the source. Even there, you can see C&P footnote links with no links, which indicates it was "borrowed" work.

 

[RDKirk]

The whole point of my thread is to show they were not viewed/treated as property. I would like you to read a section and have an actual discussion rather than your moral boasting letting us all know you think slavery is wrong, as we all do.

Eh? I missed the part where you said that slaves were not bought or sold and could quit the "job" and leave when they wanted. Or was that occurring in a different universe?

I missed the part where the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in that different universe.

I missed the part where laws were passed governing the humane treatment of slaves.

I missed the part where if a slave was murdered or raped, the overseer or master was prosecuted for a crime against another human being.

 

[Par5]

Once more your understanding is based solely on emotional reaction to the idea of slavery. This thread is on historical slavery in the old south. If you wish to portray your emotional understanding of slavery as rhetorical, than support it. Show how slavery in the old south was like the Holocaust.

Perhaps maybe even you will read a section of my op [say first one] and comment on it. And we can go from there.

I did not say that slavery in the old south was like the holocaust, I was saying that it was another example of man's cruelty to other human beings just as slavery was.
If as you say you know that slavery is wrong, why are you attempting to cover that period of history with a veneer of respectability?

 

[RDKirk]

I did not say that slavery in the old south was like the holocaust, I was saying that it was another example of man's cruelty to other human beings just as slavery was.
If as you say you know that slavery is wrong, why are you attempting to cover that period of history with a veneer of respectability?

And this is the condemning thing:

Even in Tolkien R.R.J's own version of history, up to the early 1800s American slave owners were well-aware as Christians that they were committing a sin. They even acknowledged they were sinning, and leaned toward abolition.

But in the early 1800s, something drastically changed. That drastic change is marked most often by the invention of the cotton gin, but in fact, the entire moral fabric of the South changed to something darkly evil with gross inhumanity to man as its foundation and strength.

There are some clear signs, for instance:

1. The South began an earnest and self-proclaimed striving for the culture of the ancient Greeks, including the concept of a "slave class ordained by the gods," which is something that had never been part of Christian morality.

2. You can see the heads of people in the south like Thomas Jefferson actually change in their writings from leaning toward abolition to running from it over the course of the first 30 years of the 19th century.

3. By the middle of the 1800s, the sexual depravity of the slave culture--which is what naturally happens when men have absolute control over other men--had resulted in such a large illegitimately mixed slave population (noted by both Northern and European visitors to the South) that Southerns abandoned the racial context and began to keep their records closely by birth-mother. If the mother was a slave, then the child must be a slave regardless of skin color.

IMO, what we see is the incoming of a demonic principality that came to rest over the American southeast, and rests there still. That's the reason we see the southeast in the 21st century with the standard of civilization statistics (economic, health, education, crime, et cetera) of a Third World nation.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

It does seem like some of your quotes are quote mined, truncated and taken out of context to illustrate your seeming point that slavery was actually beneficial to the slave.

A case in point, John J. Zaborney on slave renting:

...By the 1850s slave hiring was so commonplace that rental agreements were standardized and preprinted, as were insurance policies for hired slaves working in especially dangerous occupations. Drawing on deep archival research and weaving many compelling anecdotes into a coherent whole, Zaborney demonstrates how the hiring process shaped the lives of white Virginians, the enslaved, and the institution of slavery itself....

...Zaborney gives examples of some slaves who earned significant sums of money through incentives for overtime, or turned the competing economic interests of owners and hirers to their own advantage. But he also reports cases in which slaves' attempts to exert agency resulted in whipping or sale as punishment, arguing that slaves' agency remained sharply curtailed in most situations. Moreover, even when slaves successfully used opportunities created by hiring to exert more influence over their own lives, it was generally with the goal of mitigating problems resulting from being hired out in the first place, such as family dislocation and brutal work conditions. As Zaborney shows, slaves always struggled to preserve a level of stability and autonomy in their lives, but hiring created at least as many problems as opportunities.

...Throughout his book, Zaborney touches on connections between slave hiring and the domestic slave trade. Slave owners and hirers viewed renting slaves as an alternative to the domestic slave trade; slaves were more likely to be hired out at least once than they were to be sold; and slaves who created trouble for their owners or hirers might be sold as punishment.
​

Does anyone else see a continuation between slave renting and prisoner renting?

I think it a much better idea you read my posts before making claims. Could you show me a quote of mine is "mined, truncated and taken out of context"?


I would like to see the original sources Zaborney is working off but I am unsure as to what in my op you disagree with. Slaves were rented out for hire? yes i said so in my op. Some slaves were whipped, yes i said so in my op. SO I am very unsure as to what you are objecting to here.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Slave Narrative of Alec Bostwick | Access Genealogy

“What you talkin’ ’bout Miss? Us didn’t have no money. Sho’ us didn’t. Dey had to feed us an’ plenty of it, ’cause us couldn’t wuk if dey didn’t feed us good.

“Us et cornbread, sweet ‘tatoes, peas, home-made syrup an’ sich lak. De meat wuz fried sometimes, but mos’ of de time it wuz biled wid de greens. All de somethin’ t’eat wuz cooked in de fireplace. Dey didn’t know what stoves wuz in dem days. Yes Ma’am, us went ‘possum huntin’ at night, an’ us had plenty ‘possums too. Dey put sweet ‘tatoes an’ fat meat roun’ ’em, an’ baked ’em in a oven what had eyes on each side of it to put hooks in to take it off de fire wid.

“No Ma’am, us didn’t go fishin’, or rabbit huntin’ nuther. Us had to wuk an’ warn’t no [slave] ‘lowed to do no frolickin’ lak dat in daytime. De white folkses done all de fishin’ an’ daytime huntin’. I don’t ‘member lakin’ no sartin’ somethin’. I wuz jus’ too glad to git anythin’. Slaves didn’t have no gyardens of dey own. Old Marster had one big gyarden what all de slaves et out of.

...“‘Bout dat overseer he wuz a mean man, if one ever lived. He got de slaves up wid a gun at five o’clock an’ wukked ’em ’til way atter sundown, standin’ right over ’em wid a gun all de time. If a [n-word] lagged or tuk his eyes off his wuk, right den an’ dar he would make him strip down his clo’es to his waist, an’ he whup him wid a cat-o-nine tails. Evvy lick dey struck him meant he wuz hit nine times, an’ it fotch da red evvy time it struck.

...“No Ma’am, dey warn’t no schools for de [black enslaved folk] in dem days. If a [black person] wuz seed wid a paper, de white folks would pretty nigh knock his head off him.

...“Miss, in slav’ry time when [slaves] come from de fields at night dey warn’t no frolickin’. Dey jus’ went to sleep. De mens wukked all day Sadday, but de ‘omans knocked off at twelve o’clock to wash an’ sich lak.

...“Chilluns what wuz big enough to wuk didn’t have time in week days to play no games on Marse Bostwick’s place. On Sunday us played wid marbles made out of clay, but dat’s all...

...Yes Ma’am, dere wuz one thing dey wuz good ’bout. When de [slaves] got sick dey sont for de doctor. I heered ’em say dey biled jimson weeds an’ made tea for colds, an’ rhubarb tea wuz to cure worms in chillun. I wuz too young to be bothered ’bout witches an’ charms, Rawhead an’ Bloody Bones an’ sich. I didn’t take it in.

...“When de Ku Kluxers come thoo’, us chillun thought de devil wuz atter us for sho’. I wuz sich a young chap I didn’t take in what dey said ’bout Mr. Abyham Lincoln, an’ Mr. Jeff Davis. Us would a been slaves ’til yit, if Mr. Lincoln hadn’t sot us free. Dey wuz bofe of ’em, good mens. I sho’ had ruther be free. Who wants a gun over ’em lak a prisoner? A pusson is better off dead.
​

Agreed, I picked him on purpose [as my other quoted on food] to prove my point. Even those who had bad masters and were treated horribly, still were fed well. Thus the common belief slaves were not fed well is false. My point is true from my op

"To purchase an expensive slave and not feed them, would not give the purchaser a return on their purchase. As owners knew, slaves need energy to work. If you underfed them, then you would lose out on their potential production."

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Gutenberg: Abmstead Barrett Texas Slave

"Old massa have doctor for us when us sick. We's too val'ble. Jus' like to de fat beef, massa am good to us. Massa go to other states and git men and women and chile slaves and bring dem back to sell, 'cause he spec'lator. He make dem wash up good and den sell dem.

"Mos' time we'uns went naked. Jus' have on one shirt or no shirt a-tall.

"I know when peace 'clared dey all shoutin'. One woman hollerin' and a white man with de high-steppin' hoss ride clost to her and I see him git out and open he knife and cut her wide 'cross de stomach. Den he put he hat inside he shirt and rid off like lightnin'. De woman put in wagon and I never heered no more 'bout her.

"I didn't git nothin' when us freed. Only some cast-off clothes...
​

Once more I pick on purpose examples of bad conditions in slavery to show that even with poor masters, they received good medical care [just as they did food] thus another common belief is false.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

I saw your whole cut and paste diatbe on CivilWarTalk forum. Are you "1stvermont"? If not, this is plagiarism, not attributing the source. Even there, you can see C&P footnote links with no links, which indicates it was "borrowed" work.

Yes I am 1stvermont among other names. Please take the time to read my op and understand it, I dont think you will find anything historical/factual to object to.

I am unsure as to the claim of "borrowed work" unless of course you meant from my own usb drive. Other than that please specify and be specific.

How are things at civil war talk? you can be pro south, but you are not allowed to refute the pro north posters or they ban you.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Eh? I missed the part where you said that slaves were not bought or sold and could quit the "job" and leave when they wanted. Or was that occurring in a different universe?

I missed the part where the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in that different universe.

I missed the part where laws were passed governing the humane treatment of slaves.

I missed the part where if a slave was murdered or raped, the overseer or master was prosecuted for a crime against another human being.

Fear no more, see my op. You missed it because you did not read my op.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

I did not say that slavery in the old south was like the holocaust, I was saying that it was another example of man's cruelty to other human beings just as slavery was.
If as you say you know that slavery is wrong, why are you attempting to cover that period of history with a veneer of respectability?

why are you refusing to view slavery as it was historically and instead hold to your emotional imagination of what slavery is? further and worse, why forse me to accept your emotional/imaginative view of slavery and not have a truthful [we are Christians after all] understanding of slavery. Trust me, I am libertarian, I dont think slavery is good, but I also dont react on emotion.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

And this is the condemning thing:

Even in Tolkien R.R.J's own version of history, up to the early 1800s American slave owners were well-aware as Christians that they were committing a sin. They even acknowledged they were sinning, and leaned toward abolition.

But in the early 1800s, something drastically changed. That drastic change is marked most often by the invention of the cotton gin, but in fact, the entire moral fabric of the South changed to something darkly evil with gross inhumanity to man as its foundation and strength.

There are some clear signs, for instance:

1. The South began an earnest and self-proclaimed striving for the culture of the ancient Greeks, including the concept of a "slave class ordained by the gods," which is something that had never been part of Christian morality.

2. You can see the heads of people in the south like Thomas Jefferson actually change in their writings from leaning toward abolition to running from it over the course of the first 30 years of the 19th century.

3. By the middle of the 1800s, the sexual depravity of the slave culture--which is what naturally happens when men have absolute control over other men--had resulted in such a large illegitimately mixed slave population (noted by both Northern and European visitors to the South) that Southerns abandoned the racial context and began to keep their records closely by birth-mother. If the mother was a slave, then the child must be a slave regardless of skin color.

IMO, what we see is the incoming of a demonic principality that came to rest over the American southeast, and rests there still. That's the reason we see the southeast in the 21st century with the standard of civilization statistics (economic, health, education, crime, et cetera) of a Third World nation.

And this is why I post these threads so we can get rid of the lies [demonic] in our imagination and thought and shed some truth on the south.

Heresyphobia- Fear of deviation from traditional doctrine
Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge
Phronemophobia- Fear of thinking

“It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War, will be impressed by all influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for their derision.”
-Major General Patrick Cleburne, C.S.A. Jan. 2, 1864

“Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history or denies them their symbols, has sown the seeds of their own destruction.”
-Sir William Wallace, 1281

 

[RDKirk]

And this is why I post these threads so we can get rid of the lies [demonic] in our imagination and thought and shed some truth on the south.

Heresyphobia- Fear of deviation from traditional doctrine
Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge
Phronemophobia- Fear of thinking

“It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War, will be impressed by all influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for their derision.”
-Major General Patrick Cleburne, C.S.A. Jan. 2, 1864

“Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history or denies them their symbols, has sown the seeds of their own destruction.”
-Sir William Wallace, 1281

And that is why Texas schools are teaching that slaves were merely "immigrant workers."

 

[DaisyDay]

Agreed, I picked him on purpose [as my other quoted on food] to prove my point. Even those who had bad masters and were treated horribly, still were fed well. Thus the common belief slaves were not fed well is false. My point is true from my op

They were fattened up for market. This is one account which counts as anecdotal evidence, not proof that these slaves were well fed, not that all slaves or slaves in general were.

Is that actually a common belief?

"To purchase an expensive slave and not feed them, would not give the purchaser a return on their purchase. As owners knew, slaves need energy to work. If you underfed them, then you would lose out on their potential production."

So your point is that slaves on a plantation were better fed than forced laborers in a concentration camp?

 

[DaisyDay]

I think it a much better idea you read my posts before making claims. Could you show me a quote of mine is "mined, truncated and taken out of context"?

I think I've shown that with links that anyone can read for themselves.

I would like to see the original sources Zaborney is working off but I am unsure as to what in my op you disagree with. Slaves were rented out for hire? yes i said so in my op. Some slaves were whipped, yes i said so in my op. SO I am very unsure as to what you are objecting to here.

I'm objecting to your quote-mining slave narratives to try to make it look as though slavery were a good thing for the slaves.