Black Confederates

phxnews ^ | January 8, 2004 | Charles Goodson

[AnAmericanMother]

Nimrod Washington had six or seven sisters but only one brother, whose name was Lunceford or Lunsford - either your local Longs are descended from him or from one of his uncles - there were four or five of those, and I'm sure some never felt the urge to migrate westward . . . :-D

[AnAmericanMother]

I've seen the York House - on the right as you go up IIRC - but never stayed there. Didn't realize there was a log cabin in the middle of it though! Next time we go through, we'll stop and take a look. I love old houses. Some of our family's houses still survive in East Alabama, it's very interesting to look at the way things were built in those days.

[x]

The war was in great part about slavery. But anyone who says it was ALL about slavery is a victim of liberal education, or a liar.

I don't think anyone has said or believes that every soldier who fought in the Civil War did so because they were fighting for or against slavery. For the most part, soldiers fight for home, family, friends, and native land. They fight because it becomes a question of "them against us." Many soldiers on both sides fought for ideas of freedom, as well.

But these reasons apply to every war, so they don't explain why wars are fought. To figure that out we need to look at the speeches of statesmen, newspapers, books, laws and debates. There were other issues. Events and passions had their own momentum, and people were drawn into war for the union or their section by emotion and reaction to provocations and changing circumstances. But if we want or need to find a root cause, slavery is a good one. Slavery and the conflicts over its defense and expansion were the chief reason for the first secessions, and secession sparked the war.

So, I don't think anyone's said that slavery was the only reason for the war, save perhaps in this sense: the US wouldn't have become a country so divided that intersectional war was possible if it hadn't been for an issue as divisive as slavery. It's hard to realistically think of another issue that could have destroyed the political system to the point where the country would split into two hostile nations facing off against each other. Though even here, one could argue that it wasn't slavery alone that did this and that something like the territorial question and the way it was botched were necessary to bring things to the point of war.

Some say "it wasn't all about slavery" as a prelude to simply brushing slavery aside as an issue, and making the war about something else. A lot of these people aren't so much interested in what happened and why, as in ideas of guilt and innocence, sin and purity, moral equivalence and moral superiority. Such issues can hardly be avoided, but it helps to know if people are arguing about different things while thinking that they are debating each other. So often the real argument isn't about what caused the Civil War, but about "my ancestors were better (or no worse) than your ancestors."

[U S Army EOD]

I know I can read the caption on the image.

One of the worst things the slave ships used to do was keep the entire human cargo attached to one chain. They would run this to one of the ships anchors and have a cut out in the hull. If they were being chased by a ship intent on enforcing the anti slave laws they would drop the anchor pulling the entire cargo out with it into the ocean. Nice folks.

Bulley Hayes was one of the most notorious of the American slave traders. The entire system from the time they were captured until they finally made it was brutal and inhuman beyond belief.

[U S Army EOD]

Everyone has and opinion on this. From my research, I have concluded that the War was basically about States Rights but one of the major parts on the States Rights was based on if the state would be a Slave State or a Free State. The fact of the state being a free or slave state would determine the economy of the state and therefore support the idea the war was about slavery.

I think the major problem we are talking about is trying to determine on how the slaves were treated. When you discuss morality, you have to discuss the morality of the time then and not now. Most of the individuals who owned slaves regardless of the race of the individual seemed to see no problem with it which is another confusing issue for everyone. By the LOCAL standards of yesteryear, these people were not villians but they were to others during that time and to us over 100 years later that don't really know how life was then. It was basically difficult for everybody.

[mac_truck]

I know I can read the caption on the image.

And yet that knowlege didn't prevent you from fabricating that it was a Yankee ship from Nantucket anyway, did it?

A little southern bias goes a long way I guess.

[U S Army EOD]

Goes both ways, since it was implied these people were treated the same way on the slave ships as they were on the plantations, with the original statement being that medical care was available on the plantations.

The questions from you was if the medical care on the slave ship was a representation on how well the slaves were treated on the plantations.

Would you be willing to give me $10.00 for every ship that did operate out of Nantucket that did carry slaves? Have you ever been to the Whaling Museum on Nantucket? I was there when I sailed my 24' sailboat, "Georgia Peach I" up there off shore from Annapolis, MD in 1971. We flew the Confederate Battle Flag on her as we went into the harbor but were not carrying any contraband human cargo during in the trip in case you are suspecting I might do so.

[AnAmericanMother]

He didn't say it was; he said it looked like.

If you're going to call somebody a liar, make sure you're accurate.

His point, I think, still stands - most of the Triangle Trade was conducted by New Englanders. Certainly there were Englishmen (early on) and Southerners (later on) involved, but if you look at the bulk of the slave trade in the most active years it was slaves-sugar-rum and New England was one corner of the triangle and running most of (not all) the ships. And remember until 1776 the Americans were trading under the British flag . . .

NEWPORT, R.I. & TRIANGLE TRADE: THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE RHODE ISLAND SLAVE TRADE *An estimated 59,070 slaves were taken by Newport Slavers prior to the American Revolution. An estimated 15 million were taken to the West in total. Between 1709 and 1807, Rhode Island merchants sponsored at least 934 slaving voyages to the coast of Africa. Their ships carried an estimated 106,544 Africans from their homeland to the New World (Coughtry). Of the 421 Rhode Island slavers tabulated for the period of 1784 to 1807, 402 or 95% can be identified today by port of ownership. Three hundred and ninety-seven (98.8%) of the vessels were registered in one of the following Rhode Island towns: Bristol, Newport, Providence, and Warren. The remaining vessels were owned by merchants in Little Compton, or North Kingstown. Together, Newport and Bristol accounted for 318 African voyages, or 79.2% of post war trade which they shared equally (Coughtry). Each financed 159 ventures or 39.6% of the joint total. Providence made 55 trips, 13.74% of the total, and tiny Warren, R.I. made 24 trips with 6% of the share (Coughtry). All together, 204 different Rhode Island citizens owned a share or more in a slave voyage at one time or another. It is evident that the involvement of R.I. citizens in the slave trade was widespread and abundant. For Rhode Islanders, slavery had provided a major new profit sector and an engine for trade in the West Indies.

Read all about it here. From Providence College in Rhode Island. Not exactly a bastion of "southern bias."

[mac_truck]

Are you willing to give me $10.00 for every one of these devices?

[mac_truck]

Ran away, Joe Dennis. Has a small notch in one of his ears.`

`Ran away, negro boy, Jack. Has a small crop out of his left ear.`

`Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory. Has a small piece cut out of the top of each ear.`

Those ear notches must have been part of the excellent medical attention those plantation owners gave their african workers

[U S Army EOD]

No way, because they were used a lot along with much worse devices.

The point of the original thread was if Blacks fought for the South. I don't think there is any doubt that a number did, but not as many that were willing to fight for the North. I am sure that the vast majority of the slaves living in Georgia were a lot happier to see Sherman's Army coming than ones living in Pennsylvania were to see Lee's Army coming.

You seem to want to imply that everyone who owned slaves or saw a black in the South wanted to torture the poor guy or tie him to the whipping post. Also this was the only part of the country giving the blacks a raw deal during that time frame.

It was going on everywhere in the world for the black man at that time with the worse probably being in Africa itself. That is basically just the way thing were.

Like it or not, based on the circumstances, the living conditions for slaves in sections of the South was better than industrial workers in the North. The difference was that the slaves did not have freedom of choice and were treated as property instead of free men.

Even the so called free blacks were not treated equally in the South or any other place in the United States. Being black was not good where ever you lived.

[mac_truck]

He didn't say it was; he said it looked like.

And when I corrected him the first time, he also said 'I know I read the caption'.

If you're going to call somebody a liar, make sure you're accurate.

If I show you an image of a slave deck and you say "that looks like a Yankee ship from Nantucket" when you know its actually a slave deck from an English ship, then you are either showing your southern bias by fabricating or doing your best Bill Clinton impression. Take your pick.

While your factoids regarding Rhode Island are interesting, the last time I checked, Nantucket was a part of Massachusetts, not RI.

[mac_truck]

It was going on everywhere in the world for the black man at that time with the worse probably being in Africa itself.

Vermont amended its constitution to ban slavery in 1777. Other Northern states emancipated their slaves and banned the institution: Pennsylvania, 1780; Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 1783; Connecticut and Rhode Island, 1784; New York, 1799.

While some of the state laws stipulated gradual emancipation, ear notching and iron collars were not used.

I am well aware that neither you or I had anything personally to do with slavery, but you'd be well advised to transcend the myth regarding the benevolence of that peculiar institution.

[U S Army EOD]

Just because the Northen States banned slavery doesn't mean blacks were treated well. You need to get over the fact that the entire South was not like in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". This seems to be the image you want to portray.

[U S Army EOD]

I was just trying to lower myself down to your level, bubba, so we could talk about things.

[mac_truck]

How ironic. Stowe was sympathetic to the situation of the average southerner with regard to slavery. Simon Legree was a transplanted Yankee, not a southerner. This fact was not lost on those who read the book. Its one of the reasons it was so sucessful in changing northern attitudes.

Too bad it got banned in the south.

[Smokin' Joe]

In my youth I recall blacks and whites not only "getting along", but working together and posessing mutual respect. That was the early 1960's.

Then liberal anti-white racism started in, and there has been Hell to pay ever since.

Funny, we were 'integrated' in school for seven years when the Yankees in Boston were burning busses so their children didn't have to go to school with black kids.

Seems they can't stomach the idea that Southern whites and blacks got along with a few execptions, when in the North, the converse seemed to be the case.

[U S Army EOD]

I see your point, I can certainly see where the jaws of a narrow mind could snap shut on something like that. I learn something every day.

[mac_truck]

right back atcha.

[U S Army EOD]

I had the same experince growing up, or maybe I dreamed it. The first civil rights demonstrations in Lincolnton, Georgia came to an abrupt end when all the local whites and blacks got together and threw the outsiders out. This made national news about 1967.

When I moved to New Jersey in 1967, I caught hell all the time from blacks because I had a Georgia tag on my car. I could stop and try to get gas but when the attendent happened to see my tag, I would not get service.

On the other hand when I broke down on I 295 a car stops after hundreds had passed me, which happened to be some black guy from Georgia who saw my tag. He said he just had to help out someone from home. My being from Georgia is the only reason he stopped.

The guy who I hung with at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ was a black LT from New Orleans. We seemed to have the most in common.

During my first trip to Baltimore, God knows how many down and out blacks I saw on the street I stopped and bought a meal for. I had never witnessed anything like that in my home town with people in need not getting help.

I guess it has something to do with the values you are raised with.