400 Years of African Slavery in America

[Bootstrap]

Most of us grew up with a carefully sanitized American history that mostly leaves black people out of everything before Frederick Douglass.

I would hope history is being taught in a more balanced way these days. I certainly grew up being taught the "carefully sanitized" version when I went to public school in the mid 60's.
I especially remember the Virginia History book we had in the 4th grade. It must have been written by some Confederate sympathizers. It championed "states rights" as being a perfectly good reason to fight a civil war. (the war really wasn't about slavery, so the book said) Northern soldiers were portrayed as doltish and not very bright. While the boys in grey were smart and dashing and with a high sense of honor about defending their native land. In all the early battles (which were mostly fought in VA) the Rebs had the best strategy and usually won the battles with less men and less casualties.
It was crazy; while I knew and felt that slavery was was evil and wrong, I found myself rooting for the Rebels.
That was VA history, the "sanitized version" in 1966.

I grew up in the North. Our version of history portrayed Northerners as almost completely innocent, minimized racism, said that we went to war to free the slaves in the Civil war, etc. None of that was true.

It mentioned Frederick Douglass and George Washington Carver and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, but I suspect even my history teachers did not know the history of slavery in the 1600s and 1700s, and they certainly did not teach how it affected the Constitutional Conventions and the formation of the Constitution.

And it told the story of slavery almost completely in the context of the Civil War, ignoring earlier history. We did not learn about white slavery in early America or how slavery changed from the 1600s to the 1800s, or that slavery continued in parts of the South after the Civil War despite the change in laws.

How much of this is covered in CLP publications or home school history books?

[Bootstrap]

In the early 1600s, if a white man had children with an enslaved woman, the children were free because English Common Law said that the status of the children was bound to the status of the father.

In 1658, Elizabeth Key, daughter of a white man, sued for her freedom and the freedom of her son. She won.

Prior to the adoption of the doctrine in the English colonies in 1662, beginning in Virginia, English common law had held that among English subjects, a child's basic legal status followed the father, based on the concept that a married couple were a unit headed by the father. The community could require the father to acknowledge illegitimate children and provide some support for them, and arrange for apprenticeships so the children were assured of learning a means of self-support. Courts wanted the fathers to take responsibility so the community did not have to support the children.

In 1658 Elizabeth Key was the first woman of African descent to bring a freedom suit in the Virginia colony, seeking recognition as a free woman of color, rather than being classified as a Negro (African) and slave. Her natural father was an Englishman and a member of the House of Burgesses. He had acknowledged her, had her baptized as a Christian in the Church of England, and arranged for her guardianship under an indenture before his death. Her guardian returned to England and sold the indenture to another man, who held Key beyond its term. When he died, the estate classified Key and her child (also the son of an English subject) as Negro slaves. Aided by a young English lawyer working as an indentured servant on the plantation, Key sued for her freedom and that of her infant son. She won her case.

Then they changed the law so that the mother's status determined the child's status.

That meant the children of a slave mother were slaves. And it meant that impregnating slave women was a profitable way to increase your wealth, producing more human beings for a master to own.

[Szdfan]

Good a article on teaching the history of slavery in schools:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educatio ... y-schools/

A range of critics — historians, educators, civil rights activists — want to change how schools teach the subject. The evidence of slavery’s legacy is all around us, they say, pointing to the persistence of segregation in schools, the gaping racial disparities in income and wealth, and the damage done to black families by the U.S. criminal justice system. According to a 2018 report to the United Nations by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates reducing racial disparities in prison sentences, American judges will send one in three black boys born in 2001 to prison in their lifetimes, compared with one in 17 white boys born the same year.


The failure to educate students about slavery prevents a full and honest reckoning with its ongoing cost in America. Teaching the truth about slavery, critics argue, could help remedy that. But that means acknowledging and exploring slavery’s depravity. It means telling the personal stories of enslaved people, the physical and psychological cruelty they endured, the sexual violence inflicted upon them, the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children.

Throughout the 20th century, textbooks often glossed over slavery, treating it not as central to the American story but as an unfortunate blemish washed away by the blood of the Civil War. Students rarely learned that slavery had for a time been prevalent in the North or that the economy of the North was long reliant on the South’s slave-labor production. The enslavement of Native Americans, which predates the arrival of the first enslaved Africans, was mentioned only in passing, if at all.


Many baby boomers were fed tales in school that masked the reality of slavery. Some teaching even emphasized the idea that Africans brought here in chains were actually better off.

The article goes on to describe how many textbooks in the 1950’s-70’s downplayed the evils of slavery and portrayed the benevolence of slave holders. This misinformation was deliberate. Even though a lot of misinformation has been removed from textbooks over past couple of decades, the history of slavery is often relegated as a side note and students are not taught it’s context and ramifications.

[Bootstrap]

Good a article on teaching the history of slavery in schools:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educatio ... y-schools/

A range of critics — historians, educators, civil rights activists — want to change how schools teach the subject. The evidence of slavery’s legacy is all around us, they say, pointing to the persistence of segregation in schools, the gaping racial disparities in income and wealth, and the damage done to black families by the U.S. criminal justice system. According to a 2018 report to the United Nations by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates reducing racial disparities in prison sentences, American judges will send one in three black boys born in 2001 to prison in their lifetimes, compared with one in 17 white boys born the same year.


I'm actually a little uncomfortable with that paragraph. I don't think there's a direct connection between slavery and modern segregation, and I don't think that the history of slavery is the reason that black boys are more likely to wind up in jail. I agree that in some ways these are legacies of slavery, but the connection is a whole lot more complex than that paragraph implies, and I suspect that a lot of other factors are involved. These are also things I would rather discuss in another thread, though, because I think they get in the way of having a straightforward discussion of the history of slavery itself.

The failure to educate students about slavery prevents a full and honest reckoning with its ongoing cost in America. Teaching the truth about slavery, critics argue, could help remedy that. But that means acknowledging and exploring slavery’s depravity. It means telling the personal stories of enslaved people, the physical and psychological cruelty they endured, the sexual violence inflicted upon them, the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children.

This I agree with completely. And I'd like to see that in this thread. And not just the cruelty but also other aspects of the lives of slaves. Paul Jennings is important because of his biography on Madison, and his concern for Dolley's welfare even after he was no longer her slave is touching. If we look only at the cruelty of slavery, we miss out on who these people were. At Montpelier, they have a presentation that points out that slaves often did the same skilled work as free men, making and repairing wheels, building carts, supervising work crews, doing skilled building work, etc.

Montpelier and Monticello and many other national sites are now telling the stories of individual slaves by name, filling in the details, rebuilding their slave quarters so we can see how they lived. I think that's important.

Throughout the 20th century, textbooks often glossed over slavery, treating it not as central to the American story but as an unfortunate blemish washed away by the blood of the Civil War. Students rarely learned that slavery had for a time been prevalent in the North or that the economy of the North was long reliant on the South’s slave-labor production. The enslavement of Native Americans, which predates the arrival of the first enslaved Africans, was mentioned only in passing, if at all.


Many baby boomers were fed tales in school that masked the reality of slavery. Some teaching even emphasized the idea that Africans brought here in chains were actually better off.

That's certainly true of what I learned in high school in the 1970s.

Doing careful history is a lot like doing careful Bible study. It helps you see what is there to learn from. If you have a distorted view of history, it changes the lessons you draw from it.

[Robert]

A lot has been written recently about the failures of Reconstruction after the Civil War and the ways that control and power dynamics of slavery continued, even though it was legally outlawed, such as sharecropping and the use of prison labor.

A lot is ignored of Eugenics and Woodrow Wilson who segregated and pushed racial divisions back 50+ years. Before him, the military and most structures were not segregated. He was a strong supporter of eugenics and implemented segregation in government systems. This removed any healing and progress made to that time.

Margaret Sanger and many other "intellectual leaders" of that time were strong supporters of eugenics. I would say they actually returned the country back to almost a slave mentality. One has to see others as inferior to justify enslavement. Eugenics was just another tool to do so. I think more racial issues in modern society comes from the aftermath of eugenics then the civil war and slavery. The progressives have tried to hide eugenics and its impact by pointing back to slavery. I don't think we have to look so far back.

[Dan Z]

That meant the children of a slave mother were slaves. And it meant that impregnating slave women was a profitable way to increase your wealth, producing more human beings for a master to own.

From bad to worse. You could do with property whatever you'd like - property is yours. It has no rights - no agency - no dignity.

This is where the talks of historical context falls short for me. Slavery, whether in the day of the Bible's Abraham or our own President Abraham, has always been a societal evil. Millions throughout history have lived and died as property, used and abused, totally at the mercy of their masters. To point out that it was normative historically certainly implicates us all, but takes nothing away from it's cruelty or wrongness. Nor does Paul's encouragement to be a good slave or a moral slave-owner. He was moving people in the right direction for sure, but ultimately slavery has never been compatible with the teachings of Christ. Never.

[RZehr]

Rising belief in evolution made racism acceptable. The time frame shouldn’t be ignored. What a beautiful theory to protect and increase wealth.

[Sudsy]

That meant the children of a slave mother were slaves. And it meant that impregnating slave women was a profitable way to increase your wealth, producing more human beings for a master to own.

From bad to worse. You could do with property whatever you'd like - property is yours. It has no rights - no agency - no dignity.

This is where the talks of historical context falls short for me. Slavery, whether in the day of the Bible's Abraham or our own President Abraham, has always been a societal evil. Millions throughout history have lived and died as property, used and abused, totally at the mercy of their masters. To point out that it was normative historically certainly implicates us all, but takes nothing away from it's cruelty or wrongness. Nor does Paul's encouragement to be a good slave or a moral slave-owner. He was moving people in the right direction for sure, but ultimately slavery has never been compatible with the teachings of Christ. Never.

Imo, Jesus would not agree to the acts in a slave system where abuses occur and that is what is in conflict with His teachings. There are married women treated as slaves, within Christianity, but it is not the state of marriage that is the problem. We all are 'slaves' to some extent just by being employed to make a living. It is the abuses that can and do occur in a boss/master and slave/employee relationship that is not compatible with Jesus teachings.

When it comes to the spiritual side, repeating what John MacArthur said -

"When you give somebody the gospel, you are saying to them, “I would like to invite you to become a slave of Jesus Christ. I would like to invite you to give up your independence, give up your freedom, submit yourself to an alien will, abandon all your rights, be owned by, controlled by the Lord.” That’s really the gospel.

We know in being a slave of Jesus Christ, we will never be abused by the Master but we do go against His teachings and that is incompatible with being obedient.

I think when we hear the word 'slave' we automatically think of abuse. Not all slaves are or have been abused and some once set free chose to remain as 'slaves'. However, since man is a sinner and because of this he does not handle authority well and most often will take advantage where he is given or allowed control. Many Christian wives have given testimony to the abuse they were under.

The answer is chosing to be a slave of Christ and loving as He loves us. Our mission is to show the way out of the abuses of darkness into the freedom and blessings of obedience to our loving Master.

[Dan Z]

Can't argue with your point Sudsy...because of his perfection, bond-service to Christ is where I want to live.

In human terms however, I absolutely won't defend or justify slavery. The golden rule is enough for me to get there. It has never worked justly at the macro-level, and I'm glad the western world has grown beyond endorsing it. Now, it needs to be routed out of the underworld as well.

[Szdfan]

A lot has been written recently about the failures of Reconstruction after the Civil War and the ways that control and power dynamics of slavery continued, even though it was legally outlawed, such as sharecropping and the use of prison labor.

A lot is ignored of Eugenics and Woodrow Wilson who segregated and pushed racial divisions back 50+ years. Before him, the military and most structures were not segregated. He was a strong supporter of eugenics and implemented segregation in government systems. This removed any healing and progress made to that time.

Margaret Sanger and many other "intellectual leaders" of that time were strong supporters of eugenics. I would say they actually returned the country back to almost a slave mentality. One has to see others as inferior to justify enslavement. Eugenics was just another tool to do so. I think more racial issues in modern society comes from the aftermath of eugenics then the civil war and slavery. The progressives have tried to hide eugenics and its impact by pointing back to slavery. I don't think we have to look so far back.

I don't understand why 19th and early 20th Century racism has to be turned into a partisan issue. Racist assumptions about the supremacy of whites were widespread in US society. This includes both progressives and conservatives. Eugenics is an expression of racism already prevalent in the culture that attempts to do "science" using fundamentally incorrect and racist assumptions. I'm not downplaying it's impact, but it seems strange to center on progressives and eugenics as a primary cause for segregation and racial inequality considering all of the other factors and forces in US society prior to Wilson that were enforcing and re-enforcing this inequality.

I think the idea that there had been all kinds of healing and progress prior to Wilson is flawed.

So I'm not downplaying the role that Wilson played in promoting and entrenching segregation -- the segregation of the military and federal government deepened the racial inequalities that already existed. I'm not downplaying the role that eugenics played in deepening racial inequalities and the further damage this pseudoscience caused in places like Nazi Germany.

What I am saying is that it's also true that segregation precedes Wilson and Sanger.

The first "Black Codes" that restricted the freedoms of former slaves were passed in the South in 1865 and 1866 following the Civil War:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cod ... ed_States)

In the first two years after the Civil War, white-dominated southern legislatures passed Black Codes modeled after the earlier slave codes. They were particularly concerned with controlling movement and labor of freedmen, as slavery had been replaced by a free labor system. Although freedmen had been emancipated, their lives were greatly restricted by the Black Codes.

The term Black Codes was given by "negro leaders and the Republican organs", according to historian John S. Reynolds. The defining feature of the Black Codes was broad vagrancy law, which allowed local authorities to arrest freedpeople for minor infractions and commit them to involuntary labor. This period was the start of the convict lease system, also described as "slavery by another name" by Douglas Blackmon in his 2008 book on this topic.

I highly recommend the documentary "13th" on Netflix which examines how a loophole in the 13th Amendment is used by the prison system for convict labor.

I don't think there's a direct connection between slavery and modern segregation, and I don't think that the history of slavery is the reason that black boys are more likely to wind up in jail.

Boot, I'd point to the history of convict labor as a possible connection between slavery and contemporary racial injustice. I'd be willing to rewatch the documentary and discuss it with anyone who's interested.

Back to the topic at hand, the 1877 removal of federal troops from the South (often called "The Great Compromise" or "The Great Betrayal") was one of the major reasons that reforms attempted by Reconstruction failed. It's during the 1870's and 80's that Jim Crow and the legal doctrine of "separate but equal" emerged that codified legal segregation though out the South (The term "Jim Crow" was first used in 1892).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Blacks were still elected to local offices throughout the 1880s, but their voting was suppressed for state and national elections. Democrats passed laws to make voter registration and electoral rules more restrictive, with the result that political participation by most blacks and many poor whites began to decrease. Between 1890 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states, starting with Mississippi, passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements. Grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate whites to vote but gave no relief to most blacks.

Again, I'm not dismissing to downplaying the harm that Wilson, Sanger and others caused, but I seem them more as a continuation of the disenfranchisement of African-Americans rather than some sort of new turn or change from the direction the United States was already moving in. In 1903, W.E.B DuBois prophetically wrote in The Souls of Black Folk that the "problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." He wrote this almost a decade before Wilson was elected into office.