New England Slavery
I first learned about the American south at school in the American north.
In the north, it was a pretty simple story: slavery built the south into an agricultural powerhouse; religious forces in the north agitated for abolition; a growing industrial economy in the north soon dwarfed the southern plantation industry; southerners held on to an immoral, inhumane, utterly evil institution until the north came down with superior military might and smashed the old order.More or less, that's the story as it's usually told.
But Francine Latour, at Boston.com, has a fascinating adjustment to the storyline. In a review of Anne Farrow's book, Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, she retells this almost too-perfect story:
In the year 1755, a black slave named Mark Codman plotted to kill his abusive master. A God-fearing man, Codman had resolved to use poison, reasoning that if he could kill without shedding blood, it would be no sin. Arsenic in hand, he and two female slaves poisoned the tea and porridge of John Codman repeatedly. The plan worked—but like so many stories of slave rebellion, this one ended in brutal death for the slaves as well. After a trial by jury, Mark Codman was hanged, tarred, and then suspended in a metal gibbet on the main road to town, where his body remained for more than 20 years.
It sounds like a classic account of Southern slavery. But Codman’s body didn’t hang in Savannah, Ga.; it hung in present-day Somerville, Mass. And the reason we know just how long Mark the slave was left on view is that Paul Revere passed it on his midnight ride. In a fleeting mention from Revere’s account, the horseman described galloping past “Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains.”
When it comes to slavery, the story that New England has long told itself goes like this: Slavery happened in the South, and it ended thanks to the North.
Ordinarily, I don't like this kind of we're-all-guilty historicizing. But the New England attitude is so smug, so carefully tended, that's it's refreshing to prick the pompous bubble. School textbooks usually stick to the party line: New England = Thanksgiving, Minutemen, and Patriots; The South = Racism, Slavery, and Blood Money. That distinction continues to this day.
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Jul '10
Re: New England Slavery
In my personal website, I have excerpts from the Book The War Between the Union and the Confedreacy by Col. Oats published in the late 1800's
In an article by Comodor Murray http://www.jaydee007.net/Alabama4/Causes_Part_2.htm
You learn that those Altruistic Northerners who looked down their noses at the Southerners sold their slaves to the south when slavery was becoming economically unviable in the north. Then with the slave populaton simply a remenant and all profits having been made, they condemned the south for not beeing as progressive (for lack of a better word) as the north.
(See also http://www.jaydee007.net/Alabama4/Causes_Part_1.htm for more enlightening views regarding causes of the Civil War.)
Jun '10
Re: New England Slavery
One of my colleagues at school invites his students to examine an insurance policy sold to a slave owner covering the loss of his property. In this case the property happens to be a human being. And where would you find these insurance companies that profited indirectly from slavery? If you guessed New England, you would be correct.
Aug '10
Re: New England Slavery
As a Southerner whose ancestry in the South stretches back to the 1600s in North Carolina, whose namesake, my maternal great-great grandfather, along with his brother, was a Confederate captain, among other ancestors in the Confederacy, this is an issue I have personally struggled with for many years, slavery and feeling guilty for something I had nothing to do with.
Similarly, my paternal great-great grandfather was Mayor of Portsmouth during the recent unpleasantness and although I knew he had remained a staunch Union man, I only recently learned he taught Sunday School to slave children pre-war (illegally) and right after Fort Sumter, he traveled to Washington where he met with Lincoln, urging that troops be sent to Portsmouth and Norfolk to protect the Naval yards. I have finally realized I am guilty for my own sins, not those of any of my ancestors nor am I credited with any righteous acts of my ancestors.
Our society too often seeks first to blame and never to understand the past and we paint with a broad brush seeking to explain the world in the simplest ways as possible, without any nuanced understanding.
Edited on Sep 29, 2010 at 7:05amJul '10
Re: New England Slavery
Every time the topic is slavery, it's presented as if it began Here in the U.S. The conversation never goes any further back. Why not keep going back across the shores before Her founding?
To paraphrase Dr. Sowell: "The question isn't when did slavery end. The question is when did Freedom begin?"
Re: New England Slavery
This is a complicated story. There was slavery everywhere in colonial America, but the numbers in New England were comparatively modest -- and it was not fundamental to the economy there. After 1776 -- when the Americans in the Declaration of Independence had espoused principles inconsistent with slavery -- it was relatively easy for New Englanders to bring it to an end. Some did, indeed, sell their slaves South. Others -- and this is pertinent to Rob's point -- profited from the slave trade. Keeping the slave trade open after 1789 was something that the South Carolinians and Georgians demanded at the Federal Convention, but the ships in which they were carried, insofar as they were American ships, came largely from Boston, Newport, and New York. The other side of the story comes later when Southerners pressed for the extension of slavery into the territories and Northerners, who no longer had slaves, fought against this. The battle begins in 1820; and, of course, it was still going on in 1860. No region had clean hands, but . . .
Aug '10
Re: New England Slavery
Slaves (and lawyers) were illegal in Georgia when it was first founded. Not sure which blight was legalized first...
Jul '10
Re: New England Slavery
In 1807, England passed the Slave Trade Act. Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron (with Baltimore Clippers!) seized over 1500 slave vessels. England went on to pass the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. My question is this: How did the slave trade in the United States continue with the nearly global enforcement by England given the poor state of the U.S. Navy during that time?
Aug '10
Re: New England Slavery
Here's one to add to the compendium of arsenic justice in early America.
I had a relative, though not direct as he had no children, who was poisoned by a grand nephew when the nephew found out that his intended inheritance was to be diluted by two things,(1) his uncle was freeing his slaves and (2) was giving them a cash gift as well. Deep south ? Williamsburg, Virginia. He was trying to poison the slaves, but killed the grand uncle instead. He was acquitted because the testimony of the (now) former slave was invalid as he was black. Who the wrote the law to invalidate their testimony ? The dead relative . The year -1806
The relative was a close friend of all those dead white guys who owned slaves, but detested slavery, his neighbors and friends: Jefferson, Washington, Henry and the rest. While these gentlemen were building a country, many of them were busy trying to get rid of slavery.
Jun '10
Re: New England Slavery
Lets just say, if you ever found the guy that invented slavery, you'd clearly be someone from the archeology department--not the history department.
May '10
Re: New England Slavery
Rob, the new modern narrative is
The Coasts = Diverse, Tolerant, Enlightened;
The Midwest = Religious Fundamentalism, Guns, and Homo/Xeno/Islamophobia.
Re: New England Slavery
At first, rum and Roman Catholics were also barred. Everything changed at once -- in, if I remember correctly, the 1750s.
May '10
Re: New England Slavery
Jimmy Carter:
To paraphrase Dr. Sowell: "The question isn't when did slavery end. The question is when did Freedom begin?" · Sep 29 at 7:42am
That's a great quote. Slavery is as old as human history. All people are tempted to perceive their own lives as the standard for normalcy. The truth is that our time is exceptional in this way. And how free is a communist, again?
That the South had more slaves does not mean slavery was more common here, as the usual story claims. Because they were used primarily for agriculture, one slave owner would typically own dozens of slaves. Most Southerners did not own slaves.
After visiting Andersonville as a kid, my grandma, who lived nearby, bitterly told us that some of our ancestors died under similar conditions in a Union prison camp. They were not soldiers. They were, coincidentally, millers.
Anyway, two important points:
1) Southerners continue to appreciate Confederate flags because there is no other universally recognizable symbol for Southern pride, which is color blind.
2) We cannot honestly accept pride from the great labors of our ancestors if we do not also accept shame from their misdeeds.
May '10
Re: New England Slavery
Yes, I'm quoting myself. No scruples.
This is why, I believe, Jesus did not condemn slavery outright. He didn't because the truth is not that you're either a slave or you're free. The truth is that freedom, both from society and from one's own sins, is a constant struggle and never completely fulfilled.
May '10
Re: New England Slavery
You have to go to Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution. The Constitution forbade Congress from making any law restricting the slave trade (specifically, the trans-Atlantic slave trade) until 1808. President Jefferson signed an act in 1807 forbidding the further importation of slaves effective in 1808; however, slavery continued to exist with respect to those persons already in the country.
Jun '10
Re: New England Slavery
Who invented slavery? The theoretical answer, there is not real answer as it is buried too far back in history, would involve economics and conquest. Conquered people were forced into slavery as an acceptable (to them) alternative to being killed. This is the most likely start of slavery, and can be seen in the American native traditions of tribal raids for wives. The role economics played, likely, revolved around the fact that throughout most of history humans lived at subsistence levels, in short, there was not enough value added to the mostly agricultural products produced to pay wages as we know them today. We tend to forget that wages are a bi-product of both sophistication and specialization, subsistence economies are neither. Correspondingly, freedom began when we, as a society, could afford its price.
Jul '10
Re: New England Slavery
Matthew Gilley
You have to go to Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution. The Constitution forbade Congress from making any law restricting the slave trade (specifically, the trans-Atlantic slave trade) until 1808. President Jefferson signed an act in 1807 forbidding the further importation of slaves effective in 1808; however, slavery continued to exist with respect to those persons already in the country. · Sep 29 at 10:08am
Thanks for that.
So in 1833, when England passed the Slavery Abolition Act, we in the U.S. did what?
Re: New England Slavery
In 1833, if I remember correctly, the British outlawed slavery in their own colonies. We did nothing.
Jul '10
Re: New England Slavery
Slavery exists and existed in pre industrial societies because NO ONE likes to haul water, and if you can avoid said awful job by buying/capturing another person, well that is sweet!
Until the late 1700s, a political movement begun by 12 men in a Quaker owned printing shop in George Yard, London, no one could imagine a world without slavery. No. One. There is an excellent study of this effort (culminating in the British Empire passing that amazing law in 1833) by Adam Hochschild, "Bury the Chains." Of course, with the passing of that Empire, slavery has slipped back into places like Florida (so far, in homes of Arabs, and Indonesians, but however..) It may be worth noting that the spine of this anti slavery movement was comprised of committed Christians. Not socialists. Not secularists. Not Buddhists. Christians.
John Keegan has used this story about the end of slavery as an argument that maybe, just maybe, humans will be able to successfully outlaw war. Now, think of that!
Jul '10
Re: New England Slavery
Americans wrongly associate 'black african race' with 'slavery'. But, one of the results of the Mormon settlement into the Great Basin was the end of the selling of Indians to Spanish America. There were a very few slaves among the Mormon population, but since the Mormon leadership were mostly abolitionist, African-slave owning did not flourish in the areas they dominated. And, then, "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson, revolves around a plot to sell a Scottish boy into slavery into the American Carolinas.
And, with Rome's fall, and as the Dark Ages fell over Europe, the only real asset Europe had was people... so, there was a constant stream of ships filled with slaves from north to south into the powerful rich Islamic Africa and Egypt. This trade continued well into the 17th Century.
And then, there is informed speculation that slavery existed among Northern Canadian natives into the 1930s.
Edited on Sep 29, 2010 at 3:15pmRe: New England Slavery
flownover: Here's one to add to the compendium of arsenic justice in early America.
I had a relative, though not direct as he had no children, who was poisoned by a grand nephew when the nephew found out that his intended inheritance was to be diluted by two things,(1) his uncle was freeing his slaves and (2) was giving them a cash gift as well. Deep south ? Williamsburg, Virginia. He was trying to poison the slaves, but killed the grand uncle instead. He was acquitted because the testimony of the (now) former slave was invalid as he was black. Who the wrote the law to invalidate their testimony ? The dead relative . The year -1806
The relative was a close friend of all those dead white guys who owned slaves, but detested slavery, his neighbors and friends: Jefferson, Washington, Henry and the rest. While these gentlemen were building a country, many of them were busy trying to get rid of slavery. · Sep 29 at 8:02am
This is a great story. I think a lot of American families have tangled relations like this one.