Slavery and the New Deal
The "Roots" (Uncle Tom's Cabin) narrative, as told by abolitionists, make no sense.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2017-05-19 |
| Left | Right |
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| Uncle Tom's Cabin and Roots give accurate descriptions of how bad Slavery was in the South. The abolitionists and Civil War victors were all noble historians that accurated transcribed the reality of the time. | Progressives/activists didn't just start propaganda in the late 20th century. First-hand reports tell a dramatically different story, and that helps explain why the South was so polarized against the disinformation of the North. Their reality didn't match the fiction. |
There were fictional pieces of abolitionist propaganda pieces that were popular like Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the more modern Alex Haley's Roots. But if you want a more authentic tales, during the New Deal, President Roosevelt commissioned a number of journalists to get verbal testimony of over 2,300 former slaves, and record the results. The results of this project collected in the multi-volume Slave Narratives. Going through them can be incredible for understanding what it was like for the slaves, from their view (though having listened to many of them, the twangs, drawls, colloquialisms and accents can be a little tricky at times).
You'd think this kind of first hand historical knowledge would be used to form our opinions of the institution, but it's been mostly ignored. It doesn't fit the narrative that anyone wants to accept. For example:
- out of 331 references to masters, 86% refer to their masters as "good" or "kind." Quite a few would not allow whipping at all, and many only allowed it in their presence.
- Far more important than whipping in managing the slaves was figuring out how to motivate. No plantation owner wanted slaves who were sullen, discontented, and hostile, who did just enough to get by. They wanted devoted, hard-working, responsible men who identified their fortunes with the fortunes of their masters. Such attitudes cannot be beaten into slaves. They had to be elicited.
- To achieve the desired response the planters developed a wide-ranging system of rewards. Some rewards were directed toward improving short-run performance (prizes for the individual or the gang with the best picking record on a given day or week). The prizes were such items as clothing, tobacco, whiskey, and very often cash.
- When slaves worked during times normally set aside for rest, they received extra pay — usually in cash. Planters even devised elaborate schemes for profit sharing with their slaves.
- The average income received by a prime field hand was roughly fifteen percent greater than the income he would have received for his labor as a free agricultural worker.
- Some slaves saved their money and were quite wealthy after the war.
- Data in the 1850 census suggest that the economic condition of the average free northern Negro may have been worse than that of the average free Negro in the South. A comparison between New York and New Orleans reveals that New York Negroes lived in more crowded housing, had a lower proportion of craftsmen, and less wealth per capita than free Negroes in New Orleans.
And so on. There's a lot to be learned about what slavery was and was not. I'm sure there were abusers of the worst kind. (Never underestimate the depths of cruelty of some humans). But that nastiness wasn't just in the South towards slaves, and there's little evidence that bigots in the North were any better (or less common). So the point is there was a spectrum of treatments and incomes in the South. Assuming it was any one way, is naive. That isn't to change anyone's revulsion to the idea of ownership of another man's labor, liberty or health. But if that's what repulses you, then you should probably take a dim view of Socialism, Conscription or tax rates that take more of a mans earnings than he gets to keep for his own work.
| 💭 Activism v. Reality |
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| Remember, Abolitionists were activists, not moderates or historians.
They'd write fantastical books, or tell sensationally exaggerated stories about how bad slavery was, and it would inflame both sides. They wanted change, and weren't above lying or propaganda to do it (they were progressives, and the sales pitch / exaggerations are part of that). So they'd show one slaves whip scars in every newspaper, and pretend that was the norm. Or wrap up every sensational story they heard, in exaggerated form, into some propaganda book. And those fictions and exaggerations infuriated people in the South who lived side-by-side with slaves (may have been raised by them), and knew that the stories being told were rare exceptions, exaggerations, or those that did those things had been convicted of crimes and punished. (Like the perpetrator of the scarred back that was so popular). There was a patriarchal symbiosis -- and as condescending as it is today, the slaves were valuable property. Beating your slave would be like beating your horse that was exhausted -- it was highly frowned on, and wasn't good business. The same with splitting up families unnecessarily, or the exaggerations about breeding programs and so on. Doing those things demoralized the slaves, which harmed output, and that just wasn't good business. Field work sucked, and the stereotype of slaves or blacks being "lazy", was because it was common in economics of the day that you could pay field hands and get far more work done than with an equal amount of slave labor. Like in socialism, when you aren't getting to keep the profits, you work less hard. A way to compensate for that was many slaves were allowed to work one day a week, and keep those profits for themselves (that's how so many slaves became freemen). The idea was that free day set the pace for the rest of the week. (The irony is keeping 1 day of 7 means economically, you were taxed at 86%, or less than Bernie Sanders and others who think we should have a 90% top tax rate. Economically, they're advocate making people more slaves today, than the real slaves were, where's the outrage at that?). That's not to say there weren't problems in the South, or that slavery wasn't a vile institution, or there weren't abuses. Slavery was vile, and some owners were bad people! So there's zero apologism intended. But the point is that majority in the south would have been appalled by the excesses, so implying it was the norm (as the Northern abolitionists and their followers did), was driving a cultural wedge between the regions: the North's caricature of the slave South didn't fit the reality, so the two sides became more polarized. If an accuser starts with a fiction, then even if the rest is true, both side's have a valid grievance -- and the North was too arrogant to consider the possibility that their overstating things might not be helping. |
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Tags: Left Lies Alt-History History Slavery
