John Carruthers Stanly: From Slave to Slave Owner

John Wright Stanly House, New Bern, North Carolina

While Visiting the historic city of New Bern, in coastal North Carolina, I saw many interesting sites, including Tryon Palace, capitol of the independent State of North Carolina after the Revolutionary War, and  Bradham Drug Company, the birthplace of Pepsi Cola. But to me, the most fascinating of all was the John Wright Stanly House.  It was here that I learned the story of John Carruthers Stanly, a former slave who gained his freedom, only to become the largest slaveholder in Craven County, North Carolina.

John Carruthers Stanly
1774-1846
Black Slaveholder

Stanly, born a slave in 1774, was the son of an African Ibo woman and the white prominent merchant-shipper John Wright Stanly. He was apprenticed to Alexander and Lydia Stewart, close friends and neighbors of his father.  They saw to it that John received an education and learned the trade of barbering.  At an early age, they helped him establish his own barbershop in New Bern.  Many of the town’s farmers and planters frequented his barbershop for a shave or a trim. As a result, Stanly developed a successful business.  By the time he reached the age of twenty-one, literate and economically able to provide for himself, his owners petitioned the Craven County court in 1795 for his emancipation. However, he was not completely satisfied with the ruling of the court and in 1798, through a special act, the state legislature confirmed the emancipation of John Carruthers Stanly, which entitled him to all rights and privileges of a free person.

Between 1800 and 1801, Stanly purchased his slave wife, Kitty, and two mulatto slave children. By March 1805, they were emancipated by the Craven County Superior Court. A few days later, Kitty and Stanly were legally married in New Bern and posted a legal marriage bond in Raleigh. Stanly’s wife was the daughter of Richard and Mary Green and the paternal granddaughter of Amelia Green. Two years later, in 1807, Stanly was successful in getting the court to emancipate his wife’s brother.

Some politically correct Court Historians end the story here, if they acknowledge the existence of black slaveholders at all.  What a noble thing, to purchase and emancipate one's own family!  But there is much more to the story.

After securing his own and his family’s freedom, Stanly began to focus more on business matters. He obtained other slaves to work for him.  Two of them, Boston and Brister, were taught the barbering trade. Once they became skillful barbers, Stanly let them run the operation while he used the money they helped him earn to invest in additional town property, farmland, and more slaves.

Through his business acumen, Stanley eventually became a very wealthy plantation owner and the largest slaveholder in all of Craven County. He profited from investments in real estate, rental properties, the slave operated barbershop, and plantations from which he sold commodities such as cotton and turpentine.

Stanly’s plantations and rental properties were operated by skilled slaves along with help from some hired free blacks. To improve his rental properties in New Bern, he used skilled slaves and free blacks to build cabins and other residences and to repair and renovate these properties. During the depression of the early 1820s it was slave labor that kept Stanly economically stable.

The 1830 census reveals that Stanly owned, 163 slaves. He has been described as a harsh, profit-minded task master whose treatment of his slaves was no different than the treatment slaves received from white owners. Stanly’s goal, shared by white southern planters, was on expanding his operations and increasing his profits.

During the early 1820s, Stanly’s wife, Kitty, was taken seriously ill.  She became bedridden and, despite careful attention by two slave nurses, she died around 1824. It was at this same time that Stanly began to face a series of financial difficulties.  His fortune began to plummet when the Bank of New Bern, due to the national bank tightening controls of some state and local banks, was forced to collect all outstanding debts. Unfortunately, Stanly had countersigned a security note for John Stanly, his white half-brother, in the amount of $14,962. Stanly was forced to assume the debt. This, along with his own debts forced him to refinance his mortgages and sell large pieces of property, including slaves. When these options did not resolve his economic woes, he resorted to mortgaging his turpentine, cotton, and corn crops, as well as selling his barbershop, which had been operating continuously for forty years. Without a steady flow of income, his fortunes continued to decline.  In 1843, his last 160 acres of land were sold at public auction. Three years later, at the age of 74,  John Carruthers Stanly died.  At the time of his death he still owned seven slaves.

Albany Herald reports on Black Soldiers in Confederate Gray

Albany Herald
Carlton Fletcher, metro editor

ALBANY, Ga. — When Confederate Civil War hero Amos Rucker died, the city of Atlanta shut down for his funeral.

Eulogized by the state’s poet laureate with the moving “When Rucker Called the Roll,” the fallen veteran’s pallbearers included then-Georgia Gov. Allen Chandler, Judge William Lowndes Calhoun, ex-Postmaster Amos Fox and former Confederate Army Camp Commander Frank Hilburn. Rucker was laid to rest in Atlanta’s Southview Cemetary, current burial site of members of Martin Luther King’s family.


H.K. Edgerton, right, is a black Confederate

activist who works to bring the truth of

black southern heritage to people of all races.

 While such ceremony was not uncommon among Southern survivors of America’s Civil War, what made Rucker’s funeral so memorable is that he was among the black soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the war.

Whether Southern blacks willingly participated as Confederates against the Northern army that eventually won them their freedom is an argument that continues to be waged today in the year that marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. But documented stories like the ones of Amos Rucker, Bill Yopp, Holt Collier, Louis Napoleon Nelson and the all-black First Louisiana Native Guard offer evidence that African Americans did indeed take up arms alongside the men who at the time were their masters.

“I hear today — from blacks and whites — that there were no black Confederate soldiers,” said Kelly Barrow, a Henry County history teacher who has published two books — “Black Confederates” and “Black Southerners in Confederate Armies” — and is working on a third about the subject. “But the documented evidence is overwhelming.”

Barrow, who teaches and coaches soccer at Locust Grove High School, said he became passionate about researching black Confederates after a professor at Shorter College in Rome told him they didn’t exist.

“I’d find all this material about black soldiers, about blacks who were heroes during the war, and (my professor) would say I was wrong,” Barrow said. “She, of course, had her own agenda, but I kept finding more and more stuff.

“After I graduated, I was working with the General Assembly when the flag fight started kicking up. I did a lot of research for (former) Rep. Frank Redding, including genealogy, and I kept coming across more evidence of black Confederates. I eventually put an ad in a Confederate Veterans magazine asking for documentation of black Confederates and was overwhelmed with information. I guess I kind of became the clearinghouse for stuff people said they’d had for years but didn’t know what to do with.”

Historians question whether blacks would have freely fought alongside men who “owned” them and against an army that would free them, but a number of potential answers have surfaced. Noted African-American journalist Walter Williams tackled that question in a recent syndicated column.

“One would have to be stupid to think that blacks were fighting in order to preserve slavery,” he wrote. “What’s untaught in most history classes is that it is relatively recent that we Americans think of ourselves as citizens of ‘United States.’ For most of our history, we thought of ourselves as citizens of Virginia, citizens of New York and citizens of whatever state in which we resided.

“(African-American Historian Charles) Wesley says, ‘To the majority of the Negroes, as to all the South, the invading armies of the Union seemed to be ruthlessly attacking independent states, invading the beloved homeland and tramping upon all that these men held dear.’ Blacks have fought in all of our wars, both before and after slavery, in hopes of better treatment afterward.”

Charles Lunsford, who is retired now but who once served as national spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization, said his research into the subject of black soldiers serving in the Confederate army has offered some telling information that history books have failed to mention.

“One of the truths that a lot of people don’t like to talk about is that Northerners were far more racist that Southerners until the Jim Crow era,” Lunsford, who lives in Mansfield in north Georgia, said. “That’s part of the reason so many people say there were no black Confederates. See, the Yankee army segregated its black troops, while the blacks who fought for the South fought alongside white soldiers.

“Experts — both black and white — that I’ve talked with estimate that as many as 90,000 black soldiers wore the uniform of the Confederacy and as many as 300,000 served as support personnel.

Just like the white Confederates, these men were fighting for their homeland.”

There's more.  To see the entire article go here:  http://www.albanyherald.com/news/headlines/A_question_of_blue_and_gray__and_black_lingers_117474833.html?ref=833

Meet my Cousin - Herman Cain

Herman Cain

An anonymous email from a reader of the ConfederateDigest blog asked this question:

"I'm assuming you are all white. Do any of you have any black people close to you in your lives? I would have more respect for you people if you just said we're sorry we lost the war, sorry blacks are free, sorry the civil rights movement ever happen. You have a right to believe whatever you want. That's the "American" way, but don't hide behind tired old heritage/states right bull." 

Normally, I would  not respond to an anonymous email, but in this case I will make an exception because I'm very proud of my black family members.

There is just one of me here at ConfederateDigest.com. and I can't verify that I'm all white.  Actually, both of my grandmothers were of Cherokee descent, and in addition to my Irish and German ancestors, there are many others in my family tree who are of unknown ethnic and national origins.  If the folks at Ancestry.com are correct, I'm even a distant cousin to the famous Black American educator, Booker T. Washington.

But it's a current cousin of which I am most proud.  His name is Herman Cain, and he is seriously considering a run for the Republican nomination as President of the United States in 2012.  Herman is a brilliant and accomplished man whose credits including serving as CEO of Godfather's Pizza and President of the National Restaurant Association.  Until he launched his Presidential Exploratory Committee, he was the very popular host of a radio talk show based in Atlanta, and he is frequently interviewed on national radio and television programs.  Herman has been a favorite speaker at Tea Party rallies across the United States.  I hope he takes the plunge and becomes a candidate for the presidency so I will have the opportunity to vote for him. 

In an article about Herman Cain, Slate Magazine said:  Herman Cain's political career began when he defeated Bill Clinton on live television. If you missed it—and it was 17 years ago—it happened when the president was making one of the last blitzes for his health care reform plan, and was holding town-hall-style meetings to explain how mandating employer-based coverage would work....

Herman's niece  is married to one of my nephews, my sister's son, so Herman and I call each other "cousin."  Actually, our beautiful niece is much more like a daughter to Herman.  That's because her own father, Herman's only brother, died when she was a little girl and her Uncle Herman helped raise her.  When my niece and nephew have their expected baby in a few short months, it will make the fourth black niece or nephew in my immediate family tree.  Another of my nephews is a devoted father to his own black son, and two of my nieces have adopted children from Ethiopia.  By the way,  I belong to a very large family, being one of 12 siblings.  Among my 60+ nieces and nephews, I am also pleased to report that there are Chinese and Hispanics as well as Blacks.  Most are Caucasian, and I love and am proud of them all.

So to answer your question,  YES, I have lots of black people who are close to me in my life.  When I was a single man I even dated two different black women, and race was never an issue.  It was never even discussed.

In response to your other statement, NO, I'm not sorry that the South lost the War.  Slavery could, should, and would have ended in the South just as it was still ending in the North, without all the bloodshed and animosity caused by Abraham Lincoln's ill conceived invasion of the Confederate States.   And as for the civil rights movement, I was a very active and effective advocate for civil rights as a young minister back in the 1960's and 1970's.  Maybe someday I'll say more about that in another blog post. 

The fallacy of the email quoted above is that it is based on totally false assumptions.  During the 1860's Confederates came in all colors, representing numerous ethnic backgrounds - African, Caucasian, Native American, Jewish, Hispanic and others.  The ideals of liberty and self government which the Confederate States of America defended is not just a white thing.  It's the universal cry of the human spirit.
-----
If you don't already know about my cousin Herman, or even if you do, please check him out at http://www.hermancain.com/.


Click here to watch Herman Cain demolish Bill Clinton at a town hall meeting.  Cousin Herman doesn't need a teleprompter.  In fact, at the recent CPAC meeting he made a very impressive speech and didn't even use notes.  ehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WP5dYfBBzU

A Tribute to Donald V. Adderton

Donald V. Adderton

Donald V. Adderton, a longtime journalist and editor in New Jersey and Mississippi, died Saturday, July 24, 2010 at the age of 61.   Since 2000 Adderton had served as Executive Editor of the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Mississippi, becoming the first black person to hold the top editor post at a Mississippi daily newspaper.

Adderton was well known for his insightful, conservative columns which were truthful and honest, albeit sometimes politically incorrect.    Adderton was criticized by some black leaders  when he publicly opposed removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag during a statewide referendum.

Below is a reprint of one of Adderton's columns which appeared in the Mississippi Sun Herald, June 19, 1998.   

Purveyors of hate circulate uncivil stories about war
By Donald V. Adderton

It always amuses me when I confront nonsensical accounts - revisionist hysteria lacking the faintest hint of fact - of the War Between the States.

Revisionists recently have been running around the Coast ranting and raving about myriad events that brought the South and North into the theater of combat in 19th century America.

They even advanced the absurd notion that the South should not be construed as losing the Civil War.

In fact, a baseless notion was tossed out that the Confederacy lost the war and not the South. At last report, the Confederacy was located in the South -- below the Mason-Dixon line, if you will -- and represented that region.

Every time there is a discussion of the American Civil War on these pages, rational thought apparently goes screaming out the window, because passions run high on both sides of the issue.


But passion does not excuse bad manners or uncivil language in an intelligent discourse of the Civil War.

Then there are some critics who go around waving so-called secession papers that are supposed to validate that the Confederate states withdrew from the Union solely because of slavery.

These revisionists would have you believe slavery was the flashpoint that ignited the hostilities -- the warfare that temporarily ripped this nation apart.


The primary causes of the war were economics and states' rights. The issue was not solely that the federal government wanted to abolish slavery.


Judge them by their actions

In fact, when you take a close look at the major players, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander in chief of the Union Army, remained a slave owner until after the war. His Confederate counterpart, Gen. Robert E. Lee, abhorred slavery.

The war was waged as much on economic grounds as it was military. It is for this reason that the war's impact is still being felt today, 133 years later.

Then there are these same people who would have you believe that President Lincoln freed the slaves when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but constitutional freedom did not come until the 13th Amendment was affirmed. And not until the ratification of the 14th Amendment were black Americans recognized as citizens.

Mississippi State Flag

During the Civil War, at least 200,000 blacks -- some 85,000 Confederate soldiers -- fought with regiments of the South and North -- many showing their valor on the field of battle.

Again, some accounts would have you believe that the legendary Louisiana Native Guard Volunteers unit of the Union Army -- who were garrisoned at Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island -- was the only heroic black unit that saw combat during the Civil War.

What you probably don't know is that, during the war, Confederate troops were more of a melting pot than the Union ranks. Along with blacks and whites, there were Scots and Indians.

"Not only did you have people of color, but people of different ancestry fought for the Confederacy," said Capt. Mike Kelley of Pascagoula, a former Marine (ed. Navy flyer!), Civil War historian and keeper of the Terrell's 34th Texas Cavalry Web site.

In fact, Gen. Stand Waite, a Cherokee, was the last Confederate officer to surrender to Union forces on June 23, 1865 -- two months after Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.


There were Rebels of many colors

"As far as the mixture of the cultures and races, the Confederate Army was far more integrated than the Union," Kelley said.

If it is truth you seek about the role blacks played in the Civil War, I strongly suggest you browse the 34th Texas Cavalry Web site at: http://www.37thtexas.org/html/BlkHist.html

It is galling that those who shamelessly recite revisionist rhetoric completely discount the key roles people of color played in Confederate armies.

"We are not allowed to know this," Kelley said. "If this is known, then the racial polarization goes away."

Clearly, there are people who take great glee in keeping the racial pot stirred to a boil.

Nonetheless, the truth is out there, if you have the time and determination to seek it. Because truth not only will it set you free, it will make you a better informed human being.

There are some people in this world of ours who will use misinformation to wield power over an unsuspecting populace. Don't let it happen to you.

Niece of Black Confederate Veteran tells her Story

Lt. Commander for S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans hands Alice Gallman a DVD about her great uncle John Alex Sarter, a soldier in the Confederate army who fought first as a slave and later as a free man.

From the Columbia Star

By Jessica Cross

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA - Alice Gallman has fought for what she believes her whole life. This 87- year- old Columbia woman's great uncle, a former slave and Confederate soldier, John Alex Sarter, had that same fighting spirit.

Gallman contacted Lt. Commander for S.C.'s Sons of Confederate Veterans and also the founder of radiofreedixie.com Don Gordon and asked him to investigate her great uncle's history. Gordon found Sarter fought for the Confederacy first as a slave and later as a free man. His owner, William Sarter was appointed Captain of S.C.'s 18th Infantry Regiment, Company B on August of 1862. Sarter died the following September from his war wounds. But Alex Sarter chose to enlist after William died.

Sarter was later captured by Union soldiers and forced to help dig a tunnel the army filled with explosives. The Union army used the explosion to divide Confederate forces during the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Virginia. The SCV gave an account of the battle in a DVD Gordon presented to Gallman on September 2, 2009. The footage chronicled a memorial service by the SCV at Sarter's gravesite.

But Gallman remembers Sarter as her wise, old uncle. When she was a girl growing up in Union, the adults would sit around the fire in the winter and have what they called "fireside chats." Gallman remembers sneaking up behind Sarter and eavesdropping on the adults' conversations. She said she learned a lot from the older generations.

Gallman's grandparents were sharecroppers. Gallman was her mother's first bi- racial child. Her father was Jewish. She said her status made growing up difficult. "There were so many days I didn't have a bite of bread," she said. But humble up bringing didn't stop Gallman from giving her time, energy, and skills to other people who needed help.

Gallman taught the poor to can vegetables, so they would have foodstuffs when times were lean. And when she was a teenager she taught people how to construct mattresses made of cotton instead of straw.

Gallman has fought for the poor and she was involved in helping African- American teachers receive adequate books instead of the damaged hand- me- downs used by white children.

Today, Gallman shares her stories and wisdom with younger generations. Gallman worked hard to send her daughter to Heathwood Hall Episcopal School. Her daughter later attended Yale University and went into the law profession. And her son worked at the Pentagon.

Alice Gallman, like her uncle, has been a fighter.

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Reprinted with permission from the Columbia Star. For the original article click here: http://www.thecolumbiastar.com/news/2009/0911/society/041.html

In Defense of His Confederate Pride

Nelson W. Winbush, 78, of Kissimmee stands in front of the Confederate battle flag that was draped over his grandfather's coffin in 1934. Times photo by Willie J. Allen Jr.

Nelson Winbush is intent on defending the flag of his grandfather. It's just surprising which flag that is.

By STEPHANIE GARRY, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer

Nelson Winbush rotates a miniature flag holder he keeps on his mantel, imagining how the banners would appear in a Civil War battle.

The Stars and Bars, he explains, looked too much like the Union flag to prevent friendly fire. The Confederacy responded by fashioning the distinctive Southern Cross -- better known as the rebel flag.

Winbush, 78, is a retired assistant principal with a master's degree, a thoughtful man whose world view developed from listening to his grandfather's stories about serving the South in the "War Between the States."

His grandfather's casket was draped with a Confederate flag. His mother pounded out her Confederate heritage on a typewriter. He wears a rebel flag pinned to the collar of his polo shirt.

Winbush is also black.

"You've never seen nothing like me, have you?"

* * *

Winbush's nondescript white brick house near Kissimmee's quaint downtown is cluttered with the mess of a life spent hoarding history.

Under the glass of his coffee table lie family photos, all of smiling black people. On top sits Ebony magazine.

Winbush is retired and a widower who keeps a strict schedule of household chores, family visits and Confederate events. He often eats at Fat Boy's Barbecue, where his Sons of Confederate Veterans camp meets.

Winbush's words could come from the mouth of any white son of a Confederate veteran. They subscribe to a sort of religion about the war, a different version than mainstream America.

The tenets, repeated endlessly by loyalists:

The war was not about slavery. The South had the constitutional right to secede. Confederate soldiers were battling for their homes and their families. President Lincoln was a despot. Most importantly, the victors write the history.

Louis Napoleon Nelson poses with grandson Nelson W. Winbush at the Memphis train station in 1932 before leaving to attend a Confederate reunion celebration.

There's much more. Follow this link for the complete story in the St. Petersburg Times: http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/07/State/In_defense_of_his_Con.shtml

A Confederate Response to politically incorrect Black History

NewsHerald.com
Panama City, Florida

By NORMAN L. FOWLER
1st Lt. Thomas H. Gainer Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

I was somewhat dismayed (though not surprised) by the politically correct version of "The Story of Black History" in the Jan. 27 News Herald and decided to present some facts not mentioned by the article and which have been left out of textbooks used to teach the history of our country. This is not a defense of that abomination known as slavery and it certainly is not a defense of the New England traders who continued to foist upon the South that "peculiar institution" long after international norms dictated otherwise.

The Emancipation Proclamation mentioned in the article freed the slaves in areas in which the Union armies had no control, but it did not free any in those areas which they occupied. The net result was no slaves were freed. President Lincoln's Secretary of State William Seward commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

Lincoln himself admitted that this act had no constitutional basis and was merely a wartime measure intended to keep England and France from recognizing the Confederacy and to foment a slave uprising in the South. History shows no slave uprising in the South occurred. To illustrate the hypocrisy of this act it need only be mentioned that Gen. U.S. Grant's slaves on his Missouri farm were not freed until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freeing all slaves was ratified on Dec. 6, 1865.

The article paid homage to the 200,000 black soldiers who fought in the Union armies in segregated units but fails to mention the 80,000 to 100,000 black Confederates who fought side by side with their white counterparts against an invading army.

The article mentions the Nat Turner uprising but fails to mention the New York City riots of 1863 in which 11 innocent blacks were lynched and a black orphanage burned to the ground. Nor does the article mention the laws of several Northern states that forbade blacks from remaining in the state or owning property.

The article implied the war was fought over slavery but failed to mention the July 1861 congressional proclamation which declared the war was about preserving the Union. Nor does the article mention the role money played in the North's invasion as evidenced by this quote from a Northern newspaper prior to the firing on Fort Sumter:

"The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North ... We now see whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us is no longer an abstract question - one of Constitutional construction or of the reserved or delegated powers of the State or Federal Gov't, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched. The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships to buy our goods. What is our shipping without it ... It is very clear the South gains by this process, and we lose. No - we must not let the South go."

As a final counterargument to the referenced article, I close with two quotes from disinterested third parties:

"Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel." - Charles Dickens

"The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty." - Karl Marx

To say that a byproduct of the War Between the States was the necessary emancipation of the slaves is correct. To imply the war was fought over slavery is not.

For the source article go here: http://www.newsherald.com/articles/history_71719___article.html/herald_supplementing.html#slComments