Slave Trade from Africa to the Americas

The disinformation spread through public schools and by Court Historians of the American Empire has been so effective that most people in the United States, and many around the world, think of the Southern Confederate States as the world's greatest culprits in the history of slavery.  This has been a deliberate distortion of the truth in order to justify the inexcusable and unconstitutional war that Abraham Lincoln waged against the Southern states from 1861-1865.

The above map shows that over a period of four centuries as many as 15 million slaves were purchased or traded from their captors in Africa and brought to the Americas.  Of these, only about 5% were brought to the United States.  Those were distributed throughout the northern as well as the southern states.

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, every state in the Union had a history of slavery, with Massachusetts being the first to officially legalize slavery in 1641.  Several of the pro-Union (Northern) states still practiced slavery at the time of the War, and were excluded from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which he admitted was issued only as a "war measure."

While this map is very enlightening, it does not show is that the slaves brought to the Americas were already slaves in Africa before being sold to Yankee slave traders from New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other Northern states.  It also doesn't show the fact that none of the slave ships were from Southern ports.  Every slave ship that ever sailed from the United States to Africa was from the North and sailed under the flag of the United States.  No slave ship every sailed under a Confederate flag.

Although slavery in any civilization is inexcusable by today's standards, the slavery in the Southern states was more humane than that practiced anywhere else in the Americas.  Only in the Southern states did the slave population have a life expectancy equal to that of their masters, and it was the only slave population in the America's which increased through natural means. 

The above map comes from the website www.slaveryinamerica.org/geography/slave_trade.htm

Slavery in Perspective

By Joseph Sobran

Joseph Sobran
Syndicated Columnist

The recurrent fuss about Confederate flags has always struck me as silly, and never more so than now. I’ve been reading Hugh Thomas’s impressive history, The Slave Trade (published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster). It’s one of those books that shift your whole perspective on the past.


Thomas covers the Atlantic slave trade from 1440 to 1870. It was a literally filthy business from first to last. More than 11,000,000 Africans were brought to the New World, while countless others — probably about 2,000,000 — died of miserable conditions in the overcrowded ships en route.

What I didn’t know is that fewer than 5 per cent — about 500,000 — of these Africans were brought to this country. Some 4,000,000 were carried to Brazil by the Portuguese, 2,500,000 to Spanish possessions, 2,000,000 to the British West Indies, and 1,600,000 to the French West Indies.

All this puts something of a damper on the assumption that slavery was a sin specific or “peculiar” to the American South. The slaves had been Africans who were sold to European merchants by other Africans who had enslaved them in the first place. Several of Africa’s proudest empires were built on the sale of slaves. For centuries Africa’s chief export was human beings. When Congresswoman Maxine Waters speaks of “my African ancestors’ struggle for freedom,” she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Slavery was an African institution long before it spread to the South, and there was no abolition movement to trouble it. When Europe banned the slave trade, African economies reeled.

So it’s rather comical for American blacks to sentimentalize Africa and stress that they are “African Americans” while cursing the Confederate flag as a symbol of slavery. Africa has a much better claim to be such a symbol. Slavery still exists there, in Sudan and Mauritania and probably elsewhere.

As Christians, white Europeans always had a bad conscience about slavery. They wrestled with the question of whether Africans had immortal souls and natural rights. Even Southerners who justified slavery as a positive good felt that it needed justification.

Pagans had no such qualms. They no more felt they needed to justify owning slaves than owning cattle. Slavery was a fact of life, and slaves could be killed, mutilated, and even eaten without compunction.

In the Arab world African slaves were highly prized as eunuchs. They were used as guardians of harems and as civil servants, some of whom amassed considerable power. But many young African men died in the process because of inept or infected castration. The prevalence of eunuchs probably explains why African slavery didn’t leave the Arab world with a race problem. Given this history, it’s ironic that so many American blacks adopt Arab names to spite the white man and to achieve a supposedly independent “identity.”

Thomas indirectly punctures another cherished American notion: that Abraham Lincoln “ended slavery.” Lincoln is mentioned only three times, very briefly, in the entire book. Against the huge backdrop of the slave trade, he was only a local, marginal, and rather tardy figure. By 1850 it was clear that slavery was doomed throughout the Christian world. But just as we exaggerate our role in fostering slavery, we exaggerate our role in destroying it. We Americans tend to be self-important even in our self- flagellations.

The slave trade was so vast that a European might speculate in it, and profit by it, without ever seeing a single slave. Such distinguished authors as John Locke, Edward Gibbon, and Voltaire drew income from it. Voltaire was especially hypocritical. He took the self-serving view that it was less immoral for a European to buy Africans than it was for other Africans to sell them; and after denouncing the slave trade for years, he “accepted delightedly” when a merchant offered to name a slave ship after him.

Thomas tells the whole story without much moralizing. He knows the facts speak for themselves, in all their horror and pathos: people stolen from their homes, robbed of their freedom and even their identities, often dying namelessly amid unspeakable squalor, with no families or friends to mourn or memorialize their passing. The ones who survived to be slaves in the New World, though unenviable, were relatively lucky.

But in the end, the Christian conscience prevailed. Thank God.

See the original column here: http://www.sobran.com/columns/1999-2001/010531.shtml


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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.

Confederate Monument Honors Faithful Slaves

A Confederate Monument with numerous interesting inscriptions has stood proudly beside the Tyrrell County Courthouse in Columbia, North Carolina for more than a century.  One of the top panels of the Monument honors "Faithful Slaves."   This is a reminder that there was not a single major slave uprising during the War for Southern Independence, although countless Southern homes, plantations and farms were left in the care of black servants while the men were away at war.  This was in spite of Abraham Lincoln's declared best effort to cause an insurrection in which the blacks would murder innocent white women, children, and old men while the able bodied men were gone.   Tens of thousands of black men, both slave and free, were also fighting for the Confederacy - defending their homes against the aggressive Yankee invaders.

I've been told or read at least a thousand times that the North fought to free the slaves and the South fought to defend slavery.  That's odd, because I've visited and photographed hundreds of monuments to the War Between the States and have NEVER seen a Confederate Monument that says the South fought to protect slavery, nor have I seen a Union Monument that says the North fought to free the slaves.  And that's after visiting 3,055 of the 3,142 counties in The U.S.A. 

Apparently, the myth that the War of Northern Aggression was all about freeing the slaves is  just that - a myth.  The historical records make it clear that the slavery issue was interjected into the war long after the Yankees invaded the South, motivated by greed and a lust for power. 

 Anyway, more about this interesting monument.  It stands in dedication to the "memory of the patriotic sons of Tyrrell County who fell in the service of the Confederate States." The monument depicts a Confederate soldier, with inscriptions on all four faces of the pedestal.

The front face features a picture of Gen. Robert E. Lee and reads:

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY THE TYRRELL MONUMENT ASSOCIATION, A. D. 1902

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. MARK MAJETTE, ABNER ALEXANDER, THOMAS L. JONES, J. S. CAHOON, and C. E. TATEM.

FINANCE COMMITTEE. MRS. B. V. McCLEES, MRS. J. C. MEEKINS Sr., MISS LINA B. ALEXANDER.

PRESIDENT. LT. COL. WILLIAM F. BEASLEY.

IN MEMORY OF THE PATRIOTIC SONS OF TYRRELL COUNTY WHO FELL IN THE SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES.

GENERAL JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW.
HIS NORTH CAROLINIANS WENT FARTHEST AT
GETTYSBURG, PA.

Tyrrell County Confederate Monument, Columbia, North Carolina

The second face reads:

WAR COMMENCED AT FORT SUMTER, S. C., APRIL 12, 1861.


OFFICERS Company A, 32nd N. C. Troops.

J. H. THOMAS, Capt.

L. L. HASSELL and F. F. PATRICK, 1st Lts.

HENRY ARMSTRONG, HOLLOWAY ARMSTRONG, G. W. BATEMAN, J. C. DUGUID, 2nd Lts.

ABNER ALEXANDER, 2nd Lt. 61st N. C. Troops.

JAMES JARVIS, 2nd Lt. 2nd N. C. Cavalry.

J. W. Simmons, 1st Lt. 2nd N. C. Cavalry.

FIELD OFFICERS OF 32nd N. C. TROOPS TAKEN FROM CO. A.

E. C. BRABBLE, (Currituck Co.) Colonel.

D. G. COWAN, (Bertie Co.) Lt. Col.

HENRY G. LEWIS, (Tyrrell Co.) Major.


AS A TRIBUTE TO COMRADS WHO HONORABLY SERVED THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE TO THE END.


WILLIAM M. OWENS, CAPT.
CO. G, 2nd N. C. CAVALRY
BRANDY STATION, VA.


The third face reads:

IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES

CONFEDERATES LIVING IN TYRRELL COUNTY WHEN THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED:

ABNER ALEXANDER, B. V. ALEXANDER, NELSON ALEXANDER, W. W. ALEXANDER, W. J. BARNES, THOS. BASNIGHT, D. D. BRICKHOUSE, F. L. BRICKHOUSE, J. S. CAHOON, W. R. CARAWAN, 2nd Lt. CO. H, 33rd N. C. TROOPS, W. G. COLSTON, A. A. COMBES, J. L. COOPER, W. S. DAVENPORT, M. G. ELLIOTT, W. L. GIBSON, THOMAS L. JONES, W. C. KEMP, W. W. KEMP, W. F. KNOWLES, JAMES LITCHFIELD, J. K. NICHOLS, JAMES PHELPS, JOHN RHODES, J. A. SAWYER, S. L. SAWYER, W. J. SAWYER, EDWARD SEXTON, W. E. SHALLINGTON, B. S. SPENCER, A. H. TATEM, C. E. TATEM.

TO THE NOBLE WOMEN OF TYRRELL COUNTY, WHOSE DEVOTION TO OUR CAUSE AND SACRIFICES IN ITS BEHALF, AND FOR THEIR LOVED ONES IN THE FIELD, ENTITLE THEM TO RANK WITH THE HEROINES OF ALL AGES.

NELSON McCLEES, 1st LT.
EDENTON BELL BATTERY
FORT ANDERSON, N. C.


The fourth face reads:

WAR ENDED AT APPOMATTOX, C. H., VA., APRIL 9, 1865.

WE LOVINGLY DEDICATE THIS TABLET TO THE MEMORY OF MARY ALEXANDER BEASLEY, WHO WAS BORN IN TYRRELL COUNTY, A. D. 1811, AND DIED IN TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, IN 1892. SHE WAS THE DAUGHTER OF HENRY AND CLARKEY ALEXANDER, AND DEVOTED THE FOUR YEARS OF OUR WAR TO NURSING OUR SOLDIERS, WHO LOVED TO CALL HER "MOTHER BEASLEY." SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF Lt. Colonel W. F. BEASLEY, 71st N. C. TROOPS, WHO WAS THE YOUNGEST OFFICER OF HIS RANK IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER WON AND IS ENTITLED TO THE ADMIRATION OF ALL WHO LOVE HONOR, AND LIBERTY.

WILLIAM MORRIS,

SAILOR ON MERRIMAC

HAMPTON ROADS, VA.

Wisdom from my Cousin - Booker T. Washington

Recently, while researching my family tree, I made the happy discovery that - according to the folks at Ancestry.com - I am a distant cousin to the famous black educator, counsel to U.S. Presidents, and founding President of Tuskegee Institute/University, Booker Taliferro Washington. 

If Booker T. Washington is my "Cousin Booker," then it only makes sense.  He and my wonderful departed mother both called Alabama home, and both of them were wise and positive thinkers to the point that they always saw the good in everything - including adversity.

In his classic book, "Up from Slavery," Booker T. Washington said:

"Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe.

This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery — on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution.  We all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive — but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose....

"Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did."

In a lecture before the Hamilton Club in Chicago, December 10, 1895, the former slave said: 
"We went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens.
We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians.
We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue.
We went into slavery with slave chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.

"Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star....

My parents, now deceased, would have been pleased to call Booker T. Washington "Cousin."  Both Mom and Dad were proud Southerners, descendents of Confederate veterans, and also outspoken advocates of racial equality.  Both of my parents also had American Indian/Cherokee blood in their family trees and no doubt some of my ancestors walked the bitter Trail of Tears, which started in Bradley County, Tennessee, where I grew up.

Mom and Dad taught me and my eleven siblings to always find the good in even  the worst of circumstances.  They believed in the God of Romans 8:28 who said, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

I'll wait for another post to tell more about how my minister father was a very effective civil rights activist, going all the way back to the 1930s, when he was a teenager in Atlanta, Georgia.  I believe he would have made Booker T. Washington proud.

Master Honored by his Former Slave

This very interesting headstone in the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia, was lovingly purchased and placed by a former slave in honor of his master, who died ten years before the outbreak of the War Between the States.

The inscription reads:

David McKinley

Died 1851

Aged

About 70 Years

My Trust is in God.

Erected by Peter Fleming

his former Slave.

For a century and a half this simple grave marker has born silent testimony to the familial bonds of affection which often existed between slave and slaveholder in the antebellum South.  It confirms the records left by hundreds of former slaves in the WPA Slave Narratives, in which the overwhelming majority speak of their former masters with fondness and appreciation. 

It also is a testimony to the Christian faith of both slave and master.  Such a kindred spirit between slave and slaveholder in this "peculiar institution" is impossible to conceive outside of a shared Christian faith.  Many Christian slaveholders were opposed to slavery as a permanent condition, but were realistic enough to know that immediate, forced emancipation, without proper preparation, would be harmful to both the individual slave and the larger community.

A prime example of this is General Stonewall Jackson, the namesake of the cemetery where this stone is found.  Jackson personally assisted many slaves in gaining their freedom and he helped hundreds more by educating them in his Colored Sunday School.  Jackson saw gradual emancipation as the most practical way for the slaves to become responsible, self supporting members of society.   He was not alone.  Tens of thousands of southern slaveholders had already prepared their slaves and then had freed them, even before the War Between the States.  Most northern slaveholders sold their slaves "down the river."  That's why there were far more free blacks in the South than in the North.

The symbol at the top of the headstone shows a hand with the forefinger thrust upwards.  This is a universal symbol, pointing upward to the hope of Heaven, and also upward to the Savior, Jesus Christ - who is the One Way true liberty. 

Remembering Lincoln the Racist

This striking monument to Stephen A. Douglas (left) and Abraham Lincoln (right) is the centerpiece of Washington Square in downtown Ottawa, Illinois. It marks the site of the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates which was held here on August 21, 1858.

Between late August and mid-October, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas traveled together around the state of Illinois to confront each other in seven historic debates. Douglas, a Democrat, was the incumbent United States Senator; Lincoln, a Republican, was his challenger. Here in Ottawa, before a crowd of 10,000 citizens, Douglas accused Lincoln of being a secret abolitionist, a charge which Lincoln soundly denied by declaring:

"I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

When pressed further Lincoln continued:

"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position."

A few weeks later, before a crowd of 15,000 in Charleston, Illinois Lincoln re-emphasized his anti-negro stance:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people."

He continued:

"I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Lincoln failed in his bid for the Senate seat, but just two years later he was nominated to run for President of the Untied States in the newly formed northern Republican party. In a pre-nomination speech, delivered at Cooper Union in New York City on February 27, 1860, Lincoln said that slavery was "an evil not be extended, but to be tolerated and protected." In his prepared text he emphasized, "This is all Republicans ask -- all Republicans desire -- in relation to slavery," He went on to state that any emancipation should be gradual and carried out in conjunction with a program of scheduled deportation, sending the negroes back to Africa.

During the campaign Lincoln vowed to increase already high tariffs that put an extremely unfair tax burden on the South for the benefit of the North. He did not carry a single southern state and garnered only 39% of the popular vote nationwide. However, in a four way race, Lincoln became the president through the electoral collage.

Upon Lincoln's election, the southern states began to exercise their Constitutional right to seceed from the Union - one which defended the institution of slavery but unfairly taxed the South, which held only about 30% of the votes in congress. The former Vice-President John C. Calhoun put it this way:

"The North had adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North… the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue."

Upon taking office, while still promising to defend slavery, Lincoln called for an army to invade the peaceful South in order to collect his tariffs, under the guise of preserving the Union.

Observers in Europe saw through the rhetoric of "preserve the Union" and recognized what was really at stake. Charles Dickens observed:

"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."

Karl Marx quoted newspaper accounts from Great Britain which agreed:

"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."

A friend recently said to me that in spite of Lincoln's many faults and even his atrocities against the South, he should be credited with saving the Union. Really? In truth, Abraham Lincoln did more to destroy the United States - and the Constitution that holds it together - than any other person in history.

Story and photo by J. Stephen Conn

Monument to the only Post Civil War Slaveholder President

Ulysses S. Grant
Slaveholder, Union General, President of the United States

Famous Quotes:

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side"
— Ulysses S. Grant - 1862

"Good help is hard to find."
— Ulysses S. Grant - 1863, concerning why he did not release his slaves after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Ulysses S. Grant was the last President of the United States who was a slave owner.  Even after the War to Prevent Southern Independence, Grant kept his slaves in bondage until he was forced to release them by the ratification of the 13th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution.  

This statue, titled "Grant Our Citizen," is in Grant Park, Galena, Illinois, where he lived for much of his adult life.

Ex-Slaves tell their own story in the amazing Georgia Slave Narratives

This is an astonishing book and it just might change everything you thought you knew about slavery in the antebellum South. It contains the interviews of 43 former slaves in Georgia from the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.  Actually, it is one of a series of Slave Narratives from 15 different states.

I read the Georgia Slave Narratives not just once, but went back over the book a second and third time with pen and paper in hand, taking copious notes. Here are just a few of the things I found.

In the 43 interviews there are at least 21 references by the former slaves to how good they were treated by their masters. By contrast, only 5 former slaves said they were treated poorly, and three of those said that although their master was mean, their mistress was kind to them. One said her master was cruel, but he still took good care of the physical needs of his slaves. Another, who said she had a bad slave master, also mentioned that after she gained her freedom and moved away, she didn't move too far, so she could come back and visit her old master and family from time to time.

Overseers were different, and one slave said, “The overseers warn’t quality white folkses like our marster and mistress.” Four of the interviewees, less than 10 percent of the whole, said they had cruel overseers.  Another four said they had no overseer, and a couple said that their overseer was another slave just like themselves.

As a minister who was very active in integrating churches during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, I took special notice that ten of the slaves spoke of attending the same church with their master and family. Not only did they attend, but some were also baptized and joined the white folks church. Even before reading this book my studies had made me aware that it was common for Southern churches to be integrated before the War Between the States.  Segregation initially came about by the choice of the blacks themselves, and also because of the abuses of so called “reconstruction” following the War.

This review would be much too long if I detailed all the former slaves who fondly recalled how they were well fed, well clothed and were given the best health care available at that time. Some talked of being allowed to make money on the side during their free time.  One made enough money to purchase his own freedom.  Others said their masters gave them spending money. Many talked of having time off from work on the weekends, holidays, and for special occasions.

Of the dozen or more interviewees who mentioned encountering invading Northern soldiers, not one of them had a kind word to say. Instead, they told of the Yankees looting, slaughtering livestock, burning houses, and destroying goods and provisions which they could not steal. One slave, Della, said the first white person to ever slap her in the face was a Yankee soldier. A black man told of being captured and imprisoned by the Union soldiers for three months although he was not a Confederate soldier and was not charged with any crime.

Three black Confederate soldiers do appear in the interviews. Two of the men interviewed said they fought with the Confederate army, one for six months and the other for four years. A female slave said that after the War she married a black Confederate veteran.

Perhaps the most amazing quotes in the Slave Narratives from Georgia are those from a full dozen former slaves who spoke nostalgically about the days before freedom, each saying they were much better off then. Jasper Battle, an old ex-slave in his 80s, put it this way, “Oh Missy, dem was good old days. Us would be lucky to have ‘em back again, ‘specially when harvest time comes ‘round. You could hear Niggers a-singin’ in de fields ‘cause dey didn’t have no worries lak day got now....”

The words of this remarkable book come directly from the mouths of men and women who spent the early years of their lives in slavery.  The Slave Narratives confirm few of the stereotypes of what people think they know about that “peculiar institution,” and they contradict most of the politically correct “history” being taught today.

The Slave Narratives are controversial in today’s world only because our understanding is so limited.  I highly recommend this book for those with inquisitive and open minds. Read the Slave Narratives.  Ponder them.  There are truths here begging to be discovered.

Historic Slave Market, Montgomery, Alabama

The Court Square and Fountain in Montgomery, Alabama, was erected by the City Council in 1885 over one of the oldest city wells, known as "Big Basin." The fountain, made in Paris, France, is topped by a statue of Hebe, Goddess of Youth and Cupbearer to the Gods. Visitors have an excellent view of the Alabama State Capitol at the opposite end of Dexter Avenue, the heart of downtown Montgomery.

This square served as the local Slave Market through the mid-19th century. It is reminiscent of old slave markets in other American cities such as Charleston, Boston, Providence and New York City.

At these markets, slaves of all ages were auctioned, along with land and livestock, standing in line to be inspected. Public posters advertised sales and included gender, approximate age, first name (slaves didn't always have last names), skill, price, complexion and owner's name.

Virtually all people today agree that slavery was an unconscionable evil. Yet many are unaware that it was more than just a white-owner versus black-slave institution. A large number of free Negros owned slaves, in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. For example, in New Orleans alone over 3,000 free Negros, 28% of the total in that city, owned slaves. Altogether, only 4.8 percent of southerners were slave owners, including both black and white.

The issue was complicated farther by the fact that it was not uncommon for slaves to have straight sandy hair, blue eyes and fair complexions. Some were of as little as 1/64th African decent - or 98.4% white.

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here are a couple of websites to get you started if you want to learn more about this fascinating subject:

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Black Slaveowners: http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

White Slaves: http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/460/27/

Illinois Slave House and the Reverse Underground Railroad

The Old Slave House - Equality, Illinois

Hickory Hill Plantation House was once the manor of John Hart Crenshaw. It is here that he is said to have both harbored slaves and once entertained a future president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

While visiting with a friend recently in Harrisburg, Illinois, he informed me of the nearby Old Slave House and asked if I would like to see it. Now virtually every northerner thinks he knows that there were no slaves in Illinois, so I thought this might be be interesting to see. It was.

We found the Old Slave House in the country, sitting high on a hill near the small community of Equality, Illinois. It is owned by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency which has posted "No Trespassing" signs. A local deputy sheriff actually lives in the slave house to keep curious visitors away. I had to photograph it from a distance.

The Old Slave House became a tourist attraction in the 1920s and was open to the public until 1996. It was closed by the state of Illinois which had purchased the property. There are no plans to reopen the site at any specific point in the future. Many strong efforts by local people to have the historical Old Slave House reopened have been ignored by state authorities. Could it be that in today's climate of political correctness and historical cover-up, Illinois officials would prefer to keep their own sordid past a secret and help perpetuate the myth that slavery was only a Southern problem?

The house's dark history goes back to the days of the salt works in southeastern Illinois. It happens that salt production was the state's first industry. The need for labor to work the salt was all the excuse that was needed to wink at the law and allow slavery in its various forms to operate within the borders of Illinois.

Generations of people have said the house is the haunt of ghosts; some consider it one of the most haunted sites in America. However, it was not the ghosts, but the house's architecture that put the slave house on the National Register of Historic Places. It has also been officially recognized for its history as a station on the "Reverse Underground Railroad." As such, the house was part of a large network that operated throughout Illinois and the United States. It was used as a hideout for kidnappers and the free black people who were captured and sold into slavery.

Numerous sources show that the stories which have long been told about the old slave house are based on solid evidence. One of these stories is that the young state representative, Abraham Lincoln, once spent the night here at Hickory Hill as a guest of the slave trading Mr. Crenshaw. Mr. Lincoln partied and danced with the ladies in the ballroom on the second floor while slaves were being kept above them in an attic prison.

For those who wish to know more, an excellent book on the subject has been written by Jon Musgrave titled "Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw." It can be found at http://www.illinoishistory.com./

The Illinois Slave House - Hidden, but not Forgotten

Slavery in Minnesota: A lesson you won't learn in the public schools

Fort Snelling, A Bastion of Slavery in Territorial Minnesota

Recently, I was taken to task by a reader of this blog who signed his name Billy Yank. It was in response to a post in which I stated that Minnesota did not make slavery illegal until 1858 - just three years before they raised an army to invade the Confederate States of America.

In his note, Billy Yank said "You do understand that Minnesota came into the Union in 1858 and that is why they did not 'abolish' slavery until then right?" The Yank went on to call my post a "gross ignorance and understanding of real history."

This response is typical of so many semi literate people who know only a smattering of history, yet have an arrogant, condescending attitude toward Confederate defenders , like myself, who are actually far more knowledgeable than they. Such Yankee apologists are to be pitied. They are simply regurgitating the politically correct half truths they have heard, having never fully investigated the facts for themselves.

Since Billy Yank didn't even bother to sign his real name, my first inclination was to ignore him. On second thought, let me enlighten Billy Yank just a wee bit. I'd like to take him with me to Historic Fort Snelling, an 1820's military outpost around which the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have developed. When the fort was built it was a lonely station in the wilderness, on the far northwestern frontier of United States Territory. Not many people lived there then, but even among that small population there were a number of slaves.

Today, Fort Snelling is a Minnesota Historical Site. When I visited there, in the spring of 2008, the park interpreters boasted that the 1st Minnesota, which was mustered into service there, was the first state volunteer regiment formally tendered to the Federal government in response to Abraham Lincoln's call for 300,000 troops to crush the South in 1861. The modern folks at Fort Snelling imply strongly, and very erroneously, that the noble Minnesotans marched South to free the slaves. Actually, at the time Lincoln called them into service. he was still promising never to interfere with slavery - not even in the northern states where it was still being practiced. His goal was to "save the Union," and particularly to save the Union's primary source of revenue, which was excessive and unjust tariffs that targeted the South.

In Early History Events, The Publishing Society of Minnesota, 1908, it is noted, "In 1826 negro slavery was practically general throughout the United States. At Fort Snelling there were quite a number of slaves of both sexes. Major Taliaferro, had inherited several black bondmen and bondwomen and he hired them to the officers of the garrison."

The historical account goes into much more detail with the actual names of numerous slaves and slave holders at Fort Snelling. Slavery reached further into Minnesota than just the fort. A Dr. Wiliamson, who established his mission station at Kaposia, near St. Paul, had a negro slave, James Thompson by name, for the use of the mission. Another slave holder in Minnesota was Alexis Bailly, a prominent mixed blood trader. Alexis Bailly not only owned slaves but he also served in the territorial legislature. It looks like he would have known the law.

The best known Negro slave in Minnesota during this period was Dred Scott, key player in what has been called the most important Supreme Court case in the United States prior to the War Between the States. In the 1857 Dred Scott case. the high court ruled that slaves were property and therefore could be taken legally to any part of the United States. Dred Scott was originally brought to Fort Snelling in 1836 by his owner, Dr. John Emerson, an army surgeon. Scott later married at Fort Snelling to a slave named Harriet Robinson, owned by Major Taliaferro. According to the major, Scott "was united with my servant girl which I gave him."

Another very enlightening historical document is The Negro in Minnesota, 1800 - 1865, by Dr. Earl Spangler of the Manitoba Historical Society. Dr. Spanger confirms all of the above facts and gives many more. His scholarly work also documents the attitudes of early Minnesotans toward the handful of free blacks who lived within the territory. In one example he quotes an 1859 article from a southern Minnesota newspaper which states that there was not one Negro in its town and probably not in the whole county. The paper editorialized, "It is often remarked by visitors that we are peculiarly blessed in this respect." In 1861, as the Minnesota soldiers were marching South, another Minnesota paper reported an "ebony-skinned vagrant" in town, calling him a "black disgrace" who should be in jail. One week later the same paper commented that "Hell is paved with the skulls of such fiends in human shape."

So much for the myth of the noble, enlightened Northerner of the 1800s.

It is not the scope of this blog to give an exhaustive history of slavery in Minnesota and the Northwest Territories, but hopefully this short post will prompt Billy Yank to dig a little deeper into the historical record before showing his ignorance in the future.

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My wife, Karen, with two Union reenactors at Fort Snelling, Minnesota

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During our visit to Fort Snelling in May, 2008. Karen and I had a great time chatting with these two very friendly and hospitable Union reenactors.

Slavery in Massachusetts

THE AFRICANS OF THE SLAVE BARK "WILDFIRE,"-- HARPER'S WEEKLY, June 2, 1860

This slave ship was built in Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1852, and was sailing from the

northeastern states in the slave trade in the days just before the War Between the States.

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A couple of days ago I stumbled upon the WikiAnswers.com website where the following question and answer appeared:

Q. Did the Massachusetts Colony use slaves?

A. No, they didn't have slaves in Massachusetts.

I was outraged by this blatant bit of misinformation being displayed by a website which most people would consider a reputable source. I will admit that Wiki Answers allows anyone to answer questions posted on their site, but they also claim to have monitors to check those answers for accuracy. It seems to me this one should have been easy to verify as false.

Instead of complaining about the wrong answer, I simply posted the correct information, which I'm happy to say, is the one the folks at Wiki have allowed to stand. My answer, and now the Wiki Answer, is below:


Yes, slavery was practiced in all of the original American colonies.

Actually, Massachusetts was the first slave-holding colony in New England, even predating the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. Samuel Maverick, apparently New England's first slaveholder, arrived in Massachusetts in 1624 and brought with him two negro slaves.

Massachusetts also became the first American colony to give official recognition of chattel slavery as a legal institution in 1641, with the "Body of Liberties." Not until 142 years later, in 1783, was slavery finally ruled illegal in Massachusetts based on the states new constitution. However, slavery did not stop immediately even then. continuing in parts of the state until the end of the 18th century. Thus, slavery was a legal institution in Massachusetts for 142 years, and was actually a practice, first in the colony and later in the state of Massachusetts, for a total of about 170 years.

The erroneous answer on Wiki just goes to illustrate the need for blogs such as Confederate Digest. Ignorance of history is rampant thoughout America, and ignorance of the South is especially epidemic in the North. I've been in the beautiful state of Massachusetts many times, have visited every county in the state, and have met many of the people. There are lots of wonderful folks in Massachusetts, but some of them seem to have a self-righteous attitude that is condescending toward all things Southern. After all, they think, the South had slaves but not Massachusetts. A little education would show then how very wrong - or ignorant - they really are. There is no justification for such haughty arrogance.

Maybe I should have also pointed out that Massachusetts, along with New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and other northeastern states, became wealthy from the slave trade. Every American slave ship which ever sailed came from a from a northern shore, was owned by northern interests, and flew the American flag. No slave ship every sailed under the Confederate flag nor from a Confederate port. In fact, the Confederate Constitution prohibited the slave trade. But that should be the subject of another post.

When Did the States Abolish Slavery?

Click Map to Enlarge

In 1860, on the eve of the War Between the States, every state and territory in the United States, like virtually place on earth, had a history of slavery. This map shows the dates in which slavery was abolished in the northern states. These states established laws to gradually end slavery over a period of many decades, and with compensation paid to former slaver owners. So gradual was the process that some of the northern states still had remnant slave populations even up to and during the War Between the States.

I find it very interesting that places such as Minnesota did not officially end slavery until just a couple of years before they raised an army to invade, vanquish and plunder the Confederate States of America. This simply makes no sense if one believes that the war was fought over slavery, which of course it was not. It was a War to Prevent Southern Independence, motivated by greed and lust for power and empire.

The dates above show that slavery in America first ended in the New England States, however, one should also consider that Massachusetts became the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and Connecticut became the second colony to make the practice legal in 1650. New York and New Jersey joined the ranks of slave colonies in 1864. By contrast, a Georgia law prohibited slavery until it was repealed in 1749, which means that for more than a century slavery was legal in Massachusetts but not in Georgia. Slavery was legal in Connecticut for 190 years, compared to about 116 years in Georgia.

While visiting Boston recently I took a tour of the African American National Historic Site. The young black tour guide spoke gushingly of the way the virtuous Bostonians had led the way in crusading against slavery, never hinting that Slavery was legal in Boston for 140 years, and practiced there for even longer. She implied that it was only the evil Southerners who owned slaves. Her self righteousness was totally unjustified. Her ignorance of history, as a National Park Guide, was inexcusable.

Virtually everyone in America today agrees with Robert E. Lee who wrote, years before his native state of Virginia seceded from the Union, "Slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil." To speak of the evil of slavery as only a southern problem shows, at best, a gross ignorance of American history. At worst, it reveals a hypocritical agenda to vilify and slander the South. Could that agenda be motivated by a desire to justify an unnecessary war which killed more than 620,000 Americans and destroyed countless southern towns, cities, homes and farms?

Slavery in the North

The Museum of Newport History, in Rhode Island, was formerly a slave market built in 1762

Photo from Wikipedia

By Douglas Harper

African slavery is so much the outstanding feature of the South, in the unthinking view of it, that people often forget there had been slaves in all the old colonies. Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant's Coffee House of New York. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people. The family of Abraham Lincoln himself, when it lived in Pennsylvania in colonial times, owned slaves.

When the minutemen marched off to face the redcoats at Lexington in 1775, the wives, boys and old men they left behind in Framingham took up axes, clubs, and pitchforks and barred themselves in their homes because of a widespread, and widely credited, rumor that the local slaves planned to rise up and massacre the white inhabitants while the militia was away.

African bondage in the colonies north of the Mason-Dixon Line has left a legacy in the economics of modern America and in the racial attitudes of the U.S. working class. Yet comparatively little is written about the 200-year history of Northern slavery. Robert Steinfeld's deservedly praised "The Invention of Free Labor" (1991) states, "By 1804 slavery had been abolished throughout New England," ignoring the 1800 census, which shows 1,488 slaves in New England. Recent archaeological discoveries of slave quarters or cemeteries in Philadelphia and New York City sometimes are written up in newspaper headlines as though they were exhibits of evidence in a case not yet settled ....

The above is an excerpt from a fascinating website, "Slavery in the North," written by New England scholars and researchers. Read more at:

http://www.slavenorth.com/

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

Visiting Stonewall Jackson's Church

I recently found myself in Lexington, Virginia on a Sunday morning, so decided to visit the historic First Presbyterian Church. This is the view from my pew on the back row.

It is here at First Presbyterian Church of Lexington that Confederate General Stonewall was a deacon while serving as a professor at the Virginia Military Institute. Jackson was instrumental in establishing and teaching a Sunday School in this church for black parishioners, both slave and free. It is thought that he not only taught the Bible but also taught the black population of Lexington to read and write. The black Sunday School was in existance for several years before the outbreak of the War Between the States.

Several black churches in southwestern Virginia can trace their roots to Stonewall Jackson's black sunday school. An excellent book which tells that story is, "Stonewall Jackson: The Black Man's Friend,." by Richard G. Williams Jr. Here is a link to the book on Amazon:

A Historical Sign that opened my Eyes

When a person sets out on a quest to visit each of the 3,141 counties or their equivilents in the United States, as I am doing, he never knows what unexpected discoveries he may make along the way.

This simple interpretative sign at Tannehill Historical State Park in Alabama was a catalyst that made a deep and lasting impact on my life. When I first read it several years ago I would never have imagined the quest for knowledge on which it would lead me.

I had read countless other such signs during my travels, but for some unknown reason this one particular sign on that day resonated deeply with me - especially the description of actions taken by Union troops from Iowa who were here during the latter days of the War Between the States:

"... they torched all the adjacent factory buildings, slave cabins, a large gristmill and tannery and a storehouse for food and supplies. In the fire Tannehill’s workforce of over 500 slaves and white mechanics were scattered and displaced."

Whoa, I thought! The Yankees burned the slave cabins along with those of the white workers? Hundreds of people were left with no shelter, no food, and nowhere to go?

Although I grew up in the South, I had been told all my life that the Union troops marched south to free the slaves. If that were so, then why did the Northerners burn the slaves out, leaving them destitute, homeless and hungry. Elsewhere on the grounds of the Tannehill Historical State Park I saw a large patch of woods, marked as the site of scores of slave cabins which the Yankees had ransacked, plundered and then destroyed - cabins that would have been equal to those of my own Irish and Cherokee ancestors in Alabama and Georgia during the same era.

I began to make the connection to other discoveries from my travels, such as a monument to black Confederate soldiers in Mississippi and an antebellum plantation in Louisiana owned by a black slaveholder. I had previously dismissed such things as curious flukes, but now I was beginning to see a pattern which contradicted most of what I had always assumed I knew about the War Between the States.

It occurred to me that somebody was lying about what really happened during the so called Civil War, and I determined to find out the truth. It's not that I didn't know American History. I am better read and know much more history than the average person. But when it came to the War Between the States, I had learned primarily only the version of that conflict which was written by the victors, the North, and not the supressed Southern side of the story.

During the years since that fateful day I have spent thousands of hours studying about the Confederacy, the causes of secession, and the War Between the States. As I have read scores of books and have continued to visit hundreds of historical sites I looked for clues to the real story, unvarnished by political correctness. To say that the things I have learned have been an eyeopener is an understatement.

That historical sign at Tannehill State Park in Alabama was a catalyst in the chain of events that brought me to the point of beginning this blog. In the coming weeks and months I will continue sharing many more of the amazing discoveries I have made about the Confederate States of America.