Where is the NAACP? Why are they not demanding an end to slavery now? The answer: they are too busy being “offended” by the sight of the Confederate flag. Apparently, being “offended” is quite appealing when it comes to fund-raising and political pandering. Real slavery just isn’t very interesting to those who are busy claiming to be oppressed because some people of their race were slaves in America over 150 years ago.

Slavery Timeline created by Connie Chastain of the blog 180 Degrees Due South. Reprinted with permission.

One matter that I was completely unaware of is that South Carolina was governed explicitly as an aristocracy, and there is ample discussion of that – enough that I look forward to learning more about it.

Another subject that caught my interest on a more personal level is the role – and rationale – of the abolitionist Cassius Clay, cousin of Henry Clay. These men are among my ancestors, and that is where my middle name came from (a middle name that I share with my father and my grandfather). Heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay (who later changed his name to Mohamed Ali) was named after Cassius Clay with the understanding that he was an abolitionist. He was, indeed an abolitionist, but I am confident that his father who named him was quite unaware of exactly why the original Cassius Clay embraced abolition. The article points out that Clay hoped to make Kentucky into a White ethnostate, and outlawing slavery was the means to exclude Blacks from that state. History has many little nuances like that when we take the time to look beyond the official “approved” story. Was this motivation more wide-spread? Was that part of the North’s enthusiasm for abolition? Interesting questions that beg for answers.

At 4574 words, this is not a short article. If you are not prepared to read it in its entirety, then either understand that you may be missing key points, or don’t start at all. Read it with an open mind and you will gain a much deeper insight into the circumstances that led up to secession and the war, what the political landscape looked like, and perhaps even a few “alternative futures” had things gone differently. This is “Part 1″ – I look forward to reading what follows.

"Slave" Adrian Peterson (Pione) (Pioneer Press: John Doman, file)

Here at Confederate Colonel, we often discuss the topic of slavery. It is what The South has been hammered with for over a century and a half, so we certainly have every right to stand up and offer a rebuttal to false charges – and provide context for legitimate charges. At no time have we ever trivialized slavery. It is a serious topic and deserves to be discussed as such. Some folks, however, seem to enjoy the “victim” status of having the same skin color as most slaves throughout history – no matter how shameless it may be.

Just how far are some people willing to take the “slavery” allusion? How about Vikings player Adrian Peterson who is set to make a base salary of $10.72 million in 2011 playing the “slavery” game. The topic is the collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players union. Here is what he said in an interview posted at TwinCities.com:

When discussing other players feeling the same way, Peterson said: “It’s modern-day slavery, you know? People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too.

Peterson the slave was unavailable for further comment – he and other NFL players are currently in Africa on a “goodwill tour”.

This is what happens when people are allowed to get away with using “hot button words” without being challenged. The same thing has happened to the word “racist” – a word that used to have a specific meaning, but now means anything that a white person does that is not sufficiently obsequious to blacks.

In any discussion of slavery, it would be a good idea to include the institution of indentured service. An indenture is essentially a limited term of slavery which is entered into voluntarily and benefits both parties. This was basically the practice of signing a contract that bound a person to a servant/master relationship for a specified period of time in exchange for something of value. In the case of my grandfather, it was in exchange for teaching him the trade of stone-mason.

Indentured service is, of course, not the same as slavery – not by a long shot.  It has a very clear end date; at least it was supposed to. The main reason that indentured service was outlawed is that unscrupulous masters would contrive reasons to extend the term of indenture by claiming that the servant had unpaid debts that had to be repaid before the terms of the indenture were satisfied.

In many respects, a properly executed contract of indenture is essentially the same as a young man signing up with the military. He is provided with food, housing, medical care, clothing, and other benefits. He is taught a skill that may (or may not) be a valuable skill when his contract ends. In return, he is subject to their rules, must obey all lawful orders without question, and cannot simply walk away from his term of service.

Take a few moments to read over this agreement. Indentured servant agreements are no longer legal, and while they may be viewed as barbaric, I suspect that our society is worse off for that. It was signed between two willing participants in which both benefited. My grandfather would never have been able to afford to go to school to learn a skilled trade like that, so becoming an indentured servant gave him that opportunity.

From the perspective of Southerners defending slavery, what does the issue of slavery in the antebellum years have to do with the Boston Tea Party and “Health Care”? It was the symbol of Northern domination of the country. It was an example of those in the North trying to dictate how Southerners must live. It was the perfect illustration of Northerners who profited from the importation of slaves, who profited from the ready supply of cotton for their textile mills, and who profited when they shipped their slaves south when it proved cheaper and more efficient to import poor Whites to work in their factories for starvation wages once they arrived in America. Having already made their profits from slavery, it became politically expedient to ride the wave of popular outrage against what those people in The South were doing.

Slavery most likely was not all that popular in The South, in that people understood that there was something fundamentally wrong with it. It was a problem, but it was The South’s problem to solve – not to be dictated to by The North. It was the right of the states to make decisions and to solve problems; it was not the proper role of the federal government to tell the states what to do.

Slavery was emblematic of the great divide between North and South. It was NOT the cause for the War for Southern Independence any more than the price of tea was the cause for the first War for Independence. If the issue of slavery suddenly disappeared overnight in late 1860, that would have done nothing to prevent the secession of the Southern states. The only difference would be that the North would no longer have the issue of slavery to piously claim the moral high ground. When we read the accounts of Southern leaders defending slavery, they are using it as a rhetorical device to illustrate the great divide that had split the North and South long before the first shots were ever fired in the war. Was slavery a factor? Yes, of course it was – but not in the way that revisionist history presents it. Slavery was being used as a symbol – just as their grandfathers had used a tax on tea as a symbol of another oppressive government.

Some people will make the point that relatively few people owned slaves and that their ancestors certainly did not. I can’t make that statement because mine did. What I can do though, is use what information I have about that situation to try to shed some light on the subject.

The family sawmill

First, the basic facts: My great-great grandparents owned at least one slave. He was known as “Uncle Henry”. It was common practice to refer to slaves as “Uncle” or “Aunt”, giving them the status of semi-family. Uncle Henry had a son named Dave Wilson, who continued working for the family long after slavery had ended. Dave Wilson is shown here in this photo on the far left side. The tall man in the center is my grandfather, so this spanned several generations of my family. I think it is a fairly safe assumption that if the family slaves had been poorly treated as popular myth would have us believe, we would not have seen Dave Wilson in this photograph.

Slave graves in the McGehee family cemetery

Another factor to consider is what happened after the slaves died. If they had been treated and thought of as little more than beasts of burden, wouldn’t they have just been buried in a shallow pit somewhere in the woods? In this second photo are slave graves. They are in the family cemetery near the top of McGehee Mountain in Clay County, Alabama. There is a fence surrounding the cemetery, and the slaves are not buried off in some remote location – they are buried inside the family cemetery right beside the rest of our family. The idea of “separate but equal” really comes into focus here.

Obviously, we cannot say that this is representative of the lives of all slaves, but I have read a number of first-hand accounts – including those of former slaves themselves – who were treated quite well. That doesn’t make it right or good, but it does offer compelling evidence that The South was not filled with sadistic slave masters as the Northern-directed history would have us believe.

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.

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 solider. 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….”

Be sure to read the whole article. While you’re at it, I would recommend subscribing to the Confederate Digest blog. It should be on everyone’s daily reading list.

Traditional African rulers should apologise for the role they played in the slave trade, a Nigerian rights group has said in a letter to chiefs.

“We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless,” said the Civil Rights Congress. The letter said some collaborated or actively sold off their subjects. The group said it was time for African leaders to copy the US and the UK who have already said they were sorry.

It urged Nigeria’s traditional rulers to apologise on behalf of their forefathers and “put a final seal to the history of slave trade”, AFP news agency reports.
…
He said that on behalf of the buyers of slaves, the ancestors of these traditional rulers “raided communities and kidnapped people, shipping them away across the Sahara or across the Atlantic”.