You can't get much cheaper than zero wages, a whip and subsistence accomodations.
That is just wrong, CW.
Slavery in the United States was not "zero wages, a whip and subsistence accomodations". It may have been like that in the West Indies and Central and South America, but it wasn't like that here and you know it. Room, board, clothing, transportation, healthcare, training, job security and retirement. Hardly, cheap labor.
Room - an uninsulated shack
board - all the corn/rice you can eat! Just like a buffet at Howard Johnsons.
clothing - Ralph Lauren work fatigues all around!
transportation - always a plus! particularly when your master sells your kin/wife/son/daughter to another plantation; this way you can keep in touch!
healthcare - thats an oxymoron for the 19th century, but granted they probably did set broken bones, something tells me dental and vision wasn't included.
training - I'm 100% confident they learned the ins and outs of agriculture and the running of a plantation.
job security - a job so secure you can't walk away from it.
retirement - off to Florida with them!
You are being obstinate and argumentative. Of course compared to our modern day standards of morality and decency, folks in the 19th century had it rough. All of 'em did. Not just the slaves, but the freedmen, free land owners, white yeoman's and artisans too.
Don't think you're going to get off with saying that slaves were only farmhands either. That just ain't so. Black African slaves on plantations in the United States of America had all kinds of highly sought after and specialized skills. Sawyers, carpenters, wheelwrights, stone masons and black smiths just to name a few. No, I think them that ended up here got the fortunate end of the stick compared to their black brethren, 95% of whom ended up in the West Indies or Central and South America.
Yes they did get room, board, clothing, transportation, healthcare, training, job security and retirement and no it wasn't CHEAP Labor!
but FREE Labor is!
and another thing ....
I'm sick and tired of hearing about how evil American Slaveholders were and how they were so quick to beat their slaves and sell their families off. BULL-HOCKEY!
American slaveholders were good to their slaves. They had to be good to 'em. they were too danged expensive not to take good care of 'em. American farmers take good care of their property. They always have and they always will. Do you think they rode their draft horses hard and put 'em away wet? Not Hardly! Maybe some did, once in a while, but they were far and away the exception rather than the norm. How much more so do you think they cared about their black African slaves? A lot more sir. A lot more.
Last edited by Ozark Iron John; 08-01-2007 at 03:03 PM.
I do not think that many of us would argue that there were vast numbers who cared about the black man in the 19th century, especially around the Civil War. It was a very racist time period. However, I think that the problem that alot of us have with this "poll" is that it is so vague and transparent. Its whole purpose seems to be to point out the differing factions and incite argument, not discussion (and there is a difference.)
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
"On The Advance.-- Four years ago there were about 14 Republicans in the United States Senate; two years ago 20, and now 25, which will be increased to 27 by the admission of Kansas. Two years hence there will be another step forward...."
South Bend Register (Indiana), February 1860
"Two More Republican Senators ...we gain two U.S. Senators; one in place of Bigler, of Pennsylvania, and the other in place of Fitch, of Indiana [both Democrats]-- This makes a change of four votes in the Senate, and brings parties almost to an equality in the upper branch of Congress. It needs but two or three additional votes to give us control of the Senate, and these we shall secure before the second year of Mr. Lincoln's administration."
Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, 13 October 1860
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Type the words, 'Slave Whippings' into your search engine and then please explain to me again why owners would not whip their slaves.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Why were more Republican candidates being sent to Congress and the Senate? Why were they being elected? On what issue did the people and their State Legislatures put them there?
You know as well as I. The only issue that kept coming up, again and again, the only one the South truly cared about, needed to expand and continue.
Hint: It wasn't about MONEY.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Why were more Republican candidates being sent to Congress and the Senate? Why were they being elected? On what issue did the people and their State Legislatures put them there?
You know as well as I. The only issue that kept coming up, again and again, the only one the South truly cared about, needed to expand and continue.
Hint: It wasn't about MONEY.
Unionblue
Sure...sure.....those Northern congressmen were wringing their hands over the welfare of the slave.
So much so that they wanted those territories reserved for free white labor. No blacks allowed.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
I'm sick and tired of hearing about how evil American Slaveholders were and how they were so quick to beat their slaves and sell their families off. BULL-HOCKEY!
American slaveholders were good to their slaves. They had to be good to 'em. they were too danged expensive not to take good care of 'em. American farmers take good care of their property. They always have and they always will. Do you think they rode their draft horses hard and put 'em away wet? Not Hardly! Maybe some did, once in a while, but they were far and away the exception rather than the norm. How much more so do you think they cared about their black African slaves? A lot more sir. A lot more.
Like most things, it depends.
If there was a place where it was "less bad" to be a slave, Vurginia and Maryland was probably it. But between about 1810 and 1860 the number of slaves born in Virginia is about equal to the number sold out of state. The total slave population in Maryland declines. Not many slaves got to spend their lives in these places.
In certain areas, the death rate of slaves was higher than the birth rate. This also varied with the stage of development. In phase I (early clearing of land, etc.) life was hard and dangerous. In phase II (high-productivity development), many slaveowners argued it was "cheaper to buy than breed". In some areas of Louisiana, the average life span of a slave from purchase to death was given as seven years. South Carolina had similar areas. Established areas that had been in production a long time tended to have slaves live longer. In general, field hands might be worked until they dropped; house slaves tended to live longer.
If you were in the Deep South, in a place like Mississippi, field hands worked in gangs with a black driver and a white overseer. The overseer was generally the one with the whip. The slightest sign of disobedience or slacking off was punished -- quickly. In Virginia, work was easier and went according to the "task system" in many places, where slaves might work unsupervised. In Delaware and Eastern Shore Maryland, slavery was a different thing than it was in the Deep South.
So you can find examples of any kind you want in there, but in general, being a slave stunk pretty bad. Don't try to make it pretty.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
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