The Black Confederate

[johan_steele]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

With all due respect, I don't believe there were any slaves in the South during your lifetime. Of course there's racism in the South. We see less of it as time goes by, but why are you pointing out racism in the South? That wasn't even part of our discussion.

Racism is a learned trait; it is learned from parents grandparents and peers. It is more precedence that race relations in the south were far from cute fuzzy bunnies and roses whether in 1960 or 1860. Incidently I've never said that there was no racism in the north. In fact I have often stated that slavery and racism was a NATIONAL sin.

You claimed you had never heard of a slave that liked being a slave and I presented you with the statement of three of them. Personally, I don't believe that is reason enough for you to attack my character even though you obviously don't want to hear that all slaves weren't miserable wretches.

I am sorely annoyed at the constant insinuation most slaves were content w/ a life of servitude.

Again, with all due respect, your local racist dirtbag wasn't there during emancipation, either. The local old people could have been repeating old wive's tales, but either way, I allow as to the fact it could have happened. What with all the meanness in the world even yet today, anything is possible.

I apoligize for using the term racist and dirtbag in the same sentence... I was unaware that the two terms were mutually exclusive and in fact firmly believe that the two terms go together quite aptly though not always hand in hand. In the case of this man they most certainly did. I admit the tale of Eastover could well have been an old wives tale... though as I said my research made it not only possible but probable. Hearing the tale from the perspective of the descendent of a survivor and the perspective of a (very proud) descendent of one of the murderers is quite hard to get past.

Here we differ again. I claim that SC people have always been good people. A good evening to you.

I wouldn't disagree; I am firmly convinced that my wife, her family and ancestors were all a pretty decent sort. I am also firmly convinced that SC citizens of today are a better people than those that bought my daughters namesake; others apparently disagree but I do not.

As it is I bid you a good day.

[ole]

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Ole, old friend, your old habits are showing. This lady has some merit to her presentation. There are many different levels to consideration of this period from, say, 1800-1970..... I have accounts of my Bourne family who lived in Grayson County, Virginia from 1760 onward who had a few slaves themselves. The lady identified was referred to as Granny Beck. A slave, Granny Beck was in charge of the small herd of cattle owned by a rather prosperous Bourne family. She recalled the story of her abduction and subsequent transportation to Virginia. Granny Beck was a family member (I know, she was a slave legally) who was well respected and became the best friend of her mistress Rosamond Jones Bourne. These two hunted animals for food and grew and processed much of the large families food crops. William Bourne operated a huge iron works. The point of this rambling is much of what I percieve Wild Rose to be pointing out from a southern realistic perspective on the civil level. Blacks and whites did in very fact become friends and trusted companions in the south. The slavery thing was in some cases only a legal thing. Yes, legality is very important, but it ain't the only aspect of day-to-day life. Even Nathan Bedford Forrest had many black friends. He depended on forty of them for his life between 1861-1865.

Larry:
Not entirely certain about what you're referring to. Rose's argument has a lot of merit. However, the validity of the survey from which several of her quotes came was questioned. I pursued that line to illustrate that some of the cited quotes -- not all of them -- can be questioned. It followed then that one lies only for gain; as there was no gain,there was no reason to lie. We all know, or should recognize, that lying is not so simply explained, especially in an interview situation where one is anxious to provide the information one thinks the interviewer wants. (Not that much different than a job interview.)

The argument that not all slaves, former slaves, and Jim Crow subjects were dissatisfied with the way things were (or at least said so for the record) is readily accepted. Undoubtedly, some were quite content; and I don't care if the the actual number was 1, or 100,000 -- there were some. I only question the attempt to pad the actual number (which Rose does not) with dubious statistics and "proof."

My comment to Rose had only to do with her charitable acceptance of information given to interviewers.
Regards,
Ole

[Battalion]

Originally Posted by ole

Larry:
Not entirely certain about what you're referring to. Rose's argument has a lot of merit. However, the validity of the survey from which several of her quotes came was questioned. I pursued that line to illustrate that some of the cited quotes -- not all of them -- can be questioned. It followed then that one lies only for gain; as there was no gain,there was no reason to lie. We all know, or should recognize, that lying is not so simply explained, especially in an interview situation where one is anxious to provide the information one thinks the interviewer wants. (Not that much different than a job interview.)

....
My comment to Rose had only to do with her charitable acceptance of information given to interviewers.
Regards,
Ole

Many pension applications of Black Confederates proclaim faithful service for the duration of the war.

With the same reasoning you present...it could be argued they did this just to get their pension...

...but with pension applications you have to have supporting witnesses. Not just to verify military service but also to bear witness to their character and truthfulness.

Over a period of four years of service with the army- camp life, campaigning, etc. -there would be plenty of opportunities to just "walk away".....they didn't...and they have witnesses to support that fact.

*

I don't believe the faithful service had any thing to do with a preference of slavery....but more to do with personal loyalties.

[rebalgray]

http://www.scvcamp469-nbf.com/thebla...atesoldier.htm

[samgrant]

Sorry, I am late to this discussion, but from the few posts I have viewed, it appears that there are some who suggest that the slaves actually enjoyed their state of servitude.

Am I misinterpreting things here?

[ole]

Sam:
I don't think that anyone claimed that any slave actually enjoyed his condition -- just that there is good evidence that some were loyal and faithful by choice and that some served in the military long enough to earn a pension.

Ole

[mobile_96]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

I'm sorry, that just doesn't jibe with what I know. Besides, if you read the narratives you know those stories weren't fabricated.

Originally Posted by ole

Didn't claim the stories were fabricated, just that the "survey's" validity is open to question.

You're claiming that a black being interviewed would be just as open with a white interviewer as he/she would be with a black?

Ole

Don't see where anyone claimed the narratives were fabricated, or just out right lies.
However, repeated enough times the impression you wish to give someone can and oft times will become 'your' truth.
I still say, a 11 year will not have much experience with actual slavery. And rememberances of life after the war was over is not same as living under slavery.
Rose, outside the Federal Project you're quoting from, what books, or other sources have you explored for living under slavery.
Chuck in IL.

[larry_cockerham]

Ole, we seem to actually be more or less on the same mindset, as usual. I suspect there was some pension applying going on, particularly in the south after 1908 with the $24 a month income being the prime objective. Most of these folks at that date were 60 years old or better. I was merely trying to point out that life in some cases was tolerable. Slavery wasn't part of the tolerated part. Blacks and Whites, even soldiers were in some cases, friends.

[ole]

I was merely trying to point out that life in some cases was tolerable. Slavery wasn't part of the tolerated part. Blacks and Whites, even soldiers were in some cases, friends.

No quarrel with that. None whatsoever. You said it better than I did.
Ole

[unionblue]

From the newspaper, the Republican, Lynchburg, Virginia, November 2, 1864.

"The proposition (enlisting slaves as soldiers) is so strange--so unconstitutional--so directly in conflict with all of our former practices and teachings--so entirely subversive of our social and political institutions--and so completely destructive of our liberties, that we stand completely appalled [and] dumbfounded at its promulgation. When Lincoln first armed the negroes against us, we all remember what just indignation it excited throughout the world, and how revolting it appeared to the minds of our people; and when insult was added to injury, by requiring us to exchange negroes for white men, the base proposition was indignantly rejected as worthy only of such brutal nature as Beast Butler's. To this day, thousands of our soldiers are languishing in Northern prisons, because neither they nor we will consent to acknowledge Lincoln's negroes as their equals. But those just and refined sentiments of gentlemanly warfare seem no longer to be regarded by a portion of the Southern press as matters of any consequence at all, and they not only virtually declare that Lincoln and Butler's theory of amalgamated warfare is right, but that the South should improve upon their example and elevate the slave to full political and civil equality with his master! In short it is abolition. This is the naked proposition of these journals when stripped in all its deformity.

They propose that Congress shall conscribe two hundred and fifty thousand slaves, arm, equip and fight them in the field. As an inducement of them to be faithful, it is proposed that, at the end of the war, they shall have their freedom and live amongst us. "The conscription of negroes," says the (Richmond, Virginia, newspaper) Enquirer, "should be accompanied with freedom and the privilege of remaining in the States." This is the monstrous proposition. The South went to war to defeat the designs of the abolitionists, and behold! in the midst of the war, we turn abolitionists ourselves! We went to war because the Federal Congress kept eternally meddling with our domestic institutions, with which we contended they had nothing to do, and now we propose to end the war by asking the Confederate Congress to do precisely what Lincoln proposes to do--free our negroes and make them the equals of the white man! We have always been taught to believe that slaves are property, and under the exclusive control of the States and the courts. This new doctrine teaches us that Congress has a right to free our negroes and make them the equals of their masters.

Now, we are free to say that if the South is to be abolitionized in the end, it would have been far better for us to have been abolitionized in the beginning, and that, if such a terrible calamity is to befall us at all, we infinitely prefer that Lincoln shall be the instrument of our disaster and degradation, that that we ourselves should strike the cowardly and suicidal blow. Lincoln steals our negroes and burdens his people with keeping them; the Enquirer proposes to free our negroes and make them a perpetual burden to the Confederacy, a standing insult to the manhood of our people!

But this is not the most hateful aspect of this question. "Justice and sound policy," says the Enquirer, "demand that we make freemen of those who fight for freedom." This is the beast in all its frightful deformity. Lincoln and Butler declare that the negroes who they make fight for "freedom," are entitled to it, and therefore should be treated and exchanged as the equals of Southern gentlemen. If the wild doctrines of the Enquirer be sanctioned by our people or Government, then President Davis cannot gainsay the propositions of Butler and Lincoln, and must consent to the exchange of negroes for white men. But this is not all.

If "those who fight for freedom" are entitled to it then they are "entitled" to it equally. If the negro is made to fight our battles of "freedom" then he must be governed by the same laws of war, and he must stand upon the same footing of the white man after the war. What will be the consequences? Why, if 250,000 negro men are entitled to their freedom because they fight for it, then their wives, children and families are also entitled to the same boon, just as the wives, children and families of the white man who fight the same battle. In other words, the South is to be converted by this war into an abolitionized colony of free negroes, instead of a land of white freemen, knowing their rights and daring to maintain them. If the negroes are to be free, they must be equally free with the master. If they are to be armed like the master, then they are in fact equal to the master. What is the result? Why, they never can be slaves again, and must be treated as the master, politically, civilly and socially. "Those who fight for freedom are entitled to freedom," says the Enquirer, and we say so too. If the white men of the South are willing to make the shameful confession that they have accepted a war which they cannot fight to a successful issue, and that they claim rights in slaves which they are incapable of maintaining by force of arms, then we say we deserve no other fate than to be leveled to the equality of our negroes..."

Unionblue