Slavery; THE Cause?

[matthew mckeon]

About attitudes of slaves towards masters:
Obviously there would be a range of attitudes. Even Frederick Douglass differentiated between different masters(although see all in negatively)

Here's a revealing incident.
Col. Thomas Higginson was leading a raid with his black troops into South Carolina.
He came upon the plantation owned by the former master of one of his corporals and arranged the following scene: After conversing with the lady of the house for a few minutes and elicting that her slaves were well treated and content, he suddenly produced the corporal. The woman was properly shocked and chargrined, Higginson delighted in the confrontation, but what was interesting was the soldier's reaction. He seemed indifferent to his former owner, and expressed no emotion about the confrontation. He took care to later show Higginson the slave jail and shackles, but the scene staged by Higginson and his owner meant little to him. Slavery dehumanized the slave to the master, and apparently dehumanized the master to the slave as well.

Of course the soldiers of Higginson's regiment were starting to pool their money with an eye on buying their own farms when the war was over, so maybe the soldiers looked on the old plantations with a eye on the future, not the past.

[RebProf]

Several things catch my eye about this thread. First of all, there is the old statement that "Lincoln only wanted to prevent the spread of slavery." Folks, the Dred Scott Decision by the Supreme Court had taken that issue out of Lincoln's hands; the Court ruled that "neither the president nor congress" could end slavery, that could be done only by a state. Thus, every territory was open to slavery until such time as the territory became a state; then the state could decide. Lincoln may have wanted to prevent the spread of slavery but he was denied the legal power to do anything about it.

Second, I am not surprised to see the quote by the Confederate V.P. tossed into the debate. The Confederate V.P. spoke for about as many Confederates as Dick Cheney does for contemporary Americans.

I wonder why those who are interested in the attitude of slaves toward masters do not look at the WPA interviews done in the 1930's with exslaves. I know all the quibbles about the interviews being done by White people talking to Black people and the interviewers being told what they wanted to hear but that is speculation and not a historical criticism. The tapes say what they say and are a primary historical record. In over 3,000 interviews fewer than 50 report any abuse. There seems to be some feeling that the presence of a "slave jail" and shackles on a plantation demonstrates something dehumanizing. We are talking about the 19th Century when physical punishment was common and shackles were a feature of every jail. That same United States officer who found the shackles on the plantation had the power to put them on his own soldiers and many soldiers found themselves wearing them.

Since the beginning of the War there have been several schools of historiography which have assigned a "cause" for the war. We started with Rebellion, moved on to Civil Conflict, passed on to States Rights/Preservation of the Union, became Multicausalists for most of the 20th Century identifying multiple causes, and started focusing on Monocausalism (one cause--slavery) only about 1960. This point of view is changing again. The book which won the Bancroft Prize in U. S. History last year espouses a Multicausalist position.

It seems that the current debate about "Slavery: The Only Cause" has a limited future among historians. Give it another 10 years and it, too, will be a voice from the past.

[samgrant]

Professor,

To your statement that:

" I am not surprised to see the quote by the Confederate V.P. tossed into the debate. The Confederate V.P. spoke for about as many Confederates as Dick Cheney does for contemporary Americans."

Well it might take a few days, but I'm sure a more industrious person than I could come up with a couple dozen similar quotes from various secessionist leaders.

Also I believe that most of the Declarations of Secession by the seceding states explicitly mention slavery as a reason for secession (at least those of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas do).

You may also find, in the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America",
the following:

"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."

As well as several other reference to slaves and slavery.

Instead of me looking up all those quotes, you could save me the time by reading:

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War by Charles S. Dew

[johan_steele]

Rebprof I might ask then why marching through Cobbs Plantation had such an adverse effect upon Shermans men? References to the rather brutal devices intended to punish slaves to include cat of nine tails w/ fish hooks in the ends. Or the blanket to be wrapped around the limb from which a slave being whipped was suspended so that the tree would suffer no damage from the ropes. My personal favorite is the "leg breaker" a device for breaking a leg. Once the leg healed the leg was then broken again so that the slave might remember. Is it any wonder why men who were not abolishionists before the march were afterward. Perhaps it had something to do w/ their witnessing of the Benevolance of Slavery first hand. Most of the stories of slave mistreatment I heard from the grandchildren of slaves.

50 out of 3000. I remember asking my college prof about that, actually I asked him why there were so few negative reports about slavery. He laughed at me, "Do the math, the worst treated were not likely to have lived that long. 3000 out of 4 million, done in the 30's at a time when the south was controlled by people who might find negative testimony uncomfortable. You're suprised?" A trifle simplistic but a theory that has merit; from a prof who insisted that there were good and bad slave owners, likely w/ the bad being the minority.

And yet Stephens was VP... a man who knew the South, the CS and certainly the mind of those who forced Secession.

[samgrant]

Shane, I was tempted to also touch on those 70 year old interviews, but you have done it better than I could have.

[mobile_96]

{ I wonder why those who are interested in the attitude of slaves toward masters do not look at the WPA interviews done in the 1930's with exslaves. I know all the quibbles about the interviews being done by White people talking to Black people and the interviewers being told what they wanted to hear but that is speculation and not a historical criticism.} Speculation with a bit of proof behind it.
Some of the interviews were done again, but with a black interviewer instead of a white one. This time the recollections were much harsher than with the initial interview.
Chuck in IL.

[elektratig]

Originally Posted by RebProf

Several things catch my eye about this thread. First of all, there is the old statement that "Lincoln only wanted to prevent the spread of slavery." Folks, the Dred Scott Decision by the Supreme Court had taken that issue out of Lincoln's hands; the Court ruled that "neither the president nor congress" could end slavery, that could be done only by a state. Thus, every territory was open to slavery until such time as the territory became a state; then the state could decide. Lincoln may have wanted to prevent the spread of slavery but he was denied the legal power to do anything about it.

I fear you are mixing apples and oranges. Without going into the gory details of the Dred Scott decision, it is fair to say (following Don Fehrenbacher's outstanding analysis in his book "The Dred Scott Case") that Justice Taney and the majority of the Court certainly intended to complete the constitutionalization of the slavery issue in order to preclude further debate.

However, this has little to do with the Republicans' reaction to the issue, much less their detestation of and desire to halt the spread of slavery. Due to the intermingling of the issues (the procedural issue whether the federal courts had jurisdiction over the case was mixed up with the substantive issue whether Scott was a slave) and the Court's meandering and sometimes bizarre discussion, Lincoln and other Republicans were able to argue (probably incorrectly) that much of the opinion was non-binding dictum.

At the same time, the opinion gave the Republicans a powerful club. The clear overreaching by the Court to achieve a particular result and the references to slaves as property recognized by the Constitution and no different from other articles of commerce allowed the Republicans to believe and argue that the "next" Dred Scott case would hold that states had no power to exclude slavery within their own borders. Such a result could be avoided only by a Republican victory in the next election.

It's also worth remembering that Stephen Douglas tacitly agreed with the Republicans that the decision did not preclude further discussion. While he did not confront the Court directly, he advanced his Freeport Doctrine as an end run around it, which in turn generated further debate and dissention when the South howled its disagreement with his position.

Thus -- and ironically -- far from precluding further discussion, the decision aroused further discord, strengthened the Republicans, split the Democrats, and helped pave the road to secession and war.

Originally Posted by RebProf

Second, I am not surprised to see the quote by the Confederate V.P. tossed into the debate. The Confederate V.P. spoke for about as many Confederates as Dick Cheney does for contemporary Americans.

Basis?

And hey, what's wrong with Dick Cheney? At least he was elected.

Originally Posted by RebProf

I wonder why those who are interested in the attitude of slaves toward masters do not look at the WPA interviews done in the 1930's with exslaves. I know all the quibbles about the interviews being done by White people talking to Black people and the interviewers being told what they wanted to hear but that is speculation and not a historical criticism. The tapes say what they say and are a primary historical record. In over 3,000 interviews fewer than 50 report any abuse. There seems to be some feeling that the presence of a "slave jail" and shackles on a plantation demonstrates something dehumanizing. We are talking about the 19th Century when physical punishment was common and shackles were a feature of every jail. That same United States officer who found the shackles on the plantation had the power to put them on his own soldiers and many soldiers found themselves wearing them.

I have listened to scores of hours of the interviews and agree they're fascinating. But what's your point? If you're contending that most slaves did not experience the horrors of the Soviet Gulag, I'll accept that. But if you're arguing that the darkies were happy and gay, or that slavery was or is a morally acceptable institution, I must dissent. How much would you pay to avoid being enslaved as a field hand in Mississippi or the feverish coast of South Carolina? Just about every dollar you could scrape together, I'd imagine.

Originally Posted by RebProf

Since the beginning of the War there have been several schools of historiography which have assigned a "cause" for the war. We started with Rebellion, moved on to Civil Conflict, passed on to States Rights/Preservation of the Union, became Multicausalists for most of the 20th Century identifying multiple causes, and started focusing on Monocausalism (one cause--slavery) only about 1960. This point of view is changing again. The book which won the Bancroft Prize in U. S. History last year espouses a Multicausalist position.

It seems that the current debate about "Slavery: The Only Cause" has a limited future among historians. Give it another 10 years and it, too, will be a voice from the past.

Rarely if ever is there one cause for any major event, and I don't think many contend that slavery was the sole cause of the War. However, the evidence is overwhelming that slavery was a major cause of the event. The speeches of the Commissioners that the deep south sent to other states, for example, make painfully clear that their main fear and argument was that Lincoln's election would lead to abolition, race war, etc. Charles Dew's book, "Apostles of Disunion", mentioned by SamGrant, makes this point with compelling force. The precipitous, slavery-based secession of the deep south states then forced the middle- and upper-South states to choose sides. In short, slavery was certainly a necessary cause and the principal cause for deep-south secession. However, absent other factors, the number of states joining the Confederacy would likely have been fewer.

I haven't yet read Ayers's book (I assume that's the one you're referring to), but it's on my list. Kenneth Stampp, by the way, has an excellent essay on the historiography of Civil War causation in his book of essays entitled "The Imperiled Union." You won't like his conclusion, though.

[cash]

Originally Posted by RebProf

Folks, the Dred Scott Decision by the Supreme Court had taken that issue out of Lincoln's hands; the Court ruled that "neither the president nor congress" could end slavery, that could be done only by a state. Thus, every territory was open to slavery until such time as the territory became a state; then the state could decide. Lincoln may have wanted to prevent the spread of slavery but he was denied the legal power to do anything about it.

Not necessarily. Taney ruled that Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States and therefore could not bring suit. Case dismissed. Lincoln's position, which he was willing to test with another Supreme Court case, was that everything after that was obiter dictum and not law.

Originally Posted by RebProf

Second, I am not surprised to see the quote by the Confederate V.P. tossed into the debate. The Confederate V.P. spoke for about as many Confederates as Dick Cheney does for contemporary Americans.

Apples and oranges. Stephens was not just the VP. He was present for the founding of the confederacy and he was speaking about why the confederacy was founded. Cheney today can speak authoritatively about policy decisions he has been involved in and the reasons they were made. That would be comparing apples with apples.

Originally Posted by RebProf

I wonder why those who are interested in the attitude of slaves toward masters do not look at the WPA interviews done in the 1930's with exslaves. I know all the quibbles about the interviews being done by White people talking to Black people and the interviewers being told what they wanted to hear but that is speculation and not a historical criticism. The tapes say what they say and are a primary historical record. In over 3,000 interviews fewer than 50 report any abuse.

Do you realize how old these former slaves were, and how many of them were children in 1865? Children were protected from the brunt of slavery. The WPA Narratives are useful to a certain extent, but they need to be taken with a large grain of salt. You are making far more of them than can reasonably be made by responsible scholars.

"Interviews were conducted in seventeen states during the years 1936-1938 with approximately two thousand ex-slaves. Two-thirds of those interviewed were age fifteen or younger at emancipation; almost all of the remainder were in their late teens or twenties in 1865. Members of this group, therefore, were over eighty years of age when interviewed and more than seventy years removed from the events they were discussing. The ex-slaves were not randomly selected for interviewing; they were either volunteers or previously known to the interviewer. Therefore, the interviews cannot be used with statistical precision. The interviewers were, for the most part, untrained, but they were given general instructions which included not influencing the viewpoing of the informant, withholding their own view of slavery, and recording all stories 'as nearly word-for-word as is possible,' but to avoid dialect spelling where it would confuse the reader. The interviews were recorded in the interviewer's handwriting, not via taperecorder, and later were typewritten." [Thomas F. Soapes, "The Federal Writers' Project
Slave Interviews: Useful Data or Misleading Source," Oral History Review, 1977, p. 33]

There are, of course, several problems associated with these interviews:

"The first and most important question one must raise about these sources is whether the interview situation was conducive to the accurate communication and recording of what the informants remembered of slavery. In this regard, it should be noted that black interviewers were virtually excluded from the WPA staffs in all of the southern states except Virginia, Louisiana, and Florida. Discrimination in employment led to a distortion of information; during the 1930s caste etiquette generally impeded honest communication between southern blacks and whites. ... Traditionally, any white man who is not 'with' black folks is inevitably viewed as being 'against' them. Anyone who doubts this should read the essay by William R. Ferris, Jr., on the problems he encountered while collecting oral lore in Mississippi in 1968. During his interviewing Ferris found that "'It was not possible to maintain rapport with both Whites and Blacks in the same community, for the confidence and cooperation of each was based on their belief that I was 'with them' in my convictions about racial taboos of Delta society. Thus when I was 'presented' to Blacks by a white member of the community, the informants regarded me as a member of the white caste and therefore limited their lore to non-controversial topics. Blacks rarely speak openly about their society with Whites because of their vulnerability as an oppressed minority. ... As the group in power, Whites can afford to openly express their thoughts about Blacks, whereas the latter conceal their feelings toward Whites as a means of self-preservation.'" [John W. Blassingame, "Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems," The Journal of Southern History, Vol XLI, No. 4, November, 1975, pp. 481-482]

Prof. Blassingame continues, "Since many of the former slaves still resided in the same area as their masters' descendants and were dependent on whites to help them obtain their old-age pensions, they were naturally guarded (and often misleading) in their responses to certain questions. Frequently the white interviewers were closely identified with the ancien régime; on occasion they were the grandsons of the blacks' former masters." [Ibid., p. 482]

The answers cannot be separated from the racial climate of the times. There was tremendous pressure to give the "right" answers. Indeed, there are cases where the interviewers actually refused to accept the "wrong" answers and tried to ask leading questions to get the ex-slaves to say something nice about their time in slavery.

"A Georgia interviewer, for example, was disturbed by the responses of Nancy Boudry to her questions:

"'Nancy's recollections of plantation days were colored to a somber hue by overwork, childbearing, poor food, and long working hours. "'Master was a hard taskmaster,' said Nancy. "'I had to work hard, plow and go and split wood jus' like a man. Sometimes dey whup me. Dey whup me bad, pull de cloes off down to de wais'--my master did it, our folks din' have overseer.'

"'Nancy, wasn't your mistress kind to you?'
"'Mistis was sorta kin' to me, sometimes. But dey only give me meat and bread, didn' give me nothin' good--I ain' gwine tell no story.'

"'But the children had a good time, didn't they? They played games?'
"'Maybe dey did play ring games, I never had no time to see what games my chillun play, I work so hard.'" [Ibid., pp. 482-483]

"Many of the WPA interviewers consistently referred to their informants as darkeys, ******s, aunteys, mammies, and uncles. Reminiscent as these terms were of rigid plantation etiquette, they were not calculated to engender the trust of the blacks. Rather than being sensitive the white interviewers failed to demonstrate respect for the blacks, ignored cues indicating a tendency toward ingratiation, and repeatedly refused to correct the informants' belief that the interviewer was trying to help them obtain the coveted pension. Not only did most of the whites lack empathy with the former slaves, they often phrased their questions in ways which indicated the kinds of answers they wanted." [Ibid., p. 483]

And this was by far not the only weakness found in the interviews. There were cases of deliberate distortions made by the local WPA editors in southern states, deliberately editing out references to harsh treatment of slaves by masters.

"A second weakness of the WPA interviews is that many of them are not verbatim accounts. The informants' stories were often edited or revised before they were typed and listed as official records. Even when the former slave's views are purportedly typed in his own words, the interview may have been 'doctored,' certain portions deleted without any indication in the typescript, and his language altered. ... The best evidence on the alteration of interviews appears in the words of Roscoe E. Lewis and a Georgia interviewer, J. Ralph Jones. In 1936 and 1937 Jones conducted five interviews
which were returned to the state office of the WPA. Three of the five transcribed by the state office are virtually identical to the copies that Jones retained. The other two were significantly reduced in length and seriously distorted.

"Jones's interviews with Rias Body and Washington B. Allen were edited to delete references to cruel punishments, blacks serving in the Union Army, runaways, and blacks voting during Reconstruction. Jones had two interviews with W. B. Allen, and the second one is recorded in practically identical words in his record and the WPA typescript. The WPA typescript of the first interview, however, lists Allen's date and place of birth incorrectly and does not include 1,700 words which appear in Jones's record of the interview. About half of the section excluded from the WPA typescript referred to slave traders, the religious life of the slaves, the tricks they played on the patrollers, and the songs they sang. While the typescript refers to the kind treatment Allen received from his owners, Jones's records show that he spent a great deal of time talking about the hard work and cruel floggings characteristic of the plantation. The WPA transcript gives the impression that Allen spoke in dialect, using such words as 'fetched,' 'de,' 'dis,' 'chilluns,' and 'fokes.' But in his records Jones observed that Allen 'uses excellent English. ... '

"J. Ralph Jones's experience was not unique. The same kinds of distortions appear in the typescripts of the Virginia WPA." [Ibid., pp. 484-485]

As already brought up, the ex-slaves were very young when they were freed, and the interviews were conducted over 70 years after the events. Additionally, these former slaves as a group were most probably not representative of slaves in the United States. These are other factors that distort the picture one sees from the interviews.

"A third factor which led to distortion of the WPA interviews was the average age of the informatns; two-thirds of them were at least eighty years old when they were interviewed. And, since only 16 percent of the informants had been fifteen yeras or older when the Civil War began, an overwhelming majority could only describe how slavery appeared to a black child. Because all of the blacks were at least seventy-two years removed from slavery there was no sense of immediacy in their responses; all too often they recalled very little of the cruelty of bondage. A good way of determining the impact of age on the responses of former slaves is to compare the WPA interviews with the hundreds conducted by northern journalists, soldiers, missionaries, and teachers during and immediately after the Civil War. These informants were still close to bondage, and consequently they remembered far more of the details of slavery than the WPA respondents. ... Since the average life expectancy of a slave born in 1850 was less than fifty years, those who lived until the 1930s might have survived because they received better treatment than most slaves. Taken at face value, there seems to have been a bias in many states toward the inclusion of the most obsequious former slaves. This is especially true when most of the informants had spent all their lives in the same locale as their former master's plantation. Since the least satisfied and most adventuresome of the former slaves might have migrated to northern states or cities after the Civil War, the WPA informants may have been atypical of antebellum slaves. Geographically, the WPA collection is also a biased sample. Although 90,266 of the South's 3,953,760 slaves (23 percent) lived in Virginia, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky in 1860, only 155 blacks from those states were included among the 2,194 published interviews (7 percent of the total). Consequently, the upper South (and especially the border states) is underrepresented. On the other hand, while Arkansas and Texas had only 293,681 or 7 percent of southern slaves in 1860, the 985 black informants in these states constituted 45 percent of all former slaves interviewed by the WPA." [Ibid., pp. 486-487]

If one reads the South Carolina interviews of former slaves at face value, one would see virtually no mistreatment. This changes, however, for former South Carolina slaves who had moved to another state. "It is significant, for example, that former South Carolina slaves who were interviewed in Georgia had a far different view of bondage than those who were interviewed in South Carolina." [Ibid., pp. 489-490]

And if one reads what was recorded by black interviewers, one gets a very distinctly different view:

"The former slaves who talked to black interviewers presented an entirely different portrait of their treatment from what they told white interviewers. Black scholars at Hampton Institute, Fisk University, and Southern University conducted approximately nine hundred interviews with ex-slaves between 1929 and 1938. The interviews they received run directly counter to the South Carolina image of planter paternalism. More important, none of the volumes of interviews conducted by whites reveal as much about the internal dynamics of slave life as these 882 accounts. The informants talked much more freely to black than white interviewers about miscegenation, hatred of whites, courtship, marriage and family customs, cruel punishments, separation of families, child labor, black resistance to whites, and their admiration of Nat Turner." [Ibid., p. 489]

So one can easily see there are many problems associated with relying on the WPA Slave Narratives to give an accurate picture of slavery, including deliberate deception on the part of the white editors in the southern states.

"Uncritical use of the interviews will lead almost inevitably to a simplistic and distorted view of the plantation as a paternalistic institution where the chief feature of life was mutual love and respect between masters and slaves." [Ibid., p. 490]

[cash]

These former slaves were interviewed 71-73 years after they were freed, and they were predominantly children when they were freed.

When they were freed:
28% of them were at ages 0-9.
47% of them were at ages 10-19.
14% of them were at ages 20-29.
3% of them were at ages 30-39.
0.3% of them were at ages 40-49.
8% were not given.

When they were interviewed:
0 were younger than 74.
18% were 74-79.
49% were 80-89.
18% were 90-99.
7% were 100 and over.
8% were not given.

[David Thomas Bailey, "A Divided Prism: Two Sources of Black Testimony on Slavery," The Journal of Southern History, Vol XLVI, No. 3, August, 1980, p. 385]

There are other sources available.

Over the years several former slaves wrote or dictated autobiographies, telling the story of their experiences in slavery and how they either escaped from slavery or gained their freedom. The autobiographers came from nearly all decades, except the 1860s, and none of them were older than 79 when they wrote. Most of them were younger than 60 when they wrote. Most of the autobiographers were also adults over 20 years old when they gained their freedom, as well as being from a good cross section of slave states. Their stories were written far closer to the events they were writing about, and they had, as a group, far more experience in slavery than the WPA interviewees.

These also have to be carefully evaluated, since escaped slaves would naturally have a negative view of slavery [imagine that] and some may have been influenced to accentuate the most negative aspects and in some cases might have exaggerated the negativeness.

Originally Posted by RebProf

Since the beginning of the War there have been several schools of historiography which have assigned a "cause" for the war. We started with Rebellion, moved on to Civil Conflict, passed on to States Rights/Preservation of the Union, became Multicausalists for most of the 20th Century identifying multiple causes, and started focusing on Monocausalism (one cause--slavery) only about 1960. This point of view is changing again. The book which won the Bancroft Prize in U. S. History last year espouses a Multicausalist position.

It seems that the current debate about "Slavery: The Only Cause" has a limited future among historians. Give it another 10 years and it, too, will be a voice from the past.

Speculation on your part. You must be talking about Edward Ayers' book. I find that the "multicauses" all can be traced back to the umbrella issue of slavery. There were different aspects of slavery that might be considered different causes, and there were different effects of the presence of slavery that might be considered different causes, but it all comes back to what Mississippi very clearly said. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery."

Regards,
Cash

[cash]

Originally Posted by johan_steele

50 out of 3000. I remember asking my college prof about that, actually I asked him why there were so few negative reports about slavery. He laughed at me, "Do the math, the worst treated were not likely to have lived that long. 3000 out of 4 million, done in the 30's at a time when the south was controlled by people who might find negative testimony uncomfortable. You're suprised?" A trifle simplistic but a theory that has merit; from a prof who insisted that there were good and bad slave owners, likely w/ the bad being the minority.

Exactly. In 1850 the life expectancy of a black person from birth in Louisiana was 28.89 years. In Maryland it was 38.47 years. [Alfred H. Conrad and John R. Meyer, "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South," The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. LXVI, No. 2, April, 1958, p. 98] Someone who survived much longer had to have been treated better than average.

Regards,
Cash