Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Flogging is containd in the adminstrative records of the UK Army and Navy, one individual in Gibralter received over 25000 for instance.
So your saying that more soldiers and sailors for the UK were flogged than slaves in the US. By Number, or by Percentage??
You show the number of lashes for 1 person, how does this prove more UK military personal received lashes than slaves than as in the Military.
Are the stats a composite starting with the history of slavery, until its end?
Is there a actual count to compare the ratio of no. of slaves vs. no. of UK military personal that were flogged.
Why not compare the no. of slaves flogged vs. numbers of American soldiers and sailors flogged. Would be more relevent that using british references I believe.
Chuck in IL..
I'm supposing that flogging was the punishment for a great many infractions in the militaries and navies of all countries at the time. It doesn't matter all that much whether it was in the UK or the fledgling US. Students of all ages were quite commonly given a taste of the cane when lessons were not learned. The "rule of thumb" arose from a law somewhere that you may not beat your wife with anything thicker than your thumb. Flogging was, however, practiced by even the most benevolent slaveowner to "correct attitudes" of individual slaves. That doesn't mean that all the slaves were beaten. Enlightened owners would use incentives to maintain work levels. But, when that didn't work, the lash was the usual incentive of last resort.
It is quite useless to maximize or minimize the incidences of whipping slaves. The armies and navies of the world are not valid comparisons. Impertinent wives and slow students are not valid comparisons. None of them were owned -- body, soul, issue -- by another.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Hanny. Would "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me" do for you?
No not all, a common theme of the early Stoic on Antiquity was to treat all men as brothers, the Stoic though will be embraced by the natural law thinkers of later times.
Seneca in his Moral letters, to Lucilius.
Im glad to learn from vistitors of yours who come here that you live on friendly terms with slaves. that squares with your sensible outlook no less than your philosophy. There slaves. Perhaps, but still fellow men. There slaves. But they share your roof.There slaves.Friends, rather humble friends.there slaves. Well fellow slaves, if you reflect that fourtune had an equal power over them and you. please reflect that theman you call slave come from the same seed as you,and has the same good sky above him, breathes as you do, lives as you do,dies as you do. treat your slaves with kindness, with courtesy, let him share your coversations, your deliberation, and your company.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ole
You are correct if you are considering the last 300 years as modern in human history. There is a very long list of ancient practices considered immoral today and, although religious belief had its influence, the natural rules of advancing civilization was the greater influence.Thanks for that. It was on this understanding that Lincoln, et alii, sought colonization rather than citizenship. It is on this "natural law" that ethnic troubles throughout the world are based.
Ole
I would go back to the earliest recorded history, slavery as as old as the records that exist.Aristotle sums up the Greek view "From the moment of birth some are marked to rule and some for subdication", and Plato`s Republic arrives at the perfect society, which contains slaves in a proportion to free men, as did T More in the Uk 16th Century in his Utopia with the same objetc in mind as Plato, society acording to natural law had to contain slaves to function, in the US J Lock who came up with inaliable rights for men, also owned slaves and founded the African Coy for the Uk to import slaves to the new Colony of SC, which Lock wrote most of its state charter, and believed that slavery was naturally correct.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
It only cost about $20/year to keep a slave. Wages for free workers was somewhat higher than 100/year.
And what are your sources for flogging.
Chuck in IL.
Im unfamiliar with this claim, which year does it refer to?.
US education uses, in part, "Time on the Cross", page 239, 149, dealling with realtive incomes and forced and willing coercion, (the amount that would make the total cost of pecuniary payments and cost of maintaining the slave compared to the use of pyshical force, and how this balance was adjusted to maximum/desired effect)
"odd as itmay seem, the optimal combination of force and pecuniary income was one that left slaves on large plantations with more pecuniary income per capeta than than they would have earned if they were free white small farmers." "Where it is shown that that the average pecuniary income actually recieved by a prime field hand was 15% higher than the amount he would have recieved had he been a free white agricultural worker."
On yearly bonuses in addition to income.
"Distributed gifts amounted to $15 to $20 per slave family in 1839 and 1840, the amounts recieved by particular slaves being in proprtion to their performence. It should be noted that $20 was about one fifth of the national per capeta income in 1840.
"Masters also rewarded slaves who performed well with patches of land, ranging upto a few acres per family.Slaves grew marketable crops on these lands, the procedes of which accured to them. The Texas Planataion J Devereux, slaves operating such land produced as much as 2 bales of cotton per patch. Devereux marketed their crop along with his own. In a good year some of the slaves earnt in excess of $100 per annum for their families."
page 151
By basic income we mean the value of cloathing, food, shelter medicl care furnished to slaves. The average value of expenditure on these items for an adult slave in 1850 was $48. The most complete information on extra earnings for field hands comes from severall Texas plantations. the leading hands on these estates frequently earned between $40 and $110 per year above basic income through the sale of cotton and other products raised on their own patches. This experience was no unique to Texas. On one ALA Plantation 8 hands produced Cotton that earned them $71 each with the high man collecting 96$. On still anothe r plantation the average extra earnings of the 13 top hands was $77."
The highest know annual bounus is to a ALA slave called Aham, who recieved $309 in 1850, and held notes on loans to the value of $2400.
Returns for the owner, from 1850-60, the owner recieved around 10% of the market value of each slave, (prime age blacksmithin 1850 was 1700, yielding 170 a year profit)as income better than every Southern RR, and as good as the most profitable Northern Banks and Textile industrys.
So whatever numerical value, $20 in your examample, is assigned to the cost of maintaing the slave is a matter of when (temporal time period, but quite early on would think, pre 1800 but then we have the problem of 100 being the av wage, which it was not untill much later in the period) etc, but its not an indication of the slaves wealth relative to anything else, as in your example the cost to the owner is $20 but the slaves monetary benifit through being a slave is 15% greater than of that of a comparable free white earning his living in agriculture, without the cost to the free white of food/cloathing housing etc. Secondly there is the different expenditure and benifit from slave ownership, the cost to own a slave ment that untill age 26 the expenditure was greater than the pecuniary return, age 27 was the break even year, and from then on the reverse was true.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
So your saying that more soldiers and sailors for the UK were flogged than slaves in the US. By Number, or by Percentage??
Yes, and both. As you suggest later on using the Uk is perhaps an unfair comparison, we were after all very fond of the lash.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mobile96
You show the number of lashes for 1 person, how does this prove more UK military personal received lashes than slaves than as in the Military.
Are the stats a composite starting with the history of slavery, until its end?
Well in 1868 13.7% of the Uk army recieved lashes as punishment, the Army strength was 186,000 or so, your chances of being whipped as a slave run to under 1% of the total population.
No the data starts for the Uk from 1700s onwards, and for slavery punishments from the 1790`s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mobile 96
Is there a actual count to compare the ratio of no. of slaves vs. no. of UK military personal that were flogged.
No, but it could be aduced, but the biggest problem with it is that we are comparing know proscribed floggings, when plantation law in which most slaves lived and died under without comming into contact with State or federal law at all, would still have been so punished, and these records are fragmentray at best, non existant at worst.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mobile96
Why not compare the no. of slaves flogged vs. numbers of American soldiers and sailors flogged. Would be more relevent that using british references I believe.
Chuck in IL..
True, but i dont know that data of the top of my head, i do recall that over 100k Union soildiers were pardened from capital puishment during the war, and that around 10% of the Union Army deserted thats also a comparison of some value.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
It is quite useless to maximize or minimize the incidences of whipping slaves. The armies and navies of the world are not valid comparisons. Impertinent wives and slow students are not valid comparisons. None of them were owned -- body, soul, issue -- by another.
Ole
So you say.
All organizations have rules and regulations to order itself, slavery and the mil are excellent comparisons for the rewards/punishments of individulas.
The Bible teaches us that beating the wife is a good and proper punishment, all she owned become the proprty of the husband, to do with what he will, to be raped at will by the husband. Rape within marriage becomes a crime in the US extremly late in your judicial law.
You seem possibly confused on chattel laws in the US, none gave ownership of the soul.....
South Carolina, Judge John Belton O'Neall of the State supreme court said:
Although slaves, by the Act of 1740, are declared to be chattels personal, yet they are also, in our law, considered as persons with many rights and liabilities, civil and criminal. The right of protection which would belong to a slave, as a human being, is, by the law of slavery, transferred to his master. A master may protect the person of his slave from injury, by repelling force with force, or by action, and in some cases by indictment. Any injury done to the person of his slave, he may redress by action of trespass vi et armis, without laying the injury done, with a per quod servitum amisit, and this even though he may have hired the slave to another.
By the Act of 1821, the murder of a slave is declared to be felony, without the benefit of clergy; and by the same Act, to kill any slave, on sudden heat or passion, subjects the offender, on conviction, to a fine of not exceeding $500, and imprisonment not exceeding six months....
The Act of 1841 makes the unlawful whipping or beating of any slave, without sufficient provocation by word or act, a misdemeanor; and subjects the offender, on conviction, to imprisonment not exceeding six months, and a fine not exceeding $500.
GA Slave law
Any owner of a slave, who shall cruelly beat such slave or slaves by unnecessary or excessive whipping; by withholding proper food and nourishment; by requiring greater labour from such slave or slaves than he, or she, or they may be able to perform; by not affording proper clothing, whereby the health of such slave or slaves may be injured or impaired; every such owner or owners of slaves shall, upon sufficient information being laid before the grand jury, be by said grand jury presented; whereupon it shall be the duty of the attorney or solicitor-general to prosecute such owner or owners for misdemeanor; who, on conviction, shall be sentenced to pay a fine, or imprisonment in the county jail, or both, at the discretion of the court.
From and after the passing of this Act, it shall be the duty of the inferior courts of the several counties in this State, on receiving information on oath, of any infirm slave or slaves, in a suffering condition, from the neglect of the owner or owners of said slave or slaves, to make particular inquiries into the situation of such slave or slaves, and render such relief as they, in their discretion, shall think fit. The said courts may, and are hereby authorised to, sue for and recover from the owner or owners of such slave or slaves, in any court having jurisdiction of the same, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.
Any person who shall maliciously dismember, or deprive a slave of his life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offense had been committed on a free white person, and on the like proof, except in case of insurrection by said slave, and unless such death should happen by accident in giving such slave moderate correction.
The Louisiana law relating to slaves was as follows:
Every owner shall be held to give his slaves the quantity of provisions hereinafter specified — to wit, one barrel of Indian corn, or the equivalent thereof in rice, beans, or other grain, and a pint of salt; and to deliver the same to the slaves in kind, every month, and never in money, under a penalty of a fine of ten dollars for every offence. The slave who shall not have, on the property of his owner, a lot of ground to cultivate on his own account, shall be entitled to receive from the said owner one linen shirt and pantaloons for the summer, and a linen and woolen great coat and pantaloons for the winter.
As for the hours of work and rest which are to be assigned to slaves in summer, the old usage of the territory shall be adhered to: to wit, the slave shall be allowed half an hour for breakfast during the whole year; from the first of May to the first day of November, they shall be allowed two hours for dinner; and from the first day of November to the first say of May, one hour and a half for dinner.
The constitution of Texas stated:
[The legislature] shall have full power to pass laws, which will oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide for them necessary food and clothing, to abstain from all injuries to them, extending to life or limb; and, in the case of their neglect or refusal to comply with the directions of such laws, to have such slave or slaves taken from their owner, and sold for the benefit of such owner or owners. They may pass laws to prevent slaves from being brought into this State as merchandise only.
In the prosecution of slaves for the crimes of a higher grade than petit larceny, the Legislature shall have no power to deprive them of an impartial trial by jury.
Any person who shall maliciously dismember or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted, in case the like offence had been committed upon a free white person, and on the like proof, except in case of insurrection of such slave.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
One thing that strikes me is that those who say slavery was not that bad or that the bible somehow supports slavery... are the last to volunteer for involuntary servitude.
As a note those who call soldiers slaves or their equivelant... I do not suggest such an opinion be expressed inside the local Legion, VFW post or Active Duty Military. Everyone is entitiled to their opinion; but do not be suprised if their is a negative reaction to such a thought. I have no doubt an individual calling a 20 year veteran of the Redcoats a slave would find his health in peril.
I see no positive for slavery; none. Slavery was a moral wrong from the time of the Bill of Rights & Declaration of Independence... I hate hypocricy and slavery was a distinct hypocricy.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Hanny:
You've posted laws regulating treatment of slaves. Have you any citations of instances in which such laws were actually enforced?
Biblical references. The Old Testament has reference to their treatment and acquisition. The New refers not to slaves specifically but to treatment of your fellow man. By your rejection of the Christ's admonitions, I can only conclude that a) you don't accept the New Testament or b) that you don't consider the slave a fellow man.
We have a number or correspondents on this board who defend slavery not as a moral positive, but because it was, at the time, not generally considered a moral negative. This is a valid position and defensible. None of them, at least not that I can recall, now defend the peculiar institution as other than an aberration of the past. I am puzzled by your learned defense of the institution with references to biblical, ancient, and alien military practices -- none of which apply to the historical, American reliance on involuntary servitude.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Well in 1868 13.7% of the Uk army recieved lashes as punishment, the Army strength was 186,000 or so, your chances of being whipped as a slave run to under 1% of the total population.
Just to take a look at this small part of the discussion:
13.7% of the approximate 186,000 British Army strength figure in 1868 would be 25,482 whippings.
The US Census for 1860, the last showing figures for slaves, lists 3,950,546. Using your 1% figure, you would arrive at a figure of 39,505 whippings.
I have no idea whether or not this 1% figure is too high, too low, or just right. Did I miss a source for this somewhere earlier, or would you be able to supply one?
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