Slave Breeding; Fact or Fiction

[Hanny]

Hanny, you really should do some reading of the period. The term Octroon, Quadron etc are heavily used... something you might have picked up if you had read period letters.

I have, which is why i can with supreme confidence point out to you that you are misuesing the words, not using them as was the practice o0f the time nor indeed how the dictionary uses them today. Open your dictionary again.

Smoke and mirrors or just plain smoke?I've never implied an owner couldn't sell their property. Slaves were just that, and if a modern farmer could figure out a way to get three tractors out of two and sell the spare he would do it. THree horses from two and sell the spare; three slaves from two and sell the spare... a concept simple enough for you to grasp... I would think.

No smoke and mirrors by myself, thats your stock in trade. So you now agree that the law allows you to sell property. Your initial comment was "I take it you are unaware of the terms I used, Octroon etc; proof that you are unaware of the reality of the day. I cannot sell my children or my wife; a pity you are unable to grasp that simple difference."

So you got pointed out that no one was selling their wives and children, which is YOUR smoke and mirrors of confusing the reality of the day with YOUR inability to post factualy acurate opinion.
Which is why i pointed out reality to you because you went into a flight of fancy, or as you prefer, a smoke and mirors excercise of obfuscation.
Now, since your wife is not property you indeed cannot sell her, but you can sell your other property, and slaves were property under US law, so again the only proven thing is you cannot argue the facts, but want to argue free people are not sold, hardly an argument since free people being sold appears in nothing i have posted, but that slaves as property were lawfully sold.

If you stick with that concept it would be just grand, instead of dragging free people who cannot be sold into it.

Since thats what you did and i responded to your introdcution of your free wife and child, i sugest you pay attention to what you post, and get responded to because you introduced it, and dont compalin to others about what you intrioduced.

A free black man was free only so long as he toed the line, didn't cross any slave catcher w/ lower morals than usual, and made very certain he paid all his taxes,

Sorry but only citizens are taxed, there were no free negros paying federal tax. If as a tax paying citizen of a state, he has the full protection of the state law. But since most northern stastes denied them citizenship and protection of law, they could inded be arrested.
Crandall v. The State SC Conn
Chief Justice David Daggett wrote an opinion which was nearly identical to what Taney would deliver over thirty years later:
The persons contemplated in this act are not citizens within the obvious meaning of that section of the Constitution of the United States which I have just read. Let me begin by putting this plain question: Are slaves citizens? At the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State was a slave State.... We all know that slavery is recognized in that Constitution; it is the duty of this court to take that Constitution as it is, for we have sworn to support it.... Then slaves were not considered citizens by the framers of the Constitution....
Are free blacks citizens?... To my mind it would be a perversion of terms, and the well known rules of construction, to say that slaves, free blacks, or Indians were citizens, within the meaning of that term as used in the Constitution. God forbid that I should add to the degradation of this race of men; but I am bound, by my duty, to say that they are not citizens.

fines etc and kept all the receipts. A purchase of freedom was no guarantee of continued or perpeual freedom. You are the only one I can think of that appears to approve and defend people as property angle; I believe it despicable.

Actually it was the legal posistion, and is historical acurate and taught as such in the uS and Uk and europe, proof enough thaty your an unedcated poster, twisting history to hos own agenda.

Some thought it less than honorable in 1860, more do today... though there are always throwbacks.

What you *think* discpicable, was US law, North and South, gaurented in state and federal law, its your hoistory and you seek to deny it and make it a section of the countrys sin, when slavery was the sin of all the nations since inception. What you think honorable, is not to lie about your past, now one was forced to own slaves, it was a personal choice done acording to law, and individual choice. Just as ***** teaches your all fit for conversion to how they think you should act and be moral, but you deny them the right to dicate or impose their morailty and law on you, so did the slave holders who were every bit as christian and relgous as the north, resist those who imposed changes to constitionaly protected rights, because it was a war aim, and not even a moral argument except for the 2% of abolitionst whose dream had come true and got what they had no earthly chance of getting pre war, and end to slavery. the North had no high ground at all, they ended slavery from mil need, not moral principle.

Hmmm, lets see, do you think a soldier asked? Or do you think he might just have noted a slave whiter than his own children?

So you still dont know, ill tell you then, by 1860 the amount of caucasion gentic material introduced into afro americans was still under 10%, from 300 years intre breeding.

Takes quite a man to ensalve his own children for fun and profit doesn't it?

Since you asumming facts not proven, your just wasteing my time, again.

The soldiers who saw it believed it despicable, so do I.

So your now not only claiming that you have read first hand acounts of soldiers seeing almost white negros but that they knew they were they were slaves sold for fun and profit by there own fathers.
I await any evidence to support your wild claims.

Is English you second language as well?

I can do French, Polish, Russian, and latin for you if thats any easier for you to reply. Any chance of you actually answering the question put?.

I believe what I've read, enough men made comment about it to prove to me beyond a shadow of doubt there were quite a few Mulattos (which means mule by the way)

So you looked up the word you could not use in your first post on this, you should have noticed what it means and where it comes from, now show from these first hand acounts that these multoes were slaves and not free persons.

Quadroons (quarter) Octroons (1/16 I believe) all less than white and less than human in the eyes of many.

You just cant stop showing your ignornace can you?, octroons is 1/8 not 1/16, another term you used initialy and still cant use correctlty!. Since all human sub sets breed and produce ofspring, they are all still human, and i await your evidence that anyone claimed they were less than human from your 3000+ acounts you claim to have read.

[Hanny]

And alll quite elligable for your benevolance of slavery simply because of their skin.

Slavery was not based on skin colour, which i have pointed out to you before, but on law which made no difference to skin colour.

10%... out of how many? A rather significant number. And the numbers in New Orleans were quite a bit higher. But many who were not judged white were Native American as well, the exotic and forbidden sells well I suppose. How many do you expect were free... rather few I would expect.

10% is 10/100.Its what the term means.
White is white to 8 generations, non whitye includes all other races, so its becoming clear you dont have the first idera of what your commenting on.

Prostitues earnt less than did slaves, so there no slave prostitues as the economcs made them less profitable, prostiutues were ileetwerate free whites, or free negros, slave prostitutes, ststisticly speaking dont even exist.

. I rather suspect they were women, the majority prostitutes.

So, you suspect women, not white women because the number of rapes was so low, but prostitues you say, do you know how many prostitutes there were to acomadate the numbers of soldiers?, or is it not the case than negro slave could be raped and puniushment for that is not a crime of rape but one punished by Regimnetal orders?.

I was recalling a number for the Brits during the Napoleanic Wars which numbers 45% though IIRC the reference was to the Peninsula in particular but the number may well be wrong.

It is wrong.

Oh I make plenty of spelling errors, don't deny it. Even make some of the same ones over and over again. But I don't purposefully mispell things in a juvenile attempt to...

So you do what i do, yet you ascribe some ulterior motive to mine and others no doubt, while your do it by simply typing quickly without motive, who quaint.

Hmmm, 10 years glad you looked it up for me. For a govt keeping track of it's population makes sense. For a slaveowner remembering slave J who lost 12 children in child birth or had kids that consistantly failed to reach past vchildhood... and such information being made public might devalue her in some way. I wouldn't expect you to be 100% honest about such.

I did not have to look anything up, if you dont know what a word means, its best not to use it.
Ah your other recorse, to imply or flat out say im dishonest, now nice. Each year the docters send in a death certificate to the Cenususs listeing cause of death for all deaths, that how the cenus data knows that white childbirth death by still born was 177 per 1000 births and negros was 178 per 1000, and again using the census data we know that the CSA white pop under age 9 was 30% of the total in 1860, so was the border states, and the Northern states 27%.
We further know that the free negro in the North was 24%, in the Border states 26% and the CSA states 29%.
We further know that the CSA slave pop under age 9 was 31% and in the border states 32%.
we know from 1790-1860 the white pop growth was 35% on avarege per census.
If slaves were breed deleiberatly, than how come whites were breeding more than the negros?, how come the free southern negros were breeding ata consttance rate, while when free and in the north well below the avarage, its not that the south wasa breeding farm, it was that the whites out breed the negro and the free negro in the north was not breeding at the same rate as free blacks in the south or slaves in the south, because the upkeep of the children was borne by them, while eleswhere the upkeep was borne by the owner.
Slave breeding was a myth, always was and always will be to those who can count, other wise whites were out breeding them by design, and sterilizing the free blacks to prevent them from reproducing by social and economic conditions.
The best example of breeding is how the north and south start out from 2 million each and end up with 22 million in the north and 9 in the south, seems pretty clear who won the breeding contest.

As I said mine is less than perfect I don't claim otherwise. It isn't the firt time Census figures have been spoken of here or called into daoubt as to their perfect accuarcy. But I expect more from an officer of the RE.

Its not to mutch to excpect you to answer the question is it?. What is it you dont like about the census figures?. 3 times i ask and you waffle on without an answer.

Opinion based upon reading the letters of the day; try it sometime. It's quite invigorating and more than a little fascinating. I don't discount the words of US soldiers as willingly as you. I explained why I believed every slave owner was involved in slave breeding. Some for fun and profit some just gaining more property through natures drive in the human being. That you fail to understand that is your problem, not mine.

No my problem is you made a claim, and i asked for you to share some of what formed your conclusion, thats the problem, you refusual to post what you say has formed youir opinion.
So i ask again, post a first hand acount that shows what you have posted, can you post an example of wages and slaverey or not?.

investment Now how does a child say to ten years old cost $30?

It does not, simply 10*=300 cost to maint, i can do the more compicated year by year cost/benift over the life cycle of a slave but dont see anything in it for me to do so.
That your figure you wanted to use as the mant cost per year, thats the average cost per slave per year, so i used the averages of income and sale $ value at each point in time, and 10% being the average return per year per slave, from the historical statistics of the USA 1790-present, for average $ values of slaves per year etc.
To breed for profit means the slave must live beyond the expected break even point, as in the UK West Indies, we did not breed slaves because life expetency was so low as to make it an unprofitable enterprise. Life expetency in the US for a slave was 47, so maint over 47 years and income over 47 years was how an ownewr knew if he could make a profit, if he could not predict a profit, he would not enter into any breeding for profit scheme as it would cost him money, ie if life expetence was 24, 24*30=720, 24*X=income, is less than 720, you cant make a profit, and that asumes slavers worked on 2+ decades and more profitability scales.

Children were working in the fields from the time they could walk carrying water or light loads but working w/out pay.They were fed and clothed, and judging from what I've read how well clothed and housed depended upon the benevolance of an owner. The average field hand could bring in well over $1000, say sold at 20 years of age... and a skilled artisan could bring considerably more w/ the owner already having at least 8 years of work out of him.

You had your chance at maths and blew it. There is not any record in the US index of slave $ Value that places $1000 to then average sale, 778 is that highest $ value, and 20 was not the age range that brought that $ value. Stop inventing numbers that already are freely availbale in books that expalin this.

A woman of child bearing age appears to have brought between $5-700.

Depnds when and where, but that not out of the ball park, but the point was to use a uniform measure of the average, which was half that.

As to the $30 average, I don't know but I do believe it to be rather high; food, clothing and housing the bare minimum though obvioulsy some would spend on quite a bit more.

Not high, utterly without foundation in fact.

Lot of numbers and with you I tend to agree w/ Twain on statistics, especially yours. So forgive me if I fail to trust them.

I gave you an oportunity to show using maths,the profitabilioty of slave rearing for sale, you gave what you had and i showed you what they ment, that you dont like it is in neither here or there, that your incapable of using maths to support or refute the point is most revalling, go back to school, learn some maths, and stop posting about things beyond your pay grade.
I only worked out from what you gave, which was not enough to strat with, so dont blame me for your own inability to provide what was asked of you, the statiastics i used are those of the USA education system, the rest are yours, if you dont like how they turn out, i suggest you get a beter argument, one not made up by you on the spot about a subject you dont enouigh about to post on.

You gave them, they're yours so merry christmas.

I only did so because your incapable of doing so, i used US education literature for the $ values, from a couple of books that teach the maths on slave profitability, not one, of which advocates that slaves were bred for profit, you cannot get a education in the US and came away with that notion, the maths disproves it.

As you were the one who claimed slavery was at it's most profitable in 1860 you must know why and be able to understand that more slaves can easily mean more profit.

Utter rot, more land ment more cotton, more of a thing drives its price down, its the law of dimishing returns. Slave population was not increasing at a rate to drive down its $ value, because more land was aquired to work than slaves existed to work it for that profit, simple supply and demand, more land aquired than workforce available to exploit it ment $ value of workforce rose, and it was placed at the most profitable point of return, the $ value of slaves rose not because there was more of them, it rose because there was not enough of them.
Basic economics, something your immune to.

And a slave acquired cheaply or for free is profit when there is no initial purchase price. More slaves meant more profit. One slave woman purchased at your cost of under $400 gives birth to 12 chilidren over say twenty years.

Children are not afree good, read a book on economics and get back to me.
I just gave you the math on that, your wrong, number of slaves who bore 12 children was 0.0002%, you have never read a single book on slavery prfitability have you?, let alone popluation dynamics,else you would know the average negro bore less children than did white mothers, which kinda thrashes your whole argument.

I've read books on the subject, given lists of them in the past. Feel free to cite yours; I have no doubt some of them are the same. WE've come to dramiticly different conclusions. Here it is in a nutshell: slavery bad; get over it no matter how you want to paint it it's still an ugly thing.

yes i have seen your list of books in the past, sadly whats in them did not support your poistion then either.
Utter rot, i asked for you maths, which your incapable off by your own admision, anyone can list a bunch of books, i asked for your fist hand acounts from them, either provide them or stop wasteing my time. And the nutshell is you incapaicty to demonstrate the profitability of slave breeding.

[Hanny]

I applaud your carefully cherry picked quotes in your defence of slavery and following condemnation on the US for ending it. Bravo sir.

Not chery picked at all, US history abounds with such examples.
The population of the United States consists of natives of Caucasian origin, and exotics of the same derivation. The native mass readily assimilates to itself and absorbs the exotic, and these constitute one homogenous people. The African race, bond and free, and the aborigines, savage and civilised, being incapable of such assimilation and absorption, remain distinct, and, owing to their peculiar condition, constitute inferior masses, and may be regarded as accidental if not disturbing political forces. The ruling homogenous family, planted at first on the Atlantic shore, and following an obvious law, is seen rapidly and continually spreading itself westward, year by year, subduing the wilderness and the prairie, and thus extending this great political community, which, as fast as it advances, breaks into distinct States for municipal purposes only, while the whole constitutes one entire, contiguous, and compact nation.
Seward, speech delivered at Rochester, New York on 25 October 1858

Illinois Laws.
"no black or mulatto person shall be permitted to settle or reside in this State, unless he or she shall first produce a certificate signed by some judge or some clerk of some court of the United States, of his or her actual freedom." All free Blacks were required by this law to register themselves together with the evidence of their freedom in the county where they intended to reside, and it also prohibited the employment of any Black or Mulatto who had not been so registered. Furthermore, this act prescribed "lashes on his or her bare back" for slaves found "ten miles from the tenement of his or her master" (a maximum of thirty-five lashes), "being on the plantation or in the tenement of another than the master, not being sent on lawful business" (ten lashes), and for the gathering of three or more slaves "for the purpose of dancing or reveling either by day or night" (thirty-nine lashes).(80) On 17 January 1829, this act was supplemented by another which declared that any Blacks or Mulattoes found within the State without the necessary registration papers were to be "deemed runaway slaves," arrested by the Sheriff, and if not claimed, were to be sold "for the best price he can get."(81) Not satisfied with these laws, the Illinois legislature passed yet another act "to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state" and added that any Black person found in violation of this law should be fined and sold into temporary servitude to pay the fine and cost of prosecution.(82) Thus, as one writer put it, Negroes "seeking homes on the prairies... were put upon the block."(83) The provisions of this statute were finally added to the State constitution in 1862 with these words: "No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this state after the adoption of the constitution."(84) In 1843, the supreme court of Illinois declared that the purpose of these laws was "to prevent the influx of that most unacceptable population."(85)

80. Illinois statute of 30 March 1819, quoted by Ewing, Dred Scott Decision, pages 79-80.
81. Illinois statute of 17 January 1829, quoted by Ewing, op. cit., page 80.
82. Williams, Negro Race in America, page 123.
83. Arthur Charles Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict: 1850-1865 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1934), page 264.
84. Constitution of Illinois (1862), Article XVIII, Section 1. This amendment was approved by a majority of 100,590 voters (Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Illinois [Springfield, Illinois: C.H. Lanphier, 1862], page 1098).
85. Eells v. The People (1843), 4 Scammon 513. There is no record that Abraham Lincoln ever objected to any of these anti-Negro laws which were passed by his own State, and his own public statements on the subject indicated his support of them.

Yes, I've read the naratives, I also know those asking the questions were white and more than likely got the answers they wanted.

Really they wanted more negros to tell them they were happier as slaves than as free.

Slavery was a National sin, a stain upon the honor of this Nation. Black people did not get off well, even after the destruction of your "peculiar institution." Jim Crow did a splendid job of holding the black man down and it is merely another tragedy and shame that it was allowed to persist as long as it did.

here you go with morality again, slavery wasa product of law, not morality, in the north they sold of the most profitable scetion of slave society, hardly the Norths finest moral stance, and no one went to wr to end slavery and no one pre war in major political parties was acalling for it to end, only to limit its expansion, hardly the high moral ground at all.
Thacher v. Hawk (1842) Ohio SC.
It has always been admitted, that our political institutions embrace the white population only. Persons of color were not recognized as having any political existence. They had no agency in our political organizations, and possessed no political rights under it. Two or three of the States form exceptions. The constitutions of fourteen expressly exclude persons of color by a provision similar to our own; and, in the balance of the States, they are excluded on the ground that they were never recognized as a part of the body politic.... Indeed, it is a matter of history, that the very object of introducing the word white into our constitution, by the convention framing that instrument, was to put this question beyond all cavil or doubt, by, in express terms, excluding all persons from the enjoyment of the elective franchise, except persons of pure white blood.

As to earning a higher wage, bull. As to suffering less disease, that can be argued and eating a better diet can also be argued as it is a generality you carefully husband.

Read a book on it and get back to me You do know the avergae wage of the negros post war right?, 40$ in 1879, a massive rise from his 1868 18$ figure, go reada book and get back to me.

Please, would you prefer slavery to still exist and for the black man to know his place? Like others I have dealt w/ over the years I suspect so.

Since thats not what i posted, i suggest you reply to what i actually post, not reply as if i had posted something else entirely, typical of you.
Slavery does still exist, the exploitation of others is a feauture of human economic behavoir, the problem is not with understanding economcs or human behavoir or even law, but of people unable like you who dont know enought about any of those things but want to argue about it anyways.

[/quote]
The CS did not abolish slavery, the US did.[/quote]
You do know how many southern states had ended slavery before the 13th right?, and yes the states ended slavery by amendment, not because of the EP or the war.

I challenge you to walk down the street of the bottoms of any southern town and shout "Y'all were better off as slaves." I rather suspect you wouldn't get too much applause; I doubt you'd get out of there w/ your hide intact.

Really?, they dont have free speech in the south. you dont have a **** clue about what slavery was and think no one else does either.

[Hanny]

Originally Posted by ole

The WPA's project includes 2,194 interviews. "Black interviewers were virtually excluded from the WPA staffs in all southern states except Virginia, Louisiana, and Florida."

heres some of them

Tom Douglas, a former slave of Alabama, stated, "Slavery times wuz sho good times. We wuz fed an' clothed an' had nothin' to worry about."(56) Simon Phillips of Alabama said, "People has the wrong idea of slave days. We was treated good. My massa never laid a hand on me the whole time I was wid him.... Sometime we loaned the massa money when he was hard pushed."(57) Gus Brown of Richmond, Virginia remembered his former master back in Alabama with these words: "I cannot forget old massa. He was good and kind. He never believed in slavery, but his money was tied up in slaves and he didn't want to lose all he had. I knows I will see him in heaven and even though I have to walk ten miles for a bite of bread, I can still be happy to think about the good times we had then."(58) Exhibiting a profound sadness about the results of the forced "emancipation" brought about by the North, Mary Rice, of Alabama said, "I was happy all de time in slavery days, but dere ain't much to git happy over now."(59) James Gill of Arkansas likewise testified, "...[A]ll dem good times ceasted atter a while when de War come and de Yankees started all dere debbilment. Us was Confederates all de while."(60)
6. Tom Douglas, quoted in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews With Former Slaves (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934), Volume I (The Alabama Narratives), pages 218-219.
57. Simon Phillips, quoted in op. cit., pages 312, 315.
58. Gus Brown, quoted in op. cit., pages 224-226.
59. Mary Rice, quoted in op. cit., pages 329-330.
60. James Gill, quoted in op. cit., Volume III, page 19.
61. Randall, Civil War and Reconstruction, pages 47, 48.

"The black man's vulnerability to white oppression was painfully evident in the depression south. From 1931 to 1935, for example, more than 70 lynchings occurred there; nine blacks were killed who had committed no crime, and 25 were killed for minor offenses."

More were lynched in the mid west than in the old south.

To have been born into slavery, an interviewee would have to be 66 in 1931; 70 in 1935. This supposes that the he or she was born 1865. What are your earliest childhood memories? When y'all get to be 90, how much are you going to accurately remember of school days?

They were quite lucid in there remarks.

Quotes are from David Brion Davis' book, Slave Testimony LSUP, 1977. There are many other problems with the Slave Narratives, including inexpert interviewers, leading interviewers, misleading interviewers and editing. But they're too numerous to mention.

the poblem was the SN gave what was not expeted, they spoke fondly of the constion, because this was unexpected because at the time it was thought slavery was coercive condition with no carrot, much like nazi concentration camps.

His introduction discusses at tedious length the literature to date bearing on slave treatment. As the Narratives is the better known (and possibly the most unreliable), he gives it extra attention.

thats litertaure is all well and fine, but to then turn around and calim thatb the same literature to the contrary is worth less is the problem.

On the eve of American independence, nearly three-fourths of Boston’s wealthiest quartile of property-holders held slaves. A like proportion could be found in New York, Philadelphia, Providence, and Newport. From a position at the top of colonial society, one visitor noted that there was "not a house in Boston" that "has not one or two" slaves – an observation that might be applied to every northern city with but slight exaggeration.
The expansion of slavery followed a similar trajectory in the countryside. Indeed, the rapid growth of rural slavery eclipsed its development in the cities of the North. Throughout the grain-producing areas of Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, and Long Island – the North’s bread basket – bondage spread swiftly during the eighteenth century, as farmers turned from white indentured servants to black slaves. By mid-century slavery’s tentacles reached into parts of southern New England, especially the area around Narragansett Bay, where large slaveholders – many of whom had originated in Barbados – took on the airs of a planter class. In these places, slaves constituted as much as one-third of the labor force, and sometimes more than half.
In the northern colonies, Africans had difficulty finding mates, establishing families, conceiving, and producing healthy infants. The problem was not new. From the beginning of settlement, northern slaveholders, unlike their counterparts ****her south, showed little interest in creating an indigenous slave population. From their perspective, the discomfort and expense of sharing their cramped quarters with slaves outweighed the profits offered by a self-reproducing labor force. Northern slaveholders discouraged their slaves from marrying and did not provide accommodations for slave families to reside in the same abode. They routinely separated husbands from wives and parents from children and only reluctantly extended visitation rights. Seeing but small advantage in the creation of an indigenous, self-reproducing slave population, northern slaveholders sold slave women at the first sign of pregnancy. Such practices constrained the development of residential family units and diminished the chances that black men would assume the roles of husbands and fathers and black women the roles of wives and mothers. Grandparenthood became unknown to most northerners of African descent.
In the middle years of the eighteenth century, northern lawmakers – taking a page from southern statute books – updated, refined, or consolidated the miscellaneous regulations that had been enacted during the seventeenth century and issued more comprehensive slave codes. In every case, legislators strengthened the hand of the slaveowner at the expense of the slave and free black.
Black life in the North increasingly resembled that of the plantation South. From Ira Berlin’s Generations of Captivity (Harvard University Press, 2003),

[johan_steele]

Originally Posted by Hanny

I have, which is why i can with supreme confidence point out to you that you are misuesing the words, not using them as was the practice o0f the time nor indeed how the dictionary uses them today. Open your dictionary again.

I frequently reference my dictionary & thesaraus. Make mistakes and try to admit them. Now I'm not certain how the tangent got started and admit to being a touch confused. Not that such a thing is all that uncommon. Mullato, Octroon, Quadroon et were terms used to refer to non whites (blacks) or slaves. The terms were used frequently in descriptions of escaped slaves, slae bills etc. I cannot sell my wife or my daughter today. I could have in 1860; if I was so inclined and my morals were in the ditch.

No smoke and mirrors by myself, thats your stock in trade. So you now agree that the law allows you to sell property. Your initial comment was "I take it you are unaware of the terms I used, Octroon etc; proof that you are unaware of the reality of the day. I cannot sell my children or my wife; a pity you are unable to grasp that simple difference." I believe in the rule of law; it's what seperates us from barbarism IMO. Abortion is legal in the US, and I think in the UK as well, it's legal doesn't mean I agree w/ it or think it right. I don't always agree w/ a law but believe the rule of law should be observed; there are ways to change laws in the US. Unfortunately to end Slavery in the nation it took a war.

So you got pointed out that no one was selling their wives and children, which is YOUR smoke and mirrors of confusing the reality of the day with YOUR inability to post factualy acurate opinion.
Which is why i pointed out reality to you because you went into a flight of fancy, or as you prefer, a smoke and mirors excercise of obfuscation.
Now, since your wife is not property you indeed cannot sell her, but you can sell your other property, and slaves were property under US law, so again the only proven thing is you cannot argue the facts, but want to argue free people are not sold, hardly an argument since free people being sold appears in nothing i have posted, but that slaves as property were lawfully sold. Men rarely sold their wives; just mistresses or women they refered to as property. Legal? Yes. Right and moral... you might think so but I would disagree. It took little more than a whim to return a free black man or woman to slavery.

Since thats what you did and i responded to your introdcution of your free wife and child, i sugest you pay attention to what you post, and get responded to because you introduced it, and dont compalin to others about what you intrioduced.

Sorry but only citizens are taxed, there were no free negros paying federal tax. If as a tax paying citizen of a state, he has the full protection of the state law. But since most northern stastes denied them citizenship and protection of law, they could inded be arrested. IIRC one of the wealthiest and more prolific slave owners in Louisiana before the war was a Creole (Mulatto) who paid taxes as I understand it.


What you *think* discpicable, was US law, North and South, gaurented in state and federal law, its your hoistory and you seek to deny it and make it a section of the countrys sin, when slavery was the sin of all the nations since inception. What you think honorable, is not to lie about your past, now one was forced to own slaves, it was a personal choice done acording to law, and individual choice. Just as ***** teaches your all fit for conversion to how they think you should act and be moral, but you deny them the right to dicate or impose their morailty and law on you, so did the slave holders who were every bit as christian and relgous as the north, resist those who imposed changes to constitionaly protected rights, because it was a war aim, and not even a moral argument except for the 2% of abolitionst whose dream had come true and got what they had no earthly chance of getting pre war, and end to slavery. the North had no high ground at all, they ended slavery from mil need, not moral principle.

As I said I understand it was US Law; this is why I view slavery as a stain upon the entire Nation, not just the South. It might have been eliminated at the start, but that isn't what happened. Instead it took a war to destroy slavery. It is gone today, in this country, because of that War. Frankly the elimination of slavery is one of the few good things that came out of the CW. It's dead and buried in the country, yes it took another century to approach equality but we have.

I've explained why I believe all slave owners participated in slave breeding. Anyone who profited from the birth of a slave child took part in it whether intentionally or not.

I have a visceral opposition to any who defend slavery. Perhaps it is because I have spent so much time with the family of my wife. I've studied the letters of men who saw things that would curl your hair. And I admit irritation to those who defend slavery... thy're usually the same one who wouldn't even think of suffering it themsleves. Yes I am wasting time arguing w/ a man who defends slavery. I can see no redeeming factor in such. Was slavery legal in 1860? Yes, and I've never said otherwise. Was it right? No, and many thought it wrong in 1860 as well... I doubt your 2% number.

I'm several hundred miles from my library at the moment. The diary of Cyrus Boyd mentions slaves whiter than soldiers explicitly, as do others. Celia, A Slave is a work that describes a sexually abused slave (mulatto) who rebelled by murdering her tormenter. The account of Harriet Jacobs details the sexual abuse of a slave as well. Sgt Risondorph of the 4th MN VI also details seeing such on several occasions. There are more but I don't recalll names or units off hand. They are prevelant enough that I remember them as something other than an oddity. 10% of 4 millions is a rather large number. I think you know it happened but are unwilling to admit it.

I can do French, Polish, Russian, and latin for you if thats any easier for you to reply. Any chance of you actually answering the question put?. Well, educated and still can't spell better than I. I must extend my thanks, for making me feel better!



You just cant stop showing your ignornace can you?, octroons is 1/8 not 1/16, another term you used initialy and still cant use correctlty!. Since all human sub sets breed and produce ofspring, they are all still human, and i await your evidence that anyone claimed they were less than human from your 3000+ acounts you claim to have read.
Slaves were bought and sold at auction, like cattle or horses; slave trading could be a very profitable profession. People as property. Dehuminized to keep them more easily subjugated. Unable to marry w/out the consent of an owner, unable to acquire even the most basic education. Some of the slaveocracy going so far as to say a black man or woman had no soul. I'm sorry but I do not see that as treating someone as a human being..

Hanny; I don't have the time today to answer your posts point for point but firmly believe you deserve that courtesy. You and I will never see eye to eye, in this there is no problem. I view you as an eager defender of slavery and are passionate about it. Fine, you have that right. I don't have to like it but you have that right.

I've learned about slavery by reading about it, listening to the stories of descendents and taking a serious hard look at how ugly it could be. I spend a lot of time reading letters and diaries; I find them more interesting than most history texts. Because they are people telling what they see and think at that moment, not after 140 years of hindsight. No matter how some paint it slavery was ugly and frankly an evil I'm glad to be without in this country. I know full well slavery still exists, I know it for a fact as I've seen it in action. It's every bit as evil anywhere in the world today as in 1860... far worse in many ways.

I need to stress my number of 45% (which I should have done at mentioning it) for various STD's in the Armies of the UK is from recollection, which is why I gave the "IIRC." As I said I really don't think upon serious honest study it would have been much different than the US or French rates. On a quick google search I found several different numbers and my view of it is this: many writers use numbers to further an agenda of one form or another. Is the number wrong? I don't know one way or the other and frankly I hope and pray from the depthes of my soul it was WAY high. STD's are not an interesting subject to me, I really don't want to know how many men had syphillis, or the Tijuana two step. I've read numbers giving US STD rates at better than 90% which is so perposterous as to be more amusing than insulting. I've read that there were over a million rapes just between Atlanta and Savannah; again so stupid a claim as to be amusing. Like today, I prefer to find three sources for an account of an atrocity... in every modern case they are blown all out of proportion or are just plain invention. I sometimes wonder how different that is from the 1860's. I avoid statistics as I have little faith in their accuracy. In that vhein of thought I have tried to do the same thing w/ the civil war. I have read numerous accounts of truly benevolant slave owners as well as numerous accounts of men that would scare the evil right out of you. The majority were probably somewhere in between.

I see slavery as a despicable wrong and no period writings I have read show me different. No modern writing has either. I have stated slavery, often, was one of this nations ugliest stains and I view it as a National sin instead of a regional one. Our treatment of the Native American is nothing to be proud of either. Yet the destruction of slavery, as a war act, took us one step closer to the free Nation we have become. That you don't note that is fine, your perogitive. I read every book that catches my interest and I try to do so in a manner that will give a balanced view. When I give a book list I give the books I own and have read on the subject. Some will agree w/ my views some will disagree and I try only to list those that do so in an educated manner.

I can understand some who wish to paint slavery in an accurate way; my way of accomplishing this for myself has been to study the words of the men who lived through that period. I have concentrated on the soldiers, the men on the sharp end as I view them as the men who did the deciding. Unfortunately, I often find myself opposite those who would present slavery as all fuzzy bunnies and happiness. I avoid the writings of politicians... can't trust them to tell you the color of the sky.

Were those soldiers racist? Some of them absolute scum. Overwhelmingly, I find those soldiers the same as anywhere else in the world with many of the same wants, needs and desires. My only comfort in learning such a fact is knowing we were not alone in our racism. We were joined by the rest of the world all through history. From the ancient Chinese & Greeks to our esteemed allies across the pond at the same time period. I have called it precedence, probably incorrectly, in an effort to point out that the US & the South which was/is part of her was little different than in their racial dealings than the average Brit of the day. Civilization has been a slow process; and the destruction of slavery in this country, in Russia the UK or anywhere else was one step in the right direction.

[johan_steele]

Originally Posted by Hanny

Really they wanted more negros to tell them they were happier as slaves than as free. By and large yes. They largely wanted Negroes to "know their place." I don't believe the majority of those asking the questions were interested in anything that would mess w/ their ideas.

The CS did not abolish slavery, the US did.[/quote]
You do know how many southern states had ended slavery before the 13th right?, and yes the states ended slavery by amendment, not because of the EP or the war. No war no EP & no end to slavery. What state of the CS ended slavery rpior to the EP?

Really?, they dont have free speech in the south. you dont have a **** clue about what slavery was and think no one else does either. I have a great clue, there is plenty of free speech in the South today. There wasn't always, especially in regard to slavery or a black man doing the speaking. The same is true elsewhere in the US, as I've said over and over Slavery was a national sin. Frankly, I doubt you would do it, same as I doubt you would walk into a Legion or VFW hall and say soldiers are slaves. Either way I think you'd be tossed out on your tail, probably not very gently, and rightly so.[/quote]

US Slavery was based upon skin color as much if not more than anything else. In New Orleans a German girl was grabbed and sold into slavery because she was dark enough to pass as a quadroon and didn't know enough English to defend or explain herself. That is an extreme example but it happened probably more often than anyone would like to think about. A freeman w/ papers had best keep those papers on him or face a slave catcher who might have lower scruples than yours. After all it would be the word of a black man against that of a white... little doubt whose word was considered better by the authorities.

[Battalion]

Originally Posted by johan steele

In New Orleans a German girl was grabbed and sold into slavery because she was dark enough to pass as a quadroon and didn't know enough English to defend or explain herself.

Sounds like a storyline for a cheap paperback novel.

The fact that she speaks German (whether they understand it or not) is not going to raise any suspicion that she might not be a slave?

[matthew mckeon]

Dear Battalion,
You're right, its does sound like a melodrama. But it is a case of truth is stranger than fiction. The book is called "The Lost German Slave Girl" an account of a slave woman held in New Orleans in the 1840s who sued for freedom, claiming to be a orphan of German immigrants, raised as a slave.

The book is a fascinating read and thrilling ride. After a tense trial(its New Orleans, so its conducted in 3 languages: English, French, Spanish), featuring colorful lawyers(one a friend of Jean Lafitte), and a blind justice. As the jury files in to return a verdict, the levee breaks! You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, whether the woman in question was a German orphan, or a shrewd African American making a bid for freedom, its worth looking at for its view of slavery, honor, German immigration into the South, and antebellum New Orleans.

[johan_steele]

Originally Posted by Battalion

Sounds like a storyline for a cheap paperback novel.

The fact that she speaks German (whether they understand it or not) is not going to raise any suspicion that she might not be a slave?

Saw the book in the non fiction section of a Borders today which is where I just left. Would have thought it belonged in the fiction section if I hadn't read of the incident a couple times in other sources over the years. Slave traders weren't always exactly the most honest sort. I know few of the particulars. Many Americans didn't know Dutch from Russian or Japanese from Chinese... most still don't. An immigrant w/ no grasp of the language could find a lot of trouble in a hurry from the unscrupulous. Bad things happen more often than we might imagine. How often did such a thing happen? More often than either of us would like to admit I expect.

When I was getting ready to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans we all received a breifing from our CO telling us of the dangers of Mardi Gras. I don't know if it was true or not but he said that more people disapear in New Orleans during Mardi Gras than in any other city in the US and it had been that way for years. True or not I don't know, but it isn't now or in 1860's all that hard to disapear forever... especially for a young lady alone.

Matthew, thanks for the clarification of the title. Appreciate it.

[Freddy]

Originally Posted by Hanny

...and again using the census data we know that the CSA white pop under age 9 was 30% of the total in 1860, so was the border states, and the Northern states 27%.
We further know that the free negro in the North was 24%, in the Border states 26% and the CSA states 29%.
We further know that the CSA slave pop under age 9 was 31% and in the border states 32%.
we know from 1790-1860 the white pop growth was 35% on avarege per census.
If slaves were breed deleiberatly, than how come whites were breeding more than the negros?, how come the free southern negros were breeding ata consttance rate, while when free and in the north well below the avarage, its not that the south wasa breeding farm, it was that the whites out breed the negro and the free negro in the north was not breeding at the same rate as free blacks in the south or slaves in the south, because the upkeep of the children was borne by them, while eleswhere the upkeep was borne by the owner.
Slave breeding was a myth, always was and always will be to those who can count, other wise whites were out breeding them by design, and sterilizing the free blacks to prevent them from reproducing by social and economic conditions.
The best example of breeding is how the north and south start out from 2 million each and end up with 22 million in the north and 9 in the south, seems pretty clear who won the breeding contest.

Hanny did you consider the population increase due to immigration? Between 1800-1860 a conservative estimate using available statistics puts the increase in immigrant population at 13 million. Most of those immigrants settled in the North and West. Would not that decrease the percentage of Northern births in the period from 1800-1860?