Slave Pen

But I am judgmental, and I'm proud of it. Where we're miscommunicating, I think, is that I agree that slavery should be condemned. Where I disagree is holding people of other eras to a higher standard than we're willing to hold ourselves, and then considering them to be different from us, because most of them fail to meet that standard.

I don't know why you're saying we're holding people of other eras to a "higher" standard than we're willing to hold ourselves. The standard is the same, the challenges of meeting that standard whereby we treat others humanely may vary depending on our circumstances, but the standards haven't changed. "Love your brother as yourself," "Treat others as you would have them treat you," are universal precepts by which we are all challenged to live. Hardly ever easy to do in every circumstance, but that doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do. We can learn from the people who fell short of doing the right thing, but only if we recognize that they did in fact fall short.

What would you like us to do? Not acknowledge that there are universal standards that apply to everyone, past, present and future? Or would you like us to believe that the standards are relative to the time and place, that they can change according to our social conditioning? Because if that's what you're saying I see a great danger in that kind of thinking. It allows us to justify our failure to meet those standards just as they did in the past. We can then say "I didn't know it was wrong." Or, "It was wrong then, but it's not wrong now." We've seen this rational about torture. People justifying it, even when the whole world condemns torture, even though the U.S. condemned it when the Japanese did it to our POW's. But now that we got a jolt with 9/11 and feel fearful, we justify it because well, it's all relative, we can change the standards whenever it suits us, even when all the evidence tells us that not only is torture immoral, it also doesn't work.

Uh, no, it's not (in reference to the bolded part). That's the heart of our disagreement, I think. I agree that it's a universal standard, but it is much, much easier for me to come closer to that standard today, than in the antebellum era. Understanding why that is, is crucial to understanding history.

We can count our blessings that it's easier for us, we can be grateful that we can learn from their past mistakes and the sacrifices they made and not make the same mistakes, precisely because it's easier not to make them.
 
I think both you and James are correct in what you're saying. The things is, you're making arguments that revolve around a similar topic, but are parallel and mutually exclusive - simply put, what you're saying is apples and oranges.

You are absolutely right to say that many people disregard how the slaves felt in all of this, and that slavery must ultimately be seen as evil. I am 100% certain that James agrees with this.

But James is also correct in saying that social standards of the day acted as a deterrent to people doing what we would today call the "right thing to do." I think that an understanding of why people could not or would not do the right thing back then can be educational and informative as to why we of today don't do the right thing, whatever the right thing is. So it is useful to understand how these social dynamics work, and I think James is trying to explain just what those social dynamics were.

- Alan

I don't think anyone here is unaware of the so-called "social dynamics" of the antebellum south. Their reasons, justifications, peer pressure, economic imperatives, etc. are well known. The problem I see is that they are all justifications, denials, rationales, and basically, to be perfectly blunt, self-serving b.s. of a sick society and needs to be seen as such. This would not need to be pointed out if there weren't a number of people on this forum who repeatedly make sympathy pleas for them. "It was 'hard' for them" we are told, "too hard to resist peer pressure when 'everybody else was doing it,' "too hard to give up their wealth, or, "they didn't know what they were doing, didn't know it was evil, it was common practice after all, it was the norm, it was socially acceptable," and on and on ad nauseum.

There is no mystery why people had slaves, nothing more profound than to realize that "the love of money is the root of all evil." They did it to profit themselves, at the expense of others. Everything else is excuses. No comparison can be made to today. You'd have to imagine people today getting a slave to pay off one's credit card bills, and pay off the mortgage, then whipping him if he refuses to work or runs away. It would be a very sick society that would condone that or pressure people into accepting this as a social norm.

To put it in its proper perspective, we're not talking about people smoking cigarettes, we're talking about people holding human beings in bondage, treating them like animals, degrading and humiliating them, selling them like hogs, whipping them, selling their children, raping women, impregnating them to augment their wealth, denying them education, a future, hope, and all this to enrich themselves. There were no laws a slave could appeal to for their defense, there were no protectors. One has to be able to look at slavery and see it for the true evil it was to know that nothing, no excuse, no so-called hardships the slaveholders might have had to endure without their slaves, deserves any consideration whatsoever, because when all is said and done, they cannot compare to the hardships the slaves suffered under their oppressors.

I don't think we can truly understand the Civil War if we don't know that it wasn't just about battles, it was about something much greater. If we are not willing to look at what the slaves had to endure we will not be able to learn about the depths human beings can sink to when they put profit over people, self-interest over humanity. Slavery is a great lesson in "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." We can't learn from history if we refuse to see and consider all sides in what was an epic struggle for humanity.

If highlighting the plight of slaves, means condemning slave holders, well so what. I think it's only fair to champion the slaves, their long suffering is, after all, what is being overlooked.
 
But even if one can at least express sympathy today for a poor Uncle Tom, beaten down by slavery to the point he has no will to resist, there are the even stickier stories: the blacks who acted as drivers, or who helped slave catchers, or who enjoyed the wealth of being white men's concubines.

I hope I used the 'quote' option correctly. This one would drive a slave right up the slave-penn wall. I'd still express sympathy for this slave and any other who somehow found the means to improve their lot in life. They'd still be a slave, they no doubt be cringing under the necessity of their found occupations, their little umbrellas of security in the tenuous security of white man's America. The blacks who helped slave catchers- did they have a choice? The ones who existed in Africa, certainly- that was their war, their ancient tribal practices at play in the same way any indiginous people sharing the same space make war against each other in perpetuity. You can't look at that and bring it up as some sticky wickit in an argument on the conditions of enslaved black people here in the US. If black people helped slave catchers here in the US- it was again as a means to survive. Could that person have looked a white master in the face, on equal terms and said 'Er, no, I'm not going to help you find my fellow slave, pound sand, sir?'. To also say a concubine enjoyed the wealth of a white man would be to say any woman would enjoy the money handed to her by someone who pretty well foreced her to sleep with them, being in a power position above them. Enjoy? Perhaps it helped, perhaps those women were able to have a better life-style than your average field hand or house servant but enjoy? As a woman, I'd be thinking about the best way to stick a shiv in someone's ribs no matter how many filthy dollars he threw my way. The slaves who 'acted as drivers', I fail to see a correlation on as far as their lot being any better than anyone elses. A slave is a slave is a slave, and it's not really up to society then or now to redefine what we'd imagine would be an innocuous job, that gee, they just should not have minded all that much, look how' good' they really had it.

I'm still not sold on the cigarette argument, still on the grounds that cigarettes are not and were not a question of people- it's apples and oranges- which is argued far better than I ever could hope to in this lifetime by Jefferson. Due to a dentist appointment have just run out of time, however. :smile:
 
I don't know why you're saying we're holding people of other eras to a "higher" standard than we're willing to hold ourselves. The standard is the same, the challenges of meeting that standard whereby we treat others humanely may vary depending on our circumstances, but the standards haven't changed.

Okay, to word it more clearly: I mean that we're holding them to a higher standard, if we condemn or judge them as worse people than us, because they failed to overcome challenges that we don't have. Or, conversely, we're holding them to a higher standard if we excuse ourselves for failing to overcome challenges, but don't give them the same slack.

What would you like us to do? Not acknowledge that there are universal standards that apply to everyone, past, present and future? Or would you like us to believe that the standards are relative to the time and place, that they can change according to our social conditioning?

Neither. There's no need to abandon the idea of universal standards.

I'd like us to recognize in them (their generation) the same basic things that motivate us (our generation), rather than dismissing slave-owners--or Lincoln, or Sherman--as just evil people.

Not only does that give a more accurate picture of history, because human beings haven't fundamentally changed that much in 200 years, but it also keeps us from becoming too complacent in our ability to divide current human beings and current choices into good and evil.
 
To also say a concubine enjoyed the wealth of a white man would be to say any woman would enjoy the money handed to her by someone who pretty well foreced her to sleep with them, being in a power position above them. Enjoy? Perhaps it helped, perhaps those women were able to have a better life-style than your average field hand or house servant but enjoy? As a woman, I'd be thinking about the best way to stick a shiv in someone's ribs no matter how many filthy dollars he threw my way.

Let's take just that one example, because it relates to slave traders who ran jails such as pictured in the original post.

If a woman like Corinna, the "wife" of slave-trader Silas Omohundro, or Ann, the "wife" of slave-trader Hector Davis, or Mary the "wife" of slave-trader Robert Lumpkin, didn't stick a shiv in the ribs of their "husbands," though they certainly had plenty of opportunity, are we to judge them as... what? Evil? Cowards? Lesser people than us?

One can google those names to find out more about their lives.

I don't know what I'd do in that circumstance, because it's inconceivable for me to be in it. I can say, of course, that the slave traders were wrong for buying and selling humans, and that they were wrong for not immediately freeing their "wives."

But let's say that an abolitionist had bought an enslaved woman, married her, moved her to Philadelphia, given her a home, introduced her in society and tried his best to integrate her and their children as equals in his circle of white friends in Philadelphia, and willed his money to support her after he died. We'd praise him as a hero, be happy for her good fortune or skill in finding such a man, and wish that there had been a thousand more men like him.

Yet if a slave trader did the same thing, he deserves a shiv in the ribs, and she could not possibly have enjoyed her good fortune.

I don't know. I think that it's more complicated than that.
 
I don't think those singular examples count as instances whereby one could put an ex-slave on a pedastle of 'Oh thank goodness, a white man who saved this poor woman, call out the band'. I think those instances for one thing were singular ( rare ) for one thing and for another were times when two people just plain old met, fell in love and enjoyed a life together forever ad ever amen. To say he 'gave' her all those things is to kind of imply the husband purposefully 'saved' her from slavery and purposefully did so as some kudos in his belt and as an act of benevolance, not as what it probably was- a man finding someone he liked, wished to marry and did. These would be cases of mutual respect as would be normal for husband and wife to share. You just can't compare that with the plethora of instances where a master would choose some female slave as his mistress and she would have no choice in the matter, really. It would be that or sold, or continue in the rougher life of a house or field servant, or who knows what. In that case yes- I maintain as a female I'd want to stick a shiv in his ribs.

It's impossible to take a case by case basis with these things, since I at least agree then it is more complicated. You can always, always find the exceptions to the rule. My point would be that the rule would have been that across the board, it's a terribly slippery slope to take one 'class' of slave and imply perhaps they had it easy, or somehow liked it, or were satisfied with their lot in life. Especially with mistresses of white men, gosh-for every 'success' story you can pull out of the history books there woud be dozens which went un-written of which ended badly or even mndanely. The ones where the mistress was treated well, but was still a slave, bottom line, with zero choice in the matter, whose children born of the couple were still considered black hence slaves themselves so not equal again to their fathers were not fortunate humans by any stretch of definitio of the word. These women were able to find a way to endure slavery under circumstances which probably allowed them to dress a little better than their cohorts but other than that? A slave whose job it was to keep a man happy,because of the huge balance of power there, wow, so like I said- as a woman, I'm hanging on to the shiv perpspective on the grounds that I'm just not convinced she had it any 'better' than any other human owned by another. Maybe it would come down to a vote between men and women on this, who knows- mine would be that she had it worse. I know I'd rather spend 12 hours picking produce in the hot sun than have to do what some of these women did.
 
I don't think those singular examples count as instances whereby one could put an ex-slave on a pedastle of 'Oh thank goodness, a white man who saved this poor woman, call out the band'. I think those instances for one thing were singular ( rare ) for one thing and for another were times when two people just plain old met, fell in love and enjoyed a life together forever ad ever amen. To say he 'gave' her all those things is to kind of imply the husband purposefully 'saved' her from slavery and purposefully did so as some kudos in his belt and as an act of benevolance, not as what it probably was- a man finding someone he liked, wished to marry and did. These would be cases of mutual respect as would be normal for husband and wife to share. You just can't compare that with the plethora of instances where a master would choose some female slave as his mistress and she would have no choice in the matter, really. It would be that or sold, or continue in the rougher life of a house or field servant, or who knows what. In that case yes- I maintain as a female I'd want to stick a shiv in his ribs.

It's impossible to take a case by case basis with these things, since I at least agree then it is more complicated. You can always, always find the exceptions to the rule. My point would be that the rule would have been that across the board, it's a terribly slippery slope to take one 'class' of slave and imply perhaps they had it easy, or somehow liked it, or were satisfied with their lot in life. Especially with mistresses of white men, gosh-for every 'success' story you can pull out of the history books there woud be dozens which went un-written of which ended badly or even mndanely. The ones where the mistress was treated well, but was still a slave, bottom line, with zero choice in the matter, whose children born of the couple were still considered black hence slaves themselves so not equal again to their fathers were not fortunate humans by any stretch of definitio of the word. These women were able to find a way to endure slavery under circumstances which probably allowed them to dress a little better than their cohorts but other than that? A slave whose job it was to keep a man happy,because of the huge balance of power there, wow, so like I said- as a woman, I'm hanging on to the shiv perpspective on the grounds that I'm just not convinced she had it any 'better' than any other human owned by another. Maybe it would come down to a vote between men and women on this, who knows- mine would be that she had it worse. I know I'd rather spend 12 hours picking produce in the hot sun than have to do what some of these women did.
I hear what you are saying JPK. And I agree that there was loathesome behaviour from masters towards female slaves. But lest we not forget, that there was in general a trait within the relationships between men and women. Where women were supposed to know their place within the household.
Many women suffered unhappy marriages, which had long gone sour. Friends and even family members would show little sympathy. Taking the opinion that the vows of marriage were sacrosanct. Kind of just suck it up, it has always been so.
It did not always go so far as rape within marriage. But I would guess there were many women, who thought along the shiv in the ribs scenario.
I don't think I have to go into great detail. It is something which I am sure we have all heard of, though hopefully never experienced. But I am sure you will agree. There are many reasons to count our blessings we live in todays society, rather than those by-gone days.
Let me just re-itterate. I do not condone the behaviour of slavemasters. But just pointing out, that power over females was not exclusive to the peculiar institution.
 
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