Stonewall New Research Sheds Light On Slaves Owned By Stonewall Jackson

I read most of Rebel Yell which was fantastic, and only stopped because I decided to hop around from book to book dealing with the early part of the war and various characters involved.

One question that I think is relevant to the "slaveowner, period" remark is whether Jackson did or did not view blacks as an inferior race as many other important players on both sides of the conflict.

If he did teach reading/writing to slaves, he must have believed from the start, or learned in the process, that the races are equal, or to be more careful with wording, more nearly equal than most others believed at that time. Might it also suggest that he was not unwilling to live alongside blacks rather than supporting deportation?

That would be worth adding to the "slaveowner, period" remark. Would that place Jackson above various revered figures from the North in a race-relations ethical hierarchy of some kind?
 
That would be worth adding to the "slaveowner, period" remark.
Jackson did not leave behind any writings indicating how he felt about the institution of slavery, so we don’t know for certain how he felt about it. We do know that he participated in the slave economy.

Like many Southerners, Jackson struggled with his feelings about the institution of slavery, but it obviously was God’s will that it exist—a belief widely held in the South. In 1855, he began teaching Sunday school classes to slaves in Lexington, a violation of Virginia’s segregation laws.

Jackson’s Sunday school fit seamlessly into a proslavery theology that worked not to undermine slavery (as the Sunday School myth claims), but to bolster the institution and make it work according to God’s plans. Proslavery Christianity rested on assumptions of the inherent incapacity of black people to manage their own spiritual lives, and the necessity of superior whites to instruct them in proper religion.

According to Anna, Hetty had “some fine traits,” but was a bit too self-asserted for Jackson. She apparently saw herself as “so much the senior of her new master and mistress,” which is understandable since Hetty raised Anna. In ways that go unstated, Jackson made it clear “that her only course must be that of implicit obedience” to the Jacksons. Anna concludes that “after learning this lesson she toned down into a well-mannered, useful domestic, and indeed she became a factotum in the household, rendering valuable service in the house, garden, and upon the farm.”
and, "he believed that the Bible taught that slavery was sanctioned by the Creator himself, who maketh men to differ, and instituted laws for the bond and the free."

What we do know is that he owned slaves, profited from them personally, and the slave economy. He fought a war that would have required him to seek pardon for treason (had he survived it), in support of it.

in my opinion that makes him a slaveholder , period. He simply washed his hands and sealed his fate.
(maybe he skipped over that part of the Bible)
 
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Thanks for sharing this report! Glad to hear of the upgrading of the Jackson home: hope the 'expansion' doesn't overwhelm the home itself.
As I have often mentioned, T. J. Jackson is my long-time favorite Civil War general officer.
But I cannot overlook the fact that he was a slaveholder and a racist, even though he may have been more humane than the average slaveholder.
When I think of slaveholders I cast them in the roles they gave themselves: owners of livestock. Reading Mrs. Jackson's recollections, particularly the ease with which she moved from recollections of the family slaves to the next memory is, I believe, telling: "The other animate possessions of the family were a good- looking horse (named, from his color, Bay), two splendid milch cows, and a lot of chickens."<Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson. (Louisville, KY: The Prentice Press, 1895), p. 119.>
To her and most likely her benevolent husband, slaves "animate possessions" like "a good- looking horse", "milch cows" and "a lot of chickens".
 
[QUOTE="Henry Brown, post: 1857148, member: 20

Jackson’s Sunday school fit seamlessly into a proslavery theology that worked not to undermine slavery (as the Sunday School myth claims), but to bolster the institution and make it work according to God’s plans. Proslavery Christianity rested on assumptions of the inherent incapacity of black people to manage their own spiritual lives, and the necessity of superior whites to instruct them in proper religion.

Sounds like the Beechers and there theory of Colonization. Many Yankees had the same Theory. Educate them in Christianity and return them to Africa to save the Others.
 
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