Oct. 15, 2015

Before I begin, I would like to make it clear that I am utterly opposed to slavery and am not trying to justify it here.  What I do wish to do is defend the honor and integrity of the South to remove the animus against all Whites that currently exists in America.  One of the worst fears of the Southerners, including Jefferson Davis, was that the North would write the history books and prevent future generations from understanding the righteousness of the Southern cause.  Thus, they would be unable to assert their rightful claim to Constitutional government, and Southern history would be distorted or forgotten forever.  Their fears were justified since both Whites and Blacks in America today mistakenly believe that slavery was/is a White Man’s institution primarily to oppress Blacks and profit from their labor. 

School textbooks and the media are unwilling to tell the truth, because those in power want Blacks to hate Whites.  This is not surprising since this was planned long ago.  In 1912, a Jewish Communist named Israel Cohen wrote a book called A Racial Programme For The Twentieth Century in which he stated:

“We must realize that our [Communist] party’s most powerful weapon is racial tension.  By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by the Whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party.  In America, we will aim for subtle victory.  While inflaming the Negro minority against the White, we will endeavor to instill in the Whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negroes.  We will aid the Negroes to rise to prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment.  With this prestige, the Negroes will be able to intermarry with the Whites and will begin a process which will deliver America to our cause.”

While it has become politically-incorrect to use the “N” word, Americans should be aware of the fact that no disrespect is necessarily meant by use of the term “negro.”  The word niger is Latin for “black,” and the word negro is Spanish for “black.”  Some variation of this word has been used in different languages to describe Africans for thousands of years. 

Slavery existed long before this nation was founded.  The trans-Sahara slave traders of African slaves were non-European Moslem Arabs and Berbers.  They were the first to engage in the slave trade in the ninth century.  In fact, slavery was an accepted way of life among black Africans.  Africans were enslaved for a number of reasons, including debt, adultery, theft, or as prisoners of war.  “Islam in fact accepted slavery as an unquestionable part of human organization” (Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade, N.Y., 1997, p.37).  “In West Africa, slaves seem to have been the only form of private property recognized by African custom” (Ibid., p.47).  The distinctions of tribe were more real to them than race.

William Robertson Boggs writes in “The ‘Reparations’ Hoax:”

“In African warfare, the usual practice was to enslave captured women and children but to kill all male prisoners.  It was an agreeable surprise for Africans to discover a profitable export market for men.  Many of the slaves who were marched in coffles to the sea would therefore have been slaughtered had there been no demand for them in the New World.”

Reuter continues:

“The institution of slavery is indigenous to Africa, and the slave trade has been carried on there since time immemorial.  At the time of the American colonization and development, the traffic in African slaves, captured on the West Coast, or purchased from the native African slave dealers, was an important and profitable business carried on with the sanction of the more important nations of Europe.  American colonization opened a new market for the slave dealers and slavery was introduced into most of the colonies almost as soon as they were founded” (Edward Byron Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States, Boston, 1918, pp. 106-107).

The American colonies did not ask for slaves, but they purchased them when offered.  Slavery was therefore not a Southern institution.  The general belief held in those days was that, although it may not have been pleasant to be a slave, he was better off as a slave than a free man in Africa.  Blacks were frequently killed for sacrifices or just for entertainment by African chiefs and kings.

It should be noted that the slave trade and slave ownership were protected by international law.

Most of America’s Founders Opposed Slavery

While Blacks today like to claim that our founders were in favor of slavery, the facts prove otherwise.

The Quakers condemned not only the slave trade, but slavery itself, beginning in 1688 (Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross, 3^rd Ptg., Boston, 1974, p.32).  Judge Samuel Sewall, a Puritan from Massachusetts, published an anti-slavery tract in 1700.  The Philadelphia Quaker, Anthony Benezet, condemned slavery in tracts he published in 1762 and 1767.

Rev. Samuel Seabury wrote in his book, American Slavery Distinguished from the Slavery of English Theorists, and Justified by the Law of Nature (N.Y., 1861):

“There can be no doubt that the founders of our government were, on political and economic grounds, opposed to slavery, and they wished to get rid of it.  But their opinions and wishes were controlled by principles from which they never swerved.  Their love of justice was stronger than their aversion to slavery; and it taught them to do no violence to the bond which tied the slave to his master, nor to seek to deprive the master of his right to the slave’s labor.  Their love of union was stronger than their aversion to slavery; for it led them to adopt a Constitution which protected slavery in States which had no intention to abolish it. . . In carrying out their very laudable opinions and wishes in this respect, they did no violence to the great principles which governed them – the love of justice and the love of union” (pp. 309-314).

Hoskins writes about the Virginia legislature’s many attempts to outlaw the importation of slaves from Africa, but the King of England ordered the Governor “’to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed’” (Richard Kelly Hoskins, Vigilantes of Christendom, Lynchburg, 1990, p.176).

 

Earnest Cox wrote:

“. . . Europe should know that more than nine-tenths of the Europeans who reached these shores did not share in the enslavement of the Negro in the Americas, but opposed such enslavement as best they could principally because of its disastrous effect upon the economy of the whites.  Europe should know that not one twentieth of the white peoples of the New World owned Negro slaves and that the tiny slave-owning group termed itself the ‘upper class’ of the white race in the colonies.  And Europeans should also know that the ‘upper class’ colonials were affiliated with their own ‘upper class’; and that few Negroes would have been enslaved in the Western World had not the Kings, Queens, Princes, Dukes, and the lesser fry of the European nobility engaged in the African slave trade. . . So gluttinous did they become that those at the head of the Anglo-Saxon migration sought to discourage white migrants from coming to America that they might sell more Negroes to the planters.

“Colonial opposition to the slave trade, which trade was protected by the King, was an underlying cause of the American Revolution as we know from the Virginia Petition to the Throne in 1772 and  from an expunged clause of the provisional draft of the Declaration of Independence.  The Petition to the Throne was from the House of Burgesses of Virginia, April 1, 1772.  It read, in part, ‘The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and under its present encouragement we have too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your majesty’s American dominions.  We are sensible that some of your majesty’s subjects of Great Britain may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic, but when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants and may, in time, have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the interest of a few will be disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your majesty’s dutiful and loyal subjects.  Deeply impressed with these sentiments we most humbly beseech your majesty to remove all those restraints on your majesty’s governors of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce’” (Earnest Sevier Cox, Teutonic Unity, Richmond, 1951, pp. 203-205).

“Thus it is evident that the alien bloodstream which was to debase, degrade, and endanger the mighty white migration to the New World was a bloodstream superimposed on the white migration by white monarchs who had sworn to protect their race.  As Europeans sought ‘living room’ in the New World the monarchs of Europe, for their own private gain, forced helpless Africans into the migration stream, thereby limiting the living room for whites” (Cox, pp. 207-208).

Professor Robert L. Dabney, in his book A Defense of Virginia and the South (1977), explains how slavery was forced upon the South first by the King of England and then by the New England states.Relatively few of the plain Southerners had a desire to become wealthy.  Contempt for materialism was part of their Celtic heritage (James R. Kennedy and Walter D. Kennedy, The South Was Right!, 6^th Ptg., Gretna, Louisiana, 1997, p.21).  Southerners were leisure-oriented and, unlike the North, supported themselves from low-intensity crop cultivation (Ibid., p.23).

David J. Smith of Waxahachie, Texas writes that, other than the owners of large plantations in the South, “In 99% of the cases the slaves were better off than the owner” (“Of, By & For The People,” Newswatch Magazine, August 16, 1996).  “One song that slave children sang stated ‘I’d rather be a nigger than a poor white man’” (Kennedy, p.100).  While the bankers and merchants reaped the profits, the planters were the ones who took all the risks (bad weather, the death of slaves, low prices for crops, etc.).

Hoskins says that Whites did not just stand by helplessly and do nothing.  They held mass protests against slavery.

“In August 1774, the Virginia Colonial Convention revolted and resolved:  ‘We will neither ourselves import, nor purchase any slave or slaves imported by any other person, after the first day of November next, either from Africa, the West Indies or any other place’” (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.177).

Rutherford adds:

“The first bill to allow a slaveholder to free his slaves was offered by Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia.

“Thomas Jefferson . . . urged in the Declaration of Independence that the slave trade be forbidden.  John Adams, of Massachusetts, urged that clause be omitted.

“The only State that made it a felony to buy a slave was Virginia” (Mildred L. Rutherford, Truths of History, Athens, Georgia, 1907, p.97).

Virginia legislated against slavery 32 times.  When Patrick Henry was governor of Virginia, the slave trade was abolished on October 5, 1778.  This was only successful because Virginia had seceded from Great Britain.  Prior to that, the King’s royal governor had overruled many attempts to outlaw the slave trade.

“George Washington urged the gradual emancipation of his slaves and freed them by his will, and [he] told Thomas Jefferson he wished all slaves could be freed.

“George Mason believed in emancipation of his slaves and freed them.

“John Randolph, of Roanoke, freed his slaves and bought territory in Ohio to place them.

“Henry Clay urged the gradual emancipation of the slaves” (Ibid., pp. 95-96).

In an article called “Don’t bash Founding Fathers for racism” (Detroit Free Press, 1/16/98), Walter Williams, an African-American, writes that “every leading Founder acknowledged that slavery is immoral,” and he offers many quotes to prove this.  As for those who slander the Founders for considering negroes to be 3/5 of a person, he explains that this only had to do with congressional representation and electoral college votes.  While the South wanted their slaves to be counted as whole persons, the North wanted to reduce the South’s political power, so it was the northerners who came up with the compromise.  Finally, since the Treaty of Paris after the Revolutionary War made each of the 13 colonies sovereign, the Founding Fathers had to allow the Southern states to continue its practice of slavery or they would not have joined the Union.  However, Congress was able to forbid slavery in future states by the Northwest Ordinance (1787).  The only dissenting vote was from New York.  When Virginia ceded the Northwest Territory, Thomas Jefferson insisted that slavery not be allowed in this area (what was to become Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin), and no one from the South objected.

Finally, Mr. Williams hypothesizes that those who trash our founders “are also against our rights to bear arms, private property rights and limited government.  They have contempt for our constitutional guarantees of liberty, and the slavery issue is merely a convenient moral posturing tool as they try to reduce respect for our Constitution.”  Mr. Williams should be commended for his honesty and insight.

Freeing the Slaves

Although the British offered freedom to the slaves in the wars of 1776 and 1812 if they would revolt against their masters, very few took the offer (Kennedy, p.88).  Henry Laurens of Charleston was angry over the fact that the British army and navy raided the Southern plantations and, under the pretense of setting the negro slaves free, sold them “into ten-fold worse slavery in the West Indies” (James Pope-Hennessy, Sins of the Fathers, Edison, New Jersey, 2004, p.244).

In 1816, the African Colonization Society was organized with James Madison, a slaveholder, as president.  “When James Monroe became President, he secured a tract of land about the size of Mississippi on the West coast of Africa, named Liberia, and its capital was called Monrovia to honor him, and to this the slaves as freed were to be sent” (Rutherford, pp. 95-96).

Hoskins adds that members of this society began buying up slaves and sending them to Africa, the first shipload leaving in 1819.  However, while the abolitionists in the northeast, who were agents of the bankers, wanted the Black slaves freed, they did not want to compensate the owners, nor did they want the slaves returned to Africa.

“In 1847 it [Liberia] became a Republic with only negroes as officers.  Then it was protected from many encroachments of European monarchies by the Monroe Doctrine.  It was Southern statesmen and slaveholders who were most interested in this, although Northern philanthropists greatly aided by moral and material support” (Ibid.).  Unfortunately, Liberia wasn’t a success since no more than 12,000 slaves were returned to Africa.

Rutherford continues:

“A committee of five Virginians – Jefferson, Pendleton, Wythe, Mason and Thomas Lee – was appointed to revise the laws and prepare all slaveholders in the State for the gradual emancipation of their slaves. . . .

“Thomas Jefferson urged that all slaveholders free their slaves by gradual emancipation as soon as possible, for by the Missouri Compromise where a State’s right was interfered with by other States, he saw plainly that the day might come when sudden emancipation would take place, and he said ‘human nature shudders at the prospect of it,’ but he thanked God he would not be alive to see it” (Ibid.).

“Congressional Records:  ‘Jefferson Davis, when in the United States Senate, urged that a plan be made for emancipation that would be best for the slaveholders and the slave.  This was why Southern men were so insistent about securing more slave territory to relieve the congested condition of the slave States that they might prepare the slaves as freed for their future government’” (Ibid., pp. 95-96).

Reuter continues:  “The growth of the free Negro class was constant and rapid throughout the period that slavery existed [in the U.S.] as a national institution” (Reuter, p.113).  The following list shows how the number of free negroes in the U.S. increased each year:

 

            1790 – 59,557

            1800 – 108,435

            1810 – 186,446

            1820 – 233,634

            1830 – 319,599

            1840 – 386,293

            1850 – 434,495

            1860 – 488,070

“Charles Francis Adams, Jr., the historian, . . . said:  ‘Had the South been allowed to manage this question unfettered, the slaves would have been . . . fully emancipated and that without bloodshed or race problems’” (Rutherford, pp. 95-96).

“[T]he North had the opportunity to end slavery [gradually] without disrupting its economy or social fabric.  This was a luxury the Yankee never allowed the South” (Ibid., p.80).  Northern slave owners were allowed to sell their slaves to the Southerners to get rid of their slaves.  Then the Northern states demanded that the South free their slaves immediately with no compensation for them, despite the disruption that it would have on the lives of both the slave holders and their slaves.  Hoskins makes it clear that, not only did the bankers profit from the sale of slaves, but they wanted to destroy the plantation system in the South by setting the slaves free in order to be able to foreclose on the slave holders.  The plantation owners were for the most part debt-free, and this was not profitable to the bankers (Richard Kelly Hoskins, War Cycles Peace Cycles, 3^rd Ptg., Lynchburg, 1986, pp. 146-147).

“The truth is that after 1800 the South was never a viable market for the African slave traders” (Kennedy, p.69).  Kennedy writes that only 6% of all the Africans taken from Africa were brought to the United States.  The rest were sold in the Caribbean and in South America (Ibid., pp. 68-69).

It may be noted that England abolished the slave trade in 1807, not so much because Parliament had finally been convinced of its immorality, but because it was no longer necessary for their economy (Pope-Hennessy, p.249).  Besides, the British did not want to continue selling slaves to the French whose plantations in the West Indies were in competition with theirs.

The Dutch officially abolished the slave trade in 1814, followed by the French in 1815 and the Portuguese between 1815 and 1830 (Ibid., p.275).  Brazil did not abolish the slave trade until 1871 (Ibid., p.278).

The “Civil War” Was Not Fought Over Slavery

Lincoln won the presidency with a minority of the vote since it was a 3-way race.  His party was a radical, banker-supported, anti-South, abolitionist party which had been formed in 1854.  They were the spiritual descendants of the French Revolutionists.

Many municipalities and businesses in the North had defaulted on their loans in the first part of 1861.  What better way to relieve the suffering in the nation than to start a war and increase the money supply by 25 percent (Hoskins, War Cycles, p.155), using the excuse that slavery needed to be abolished and the slaves set free?  It didn’t matter to Lincoln or the bankers that the war would cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

The correct title of the war is not the “Civil War” or “War Between the States,” but the “War for Southern Independence” (Kennedy, p.44), because it was a struggle between two nations with organized governments!  The states were not at war between themselves (Ibid., p.43).  As President Andrew Jackson stated, the choice of the States to be in the Union was a voluntary action by separate sovereignties.  The Southerners made it very clear to Lincoln and Northerners that to force them to remain in the Union or to consolidate them into one mass would overthrow our system of government (Ibid., p.33).  Thus, to preserve the Union by destroying it made about as much sense as saving the children at Waco, Texas by killing them.  Hoskins adds that this war was created by the banking establishment which had control over the northeastern states (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.217).

The Southerners did not fight against the North to keep people in slavery.  What they fought for was the “supreme and sacred right of self-government” (Kennedy, p.35), the same principles their forefathers fought for in 1776.

“The great underlying thought which animated the soldiers of the Confederacy was their profound regard for the principle of State self-government – they were not fighting to hold their slaves.  Only a very small minority of the men who fought in the Southern army were slaveholders” (Rutherford, pp. VIII-IX).

General Robert E. Lee stated that States’ Rights were essential to a free government and if taken away would result in aggression abroad and despotism at home (Kennedy, p.41).  For example, New Hampshire placed the following in its constitution in 1792: 

“The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do and forever hereafter shall exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them, expressly delegated to the United States.” 

In 1791, the state of Georgia argued that “the states were co-equal with the federal government and therefore could not be compelled by the federal government to act against their will” (Ibid., p.207).  General Lee stated privately that if he had known what the North would do with their victory, he and his men would have preferred to die fighting at Appomattox (Ibid., pp. 42-43).

It should also be remembered that many of the slaves in the South belonged to Northern slave holders.  They owned large plantations down South too.  Thus it is not surprising that the North led the fight to protect the slave trade when the nation was founded, and Lincoln was not the first one to outlaw the slave trade.  In fact, Lincoln himself was a slave owner, his wife having inherited slaves (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.215).  Art. 1, Sec. 9 of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America clearly and unqualifiedly prohibited the slave trade (Kennedy, p.74).  

Rutherford continues:

“Let it be remembered that no Southern man ever owned a slave ship.  No Southern man ever commanded a slave ship.  No Southern man ever went to Africa for slaves” (Rutherford, p.18).  The Confederate flag never flew over one slave ship, and therefore it is wrong to equate this flag as a symbol of slavery.

The 1830 census showed that more than 10,000 slaves were owned by “free men of color” (most of whom were of mixed ancestry) (Kennedy, pp. 64-65).  Jonas Alexis adds that in 1830, “’. . . 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States . . .’” (Jonas E. Alexis, “The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture,” Part 1, p.1, veteranstoday.com/2013/04/18).

The 1860 U.S. census showed that fewer than 385,000 individuals owned slaves.  Even if all the slaveholders were White, that amounted to only 1.4% of Whites in the nation or 4.8% of Southern Whites.  In New Orleans, over 3,000 free negroes owned slaves, or 28% of the free negroes in that city.  However, in their book, Black Masters. A Free Family of Color in the Old South, Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roak report cases where free negroes petitioned to be allowed to become slaves because they were unable to support themselves. 

 

It is estimated that 70-80% of the Confederate soldiers and sailors were not slave owners (Kennedy, p.34).  Approximately 150,000 aristocratic planters (3% of the population) were slave holders, many of whom were colored.  Another 3% owned five or less slaves and worked beside them to make a living (Ibid., p.83). Seventy-five percent of Jewish households in the South owned negro slaves, while only 6% of Whites owned them. 

Reuter adds that the five civilized tribes of American Indians in Oklahoma set free their Negro slaves at the end of the War, which numbered over 20,000 (Reuter, p.82).  The Cherokees, Seminoles, and Creeks were large slave holders (Ibid., p.158).

Kennedy disproves the notion that the North fought for human brotherhood or because of its love for the negroes.  Not only were the negroes treated worse as soldiers in the Union army than they were treated on the plantations (Kennedy, p.102), but the North had no compassion for them down South, both during and after the war, even when they were starving (Ibid., p.144).  Not surprisingly, very few Blacks chose to escape to Union lines, although they could have done so if they had wanted to since most of the slave holders had gone to fight in the war (Rutherford, p.90). Kennedy has one chapter called “Yankee Atrocities Against Black Southerners” (Kennedy, p.139).  Anyone who would like more details should read the excellent book by the Kennedy brothers.

Misconceptions About Southern Slave Holders

Beginning in 1830, abolitionist literature contended that the arbitrary authority and power of slave holders was bound to be misused.  Efforts were therefore made to document the breaking up of families on the auction block, violence and cruelty, seduction and rape, and torture and murder.  Most of these critics had never been down South, so most of their charges were based on hearsay and on infrequent instances of abuse.  While it is true that slaves were often mistreated in the West Indies, it is a great mistake to assume that slave holders in the Southern United States treated their slaves the same way.  The planters and overseers in the West Indies were a rough lot (Pope-Hennessy, pp. 129-140).  They worked their slaves 16 - 20 hours a day.  Naturally, the slaves retaliated in ways that were often hard to detect, such as introducing slow-acting poisons in their food.

Not one authenticated case was produced by abolitionists that proved that Southern plantation owners used their slaves as studs for breeding more slaves (Fogel and Engerman, p.79).  Forced breeding would have had emotional consequences which would have carried over into the work routine.  Unhappy slaves did not make good field hands, and it wouldn’t have taken much of a breach in slave discipline to wipe out any potential gains to a planter by pushing them to breed.  The slave owners did not want to push the slaves to the point of rebellion or give them a reason to run away.  Instead, the planters promoted marriage and the family by offering them a house, a private piece of land, and a bounty in cash or household goods.  Instructions by slave owners frequently forbade “undue familiarity” which might undermine morale or discipline and could result in dismissal (Ibid., pp. 85-86). 

“Not only was a purchased slave rarely resold, but slaves born on such estates were rarely put on the market” (Ibid., p.54).  “. . . [I]t is likely that 13%, or less, of interregional sales [of slaves] resulted in the destruction of marriages” (Ibid., p.49).  Slaves were likely to run away in order to see their families, so it was in the interest of slave owners to keep them together.  Families of slaves were normally sold together, not broken up.  Sales of children was due to the high death rates, leaving 15.9% of children under 13 as orphans (Ibid., p.50).  Planters’ expenditures on their slaves resulted in not breaking even financially until slaves were 27 years old (Ibid., p.153).

Another misconception that many Americans have today is that all slaveholders were wealthy, tobacco-chewing rednecks who could afford to lord it over their slaves just for the sake of demonstrating their racial superiority over them.  The fact is that the leading planters took their responsibilities with “deliberation and gravity,” studied scientific agricultural literature of their day, kept detailed journals, and carefully assessed all their costs, including housing, child care, medical care, diet and food preparation, the optimum types of dwellings for their slaves, cash bonuses and other incentives, etc.  Their ultimate objective was to have a highly disciplined, highly specialized, well-coordinated and well-organized work force.  They could not afford to allow their personal passions get in the way without jeopardizing the profitability of their plantations.  Profit margins could easily be reduced if they unjustly abused their slaves. 

Planters offered rewards of cash, clothing, tobacco or whiskey for good daily or weekly performances.  Slaves were rewarded with unscheduled holidays or trips to town on weekends.  They may have been allowed to make items after working hours which they could sell to their masters or to neighboring farmers.  Substantial year-end bonuses were also common.  Slaves may have been rewarded with a few acres of land on which they could raise crops which they could sell.  Their masters would set up accounts from which the slaves could draw cash for purchases as needed (Ibid., p.148).  Some of the slaves were able to save enough money to purchase their own freedom within a decade (Ibid., p.151).   “. . . [T]he average pecuniary income actually received by a prime field hand was roughly 15% greater than the income he would have received for his labor as a free agricultural worker” (Ibid., p.239).  The typical slave field hand received about 90 percent of the income he produced in his lifetime (Ibid., pp. 5-6).

A widely used plantation account book called Instructions to Managers stated:

“’And whilst he must be strict and impartial in carrying out his rules amongst them, and in requiring the performance of their labor, ‘tis but just and humane, when they have done their duty, to treat them with kindness, and even sometimes with indulgence. . . .

“’The good opinion of a good master is always desired by his negroes, and the manager should, therefore, make it a point to report to the proprietor the names and characters of all those who are deserving on account of faithful attention to duty, that they may be further rewarded. . . .

“’Never inflict punishment when in a passion, nor threaten it; but wait until perfectly cool, and until it can be done rather with sorrow than in anger’” (Ibid., pp. 240-241).

Fogel and Engerman point out that no matter how big the plantations were, there were usually only about six Whites on each plantation.  Even if they had been armed all the time, they would have been outnumbered by the slaves and unable to avoid being killed if there was a rebellion (Ibid., pp. 242-243).  The idea that the slave owners only used whips to maintain discipline and efficiency is a myth.  As in any society, they preferred positive incentives such as material rewards instead of violence.

Another myth is that slaves were only used to pick cotton.  Tobacco was the main crop in Virginia, rice in South Carolina, cotton in Mississippi, and sugar in Louisiana.  Slaves spent about 25 percent of their time on raising livestock and raising the feed for them, about 6 percent of their time was spent raising corn for human consumption, and about 34 percent of their time was spent on land improvement, constructing buildings and fences, raising other crops for household use, making clothes, and performing domestic duties (Ibid., pp. 41-42).

The work regimen was like a modern assembly line with specialization and division of labor according to age and ability.  Slaves were also used as overseers or foremen.  Most large plantations had nurseries and their own hospitals.  Slaves were not required to work on Sundays, and they usually had all or half of Saturdays off, usually in off-peak periods.  They also had up to a week of holidays off during the year, and about 12 days a year were lost due to illness. The owners had other things to do than oversee the work being done.  They had to market their crops, purchase equipment, acquire new lands, construct new buildings, negotiate loans, etc.  During winter months, work was not as intense.  Fences were repaired, stables and dwellings were cleaned, and work was done at a leisurely pace. 

The idea that slave owners worked their slaves to death when they were younger and stronger is unfounded.  Planters assigned tasks according to the abilities of their slaves. Children under the age of 10 were generally exempt from regular labor.  The crippled and elderly were cared for but were still able to help, such as taking care of the children in the nurseries.  Expectant mothers were given a lighter work load and nursing mothers were given extra time off from work.  Women who had many children were relieved of all field work (Ibid., p.85).  Female slaves not only made clothing for their owners but also for the other slaves on the plantation as heavier clothing was needed during the winter months.

“In the city of Charleston, . . . about 27% of the adult male slaves were skilled artisans. . . including carpentry and masonry . . .” (Ibid., p.38).  “Within the agricultural sector, about 7% of the men held managerial posts and 11.9% were skilled craftsmen (blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, etc.).  Another 7.4% were engaged in semi-skilled and domestic or quasi-domestic jobs:  teamsters, coachmen, gardeners, stewards, and house servants” (Ibid., p.39).  Thus, the commonly-held belief that all slaves were just menial laborers is false.

Slave labor was frequently needed for short periods of time only, so there was an extremely active rental market for slaves.  Some slaves advertised their services themselves and hired themselves out, rarely for more than one year (Ibid., p.56).  The railroads, industrial firms, and even homeowners needed temporary workers, and farms frequently needed extra help at harvest.  Those who rented slaves were expected to provide adequate living quarters, food, clothing, and medical care for them.

Slaves were well-treated in the South

The following statements made by ex-slaves from the South, which can be found in the National Archives, show that the negro slaves on the whole were treated quite well:

1.     “’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’” (Kennedy, p.97).

2.     “’Slavery times wuz sho good times.  We wuz fed an’ clothed an’ had nothing to worry about’” (Ibid., p.97).

3.     When the slave owner came home and told his slaves they were free and could go, one said, “’I been free as I wanter be whah I is.’”  Another said, “’You brought me here from Africa and North Carolina, and I goiner’ stay wid you as long as ever I get sompin to eat.  You gotter look after me!’” (Ibid., p.98).  The owner insisted, “Toby, you ain’t my nigger,” to which he replied, “I is too” (Ibid., p.99).

The following are a few more excerpts to prove that most of the negro slaves were treated well:

1.     After visiting a Southern plantation, William M. Thackeray wrote in Roundabout Papers that:  “’How they sang!  How they danced!  How they laughed!  How they shouted! . . . So free, so happy! . . . To me, it is the dearest institution I have ever seen, and these slaves seem far better off than any tenants I have seen under any other tenantry system’” (Rutherford, p.15).

2.     Major General Quitman of the U.S. Army described life on the “Old Plantation” in 1822 while stationed in Mississippi:  “’Her slaves are a happy, careless, unreflecting, good natured race.  They are strongly attached to ‘old massa’ and ‘old missus’ . . . [T]hey are very obedient and polite and they do their work well.  These . . . are the happiest people I have ever seen.  They are oily, sleek, bountifully fed, well clothed and well taken care of.  One hears them at all times whistling and singing cheerily at their work. . . . [C]ompared with . . . the sickly, half-starved operatives in the factories and mines of the North and the Northeast, these Southern slaves are indeed to be envied.  They are treated with such great humanity and kindness’” (Ibid., pp. 15-16).

3.     Charles E. Stowe, the son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, in speaking at a negro college said:  “’If slavery was an unutterably evil institution, how can you account for the faithfulness of the negroes on the plantations when the men were at the front and no act of violence known among them?’” (Ibid., p.16).

4.     Jefferson Davis’ slaves (they called themselves his servants) were greatly attached to him.  He was always just to them.  When he died, they wrote to Mrs. Davis:  “’We, the old servants of our beloved master, have cause to mingle our tears over his death.  He was always so kind and thoughtful of our peace and happiness.  We extend our humble sympathy’” (Ibid., p.63).

Quoting Richardson’s Defense of the South, p.20: “‘Thomas Elkins of Effingham County, Georgia, before 1860, offered to free his slaves and send them back to Africa at his own expense, and the slaves begged to let them remain with him.  Among these slaves were the sons of African kings and princes’” (Fogel and Engerman, pp. 96-97).

Belinda Hurmence edited a book called Before Freedom: 48 Oral Histories of Former North and South Carolina Slaves (1990).  Of these interviews, only two were hostile toward their former masters.  The following are a few quotes:

1.     Adeline Johnson, age 93:  “That was a happy time, with happy days. . . . I wants to be in heaven with all my white folks, just to wait on them and love them and serve them, sorta like I did in slavery time.  That will be enough heaven for Adeline.”

2.     Mary Anderson, age 86:  “I think slavery was a mighty good thing for Mother, Father, me and the other members of the family, and I cannot say anything but good for my old marster and missus . . . For myself and them, I will say again, slavery was a mighty good thing.”

3.     Patsy Mitchner, age 84, when interviewed on July 2, 1937:  “Before two years had passed after the surrender, there was two out of every three slaves who wished they was back with their marsters. . . There was a lot of love between marster and slave, and there is few of us that don’t love the white folks today. . . . Slavery was better for us than things is now, in some cases.  Niggers then didn’t have no responsibility; just work, obey, and eat.”

The attachment of slave owners for their slaves is illustrated by one Louisiana planter who said:

 

“’No my heart is nearly broke. . . I have lost poor Leven, one of the most faithful black men [that] ever lived.  [H]e was truth and honesty, and without a fault that I ever discovered.  He has overseed the plantation nearly three years and [has] done much better than any white man [had] ever done here . . .’” (Fogel and Engerman, p.77).

Lunt wrote in his Origin of the Late War: 

“’The negroes were perfectly happy in their condition of slavery in the South – they were not only happy but proud of it.  They labored, it is true, for their daily bread, but they were nursed in sickness and cared for in old age.  Upon certain conditions they could obtain freedom.  Freedom was frequently granted for faithful services.’

“The South never understood why the abolitionists made a bitter fight against slavery under humane Christian masters in the South and no fight at all against the slave trade in the North” (Rutherford, p.93).

Kennedy says that their research found that over 70 percent had only positive things to say about the relationship between slaves and their masters (Kennedy, p.81).

William Boggs adds:

“There has never been a group of blacks anywhere in the history of the world that has enjoyed the material prosperity of American blacks.  Even the poorest American black is vastly better off than the average African.  Whatever one may say about the wrongs that were done to slaves, their descendants have every reason to be grateful their ancestors were shipped to America rather than killed or left in Africa.

“The high standard of living blacks enjoy in America is due to the fact that they live among Whites.  For an example of the kind of society they would have built for themselves, one need only visit Liberia.  This West African nation, established by freed American slaves, has long been one of the most miserable nations on an unhappy continent and is now in a state of barbarous anarchy.

“Moreover, despite the lip service they give to Afro-centrism, very few American blacks emigrate to Africa.  Those who think they would like to ‘go home’ usually change their minds after a single visit.  The power of attraction runs entirely the other way; hundreds of thousands of Africans would come to America if they could.”

Thus we see that slavery in North America was not as bad as most Americans imagine it to have been.

The Hypocrisy of the Northerners

The first colony to legalize slavery was Massachusetts (in 1641), and they began by enslaving the Indian population (Kennedy, p.71).  Many of the Indians were shipped to the islands in the Caribbean.  These included not only Indians captured in the Indian Wars, but those who were kidnapped.  Virginia made it illegal to enslave or export Indians under any circumstances.

The slave trade in the U.S. was begun by Massachusetts:

1.     The first slave ship sailed from Marblehead, Mass.

2.     Mass. was the first state to legislate in favor of the slave trade.

3.     Mass. was the first state to urge a fugitive slave law.

4.     Mass. was the last state to legislate against the slave trade.

5.     The last slave ship to sail from the U.S. was from Mass. in 1861 (Rutherford, p.17).

The slave trade was the cornerstone of New England commerce.  Rum, calico, fish, and molasses were exchanged for slaves (Kennedy, pp. 66-67).  In fact, the rum from Rhode Island which was traded for slaves in Africa practically destroyed the French trade of brandy (Pope-Hennessy, p.231).  By 1750, there were 63 rum distilleries in Massachusetts alone and another 30 in Rhode Island (Ibid.).  Most of the slaves acquired from Africa by the New England slave ships were sold in the Caribbean and in South America.  Many New England families (in Massachusetts and Rhode Island) became very wealthy from the slave trade.  A French visitor to Boston in 1687 noted that most households of any consequence possessed one or more negro slaves (Ibid., p.230).

“Northerners even admitted that their reasons for fighting the South were not the result of differences in principles of constitutional law, but only because their profits might be lost if the South was successful in its move for independence” (Kennedy, p.51). The editor of a newspaper in the North called “Southern Wealth and Northern Profits” wrote:

“’It is gross injustice, if not hypocrisy, to be always growing rich on the profits of slave labor; and at the same time to be eternally taunting and insulting the South on account of slavery.  Though you bitterly denounce slavery as the sum of all villainies, it is nevertheless the principal factor (by high tariff) of your Northern wealth, and you know it’” (Rutherford, p.45).

The South had been buying most of its industrial goods from England, and these goods were of better quality and cheaper than those produced by the Northern states.  So the North instituted high tariffs on goods coming from England to penalize the South and at the same time force them to pay most of the government’s debts (Adrian H. Krieg, July 4^th 2016: The Last Independence Day, Tampa, 2000, p.37).

Hoskins writes that in 1670, Southern tobacco growers had to pay a “castle tax” when they shipped their produce to England, and when it arrived there, they were charged another tax.  Since they had no control over the price buyers were willing to pay for tobacco, they weren’t allowed to make much profit from all their hard work (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.100). When the planters tried to raise the price for tobacco by plowing under their crops, they discovered that this had no effect on the price.  In 1670, the price dropped to almost nothing, but they were still required to pay the taxes (Ibid., p.103).

Almost all the abolitionist groups were financed by the bankers.  Thus, the bankers profited both from the slave trade as well as from destroying the income of the planters and forcing them into bankruptcy.  While every act of whipping and execution of slaves was magnified and exaggerated by the media to elicit sympathy for the slaves, conspiracies of the slaves to massacre, rape, or poison slaveholders and their families was downplayed, and the conspiracies of the bankers against the planters weren’t mentioned at all.

What is not generally known is that after the Revolutionary War in 1776, the Northern states were able to transfer all war debts of the states to the federal government.  In order to pay these debts, the government had to raise tariffs, and tariffs were applied so that the South was required to pay most of them (Kennedy, pp. 48-50).  The North was also afraid of losing money if the South were to ship its products westward through New Orleans rather than through New York, thus avoiding the tariffs charged by the North.  Additionally, while the South paid a disproportionate share of taxes to the federal government, the majority of the money was used to make improvements of roads, bridges, harbors, etc. in the North, and very little of it was ever returned to the South.  These were some of the reasons why the North could not allow the South to secede.  While the North needed the South to remain in the Union, the South was better off without being shackled to the North.

The North was ready to end slavery when their slaves were no longer profitable and when they wanted little or no social contact with Blacks (Rutherford, p.80).  This may have been partly due to the fact that the common White folk in the North resented competing with Blacks for work and threatened to kill both the slaves and their masters (Kennedy, pp. 84-85).

That the North was not being guided by high moral principles can be illustrated by the following examples:

1.     Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and silenced his critics by arresting them indefinitely without bringing any charges against them and without letting even their families know where they were.  It is estimated that Lincoln had as many as 40,000 political prisoners.  Lincoln shut down more than 300 newspapers and journals in the North by executive order (Ibid., p.28).  None of the newspapers in the South were censored.  However, as soon as the Union armies conquered an area in the South, censorship went into effect immediately (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.235).

2.     Lincoln rewarded military men who terrorized the Southern civilian population (raping, robbing, and plundering) (Kennedy, p.29).  After the war, northerners were permitted to “come down South where they were able to buy over 50 million acres of prime Southern virgin forest for as little as 50 cents an acre” (Ibid., p.37).

3.     Before the war, the South’s economy alone was the third largest on the European and American continents.  In 1860, its per capita income was 10% higher than every state west of New York and Pennsylvania (Ibid., pp. 21-22).  After the war, most southerners had been reduced to peonage and were burdened by debt.  The issue of slavery was just used by the North as a smokescreen to protect its economic well-being.

4.     Many of the Northern States passed laws that forbade free blacks from settling in their States (Ibid., p.55), including Lincoln’s home state of Illinois (1857) and Indiana (1853).  Massachusetts allowed Blacks to be flogged if they were in the state longer than two months.  While Congress was forcing the South to allow blacks to vote, Ohio in 1867 refused to allow them to vote.

The South agreed with the philosopher John Locke who reasoned that victory in war does not give an aggressor a legitimate or moral right to deny or infringe the rights of those it has conquered.  To do this in and of itself voids any claim of its legitimacy.  John Milton added that a tyrannical ruler was in danger of the death penalty (Kennedy, p.152).  Of course, the North did not abide by Christian, civilized rules of warfare.

The Character of the North Contrasted With the South

To keep this as brief as possible, I will not go into detail about the treatment of Northern prisoners at Andersonville, except to say that (1) Lincoln and his generals refused to exchange prisoners, and (2) Lincoln ensured that the South could not obtain medicine or surgical instruments which would have enabled them to save many of the Northern prisoners’ lives.  Because the Southerners treated the Northern prisoners as well as possible, over half (65%) of the men joined the Southern cause and signed an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.  In contrast, only 1% of the 600 Southern prisoners held by General Foster joined the Yankees (Ibid., p.138). 

Hoskins writes that Lincoln made sure that Southern prisoners were placed in regions like the Great Lakes or Chesapeake Bay so that they would be exposed to the cold and wind.  Prisoners were often denied clothing, blankets, medical care, and decent food.  Some of the doctors even bragged how they had killed prisoners through their treatments (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.222).  One black cook who was taken prisoner by the North was urged by Negro guards to turn against the South.  One word would have set him free.  Instead, he refused to turn against Jefferson Davis and preferred sticking it out in a hellish POW camp for 20 months (Kennedy, p.94).

The Southern prisoners under the command of Col. Hollowell in Massachusetts were required to eat, drink, sleep, and care for their own wounded in their own garbage and sewage.  Their rations were full of worms and insects (Ibid., p.137).

General Sherman not only destroyed Southern factories, but he had Southern women and children killed or kidnapped, and he either took or destroyed all their food supplies so that Southerners would starve (Ibid., p.122).  Both White and Black mothers and their children were shipped north and separated, and no attempt was ever made after the war to reunite them.  Since the Yankee soldiers assumed that all the negro women were used as sex slaves, they thought they were entitled to treat them the same way (Ibid., p.140).

A British observer attached to General Lee’s army named Captain Arthur L. Fremantle stated in 1863:

“’. . . [S]ympathizers [of Southern blacks] both in England and in the North [would not] feel encouraged if they could hear the language of detestation and contempt with which the numerous Negroes with Southern armies speak of their liberators’” (Ibid., p.91).

 

Charles Francis Adams, te grandson of John Quincy Adams, summarized the viciousness of the North against the South:

“’The Southern community was not only desolated during the war, but $3,000,000,000 of property confiscated after the war.  I am not aware that history records a similar act super-added to the destruction and desolation of war.’

“’. . . . We stabbed the South to the quick, and during all the years of Reconstruction turned the dagger round and round in the festering wound.  If the South had been permitted to secede, slavery would have died a natural death’” (Rutherford, p.90).

Reconstruction lasted for twelve years in the South. The Carpetbaggers who stirred up trouble were Rothschild agents.  

The Black legislatures that the North placed in power continually increased the taxes so that Southerners were paying over half of their income.  Black tax collectors, accompanied by heavily-armed carpetbaggers, collected the taxes, and if people had no cash, they helped themselves to anything of value.  They boasted that they would soon dispossess the Southerners of all their land (Hoskins, Vigilantes, pp. 249-250).  They soaked up wealth that had taken the Southerners many years to accumulate.  The carpetbaggers grabbed the best land for the northern tax-exempt syndicates which could then be sold to European immigrants for high prices.

To prevent Southerners from retaliating against being overtaxed and dispossessed, the carpetbaggers disarmed Whites.  Whites lived in terror, and none of the women were safe.  Heavy shipments of weapons were brought in regularly for the Blacks.  As policemen, the Blacks would arrest without cause, beat people up without provocation, and no redress was possible (Ibid., p.252).  It was considered to be treasonous to speak of States’ Rights.  As a result, many Whites packed up and moved westward to escape this tyranny.

The Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1867, which resulted in a cessation of depredations by Blacks and soldiers. 

Rutherford quotes Mrs. Rose, Historian-General (U.D.C.), from her book, History of the Ku Klux Klan:

“’The Ku Klux Klan were opposed to the shedding of human blood, and violence was never used except as a last resort.  Repeated warnings were given to offenders, and it was only when they were not heeded that the Ku Klux resorted to extreme measures.

“The methods of the Ku Klux Klan were generally peaceful and without destruction of life and property, and when its objects had been accomplished there was no persecution, nor pillaging, nor hounding of anyone – and when tranquility was restored to the land, the Ku Klux Klan folded their tents like the Arabs, and as silently stole away’” (Rutherford, p.91).

Tom Robison wrote in “Alas, Alas That Great City!” that

“The Ku Klux Klan was formed after the Civil War as the secret police branch of he Golden Circle, but not for the purpose of harassing Negroes.  In fact, the original KKK enlisted about 5,000 Negroes in its ranks.  This vigilance committee was formed out of self-defense against the Abolitionist (Rothschild)-controlled Congress and its entire corrupt and disgraceful reconstruction process.  This Reconstruction Process was denounced by Lincoln . . . Andrew Johnson came within one vote of being impeached for . . . [his] denunciation of the rigid Reconstruction of the South  . . .” (Robison, pp. 37-38, emphasis added). 

The media had a field day blaming the KKK for everything, and the North used it as an excuse to keep Federal troops in the South.  Of course, the troops were there to protect Black/carpetbagger rule.  Like the media today, they accused the Southerners of being full of hate.  There was one “fly in the ointment,” however.  When the Blacks realized their power, they turned on the carpetbaggers, and the Black legislatures stonewalled the sales of farms to the rich Europeans.  To counteract this, the banker establishment switched their media propaganda between 1873-1874 and blamed the Blacks, the carpetbaggers, and the radical Republican Party for the problems down South.  They also switched their support to the Democratic Party.  Thus, the Republicans were compelled to withdraw their occupation troops from the South, making it easy for the Southerners to oust the Blacks and carpetbaggers from power.  Naturally, the Southerners punished all who had been guilty of rape, theft, and murder.  By 1892, most of the criminals were dead.

North Carolina was one of the only Southern states that remained under the control of the carpetbaggers.  They succeeded in retaining their power by forming a political alliance with the Blacks against the Whites (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.411).

When stories lagged, the Loyal League sent out its members (carpetbaggers, military personnel, and thugs) dressed as Klansmen and committed atrocities which could then be blamed on the Klan (Ibid., pp. 246-247).  Since General Forrest saw that there was no hope of defense against these false charges, he disbanded the Klan in 1869.  Southern Whites still patrolled the streets at night to protect their communities, but they did not do so dressed as Klansmen.  Ironically, anti-Klan laws were passed in 1871-1872.  Atrocities by the Klan continued to be reported by the media.

 

Rutherford continues:

“Before the . . . [1860s], lynchings of negroes in the South were of very rare occurrence – there was no occasion for it – we had no incendiary literature distributed among the negroes until John Brown tried it and failed. . .

“The South is the negro’s friend.  The South wants the negro to stay in the South. . . all that the South asks is to be let alone in her management of the negro so that the friendly relations may continue.”  “The Southern people encourage the negroes to buy land and have their own homes.  The climate of the South suits the negro best – the South is his logical home.”  “The South claims that race prejudice has been, and now is, far greater in the North than in the South” (Rutherford, pp. 91-92).

“In his Democracy in America, De Tocqueville, the French writer, says:  ‘. . . . Undoubtedly, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists.  White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State unless Northern men among their workmen oppose it.  But in the South, white men do not sit down to eat with black men as they do in many parts of the North’” (Ibid., pp. 91-92).

Boggs refutes the idea that the Southerners hated the negroes and lawlessly lynched them:

“From 1840 to 1860, of the more than 300 people lynched by mobs in the South, fewer than 10 percent were blacks.  So long as the black man had tangible property value he was safer from lynch mobs than a white man.

“As [Frederick] Olmstead noted, when the black man was definitely a slave, it seemed to break down the ‘natural’ revulsion of whites for blacks and lead to affection and intimacy of a kind that sickened Northerners.  It was after Reconstruction, when free blacks were goaded on by carpetbaggers to mistreat and humiliate their former masters, that lower-class whites began to hate blacks and take pleasure in lynching them.”

“It is worth noting that even in that great abolitionist tract, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the sadistic villain was not a Southern slave owner but a Yankee overseer.  Slaves were valuable property, which only one Southern household in five could afford.  The rougher classes who might have been abusive masters were generally too poor to own slaves.”

A new KKK was formed in 1915.  While the media considered it to be Enemy No. 1, Americans could at least walk anywhere at night without fear, and most people left their doors unlocked.  In one county, the sheriff did not have to leave his office.  If he wanted a man arrested, he simply sent word to him, and he voluntarily turned himself in (Hoskins, Vigilantes, p.370).

While the media likes to portray the 1920s and 1930s as a violent period of time, it was the exact opposite.  The Establishment bankers, of course, considered efforts of people to get their money back that had been stolen by the banks to be shocking and life-threatening.  However, the average person did not feel it was a crime to take from those guilty of capital crimes.  Jesse James and others like him, for instance, did not pocket all the money they took from holdups.  They distributed the money to those who had been impoverished in the South (Ibid., pp. 367-368).

Geronimo9@hong-kong-1.com