Dear Joan:

I would also like to expand on your observation that slavery involved the entire 13 colonies (anybody remember a slave graveyard in NYC)???  Slavery involved not just the 13 colonies but Canada as well.  All of North America was involved in the slave trade albeit, the Canadian provinces gave it up after England outlawed it and again because it wasn't as profitable in Canada  and also the northern colonies as it was in the American South.   This difference in profitability gets a huge boost with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in the late 18th century.  Prior to that, there were quite a few prominent slaveholders who emancipated their slaves in the spirit of that  new national idea of "all men are created equal"  that created personal internal discord with the realities of a slave society and the hypocrisy therein.

Anita L. Henderson
Woodbine, MD

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: Andrew Levy's FIRST EMANCIPATOR


Since the discussion has once again turned to slavery and emancipation in the
USA, I have a question for those resident scholars who are conversant with the
published and unpublished documents on the subject:

Has anyone read _Slave Nation  How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the
American Revolution_?  What are your comments on this book by Alfred W.
Blumrosen & Ruth G. Blumrosen?

As to the "evil" at the core of Virginia--- I would respond that slavery was the
entire nation's problem-burden-moral morass, not just Virginia's or the South's.
Too little focus is given to the motivations and 'enabling' activities-behaviors
of Northern colonies-states in maintaining the peculiar institution.

Maybe I did not learn the names of large scale Southern emancipators in school,
but I was taught that there was controversy over slavery in the discussion and
writing and passing of the Declaration and the Constitution, that the country
would most likely not have become 'united' without the legality of slavery in
the Constitution, that there were emancipations by slave-owners through the
years, that many non-slave owners because of their beliefs moved west or
northwest to leave the slave-holding areas, and that a balance of power between
regions was necessary to hold our government intact.

I look forward to your comments.

Joan Logan Brooks
a Southside Virginian through 11 proven generations

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