Apparently you either missed or didn't understand my statement "if you  
take from it the legal basis for slavery with all that meant. You will  
remember from one of my earlier posts that I have never been a  
proponent of slavery and that one of my direct ancestors died fighting  
for the Union and what it stood for, so please don't impute motive  
where none exists.

I am an equal opportunity anti-killer type of person. I don't care  
whether they're black, white, purple or whatever, killers are  
anathema. Nat Turner was a mass murderer and a practitioner of petit- 
genocide by his actions and his admission. One can't really argue that  
his actions didn't make it far worse for African-Americans in general,  
and I don't mean those who were in the path of vengeance just  
afterward, but rather via the clampdown that ensued. One can look at  
his actions as precipitative of something big enough to force the  
system to change, and in that light it is important.

 From a distant historical perspective, I can see both sides of the  
issue, but in the context of the times, he didn't have a snowball's  
chance in hell and he doomed himself, his followers and his people to  
worse treatment that lasted another generation and a half. One simply  
cannot say that his actions at the time helped anyone. Only in the  
broad sweep of history with the events that happened as they did can  
one begin to argue that what he did was a form of catalyst for the  
eventual betterment of his people.

Let's set that argument aside and ask whether slavery would exist had  
not the Civil War been fought. The slave states liked it because it  
provided cheap and dependable labor. Mechanization is to me the death  
knell of slavery. Boulton & Watt's steam engine, Eli Whitney's cotton  
gin and Cyrus McCormick's reaper were the nails in the coffin of an  
institution that didn't know it was dead. Maybe it would have lasted  
another 30 years but eventually the economic reason for it, which  
seems to have been the driving force, would have disappeared. The  
steam engine, once it was set on wheels, and then once it had an  
adapted mill technology for auto-motion, was the device that would be  
the major determinant. Why? because one slave could tend about 10  
acres per year in the "system" and that was a driven efficiency.  
Mechanized farm equipment evolved from equalling human output to  
steadily stopping it in the late 29th century and was able to top that  
by 200 times in the 1990's.

Lyle Browning


On Nov 12, 2008, at 9:18 PM, Anita Wills wrote:

> That is a fine assertion if both had the same standing in the  
> system. Slaves did not choose to come to America and be a slave. It  
> is amazing to me how many people claim to know what the slaves  
> thought and felt. Even if the whites were in a worse situation then  
> the slaves, they always had the freedom to leave. The slaves, no  
> matter what their condition, were denied the right to determine  
> their own destiny. Then to pour salt on the wound, Nat Turner is  
> being vilified (by some not all), because he decided to fight back.  
> The desire to be free was not stamped out by the hell he endured,  
> and saw around him. No matter what words were screamed in his ear,  
> he realized that God wanted him to be a Free Man. If he is in hell  
> there are a whole bunch of folks there with him.
>
> Anita > Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:43:20 -0500> From: [log in to unmask] 
> > Subject: Re: And Now Nat Turner in a Politically Correct Light>  
> To: [log in to unmask]> > Quote from Lyle:> "Your statement  
> that the "conditions of actual slavery were much > harsher than the  
> conditions of colonialism" has been shown not > necessarily true, if  
> you take from it the legal basis for slavery with > all that meant.  
> One wonders how many poor colonists came to death by > starvation,  
> deprivation, overwork, etc. There was no master around to > ensure  
> basic survival as there was under the peculiar institution."> >  
> Lyle,> > You almost got me on that one! What a tickle to my funny  
> bone!> > Anne> > > Anne Pemberton> [log in to unmask]> http://www.erols.com/apembert 
> > http://www.educationalsynthesis.org> >  
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