Lyle,
I've heard the arguments that slavery would have died under its own weight
in some number of years had the civil war not intervened. I'm not so sure.
As a labor system for plantations, it may have become redundent, but as a
labor system for households, it would not have been shed so easily. I recall
when reading "The First Emancipator", the storyof Robert Carter III, that he
deliberately sent the younger of his children to college up north so that
they would not become accustomed to being waited upon. Those who went north
were not allowed to come back to Virginia. Those who lived in Virginia were,
sure enough, the ones who tried to make him out as crazy for wanting to free
all of his slaves, and the argued that he could not dispose of "their"
inheritance, even tho the property was still in his ownership. So, keeping
such situations in mind, I think it would have taken a greater effort to get
southerners over their dependence on having someone constantly waiting on
them.
As to Nat Turner, he committed murders. Had he mentally snapped after he was
sent to a third owner? Would he have been eligible for an insanity plea in
today's courts? His life prior to this event was very good, very religious.
He did try to run away once, and returned to his owner on his own. So, I'm
inclined to think he committed multiple murders, but maybe he wasn't a
murderer.
Oh, I'm reading Jamestown the Buried Truth, and it's all about the
archeological adventure of finding James Fort and Jamestown. It's so
interesting, I'm carrying the book to the door to let the cats in and out. I
am understanding a bit better what you mean about the exactness of
archeology. When they had two of the three walls found, they still weren't
absolutely certain that they had the fort. It was interestinig how relying
on the written notes. Strachey, I believe, the "curtains between the
bullwarks should have been 100 and 144 feet (yds?) long, but the
measurements went from corner to corner instead of from bulwark to bulwark,
and that threw them off.
Anyway, it is an interesting read and an interesting field.
Anne
Anne Pemberton
[log in to unmask]
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:29 PM
Subject: Re: And Now Nat Turner in a Politically Correct Light
> 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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