Please excuse me for addressing this posting in detail.

On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:10:16 -0500  Basil Forest wrote:

> I don't think anyone has suggested that Black slavery in the South was an  
> acceptable institution by today's standards.  Clearly, it is not, at least  in

> this country, although it still does exist in Africa and portions of the  
> Islamic world.  

Our discussion of various testimonies about slavery is not presentist.  Your
comment "by today's standards" suggests there has been anachronistic
application of 21st century standards to 19th-century events and institutions. 
It follows from this statement that slavery was acceptable back then.  That's
true, but to a limited extent.  It was acceptable to a minority of the U.S.
population (primarily the slaveholders themselves), but was far from acceptable
to the majority (including the slaves).

> However, I also have never supported the "everyone knows" school 
> of history which takes as Gospel whatever the majority, and usually most  
> vocal, historians believe to be true.  

Here you have committed the reverse bandwagon fallacy.  This occurs when some
one claims truth for an assertion because it does not follow a
widely-agreed-upon viewpoint.  There is no virtue, no privileged access to
truth, in mere opposition.  Contrarian investigations often produce valid
conclusions, but just as often (or perhaps more often) they do not.

> Historical "truth" should always be  
> reexamined and tested based on the most current evidence.  There is clearly 
> first hand evidence in these interviews that at least some of the former Black
< slaves preferred their pre-war conditions to those they lived in after the
war,  
> for whatever reason.  

I agree with what you say about reexamining the evidence.  I would go farther
and say that I support reexamining not only the evidence but the way evidence
(and "truth") is constructed, and the ways we move from evidence to conclusion.
 But there is a problem with the phrase "there is clearly first hand evidence
in these interviews."  Many VA-HISTorians have addressed the issue of how the
interviews were conducted and how these interviews were affected by several
factors: 1) the circumstances of those interviews conducted by white
interviewers; 2) the well-documented custom of black Americans of anticipating
trouble by telling white people as little as possible, or telling them what
they want to hear; 3) the fact that the Emancipation took place eight decades
earlier and the interviewees had been very young children during the slavery
era.

> I find it interesting that in spite of their  'testimony" 
> that this was the case many want to deny it for some reason, or find  a reason

> to discredit their perspectives in order to make them seem  illegitimate. 

This statement condemns those who bring an a priori view to the discussion. 
Again, I agree with the principle, but not the application.  As many
VA-HISTorians who have read a wider sampling of the WPA interviews in their
uncensored form have demonstrated, even given the limitations of the
interviews, the negative view of slavery far outweighs the positive.  So much
so that it would be impossible to construct an argument that many of the
enslaved didn't mind slavery so much, without burying most of the evidence. And
it would be impossible to come up with the evidence without imposing a
selectivity conditioned by presuppositions.

> I find this very presumptuous, and demeaning of these brave  people who lived 
> through the slavery period and knew what they were talking  about.....unlike 
> anyone in this forum.  I, for one, take people at their  word unless there is 
> verifiable evidence to the contrary.  I don't see that  here.  If you read
these
> narratives you will see that when the interviewee  decided it was time for the

> interviewer to leave, they typically told them so  and that was the end of the

> interview.  No one was holding a gun to their  head as far as I can tell.

Again, I agree that it is wrong to silence those parts of the testimony that do
not agree with one's presuppositions, but not with the application of this
principle.  The detailed explanations of the unreliability of the WPA
interviews that have been given here should indicate that there are indeed
circumstances under which it is appropriate to question the veracity of
people's words.  But even if we were to accept the premise that the WPA
interviews should be taken literally, the conclusions you suggest implicitly
silence all the negative testimony in the WPA interviews and the entire range
of earlier slave narratives.


> So, I take it that only one person in the forum actually teaches that there  
> may be another side to the treatment of American slaves in the  South?

You're not paying attention.  I responded to your question by saying that I
discuss with my students the theory that there is another less negative side to
the story.  But I also demonstrate that historical evidence does not support
such a conclusion.  Part of my teaching method includes the examination of
historical argument, and sometimes looking at a fallacious argument is very
productive.


Cheers -- KJB (the other Kevin)

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