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1/ To be clear on this, we know (for example) that in 1830, the number black slaves “owned” by black people was 0.6% of the total enslaved population in America, 12,907 of the 2,009,043 total. ...
2/ 94% of these black slave-owners “owned” between 1 and 9 slaves, 42% of the total owning just 1. Through Carter Woodson’s detailed research of the records and census data of 1830, it is easy to conclude that the majority of black freeman who “owned” slaves “purchased” ...
3/ ... friends and family members.
In Woodson’s words, “The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa …
In Woodson’s words, “The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa …
4/ "Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."
5/ "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms."
6/ Of course, none of this is to say that there weren’t still too many who “purchased” for the sake of exploitation. The fallen human condition is not solely possessed by the fully enfranchised.
7/ But I would argue that the assumption that the evil institution of race-based chattel slavery in America is the lone focus of the struggle for justice is much too limited, and maybe not even the long-term most salient point.
8/ The original sin of America was not so much slavery, but the construction of a people-group, loosely defined by origin, lineage, and skin color, for the very sake of exploitation by other people-groups, ...
9/ ... all justified by the fabrication of racist social, religious, and biological ideas. This nation would be a much different place had the slavery abolished in 1865 been an institution that was not both legally and institutionally exclusive to those of African descent.
10/ The “peculiar institution” of the American South passed away, yes, and even included a very small number of black participants on the side of enslavers.
11/ But the lasting tragedy, as the 150+ years following emancipation clearly demonstrates, is that the racist ideas forged in the process have clung like a stain to the American conscience, infected the institutions and systems created in the process, and infiltrated ...
12/ ... the minds of Americans generally through pernicious stereotypes, unjustified assumptions, false perceptions, and systemic biases.
If interested in the process of how this came about, I hope these might be a helpful starting point. First,
alsoacarpenter.com/2018/04/29/wha…
If interested in the process of how this came about, I hope these might be a helpful starting point. First,
alsoacarpenter.com/2018/04/29/wha…
13/13 And for the construction of the "white" side of the coin, please see the short series beginning here:
alsoacarpenter.com/2018/12/05/cor…
alsoacarpenter.com/2018/12/05/cor…
