I may live in the South now, and there are some wonderful things about this area of the country, but I am by no means one to romanticize that ugly, atrocious period of history. Actually, I don't like to romanticize *any* period of history. What I want is to hear the histories of the people who were there in their own terms and recounted in their own way, all the people, especially those whose voices have been silenced by the oppressors.

Sophia

Which is all to say I agree with you, when all is said and done, which is nothing new.

Heart

"First, Abraham Lincoln was quite the racist. I don't have some of his choice quotes handy, but he was no stranger to racist thinking from what I've heard. I think it was all just about nothern Britain-like industrial capitalism wanting to move in on the southern market, which being based on a slave plantation economy was an impediment to that. I think the south wanted to keep all its slaves on plantations, the north wanted them in factories owned by corporations, and the conflict was over whether the southern states had the 'right' to close off their economy from the England/New England industrial capitalism."

That's quite different than the version we're usually sold. Ah, to the victors go all the spoils. Including who gets to write history and the propaganda they want sold.

Here are my quotes and research from the same thread:

When the people of the South settled in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, they had no intention of encouraging or even tolerating the institution of slavery.

It was the New England seamen in their voyages to the Indies and other countries that seized upon the opportunity to amass great profits and fortunes in the transportation and sale of African slaves for labor. The North readily and greedily jumped on this gold mine.

Oglethorpe and his colonists were possibly the most determined in resisting the importation, sale and use of African slaves; and for 20 years were successful in the enforcement of the law which prohibited the landing of slaves in Georgia, before they too succumbed.

The evil of this traffic soon became apparent to the people of the South, and when the Constitution was framed in 1787, the South demanded that the fundamental law should inhibit the traffic of importing human beings from Africa. The South was resisted by the New England slave-traders, and as a compromise, it was agreed that the trade should be restricted, and after the year 1800, entirely prohibited, but, by the persistency of New England, the provision was finally extended to the year 1808.

The North then found that their climate was not adapted to slave labor, and as the Constitution prohibited the continuance of the profitable business of catching of Africans and selling them to the people of the South, they ceased to have any interest in this class of property. It is about this time there commenced what history will record as a war upon the institution of slavery.

RE: the fugitive-slave law:

"No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

Under the provisions of the Constitution, during Washington's administration, in 1793, there was passed by general consent a law for the restoration of fugitive slaves. Hardly any one opposed it at that period; it was thought to be necessary in order to carry the Constitution into effect; New England and New York all concurred in it. It passed and answered all the purposes expected from it till about the year 1841 or 1842, when the States interfered to make enactments in opposition to it.

The fugitive-slave law was as much of a part of the Constitution as any other, and as equally binding and obligatory as any other.

Upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, Southerners were informed that the guaranties of the Constitution, and the doctrines of State rights and other principles of government, were to be ignored, and that they were to be deprived of their property, and continued prosperity.

And now you have the foundation of for the Civil War.

My point is that the North was just as involved as the South in the slave business until it was no longer profitable to them. It wasn't the North's conscience or their concern for human rights that motivated them!

--------------------

Oh. How can I express my disgust...my grief...my anger -- today I was browsing at a large antique flea market that periodically comes to the Richmond fairgrounds. One booth in particular that carried antique and reproduction signs and "nostalgia" had a huge section dedicated to Black slave items and segregationist signage. There was a horrible board game with a name I could barely stomach with the word "Darkies" in it. My eyes welled up with tears. What particularly struck me was that some of the signage: "Whites Only" "Colored Entrance" and so forth were obviously reproductions and not at ALL antique or original signage from the segregationist South. They were NEW. The board game was obviously very old, but I wish, I hope someone white does not purchase it...I would have, just to protect it, but how hypocritical of me because I am white. I don't know, I wouldn't necessarily want these things to be destroyed because I think they are shocking in the way they need to be. It wasn't THAT long ago, dear goddess, that these games, these references and terms and way of thinking was accepted among whites. However, if Black people wish them destroyed, I would participate in the burning. It is their sad history. As a member of an oppressed class, as a woman I personally want my historical oppression shown in its ugliest light, even though I hurt when I see it portrayed. But that's me. And I don't think I'd want those representations put on display at a freaking flea market for collectors! *sigh* But it is. Stacks of "vintage Playboy" magazines are often seen at collector markets. One of the signs at this same dealer's booth showed a woman with a rolling pin chasing her husband and the sign read: "If you wife drives you crazy, let her drive you to our place." It was a sign for a pub. Pinups are collectors gems. Another sign said, "Street women who wish to entertain men in rooms must pay the management in advance." Another game for children involved "shooting Indians" for points. Dear goddess, who collects these things???? And as I said before, a lot of these items are reproductions, not actual antiques, made for a market that *wants* them...to display them WHERE?

So yeah, Heart, I understand your concern. I always have. And today just brought that point painfully home.

Sophia

One of the BEST and most readable books in all the world about the events leading to the Civil War, in my opinion, is Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett. Lucky (and everybody), I'm not much a fan of Abraham Lincoln and never have been, and especially after I learned of his treatment of his wives. The patriarchs are the patriarchs. They do what male supremacists do. So I haven't had an interest in defending Abraham Lincoln; I've just wanted to make sure that in our eagerness to challenge mythology around Thanksgiving, we didn't fall off the edge into a different kind of error which is to participate in what amounts to an idealizing and romanticizing of the pre-Civil War South. I think what Mikie wrote there comes out of a certain politics, a certain perspective which I don't share, and some of it I'd agree with and some of it I'd take issue with; there are all sorts of complicated issues there. One point I do like to make and re-make is that always, always, always, there were black people and white people, many of them women, who worked together, first to keep anyone from being enslaved, ever, then to outlaw slavery, then to abolish it and to free the slaves, and these were the Abolitionists. The Abolitionists created a movement which began before the War for Independence. There were always during these dark times in history, people, again, many of them women, who worked for human rights, who were committed to human rights for all people, and their stories tend to get lost in all the spin and rhetoric around who was and wasn't interested in slavery and why the North was just as bad as the South and Lincoln was a racist and so on. Well, yeah. But I think as feminists and women it's important for us to pay attention to the stories of those who did work for freedom throughout the time the men were engaged in their glorified pissing matches and to put those brave people back into the history they've been written out of.

Sorry for your traumatic day, Sophia, just hideous.

Heart

Sophia, I'm so sorry you were exposed to that disgusting and painful display today.

~LearningOne

I just found the website about the museum and it's loaded with information. It goes without saying, too, that the site is full of racist pictures, just to let everyone know.

Here it is: http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/

I already have a lot of collectable items that show sexist attitudes, stuff that my grandmother had saved and I kept when she died. Stuff from her growing up and college days and her life as a 1930's, '40's housewife. I've always been uncomfortable with this stuff, but I could never part with it. Part of it was because it was my beloved Gramma's history, the life she lived and the oppressions she -- privileged and white as she was -- endured.

Oh that website was painful to see...but, I am of the "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" way of thinking, and we can see in that section on modern illustrations of the same stereotypes, here we are again.

Sophia