MetaFilter posts tagged with slavery and history

Debt, slavery, and violence in history

languagehat — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 07:31:45 -0800

Debt: The first five thousand years. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber (previously) writes about "debt and debt money in human history" in Eurozine. Lots of thought-provoking stuff here; I'll put a sample in the extended description. (Via wood s lot.)

Commodity money, particularly in the form of gold and silver, is distinguished from credit money most of all by one spectacular feature: it can be stolen. Since an ingot of gold or silver is an object without a pedigree, throughout much of history bullion has served the same role as the contemporary drug dealer's suitcase full of dollar bills, as an object without a history that will be accepted in exchange for other valuables just about anywhere, with no questions asked. As a result, one can see the last 5 000 years of human history as the history of a kind of alternation. Credit systems seem to arise, and to become dominant, in periods of relative social peace, across networks of trust, whether created by states or, in most periods, transnational institutions, whilst precious metals replace them in periods characterised by widespread plunder. Predatory lending systems certainly exist at every period, but they seem to have had the most damaging effects in periods when money was most easily convertible into cash.

389 years ago

desjardins — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:18:50 -0800

389 years ago...

Reenacting Slavery

marxchivist — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:10:03 -0800

Reenacting slavery at Chickamauga National Military Park. When a reenactor put his knapsack on the ground, the person portraying his slave picked up his knapsack and "moved it before I could say a word. I instantly knew that I had an opportunity to demonstrate the institution's cruelty here, and so I did not acknowledge his act, did not thank him for it, did not make eye contact, did not stop my talk. My own cruelty -- even to make a teaching point to the audience -- made me shudder inside." I read this blog post this morning and have been thinking about it on and off all day. They've been doing slavery interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg and Carter's Grove for awhile, but this isn't something you see on Civil War battlefields very often, if ever. Another thing that struck me about this was the portrayal of the day-to-day degradation of slavery and not even being acknowledged as person; rather than the more dramatic beatings, runaways, and slave auctions. And I'd love to read this from the point of view from the guy who portrayed the slave.

Thomas Jefferson Papers

marxchivist — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:33:53 -0800

The Massachusetts Historical Society has a nice collection of Thomas Jefferson's papers online. It includes two catalogs of Jefferson's books, a draft of the Declaration of Independence and his Garden Book. Architectural Drawings too! I kind of like the Garden Book for some reason. Some mundane things like March 21, 1774: "Peas of Mar. 10. are up" and interesting entries like May 22, 1773: "articles for contracts with overseers." Yes, he had slaves. Here is a list of some of them. I always think Jefferson is interesting, plus I think this site is straightforward and easy to navigate, and you can download nice, big images of the manuscript pages.

Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute

Asparagirl — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:20:09 -0800

"King Cotton" created a huge demand for land and (slave) labor that changed early America's borders, population, and economics. But just as cotton affected history, history affected cotton: the story of naturally colored cottons -- brown, green, yellow, mauve, and reddish cottons -- has almost been lost. Slaves in the American South, forbidden from planting white cotton lest they sell it for profit, grew this colored cotton in their gardens to spin their own clothes. These heirloom varieties, and colored cottons being grown in the former Soviet Union, were considered too difficult to spin commercially, and were almost lost until an untrained textiles enthusiast named Sally Fox single-handedly pioneered the revival of some of these cotton colors. Her cotton plants are grown organically (amazing for cotton, the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world!), drought tolerant, and their fibers require no toxic bleaching or highly carcinogenic dyes. Undyed colored cotton, raised organically in Peru by artisans through a collective called Pakucho, is also sold online here (Knitter's Review likes it a lot). And on a fun note, companies like Levi Strauss & Co. have now come full circle -- the original Levi's jeans were made in both the traditional indigo-dyed white cotton and in natural brown cotton, the latter of which fell out of favor. Now Levi's makes jeans out of Sally Fox's cotton.

Slavery in the North

Kattullus — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:21:35 -0800

Slavery in the North is a website covering the 200-year history of slavery in the northern colonies in what would become the United States.

mobile homes built without nails

nickyskye — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:41:26 -0800

Chattel houses were very small houses, built by freed slaves or plantation workers, that could be dismantled quickly and moved in the event they were fired or unable to pay property tax to the plantation owner on whose land the house stood. Examples in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad l Sunday 25 March 2007 marked 200 years to the day that the British Parliament passed an Act to outlaw the slave trade in British colonies. Images of chattel houses from the Caribbean Poetry site. Stories of people in slavery Definition of chattel house from the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage

What Happened to My Forty Acres and a Mule, Fool?

jonp72 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:26:25 -0800

40 acres and a mule has been a slogan of African-American economic aspirations ever since the legislation creating the Freedman's Bureau promised ex-slaves parcels not exceeding forty acres each, to the loyal refugees and freedmen. General William Tecumseh Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 decreed that the land on slave plantations be seized and distributed to freed slaves, but Andrew Johnson rescinded the order and vetoed expansion of the Freedman's Bureau. Both Henry Louis Gates and Dalton Conley have associated the failure to grant freed slaves their "40 acres and a mule" with the wealth gap between black and white Americans, but now an economics grad student, Melinda Miller, has brought important quantitative data to the debate in a new research paper. Using census data from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, which was forced to distribute land to freed slaves of the Cherokee tribe shortly after the Civil War, Miller has found a natural experiment that makes it possible to quantify how much the failed dreams of "40 acres of a mule" are at the root of interracial disparities of wealth. According to a fine summary by econo-blogger Tyler Cowen, Miller argues that the failure to distribute land to slaves may account for as little as 20% or as much as 75% of the black/white wealth gap.

The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves

Miko — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:48:29 -0800

Lost Cause [WaPo, bugmenot] History museums are a repository for public memory, but also a nation's mirrors, reflecting self-image. When our views of history shift, museums that fail to change are likely to fail in general. Today's Washington Post reports on the struggle and decline of the Museum of the Confederacy, contrasting it with the American Civil War Center, nearby geographically, worlds away in philosophy.

Code Breaking

Miko — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:27:30 -0800

Did Anyone Really Follow the Drinking Gourd? Were you taught that slaves in the antebellum South sang this traditional song to convey coded instructions for escaping Northward? Were you taught that quilt block patterns could be read as a map to freedom, or that quilts were hung outside safe houses as signals to escaping slaves?Though these are among the most often taught stories of the operation of the Underground Railroad, current scholarship indicates that these aren't survivals of pre-Civil War African-American folklore, but legends constructed and popularized within the twentieth century, frequently by white writers and performers. In today's New York Times, these legends battle it out with fact in debate over the proposed design of a new Frederick Douglass memorial [PDF].

Comfort Women

zarq — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:18:00 -0800

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations adopted a bipartisan resolution to ask the Japanese government to formally apologize for sexually enslaving up to 200,000 "comfort women" in Imperial brothels during its colonial occupation of Asia from 1932 through the end of World War II. Many were tortured and raped, and only about 30% survived WWII. Japan has stated repeatedly that even though the brothels were established by military policy, the imperial government was not directly involved in operating them. Taking responsibility would be an admission that they committed war crimes -- slavery and trafficking in women and children -- and could give victims a legal basis to sue for reparations.

H Res. 759 does not ask Japan to provide reparations, but it does push them to unambiguously acknowledge what happened and educate future generations, (full text) rather than continue the current practice of denying what really happened. Previously on MeFi.

The Rebellion of the Black Seminoles

LarryC — Wed, 31 May 2006 18:29:27 -0800

Rebellion: John Horse and the Black Seminoles, First Black Rebels to Beat American Slavery. "Rebellion is a Web documentary that explores the inspiring, true, and largely unknown story of John Horse and the Black Seminoles, a community of free blacks and fugitive slaves who in 1838 became the first black rebels to defeat American slavery." This visually arresting site is a treasure trove of information about the Seminoles, early Florida history, and a largely unrecognized (and successful!) slave rebellion that may have been the largest in American history. The site includes interactive maps, arresting images, and a thorough history of the rebellion. Too bad the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma expelled all its black members in 1990.

Stuff About Dead People: or, History

marxchivist — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:29:12 -0800

The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has some cool online exhibits. The original list of dead bodies recovered from the Titanic sinking caught my eye, they also have original log book pages from privateers, lighthouses, slavery and abolition, boats, boats, and more boats. [via]

Historical letters to a Virginia doctor

Rumple — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:23:24 -0800

I send you some of the urine I pass in the morning: A large, interesting, well-presented archive of notes and letters (includes facsimiles) written by ordinary Virginians in the early 19th century to a country doctor, William Carmichael of Fredericksburg. Also includes medical instruments and pharmaceuticals of the time, and browse a facsimile of the doctor's daybook. Carmichael also tended to the health of slaves.

Slavery As We've Heard It

marxchivist — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 20:46:01 -0800

"In slavery times the negroes were sold to the white people." In their simple and plain language, elementary school students describe the horrors of slavery as related by their grandparents. The Greensboro Historical Museum has an online exhibit of the interviews. Another quote: "He said that the white men would whip them and sometimes hung men and women when they were mad with them or if the slaves tried to run away." The handwriting is kind of hard to read on some of these, but worth it.

SAMMY: "That's democracy?"

matteo — Mon, 16 May 2005 10:30:53 -0800

"I am an American, so that is why I make films about America. America is sitting on our world, I am making films that have to do with America (because) 60% of my life is America. So I am in fact an American, but I can't go there to vote, I can't change anything. We are a nation under influence and under a very bad influence… because Mr. Bush is an asshole and doing very idiotic things."
Lars Von Trier introduces his new film at the Cannes Film Festival: «Manderlay» picks up where «Dogville» left off, with the character originated by Nicole Kidman -- now played by Bryce Dallas Howard -- stumbling onto a plantation that time forgot, where slavery still operates in the 1930s. The film (5 MB .pdf file, official pressbook) ends, as Dogville did, with David Bowie’s Young Americans played over a photomontage of images that range from a Ku Klux Klan meeting to the Rodney King beating, George Bush at prayer and Martin Luther King at his final rest, American soldiers in Vietnam and the Gulf, the Twin Towers. More inside.

Rebecca Protten and the origins of African American Christianity.

matteo — Sun, 15 May 2005 09:46:30 -0800

Rebecca's Revival. Rebecca Protten, born a slave in 1718, gained her freedom and joined a group of proselytizers from the Moravian Church. She embarked on an itinerant mission, preaching to hundreds of the enslaved Africans of St. Thomas, West Indies. Weathering persecution from hostile planters, Protten and other black preachers created the earliest African Protestant congregation in the Americas. University of Florida historian Jon Sensbach has written a book about Protten's life -- the interracial marriage, the trial on charges of blasphemy and inciting of slaves, the travels to Germany and West Africa. Later in her life, after she moved to Germany, Rebecca was ordained as a deaconess: "a former slave now administered Communion and practiced other claims to spiritual authority over white women, including European aristocrats." More inside.

Lets wade in the water

sgt.serenity — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 11:34:28 -0800

Lets wade in the water, Coded slave songs.

Sarah Robert's long walk

matteo — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:08:39 -0800

Sarah Roberts vs. Boston In 1848, five-year-old Sarah Roberts was barred from the local primary school because she was black. Her father sued the City (.pdf file). The lawsuit was part of an organized effort by the African-American community to end racially segregated schools. The book "Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America" tells the story of the case of Roberts v. City of Boston, that remains a little-known landmark in the civil rights movement.

Happy on the Plantation?

marxchivist — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 00:55:24 -0800

School Drops Slavery Booklet after it receives criticism about the book's description of slavery as a benign institution where the slaves led "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." [more inside]

Race and Slavery in the Old South

marxchivist — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 07:37:47 -0800

The Race & Slavery Petitions Project indexes and abstracts over 18,000 petitions to county courts and state assemblies between the years 1777 and 1867 relating to race and slavery. There is a nice searchable database and the full-text and images of some of them are viewable here.

This has some great slices of life and labor in the old south, from people trying to free their slaves to owners looking to be reimbursed for their dead slaves.

While I'm at it, lots more primary sources on slavery in America at the Documenting the American South web page, a site this history nerd can never get enough of.

Voices from the Days of Slavery.

profwhat — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:07:40 -0800

Voices from the Days of Slavery. A collection of audio recordings made between 1932 and 1975 of African Americans known to have once been slaves. Hear Isom Moseley describe how he used to make soap, and express his opinion of the "white folks" who owned and ran the plantation where he was held. Wallace Quarterman describes his experience as a freed man in Georgia, and recounts the violent atmosphere of the Reconstruction South. Aunt Phoebe Boyd describes the demands of agricultural work. Even more narratives are available as transcripts from the companion exhibit, Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 (linked to previously on Metafilter here), though some of these were unfortunately edited selectively.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record

plep — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 11:52:04 -0800

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record. 'This collection is envisioned as a tool and a resource that can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and the general public -- in brief, anyone interested in the experiences of Africans who were enslaved and transported to the Americas and the lives of their descendants in the slave societies of the New World. '

The Slow Death of American Slavery

jonp72 — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 23:37:45 -0800

Slavery Ended in the 1960s, not the 1860s The Civil War made slavery illegal, but that didn't wipe it out completely. White farmer, John Williams, forced his black overseer to murder 11 slaves in the wake of a 1921 federal investigation. The Dial Brothers were also convicted by the Justice Department for "African slavery" in the 1940s. In another case, a black genealogist found a 104-year-old man who claims he and his family were enslaved until the 1960s. It's not necessary to rehash the entire reparations debate to realize that some of these post-Civil War slavery cases may finally have a day in court.

Yes... or no?

ewagoner — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 07:48:23 -0800

Giuseppe Garibaldi, who united Italy in the 1860s, was asked by Lincoln to lead the army during the US Civil War. Garibaldi said he would if Lincoln officially declared that the aim of the war was to end slavery. Lincoln replied that he couldn't at that time, and so Garibaldi moved on to other things. But what if Giuseppe had gotten involved? The Papacy would clearly have denounced the North (indeed, the pope was the only world leader to recognize the Confederacy). The French hated him; the English loved him. Had he led the Federal troops, would France have jumped in on the side of the South? Would England have then jumped in on the Union side to counter? A whole different world history, perhaps, hanging on a yes/no question.