There’s at least half a dozen threads in Great Debates that you can read that argue otherwise. You might find them educational.
I’m their denizen. I’ve heard it allm and the best basic training I had was from my High School and College Histories Professors elucidating the true politics of the day, not the most emotionally bracing nor politically correct, but my assumptions are much closer to reality, rather than “Black History Month”.
I’d respond to this if I knew what you were trying to say.
Or not, since I was simply making the recommendation that there are some interesting arguments in those threads, and the issue does not seem at all as cut and dried as you would like it to be.
Well, maybe Leeland Stottermyer and the protagonist did have that conversation… “Southern Honor”.
Only if the show was titled “The Walking Deadwood.”
I liked it. I’ve never seen “Deadwood” so I have nothing to compare it to, but it held my interest, so I’ll continue watching.
I’m not seeing much of a likeness at all at this point.
Yeah the only story I know of a slave owner freeing his slave before the war is U.S. Grant who took his one slave (that he inherited from his wife’s family) to Ohio, freed him and gave him some money and Grant then went on to fight for he good guys (er, I mean the northern agressors).
There were many other instances, but it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t common. For a small planter who owned 5 slaves to free them while he was still alive was almost unheard of, and in fact he wouldn’t have been doing them that much of a favor if he didn’t also give them transport to either a free state or a place like New Orleans that had a substantial free black community. I think this was just a touch of presentism PC that saves them having to deal with how a non-villain could own slaves.
My step-dad is very into genealogy and he has an ancestor from Alabama who had a clause in his will that set his slaves free. Was this more common and/or easy?
His executors would have to have had the approval of the legislature and the slaves would have to have received a patron once freed or they’d have been re-enslaved after one year. Alabama’s only V.P. to date, William Rufus King (longtime lover of James Buchanan) freed several of his slaves in his will but he also left them a substantial amount of money to insure transport to free states.
Grant’s mentioned above- he lived in Missouri which had a substantial free black population and he had family in Ohio who could help the slave he freed get onto his feet and all. Robert E. Lee freed almost 150 slaves from his father-in-law’s estate- by terms of the old man’s will- in the late 1850s/early 1860s- it took years because of the indebtedness. The slaves Lee freed (which he wasn’t happy about having to do, incidentally) had a major advantage over Deep South slaves: to begin with Virginia had one of the more liberal freedmen codes and a free black population of about 58,000, or roughly 12% of the black population, plus Lee’s father-in-law’s plantations were separated by a river from Washington, D.C. which had a very large free black population.
Our Hell on Heels hero lived in Mississippi though. In 1860 the state of Mississippi contained just over 436,000 slaves (55% of the state’s total population) and *fewer than 800 free blacks *in the entire state. That figures to approximately 18% of 1% of Mississippi’s black population being free; of these, many worked for steamship companies and on wharves owned by out-of-state companies, and almost all of them worked in cities or on plantations rather than as free farmers. (Among other things they weren’t allowed to own land.)
Mississippi was one of the most difficult states for a free black to remain in. In addition, for a small planter who owned 5 slaves to free them was almost unheard of; that would have been willingly letting go of probably 90% or more of his wealth. It’d be cheaper to get a new wife.
In addition, while it sounds like an apologia for slavery it isn’t: it’s actually a further condemnation when I say to have freed them wouldn’t have been doing them that much of a favor unless he also give them transport to either a free state or at least to a city like New Orleans or Baltimore that had a substantial free black community. Being free blacks in Mississippi every hand was going to be against them and they’d be total prey for slave catchers (who were notorious for kidnapping free blacks and selling them back into slavery) and every other kind of predator. The entirety of the southern legal and social system in the Deep South was specifically aimed at keeping blacks enslaved.
This is just lazy ass writing to avoid dealing with the ethics/economics/loaded issue of slavery, and disappointing from a network that deals with issues now reeking of political incorrectness weekly on MAD MEN and complex ethical issues on BREAKING BAD.
Would a church in that era have had a floor register intake for the furnace? I thought those were used in modern furnaces that used electric blowers. It the answer is no, then this is just one more anachronism.
As for talking about Sherman’s March (the March to the Sea, also called the Savannah Campaign), isn’t it likely that they were the same troops from the Battle of Meridian?
Well, the electric motor was supposedly invented in 1821, but the electric fan didn’t appear until around the end of the century. Since this thing all takes place out on the frontier, I seriously doubt that there were any power generation plants there in 1865, and that heating was either from coal or wood firing a steam boiler perhaps.
this was a church in DC
I’m still working on how he snuck in and got into the priest’s box in the confessional without anybody seeing him, because there were several people in the church (including, presumably somewhere, the priest).
I am about ready to give up. I gave it one more week two weeks ago because I liked The Swede. The last show really sucked though.
I’m still in. It’s not very good, but it’s not terrible. Let’s just say I’m week-to-week at this point. Could drop it at any time.
Yep, it’s not very good, but it’s not terrible. They should put that in the ad.
I still like it better than the Walking Dead, if only because it hasn’t yet exhausted my patience. But they’re getting close.
I like the subject matter but the show is pretty terrible.
Do we know what the time frame is between the end of the civil war and the “current”?
What’s so special about the maps?
Why did Durant fret about not reaching the Pacific when that isn’t the end point?
I guess I’m in the minority but so far I’ve liked it, especially the last episode. I like Bohannon and the Swede is hard to look away from (in a creepy way, not handsome way). The story of the Indian trying to be a “Christian” is interesting and Colm Meaney is sufficiently slimy. It’s no Breaking Bad, of course, but it’s still keeping our interest.
They probably represent months of work, scouting and surveying the route ahead. Durant needs to build the railroad fast to get the federal money; he doesn’t have time to send out another surveyor and wait a couple more months.