Interesting article about questions received while giving tours of Southern plantations

[Guinastasia]

@Idle_Thoughts

These posts are out of line for anywhere but the Pit. Don’t make posts like them again in this forum.

I’m sorry, I thought this thread was in the Pit. My bad.

[Frylock]

@aceplace57

I want to apologize for monopolizing the thread. I’m going to read further on the subject and get up to date. A lot has changed since my early 80’s history classes in college. The historical perspective and emphasis on slavery’s inherent violence is much different. It’s going to take time for me to read,research, and then reflect on this. There’s no point in me posting further on this subject until I’m better informed.

I have read the posts in this thread and take them seriously. thanks

I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate what you’ve said here. Thank you aceplace57!

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@iiandyiiii

It was a mostly Southern phenomenon, but it was certainly bad (and probably as bad) in those places in the North that had it.

The reason it’s not harped on nearly as much is because the descendants of those Northern slave-holding states typically don’t display symbols honoring such a past, or argue that it wasn’t so bad for black people, or argue that the Confederate cause was just and honorable, or similar sorts of ridiculous (and often offensive) historical falsehoods, as so many white Southerners (but not all, obviously) do.

That is unquestionably true. But in Charleston, S.C., one of the most prominent landmarks - it’s square in the center of downtown - is the antebellum City Market. Tour guides will readily tell you that it was often called the Slave Market, because Charleston households would send their slaves to the Market - which was near the slaughterhouses and tanneries, and consequently exposed to the attendant offal, flies and stink - to shop for the day’s provisions. Slaves weren’t sold at the City Market, though; they were sold at the Old Slave Mart, one of the few documented slave auction sites in the nation and another invariable stop on any tour of the city.

But if you visit a maritime museum in New England, will you learn about the Triangular Trade? Will you hear about the ship owners, masters and crew who sailed the slave ships that brought Africans to this continent? Though they do gloss it over where they are able, you can learn something about slavery in Charleston, S.C. How much can you learn about it in Charlestown, Mass.?

Note that this is not entirely a rhetorical question; it may very well be that there are good museums in the Northeast that teach about New England’s role in slavery. But I’ve never seen or heard of one. (Although a poster in a Pit thread mentioned that there’s a new monument to a slave auction house once located in Manhattan.)

[raventhief]

@Frylock

I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate what you’ve said here. Thank you aceplace57!

I second this sentiment. I am impressed, aceplace!