“Every woman’s man, and every man’s woman” was the line, right?
That is some bizarre revisionism you got going there.
Do you have a source for this startling claim?
Note that I am not denying that there may have been such slaves. What I find hard to accept is your claim that there were “large numbers” of them.
Thanks.
If you were to conductor wouldn’t you ask for everyone’s papers?
This just came up on ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, that in Virginia at least when you were given your free papers you had a year to leave the state. What happened after that year I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same in other areas as well. The freed people also were supposed to redo their papers every so often and keep them with you I’m sure.
I’m sure it was much harder to tell slaves from freemen the further south one got. I can see in Maryland and Virginia it being difficult to know the difference.
I heard many years ago that raising the right hand would reveal ones freedom status.
Here
I am guessing you will be waiting a long, long time for any convincing proof that there were tens of thousands of blonde, blue-eyed slaves toiling in the cotton fields of Alabama in the 1700 or 1800’s.
('cause there wasn’t)
Cato or someone else. This line has led many LGBT sites to include him in a list of gay historical figures. While he might have been, it was meant as a political slur (and many years after the alleged…penetration).
I’m going to ask for a cite for this claim as well. Specifically that “large numbers” of slaves did not have the “slightest trace” of black features.
? I wasn’t saying the train conductor or others at the time were evil, just relaying a fact. Or are you saying they DID ask every passenger for free papers despite their apparent race?
As Sailboat pointed out, the Fugitive Slave Act made it easy for this to happen. All somebody had to do was grab a black person and bring him before a public official and swear an affidavit that he was a fugitive slave that belonged to you. And you didn’t have to do it where you “caught” him; you could bring him down to a slave state and appear before a pro-slavery judge (and it was illegal to interfere with somebody doing this). The captive wasn’t allowed to testify on his behalf or present any evidence that he had never been a slave.
It seems cheap to declare victory due to the absence of a citation, but in this case it’s important that such errant nonsense not stand unchallenged.
Firstly, cite? It’s been a while.
Secondly, nuh-uh! No racial element to slavery!? Your own post expressly describes it being race-based.
Thirdly, you appear to be laboring under the common assumption that race is indeed genetically determined. Race is a construct. Even assuming your scenario was as you describe, these allegedly white-looking slaves were socially and legally considered “the other race” and thus enslavable – based neither on their looks nor, as you assert, their genetics, but a social agreement.
I would love to know where I can read things people actually wrote purporting to justify these practices. As in, specifically, someone saying “some people think we should allow these captives to testify on their own behalf, just in case they may have been misidentified for example–but we shouldn’t allow such testimony because:…”
I can’t even begin to imagine how they filled in that blank.
Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson, chapter 3:
A federal law of 1793 authorized slaveowners to cross state lines to recapture their property and bring it before any local magistrate or federal court to prove ownership. This law provided the fugitive with no protection of habeas corpus, no right to a jury trial, no right to testify on his own behalf. Some northerners believed that the law amounted to an invitation for kidnappers to seize free blacks. And indeed, professional slave catchers did not always take pains to make sure they had captured the right man nor did every judge go out of his way to ensure that a supposed fugitive matched the description on the affidavit. A good many slave catchers did not bother to take their captured prey before a court but simply spirited it south by the quickest route.
To remedy such abuses, several northern states enacted personal liberty laws. These measures variously gave fugitives the rights of testimony, habeas corpus, and trial by jury, or they imposed criminal penalties for kidnapping. …appealed the case to the Supreme Court …complex decision… Pennsylvania anti-kidnapping law of 1826 unconstitutional… enforcement of the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution was a federal responsibility and that states need not cooperate in any way. This opened the flood gates for a new series of personal liberty laws (nine between 1842 and 1850) that prohibited the use of state facilities in the recapture of fugitives. …
…vigilante committees…underground railroad… …Like a free California, northern aid to escaping slaves was an insult to southern honor. "Although the loss of property is felt, " said Senator James Mason of Virginia, “the loss of honor is felt still more.” Those most exercised about lost honor tended to be in the deep south -Alabama et al, as opposed to the border states like Virginia who were most affected by enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Cry-Freedom-Oxford-History/dp/019516895X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331865669&sr=1-1
Yankee senators had tried in vain to attach amendments to the bill guaranteeing alleged fugitives the rights to testify… Southerners indignantly rejected the idea that these American birthrights applied to slaves.
Their main argument was that they were protecting the right to property and that in this circumstance that superseded some due process rights.
And there was a widespread belief that no black person, slave or free, was entitled to any legal rights. Look at the Dred Scott decision: “A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.” - that’s an official ruling by the Supreme Court.
Did I miss it? I don’t see anything in this thread yet about the practice of abducting people off the street and impressing them aboard sailing ships, to become the unwilling crews – a fate that came to be known as getting shanghaied
In the late 1800’s, a certain area of San Francisco was notorious for this. British sailing ships also were commonly crewed by unwilling conscripts.
Wikipedia articles:
I once read (in one of Mark Twain’s essays) that Antebellum New Orleans accorded a fair bit of freedom to its slaves-slaves were allowed to congregate, had days off, etc.
How this was regulated I have no idea.
You are taking current extradition measures and communication and placing them in the 18th and early 19th century and I’m not sure that holds. Lets say you are a free black around Baltimore and are kidnapped with the intention of being sold as a slave. You come to somewhere in Virginia, probably on a plantation in the slave quarters - who do you tell and how much are they going to care? When you do hit the block and make your public statement, you are in Georgia or Mississippi. I don’t see either state circa 1800 rushing to your defense and manumission assuming someone at that auction (who attended slave auctions back then) reported your statement.
While you may be able to read as a free black, there is less chance that you can write. Writing is a physical skill (reading more a mental skill) that requires both training and practice. Reading was stressed so that you were able to read the Bible and Prayer Books but writing just wasn’t that important then; especially to you. But lets assume you have the luck of the (sorry) Irish and get kidnapped with a Frederic Douglass or like scholar who can write a letter for you. And it gets smuggled back to Maryland safely. And your friends have enough money and power to mount an effort to secure your return. I have a feeling Mississippi ain’t gonna be real impressed. And I have a like feeling you may be long gone before a conclusion is reached.
Did some slaves manage to escape their masters during travel in the north? It happened enough to warrant a Supreme Court decision. Did free blacks find themselves vanished and back in chains? I have no doubt. Too easy a way of getting rid of an “uppity black” from a border community or making a few extra bucks.
Your position is not supported by facts.
Slavery is now outlawed in every country. (Mauritania was the last to abolish it in 1981.)
Nevertheless there are estimates of between 12 million and 27 million slaves world-wide.
They fall into categories such as:
- debt bondage
- sex slaves
- child soldiers
- forced marriage
- domestic slaves
Debt bondage - if you call this slavery, then it’s legal slavery, and the social enforcement compells it. If it does not, then long term the relationshi is not sustainable.
Sex Slaves - either the social establishment allows it, or it is kidnapping and forcible confinement. I suppose the advantage is you can keep the slave locked in a room and they still earn their keep, so it’s easier to prevent runaways; the disadvantage is that if you have a decent number of clientele, everyone will know what is going on. then, the establishment better condone it, even if not openly.
Child Soldiers - the establishment also condones it, the establishment is just limited to a few camps. Again, escapees are a problem, despite using impressionable captives and extreme threats.
Forced Marriage - same coment as debt bondage; except the victim’s family may also compell it so running away is rarely an option.
Domestic Slaves - same comment as debt bondage. Either its legal, or society compells it, or they will be gone the moment you turn your back.
So basically, if you define some of these as slavery, then slavery is legal and we’re back to the enforcing legal slavery issues.
In case anyone is wondering, this answer is just made up nonsense on the order of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.