It’s only loosely related to what the OP asks, but there was the “Free State of Jones:”
Which will be the subject of a movie coming out this summer, actually.
True but other nations have put into place oppression measures and there were still domestic revolts, some of which led to the toppling of governments.
Multiple popular revolts against eastern european communist states. Revolts in latin america or asia too happened a lot. The arab spring is happening. Syria has one of the most oppressive and cruel governments on earth, it didn’t stop an armed military insurrection. When nations invaded Afghanistan, the Afghanis put up military resistance until the invaders left. The public overthrowing a dictator, or insurrection and guerrilla warfare against a dictator are not uncommon, but those were not really issues in the south during slavery.
I don’t know if you can really draw a corollary between them and slavery though. Those people made up a much bigger % of the country vs. the ruling elite. Even in Mississippi, which has the largest black population, blacks are still a minority. Plus people in other situations were literate and many had international support. Slaves had none of those. They had a little support from people in the North, but it wasn’t like people in the North were funneling guns and training to slaves in the south.
I am confused about your point. Are you positing that slave rebellion was not a huge threat and the oppression was superfluous, because American slaves lacked either the will or the motive to rebel? That seems highly unlikely to me, and it’s much more plausible that the measures taken to prevent slave rebellion were both needed and apparently pretty effective.
I will say I think it’s easier to put effective measures in place when your oppressed population is immediately identifiable on sight and when you have the entire society–churches, newspapers, local and state governments, and all meaningful property owners–all supporting the oppression with a pretty unified front. It’s especially helpful when that population believes that the oppressed group is an immediate threat to them and so are willing to help or at least turn a blind eye to any measures required to prevent that rebellion.
The key to any widespread conspiracy and organized resistance is the ability to organize, hence to communicate. From what little I’ve read of the situation in the south, that was the main point where slave owners and the system prevented uprisings - through illiteracy, through strict control and lack of regular cross-contact between groups (banning meetings, free travel, etc.) and by a readily identifiable “enemy” to oppress, it made a wide-scale problem harder to get started.
Contrast that with say, Kansas, where the terrorist groups on either side were almost impossible to tell from Joe Schmoe Farmer just trying to get by, and of course the ability to organize and communicate was not hindered and the firepower was easily available for purchase and the combatants appear to have the necessary money to buy those arms.
Slaves running away was also a form of rebellion. As was buying and otherwise gaining ones freedom and then freeing other slaves.
While slavery sucked some slaves actually did pretty well. Thats why after freedom many went back to work for their former masters.
In Jim Crow blacks established their own institutions like banks, businesses, newspapers, cinemas, etc… and look at the Negro Baseball Leagues.
Most people dont know it but while it was true blacks were excluded from many white business, also whites were excluded from black businesses. And dont think for a second that “black” meant “bad”. Black hotels and restaurants could be just as good or better than white owned.
There is an interesting scene in the movie “The Buddy Holly Story” where Holly and the Crickets are touring with a black band and they would have to alternate sneaking the other group in by claiming the other groups were their valets. They would go back and forth calling each other “boy”.
No I’m saying the oppression of slaves was highly effective. With less oppression there probably would have been more revolts. If slaves had had literacy, education, less surveillance and curtailing of the first amendment, access to abolitionist papers, and access to weapons there would’ve been even more revolt. As far as I can tell, no meaningful military resistance ever arose against slavery. The only one that did come was when the north invaded the south and forced them to abolish slavery. During the height of the civil war, 10% of union soldiers were blacks. Slaves would follow the union army around. So the motive to engage in armed rebellion was there.
Your point about population is true, and like I said that could play a role in why there was no revolt. If you go to a place like Syria, I’d assume 80%+ of the public do not support the regime. In the South it was probably closer to 20-45% of the people. The majority still supported the status quo.
The Free State of Jones was actually begun by white farmers who opposed the rule of the rich planters, but escaped slaves did participate in the rebellion. The leader of the rebellion, white farmer Newt Knight, eventually married a former slave, and his son and daughter from his first marriage married her children, in defiance of Mississippi miscgenation laws.
There weren’t many but most people conflate racial issues with slavery and they are not synonymous. Slaves didn’t have rights and weren’t even recognized as full people, not because they were black, but because they had the legal status of ‘slave’. That may seem like an odd distinction to make but it is important and has real relevance especially in some areas.
Not all blacks were slaves and not all slaves were black by appearance at all. My home state of Louisiana had free blacks at every socio-economic level and some of them were slaveowners themselves. In fact, the legal system in Lousiana didn’t even make a simple black/white distinction during the Antebellum period. It was much more complicated than that and codified concepts like octoroons and quadroons (1/8 and 1/4 black respectively) as well as free versus slave status.
Thomas Jefferson had children with his slave Sally Hemmings but their relationship wasn’t like most people picture. Sally was also Thomas Jefferson’s sister-in-law through his deceased wife and only 1/4 black. Their children were 1/8 black but appeared to be white by all accounts yet they were still legal slaves.
It wasn’t until well after the Civil War that all blacks, regardless of their former status were regarded the same under the law and not usually in a good way. Reconstruction was an interesting time because there was a brief period during the late 1800’s when Southern states started electing black government officials at even the highest levels including governor and U.S. Senator (of the 9 black U.S. Senators in history, two came from Mississippi during the Reconstruction era). Obviously, that trend did not hold and resulted in a lot of blowback that eventually resulted in the full set of Jim Crow laws that were even more regressive than the racial laws that existed in the Antebellum period in many ways.
I am sure someone will find a way to become offended by my post but it isn’t meant to be offensive or present any viewpoint at all. The point is that history is more complicated than simplistic depictions make it out to be and this subject is more complex than most. I think we can all agree that slavery is evil but there are some nuances embedded in the real history of it that most people miss.
I don’t.
Armed rebellion by the slaves, and support for it, was more than justifed by their circumstances. It wasn’t “vigilante,” it was rebellion against slavery, one of the worse evils one can suffer. Slavery was far worse than what the British did to us and we started an armed rebellion against them.
One reason there were few major slave rebellions was because whites feared them so much that they put severe restrictions on the ability of slaves to organize such rebellions. After experiencing a few, plus seeing what happened in Haiti where a rebellion succeeded in overthrowing the white-dominated society there, they made slavery even more repressive to avoid their ability to join in large groups or communicate to start a rebellion. In some places the black slaves outnumbered whites, so the fear was even greater.
The same dynamic happened in the South during Jim Crow too - the slightest offense or stepping out of line could be dealt with very harshly, lest blacks get any hint that they could get away with it. Hence lynchings over the slightest offense, even imagined ones, and whole black neighborhoods being burned down. It was a vicious cycle - the more repressed, the more likely blacks were to strike back, requiring even more repression. It was the “wolf’s ear” that Jefferson wrote about.
I should say I might condemn what he did in Kansas, but not in Harper’s Ferry.
It always struck me as how a violent relationship works. One person is abusive, then the abuser fears retaliation so they become more abusive, causing more fear of retaliation.
What was the Jefferson quote? Was it this?
One thing I recall reading was about a fellow who was a hero to Brazilian slaves - he discovered that when the gold miners came home, they would wash their dusty hair in the local fountain, and as a result it was rich in gold dust. The slaves applied this to buying their freedom.
The article mentioned that unlike the USA, slaves in Brazil had the right to their own possessions (so could accumulate money) and the right to buy their freedom. This was more like the permanently indentured servant model of Roman slavery, rather than the Dredd Scott “you are one with the furniture” model. True, there were many American slave owners that allowed this sort of liberty for their slaves, but in general they were treated more like livestock.
There were certainly local complexities, but slavery in antebellum America was unquestionably rooted in ideas of “race”. It didn’t actually start out that way–in colonial America, slavery of Africans was initially justified on religious grounds, that they were “heathens”. But that led to the obvious loophole that a lot of plantation owners’ valuable human “property” might be lost if their slaves converted to Christianity (as many of them did in fact do as time went on), so in the colonial era a new ideological justification for slavery was developed, that slaves were of an inferior “race”. (See Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America by Peter H. Wood.)
By the time of the Civil War, regardless of the aforementioned local idiosyncrasies or the general messiness of the real world (with “free coloreds” and “octoroons” and so forth), slavery was firmly based on a very “black and white” ideology of “race”. The Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union stated that “the African race…were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable” and that “the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations”. In his speech on March 21, 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens declared that “slavery – subordination to the superior race – is [the negro’s] natural and normal condition”. The permanent Constitution of the Confederate States refers to slavery at least half-a-dozen times, and about half those references are couched in explicitly racial terms:
And the legal restrictions on black people weren’t just on slaves. As fear of slave uprisings increased, black codes were enacted that not only placed restrictions on slaves but also placed significant legal restrictions on free blacks as well.
PBS has a list of slave rebellions before the Civil War. I don’t know if the OP would regard them as “meaningful.” The laws were designed to keep slaves illiterate & unarmed–and prevented any meaningful organization.
There were variations over time & place. Before the Revolution, manumission was difficult in Virginia. Afterward, it was easier for owners to free their slaves. However, freed slaves had to leave the state. If people of African descent were believed unable to live independently, successful freedmen would prove that belief to be a racist lie.
In Texas, it was not illegal to teach a slave to read. Given literacy standards in the state, perhaps that was considered unlikely. Freed Texas slaves were supposed to leave unless they had someone to vouch for them–but things were rather lax & the size of of the state allowed a bit of leeway. Slavery was not found in South Texas. The area was too arid for cotton but slaves did other work in other parts of the state; however, escape to Free Mexico was too easy.
Free people of color in Louisianacould be quite prosperous & educated, due to the French & Spanish laws originally in effect there. Around 1830, rising tensions caused them begin to lose rights.
John Brown was not a “nice” man. He was rebelling against a dreadful institution. The time had come.
IMO, there was no possible measured response by slaves and decent people at the time to the horrors of slavery. Just as I find it impossible to criticize freed or escaped Nazi death-camp survivors if they responded with incredible violence against their captors, I find it impossible to criticize slaves and abolitionists who responded with incredible violence to supporters of slavery, especially when every “measured” attempt at a response for the previous century had been put down with blood-curdling brutality.
So I can’t blame John Brown for trying to use violence to end slavery. At the time, if I was alive (and with my present understanding of the world) and had the power to kill every single slave owner, trader, and overseer, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t use it. When brutality is a common fact of life, sometimes there is no other way to respond then with brutality. In this case, the only other option was continued years and decades of everyday brutal subjugation, rape, and murder of black people.
That’s a great observation.
Yes.
But to them, it’s good logic, because it’s based on the notion that abortion equals murdering millions of children.
If there were millions of actual children (already born) being murdered, and nobody did anything about it and the government protected those who did it, I’d join an armed rebellion. Wouldn’t you?
I like to confront anti-abortion people with this idea - if you really do think abortion is genocide, how can you not join the bombers of clinics and shooters of doctors? You sit on your couch and give a few bucks to an anti-abortion group while millions of children are dying? Either you are a lazy hypocrite who is letting the children die and you need to go get your gun and do something, or you need to seriously rethink your beliefs about abortion.
(I just hope nobody chooses the former. That’s why I use this tactic sparingly).
I don’t want to do another abortion debate but there really are more people enslaved today in the world than any time in history (in absolute numbers). Why aren’t more people tossing in their sleep over that let alone bearing arms to stop it if they are truly that outraged by the practice? That is an honest question and I expect an answer from the people that claim they would have done something about it if they lived during the Antebellum period in the Southern U.S. because that is obviously not true as demonstrated by (in)actions.
I know the answer for myself. It is because I am selfish and don’t care enough just like the vast majority of people in human history and I make no apologies for that.
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/there-are-more-slaves-today-any-time-human-history