- Reviews & Essays
- The South will Rise Again
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Click hereIt really won't, I just titled it that to get the attention of a certain group of people.
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I wrote a little story a while back, Boston to Birmingham, posted in Loving Wives, that got a lot of views. If you read it, thanks.
In the six part series set primarily in Alabama, I talked a lot about Southern traditions, and in one segment I talked about slavery for a few paragraphs, in passing. I didn't glorify it or apologize for it, just mentioned it as an historical fact.
I enjoy reading the feedback I get from these stories. I feel it helps me improve my craft.
However, I got a lot of comments from Northerners, people from foreign countries, blacks, and Southern apologists blasting me for bringing it up. I've been called a racist asshole as well as other colorful names. Usually comments don't bother me, but these people have it so wrong I feel the need to put the record straight.
I AM NOT A RACIST. I DO NOT GLORIFY SLAVERY.
That being said, it's a fact that slavery existed and wasn't a very nice institution. But before anyone denigrates me any further, let's look at the facts.
Slavery, like most things, was a matter economics. The South needed a cheap labor force to operate those big plantations and slavery filled that need.
They didn't form an expeditionary force to go to Africa and get them, they bought them from independent contractors. Africans, seeing a chance for profits, did the work for them. Black on Black, very little European or American involvement.
The slaves were sold, and put on ships for transport. Why did the sailors do this? There was a good profit in it. Many seem to forget a lot of the ships were owned by Northerners, who, while being against it on paper, didn't mind the nice profits.
So, while the South gets belittled, they were ultimately only the end users in a long chain of misery.
Slavery has been around since the beginning of time. Moses was a slave. So was Joseph. The serfs of Europe? Defacto slaves. The puritans brought indentured servants to America, think they wanted to come?
And as the North so often proclaimed, they abolished slavery early on. The sweat shops filled with child laborers living in slums were a vast improvement. And the treatment by people like Vanderbilt and Morgan, business magnates of the day, were deplorable.
Even today, the mining towns of the Appalachians are still pretty much under control of the mine owners.
Do we even want to talk about the honorable way we treated our Native Americans?
Slavery is still practiced in some countries even today.
And lest you think it is mostly an European tradition, there are numerous mentions through history of slave raids by Africans. In the middle 1100's for example, African slavers carried off the entire population of a coastal Irish village.
As late as 1965, the Catholic Church carried on its' own version of slavery. Don't believe me? Look up the Galway Laundry scandal. Teen girls forced into servitude because a member of the family reported they had impure thoughts. No other reason.
Slavery was not invented by Southerners, every example I've given is documented and verifiable.
My own personal history? My ancestors came down the Pennsylvania Highway in the early 1800's and settled in what is now Rutherford County, North Carolina. In almost two hundred years, we still haven't spread that far. I live two counties over. My great grandfather was with Lee all the way to just before Appomattox, when he was wounded in battle. In all my history I can't find one member of our family that actually owned a slave. We were mostly dirt poor farmers, my father was actually a sharecropper for a while in the late forties and early fifties.
The upshot of this? Every culture, every country in existence today, had at one time a history of slavery. Don't throw rocks when everybody lives in glass houses.
Thanks for reading, comment if you like.
QHML1
- COMMENTS
Sticky4676about 13 hours agoInteresting. You have made a comment that very few people will admit too. That every single black person sent from Africa was actually sold by a black person in the first place. Good for you. And yes, slavery is disgusting and unsupportable.
Anonymousabout 1 month agoThere is also Gov. Spotswood of Virginia. He conspired with ships' captains to conscript passengers who paid their passage so the king would give him land grants. Spotswood's daughter was the first lady of the Confederacy. Several of my ancestors on my mother's side were sold into servitude. "In every family line there are kings and slaves." Crisler, Carpenter, Blankenburger, Souther and other lines who fled famine and disease. I enjoy your stories, I do not always agree; but, I do enjoy your point of view. Thank you.
Anonymousabout 1 month agoI live one state west of you and I Believe that both sides were fed a crock of shit during the Civil War. The South said the "They are trying to change our way of life". Not they are trying to take away our free labor.
In the North they said "We are fighting to free oppressed people". Not them SOB's can't take keep most of our natural resources and food.
Playswellwithotherswifes4 months agoI agree with you on this subject. On the story that set this off you should have set it in Lawrence County that's where the Dixie Mafia is. I am setting in Limestone Co. Right now.
Wisquejac5 months agoOne of my pet peeves currently is watching America rewrite its history in real-time. It boggles my mind to see history being changed just because bad things happened. Bad things are always happening.
ImNotanAnon5 months agoDon't mind me, just fashioning a tin foil hat for the aptly-named PrincessNutNut.
PrincessNutNut7 months agoSo you're against slavery? Where was your phone and your computer made? If they were made in China, every chance they were made under slavery or quasi slavery.
Clothes and shoes made in an Asian sweatshop? Quasi slavery.
Asian workers who laboured on the World Cup stadia in Qatar, they were all but slaves. Many not paid, unbelievable injury and death rates. Those who did live through it and were paid, were paid a pittance.
Asian workers in the gulf states are all but slaves.
Who is capable of changing this when the world is run by an oligarchy of a few of the 1% of the 1%.
Not an American, so I don't have a dog in either of the both the same party camps, but:
Someone, one of the anonymous, cited anti-abortion law. Honestly, I've thought about this but don't know what side I fall on. My body, my choice, sounded like a compelling argument. Right until I saw how many of this self same group espousing MBMC wanted compulsory vaccinations. This of a vaccine(sic) that turned out not to stop you getting nor transmitting the virus, but did mess an awful lot of the vaccine up. It now seems to need more repeats than Friends or I Love Lucy.
Which wing of the both the same party was behind the KKK?
Another anonymous uses the term misogynistic. Even given the amount of BTB stories on Loving Wives, I'd love to be able to do a word count of all the times derivatives of misogynist are used as against misandrist on Literotica. Yet surely both occur?
Finally, someone's ancestor is castigated for supporting a war to keep slaves. The American Civil War was even less about freeing slaves than WWII was about saving Jews, and the Jews in WWII weren't really a consideration at all.
GeorgeGale8 months agoVery well said, But what you left out is that it is also a part of our history. History, like all things is a learning tool. Some of it is good and some not so good, but we learn from it. It should never be forgotten or swept under the rug and hidden from all to see. We learn from history and make changes to the facts going forward. We learn from our mistakes and make things better for all.
There is still slavery going on today in our country, we just hide and disguise it better today so no one knows and we also pay it a minimum wage in some cases. Think about it, crop harvesting, construction workers, maids service, etc. Yes it is a part of life in every country throughout the world.............():\
Anonymous8 months agoThought provoking piece. Slavery is awful it's abuse and should be deplored. The same as religious intolerance or sex discrimination and all the other intolerances we permit in our society. We as a race have a history of awful behaviour to each other which is still currently going on. We cannot change the past nor the present we can only attempt to change the future. Should we acknowledge the suffering and pain? Of course we should, all of us should. Then examine ourselves and try our best to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do morally and for no other reason. Until we all do that this world is doomed to keep repeating the same awful intolerant bigoted selfish behaviour. One can but hope one day we will find a way to be better, all of us. Thank you for publishing this and making some people think. BardnotBard
Anonymous8 months agoA very prescient essay, some 10 years on! But I would point out one thing about today's Resurrected South. It WAS defined by slavery- aka God ordained human property- in the 19th century. Note today that the rise of the Southern White Protestant "Religious Right" and regional derivatives of them started in the mid-1990s again for a reason. Simple observation provides the answer. All those "Black people" who went North in the 1920s-1940s began a reverse mass migration back to the South about then. What do we see within a short time after, rising again? Klan, reborn Redeemers, and Cracker Pride. Same old folk. Same old ethnic enemy. The author's right that that Old South didn't invent slavery. Indeed most were not even slave owners. But they though it was all God ordained and opposed the question of conscience. The similarity between that 19th century attitude towards slavery and today's abortion debate is a remarkable analog. We can only hope the resulting Butcher's Bill over the defacto 'War Between the States" this time around won't be as terrible this time. The author is right speaking of "Glass Houses" as it were. I know this history, because like the author I had family that lived through it and wrote personal memoirs after. They were Pennsylvania Quakers who became abolitionists, were 'read out' of their meetings, and finally fought with for the Union out of conscience. Now we are old Unitarians. History goes on rhyming it seems.
Anonymous9 months agoMy great great grandmother owned slaves. When the yankes came through she treated the wounded of both sides. One of the slaves sat on the front porch of the house with a rifle to protect the women. After the war, her new husband ran off with one of the former slaves to the Carolinas. This is history, well documented. Every family has its own stories.
