thumbnail of Africans in America; 104; Judgment Day; 
     Interview with William Scarborough, Professor of History, University of
    Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg
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is that how it is well slavery was the central socio economic institution of the old south there's no question about that it pervaded every aspect of southern life as slaves were not only a worker's on cotton plantations but they're also employed an industry by railroads by hotels by canal companies they're even owned by kind of ends in louisiana and in missouri and elsewhere louisville kentucky they whirl hired out least and of course serve on the largest plantations which were the sugar and rice plantations earlier more numerous them than in any other points now you know you also talk about how to close the you know the aspirations that the iranians living as voices of some of the people respond
the south was dominated first of all by the agrarian ideal the idea that i guess best expressed by thomas jefferson early that those who worked with the solo on we're closest to the sort of noble are and then somehow morally superior to those who during their hands and industry no other economic endeavors commerce and so it was very common for younger sons of planners for example who got medical degrees or law or had legal training law training after accumulating a little capital they would purchase land enslaved in themselves become planners of the examples are legion among large planners and merchants people start as martin's lawyers doctors and so on and then became large platters but generally there was an aspiration in the old south to own slaves overseers for example would work ten or fifteen
years as many managers of plantations and then they would buy a little plot of land and water to slaves and move into the farming slave owning class there's a general aspiration owned slaves but more than that white southerners were all placed upon a plane a political equality by virtue of the existence of the institution of slavery they all had the boat there except for south carolina which is unusual in many respects and was highly aristocratic throughout the antebellum period but all of the news southwestern states it came into the union and even the older states that modify their constitutions during the jackson period gave the vote basically to all white males adult while all white adult males and that place them in a position above all blacks both free and slave in the sense that they can controller political
destiny is one more question we didn't do that the hair well a question is about the declaration of independence and the constitution and i want point out first of all the southern slave holders played an import role in the drafting of both of those documents thomas jefferson of course the principal author of the declaration of independence despite the fact that he himself was of the owners some two hundred slaves the constitution also drafted this disproportionately by saunders and supported by southerners with respect to the declaration of independence all americans i think were affected by the
philosophy that surrounded the american role soon the philosophy of freedom and equality the idea the phrase of course the well known phrase in the declaration of independence penned by jefferson that all men are created three unequal though it's doubtful that jefferson had in mind slaves when he penned those words but all americans were affected by that philosophy and there is a year and a year trend against slavery for some time after the american revolution this of course is when the northern states began their emancipation process and in the south there are efforts by individuals to many minutes late between seventeen at an eighteen ten there were thirty thousand slaves about one thousand a year free by act of individual owners it was possible at that time not possible later when the laws were passed making such many missions very difficult way was
possible during that period to everyone's slaves either by will or d i guess the most spectacular example was robert carter the third nominee hall in virginia when seventeen it won initiated a process of freeing some five hundred slaves no more than thirty year i believe it was a gradual process which ended at eight hundred and twelve took about twenty years but that's one of the three large individual many missions in the state of virginia during the antebellum period and that occurred at the most propitious time possible when it was easy to do it however two factors may look at it against the south following the lead of the north indian commencing a general emancipation process the first factor was the numbers are much larger number of slaves in the south sixty six percent of the population of south carolina third of the population of the other southern colonies at the time of the revolution or as a new england the
proportion of slaves was only ten percent of the total population there was a general belief that this huge number of slaves could not be readily assimilated into the general population they made efforts they had in early american colonization society was organized in eighteen seventeen and had broad support in virginia and maryland the idea was to ship freed slaves back to africa but that obviously proved impractical and they continued on during the antebellum period but only setback small numbers the other major factor in in this the south not following the lead of the north was the profitability of cotton after the invention of the cotton gin and seventy nine and ninety three cotton that became the principal agricultural staple a huge amounts of money were made from leo and raising and toleration of cotton and they're so economics triumphed over morality or philosophy at that time as far as the
constitution is concerned their followers believe that the constitution sanctioned slavery again that they were not the only ones that believe that william lloyd garrison here in boston blade in and there's a result he burned it publicly on a number of occasions made him very unpopular but although the word slave and slavery do not appear in the constitution the institution is certainly recognized in three places in men article one section two the three fifths compromise which has to do with the representation in congress how slaves were counted in determining the arabian the number of representatives in each state had in congress also for direct tax purposes article one section nine which had to do with the a foreign slave trade know injunction against that for twenty years an article four section two which is the fugitive slave clause in the basis for the
fugitive slave laws were passed there's the fifth amendment which states that federal government may not deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process of law southerners interpreted that to mean that they could not be enjoyed from taking their slaves into the western territories slaves were property and to deny them that right would be to deny them my property without due process of law so southerners felt that they were the protectors of the constitution and it was the north departing from the constitution on the eve of the set you know when you get to the sexual crisis i mean those southerners like the constitution if you look at the confederate constitution is almost word for word the same as the federal constitution few improvements like line item veto which were just now getting today in nerd in modern war
the us response is david walker's appeal of eighteen twenty nine really marked the kickoff of the radical abolition movement in the north that followed very shortly thereafter of course were by william lloyd garrison and his publication of collaborator in january making thirty one and then there's shortly after that in august of eighteen thirty one we have that video largest slave insurrection in the eyes to the antebellum south the nat turner insurrection in southampton county virginia and the belief was that these various incidents were not unconnected and big it resulted in the reaction of course to walker's appeal which wasn't in an incendiary appeal for slaves to rise up and slay their masters the reaction was very negative going to put but to put it mildly and it led directly in that case walker's appeal led directly to the passage of the
laws in three southern states are prohibiting the teaching of the slaves actually of negroes either black or free or slave from reading her and from being able or you're right the fear was that such publications might get into the hands of slaves and stimulate insurrection or activity that's always a great fear in the old south they they always denied it they they said we sleep here comparably with our doors and one result is let me know when you're ready i david walker's appeal david walker was a north carolina free black who came north and an eighteen twenty nine wrote a very incendiary publication basically calling for the slaves to rise up and slay their masters as had a profound effect on the southern psyche and really marked the kickoff of the radical abolition movement in the north and the southern response to
that movement in the south three states georgia louisiana north carolina as a direct result of the walkers appeal passed legislation making it a crime to teach slaves or in fact lacks free or slave from being able to read and write eventually all southern states except the three other border states have passed similar legislation and the fear was that the publications like walkers appeal would get in the hands of either free or slave blacks and that this would produce insurrection or activity walker's appeal was followed shortly by the nat turner insurrection and by also a week lloyd garrison publication of deliberate or in boston and generating thirty won the turner insurrection in august of thirty one many people sought connection between the two and where the south
will now begin after the early thirties to limit civil liberties in a major way a limiting freedom of press freedom of the speech are trying to work and petitions to congress and so on in the mid thirties a so called gag rule and so on so you have a severe limitation of civil liberty in the south after the early thirties as a result the abolition you are here the southerners always like to brag especially to their northern com patriots that they had no fear at all of their slave population that they slept with their doors and windows open at night and the idea of being a victim of slave of frenzy of any kind was just ludicrous to them and i can understand why nor there's did not understand that but in fact some of the well aware of the possibility of slave insurrection they were well aware of the potential for disaster which had been illustrated in on the island of san domingo in the
seventeen nineties by the successful slave uprising led by to solve or two or they were well aware of that you see references to india private correspondence and so on all the time and therefore what actually insurrection occurred and i just basically white med in fact the edmund ruffin describe the reaction to the nat turner insurrection in regenerating thirty one his community and sanity and that that's an accurate description of the of the of the reaction i mean at the time of that turn or insurrection there were there were there was the belief that slaves as far away as mississippi who were involved in that conspiracy saw him he thinks they did protest too much that is they want to change the model of the white support of the institution and to
support wives who were not civil war a couple about the why aren't those slave holdings was a general aspiration amongst others i think we'll do our economy as well and i think we do not talk about overseers in america we're like that it's busy there were three huge private many missions of slaves in the antebellum south the first was by robert carter of nominee all virginians seventy nine he wanted a time when it was relatively easy to many met one slave but early in the nineteenth century most states including virginia passed laws requiring that those slaves freed
by will or deed be sent out of the state and so on at barry three john randolph a roanoke freed some four hundred slaves in them no because of the state law sent them out of the state the mercer county ohio and there they were not received with open arms and eventually a most of them were obliged to leave mercer county ohio this is not surprising it is there's a general aversion to the presence of blacks in particularly in the midwest though it's a course the slaves would not be sent to new england where that the negative reaction of the population it would not be as great but the midwest if not pro slavery was anti black was racist justice america generally was racist racist at that time a particularly indiana illinois ohio indiana for example about eighteen thirty passed a law requiring air that in order to migrate for a free black or mulatto to migrate indiana
a five hundred dollars bond have to be posted illinois and eighteen forty three year prohibited blacks from testifying as whites in court which was the general practice and in the south as well except for louisiana so there is a big dale of racial animosity in the midwest though the reports for example of the lincoln douglas debates in eighteen fifty eight the news reports if you look at the crowd reaction to certain statements it's very obvious that the populace in illinois as a racist tinge white beans this is a little bit about what's the way has
well after the radical abolition movement picked up full steam in the early thirties there is a severe curtailment of civil liberties in the south with respect the freedom of speech freedom of the press to write a petition very few people publicly will challenge the rectitude the moral rectitude of slavery after the mid thirties there's also a profound change in sentiment with respect to slavery prior dating thirty five approximately the mid thirties prior to the launching a video well although a campaign by theodore white world in the mid thirties a petitions the congress flooding the males with abolitionist literature prior to that the general attitude in the south had been one of apology you know is as jefferson said we gotta walk by the years and we can't let go that they admitted that slavery was
basically morally wrong morally an evil but what can we do about that was their position and the numbers are huge there's money to be made from the raising of cotton so we go and they also believed that slavery was the best condition for blacks i mean this is a very racist society is we all know and their belief was that blacks could not manage their own affairs for themselves and therefore slavery was good for them as well as for everybody else but there is a surveyor surveyed severe curtailment of civil liberties and there that remains in effect until the time of the civil war oil well for example there's no free flow abolitionists literature in the mail there's no rational discussion of slavery no
rational discussion of the evils are merits of slavery as is permitted in eighteen thirty five a mob led by robert why hayman former governor south carolina ransacked the charleston post office and destroyed sacks of the abolitionists literature abolitionist mail sent two correspondents in the south and from that time on and drove from eighteen thirty five until time of the civil war there was an unofficial policy agreed to by postmasters general of the united states from the jackson to that the candidate ministrations to keep anti slavery literature out of the male so you have he obviously had no freedom of space speech aired there were there was mob violence directed against those who attempted to work to a distributor abolitionists literature amos dresser for example a minister in memphis tennessee was whipped by a mob for this this is not to say that there would have been
a great many voices speaking out in and opposition to slavery in the south in other words i don't think the majority of the population regarded these as infringements upon their own particular liberties because they agreed with the general position it is i think there's little doubt that the presence of the institution of slavery in the south and lead to an aversion to menial labor on the part of white people in that region and then there's a general belief that yankees work harder or more ingenious and so on and this is i mean as owners and work hard they certainly did even then well the planners worked hard but not physically not meaningfully this was work reserved for the black population for the slave population by and large in terms of
the material conditions of slave life however we must remember that in the nineteenth century the condition of labor generally was not very elevated i mean this is a century in which sharon and this is the part of the century in which karl marx's writings appeared and he was not addressing a an illusory a problem the condition where was worried that southerners argued that northern workers were wage slaves way receive the pattern sunday i did not have their medical care paid for the mayday we're not taking care of an old age if they got hurt on the job day at this over the consequences and do the best they can themselves whereas in the south the swayze were fed and clothed and howls reasonably well by the standards of the period depending on the master of course i did receive medical care the last thing a slave or wanted to say was rosa slade guy that's a loss a human being
also capital that's the slave owners heaviest investment capital and slaves they receive care in old age they were not turned out when they became too old laborer and there are countless examples of that so it's not the material conditions of this labor literally great inequity of slavery the greatest inequity of slavery is that the nile a freedom to individual human beings to order their own wives and i think there's no question about that and then in addition to that i would say that the two greatest ancillary evils are the middle passage itself which was in an example the voyage of car and also the breakup of slave families which took place more often than one would like to admit even though many slave owners made efforts to avoid that but the bottom line in terms of the integrity of the
slave family was that the economics overruled personal side of that when the two came into conflict oh great well what you're seeing yeah much or which you exactly where that air menial labor it was basically reserved for black people in the old south now there were white attacks and artisans in the towns and cities particularly and they were not enamored of competition from slave labor incidentally and they'll manage to get laws passed for example and georgia michael on eighteen forty five which excluded the black mechanics and artisans from the buildings trees
but though there's a general belief that meal work is reserved for slaves and maybe for irishman they use the irish to dig ditches on southern plantations because it was dangerous work and they had to choose like a beer in on that on those who will work the ditches and i was ok you can replace an irishman go get another irishman which you could replace a slave route except by spending another thousand dollars so the irish were the debt years but i'm trying to think you know i mean one example of how dependent they were upon servants for menial task occur during the civil war when they are servants many of them ran off after after federal troops entered the immediate area or after they were emancipated at the end of the war and they're all kinds of complaints from planner families about the kinds of
work that they have to do that they'd never done before i mean they just couldn't he was just a new world to them in fact one man benjamin earl taylor who is in europe at the end of the war decided not to come back until we could get suitable service he was afraid if he brought the europeans back they would more because they were my men the labor situation we saw one cell in america that anyone come back you wait over there two or three years before it finally came back because he couldn't find a suitable serving what does living do to whites with her native well i don't want to live in some of the southern women felt that slavery was morally degrading to the white men because of the
sexual relations that occurred between white men both slave owners and there are signs though that the youth they were more concerned about the moral impact on the youth and the women mentioned that a good deal on their diaries and journals reading now are just got through reading a diary by a journal by a georgia woman named gertrude thomas and she talks about that as does the eyes as do many others the women are concerned about that i don't know that the men i mean i don't know as this a dissident now in this i don't want your same time you know the lines show new citizens' version of the cost of the repairs they're all part of a relationship
you know i'm not sure which are earlier this week we'll see good work planners viewed themselves as benevolent patriarch with respect to the institution of slavery they felt that they treated their slaves humanely they
fed them well the way it did not require more workman was required of agricultural laborers generally they gave them a generous holidays was not uncommon for example for slaves to receive as much as seven days of christmas in fact i think the average on one louisiana plantation and i dealt with recently was at a half days of christmas i like to say that nobody gets more than that today with schoolteachers and eating and so it's they also had a system of rewards as well as punishments were all familiar with the whipping which was certainly endemic on southern plantations that was the normal form of punishment but they're also systems are awards there was a louisiana planner for example a merchant platter by the name of marshall white who operated a sugar plantation south of new orleans in the records indicate that he's applied there and the slaves there with mosquito nets with the sheets with socks this is highly unusual in it yeah but also rewards of
paid for overtime work on sundays and on holidays and generally tried to balance the punishment with rewards gave gifts at certain times to both male and female slave into the children generally a very benevolent master slaves to slave owners felt that they treated their charges much better than northern factory workers treated the the operatives in the new england textile mills and other manufacturing establishment they believed that slavery was in harmony with christianity and leaders you know that the bible condemns a great many things it condemns murder and condemns the ring and adultery and so on but no word as a condemned slavery explicitly or he can use the wild support any position that you choose to take but there is no explicit injunction and slave owners who many of
whom were devout christians felt that the bible citations slavery i mean their biblical characters was slaves know injunction against slavery won georgia woman gertrude thomas when slaves were emancipated at eighteen sixty five had or christian faith challenge by that very act she says the bible says it's all right and now the slaves are emancipated when a mighty make of the bible god's holy book she said so they believe that it was in harmony with the bottle they believe they were doing good works by introducing africans to christianity and elevate religion they saw the plantation as a school by which they could elevate it less fortunate people to a more civilized and a form of life the only problem with the a plantation as a school thesis is well professor used to say was that there was never a graduation day guy slave owners
and while the pro slavery argument so it was that the plantations served as a school for an educated backward africans and introduced them to a higher civilization to a new religion christianity and so on and there is some truth in that i guess but as my old mentor at the interest in north carolina once said there was a plantation school without a graduation day so that limits its advocacy oh oh well why beginning of indian removal really
either the first or bloating in the effort to remove the unions from the southwest began during the war making twelve when general andrew jackson defeated the powerful create confederation of the bow of horseshoe bend alabama and eighteen fourteen this opened up and much of western georgian all of alabama the white settlement and andrew jackson will be the instrumental individual in indian removal during the eighteen twenties an eighteen thirties georgia began to remove the cree indians in their late twenties during the administration of the john quincy adams earl laura adams was opposed to it but georgia went ahead anyway then they add tackle the cherokee which dave this was a highly civilized tribe that had newspapers banks and solomon adopted the white man's civilization boy george awarded the land and so they began to remove them there were several supreme court decision is rendered against the state of
georgia georgia ignored the decisions and andrew jackson of course is said to remark that john marshall has made his decision let him enforce it so he looked the other way as georgette began removing the cherokee indians in the early teen thirties in mississippi the northern two thirds of the state was occupied by the chickasaw and the choctaw indian tribes the choctaw were removed and eighteen thirty year lease the treaty was signed the treaty of dancing rapid creek and eighteen thirty the chickasaw and eighteen thirty two with the treaty of pot talk creek and so it's the early thirties when most of the state of mississippi is opened up the white settlement and people just poured in there was a bonanza of the day you just the dimensions of which you are simply unimaginable in the early thirties part of the aggravating thirty seven prior to the issuance of the species circular in the panic of thirty seven dog it's hard at the other major
hundreds of thousands of people poured into alabama mississippi after the end of the war of eighteen twelve mississippi entered the union and eighteen seventeen alabaman at nineteen of the state and there's some were people on the right or people of the land in those ways it simply saw a greater economic opportunity they migrated basically a long east west lines from the carolinas and georgia last word today alabama mississippi and there they entered the indian lands which were placed on sale i mean they the amounts of money involved in the in the land speculation were simply enormous probably even eighteen there are thirty five or thirty six so one day correspondent remark that there were five million dollars waiting to be expended on indian lands at one site along columbus mississippi up in wells county in northeast mississippi but they would come in there and they would tip though if they had no capital of
all of the procedure was explained by several correspondents writing during this time period if they had to land the hall and they would peck amen and they would survey the land themselves look around and see what the best spots were and then they would sell out information they would sell out information to wealthy people live wanna go out into the boondocks and then and see where the best land was or people were too lazy the dollar to fall and then with a capital gain several hundred dollars they would enter the day section of land themselves as the land appreciated in value they would sell that maybe make ten times what they paid for it in that matter they became millionaires almost overnight one man guy asquith feel of alabama and ian lee dumas plus area that wrote back to north carolina in the mid thirties and said he was making a thousand dollars a week for land speculation that's an enormous sum of money for for that time so bad today we'd have enormous for the eighteen thirties ri well not well obviously when they purchased
land and cleared the land with the expectation of making cotton they needed labor and so there's a huge migration not only of whites from the east coast to the southwest but also slaves there's controversy among historians as to what proportion of those slaves were brought by migrating masters and what proportion were brought by a professional slave traders but there's no question the numbers increased in mississippi for example the slave population increased a hundred and ninety seven percent in a single decade of the eighteen thirties the white population also increased dramatically during the same time period but but not to the extent of the slave there is some evidence that on about general it says but there's some evidence that planners in the on the east coast in virginia north carolina that area for shipping slaves to the southwest where they could sell them and in the same area or speculating inland make a huge profit in other words sleigh prices were much higher
in the southwest where there was a great demand for them that on the east coast where slavery women were prior plantation agricultural was it was rather depressed and so there are hundreds of thousands of slaves coming to the southwest and there they are either being work by masters who migrated with them or they're being sold one man in vicksburg and eighteen thirty five remarked that there were now hundreds of slaves at every outpost in mississippi every every every it the figure normally check something you can't stop the patients bill just to give you one example of the bonanza atmosphere in the speculation and
landon slaves one correspondent writing from vicksburg in eighteen thirty six said there were hundreds of negroes for sale of every law believes in the state and he also remarkably alert six thousand negroes and then sold in yasmin county alone in a period of about six months so that there's just enormous speculation hundreds of thousands of dollars being made from speculation land and slays course that speculation extends to texas after the texas revolution and you know an eighteen thirty six the same kind of atmosphere will prevail out their old love and never before the civil war does the kind of bonanza atmosphere and develop their the developed in alabama mississippi in the eighteen thirties before the panic why there was a desire to move the indians because the white
people needed land one which the established plantations and i mean there you know there's no concern that the indians were ostensibly given any will amount of land west of the mississippi river but we all know those agreements with are honored more in the breech than in the observance but it's simply a matter of the egg and displacing people who were regarded as basically and so it was that on us so mobile to her distant outposts so that the land to be taken over the lights and develop economically it's just a matter of dollars and cents will racism thrown in chavez says these native americans were so civilized dimensions of what society that case though it's better known as colonel important well as you know as i say you know they're not they're
perceived again just like africans are perceived their perceived as being different and being from an inferior civilization and not really integrated into american society but the bottom line is economics the bottom line is that the white people needed a more wanted this land many of them thought they needed it today i were ready to exploit the land and they wanted to remove those people who were obstacles to this progress this is the progress of the white man last week okay okay okay okay okay will the portion of the us because much of the soil on the eastern seaboard critically and virginia had been under color vision for a long time women course the major cropped beard and tobacco
that soil rail wore out and they're there was much more money to be made by sending slaves to the southwest purchasing land in the southwest and sending slaves there and exploiting the slave labor that aired a great prophet and so many virginia north carolina maryland slave holders follow that procedure while the family's a particular involve was the tale of a family of virginia there are several brothers one lived in washington dc at the art begin house washington incidentally was one of the major assembly points for the shipment of slaves to the southwest franklin arm feel a major slave trading firm had its headquarters in the washington dc area rather ironic that that would be occurring in the nation's capital but to tell us that entered thousands of acres of land in the blackmail of alabama a couple of the brothers went to alabama in the eighties wealthiest remained in virginia and another
brother still on washington dc and just to give you an idea of the kind of activity that was occurring here and this is a letter from mo the brother alabama henry at a low to the brother in washington and they're written eighteen thirty six and he says i wish you may visit the early this spring to make some arrangements about your negroes if they continue high i would advise you to sell them in this country on one and two year's credit bearing a percent interest the present high price of negroes cannot continue all in if you will make me a partner in the sale on reasonable terms i will bring them out this fall from virginia and sell them for you and release you from all your troubles on a creditor negroes would bring hear about a hundred and twenty nine and thirty thousand dollars buried eight percent interest wow that does the bag of fortune here as soon as possible by industry an economy and then returned to read jenny do enjoy myself that's henry taylor reading an eighteen thirty six to his brother in
washington dc now i don't know how many of those slaves were actually soul that way they did ship were slaves from virginia to the taylors did alabama but they acquired more plantations and i think most won't actually own remain on the plantation so i don't know whether he carried out there other countless examples of this migration from the seaboard south of the southwest thomas dead mayeaux well mona migrant the leopard indian eighteen thirty five tobacco farmer in virginia brought two hundred slaves and his large family of sixteen their children to hinds county mississippi and there he became a prominent caught planner and prospered until time it's a war so what was worse is not just part of the citizens of his vision of the future is why the land and that is a part of that will work
part one well yeah that's this republican ideal of being a an independent and self sufficient a landowner yeah they're there you know there are the agrarian ideal is love for the land it you see it mention the southerners will visit new york city and they'll be a bit impressed by you know much that they see there but they long for the role independence of their home and they're anxious to get back but the you know as far as an ideal i think what they want is they want to make money from the exploitation of land enslaved and both are plentiful land is plentiful and therefore you don't see the kind of intensive agricultural practices that you sing in england for example where the
land is is quite limited they don't have to conserve the fertility the soil and so it's very difficult for agricultural reformers to make an impact and only you were this wetland and you move somewhere else slavery makes labor plentiful and so they're they're going to exploit why and and slaves for the purpose of securing for their children i mean there there's almost constant concern about the welfare and the security of their children not only do they want to live well but they want their posterity live well and this is the way to do it he also got plenty away and yet plenty of slaves you got profitable staple crops the demand for cotton is is as high as it ever was early english textile mills are going full blast at tottenham egg and the best cotton available in the world from my cell so that
fuels slavery fuel the industrial revolution we don't always understand that but it really did the first major industry to be industrialized as caulk in textiles both in england and france and also in the northeast and for the united states and that time is coming from the south been produced by slave labor he's been the case became well the election of lincoln came at the end over a twenty five year onslaught increasing in crescendo against the south by outsiders directed
first against slavery then again slave holders that against the south generally in and every bit of correspondence that i have examined there is resentment were their union us were there you know whatever their political position of great resentment against the north because of what they perceive as an unfair attack upon their civilization the collection of like inserting came as no surprise to many people i mean if you look to objective with the lineup in eighteen sixty was fairly clear is that a win what it means though is that you have a sexual president and a person who did not receive a single popular vote in any slave state except virginia who is committed to blocking the expansion of slavery and it is the general belief that he's committed to more than that erroneously as we know we know that like it was not an abolitionist at least not at first but
that was the general you know the black republican president the black republican party that's the phraseology use as to make our sponsor ms burkett newspaper editorials and sort of the time and saw him they had a compromise southerners a compromise and eighteen fifty one the first crisis occurred and at that time they had said you know we're going to compromise this time unknown but this is it were an actor you again if this onslaught against slavery continues well i continued and call mandated in the election of a love of a sexual prized innovating sixty and that was the fact that brought on the civil war there's no doubt about that i mean the civil war southerners don't like to admit today that slavery was the cause of the sidewalk cause of secession which in lenin turned to the civil war white southerners do not like to admit that you go to the sons of confederate veterans
meetings and so on and they talk about states' rights and you know economic differences and all of that but that's nonsense and they may every scintilla of evidence that can be used for me correspondents in the editorials and that's what the issue is slavery and that causes session that does not mean however that confederate soldiers thought they were fighting for an offensive slavery that made a confederate soldier's only one family only one fighter white family and four and then in the us out loans slaves three or so the white families almost life and the bulk of the confederate army is made up of these non slave owners and they're fighting for home and family and country and honor and the same things as soldiers fought for from time immemorial and still fight for not for slavery but that's the cause of the war that's what triggered secession secession triggered the war no doubt about it
whoa the site one of the central issues facing this country today and for some time and we see little progress toward resolution is the whole question of race the division of the country and in the different categories best exemplified i guess by reaction to the oj simpson verdict most recently but it's important because this is one of the central issues facing as the dade understand the origins of the big question in this country it's important to know that african americans were brought over here on in voluntarily that they were subjected to new century's first of all of slavery ed and then subjected to discrimination until really the middle of the twentieth century
and that callers their interpretation of past events whites on the other hand have a different version and we've never been able to reconcile these two opposing versions but they stem from the history of the press during an attempted just tell me going michigan one of the central issues if not the central issue facing america today is this conflict between the two dominant racial groups african americans and in the caucasian americans and this difference is rooted in history and therefore it's very important that that we understand how we got to this point african americans were brought over here and back in the seventeenth
century in voluntarily they did not come voluntarily is both whites did to america they endured several centuries of slavery two centuries of slavery and then were subjected to discrimination only a little bit short of slavery for some time after that until certainly the middle of the twentieth century and that counts i think for that to perceptions that that we have about events in our society i mean it's at its most eloquently illustrated recently by the different perceptions of the oj simpson case and whites and blacks to see that entirely differently and i think it's because we are rooted in different historical backgrounds and so it's very important that we understand where we came from and certainly what the african american experience with than it has been in the united states of america we also need to understand that her lot of the economic the viability of this country the profits
surged came from the exploitation slave labor i mean that's in the early time period in the pre civil war period a seventy five percent of the export trading as states was caught and it was going great britain and france and it was paying for goods being imported in the country didn't just benefit the southern slave owners have benefited the new england merchants and bankers and so on had benefited the country generally the white a portion of the country so it's it's import understand these things so that we can address the issue what is this well i think frankly you
know as the war proceeded and as the situation became we're desperate i think the goal is not so much i mean this sounds ironic but the goal is not so much to preserve slavery is that is a secure independence i mean that the confederate government as you know toward the end of the war finally came to the reluctant decision to arm the slaves in return for their freedom than they were about the carry that out of the way war ended it came too late too little too late but when it came down to slavery or independents they opted for in the and that's because if they became independent and make a deal with the labour problem later you know that if they lose the war slavery is gone so they can know if it's a choice between the two you go for independence and then you can deal with the labor rate probably are now was well the reaction immediately in the aftermath the mania laborers supply was
extremely this combined related if it made him a macy's there was a masonic there was no clear understanding on the part of either blacks or whites about what emancipation monotonous early on the poor blacks they got that for a time that the girl would take care of that they would get land and that they would not have to labor as they had in the past the whites could reduce any crops because a labor was gone there were talking about bringing in chinese bringing him no other immigrant groups so there was a major effort in mississippi for example to bring in the chinese labor chinese cooley they would replace are black so it's a very this organized than an unsettling situation in the immediate aftermath of the war it's also psychologically traumatic for whites were in society has basically been turned upside down i mean they're walking down streets being patrolled by black soldiers they are no longer have servants and pretty soon they're going to be this franchise and walk
through a re enfranchised and i mean it's a world turned upside down and it took a lot of again used to in the immediate the aftermath of the civil war of course after reconstruction things i reverted back more to the way they had been before the war very good
Series
Africans in America
Episode Number
104
Episode
Judgment Day
Raw Footage
Interview with William Scarborough, Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-bc3st7fs56
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Description
Description
William Scarborough is interviewed about slavery as central instituion in the south, antebellum slavery and emancipation process, slavery and the Constitution, David Walker's appeal, Nat Turner insurrection, the South and the abolitionist movement, curtailment of civil liberties, slavery and perceptions of menial labor, Christian belief that the Bible sanctioned slavery, Native American tribes displaced by plantations, expansion of slavery into southwest and sale of slaves for huge profits, election of Abraham Lincoln, secession and the Civil War, legacy of slavery.
Date
1998-00-00
Topics
Women
History
Race and Ethnicity
Subjects
American history, African Americans, civil rights, slavery, abolition, Civil War
Rights
(c) 1998-2017 WGBH Educational Foundation
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:59:28
Embed Code
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Credits
: WGBH Educational Foundation
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: Scarborough_William_04_merged_SALES_ASP_h264.mp4 (unknown)
Duration: 0:59:29
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Citations
Chicago: “Africans in America; 104; Judgment Day; Interview with William Scarborough, Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg ,” 1998-00-00, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-bc3st7fs56.
MLA: “Africans in America; 104; Judgment Day; Interview with William Scarborough, Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg .” 1998-00-00. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-bc3st7fs56>.
APA: Africans in America; 104; Judgment Day; Interview with William Scarborough, Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg . Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-bc3st7fs56