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A View Of Slavery In The South At The Time

Mike

Well-known member
NORTHERN MAN’S OBSERVATION ON SLAVERY…
Nehemiah Adams was a clergy man who was born at Salem Mass on Feb 19, 1806. He graduated from Harvard in 1826 and from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1829. Mr. Adams took an active part in all the theological and ecclesiastical questions of his day. In 1854 he became impressed with the idea that the Northern antagonism to slavery might be diverted into a neutral effort with the South to plan for the good of the African race. His “South Side View of Slavery” published in 1854 was fiercely attacked by the anti-slavery press. Here is a selection on his observation of slavery in New Orleans during his visit there when writing his book:
“No one who has spent a month in New Orleans will deny the fact that the colored population of our city is a happy, well-dressed, and improving race. They are far above the poorer class, or day laborers, of northern towns, in all that tends to comfort and freedom from care. It affords matter of astonishment, and an interesting subject for reflection, to those from the Northern States, to stand on the corners of any of our thoroughfares, of a Sabbath morning or an afternoon, and witness the constant succession of group after group of colored people, arrayed in plain, neat, and elegant attire, consisting often of whole families, from aged grandsire to toddling grandchild; their faces expressive of content and abundance ; their conversation indicative of genuine happiness, as they wend their way to the various places of worship provided in the city for their accommodation. There is no countenance sharpened by want; there is no miserable caricature of humanity, redolent with filth, with rags fluttering in the breeze; there is no infantile visage crushed into the mold of age; but ever varied as our colored population is in features and dress, there is the undoubted proof of enjoyment, of plenty, of kind treatment, and of contentedness.
Travis [><]
Source: “A South-side View of Slavery” by Adams, Nehemiah, 1860
Link to free e-book: https://archive.org/details/southsideviewofsl00adam
 

Brad S

Well-known member
This perspective rings hollow to me. I don't care how comfortable the subjugation, hungry and free is infinantly preferable. All those lofty platitudes aside, isn't a life on welfare another form of comfortable subjugation?

My Dad taught me from an early age, "in order to be free, you must have the freedom to starve to death."
 

Mike

Well-known member
Brad S said:
This perspective rings hollow to me. I don't care how comfortable the subjugation, hungry and free is infinantly preferable. All those lofty platitudes aside, isn't a life on welfare another form of comfortable subjugation?

My Dad taught me from an early age, "in order to be free, you must have the freedom to starve to death."

Read it again. I took it as the slaves in the South's lifestyles were improving greater than the "day laborers" in the North.

You did know that there were more Free Blacks in the South than up North?
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
Mike said:
Brad S said:
This perspective rings hollow to me. I don't care how comfortable the subjugation, hungry and free is infinantly preferable. All those lofty platitudes aside, isn't a life on welfare another form of comfortable subjugation?

My Dad taught me from an early age, "in order to be free, you must have the freedom to starve to death."

Read it again. I took it as the slaves in the South's lifestyles were improving greater than the "day laborers" in the North.

You did know that there were more Free Blacks in the South than up North?
There should have been. A third of the population of the south were slaves. Before the American Revolution, there were very few free blacks in the Southern colonies.[30] The Lower South, except for its cities, did not attract many free blacks. The number of urban free Negroes grew faster than the total free black population, and this growth largely came from a mass migration of rural free Negroes moving to cities, such as Richmond and Petersburg of Virginia, Raleigh and Wilmington of North Carolina, Charleston of South Carolina, and Savannah (and later Atlanta) of Georgia.[31] The South overall developed two distinct groups of free Negroes. Those in the Upper South were more numerous: the 1860 census showed only 144 free Negroes in Arkansas, 773 in Mississippi, and 932 in Florida, while in Maryland there were 83,942; in Virginia, 58,042; in North Carolina, 30,463; and in Louisiana, 18,647.[32] Free blacks in the Lower South were more urban, educated, wealthier, and were generally of mixed race with white fathers, compared to free blacks in the Upper South.[33] Despite these differences, the Southern states passed similar laws to regulate black life, borrowing from one another.[34][32]
Free negroes unwelcome[edit]
The above numbers reflect a deliberate attempt to expel free negroes from the deep South. "Southerners came to believe that the only successful means of removing the threat of free Negroes was to expel them from the southern states or to change their status from free persons to... slaves."[35] Free Negroes were perceived as "an evil of no ordinary magnitude,"[36] undermining the system of slavery. Slaves had to be shown that there was no advantage in being free; thus, free Negroes became victims of the slaveholders' fears. Legislation became more forceful; the free Negro had to accept his new role or leave the state... Some citizens of Leon County, Florida, Florida’s most populous[37] and wealthiest[38] county, which wealth was because Leon County had more slaves than any other county in Florida, who in the 1860 census constituted 73% of its population,[39] petitioned the General Assembly to have all free Negroes removed from the state.[40] In Florida, legislation passed in 1847 required all free Negroes to have a white person as legal guardian;[41] in 1855, an act was passed which prevented free Negroes from entering the state.[42] "In 1861, an act was passed requiring all free Negroes in Florida to register with the judge of probate in whose county they resided. The Negro, when registering, had to give his name, age, color, sex, and occupation, and had to pay one dollar to register.... All Negroes over twelve years of age had to have a guardian approved by the probate judge.... The guardian could be sued for any crime committed by the Negro; the Negro could not be sued. Under the new law, any free Negro or mulatto who did not register with the nearest probate judge was classified as a slave and became the lawful property of any white person who claimed possession."[43]
Migration from South to North[edit]
Even with the presence of significant free black populations in the South, free blacks often migrated to northern states. While they presented some problems, overall free blacks found more opportunities in the North. During the nineteenth century, the number and proportion of population of free blacks in the South shrank as a significant portion of the free black population migrated northward.[44] Some of the more prominent and talented free black figures moved to the North for its opportunities, draining the south of potential free black leaders. Some returned after the Civil War to participate in the Reconstruction era, establishing businesses and being elected to political office.[44] This difference in the distribution of free blacks persisted until the Civil War, at which time about 250,000 free blacks lived in the South.[32]
 
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