Reparations
The Issue of Reparations
by Michael Peirce
In 1861 there were, in the Southern states of America, approximately two
million free black people. An equal or slightly larger number were held as
slaves, who, like the freemen noted previously, had been brought to this
continent originally by unscrupulous and unprincipled slave ship captains.
These Northern traders in 'black gold,' purchased human beings from tribal
chieftains who sold other Africans whom they had themselves enslaved or
captured in the constant tribal wars that characterized life on the 'dark'
continent. Being sold as a slave to a white slave trader was a pretty
gruesome experience but it pales when compared to the alternative: ritual
murder, cannibalism, or a short lifetime of slavery under black masters. By
the date noted above, there were more free blacks in the South than there
were in the North, both in numbers and percentages. It should be emphasized
that free blacks in the South were almost all farmers or tradesmen and had
not been merely shown the door, as it were, but freed into a productive and
useful lifestyle.
Was slavery as an institution inherently evil? The answer must be a
resounding "yes!" So was the Roman empire, which held millions in
bondage.
Yet God used the trade routes maintained by those wicked Romans to spread the
Gospel message of salvation - a message that eventually made its way to the
Americas. And to the slaves brought here, it was a message of hope that they
might never have heard otherwise. All things, truly, work together for good.
Had slavery ended in the South as it surely would have, as a result of plain
old economics, plus the growing revulsion against it by individual
Southerners like Robert E. Lee, the current racial divide would not exist.
Indeed, as the British found new sources for cotton, ironically, in Africa,
the raison d'ętre for slavery in the South would have disappeared. Black
people, freed willingly by those who knew them personally, would been
integrated into a changing economy where their place would have been assured.
Sadly, it did not happen that way.
The year 1861 was a dark year for this country, because the US government, at
the behest of greedy Northern manufacturers, decided to put a crippling
tariff in place that would have virtually bankrupted Southerners, who decided
to exercise their constitutional right to withdraw from the Union. President
Lincoln, a racist who detested blacks, sent his armies against the Southern
states and was defeated repeatedly by highly motivated Southern troops who
were fighting for the very land upon which they stood. Driven to desperation,
the war criminal Lincoln finally resorted to two policies that continue to
haunt this country to this very day: emancipation and total war.
The former policy, it should be very carefully noted, was applied only to the
Southern states; General Grant in fact held slaves until very near the end of
the decade. He of course was a Northerner and thus, not accountable for his
actions. The latter policy, the truly horrific step into the abyss, was the
first time use of total war against civilized people. Southerners, both white
and free black, where to be beaten into submission with a full-scale attack
on what is today called "infrastructure." That means our homes and
farms were looted and torched. Civilians were starved. Free blacks were
conscripted as laborers by the Yankee armies and their property confiscated
as well. They
were, after all, in the words of a Yankee general, just "niggers." The
Yankee
forces made no effort to discriminate between "contrabands," their
term for
former slaves, and free black people. Indeed the first major battle of the
war, called Bull Run by the Yankees, involved bloody combat on a farm owned
by a free black Southerner.
Many Northerners voted against Lincoln in 1864, including over a third of the
combat soldiers, because he had turned the war for the union (as they saw it)
into a war to end slavery. To retain his power the war criminal Lincoln acted
much like his more recent successors, suspending civil rights of all kinds,
including the crucial habeas corpus. Thousands were locked up for
"suspicion" of being in sympathy with the South, and by
extrapolation, of being in sympathy with the United States Constitution. Do
the descendants of those who suffered under the despot deserve reparations?
Napoleon, despite his well known reputation for ruthlessness, threw away his
chance to retain his crown after the so called "Battle of the Nations"
at
Leipzig in 1813. It was suggested to the Emperor that he devastate Saxony,
scorching the very earth to cover his retreat, but he demurred, calling such
a tactic "uncivilized!" Even the First World War, murderous debacle
that it
was, saw no deliberate attacks against civilians on anything approaching the
scale that Lincoln approved against the Southern states. War this horrific
was not seen again until Roosevelt unleashed his "terror bombers"
against
German civilians, and German forces in Poland and Ukraine mimicked Sherman's murderous
"bummers."
So it is obvious that the great grand children of white southerners and black
freemen are most certainly owed reparations by the central government, which
should be collected from those Northern states whose troops participated in
the barbarous and illegal attack on the South.
It would probably be a good idea also to insist that the Naacp and similar
organizations pay reparations to the people of this country, black and white,
who have suffered under the lash of political correctness and racial divide.
The wounds of war, slavery, and reconstruction will never heal while these
opportunists continue to make their living by exploiting racial issues and
finding racism in every word and phrase. They have contributed to the decline
of intelligent discourse in this country, and with that decline goes freedom,
because no one is free who must watch his every word. Since more than half
the population of black males in this country are currently or where at one
time, incarcerated, makes one gasp in disbelief at the antics of groups like
the Naacp, who slavishly support any and all left government policy, yet
claim to be for the "advancement of colored people." Their legacy is
crime
and broken homes.
Those receiving reparations should include the parents of children educated
in government schools. Thanks to the slavish adherence to an incredibly
stupid ideology, taxpayers were robbed of their money at gunpoint by a
despotic government who paid that money to people who are demonstrably
incompetent and whose motives are not merely suspect, but well known to be
anti American. So, yes, reparations are an excellent idea.
Black taxpayers in particular are due reparations - as Walter Williams has
noted, segregated schools once produced a superior product, and regardless of the
moral problems with segregation, the task of a school is to educate, not
indoctrinate. Black children are not only coming out of school as dumb as
their white counterparts, their self esteem is artificially encouraged which
inculcates in them a sense of injustice, as if they are owed something by the
rest of us. So the school teachers and government officials should indeed pay
reparations to those black students. But mark this well, that money must and
should come out of their own pockets; the taxpayers are not responsible for
the farce of education in this country. Had we any freedom left, we would not
tolerate it. All this travesty is perpetrated at gunpoint, by evil extortionists
to whom we, the American people, in our ignorance, believe to be well
intentioned. They are not.
Southern white men are most certainly due reparations by the American
government. Pay up Yankees or forever shut your sniveling mouths about the
"rule of law." The un-constitutional attack perpetrated by Lincoln was
the
vilest crime committed in the history of this nation, and the worst part of
it is that is was committed by Americans against Americans. Yet that modern
despot, Clinton, would have us believe that "self determination" is a
natural
offshoot of democracy, but only of course, in the case of drug smuggling
Islamic terrorists, who happen to live near a projected pipeline.
Finally, no essay on reparations would be complete without a passing glance
at the activities of the few ignorant black extremists who have spoken out in
favor of reparations for the ancestors of black people held as slaves in
former days. This very suggestion speaks of an ignorance, and a hubris, of
monstrous proportions. Black Americans should get down on their knees and
praise a merciful God for that institution that, despite it's wicked nature,
delivered them from them horrors of Africa and exposed them to the saving
Word of Christ. Had they remained in Africa, the choices that life would be
offering them today are many: mutilation in Sierra Leone, genocide in
Ruwanda, AIDS and crime in South Africa, mass shootings in Liberia,
cannibalism in Uganda - the list is endless and horrific.
Like the ancient Jews held in bondage for four hundred years in Egypt, black
people in America have felt the hand of God on their shoulders, making a way
for them where had seemed to be none. Slavery that ultimately delivered the
souls of the slaves to Grace must be considered a light burden and no
apologies are in order. There is the secular aspect as well - American blacks
live in the lap of luxury, and taxpayers have been robbed of three trillion
dollars to create a welfare state that ensures that no one "falls between
the
cracks." That this system has benefited few but the thieving politicians
who
created it, does not negate that fact that many well meaning people have
opened their pocket books and in this country today, there is food, medical
care, and housing for all. The option of life in Africa bears scant resemblance.
Our white ancestors embraced slavery as an institution that had existed since
the dawn of time. To their credit, they had begun to realize that this
institution was by it's very nature evil, and would have ended it peacefully
but for the intervention of greedy Northern politicians. Blacks and whites
should stand together now, and rejoice in the little bit of freedom that
remains, and take back what is rightfully ours, and eschew the lingering
hatreds of the reconstruction era, and make for ourselves a country where
liberty and justice for all is not just a hollow mockery in the mouth of a
treasonous usurper. June
23, 2000
Mr. Peirce fought with the Rhodesian freedom fighters (the Ian Smith side, of
course).
A Letter to Southern Messenger from: Bob
Reparations for slavery? This is nothing new. Blacks have been receiving reparations since 1865. I don't understand all of the squawk about reparations!
The Freedman's Bureau was the first stage of reparations followed by welfare (excuse me, public
assistance), food stamps, affirmative action, and all of the other "I deserve it, now you give it to me because my people have suffered enough" programs. Folks, this country has already experienced all of the reparations it can stand. There just ain't no more to give it we are to remain the constitutional republic(???) that we are supposed to be. We have a segment of our population that has become whiners without which there can be no existence without all of the givaway programs to which they feel that they are
entitled and demand.
Reparations for slavery? Its nothing new. Its been going on for 135 years. Its just that those who are receiving it don't have the sense to realize it.
Hoffman: They Were White and They Were Slaves
White Slave preference/attitudes:
…."The price of African slaves was prohibitively high and the English were
neither familiar with nor committed to black slavery as a basic
institution' (Beckles, White Servitude, p 3) p 80
The traffic in these "goods properly managed will in a few years make us very
genteel fortunes. The sales of the convicts run up amazingly in a little
time." (William Stevenson to James Cheston, Sept 12, 1768 and Dec. 30 1769,
Cheston-Galloway Papers, Maryland Historical Society.
Benjamin Franklin opposed White slavery and supposedly referred to White
convict-slaves shipped to America as "human serpents". (Ekirch, p 153) p 105
A 1679 colonial census of Whites who fled slavery to scratch out an existence
as subsistence and tenant farmers shows that they had to flee to the worst
land where they existed in extreme poverty (as bait for the Indians…jd) ,
forming yeoman peasant communities in the hills p 110
Rich, White plantation owners joined with the negroes in insulting White
slaves and poor White people, referring to them as "poor-white
earthscratching scum," "crackers", "redshanks" , "redlegs" (forerunner of
the "redneck" racial insult current nowadays), "Hill Billys" and "Scotland
Johnnies". p 110
" A loyalist refugee from Georgia wrote in 1783: 'The southern colonies are
overrun with a swarm of men from the western parts of Virginia and North
Carolina, distinguished by the name of Crackers. Many of these people are
descended from the convicts that were transported from Great Britain to
Virginia at different times, and inherit so much profligacy from their
ancestors, that they are the most abandoned set of men on earth, few on them
having the least sense of religion. During the King's Government these
Crackers were very troublesome in the settlements they also occasioned
frequent disputes with the Indians" (Anthony Stokes, A View of the
Constitutions of the British Colonies, quoted in Ekirch, p 193) p 111
In 1717, it was proposed that a qualification for election to the South
Carolina Assembly was to be "the ownership of one white man." (Journals of
the Commons House of Assembly of the Province of South Carolina: 1692-1775,
volume 5,pp.294-295)
" It is enacted that no negro or Indian though baptized and enjoyned their
owne ffreedome shall be capable of any such purchase of Christians [white
slaves]...."......Statutes of the Virginia Assemble, Vo. 2,pp.280-81...[This
statute was passed in 1670 to stop the growing 'problem', brought to a head
especially by the purchasing of white females slaves by blacks and Indians].
In 1654 Henry whistler called the White slaves of Barbados "rubbish, rogues
and whores" (Journal of the West Indian Expedition) p 111
In England they were referred to by Edmund Burke as a "swinish multitude," by
Samuel Johnson as "rabble" and by Sir Josiah Child as "loose,
vagrant .vicious people." p 111
historians have failed to consistently describe White chattel by the
scientifically accurate term for their condition, that of a slave. By
avoiding this description, many academics have perpetuated the propaganda of
the plutocracy which inflicted these horrors upon White humanity. p 112
"Contemporary observers described it (being a servant) as 'white slavery' and
referred to indentured servants as 'White Slaves." (Beckles, p 71) p 112
"Their bodies and souls are used as if hell commenced here and only continued
in the world to come."
(Thomas Montgomery, in a letter to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, on the
suffering of white slaves, August 3, 1688.)
"Indentured servitude .gave ordinary whites of the (American) revolutionary
generation galling experience if a variety of social oppressions" (Roediger,
p 30)
Harriet Beecher Stowe was one of the greatest hypocrites of the 19th century,
a pious fraud whose legacy of malignant hatred for her own kind has infected
many another White man and woman to this day.
During her triumphant 1853 tour of Britain in the wake of the publication of
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe was the guest of the Duchess of Sutherland, a woman
of vast wealth who had an interest in the "betterment of the negro."
The Sutherland wealth was based in part on one of the most criminal
land-grabs in British history. The Sutherlands had seized the ancient
holdings of the traditional clans of Scotland and burned the Highland
'crofters" (farmers) off their lands, resulting in pauperism and in many
cases, outright starvation of Scottish women and children (Henry C. Carey,
The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign, pp 204-209; John Prebble, The
Highland Clearances, pp 288-295). At one point the Sutherlands even hired
armed guards to prevent famine-stricken Scottish Highlander "rabble" from
catching fish in the Sutherland's well-stocked salmon and trout rivers
(Prebble, p 293).
When Harriet Beecher Stowe returned to America she wrote a glowing account
of the Sutherlands in her travel book Sunny Memories, specifically praising
them for their "enlightened land policies" in Scotland, which she described
as, "an almost sublime instance of the benevolent employment of superior
wealth and power in shortening the struggles of advancing civilization"
(Cunliffe, p 18, Prebble, p 292). In response to Stowe's appallling whitewash
of the crimes committed against the Scottish Highlanders, a London newspaper
described Uncle Tom's Cabin as a "downright imposture" and "ranting, canting
nonsense" (Cunliffe, Ibid.) p 123
English White Slave History:
Old English law did have something of a White slave code, based on the
concept of "villeinage" from which we derive the words villain and villainy
with their new perjorative connotations. With the emergence of English Common
Law (1175-1225), the aristocrats drafted the writ of novel disseisin to
establish a category of juridical unfreedom known as villein tenure which
could defeat any English peasant's claim to land, no matter how long his
family had held it. Later the Bracton code ( from his treatise, De Legibus et
Consuetudinunibus Angliae...Sir Henry de Bracton) equated the English villein
with the Roman servus or slave, thus denying him all basic rights p 118
Villeinage was considered a hereditary condition: "Neither of Duke, earl or
lord by ancestry but of villain (vylayne) people" (Bradshaw, ST Werburge,
1513). "Thou art of vylayn blood on thy father's side" (Caxton, 1483).
In Britain and Europe under the laws of villeinage, survivors and descendants
of White slavery were susceptable to discrimination before the law and even
reenslavement. p 121
This stigma was based not only in law but in racial terms: "…the culture of
(medieval) slaveholders created an image of (White) slaves that set them
apart, their whole moral character tainted by the fact of enslavement if not
by slave ancestry." (Karras, pp 15-16) p 121
This taint, which the ruling class cleverly asserted was the result of some
hereditary defect among White slaves, has been applied to many nations of
White peoples form the Slavs to the Irish, Welsh and Scottish..p 121
The creation of an exculpatory nomenclature rigged to justify the
depredations of the ruling class against the White poor by establishing an
intrinsic relationship between being poor and being evil, is a masterstroke
of propaganda. It leads to the internalization of these negative images in
the minds of the White poor themselves. p 121
The auction block:
Another observer watching the auction of a hundred White slaves in
Williamsburg, Virginia, "I never seen such passels of poor wretches in my
life. Some almost naked " (Ekirch, pp100 and 122)...p 80
White Salve Revolts:
Individual acts of rebellion by White slaves were constant and many
slavemasters were killed. "…unrest among the servants was more or less
chronic." (Bridenbaugh, p 108)
"During the third quarter of the seventeenth century, impoverished white
laborers had kept the (Virginia) province on the brink of civil war."
(Ekirch, p 133)…p 101..In the Caribbean colonies White slaves revolted by
burning the sugar cane of the of the slave masters "to the utter ruin and
undoing of their Masters."
In 1676 Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising in Virginia. A small army of former
White slaves and fugitive White slaves joined with the 30 year old Indian
fighter Bacon against the House of Burgesses and the Governor, sparked by
anger at their own penurious condition after having been cheated by the Royal
out of the "head" acreage they were promised and enraged by the Royal
government's apathy in the face of murderous Indian raids. Bacon's rebels
burned down the city of Jamestown, plundered the plantations and expelled
Berkeley. The last of them were captured or killed by January of 1677….. p 101
"Governor Berkeley despaired of ever subduing a White underclass of 'people
where six parts in seven are poor, indebted, discontented and armed."
(Ekirch, p 134) ….p 102
Other White slave rebellions included the risings of 1634 which took 800
troops to put down, and 1647 in which 18 leaders of the White revolt were
tortured and hung. P 102
The rulers of Barbados passed a proclamation in 1649, "an act for an Annual
Day of Thanksgiving for our deliverance from the last insurrection of
servants." Richard Ligon was an eye witness to this White slave plot on
Barbados.. p 102
And in Virginia: "After mid century the number of runaway (White) servants
increased steadily, and in 1661 and 1663, servants in two separate (Virginia)
counties took up arms and demanded freedom...(Levine, p 56...p 102
More White slave "plots" and revolts occurred in 1686 and 1692 including a
rebellion by the "Independents" an insurgent group of White Protestant slaves
and freedmen who revolted against Maryland's Catholic theocracy p 102
Forty Irish slaves in 1735 ran a vessel aground off Nova Scotia and executed
the entire ship's companyp 102
In 1751 English slaves from Liverpool shot the ship's captain, drove a spike
through the jaw of one of the crew, locked up the remainder and fled the
vessel for the north Carolina coast(Ekirch, p 109) p 103
Around 1720 a teenager, James Dalton, who had seen his father hanged at the
Tyburn gallows, was seized,
sentenced to enslavement in the colonies and placed aboard the ship Honor,
bound for Virginia. During a storm he and fifteen other White slaves
successfully battled the captain and crew, winning control of the ship and
escaping to the Spanish coast.
In 1721 white slaves were arrested while attempting to seize an arsenal at
Annapolis, Maryland, the arms to be used in an uprising against the
Planters..p 103
In Florida in 1768 White slaves revolted at the Turnbull plantation in New
Smyrna. The government needed two ships full of troops and cannon to put down
the revolt. p 103
The true story continues. Read and weep. Jim
A White field slave, Jeremiah Swift, when ordered by his master's son to hoe
another 1000 tobacco hills before night, bashed his head in with his hoe.
Grabbing an axe and a knife we went to the master John Hartley's house,
killing one of his daughters and stabbing another. (Pennsylvania Gazette, May
9, May 16, June 27, 1751) p 104
Another White slave, worked half to death, grabbed an axe, confronted the
master's wife in her kitchen, and while laying his hand on her chopping
block, whacked it off and threw it at her with the admonition, "Now see me
work if you can!" (Maryland Gazette, April 17, May 1, 1751) p 104
"Irish servant class hero Cornelius Bryan was imprisoned for mutiny on
countless occasions and regularly whipped by the hangman for assembling
servants and publicly making anti-planter remarks" (Beckles, "Rebels and
Reactionaries," p 18) p 104
The aristocratic planters had felt the necessity to "arm part of their
blackmen" to assist in suppressing White slave revolts. (Beckles, ibid. p
17) p 104
Armed Black militias patrolled the Carolinas from the end of the 17th century
to a least 1710 when Thomas Nairne reported that Blacks continued to be
members of British colonial militias organized by local governments p 104
In Maryland in 1715, a reward was offered to American Indians who were
recruited as bounty hunters to capture runaway Whites and return them to
their masters, "For the better discovery of and encouragement of our neighbor
Indians to seize, apprehend or take up any runaway servants." It was decreed
that for every fugitive White laborer the Indians caught and brought "before
a magistrate, they shall, for a reward, have a match-coat paid him or them,
or the value thereof (Maxy's Laws of Maryland, vol one, p. 111)p 104
But throughout the 17th and much of the 18th century, the tobacco, sugar and
cotton colonies maintained a sizable White slave population. Negro slaves
simply cost too much to import and purchase. Whites were cheaper and more
expendable-until they began to fight."planters, especially in the South,
eventually elected to replace the restive white servants with the more
identifiable and presumably less criminal black slaves." ( Van der Zee p
266) p 105
Child Slaves:
Political/Penal Prisoners:
Ship Captains involved in the White slave trade obtained White slaves with
penal status either free of charge or were subsidized to take them, and for
all other categories of White slaves, they paid at most a small sum to an
agent to procure them, forfeiting only the cost of their keep on board ship
if they died.
"There were thirty-four identifiable London firms involved in the trade to
Maryland form 1746 to 1775â." (Ekirch .pp73-74)
"convicts provided the colonies with cannon fodder against the Spanish, the
French, and the Indians."
(Ekirch, p 153) p 105
Benjamin Franklin opposed White slavery and supposedly referred to White
convict-slaves shipped to America as "human serpents". (Ekirch, p 153) p 105
"Surviving court records show that in areas (of colonial America) where
convicts were imported in large numbers they committed very few
offenses…crime never became a major social problem before the Revolution."
(Ekirch, pp 4 and 186) p 105
"Overall most of the convicts were not the 'atrocious villains' so often
spoken of" (Shaw, p 164) p 105
When attempts were made to abolish White slavery….the measures were generally
voted down, as when in 1748 Virginia's Burgesses upheld the Act of 1705-which
legitimized White slavery under a veil of legal phraseology p 105
White convict-labor was used for the very harshest and life-threatening jobs
others would not do-such as fighting the Indians and French in Arctic
conditions with few-if any-firearms p 106
"…the robber Robert Welch pleaded to be hanged rather than given a
transportation…he 'had rather die that live under bondage' Thief Mary
Stanford .pleaded to be hanged rather than be transported p 126
"transportation represented a curse that large numbers of men and women
feverishly sought to avoid .requesting other punishments, like volunteering
their bodies for medical experimentation. In 1721, six prisoners volunteered
to undergo a smallpox experiment Similarly, ten years later, Charles Ray, a
prisoner in Newgate, offered to let doctors remove his ear drum rather than
be transported Another Englishman permitted one of his arms to be amputated
'to test styptic medicines discovered by Mr. Thomas Price" (Ekirch, pp
62-63; Shaw p 34) p 127
Transportation Conditions/Death rates
White slave ships were cargo ships with no special provisions for
passengers p 81
Ships carrying White slaves to America often lost half their slaves to
death ..p 77
Salinger reports a death rate of ten to twenty percent over the entire 18th
century for Black slaves on board ships enroute to America compared to a
death rate of 25% for White slaves ( Salinger, p 92) p77
An average cargo was three hundred, but the shipmaster, for greater profit,
would sometimes crowd as many as six hundred into a small vessel. The
mortality under such circumstances was tremendous, sometimes more than
half Mittleberger (an eye witness) says he saw thirty-two children thrown
into the ocean during one voyage. (Jernegan, pp 50-51)
A study of the middle passage of White slaves was included in a Parliamentary
Petition of 1659. It reported that White Slaves were locked below deck for
two weeks while the slave ship was still in port. Once under way, they were
"all the way locked up under decks….among the horses". They were chained form
their legs to their necks.
A witness who saw a White slave aboard a ship owned by the slaver John
Stewart, reported: " All the states of horror I ever had an idea of are much
short of what I saw this man in; chained to a board in a hole not above
sixteen feet long, more than 50 with him; a collar and padlock about his
neck, and chained to five of the most dreadful creatures I ever looked on."
p 79
Out of 350 White slaves on a ship bound for the colonies in 1638 only 80
arrived alive. "We have thrown over board two and three a day for many dayes
together" wrote Thomas Rous, a survivor of the trip p 80
A ship carrying White slaves in 1685, the Betty of London, left England with
100 White slaves and srrived in the colonies with 49 left p 80
Captains of slave ships became infamous for providing sufficient for only the
first half of the trip and then virtually starving their White captives until
they arrived in America. Those that had been pre-sold that died on the second
half of the trip were the loss of the buyer p 81
"Jammed into filthy holds, manacled, starved and abused, they suffered and
died in during the crossings in gross numbers. Thousands were children under
12, snatched off the streets…." (Kendall…p 1) p 81
Due to the high disease rate of arriving White slaves, a ship board
quarantine was added to the horrors of the ten to twelve week trip (Salinger,
p89) p 82
In 1750 an island was established for their quarantine, Fisher Island, at the
mouth of the Schuylkill River In 1764 a clergyman, Pastor Helmuth, visited
Fisher Island and described it as "a land of the living dead, a vault full of
living corpses." .p 82
Work conditions:
" Before 1650, however, the greater victims of man's inhumanity were the mass
of white Christian servants who suffered at the hands of callous, white
Christian masters. For the time being, with all of their troubles, the blacks
had it better." (Bridenbaugh, p 120) p 82
"Sold to a master in Merion, near Philadelphia, David Evans was put to work
'hewing and uprooting trees'---land clearing, the most arduous of colonial
labor, work that was spared black slaves because they were too valualbe."
(Van der Zee, p 138) p 82
"Honored Father,
...O Dear Father....I am sure you'll pity your distressed daughter. What we
unfortunate English people suffer here is beyond the probability of England to
concieve.
Let it suffice that I am one of the unhappy number toiling day and night,
and very often the horses druggery, with only the comfort of hearing me
called. 'You bitch, you did not do half enough.'
Then I am tied up and whipped to that degree that you'd not serve an
animal. I have scarce any thing but Indian corn and salt to eat and that even
begrudged. Nay, many negroes are better used....
.....after slaving after Master's pleasure, what rest we can get is to
wrap ourselves up in a blanket and lay upon the ground. This is the deplorable
condition your poor Betty endures...." ...from a letter by White slave
Elizabeth Sprigs in Maryland to her father John Sprigs in London, England,
September 22, 1756. (Public record Office,
London England, High Court of Admiralty).
White Slaves...the Mother Load...Part III
Relations with blacks:
Runaway laws, captures, punishments:
…the punishment for a runaway Whites was to be 'branded in the cheek with the
letter R.' They also had one or both ears cut off. ……Statues of Virginia,
Vol 13, William Henning , p 92
1640the General Court of Virginia….two White slaves…..attempting to run
out of the country..be whipped, branded and required to serve the colony an
additional seven years in leg irons. p 92
Sept. 20, 1776 the Continental Congress authorized the whipping of unruly
enlisted men with up to one hundred lashes. There were cases of 250 lashes. P
93
Herman Melville, in White Jacket or The World in a man of War, witnesses more
floggings than had taken place on a plantation of five hundred slaves in ten
years. In fourteen months he witnessed 163 floggings p 93
Flogging through the fleet p 94
The beating and whipping of White slaves resulted in so many being beaten to
death that in 1662 the Virginia Assembly passed a law prohibiting the private
burial of White slaves because such burial helped conceal their murders and
encouraged further atrocities against other White slaves p 106
One White slaves owner "made him sick and languishing as he was, dig his own
grave, in which he was laid a few days afterwards, the others being too busy
to dig it, having their hands full attending to the tobacco." (Jaspar
Dankaerts and Peter Sluyter, Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour of
Several American Colonies, 1679-1680). p 107
In New England, Nicolas Weekes and his wife deliberately cut off the toes of
their White slave who subsequently died p 107
Marmaduke Pierce in Massachusetts severely beat a White slave boy with a rod
and finally beat him to death.. p 107
In 1655 in the Plymouth a master named Mr. Latham, starved his 14 year old
White slave boy, beat him and left him to die outdoors in sub-zero
temperatures...p 107
Colonial records are full of the deaths by beating, starvation and exposure
of White slaves in addition to tragic accounts of suicides of those seeking
the final refuge from their harsh treatment (American Weekly Mercury, Sept.
2-9, 1731) p 107
Henry Smith beat to death an elderly White slave and raped two of his female
White slaves in Virginia p 107
John Dandy beat to death his White slave boy whose black and blue body was
found floating down a creek in Maryland p 107
Pope Alvey beat is White slave girl Alice Sanford to death in 1663. She was
reported to have been "beaten to a jelley." p 107
Joseph Fincher beat his White slave Jeffery Haggman to death in 1664. p 107
John Grammer ordered his plantation overseer to beat his White slave 100
times with a cat-o'-nine-tails. (he died) p 107
There are thousands of cases in the colonial archives of inhuman
mistreatment, cruelty, beatings and the entire litany of Uncle Tom's Cabin
horrors administered to hapless White slaves. p 107
In The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes describes the fate of White slaves as one
of "prolonged and hideous torture."."another half pound mate, off the
beggar's ribs"..the overseer's face and clothes were described as having the
appearance of "a mincemeat chopper, being covered in flesh from the victim's
body." (Hughes, p 115) p 108
In colonial America, in one case, the sole punishment for the murder of a
White slave (explained as an accident) consisted of the master and is wife
being forbidden form owning any White slaves for a period of three years. p
108
On the finding that the beating to death by Mistress Ward of her White slave
girl was "unreasonable and unchristianlike," she was fined 300 pounds of
tobacco. p 108
In 1678 Charles Grimlin, a wealthy American colonial planter, was found
guilty of murdering a female White slave he owned, was pardoned and set free.
In the same year a woman "of low origins", who had killed her husband, a man
of some wealth, was sentenced by the same judge to be 'burned alive according
to the law." p 108
In thousands of cases of homicide against poor White slaves there were no
trials at all-murdered White slaves were hurriedly buried so that
decomposition would hide the crime. Others just "disappeared" or died from
"accidents" or committed "suicide". For acquittals of masters in Virginia or
instances of failure to prosecute them for the murder of White slaves, see
Virginia General Court Minutes, VMH, XIX, 388). p 109
For information on Blacks allowed to accuse White slavemasters in court and
who were freed from slavery as a result of hearings before White judges, see
the minutes of Council of March 10, 1654 in the Lucas manuscripts, reel 1, f.
92, Bridgetown Public Library, Barbados). p 109
In Westmoreland County, Virginia in 1724 a White slave received twenty
lashes for having complained of mistreatment. In 1738 another Westmoreland
White slave, George Smith, was whipped Twenty-nine times for making a
complaint. p 109
(White) servants were tortured for confessions (fire was inserted between
their fingers and knotted ropes were put about their
necks) (Beckles 'Rebels and Reactionaries', p 14, p 95)
Yet even as late as the mid-18th century, of 1724 wanted notices for
fugitives from servitude, "the great majority" were White "indentured
servants" (Jonathan Prude, "Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers
in America. 1750-1800," The Journal of American History, June 1991, p 138, p95
All white workers and the poor in colonial America were regarded as
suspect---guilty of being fugitive slaves unless they could "give an
intelligent account of themselves" or show their certificate; a very
convenient arrangement for enslaving free White men and women in America by
claiming they were fugitive White slaves.
In the British West Indies torture of White slaves was routine. Masters hung
their White slaves up by their hands and set them on fire….. To end this
barbarity, Colonel William Brayne wrote to English authorities in 1656 urging
the importation of negro slaves on the grounds that, "as the planters would
have to pay much for them and would have an interest in preserving their
lives, which was wanting in the case of (Whites)…" many of whom are killed by
overwork and cruel treatment p 83
In Virginina in 1699 persons who successfully hunted a White slave receive
1000 pounds of tobacco, paid for by the future labor that would be extracted
from the White slave. P 96
Physical descriptions of runaway white slaves often included the mention of
fresh whipping marks on their backs, iron collar scars, ugly burns, .Thomas
Burns was 'remarkably cut on the buttocks by a flogging' from his master,
whereas Sarah Davis's shipping had left 'many scars on her back" (Ekirch,
pp. 157-159) p97
The Articles of New England Confederation provided for the extradition of all
runaway White slaves.
Between Feb 12, 1732 and Dec. 20, 1735, the South Carolina Gazette carried
110 wanted notices for fugitive Black slaves and forty one for fugitive White
slaves. P 98
The US Constitution upheld the colonial fugitive White slave laws in its
Article IV, section 2: 'No person held to service or labor in one state,
under the Laws thereof escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any
Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from the Service or Labor, but shall
be delivered up on a claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be
due." P 98
It was not until 1821 that the first legal blow to the system of White
bondage occurred when an Indiana Court began to enforce the Ordinance of 1787
prohibiting White slavery, which held all White slavery null, void and
unenforceable. The 13th amendment was the final blow to white slavery. P 98
The Indenture Racket:
An apprentice would be induced to borrow money under terms that he could not
possibly meet, thereby guaranteeing his or her violation and earning an
extension of their servitude that could transform their indenture into
lifetime of slavery.
Those that signed indentures for land grants could forfeit them at the
slightest pretext of his owner for even 'planning to run away (the owners
affidavit would due for a conviction) or even for 'indolence'. By paying the
six pound price of a White slave's transportation, the owner secured
a "headright" to the land.
An additional fee to a spirit gang for kidnapping these slaves. Those White
slaves that died in bondage or served additional time for ''violations'
provided a land conveyor belt to their owners' estates.
Those that managed to survive their 30 or 40 years as chattel, could the be
swindled out of the freedom dues acreage and left to live as landless
peasants despite decades of hard labor. Those that actually got land had no
tools or the means to work it. A small loan with an assured default was all
that was needed to take it from them.
In Barbados, since their was no land left that was affordable as freedom
dues, it became the custom to give 300 pounds of sugar, worth less than two
pounds sterling ($4), a pittance for years of hard labor (Eric Williams
pp102-103) p 84
Some had their health so ruined that no one would hire them and they just
signed new contracts out of desparation on whatever terms their masters
wanted (Ekirch pp 179- 183) p 85
Of 5000 of 'indentured servants' who entered the colony of Maryland between
1670 and 1680, fewer than 1300 proved their headrights to their 50 acre
freedom dues. More than 1400 died from overwork, chronic malnourishment and
disease. The other were defrauded.
A Virginia law of 1619 provided that 'if a servant willfully neglect his
master's commands he shall suffer bodily punishment." When Wyatt became
Governor in 1621, he was ordered to see that these punishment included
bondage over to the colony itself after the original service was completed.
In colonial America, White people could be enslaved for such an offense as
missing church services more than three times or for the "prevention of an
idle course of life".
Seven years additional time was the standard punishment (after a severe
whipping) for running away often in irons. All costs of recapture were added
on, also. Of course these were abused and inflated.
For just being absent from the plantation at any time, a White slave would
get an additional year for every two hours he was away. ( Beckles, White
Servitude, p 84) p 88
Taking some extra food from the master's larder added an extra two years for
each offense.
Young White female slaves were denied the right to marry, a device that
assured a steady supply of violators whose pregnancy would add an extra two
and a half years to her time. The man got at least four years and even up to
seven.
A Virginia law of 1672 recognized that masters who had lengthened the
enslavement of their White female slaves by making them pregnant by the
slavemaster himself. No punishment was given to the master for such acts
however. p 89
The enslavement of the White offspring of these unions followed the ancient
Roman slave code "Partus sequitor ventrem" ( the condition of the child
follows the condition of the mother). Girls were originally bound over for 31
years, later reduced to 18 when the Virginia Assembly in 1765 decided that 31
years was to severe. Boys got 18 years. Of course if these girls became
pregnant, they were trapped all over again.