Myths of American Slavery

by Walter Kennedy

  It should be remembered that this description of life for African- Americans is being made by an impartial foreign observer visiting the North. In observing Northern society as it relates to African- Americans, Chevalier noted that although many forms of dejure (legal) discrimination had been eliminated, nevertheless, de facto (actual) discrimination in the North was just as effective in keeping the African-American from exercising privileges normally reserved for white people.

  In Massachusetts and most of New England the blacks are legally citizens, and, as such, have the right of voting; they do not, however, at present exercise this right, either because they are prevented from doing so, or because their names are designedly omitted on the list of tax-payers.... The constitution of Connecticut, formed in 1818, excludes them from this franchise. In New York, real estate of the value of 250 dollars, and the payment of taxes is made the electoral qualification of blacks. [The new constitution of Pennsylvania, formed in 1838, restricts the right of suffrage to the whites, although it was extended to blacks by the old constitution-Trans].] The Western States, in which slavery does not exist, do not admit blacks to vote.22

  The second-class treatment afforded resident African-Americans in the North extended also to officials of predominantly black nations visiting there. Chevalier gives the following account of the treatment of a black foreigner upon his visit to the North.

  A young Haytian, who had received a good education in France; having arrived in New York, he could not get admittance into any hotel, his money was refused at the door of the theatre, he was ordered out of the cabin of a steamboat, and was obliged to quit the country without being able to speak to any body. At Philadelphia, I heard of a man of colour who had acquired wealth, a rare thing among that class, who used sometimes to invite whites to dine with him, and who did not sit at table, but waited upon his guests himself. At the dessert, however, upon their pressing him to be seated with them, he would yield to their urgency. At the end of 1833, in one of the New England States, and I think it was in Massachusetts, a man of color being on board a steamer with his wife, wished to get her admitted into the ladies' cabin; the captain refused her admission. A suit was, therefore, brought against the captain, by the man, who was desirous of having it decided by the courts, whether free people of color, conducting themselves with propriety, could enjoy the same privileges with whites in a State, in which they were recognized as citizens by the law. He gained his cause on the first hearing, but was cast on appeal.23

  To many foreign observers, "Negrophobia" seemed to be the generally held view throughout the North in the nineteenth century. So prominent was this Northern-held view of Africans that it calls into question the vaunted idea of Northerners fighting for freedom and equality. Indeed, the willingness of many white people of the North in opposing the institution of slavery had little, if anything, to do with concern for the freedom and the welfare of Africans. The prime motive in the elimination of slavery in Northern society had much more to do with the benefits that abolition would bring free white workers than with any benefit abolition would bring the slave population.24 In actuality, slavery was abolished in the North to protect the white population from competition with slave labor. Even the elimination of the slave trade was based more on the needs of white citizens than on a desire to assist the unfortunate Africans. For example, the elimination of the importation of slaves into New Jersey was accomplished in order "that white labor may be protected."25 Likewise, Connecticut prohibited the importation of slaves into that state because "the increase of slaves is injurious to the poor."26 As can be seen, pecuniary interests, and not "liberty, equality, fraternity," had more to do with the abolition of slavery in the North. By pointing out the role that self-interest played in the abolition of slavery in the North, the author does not mean to diminish the role that religion and the sense of humanity played in the abolition of slavery. Often in the discussion of slavery in America, Southerners are challenged by those who portray the North as "freedom loving" and "humanitarian"; therefore, the South must be regarded as the antithesis of freedom and humanity. Since no Northern state adopted a system for the abolition of slavery that granted immediate freedom to slaves, each slaveholder's right in the property that he held was protected. Some states, such as New Jersey, maintained slavery by redefining it as "apprenticeship." Thus, as late as 1860 the Federal census listed slaves in New Jersey.27

  Most Northern states adopted a system of emancipation for slaves that allowed the Northern slaveholders to liquidate their slave property without suffering the loss of their assets. For example, the laws for abolition of slavery stated that any slave born in a particular state after a certain date, and after attaining the age of twenty-one years, would be free. Therefore, slaveholders with a pregnant slave could send her out of the state before the birth of her child. The child not being born in the state then could not claim freedom under the act of emancipation. Some slaveholders granted their slaves freedom with the stipulation that they remain under the care and direction of their former master over an extremely long indentureship. Therefore, the former slaveholder granted "freedom" to his slave, yet retained the services of the slave while freeing himself of all the liabilities of owning slaves. Many slaves were kidnapped or otherwise lured away from the North and sold into slavery by unscrupulous Northern slave traders. All in all, the pretentious gift of freedom for the African-American of the North proved to be a highly decorated box with little of substance therein.

  George Fitzhugh, a staunch defender of Southern slavery, even noted the degraded condition occupied by the freed African- Americans of the North. Fitzhugh stated:

  In the United States the situation of the free blacks is becoming worse every day. The silly attempts of the Abolitionists to put them on a footing of equality with whites, has exasperated the laboring whites at the North, and excited odium and suspicion against them at the South. The natural antipathies of race have been fanned into such a degree of excitement, that the free negro is bandied from pillar to postfrom North to South and South to North, till not a ray of hope is left him for a quiet, permanent residence any where, so long as he remains free. Illinois and California will not permit him to enter their dominions-Ohio places him under severe conditions, and is now moving to expel him altogether, and Virginia also proposes to send him back to Africa. Mobs in our Northern cities drive him from his home and hunt him like a wild beast.... The white laborers of the North think the existence of negroes at the North as free, or at the South as slaves, injurious to themselves. They do not like the competition of human beings who have all the physical powers of men, with the wants only of brutes. Free Soilism pretty well represents and embodies this feeling. It is universal at the North, because the hostility to negroes-the wish to get rid of their competition is universal there. It excludes free negroes from California as well as slaves, showing that the Wilmot Proviso is directed against the negro race-not against slavery.28

  Note how Fitzhugh views the actions of the Free Soil movement. These pious Northerners were archenemies of slavery within any territory of the United States. Yet, it was not just slavery that they wanted to keep out of the territories, it was also the African- American. Thus we see the exclusion from California of the African-American as attempted by the Wilmot Proviso. (The reader is directed back to Chapter 2 and the discussion about the Fire- Eaters of Mississippi. It will be remembered that "Old Copperas Breeches" also condemned the exclusion of slaves, Africans, and Southerners from California.)

  The overall condition and health of free African-Americans in the North can be judged by the rate of growth of their population. While most groups in Northern society were expanding, what was the condition of black society? According to Federal census records, in New York the rate of growth in the black population constantly decreased from 1790 until 1830. The African-American population of New York decreased from just over 7.5 percent of the population to just under 2.5 percent from 1790 to 1830.29 The same decline in African-Amer
ican population is seen in every Northern state during this time. According to Edgar f . McManus, author of Black Bondage in the North, two factors account for this decrease: (1) Since free African-Americans were no longer taxable property, they may have been somewhat undercounted; and, (2) The movement of slave property, by legal or illegal means, tended to decrease the African-American population in the North, while increasing it in the South. This tendency was noted by Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville:

  From the time at which a Northern State prohibits the importation of slaves, no slaves were brought from the South to be sold in its [Northern] markets. On the other hand, as the sale of slaves was forbidden in that State, an owner was no longer able to get rid of his slave (who thus became a burdensome possession) otherwise than by transporting him to the South. But when a Northern State declared that the son of the slave should be born free, the slave lost a large portion of his market-value, since his posterity was no longer included in the bargain, and the owner had then a strong interest in transporting him to the South. Thus the same law prevents the slaves of the South from coming to the Northern States, and drives those of the North to the South.

  Thus the abolition of slavery does not set the slave free, but it merely transfers him from one master to another, and from the North to the South.s0

  According to de Tocqueville, the African-Americans of the North had to contend not only with those who would sell them into Southern slavery, but also with a death rate that was higher among them than it was among the white population of the North.

  There is a very great difference between the mortality of the blacks and of the whites in the States in which slavery is abolished; from 1820 to 1830, only one out of forty-two individuals of the white population died in Philadelphia; but one negro out of twenty-one individuals of the black population died in the same space of time. The mortality is by no means so great amongst the negroes who are still slaves.s'

  De Tocqueville describes free African-Americans in the North as leading "a wretched and precarious existence." Notice de Tocqueville's assertion that the death rate for free African- Americans in the North was higher than the death rate for those who remained in slavery in the South. Free Northern African- Americans with a death rate higher than slaves in the South and leading a wretched and precarious existence! Where is the vaunted land of Northern freedom? One is left perplexed. With Northern freedom working such dire results on the lives of AfricanAmericans, is there any wonder that so few Southern slaves and free people of color chose the North as a home rather than remaining in the South?

  The strong sense of racial superiority by white people of the North contributed to an ever-decreasing quality of life for African- Americans in the North. The passage of a law forbidding interracial sexual contact in 1705 by the state of Massachusetts is just one example of this sense of racial superiority in the North. The purpose for passing this law is self-evident. The law stated that it was being passed for "the better preventing of a spurious and mixt The abolition of slavery in the North did little to reduce, and in many ways actually increased, the racial prejudice faced by African-Americans. As many historians have pointed out, whether in the North or South, white people have very seldom changed their society solely for the benefit of African-Americans. Although willing to end slavery, Northerners in the early nineteenth century found it very difficult to change existing societal mores as it related to African-Americans. As long as both slavery and the African- American could be eliminated, the North moved forward with its system of gradual emancipation. That which the North so eagerly took advantage of (gradual emancipation and elimination of the Negro from its society), the South was never allowed to do.

  FREE AND SLAVE AFRICAN AMERICANS IN DIXIE

  Regardless of how long slavery existed in the North or how extensive a role slavery played in the history of the North, it was in the South that African-American slavery really had its greatest impact. Both free people of color and slaves called Dixie home. In many ways, the life of free and slave in the South differed little from life in the North. In both regions of America, slavery existed for the economic benefit of society at large. In both regions, slavery was an acceptable practice as long as it was deemed an economic necessity. In both sections of the country there was a growing desire to see the institution eliminated. Unfortunately for the South, the size of the slave population and the relentless demand for slave labor to prop up the local economy made abolition of slavery more difficult. This unfortunate fact set the stage for America's greatest and saddest struggles. Without a doubt, the one thing that antebellum Americans did agree on was the innate inferiority of the African race.ss This fact in itself made the abolition of slavery more difficult to achieve.

  For the most part, after Reconstruction and until the mid-twentieth century, the institution of slavery in the South was viewed more as a paternalistic system than as a solely oppressive system. That is not to say that during this time the negative aspects of Southern slavery were ignored. Rather, while applauding the abolition of slavery, most Americans acknowledged the difficulty faced by Southern slaveholders as they attempted to end slavery. During this same time, Americas also noted the positive contributions that slavery offered the slave. Since the advent of the modern civil rights revolution around 1950, the commonly held view of Southern slavery has moved from one of benign acceptance to one of malignant hatred. This change in attitude is reminiscent of the movement of the Radical Abolitionists of the early nineteenth century as they denigrated everything Southern, not just Southern slaveholders. The most obvious expression of this neo-radical abolitionist view today is seen in the condemnation of the Confederate flag because of its supposed connection with slavery. (This subject will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.)

  Although the benign view of slavery has fallen into disfavor with modern scholars, at one time this view was held and promoted by some of America's most notable personalities. For example, Woodrow Wilson had this to say about the treatment of slaves in the South:

  Domestic slaves were almost uniformly dealt with indulgently and even affectionately by their masters. Among those masters who had the sensibility and breeding of gentlemen, the dignity and responsibility of ownership were apt to produce a noble and gracious type of manhood, and relationships really patriarchal. "On principle, in habits, and even on grounds of self-interests, the greater part of the slave-owners were humane in the treatment of their slaves,-kind, indulgent, not over-exacting, and sincerely interested in the physical well-being of their dependents,"-is the judgement of an eminently competent northern observer who visited the South in 1844. "Field hands" on the ordinary plantations came constantly under their master's eye, were comfortably quartered, and were kept from overwork both by their own laziness and by the slack discipline to which they were subject. They were often commanded in brutal language, but they were not often compelled to obey by brutal treatment.34

  At the turn of the century, Woodrow Wilson, a future president of the United States, viewed Southern slavery as, more or less, a paternalistic institution-an institution in which the slave was treated not just as an instrument of labor but as a person with needs and feelings. Unfortunately, anyone in today's liberal politically correct society who dares to promote such a view of slavery in the South will be stigmatized as a "defender of slavery."

  It must be reasserted once again that those who hold views different from the existing liberal norm of today, are not ipso facto defenders of slavery. Many slaveholders of the Old South, who were in favor of the abolition of slavery and who at great personal expense to themselves emancipated their own slaves, are condemned as "defenders of slavery" by contemporary liberals. Likewise, today when Southerners demand a fair treatment of the issue of slavery (i.e., acknowledgment of the many good relationships and experiences that took place within the institution of slavery), they are stigmatized as "defenders of slavery" by the liberal establishment. To determine whether there was, indeed, a system of Southern paterna
lism as it related to the system of slavery, let us look at the historical record.

  John Randolph of Roanoke was the earliest and foremost leader of the "Southern Rights" movement. A Southern State's Rights man years before John C. Calhoun embraced the cause, Randolph advocated a conservative, strict constructionist view of government. Randolph often styled himself a lover of liberty and not a lover of democracy; he would say of himself, "I love liberty, I hate equal It should come as no surprise to modern readers that this "hater of equality" was a slaveholder. Yet, this "hater of equality" managed to do what Jefferson, also a slaveholder, who penned the immortal words "all men are created equal," could not do. Randolph, the owner of more that four hundred slaves, freed his slaves, while Jefferson never did so.36 How is it that the archetypical conservative Southern aristocrat became an abolitionist, while the egalitarian Jefferson never managed to do so? First, one must understand that Jefferson's concept of equality is not the commonly held view of that term as understood by this present generation. Also, the economic factors of each man played a role in his ability to emancipate his slaves. Nevertheless, it should be obvious that just because a man (like Randolph) has strong traditional and State's Rights views does not mean that he can not also be an advocate of the abolition of slavery. This is not the view currently held and enforced by the liberal establishment.

  In 1814, much of Randolph's land was ravaged by floods. At that time, his paternalistic feelings toward his slaves were revealed in a letter to a friend:

  With a family of more than two hundred mouths looking up to me for food, I feel an awful charge on my hands. It is easy to rid myself of the burden if I could shut my heart to the cry of humanity and the voice of duty. But in these poor slaves I have found my best and most faithful friends; and I feel that it would he more difficult to abandon them to the cruel fate to which our laws would consign them, than to suffer with them.37