Slavery – Popular Politics in Early America

November 19, 2013

Shaping History

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

I found Frederick Douglass’s idea that the postwar era may be defined and controlled by whichever side could best shape interpretations of the war to be very compelling. He understood that it is almost more important to control how the story is told than the story itself. Douglass’s argument that the people could not lose memory of the real issues and purposes of the fight rings true when thinking about many other historical situations.

Christopher Columbus is usually portrayed as the explorer who heroically though the Earth was round and discovered America. After doing more research into Columbus and his expeditions though, one finds that he had many flaws (such as the ruthless way he treated the Natives that he encountered once in America). This example goes well with Frederick Douglass’s point because the narrative of the war could very easily have been shifted if the South were allowed to tell the story by alone (like one of my roommate’s insistence on calling it “the war of Northern aggression”).

Douglass’s understanding of the idea that, “people and nations are shaped and defined by history,” is very advanced. I only know of a few men in history that have been as aware of this idea (Thomas Jefferson comes to mind because of his prolific writing and record keeping). Furthermore, I think that Douglass took it upon himself to make sure history remembered him so that he could tell the tale of slavery and freedom from the perspective of his people. Last semester, I read one of his autobiographies in an American History class; so obviously his ideas have been passed down just like he was hoping for.

I think that it is crucial when talking about Douglass and his opinions to keep them in context. This was, obviously, a time before Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Douglass, a former slave, was in the unique position to really talk to all African-Americans through his speeches and testimonies. Douglass understood that what he said was going to be read about by the rest of the country because of the man he had become. With this power, Douglass took it upon himself to continue the crusade for his people. He felt the best way to do this was to make sure that the Civil War was remembered for its causes and results. Anthony John Pignone (Olney, Maryland) makes a different argument. He contends that Douglass’s view on the war may be skewed because he did not fight in the war. While I think this is a valid concern, I believe that Frederick Douglass was not trying to discount the perils and bravery of the actual fighting, he was merely trying to protect the legacy of emancipation and the future of his people. I understand what AJ is saying, but I think that Douglass was more focused on how future generations would remember the war than the war experience itself.

November 17, 2013

An Outsider's Memory

Much of David W. Blight’s work, “For Something beyond the Battlefield”: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War, discusses Douglass’ pledge to “never forget” and his effort to forge memory into action. Blight details Douglass’ five sources for his meaning behind the Civil War: “his belief that the war had been an ideological struggle and not merely the test of a generation’s loyalty and valor; his sense of refurbished nationalism made possible by emancipation, Union victory, and Radical Reconstruction; his confrontation with the resurgent racism and Lost Cause mythology of the postwar period; his critique of America’s peculiar dilemma of historical amnesia, and his personal psychological stake in preserving an Afro-American and abolitionist memory of the war.” Having done some reading on the Civil War and Frederick Douglass previously, I think Blight does a nice job outlining much of Douglass’ arguments and personal stances on the post-war memory, as well as, the difference in opinions by those who do not side with the abolitionist and teleological memory of the war. Furthermore, one thing that caught my eye and I believe established Blight’s work as credible and thorough was the amount of sources he used throughout the argument. He drew upon many different speeches and quotations from Douglass and sprinkled them well in his work. Along with detailing Douglass’ five sources and an overview of his memory of the war, he did a nice job supplementing that with important opinions of others during that period and historically famous arguments that agreed and also went against Douglass’ perspective of the Civil War. Overall, I thought this was good work and gave us some real good first hand opinions of the nineteenth century’s most prominent Afro-American intellectual and others who had an influence on post-war ideals.

With that being said, however, I want to focus on a point that Blight just barely mentioned but stopped me from reading and made me think about a little bit. This challenge to Douglass’ meaning of memory is interesting and probably raises some intriguing questions about those in this time period who had substantial influence and power but had no stake in the actual fighting that was occurring. Blight explains how Douglass’ action was more of an inner struggle than a physical test claiming, “Perhaps his remoteness from the carnage enabled him to sustain an ideological conception of the war throughout his life.” A sentence that was masked but much of the bulk of this work was the claim that stuck out most in my eyes. I believe he is right, what if Douglass’ opinion is mainly shaped from an outsiders perspective? Would his argument be more credible or influential if he fought in the war and actually experienced the memory he is trying to preserve? Would his memory of the Civil War be different if he served behind the lines? I think these all are valid questions as we consider Douglass’ memory as somewhat of an outsider’s viewpoint. As Holmes states, “the true hero—the deepest memory—of the Civil War was the soldier on either side, thoughtless of ideology, which faced the ‘experience of battle…” I think this is an interesting point and certainly deserves some attention regardless of personal stance.

I think it is important to remember those that were transformed by personal experience during the Civil War. As an intellectual, Douglass’ viewpoint cannot comprehend the soldier’s war experience and how those men remember the war. It is a question for thought as Douglass’ memory could be argued to be a “quest to save the freedom of his people and the meaning of his own life.” Like some of us mentioned in our posts last week (Mike and others), the feminist movement and Douglass’ argument can be seen similarly as sometimes they did not reach to a wider audience at the time and their voice wasn’t heard as much due to their relatively narrow views and opinions (ex. Success of the WCTU).

November 7, 2013

Now Wait Just a Minute

Richard Jensen’s work “No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization” has me questioning my entire understanding of the struggle “my people” (three of four of my grandparents are immigrants from Ireland) went through in the U.S. Growing up all I heard about was the lack of the opportunities my grandparents had growing up and how WASP America had kept their relatives down for years (relatives in this case being aunts and uncles of my grandparents). Jensen’s work though brings to light thought about an issue I never once questioned. As Eli said in his work everything that I had been told growing up was “plausible” due to where the stories I was hearing came from as well as the number of people saying the same exact story. But now I simply have to change my understanding of the “struggle” my ancestors went through. To that I am going to have to steal the words of College Gameday Analyst Lee Corso “NOT SO FAST SWEETHEART!”

I get that some of the prejudices that the Irish claim they went through were fabricated but life was by no means a walk in the park for these individuals. Irish citizens in the United States I would argue were the slaves of the North due to the type of work that they performed. Their desire for work in whatever capacity possible made them open to anything (and I mean anything) and because of that the argument can be made that the Irish are to blame for their role in society (something that can be seen by many Irish society members to remain with their “kind”). However, just because one is willing to work at the lowest possible level does not mean that they have no dignity or sense of pride. The Irish were exploited for the willingness to work, plain and simple. I don’t think that Jensen gives the Irish enough credit in the fact that they may have recognized their role in society. I believe that the Irish community’s close bond stems from the recognition that many community members simply had no option but to do as told. There is an old expression that goes “one man is no man,” and the Irish embody this philosophy. While one or maybe even many community member may have had wealth because the majority of the community didn’t have that value there was an issue with society. I think the Irish think that if one many can’t attain the life they desired, outside forces must be working against that person because others got what they desired.

I can’t dispute the evidence that Jensen provides, it is all backed in the research that he performed (research that is very commendable as I feel that he went against popular opinion throughout his entire writing process). However, I believe that history is largely based upon the ways in which an individual wants to view history. History often plays out in a “to the victor go the spoils fashion,” and because of that everything can always be argued. Did the Irish win their and that’s why they can claim they were held down by oppressive white business owners? An Irish Catholic from Massachusetts did become President of the United States so I would say that they Irish did win their struggle and because of that they can present their history as they like. Irish community bonds where one wants to see everyone succeed before declaring a movement/cause a success and because that was never possible I truly believe that is where Irish ideology of the world against an individual emerges from.

October 24, 2013

Second-class citizenship

Slavery has existed since the first civilizations, though the kidnapping of Africans and their brutal enslavement in the Americas has been the most brutal. Past civilizations have allowed people to sell themselves into slavery to pay back debts and slaves have often been allowed to earn there freedom over long periods of time (I do not have sources for these claims, except to say that I have learned of them during my previous education). Within the brutal system of American slavery, slaves had little or no legal protection, could be bought and sold as slaveholders pleased, work brutal hours in even more brutal conditions, and be punished for malfeasance through torture. I believe that part of what allowed these slaves to be brutalized, as never before in history, was the omnipresent racism that slaveholders both participated in and used as a tool for the subjugation of blacks. Patricia Reed, in “Margaret Morgan’s Story: A Threshold between Slavery and Freedom, 1820-1842, documents what I believe to be an inevitable consequence of this racism-supported slavery: the legal marginalization of free blacks.

Wade argues that Pennsylvania laws were ineffective due to their weakness. I wonder, however, how strong those laws would have had to be in order to have prevented the encroachment of slavery and slave catchers upon border and other nearby states. For example, in the United States, which has inherited the English Common Law principle of the presumption of innocence, blacks were slaves until proven free. Why did southern states not require a proof of ownership before allowing blacks, like Morgan and her children, to be sold to slaveholders? That might have prevented their kidnapping and enslavement, but rather they lacked the adequate documentation of manumission, and therefore could not prove their freedom. I argue that to do so would have highlighted the initial kidnapping from Africa. Indeed, if it is unjust to kidnap a black family from Pennsylvania, why would it be more just to kidnap them from the African coast. To ask such a question would be to undermine the fundamental justification of slavery–that blacks were inhuman, and could therefore be enslaved at will.

Though abolitionists and northerners in or near border states were rendered ineffective by the laws and customs of nearby states, I was saddened to learn of the ways in which their own racism hindered their abilities to aid free blacks. For example, Reid mentions that “Pennsylvania state laws had stripped free blacks from bringing criminal charges against whites in court” (372). By granting blacks status as second-class citizens, rather than slaves, Pennsylvanians had acknowledged their belief that blacks did not deserve the full protections of the law. From there, it is a slippery slope to being unable to prevent their enslavement at the hands of unscrupulous slave catchers.

As an American in 2013, I argue that this phenomenon–bigotry with partial acceptance–is not over. In the Davidsonian, my freshman year, I argued that Davidson’s Presbyterian tradition was incompatible with homosexuality, and that we should therefore abandon the Presbyterian tradition. The responses I received were interesting, and I learned several things, but the one that stuck with me the most was that many people believed in accepting gays and lesbians, but that to engage in homosexual activities was still a sin. Not only do I disagree, but I believe that such splitting of hairs is not beneficial to any disfranchised group. To love someone, to include them and accept them, you cannot reject part of their identity. I believe that such rejection fuels homophobia today, and that such racism and exclusion of blacks from the courts and other political processes is what allowed Margaret Morgan and her children to be brutally re-enslaved so long ago.

October 24, 2013

American Injustice

I agree with Wade that Patricia Reid’s extensive background information is a little excessive and dilutes her argument. She does, however, makes some points in her article, “Margaret Morgan’s Story: A Threshold Between Slavery and Freedom, 1820-1842,” worth dissecting. Her strongest point states the obvious, yet summarizes her entire article. For those blacks who had their freedom undocumented or unrecorded, their freedom was based on white authority (368). Her example of Richard Allen’s struggles with the slave catcher who had a fake cause, serve as prime justification for her argument. I’ve often wondered how blacks in the north determined their freedom from slave catchers. Since technology merely allowed for a paper stating “this man is a free man” (or something like that) for a slave to carry around, a slave catcher could easily ask for documentation proving the slaves freedom, tear up said document, then claim this was the slave he was looking to catch. Immoral? Absolutely. But a quick way to make a few extra bucks. Interestingly though, some whites did stand up for their fellow man against these unethical slave catchers. Without white support, however, blacks had a much more difficult time defending themselves against the claims of a white person (we all remember the difficulties Django had about proving his freedom) As we’ve talked about in class, this is a similar problem Native Americans faced as well.

Reid loses me when she discusses the Constitution being used as a pro-slavery document. This claim is a stretch. I understand the prosecution addressed the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law of 1826, but I don’t think the ruling of this case makes the Constitution a pro-slavery document. The creators of the Constitution either viewed slavery too divisive (let’s keep in mind they were trying to unify a new nation, not tear it apart) or simply didn’t know what to do about slavery, but either way, the framers intentionally left out slavery from the Constitution. They called for an end to the slave trade in 1808, which at least shows that the framers viewed taking people from their native lands, across an ocean, to work for another human wasn’t acceptable anymore. Granted, the Constitution does allow for runaway slaves to be returned to their owners. But this (in the context of the time where slaves were viewed as property, something we condone today) is comparable to a horse running away to a pasteur with better food and more places to frolic and play, and giving anyone the power to return the horse to its owner. Back to the original point, the case involving Margaret Morgan and her family is tragic because they, along with the lower court’s decision, were in the right. As Reid states, the Morgan’s had no lawyer to defend them, so their case became a quarrel between Maryland and Pennsylvania instead of over their actual freedom. But this doesn’t support slavery as an institution, rather it supports the Federal government’s superiority over the states and the Pennsylvania legislators’ inability to craft a worthy law protecting blacks during this period. Henry’s and Ian’s posts support the latter part of my previous sentence.

October 23, 2013

The Unfreedom of "Freedom"

Patricia Reid’s “Margaret Morgan’s Story” challenged me to think about aspects of slavery among border states that I had previously never given thought. Her juxtaposition of the concepts of slavery and freedom within the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania ultimately led to a thorough examination of the legitimacy of freedom for African Americans in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This analysis was supported in large part by Reid’s excellent critique on the personal liberty laws passed in Pennsylvania in 1826. While Reid explains the initial, benevolent intentions of the laws, she proceeds to reveal their myriad weaknesses in protecting African Americans. When compared to the personal liberty laws of New York or Massachusetts, the laws of Pennsylvania had no effect in changing the political voice or power of African Americans – if accused of being a fugitive slave, African Americans were not even provided a jury trial (369). If anything, Reid effectively emphasizes that the political stance of free African Americans was weakened by placing the jurisdiction of their trials into the hands of elite white slaveholders. For many African Americans, freedom was entangled in a convoluted system of unfreedom.

Continuing her mockery of personal liberty laws in border states, Reid highlights the proceedings of the Prigg v. Pennsylvania trial of 1842. When the issue of these laws were taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, the status of Margaret Morgan and her children – previously free African Americans who had been accused of being fugitive slaves, kidnapped, and then sold into slavery in the South – was never addressed, although state laws of both Maryland and Pennsylvania dictated that they were free (373). In depicting the proceedings of the trial, Reid demonstrates that the personal liberty laws of Pennsylvania were wholly ineffective. In this light she also reveals the lack of importance placed on African American issues by the white elite in the nineteenth century – equal treatment towards free African Americans was a non-issue because in the minds of many blacks were not, and would never be, equals. Reid uses the example of the Pennsylvania personal liberty laws as a kind of satire for the entire system by which African Americans were to be protected against injustice. Collectively, I think this writing contributes greatly to supporting her overarching thesis of a growth of “pro-slavery constitutionalism” throughout the middle of the nineteenth century (360)

While Reid’s criticism of personal liberty laws is both detailed and insightful, the first half of her work dilutes her argument. In trying to establish the legal framework for the unfortunate events of the Morgan family and the subsequent Prigg trial, Reid provides readers with a background that is largely excessive. I think Reid could have made a much more powerful argument had she spent more time emphasizing the opinions and perspectives of those directly affected by the liberty laws, freed African Americans. With this in mind, I think the questions presented by Henry and Ian are very important. These questions underscore Reid’s lack of layman perspective in her work. What did the populace think about freed slaves? How did African Americans view personal liberty laws? Reid’s use of quotes from both a freed African American and Frederick Douglass were critical in establishing the black perspective in her argument, but the paucity with which they were used left me wanting more depth in this portion of her analysis (370, 365). Despite her missed opportunities, Reid is still able to clearly articulate that manumission did not imply freedom, and freedom in no means implied equality for African Americans in the nineteenth century.

October 23, 2013

Crossroads of Slavery

In Patricia Reid’s “Margaret Morgan’s Story: A Threshold between Slavery and Freedom, 1820-1842”, she recounts the Morgan family’s predicament in terms of the laws of Maryland and Pennsylvania which were in constant flux and ambiguity. The Morgans lived in the ultimate border state, Maryland, in which “the status between ‘slave’ and ‘free’ was regularly blurred.” They had been free for some years, manumitted by their owner, however the unclear nature of the laws in the states made it simple for slaveholders and catchers to capture any black they saw and transport them back into servitude. Margaret noted this and the increasing paranoia among Maryland legislators that free blacks posed a bad example for the enslaved and that they were bad for business. These revelations pushed her to move her family further north, to Pennsylvania.

Maryland was seen as one of the important bastions of slavery that if it were to give way to abolitionist sentiment, the rest of the slave states would soon follow, expanding these interests. Slave owners and the governmental legislators they influenced had other plans though. They gradually began to institute harsher restrictions to make it more difficult for blacks to maintain their free status. They were forced to prove their freedom in more than one way, often in manners that were greatly inconvenient. These laws and statutes only served to put a tighter leash on the Maryland blacks who were free and looked to extract them from the state as a whole. Maryland occupied a unique position as a state wanting to benefit from the all the profits that slavery provided for the powerful slave-holding class.

As Reid says, “Marylanders depended on northern and southern insterstate comity to govern relations with respect to slaves and slaveholders migrating in and out of the state.” Maryland was at the crossroads of the north and the south, slavery and freedom. Their legislators made a conscious decision in the 1830s, just as the Morgans were leaving to Pennsylvania, to give slavery a grand welcome back into society. Maryland used their close proximity to the North and South to install “new legal parameters…discriminatory statutes that both the North and South employed.” I agree with Ian’s post this week asserting how a short distance between just a few states could make a large difference in terms of how slaves could be prosecuted in a court of law. I concur with his statement that, “for slaves, this seemed a blessing in disguise, as it was a close state in terms of difference in which they could feasibly assimilate into society.”

I liked the method in which Reid made her argument and used the microhistory of Morgan and her case to illustrate how slavery and freedom legislation was progressing during the period. Her writing is very clear and concise and her use of primary sources and block quotes only served to legitimize her explanations. She inserted short facts about slave-catching, one of which particularly caught my attention: the conviction of slaveholders could yield up to US$2000 or 7 to 21 years of hard labor. I would not have expected slave catchers to have been prosecuted so harshly at that time.

October 23, 2013

The Doubled Edged Sword of Pennsylvania's Liberty Laws

In Patricia A. Reid’s “Slavery and Abolition: a Journal of Slave and Post Slave Studies,” she references a quote by Fredrick Douglas that indicates an interest system regarding runaway slaves. Douglas once said “white men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to get the reward, catch them and return them to their masters” (365). This statement describes how the retrieval of slaves became somewhat of a business for white men during the 19^th century. Previously, I had known it was common for a reward to be given for a man to return another person’s slave. Yet, I never guessed that whites working alongside slaves in lower class jobs during this period would try to influence them into escaping only to have an upper hand in securing the reward. It is shameful at best but, it reiterates the idea that slaves were not considered people but, were property used for monetary gain.

An interesting situation that Reid details in her work was the predicament of being a free black within Pennsylvania. Reid describes how slaves and free blacks could easily integrate into Pennsylvania society because, this state, unlike Ohio, did not record free blacks (367). For slaves, this seemed like a blessing in disguise, as it was a close state in terms of distance in which they could feasibly assimilate into society. Yet, Reid reveals how this apparent blessing was actually a detrimental issue for black individuals of any status during the 19^th century.

Even though Pennsylvania enacted personal liberty laws in 1826, which were supposed to halt free blacks from being wrongfully uprooted and returned to slavery, the very system of the state essentially negated this law. Though this law was in effect, the free blacks were not granted a trial by jurors, or any due process of the law, leaving the decision of their case up to a white authority (369). As free blacks were not recorded in the state, if they did not have a strong white authority to speak on their behalf, like in Richard Allen case, they were left with little proof of their position (368). With this type of system in effect, the freedom of free blacks in Pennsylvania was unfortunately always in danger. Without strong white support behind them, a posse of slave catchers could appear and carry a number of blacks back to the south to be sold back into slavery, which is what occurred with the Morgan family. Though Pennsylvania tried to halt these practices with their laws, the system they had in place negated such affects, leaving free blacks generally unprotected in an often hostile environment.

After reading over Henry’s post, I completely agree with his questions regarding why both Maryland and Pennsylvania did not have significant legislation reflecting their people’s views. Though Pennsylvania did have a gradual emancipation policy, this was a limited route to abolition at best. Maryland meanwhile, did not feature such laws but, did have white slave owners releasing their slaves, which is what happened with the Morgans. In regards to Henry’s potential answer, I’d have to agree once again. Slavery as a whole was a critical social issue that had caused the Founding Fathers, as well as the Constitutional Convention. Though the United States had grown in many ways at the time of this issue, the idea of total abolition was still a distant possibility for the country as a whole. Even if people viewed it as wrong, it was so deeply ingrained into American culture that it was going to take a war that ripped the country in two to end this practice for good.

September 18, 2013

Enslavement by Visible Markings

In “Visible Bodies: Power, Subordination, and Identity in the Eighteenth- Century Atlantic World,” Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton comment on how many slaves and black slaves made efforts to change their appearance for the better. By wearing the “cast of clothing” of their masters, or changing their dialect in some manner, runaway slaves were able to better blend into society (45). Yet, there were many markings that slaves struggled to hide, which identified them for who they were. Things such as scars from whips, brands (even on the face), and early tattoos were all legitimate signifiers of a person’s status in colonial America.

These “mutilations” were unique to the person and therefore, easy to describe in runaway ads. Outside of brands being specific only to slaves, Morgan and Rushton point out that tattoos specifically were connected to troublesome individuals of the lower class (49). For instance, in one ad a tattoo is used as the main identifying characteristic of the fifteen year old thief in question (49). Morgan and Rushton also further elaborate on how inscriptions of various sorts (tattoos) were prevalent on the arms of runaway slaves, making them easier to identify. They were not very detailed but, they were the epitome of a sign that a person with one was an individual of suspicion.

This depiction of body art as another identifying characteristic of slaves struck me as something that has continued into our culture. Though we do not have slaves, it is a common thought amongst many in our society that visible tattoos are associated with lower class individuals. For instance, many tattoos in inner city areas are used as identifiers for various gangs, just like they once were associated with slaves. As I myself have a piece of artwork on my back, I have a problem with scholars connecting tattoos to criminals in such a negative way. Yet, after thinking about it, I realized that my choice of placement for my piece was influenced by these societal conceptions of tattoos. I did not want my body art to negatively influence my image in any walk of life, which is why I hid it on my back. With my own decision in mind, I recognized that our culture has not changed much in terms of physical alterations. People still look down on tattoos, with many giving disgusted looks to individuals with visible artwork. It must be a demeaning feeling for these people, just like it was for the slaves of colonial America, with their skin color being their first “mark.”

In Mr. Benjamin Hartshorn’s response for this week, he comments on the idea of different degrees of freedom in reference to the enslavement the colonists and British felt under their government’s oppressive taxes. After giving this some thought, I realized how both these people’s feelings of enslavement is not too different from the feeling people with visible tattoos experience. Though at first glance, this may seem like a stretch but, if you look at it in a certain way, the idea is made clear. Both the British and American colonists were free people but, they suffered under the weight of excise taxes placed upon their goods. A restriction was placed upon what kind of goods they could buy “freely,” which dictated their choice of purchase. Though tattoos are a voluntary act, they also carry a similar weight of “unfreedom.” People with visible tattoos are discriminated against in office settings, primarily being forced to cover up their markings. Also, thanks to society’s idea of what these tattoos mean, the people with them are continually watched by the citizens around them. In both groups, the people themselves are “free,” in that they can make their own decisions. Yet, their amount of freedom is limited by the forces around them which they have little control over, creating a feeling of enslavement.

September 18, 2013

The Usage of the Word 'Slave'

After finishing our readings for Tuesday of this week and comparing them with the early chapters of Thomas Slaughter’s, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution, I noticed contrasts in the use of the word ‘slave’. In the first chapter of Slaughter’s book he states, “During the seventeenth century (in England), opponents denounced the excise tax as ‘the Devil’s remedy’ and the ‘high road to slavery’” (13). Later on when the American protests against the Stamp Act are being discussed Slaughter writes, “Some Americans believed that when Parliament sought ‘to establish stamp duties and other internal taxes’ for the colonies, it threatened to reduce Americans to ‘the miserable condition of slaves’” (21). These quotes, from both English and American men, are very interesting when put looked at next to the very real use of the word slavery in our previous readings.

Almost all of the runaway slave advertisements use the world slave. They are publishing reports of their missing property and referring to them as slaves. Therefore, it is striking that, presumably similar, men would describe their situation involving Parliament and internal taxes as a threat to “reduce them to the miserable condition of slaves”. My first thought is that the men who used slavery to describe tax conditions where simply using hyperbole. They were trying to drum up support against the oppressive government and using the word ‘slave’ was striking enough to grab attention. I figured that this was probably true for most of the situations where the slavery was used in Slaughter’s book.

Mr. Michael Lamoureux, in his blog, discusses how the slaves were described as property and objects. Slave masters described human beings just as I would if I lost a cell phone and described it as an ‘old, white, iPhone’. Michael does a good job discussing the ambiguity found in some of the ads. He makes an excellent point that with some of the ads, it seems very possible that any black man could be returned to an owner for a reward. This could, unfortunately, very well happen to a freed black man. Michael’s thoughtful and creative argument led me to think about the levels and degrees of freedom that we discussed in class on Tuesday.

As I continued to think about our talk in class about ‘unfreedom’ and the Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton article and David Waldstreicher’s piece, I realized that there may have been more to the usage of ‘slaves’ by white men than just hyperbole for effect. We discussed how there were people in America that were not just free or enslaved, instead there were degrees to people’s freedom. Most people were in a constant battle to protect whatever freedoms they had against an ever-infringing society. Using this rationale and line of thinking, it seems more plausible that some Americans truly did believe that losing the right to local internal tax levying could very well lead to a form of slavery. An American, Stephen Hopkins, argued that allowing Parliament all of the central authority would, “threaten the property and hence the freedom of the colonists. They who have no property, can have no freedom, but indeed are reduced to the most abject slavery” (22). It seems that some Americans were afraid to lose money unfairly to a government and in turn property and in turn their freedom. So while it seems ironic and self-centered for a white man to use the term slavery, it is very possible that they were truly afraid of becoming enslaved (to a certain degree) by British Parliament and excise taxes.