I think we may need to clear things up a bit.
Okay, well, I don't dispute that the government of Oregon did, in fact, ban black settlement(it is part of the historical record). But this is Washington I'm talking about, and from all accounts I've read, George Bush did have a rather better life in Washington than in Missouri.
Well, alright: since you've taken the time to clarify that you are that settling all four million of the ex-slaves, complete with handovers of power, in the new territories would in fact, be opposed by most Americans, then I'll have to agree, that wouldn't work at all(IIRC, I've actually said a few things along these lines myself, earlier on.).
And to be fair, perhaps I may not have made my point 100% clear.....but with that said, here it is: *I*, for one was mainly talking about taking maybe 50,000, 100,000 African-American freedmen being settled in various communities out west, a la the Exodusters IOTL.
I've read up on these folks before, yes, you have listed them before. I do admit the error regarding Linda Brent, however; it seems that lack of patience earlier was to blame in that regard.
Unfortunately, despite how true this actually is(that their treatment was in fact, fairly unusual), finding genuinely good sources for this has proven a tad difficult.
To be truthful, I never said or implied, that you claimed that nobody in Britain held prejudiced views. I actually don't disagree that Britain actually was somewhat better off than the northern U.S., but you seem to be relying on a fairly limited set of sources, and thus, the impression that you were overplaying Northern racism, which, from all research I've done, really wasn't too much worse than what could be found in Britain overall.....although, granted, there was certainly a much worse problem with extremists in Northern America than in Britain(that I don't dispute for a minute).
Which I never once actually said or implied, though. To clear up this misunderstanding, I myself pointed out that George Bush had to deal with a fair amount of prejudice in Missouri.
But what his Washington experience tells me, is, it would seem that prejudice tended to be rather more subdued, and less hardline, than in Missouri, or even most other Northern areas, for that matter; I cannot and will not deny for a second that it still existed, but the fact that he was able to live a life in that area that wouldn't have been too much different from what it might have been in, say, Canada(including what was later to become B.C.; IIRC, Victoria had a small, but thriving black community.), or the Maritime colonies(Nova Scotia).....does tell me something.
As I said, I do agree with you, that settling all four million of the freedmen in the plains, and actually handing entire territories to them, is nothing more than a pipe dream, not just because of the racial prejudice, but so many other factors as well.
But having about 50-100k African-Americans scattered out in small communes across the West, as I posited, is honestly not that terribly difficult; even IOTL, 20,000 black Americans managed to make it west, mainly to Kansas.
(P.S. With that said, Rob, I do want to apologize if I was a little harsh earlier.)
I'm not completely convinced you did them justice, though:
Oregon banned people like Bush from owning land outright; Washington State allowed him to own land, but criminalised the kind of marriage he was engaged in. Things were marginally better in some of the other Northern states, though we should remember that in the year that New York state gave Lincoln a 50,000-vote majority it also rejected the abolition of the state's $250 property qualification for black voters by a 140,000-vote majority. However, I think in the case of the frontier, and in the case of the north-western states I've instanced already, we're dealing with something a little more significant and fundamental than views on mere "*social* equality". The Duke of Devonshire wouldn't have viewed the labourers on his estate as socially equal, or even politically equal, but he's unlikely to have encouraged the passing of a law banning them from owning a cottage or getting married.
Okay, well, I don't dispute that the government of Oregon did, in fact, ban black settlement(it is part of the historical record). But this is Washington I'm talking about, and from all accounts I've read, George Bush did have a rather better life in Washington than in Missouri.
Were I being uncharitable, I might suggest that you're engaged in the very activity you accuse me of: cherry-picking isolated cases in order to present a rosier picture. As it happens, I suspect it's more an artefact of communal memory and the fact that communities are hardly likely to memorialise individuals they weren't prepared to at least tacitly accept. But I think you're struggling to draw the right connections between this single case and the wider picture in this thread. We are, after all, dealing with the prospect not just of letting a single mixed-race man who has never been a slave settle in the West, but handing over multiple states, along with their Congressional representation and power over any of the white people who might already have settled there, to the control of ex-slaves. It doesn't seem to me that contemporary America was ready for that kind of scenario.
Well, alright: since you've taken the time to clarify that you are that settling all four million of the ex-slaves, complete with handovers of power, in the new territories would in fact, be opposed by most Americans, then I'll have to agree, that wouldn't work at all(IIRC, I've actually said a few things along these lines myself, earlier on.).
And to be fair, perhaps I may not have made my point 100% clear.....but with that said, here it is: *I*, for one was mainly talking about taking maybe 50,000, 100,000 African-American freedmen being settled in various communities out west, a la the Exodusters IOTL.
I'm kind of disappointed you claim this: if you'd actually read the list of people I provided and done a little bit of checking, you would have picked up on the fact that Linda Brent, AKA Harriet Ann Jacobs, went to England as a completely anonymous nurse to the white family of the allegedly pro-slavery author Nathaniel Parker Willis and only published her story pseudonymously after her return. That she felt the same way about Britain as her abolitionist colleagues with higher social status should say a lot about the extent to which this relative lack of prejudice was dependent neither on class nor affinity.
I've read up on these folks before, yes, you have listed them before. I do admit the error regarding Linda Brent, however; it seems that lack of patience earlier was to blame in that regard.
However, if you believe that these stories are atypical of the vast majority of black experiences, then the appropriate response would be to provide alternative evidence rather than dismissing them out of hand. After all, if these views are so unusual, there should be plenty of other views which contradict them.
Unfortunately, despite how true this actually is(that their treatment was in fact, fairly unusual), finding genuinely good sources for this has proven a tad difficult.
This is rather an unwarranted accusation. I'm not claiming any great particular virtues inherent only in the British, or arguing that nobody in Britain held prejudiced views, or arguing that what escaped slaves considered fair treatment we might now see as discrimination ranging from mild to alarming, or claiming that the amount of prejudice didn't increase over the course of the Victorian era, or arguing that the relative lack of prejudice in Britain isn't the result of a very particular set of circumstances which the Americans didn't enjoy. All I'm doing is trying to fairly state the case as it was recorded by contemporary observers- white and black, British and American- and as historians have confirmed it to be: at mid-century, America was a substantially more racially prejudiced society than Britain.
To be truthful, I never said or implied, that you claimed that nobody in Britain held prejudiced views. I actually don't disagree that Britain actually was somewhat better off than the northern U.S., but you seem to be relying on a fairly limited set of sources, and thus, the impression that you were overplaying Northern racism, which, from all research I've done, really wasn't too much worse than what could be found in Britain overall.....although, granted, there was certainly a much worse problem with extremists in Northern America than in Britain(that I don't dispute for a minute).
What I really struggle to get my head round is why you're so keen to present 1860s America as a racially harmonious paradise when it so blatantly wasn't.
Which I never once actually said or implied, though. To clear up this misunderstanding, I myself pointed out that George Bush had to deal with a fair amount of prejudice in Missouri.
But what his Washington experience tells me, is, it would seem that prejudice tended to be rather more subdued, and less hardline, than in Missouri, or even most other Northern areas, for that matter; I cannot and will not deny for a second that it still existed, but the fact that he was able to live a life in that area that wouldn't have been too much different from what it might have been in, say, Canada(including what was later to become B.C.; IIRC, Victoria had a small, but thriving black community.), or the Maritime colonies(Nova Scotia).....does tell me something.
Immediately following the Civil War, the Union rejected a proposal to distribute public land in the North to free blacks, very reluctantly offered them land in the South, and abandoned Reconstruction because it was costing too much money despite the fact that it left pre-war white elites calling the shots in the South. Given the attitudes towards race which I've demonstrated existed at the time, the idea that they're going to welcome black people into the frontier- let alone allocate government money to settle them there in sufficient numbers to allow them to dominate states - requires a far more substantial departure from history than has so far been suggested.
As I said, I do agree with you, that settling all four million of the freedmen in the plains, and actually handing entire territories to them, is nothing more than a pipe dream, not just because of the racial prejudice, but so many other factors as well.
But having about 50-100k African-Americans scattered out in small communes across the West, as I posited, is honestly not that terribly difficult; even IOTL, 20,000 black Americans managed to make it west, mainly to Kansas.
(P.S. With that said, Rob, I do want to apologize if I was a little harsh earlier.)