WI: The South conscripts slaves

The vast majority could neither read nor write nor did they have access to any real education. There certainly knew the basics of the law but most would have had trouble picking up any nuances in the law. They didn't have the education to learn it. A relative handful of educated people aren't going to change that. People who weren't educated (IOW the vast majority of slaves) would have problems following the arguments as they wouldn't have the education to do so. In short education helps and you don't become educated by osmosis.

The Poor Whites of the South were poorly educated and superstitious as a rule and the slaves were even more so. This was the real world not some PC version of it. Hampering a person's education is one of the key ways to make it easier for you to oppress them and the slave lords of the South knew this very well.

Your notion of education does not disqualify my counterargument.

The ability to over hear, read and pass on information was not limited to a fraction of enslaved people. The degree with which enslaved people had the ability to read and write was entirely based upon the desires of those who enslaved them.

Enslaved people moved, travelled and actively undermined the system they were in. They were not passive reciepients and did indeed the reality.

Just because your view of black people from the South in that era comes from your limited understanding of history doesn't mean it's "PC".

Harriet Tubman leading a group of scouts had various groups and individuals throughout the river systems and swamps of the Combahee to provide information to the Union Army before the attack.

https://books.google.com/books?id=m...KHdK_DfU4ChDoATAHegQIARAB#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hell look into the history of black sailors and the laws that barred them because they were communicating and update enslaved black people.

Look into the transmission of the Haitian Liberation and the inspiration for many revolts elsewhere in rural South.

There are dozens and dozens of references found in black American historical works, your ignorance of this however is what I am correcting.

Get out of your high school text books and white centered perspective of history. It has not use in talking about non-white peoples.
 
Your notion of education does not disqualify my counterargument.

The ability to over hear, read and pass on information was not limited to a fraction of enslaved people. The degree with which enslaved people had the ability to read and write was entirely based upon the desires of those who enslaved them.

Enslaved people moved, travelled and actively undermined the system they were in. They were not passive reciepients and did indeed the reality.

Just because your view of black people from the South in that era comes from your limited understanding of history doesn't mean it's "PC".

Harriet Tubman leading a group of scouts had various groups and individuals throughout the river systems and swamps of the Combahee to provide information to the Union Army before the attack.

https://books.google.com/books?id=m...KHdK_DfU4ChDoATAHegQIARAB#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hell look into the history of black sailors and the laws that barred them because they were communicating and update enslaved black people.

Look into the transmission of the Haitian Liberation and the inspiration for many revolts elsewhere in rural South.

There are dozens and dozens of references found in black American historical works, your ignorance of this however is what I am correcting.

Get out of your high school text books and white centered perspective of history. It has not use in talking about non-white peoples.

Moving people around swamps and passing info on where , how many and what troops are one thing and hard academics like law, science and economics are another. To do the first you merely have to have eyes, know how to count and be able to picture places in your mind which requires mainly good perception and good memory.

Like I said they weren't stupid they were ignorant. They were able to figure things out when they had the information. Looking around the area gives you that information. You don't have to be well read to be a good guide but you need to be to be a good lawyer. There are reasons it takes years of education to be a good lawyer or doctor. Time that is not made up by talking to a handful of people who are educated a few hours a week, if that. A relative handful of educated people aren't going to change that.

The number of slave revolts in the South were small and almost always quickly crushed. The Hatian Liberation didn't inspire "many" slave revolts because there weren't many in the first place. There were probably less than 300 total in the 17th , 18th and 19th century of even marginal significance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion or less than 2 a year in the entire South. This is hardly "many".

This has zero to do about race. Earlier in history, when they were common, the vast majority of White slaves were ignorant. A Roman Slave from Germany didn't know history, law or philosophy either as those things have to be taught. He could guide you well enough within at least 20 miles of his surroundings. That doesn't have to be taught.
 
Last edited:

samcster94

Banned
It would really defeat the purpose of their rebellion in the first place. More than anything, it seems to me that they wanted to keep slavery because they feared a repeat of the Haitian Revolution if they allowed blacks to go free. Giving them guns and training them to use them would be the ultimate betrayal.
Exactly, their rebellion was founded on the "supremacy of the white man" and a black man with a gun would not fulfill their twisted goals.
 
Moving people around swamps and passing info on where , how many and what troops are one thing and hard academics like law, science and economics are another. To do the first you merely have to have eyes, know how to count and be able to picture places in your mind which requires mainly good perception and good memory.

Like I said they weren't stupid they were ignorant. They were able to figure things out when they had the information. Looking around the area gives you that information. You don't have to be well read to be a good guide but you need to be to be a good lawyer. There are reasons it takes years of education to be a good lawyer or doctor. Time that is not made up by talking to a handful of people who are educated a few hours a week, if that. A relative handful of educated people aren't going to change that.

The number of slave revolts in the South were small and almost always quickly crushed. The Hatian Liberation didn't inspire "many" slave revolts because there weren't many in the first place. There were probably less than 300 total in the 17th , 18th and 19th century of even marginal significance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion or less than 2 a year in the entire South. This is hardly "many".

This has zero to do about race. Earlier in history, when they were common, the vast majority of White slaves were ignorant. A Roman Slave from Germany didn't know history, law or philosophy either as those things have to be taught. He could guide you well enough within at least 20 miles of his surroundings. That doesn't have to be taught.

WEB Dubois and other historians estimated that at least 9% of the enslaved population had some form of literacy and in the work of Frederick Douglas it was common for people to share their education amongst others.

In NOLA and other cities there was an active and underground movement to provide literacy to the enslaved.

Rebellion was one form of subversion through the transmission of information, it was not the sole or active force behind the transmission.

Research more please.
 
WEB Dubois and other historians estimated that at least 9% of the enslaved population had some form of literacy and in the work of Frederick Douglas it was common for people to share their education amongst others.

In NOLA and other cities there was an active and underground movement to provide literacy to the enslaved.

Rebellion was one form of subversion through the transmission of information, it was not the sole or active force behind the transmission.

Research more please.

9% having some sort of literacy, most of which was almost certainly 4th grade level or less, isn't going to help much. Sharing education a few hours a week, isn't going to help much either. There are real advantages to going to a real school and spending a significant time in it as opposed to a few hours a week. The average middle class White child probably spent as much or more time learning in a day than a literate slave did in a week.

It takes more than 2-3 hours a week studying to make a good doctor or lawyer or engineer! This is particularly true since the book they would have the easiest access to was the Holy Bible. The Bible isn't going to teach you how to be a good lawyer. The problem was that even the 9% that had some sort of literacy didn't have the time to study much, they were out in the field not reading.
 
Last edited:
It should be noted that, compared to the Union, the educational system in the South/CSA was pretty poor. It worked well for the upper class, and the better off middle class but that was about it. While the "universal" public school idea was limited in the USA, to the extent the idea existed and schools were provided it was very much a northern thing - not that it existed nowhere in the south, but very much limited. To a great extent for medicine and engineering southerners went to schools in the north. Access to education, even at the 4th grade literacy level for southern whites was quite limited.

FWIW one bone of contention between the north and south prior to the ACW was the practice in the south of going through mail from the north to confiscate abolitionist literature. Obviously such literature finding its way in to the hands of literate slaves, to be read to the illiterate represented a threat to the system. From 1800 to 1860 the laws against slave literacy increased throughout the south, with increasing penalties, as well as various laws about the presence of free blacks (who would tend to be more literate as a group than slaves). Oral tradition and the "grapevine" can spread knowledge/information, but compared to literacy...
 
The issue was, they offered freedom only to the troopers. Assuming they'd fight and their masters gave their consent (HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH). By contrast, the Proclamation made them all free, and all they had to do was wait for the Yankees to get to them.

Gee, real tough decision there.

So at best, you'd get poorly motivated troops more likely to frag you and defect then say, actually motivated troops.

The Confederacy wasn't even offering freedom to any slaves that fought for them.
 
9% having some sort of literacy, most of which was almost certainly 4th grade level or less, isn't going to help much. Sharing education a few hours a week, isn't going to help much either. There are real advantages to going to a real school and spending a significant time in it as opposed to a few hours a week. The average middle class White child probably spent as much or more time learning in a day than a literate slave did in a week.

It takes more than 2-3 hours a week studying to make a good doctor or lawyer or engineer! This is particularly true since the book they would have the easiest access to was the Holy Bible. The Bible isn't going to teach you how to be a good lawyer. The problem was that even the 9% that had some sort of literacy didn't have the time to study much, they were out in the field not reading.

See now you're making an ass out of yourself

didn't have the time to study much, they were out in the field not reading

There is not a singular slave experience, to quote Frederick Douglas

I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to re-sort to various stratagems. I had no regular teacher. My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by any one else.

Even after those lessons stopped a 12 year old Frederick continued his lessons in non-traditional ways

this time, my little Master Thomas had gone to school, and learned how to write, and had written over a number of copy-books. These had been brought home, and shown to some of our near neighbors, and then laid aside. My mistress used to go to class meeting at the Wilk Street meetinghouse every Monday afternoon, and leave me to take care of the house. When left thus, I used to spend the time in writing in the spaces left in Master Thomas’s copy-book, copying what he had written. I continued to do this until I could write a hand very similar to that of Master Thomas.

George Washington in his will stated
“The negroes thus bound are (by their masters and mistresses) to be taught to read and write and to be brought up to some useful occupation.”

Quite frankly you're not even trying, in 1753 Samuel Davies established a relationship with the UK based Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge Among the Poor, providing donations of Bibles, prayer books, spelling books, and hymnals for him to distribute to enslaved people.

He wrote that, his black congregants were quick learners and required “very little help to learn to read.” During worship services, he noted:
I can hardly express the pleasure it affords me to turn to that part of the gallery where they sit, and see so many of them with their Psalm or Hymn Books, turning to the part then sung, and assisting their fellows, who are beginners, to find the place.

Davies educated over 1,000 and for years later his assistants continued the education.

Now you may say some trite shit like "BuT tHaT wAs DeCaDeS bEfOrE sLaVeRy EnDeD!!!"

But in 1842, Georgia slave-owner and Presbyterian minister Charles Colcock Jones described in seeing enslaved people who still had the books Davies had distributed a century before hand.

I'll keep going and going dude, you're wrong and have fucked up ideas of enslaved people within U.S. history
 
See now you're making an ass out of yourself



There is not a singular slave experience, to quote Frederick Douglas



Even after those lessons stopped a 12 year old Frederick continued his lessons in non-traditional ways



George Washington in his will stated


Quite frankly you're not even trying, in 1753 Samuel Davies established a relationship with the UK based Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge Among the Poor, providing donations of Bibles, prayer books, spelling books, and hymnals for him to distribute to enslaved people.

He wrote that, his black congregants were quick learners and required “very little help to learn to read.” During worship services, he noted:


Davies educated over 1,000 and for years later his assistants continued the education.

Now you may say some trite shit like "BuT tHaT wAs DeCaDeS bEfOrE sLaVeRy EnDeD!!!"

But in 1842, Georgia slave-owner and Presbyterian minister Charles Colcock Jones described in seeing enslaved people who still had the books Davies had distributed a century before hand.

I'll keep going and going dude, you're wrong and have fucked up ideas of enslaved people within U.S. history

Fredrick Douglas was the exception , not the rule which is why he is remembered while countless millions are not. He was a genius. By definition most slaves (or any other random group of people) were not.

George Washington was a very unusual slave owner who had Abolitionist views .
George Washington said:
George Washington said:
George Washington said:
George Washington said:
http://www.azquotes.com/author/15324-George_Washington/tag/slavery

Quit using remarkable people as examples for ordinary ones. There aren't many people like Fredrick Douglas or George Washington out there. Fredrick Douglas and George Washington weren't "Joe Sixpack" but by definition most people are. There is a reason they are remembered over a century after their deaths.


Being able to read to some extent is one thing. Almost anyone can learn how to read fairly quickly, it isn't that difficult. Being able to understand law school level courses is entirely different. You need to be taught that over years. Slaves did not have years. They mostly worked 12-14 hour days and had only Sundays off. They had other things to do in their off hours other than read.

A few hundred thousand of people out of a few million being able to read the Bible is hardly likely to enable large number of them being able to comprehend sophisticated legal arguments. You need to be able to do more than read the Bible. Reading the Bible isn't that difficult. The stories in them aren't that difficult to understand.

To put it bluntly people who have a few hours a week to study can't compete well against people who have a few hours a day. A genius like Fredrick Douglas can pull it off, Joe Sixpack can't. For every Fredrick Douglas there were ten thousand or more Joe Sixpacks.
 
Last edited:
Was already underway by the time the war ended; several units were training in Richmond just prior to the fall. The intention was that service would result in freedom and, unlike the USCT, they were actually required by the Confederate Congress to be paid the same as White soldiers IIRC.

"Several units"? The Confederacy had two units of black soldiers in training, one with about 60 men, the other with 10. Neither group was issued uniforms, let alone weapons or pay. There was no intention for service to result in freedom - the bill did not offer freedom to any slave that enlisted and the Confederate army refused to enlist slaves.
 
"Several units"? The Confederacy had two units of black soldiers in training, one with about 60 men, the other with 10. Neither group was issued uniforms, let alone weapons or pay.

Yes, primarily because they started training in March and Richmond ceased to exist as a Confederate city within about two weeks from unit formation.

There was no intention for service to result in freedom - the bill did not offer freedom to any slave that enlisted and the Confederate army refused to enlist slaves.

NYT Archives
On November 7, 1864, President Davis unveiled a surprise in his otherwise predictable address to the Confederate Congress. He argued that the use of slaves in noncombatant roles for limited periods had not worked as well as expected, so he asked the Confederate Congress to purchase 40,000 slaves to be used for extended tours of noncombatant duty. The “due compensation” for the increased hazards and commitment should be emancipation at the end of their loyal service. Davis did not request authorization to use the slaves as soldiers, but he held out that possibility if the only alternative was “subjugation” of the Confederacy. The Confederate Congress did not act on the plan, but the issue of arming the slaves was thereafter debated vigorously until the end of the war.

Opposition to arming the slaves remained strong, led in the press by the Richmond Examiner and the Charleston Mercury, and in the political arena by Congressman R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia, speaker pro tem of the Confederate Senate, and Governors Zebulon Vance of North Carolina and Joe Brown of Georgia. Howell Cobb warned, “If slaves will make good soldiers[, then] our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” On the other hand, most of Davis’s cabinet supported the policy, although Secretary of War James Seddon was unenthusiastic.

As the Confederate military situation went from bad to worse in the winter of 1864-1865, President Davis sent Confederate Congressman Duncan Kenner of Louisiana, a long-time advocate of arming slaves, on a secret diplomatic mission in late January 1865. In a last ditch effort to convince Britain and France to issue formal recognition of Confederate independence, Davis was willing to offer emancipation of the slaves. Through indirect channels, Napoleon III of France deferred to Britain, whose prime minister, Lord Palmerston, resolutely refused. Although disappointed by the outcome of the Kenner mission (which had become publicly known), it was the failure of the Hampton Roads Peace Conference in early February—a final attempt to secure Confederate independence and a negotiated end to the war—that amplified the call for arming the slaves. Mass meeting were held across the Confederacy at which, amidst a general show of Southern patriotism, the radical policy was supported.

On February 10, 1865, Ethelbert Barksdale of Mississippi introduced a bill on the floor of the Confederate Congress to arm the slaves. Within days, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate armed forces, endorsed the measure and the Davis administration put its authority behind the bill. Former foes in the press, like the Richmond Examiner, now switched their editorial position to favor arming the slaves. The bill passed on March 13, but with opposition still substantial (winning by just a vote in the Senate) and without rewarding the armed slaves with emancipation. However, on March 23, the Davis administration’s executive order to implement the act added the stipulations that a slave must agree to enlistment and that his master must consent in writing to grant him, “as far as he may, the rights of a freedman.” The executive order also required that the black soldiers receive equal treatment with their white comrades.
 
Lousiana had the native home guard, an entire regiment of free African Americans on the confederate side. Some defected thanks to Benjamin Butler.
 
The key was "as far as he may, the rights of a freedman". That is not the same as manumission, which in some jurisdiction was either illegal or highly limited. Additionally several states required that a freed slave leave that state - meaning that a slave who was freed but had a family could not stay in proximity while he worked to earn enough to purchase their freedom. Given this was an executive order, not a law, and that slaves had no right to enforce a contract (the masters consent being in essence a contract), this was some fluff with little or no substance.
 
Top