Anaxagoras
Banned
It wrecked the economy of the south in ATL I'm pretty sure that it will do the same here.
Wrecked in the short term. In the long term, it was a blessing, for it forced the South to diversify its economy.
It wrecked the economy of the south in ATL I'm pretty sure that it will do the same here.
I tend to agree with those that think the Confederacy would free their Slaves and end the Peculiar Institution only after considerable (presumably painful) Efforts (probably later, rather than sooner), but I do think that the South would have been obliged to give it up at some point near the end of the Nineteenth or at the dawn of the Twentieth Century; quite frankly Slaves are a liability in an industrialised society and those Cotton fields won't be turning a profit indefinitely.
"Why?" you may ask and I answer with Two Words - BOLL WEEVIL.
Even without excluding the areas that weren't conquered (Singapore ceded legally by treaty, New Zealand established by the Treaty of Waitangi), these were not just acquired prior to 1880- they were acquired prior to the 1840s. The whole point of what I've been saying, which has been established pretty well by the supposed counter-examples that have been thrown at me, is that there was a forty year period centred right on the era which we're discussing in which the British empire basically stood still. Conflating the expansion that came before with the expansion that came afterwards in the hope of papering over the cracks is not going to help us understand British mentalities in this period. We need to engage with what was actually going on.Prior to the 1880s, Britain conquered most or all of present-day Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to India, Singapore, Hong Kong and probably others I'm forgetting. That was already a massive, massive territorial expansion. It's true that they didn't conquer much of Sub-Saharan Africa before this time, but Western medicine wasn't able to deal with its tropical diseases until about then (which is why the other European countries hadn't conquered the interior, either).
But the biggest threat to a territory is an external one, and that needs just as much manpower to defend against it. The only difference it makes is the likelihood of rebellion: however, the implicit bargain for reducing the risk of rebellion is exercising the lightest touch in governing and not interfering with local institutions and governments. But for a state to choose not to interfere with the subaltern cultures it control suggests that the belief in its racial and cultural superiority is not absolute: the US, for instance, had no qualms in forcing Native Americans to adopt Western norms.As for creating protectorates, that was pragmatism. The UK didn't have an unlimited supply of manpower. Why use up a lot of it setting up and defending a colony when you can get a local chieftain to officially run the show for you?
Poor little Britain, forced to conquer the largest empire since the Mongol heyday against her best intentions, and bear that Burden.
You're both misinterpreting my argument. The original claim was that the British conquering much of the world proved that they saw everybody as racially inferior. I therefore pointed out that at the time we're talking about they didn't do much expanding. I further explained that even twenty years later, much of the expansion that did take place can be explained in terms other than an all-encompassing desire to subjugate the globe (e.g. local political instability, the pressure of events, over-zealous local officials acting without Whitehall's sanction). We would have got further if people had taken this point on board and considering whether there was the potential for views of race to evolve differently from their mid-1860s starting point. Instead, people seem determined to shoot the messenger.arguing in defence of that, that the largest empire to ever exist was formed reluctantly and against the british will and there was no actual drive by the European public for europe to conquer Africa and Asia strikes me as equally silly.
Even if we leave aside the fact that there are almost no Africans in European empires at the point we're discussing, I can think of two reasons why the CSA will be viewed differently.Your argument only works if either a) the csa will be viewed differently to the oppression of Africans in the European empires
Even if we leave aside the fact that there are almost no Africans in European empires at the point we're discussing, I can think of two reasons why the CSA will be viewed differently.
Firstly, the CSA has a system of chattel slavery. You evidently think that it was hypocritical for the Victorians to differentiate between the two, but what's important is that the Victorians didn't. It mattered to them that someone owned the slaves, and nobody owned the Africans. Africans could be patronised and condescended to, as could the working classes; they could be legally discriminated against, as could women; but they could not be bought and sold. If you don't understand how the Victorians felt about slavery, try reading Dr Livingstone- who ventured into the heart of Africa not to spread formal British domination, but to advance the cause of commerce and Christianity in the interest of ending the slave trade. Slavery is unacceptable even for Victorian conservatives because it attacks many of the institutions they hold dearest, from the family to the Church.
Secondly, slavery in America produced a large number of English-speaking educated black anti-slavery activists capable of speaking to Britain in a style that they could understand. This didn't tend to happen in Africa, where individuals like the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther tended broadly to endorse the system- even the African National Congress tended towards an overtly loyalistic Anglophilia as a reaction against the Afrikaaners who were the most direct faces of their oppression. However, the election of Dadabhai Naoroji as MP for Finsbury Central in 1892 suggests that the British were not wholly unreceptive to even anti-imperial messages if delivered in the right way. The continued existence of slavery not only keeps racial equality a live issue, but also provides people capable of speaking passionately in the service of the cause.
But the two arguments are complementary. Firstly, my point was that large European empires in sub-Saharan Africa are a phenomenon of a later period (and, in that later period, don't necessarily demonstrate that the British were the Borg with handlebar moustaches). When the Victorians of 1865 think of Africa, they think not of Cetshwayo or even Ghezo of Dahomey but of the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther, liberated from Portuguese slave traders and ordained Anglican Bishop of the Niger in 1864 (or, indeed, Sara Forbes Bonetta, the aforementioned god-daughter of Queen Victoria); alternatively, they think of Frederick Douglass or Rev. William Howard Day. As the scramble for Africa begins, Britain has to choose between annexing African territory or risking being shut out of it by protectionist European rivals. It's then, with slavery in the United States over for decades, that the educated black anti-slavery activist is superseded in the British public consciousness by the tribal figure. What Saphroneth and I are both suggesting, I think, is that the continuation of slavery in the CSA may contribute towards the perpetuation of earlier attitudes in which differences between black and white, seen through the lens of cultural differences rather than racial ones.I mean, yes obviously. All of that is blatantly obvious which is why i said that argument a (that the csa will be viewed differently to the forced labour in european colonies) was a clearly more convincing argument rather than b (that forced labour in the european coloneis wasn't happening which is why britain wans't interested in expanding it's empire at that point). And why it was surprising to me that you seemed to be making b) instead.
But the biggest threat to a territory is an external one, and that needs just as much manpower to defend against it. The only difference it makes is the likelihood of rebellion: however, the implicit bargain for reducing the risk of rebellion is exercising the lightest touch in governing and not interfering with local institutions and governments. But for a state to choose not to interfere with the subaltern cultures it control suggests that the belief in its racial and cultural superiority is not absolute: the US, for instance, had no qualms in forcing Native Americans to adopt Western norms.
But the two arguments are complementary. Firstly, my point was that large European empires in sub-Saharan Africa are a phenomenon of a later period (and, in that later period, don't necessarily demonstrate that the British were the Borg with handlebar moustaches). When the Victorians of 1865 think of Africa, they think not of Cetshwayo or even Ghezo of Dahomey but of the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther, liberated from Portuguese slave traders and ordained Anglican Bishop of the Niger in 1864 (or, indeed, Sara Forbes Bonetta, the aforementioned god-daughter of Queen Victoria); alternatively, they think of Frederick Douglass or Rev. William Howard Day. As the scramble for Africa begins, Britain has to choose between annexing African territory or risking being shut out of it by protectionist European rivals. It's then, with slavery in the United States over for decades, that the educated black anti-slavery activist is superseded in the British public consciousness by the tribal figure. What Saphroneth and I are both suggesting, I think, is that the continuation of slavery in the CSA may contribute towards the perpetuation of earlier attitudes in which differences between black and white, seen through the lens of cultural differences rather than racial ones.
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, Ghezo was over there and Sara Forbes Bonetta (along with Frederick Douglass et. al.) was over here. Furthermore, if a race can produce a Sara Forbes Bonetta (in all respects except skin colour a perfect lady) then how can it be innately inferior without prospect of improvement?I'm far from convinced. The thing is for all you argue that Sara Forbes Bonetta rather than Ghezo is the victorian image of the black african, Ghezo is a huge part of the story of Sara Forbes Bonetta. He can't not be.
Yes; Burton founded the Anthropological Society of London with James Hunt. However, you've mischaracterised their views. They believe not that black people need to be civilised, but that they cannot be civilised to the same level as white people and that attempts by British colonial authorities to do so are doomed to failure. Here's Hunt writing in 1863, in a work dedicated to Burton:Burton's memoir, was published in 1865, the year the civil war ended. That attitude that Blacks were innately barbaric and needed to be civilised was one that the csa would recognise.
They would remove it sooner or later, but gradually, and probably deport ALL the blacks to Africa (this is what Lincoln actually planned anyway)
OTL, immediately after the war, the southern economy was decapitated because of the sudden removal of slaves
Actually, I think the Confederacy would be more likely to loudly proclaim they'd ended slavery by passing a law than to actually improve the position of black slaves.
Would strongly disagree with that idea. The CSA was founded almost purely on the idea of keeping African Americans inferior to white men under the law.
A lot of things aren't viable economically, but they still get practiced anyway.
But abolishing slavery and making blacks and whites equal under the law (even notionally) are two very different things. The Confederacy could theoretically be forced to abolish slavery by international pressure, but that wouldn't necessarily, or likely, extend any further than changing the legal status of blacks. They can still maintain white legal supremacy, plenty of states in the US passed laws that did just that during and after the Civil War, and Britain acknowledged the Caste System in India. The Confederacy can even maintain slavery in all but name, which they did to a significant extent IOTL with convict leasing and share-cropping, but to an even greater extent in this scenario through means like indentured labor, peonage, etc. When it comes to it, I think the South would prefer to maintain their economic and social system founded on white supremacy and black labor under another name and slightly different form than risk it coming apart due to an insistance on calling it slavery.
Eventually, the South would be forced to abolish slavery, but not for a long time and the act itself is unlikely to make much difference at all to the lives of blacks in the country. When you have an entire nation who's raison d'etre is the perpetuation of slavery and a system founded on it, there are a thousand ways to recreate a system every bit as brutal and effective at extracting the labor of the subject population. OTL's share-cropping shows one way, as does the peonage seen in Latin America, but I'm sure there are others that will be even more effective without the need to obscure the reality that was present IOTL. Sadly, the South is very likely to get away with this, because modern history shows that people will turn a blind eye to an awful lot of exploitative practices and systems. As IOTL calling it slavery and owning other humans will be enough to provoke ire, but it doesn't take much effort to make the truth just blurry enough for people to not care.
my two cents.
I think this is true, but I think that of the "appear to uplift black population" and "actually uplift black population" choices, the CSA might well rather do the former before the latter.I pretty much agree with you here.
My quibble is that the CSA is not the sort of state to pass a law appearing to uplift their black population for the sake of doing so. It would take time and economics to force them to do so, and it would very much be in the interests of the planter elite.
In all honesty slavery was to the CSA what communism was to the USSR; an ideology that dominated all levels of life. So as long as the CSA exists slavery exists, as any effort to dismantle the ideology runs the risk of bringing down the whole jenga tower.