Putting an Antebellum Myth to Rest (slavery myth)

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/opinion/putting-an-antebellum-myth-about-slave-families-to-rest.html

WAS slavery an idyllic world of stable families headed by married parents? The recent controversy over “The Marriage Vow,” a document endorsed by the Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, might seem like just another example of how racial politics and historical ignorance are perennial features of the election cycle.

The vow, which included the assertion that “a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President,” was amended after the outrage it stirred.

However, this was not a harmless gaffe; it represents a resurfacing of a pro-slavery view of “family values” that was prevalent in the decades before the Civil War. The resurrection of this idea has particular resonance now, because it was 150 years ago, soon after the war began, that the government started to respect the dignity of slave families. Slaves did not live in independent “households”; they lived under the auspices of masters who controlled the terms of their most intimate relationships.

Back in 1860, marriage was a civil right and a legal contract, available only to free people. Male slaves had no paternal rights and female slaves were recognized as mothers only to the extent that their status doomed their children’s fate to servitude in perpetuity. To be sure, most slaves did all that they could to protect, sustain and nurture their loved ones. Freedom and the love of family are the most abiding themes that dominate the hundreds of published narratives written by former slaves.

[deutsey]

1. This is what they mean by "taking America back"

Bachmann and the interests she represents want to take us back to those "good ol' days"...and not just the "good ol' days" of slavery in the US but to pre-Englightenment feudalism.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I can't believe that some people are trying

to paint ANY aspect of slavery in a positive light. It's stunning.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. My sentiments exactly

Almost word-for-word, actually. If only this went 'viral,' it *could* be a real eye-opener for people who prefer to sit on the political sidelines. No use waiting for the complicit, compliant corporate media to do our work for us, however.

On edit: a single op-ed in the NYT does not constitute 'getting the word out' about these neoconfederates - not by a long shot!

[fasttense]

3. Really? The New York Times has to run a story like this?

Slavery an idyllic world of stable families headed by married parents? Really? Oh come on. Do people really believe that when you own a human you do what is best for that human? Just like you do what is best for an animal because you own it. Can anyone believe that absolute power over another person somehow makes you a caring and considerate owner? What about all the awful things that happened to slaves throughout history?

What about all the half white slaves running around the plantation? What about Thomas Jefferson and the affair he had with the black slave, that he refused to free, and all his black children? What about those white slave masters selling their own children down the river? Is that part of that idyllic marriage?

Are people really stupid enough to believe that owners of slaves were ever loving toward their property?

[lapislzi]

5. Operative word being "property."

Slaves were not human beings. They were chattel to be bought and sold. Children could be sold, as could parents.

It was all business, all bottom line, all cash, all the time.

Make no mistake.

[mn9driver]

4. This amnesia is pervasive and spreading.

I spent a day in Richmond several weeks ago and visited one of the many civil war museums there. They had a lot of accurate information on display, but the spin was undeniable. The war was about "states rights". Hmmm.

[jwirr]

7. Most of us learned this truth in our youth. Only the idiots who went

to school to play in the beauty contest are the kind that think that.

[dgibby]

8. If you want a real life account of what slavery was,

you need look no further than my family. One of my great uncles married a woman who was part Cherokee. Her mother was white, her father, Cherokee. They were married in the Native American tradition, but not according to the state of Va.

They had many children, most of whom were removed from their mother by the Overseers of the Poor in Alleghany Co. Their father spent most of his time hiding from the troops who were trying to relocate him to Oklahoma (Trail of Tears) The darker complected children were listed as black by the state (at that time there was no differentiation between Blacks and Native Americans) had to be hidden from the army, who was trying to send them to Oklahoma with their father and the slave traders,who were trying to sell them to plantation owners in the deep South. The father, Joseph Sparrowhawk and one of the children were eventually relocated. Most of the rest were removed from their mother. My great aunt was one of the few allowed to remain with her mother, but only because she looked "white".
The full impact of these odious practices affected this family for generations, and is documented in "The Persinger Family Journals, vol I and II". I have posted the link in the DU ancestry and genealogy if anyone is interested. My ancestor was Jacob Craft, who married Phebe Persinger, daughter of Sarah Persinger and Joseph Sparrowhawk. It's a fascinating read, and gives real insight into the plight of these folks.