Tea Party Group Demand Textbooks Say Nice Things About Slave Owners

[EriktheRed]

Is it really that difficult to say good things about people who established our Republic and have ensured our liberty from then till now?

No.

Is this only about the Founders?

 

[The T]

Oh good grief...the Hufferpost AGAIN..

Yes, and as usual, it has live source links...

yeah right. with a little of their own warped interpretation thrown in..
I mean, Alec Baldwin post article for them...

Alec Baldwin is a loser...relegated to doing commercials.

 

[ClosedCaption]

What part of dragged out of their own country, forced to lose their family and forced into a situation where they are nothing more than a piece of property that works for nothing to make a white man richer is the "good part"?

As far as Native Americans... what part of a group of people coming in, taking over their traditional homeland, forcing them to worship a God they don't understand, and herding them to Oklahoma via the trail of tears is the "good Part"?

If we would have learned to assimilate with them and share knowledge and ideologies... you know... treat them as equals? You probably wouldn't be whining about how unfairly us white people are being treated in history books.

Perhaps you should do some research and stop believing what Liberal Class warfare Artists are telling you they want. They do not want, and are not asking, that Kids be taught slavery was "good"

Why the hell am I wasting my time with you clear Hyper Partisan Left wing Loons. The truth could smack you across the face and you would deny anything happened so you could twist it into proof anyone who is not a liberal is a Racists Pig.

What are they asking for then? Dont tell me what you "believe" tell me what they want since you know it all. I bet you dont answer

 

[initforme]

Slavery is a deep, dark, nasty part of american history. A country founded on freedom CANNOT in any way defend ANY slave owners. Slavery in my mind should be taught for everything that was so terribly wrong with it. This is an easy one.

 

[Psychoblues]

Oh good grief...the Hufferpost AGAIN..

Yes, and as usual, it has live source links...

yeah right. with a little of their own warped interpretation thrown in..
I mean, Alec Baldwin post article for them...

If you have any disagreements or additional information that might shed more light on the subject and refrain from all that grandstanding and shooting the messenger then ppl might pay more attention to you, Stevie. btw, I gave a big WUZZUP earlier in this thread.

 

[The T]

Slavery is a deep, dark, nasty part of american history. A country founded on freedom CANNOT in any way defend ANY slave owners. Slavery in my mind should be taught for everything that was so terribly wrong with it. This is an easy one.

And the Founders knew it had to be done away with if a free nation was to be...Southern States had other ideas...eventually it was.

Read the 3/5ths compromise sometime.

 

[mskafka]

By Trymaine Lee

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

More: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History

Supporting Links:

Tennessee Tea Parties demand textbooks contain no mean things about Founding Fathers - Tea Parties - Salon.com

Tea parties issue demands to Tennessee legislators » The Commercial Appeal

Wow! Just fucking wow. Here's my response to that:

Parents Of Gay Teen Say School Bullying Caused Suicide - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports



It's fine if you want to do that in private schools, but absolutely NOT in public. I am frankly disgusted by the number of recent teen suicides by children who've been bullied. And I suspect that the bullies are coming from two sources:

1. Parents who are abusive toward the children who bully.
2. Bigoted parents who encourage their children (by their interactions and views that they share with the children) to be intolerant of others who dare to be different than their shallow, ignorant ways.

Slavery was a good thing, eh? I hate to be so mean and crude but inbred idiots...most of them who encourage this bullshit.

 

[NYcarbineer]

By Trymaine Lee

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

More: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History

Supporting Links:

Tennessee Tea Parties demand textbooks contain no mean things about Founding Fathers - Tea Parties - Salon.com

Tea parties issue demands to Tennessee legislators » The Commercial Appeal

Brought liberty to a world where it hadn't existed? I guess if you don't count that while decimating the Iroquois nations,

they managed to borrow heavily from the Iroquois' form of government.

 

[Stephanie]

Yes, and as usual, it has live source links...

yeah right. with a little of their own warped interpretation thrown in..
I mean, Alec Baldwin post article for them...

If you have any disagreements or additional information that might shed more light on the subject and refrain from all that grandstanding and shooting the messenger then ppl might pay more attention to you, Stevie. btw, I gave a big WUZZUP earlier in this thread.

Hey Psycho man, long time no see..Hope things have been good for you..
as for this subject of the thread, I'll wait until it comes from a MORE reputable source.
good to see you around again, I think...

 

[NYcarbineer]

Slavery is a deep, dark, nasty part of american history. A country founded on freedom CANNOT in any way defend ANY slave owners. Slavery in my mind should be taught for everything that was so terribly wrong with it. This is an easy one.

And the Founders knew it had to be done away with if a free nation was to be...Southern States had other ideas...eventually it was.

Read the 3/5ths compromise sometime.

It was done away with by your pals the STATISTS.

 

[Psychoblues]

yeah right. with a little of their own warped interpretation thrown in..
I mean, Alec Baldwin post article for them...

If you have any disagreements or additional information that might shed more light on the subject and refrain from all that grandstanding and shooting the messenger then ppl might pay more attention to you, Stevie. btw, I gave a big WUZZUP earlier in this thread.

Hey Psycho man, long time no see..Hope things have been good for you..
as for this subject of the thread, I'll wait until it comes from a MORE reputable source.
good to see you around again, I think...

Things have never been better, Stevie!!!!!! Huffington Post did not write that piece. It came from the very conservative Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial Appeal, a Scripps Howard newspaper, and they can usually be depended on for factual reporting if not occasionally right leaning reporting. This story is real and is available from a number of sources, your pick of course. This is not the first time right wingers have tried to diminish history for their own purposes. But, ppl like me and many others keep a watchful eye out for those that would rather forget about 240 years of actual history and re-write it for their own selfish reasons.

 

[initforme]

So the south was wrong to want slavery. And it was changed. Why cannot this be taught? It is wrong for anyone to think they can OWN someone else. Case closed

 

[Stephanie]

If you have any disagreements or additional information that might shed more light on the subject and refrain from all that grandstanding and shooting the messenger then ppl might pay more attention to you, Stevie. btw, I gave a big WUZZUP earlier in this thread.

Hey Psycho man, long time no see..Hope things have been good for you..
as for this subject of the thread, I'll wait until it comes from a MORE reputable source.
good to see you around again, I think...

Things have never been better, Stevie!!!!!! Huffington Post did not write that piece. It came from the very conservative Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial Appeal, a Scripps Howard newspaper, and they can usually be depended on for factual reporting if not occasionally right leaning reporting. This story is real and is available from a number of sources, your pick of course. This is not the first time right wingers have tried to diminish history for their own purposes. But, ppl like me and many others keep a watchful eye out for those that would rather forget about 240 years of actual history and re-write it for their own selfish reasons.

listen up my friend, NOBODY is going to forget Slavery..but to say the TEA Party has anything to do with wanting to whitewash it somehow...I find bullshit. so I question the paper and who wrote the article..and if they had another link to this article, why didn't they post it from the paper? a lot of people don't go to the Hufferpost..

 

[teapartysamurai]

By Trymaine Lee

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

More: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History

Supporting Links:

Tennessee Tea Parties demand textbooks contain no mean things about Founding Fathers - Tea Parties - Salon.com

Tea parties issue demands to Tennessee legislators » The Commercial Appeal

You know what's missing from all three articles????????

EVIDENCE!!!!!!!!!!!

All we see is claims that the Tea Party wants this. No pdfs with actual documents. No back up of the actual claims.

NO EVIDENCE THIS IS ACTUALLY THE TEA PARTY and not the typical liberals trying to look like Tea Party.

I call BS.

 

[initforme]

In the end I doubt the tea party is defending slavery. While I view them as a radical group I surely dont see them supporting slavery. Nobody can justify it. They know that. I dont trust the H post any more than I trust the wall st journal.

 

[The T]

Hey Psycho man, long time no see..Hope things have been good for you..
as for this subject of the thread, I'll wait until it comes from a MORE reputable source.
good to see you around again, I think...

Things have never been better, Stevie!!!!!! Huffington Post did not write that piece. It came from the very conservative Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial Appeal, a Scripps Howard newspaper, and they can usually be depended on for factual reporting if not occasionally right leaning reporting. This story is real and is available from a number of sources, your pick of course. This is not the first time right wingers have tried to diminish history for their own purposes. But, ppl like me and many others keep a watchful eye out for those that would rather forget about 240 years of actual history and re-write it for their own selfish reasons.

listen up my friend, NOBODY is going to forget Slavery..but to say the TEA Party has anything to do with wanting to whitewash it somehow...I find bullshit. so I question the paper and who wrote the article..and if they had another link to this article, why didn't they post it from the paper? a lot of people don't go to the Hufferpost..

Quite Frankly? Many of the Founders wanted to do away with it...Southern folks (whom later turned out later to for the Democrat Party, would sign onto the Constitution...ONLY if they could count thier slaves as part of apportionment).

3/5ths Compromise.

 

[initforme]

I dont have such a fondness for our founding fathers. Truth be told. The wigs. They werent so great.

 

[tinydancer]

By Trymaine Lee

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

More: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History

Supporting Links:

Tennessee Tea Parties demand textbooks contain no mean things about Founding Fathers - Tea Parties - Salon.com

Tea parties issue demands to Tennessee legislators » The Commercial Appeal

Black slave owners were kind to theirs.


Black Slave Owners


Home
Black Slave Owners
The Grand Union
The Ashville Declaration
Names of minorities in the CS army
The Case for Modern Secession
Confederate Constitution
Northern Atrocities
Confronting the lies (part 1)
Confronting the lies (part 2)
Ex-slaves and the Old South




DIXIE'S CENSORED SUBJECT
BLACK SLAVEOWNERS
By Robert M. Grooms
© 1997
(THIS ARTICLE IS COPYRIGHTED AND IS PROVIDED HERE COURTESY OF THE
BARNES REVIEW)

In an 1856 letter to his wife Mary Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee
called slavery "a moral and political evil." Yet he concluded that black slaves were immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally,
socially and physically.
The fact is large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in
fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at
large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According
to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War,
there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.
The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000
individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8
percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves).
In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free
Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the
freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been
unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is
debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These
include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2).
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were
nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four
million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.
To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is
certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all
American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The
statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.
The majority of slaveholders, white and black, owned only one to
five slaves. More often than not, and contrary to a century and a half
of bullwhips-on-tortured-backs propaganda, black and white masters
worked and ate alongside their charges; be it in house, field or workshop. The few individuals who owned 50 or more slaves were confined to the top one percent, and have been defined as slave magnates.
In 1860 there were at least six Negroes in Louisiana who owned 65
or more slaves The largest number, 152 slaves, were owned by the widow
C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards, who owned a large sugar cane
plantation. Another Negro slave magnate in Louisiana, with over 100
slaves, was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at (in 1860 dollars) $264,000 (3). That year, the mean wealth of southern white men was $3,978 (4).
In Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 125 free Negroes owned
slaves; six of them owning 10 or more. Of the $1.5 million in taxable
property owned by free Negroes in Charleston, more than $300,000 represented slave holdings (5). In North Carolina 69 free Negroes were slave owners
(6).
In 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro
slaveowner. In Black Masters. A Free Family of Color in the Old South,
authors Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roak write a sympathetic account of Ellison's life. From Ellison's birth as a slave to his death at 71, the authors attempt to provide justification, based on their own
speculation, as to why a former slave would become a magnate slave master.
At birth he was given the name April. A common practice among
slaves of the period was to name a child after the day or month of his or her birth. Between 1800 and 1802 April was purchased by a white
slave-owner named William Ellison. Apprenticed at 12, he was taught the trades of carpentry, blacksmithing and machining, as well as how to read, write, cipher and do basic bookkeeping.
On June 8, 1816, William Ellison appeared before a magistrate
(with five local freeholders as supporting witnesses) to gain permission to free April, now 26 years of age. In 1800 the South Carolina legislature had set out in detail the procedures for manumission. To end the practice of freeing unruly slaves of "bad or depraved" character and those who "from age or infirmity" were incapacitated, the state required that an owner testify under oath to the good character of the slave he sought to free. Also required was evidence of the slave's "ability to gain a livelihood in an honest way."
Although lawmakers of the time could not envision the incredibly
vast public welfare structures of a later age, these stipulations
became law in order to prevent slaveholders from freeing individuals who would become a burden on the general public.
Interestingly, considering today's accounts of life under
slavery, authors Johnson and Roak report instances where free Negroes
petitioned to be allowed to become slaves; this because they were unable to support themselves.
Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia
(University Press of Virginia-1995) was written by Ervin L. Jordan Jr., an African-American and assistant professor and associate curator of the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia library. He wrote: "One of the more curious aspects of the free black existence in Virginia was their ownership of slaves. Black slave masters owned members of their family and freed them in their wills. Free blacks were encouraged to sell themselves into slavery and had the right to choose their owner through a lengthy court procedure."
In 1816, shortly after his manumission, April moved to Stateburg.
Initially he hired slave workers from local owners. When in 1817 he
built a gin for Judge Thomas Watries, he credited the judge nine dollars "for hire of carpenter George for 12 days." By 1820 he had purchased two adult males to work in his shop (7). In fewer than four years after being freed, April demonstrated that he had no problem perpetuating an institution he had been released from. He also achieved greater monetary success than most white people of the period.
On June 20, 1820, April appeared in the Sumter District
courthouse in Sumterville. Described in court papers submitted by his attorney as a "freed yellow man of about 29 years of age," he requested a name change because it "would yet greatly advance his interest as a
tradesman." A new name would also "save him and his children from degradation and contempt which the minds of some do and will attach to the name April." Because "of the kindness" of his former master and as a "Mark of gratitude and respect for him" April asked that his name be changed to William Ellison. His request was granted.
In time the black Ellison family joined the predominantly white
Episcopalian church. On August 6, 1824 he was allowed to put a family
bench on the first floor, among those of the wealthy white families.
Other blacks, free and slave, and poor whites sat in the balcony. Another wealthy Negro family would later join the first floor worshippers.
Between 1822 and the mid-1840s, Ellison gradually built a small
empire, acquiring slaves in increasing numbers. He became one of South
Carolina's major cotton gin manufacturers, selling his machines as far
away as Mississippi. From February 1817 until the War Between the States commenced, his business advertisements appeared regularly in newspapers across the state. These included the Camden Gazette, the Sumter Southern Whig and the Black River Watchman.
Ellison was so successful, due to his utilization of cheap slave
labor, that many white competitors went out of business. Such
situations discredit impressions that whites dealt only with other whites. Where money was involved, it was apparent that neither Ellison's race or former status were considerations.
In his book, Ervin L. Jordan Jr. writes that, as the great
conflagration of 1861-1865 approached: "Free Afro-Virginians were a nascent black middle class under siege, but several acquired property before and during the war. Approximately 169 free blacks owned 145,976 acres in the counties of Amelia, Amherst, Isle of Wight, Nansemond, Prince William and Surry, averaging 870 acres each. Twenty-rune Petersburg blacks each owned property worth $1,000 and continued to purchase more despite the war."
Jordan offers an example: "Gilbert Hunt, a Richmond ex-slave
blacksmith, owned two slaves, a house valued at $1,376, and $500 in other properties at his death in 1863." Jordan wrote that "some free black residents of Hampton and Norfolk owned property of considerable value; 17 black Hamptonians possessed property worth a total of $15,000. Thirty-six black men paid taxes as heads of families in Elizabeth City County and were employed as blacksmiths, bricklayers, fishermen, oystermen and day laborers. In three Norfolk County parishes 160 blacks owned a total of $41,158 in real estate and personal property.
The general practice of the period was that plantation owners
would buy seed and equip~ ment on credit and settle their outstanding
accounts when the annual cotton crop was sold. Ellison, like all free
Negroes, could resort to the courts for enforcement of the terms of contract agreements. Several times Ellison successfully sued white men for money owed him.
In 1838 Ellison purchased on time 54.5 acres adjoining his
original acreage from one Stephen D. Miller. He moved into a large home on the property. What made the acquisition notable was that Miller had
served in the South Carolina legislature, both in the U.S. House of
Representatives and the Senate, and while a resident of Stateburg had been governor of the state. Ellison's next door neighbor was Dr. W.W. Anderson, master of "Borough House, a magnificent 18th Century mansion.
Anderson's son would win fame in the War Between the States as General "Fighting Dick" Anderson.
By 1847 Ellison owned over 350 acres, and more than 900 by 1860.
He raised mostly cotton, with a small acreage set aside for cultivating
foodstuffs to feed his family and slaves. In 1840 he owned 30 slaves,
and by 1860 he owned 63. His sons, who lived in homes on the property,
owned an additional nine slaves. They were trained as gin makers by
their father (8). They had spent time in Canada, where many wealthy
American Negroes of the period sent their children for advanced formal
education. Ellison's sons and daughters married mulattos from Charleston, bringing them to the Ellison plantation to live.
In 1860 Ellison greatly underestimated his worth to tax assessors
at $65,000. Even using this falsely stated figure, this man who had
been a slave 44 years earlier had achieved great financial success. His
wealth outdistanced 90 percent of his white neighbors in Sumter District. In the entire state, only five percent owned as much real estate as Ellison. His wealth was 15 times greater than that of the state's average for whites. And Ellison owned more slaves than 99 percent of the South's slaveholders.
Although a successful businessman and cotton farmer, Ellison's
major source of income derived from being a "slave breeder." Slave breeding was looked upon with disgust throughout the South, and the laws of most southern states forbade the sale of slaves under the age of 12. In several states it was illegal to sell inherited slaves (9).
Nevertheless, in 1840 Ellison secretly began slave breeding.
While there was subsequent investment return in raising and
keeping young males, females were not productive workers in his factory or his cotton fields. As a result, except for a few females he raised to become "breeders," Ellison sold the female and many of the male children born to his female slaves at an average price of $400. Ellison had a reputation as a harsh master. His slaves were said to be the district's worst fed and clothed. On his property was located a small, windowless building where he would chain his problem slaves.
As with the slaves of his white counterparts, occasionally
Ellison's slaves ran away. The historians of Sumter District reported that from time to time Ellison advertised for the return of his runaways. On at least one occasion Ellison hired the services of a slave catcher. According to an account by Robert N. Andrews, a white man who had purchased a small hotel in Stateburg in the 1820s, Ellison hired him to run down "a valuable slave. Andrews caught the slave in Belleville, Virginia. He stated: "I was paid on returning home $77.50 and $74 for expenses.
William Ellison died December 5, 1861. His will stated that his
estate should pass into the joint hands of his free daughter and his two surviving sons. He bequeathed $500 to the slave daughter he had sold.
Following in their father's footsteps, the Ellison family
actively supported the Confederacy throughout the war. They converted nearly their entire plantation to the production of corn, fodder, bacon, corn shucks and cotton for the Confederate armies. They paid $5,000 in taxes during the war. They also invested more than $9,000 in Confederate bonds, treasury notes and certificates in addition to the Confederate currency they held. At the end, all this valuable paper became worthless.
The younger Ellisons contributed more than farm produce, labor
and money to the Confederate cause. On March 27, 1863 John Wilson
Buckner, William Ellison's oldest grandson, enlisted in the 1st South Carolina Artillery. Buckner served in the company of Captains P.P. Galliard and A.H. Boykin, local white men who knew that Buckner was a Negro. Although it was illegal at the time for a Negro to formally join the Confederate forces, the Ellison family's prestige nullified the law in the minds of Buckner's comrades. Buckner was wounded in action on July 12, 1863. At his funeral in Stateburg in August, 1895 he was praised by his former Confederate officers as being a "faithful soldier."
Following the war the Ellison family fortune quickly dwindled.
But many former Negro slave magnates quickly took advantage of
circumstances and benefited by virtue of their race. For example Antoine Dubuclet, the previously mentioned New Orleans plantation owner who held more than 100 slaves, became Louisiana state treasurer during Reconstruction, a post he held from 1868 to 1877 (10).
A truer picture of the Old South, one never presented by the
nation's mind molders, emerges from this account. The American South had been undergoing structural evolutionary changes far, far greater than generations of Americans have been led to believe. In time, within a relatively short time, the obsolete and economically nonviable institution of slavery would have disappeared. The nation would have been spared awesome traumas from which it would never fully recover.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES
1. The American Negro, Raymond Logan and Irving Cohen New York:
Houghton and Mifflin, 1970), p.72.
2. Black Masters. A Family of Color in the Old South, Michael P.
Johnson and James L. Roak New York: Norton, 1984), p.64.
3. The Forgotten People, Gary Mills (Baton Rouge, 1977); Black
Masters, p.128.
4. Men and Wealth in the US., 1850-1870, Lee Soltow (New Haven,
1975), p.85.
5. Black Masters, Appendix, Table 7; p.280.
6. Black Masters, p. 62.
7. Information on the Ellison family was obtained from Black
Masters; the number of slaves they owned was gained from U.S. Census
Reports.
8. In 1860 South Carolina had only 21 gin makers; Ellison, his
three sons and a grandson account for five of the total.
9. Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil
and the United States, Carl N. Degler (New York, Macmillan, 1971),
p.39; Negro Slavery in Louisiana, Joe Gray Taylor (Baton Rouge, 1963), pp.
4041.
10. Reconstruction, 1863-1877, Eric Foner (New York; Harper &
Row, 1988), p. 47; pp. 353-355.

 

[The T]

I dont have such a fondness for our founding fathers. Truth be told. The wigs. They werent so great.

Really Gracie?

 

[Lakhota]

Tea Partiers would prefer students didn't learn George Washington owned slaves.

By Marie Diamond

Many of America’s first leaders, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings, and James Madison actually brought a slave with him to the White House when he became president.

The framers also painstakingly avoided addressing the issue of slavery when they wrote the Constitution, which included a compromise that each slave be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation and taxation.

But recently, conservatives have preferred to gloss over those ugly truths and deprive students of a complete and honest portrait of the imperfect men who founded our country. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), founder of the congressional Tea Party caucus, famously said that the founders “worked tirelessly” to end slavery. Several of the GOP candidates have even signed a pledge that claimed that blacks were better off under slavery than under President Obama.

More: Tennessee Tea Party 'Demands' That References To Slavery Be Removed From History Textbooks | ThinkProgress