A Thought Experiment - Slavery

[DGS49]

Imagine you are the oldest son of a large plantation owner in South Carolina, 1840. Thousands of acres of land, lots of livestock, and, say, a hundred slaves ("enslaved people"). They send you to Harvard for a "top notch" education, and you become convinced that Slavery is morally unacceptable. Completing your education, you go back home and start your life, learning to run the plantation from your father and others. You are appalled by the way the slaves are treated, especially by your white employed overseers, but you don't want to make major waves, so you go along to get along.

You lack the power and influence to impact the treatment of your human chattels, but in 1850, your father dies, and you are the sole heir. How do you deal with the moral dilemma? Imagine that you believe that ultimately, in your lifetime, slavery will be abolished, either by a war or by Constitutional Amendment, or otherwise. It is inevitable.

Consider the following:

• If you do anything overtly to improve the lot of your slaves, you will become a pariah, and could even be subjected to verbal and other forms of harassment.
• Whatever scorn you earn for yourself will also be heaped upon your living relatives who live on the plantation.
• The slaves are all illiterate and have no ability to do even basic arithmetic. To teach them formally would be a crime.
• At the time, the slaves are worth, say, a couple thousand dollars each (on average); when emancipated they are worth nothing.
• The slaves may not own real estate or other significant assets, including livestock.
• If you emancipate the slaves they will all likely leave, leaving you with a plantation and no one to keep it running.
• The plantation probably does not generate enough cash income to convert the slaves into wage-earning workers, and replacing slaves with "white" workers, even Irishmen, would not be feasible.
• None of the slaves have legal surnames, which you think is essential to their future.

In 1850, the South surely recognizes such concepts as a "Trust." It might be possible to subdivide the plantation into parcels large enough for each one to support an extended family, and earn a modicum of cash, assuming the economy remains stable. Perhaps the parcels could be deeded over to the Plantation Trust, for the benefit of designated slave "clans," headed by a husband and wife couple. In exchange for this transfer, the Beneficiaries would agree to allocate a percentage of the parcel's products and profits back to the original owner, in perpetuity.

I don't think it would be possible to do anything significant without the support of a relatively educated Negro, probably from one of the non-slave states. It is likely that a search for such a person would end up with a clergyman of one kind or another.

Thoughts?

 

[Lord Long Rod]

Sir, you sound like that no-good, negro-loving Lincoln with your subversive theories on slaving and southern economics in general. If you were standing before me at this very moment in time, then I would be hard-pressed to resist my substantial urge to remove the glove from my right hand and smack you across your face with it, thereby challenging you to a dual.

However, being the southern gentleman than I am, I am quite adept at controlling such base urges, like violence, equity, and other such hogwash. Therefore, I would simply turn my back on you.

Slaving is a storied tradition that goes back to the beginning of mankind. How can one contemporary be so presumptuous as to purport to sit in judgement of such a time-honored tradition? That’s preposterous!! It’s even written about in the Bible. You don’t reject God’s word, do you? I should certainly hope not!

Man is meant to live in a state of well-established and ordered hierarchy. It is the will of the gods, and guided by the sweet and loving hands of Eternity. It is divine destiny. It is when a man stands contra this destiny that the gods take their vengeance against mankind for disrupting this divine plan. That bastard Lincoln is one such man. And he will pay the price, I assure you!

Good sir, I must appeal to your capacity for logic here. Your so-called “thought experiment” is based upon the false assumption that slaving contravenes human morality. I implore you, sir, to reconsider your mistaken belief. There is nothing more perfectly in harmony with our sense of cosmic morality than taking in the negro and taking care of him or her, along with their little black chilluns, in exchange for some good and honest hard work! It teaches them skills. It instills in them a work ethic. It provides meaning in their otherwise godless lives.

Moreover, while on the plantation we are able to civilize these negroes. We teach them the Christian way and exorcise them of their wicked pagan practices. We save their souls!! Hallelujah!! I cannot think of anything … ANYTHING!! … more ethical, moral, and humane than slaving these negroes.

Sir, I tell you this with all due respect: you need to reconsider your views on the ancient and respectable institution of slavery. All this crazy, godless talk about freeing slaves will only lead to trouble. Big trouble!

 

[excalibur]

Tote dat barge!
Lif' dat bale!
Git a little drunk
An' you lands in jail

https://genius.com/Paul-robeson-ol-man-river-lyrics

And see:

Ol' Man River - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MaryL]

Imagine you are the oldest son of a large plantation owner in South Carolina, 1840. Thousands of acres of land, lots of livestock, and, say, a hundred slaves ("enslaved people"). They send you to Harvard for a "top notch" education, and you become convinced that Slavery is morally unacceptable. Completing your education, you go back home and start your life, learning to run the plantation from your father and others. You are appalled by the way the slaves are treated, especially by your white employed overseers, but you don't want to make major waves, so you go along to get along.

You lack the power and influence to impact the treatment of your human chattels, but in 1850, your father dies, and you are the sole heir. How do you deal with the moral dilemma? Imagine that you believe that ultimately, in your lifetime, slavery will be abolished, either by a war or by Constitutional Amendment, or otherwise. It is inevitable.

Consider the following:

• If you do anything overtly to improve the lot of your slaves, you will become a pariah, and could even be subjected to verbal and other forms of harassment.
• Whatever scorn you earn for yourself will also be heaped upon your living relatives who live on the plantation.
• The slaves are all illiterate and have no ability to do even basic arithmetic. To teach them formally would be a crime.
• At the time, the slaves are worth, say, a couple thousand dollars each (on average); when emancipated they are worth nothing.
• The slaves may not own real estate or other significant assets, including livestock.
• If you emancipate the slaves they will all likely leave, leaving you with a plantation and no one to keep it running.
• The plantation probably does not generate enough cash income to convert the slaves into wage-earning workers, and replacing slaves with "white" workers, even Irishmen, would not be feasible.
• None of the slaves have legal surnames, which you think is essential to their future.

In 1850, the South surely recognizes such concepts as a "Trust." It might be possible to subdivide the plantation into parcels large enough for each one to support an extended family, and earn a modicum of cash, assuming the economy remains stable. Perhaps the parcels could be deeded over to the Plantation Trust, for the benefit of designated slave "clans," headed by a husband and wife couple. In exchange for this transfer, the Beneficiaries would agree to allocate a percentage of the parcel's products and profits back to the original owner, in perpetuity.

I don't think it would be possible to do anything significant without the support of a relatively educated Negro, probably from one of the non-slave states. It is likely that a search for such a person would end up with a clergyman of one kind or another.

Thoughts?

Your narrative is confusing, that's my takeaway. Given the tenor of the time and the zeitgeist of 1776 not the same as 2023. Context.

 

[DGS49]

Your narrative is confusing, that's my takeaway. Given the tenor of the time and the zeitgeist of 1776 not the same as 2023. Context.

Not talking about 1776, as I clearly stated.

Context is everything. That's my point. What would a God-fearing person do under those circumstances?

 

[Zincwarrior]

Imagine you are the oldest son of a large plantation owner in South Carolina, 1840. Thousands of acres of land, lots of livestock, and, say, a hundred slaves ("enslaved people"). They send you to Harvard for a "top notch" education, and you become convinced that Slavery is morally unacceptable. Completing your education, you go back home and start your life, learning to run the plantation from your father and others. You are appalled by the way the slaves are treated, especially by your white employed overseers, but you don't want to make major waves, so you go along to get along.

You lack the power and influence to impact the treatment of your human chattels, but in 1850, your father dies, and you are the sole heir. How do you deal with the moral dilemma? Imagine that you believe that ultimately, in your lifetime, slavery will be abolished, either by a war or by Constitutional Amendment, or otherwise. It is inevitable.

Consider the following:

• If you do anything overtly to improve the lot of your slaves, you will become a pariah, and could even be subjected to verbal and other forms of harassment.
• Whatever scorn you earn for yourself will also be heaped upon your living relatives who live on the plantation.
• The slaves are all illiterate and have no ability to do even basic arithmetic. To teach them formally would be a crime.
• At the time, the slaves are worth, say, a couple thousand dollars each (on average); when emancipated they are worth nothing.
• The slaves may not own real estate or other significant assets, including livestock.
• If you emancipate the slaves they will all likely leave, leaving you with a plantation and no one to keep it running.
• The plantation probably does not generate enough cash income to convert the slaves into wage-earning workers, and replacing slaves with "white" workers, even Irishmen, would not be feasible.
• None of the slaves have legal surnames, which you think is essential to their future.

In 1850, the South surely recognizes such concepts as a "Trust." It might be possible to subdivide the plantation into parcels large enough for each one to support an extended family, and earn a modicum of cash, assuming the economy remains stable. Perhaps the parcels could be deeded over to the Plantation Trust, for the benefit of designated slave "clans," headed by a husband and wife couple. In exchange for this transfer, the Beneficiaries would agree to allocate a percentage of the parcel's products and profits back to the original owner, in perpetuity.

I don't think it would be possible to do anything significant without the support of a relatively educated Negro, probably from one of the non-slave states. It is likely that a search for such a person would end up with a clergyman of one kind or another.

Thoughts?

Thoughts. You try being a slave for a week.

 

[Libby von H]

Not talking about 1776, as I clearly stated.

Context is everything. That's my point. What would a God-fearing person do under those circumstances?

Such a person IN SPADES was Frederick Douglass

But I want to add this,also from FD: Your view is still a white man's view (instead of just man's view, a person's view)

At an 1865 gathering of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass said everybody had asked, “What should we do with the Negro?” Douglass said: “I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.”

STAND UP FOR "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL" and drop the Black Jewish woman gay thing

 

[Mac-7]

Tote dat barge!
Lif' dat bale!
Git a little drunk
An' you lands in jail

https://genius.com/Paul-robeson-ol-man-river-lyrics

And see:

Ol' Man River - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One of the best songs ever written by a white person

 

[MisterBeale]

Interview 1826 - Jones Plantation with Larken and Amanda Rose​

Corbett • 08/17/2023 •

Interview 1826 - Jones Plantation with Larken and Amanda Rose - The Corbett Report

In January 2020, Larken and Amanda Rose appeared on The Corbett Report to discuss their plan to turn Larken's short fable, "The Jones Plantation," into a feature-length film. Well, guess what? It's 2023 and that film is now here. Appropriately enough, it's called Jones Plantation and it's...

www.corbettreport.com

Jones Plantation (2023) ⭐ 6.2 | Drama

1h 50m

www.imdb.com

Mock up. . .

The Jones Plantation​

11 years ago