--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
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"Domestic slavery was quite common in West Africa, although the Europeans organized the trade to a much greater magnitude and value. Free black slaveowners resided in states as north as New York and as far south as Florida, extending westward into Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri. According to the federal census of 1830, free blacks owned more than 10,000 slaves in Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. The majority of black slaveowners lived in Louisiana and planted sugar cane. The majority of black masters had not been slaves themselves. Yet, the ranks of black slave masters were diverse: some acquired slaves as soon as they had accumulated enough capital after their own freedom, others received slaves with their own freedom from their white masters, and others had been free for several generations."
Via Billy
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Free Black Slaveowners In South Carolina
Mr. Townsend:
ReplyDeleteA lot of folks don't know about the slaveowners who were Black.
South Carolina had the most Black slaveowners of any state.
Also, a lot of folks have forgotten that there were WHITE slaves on the Carolina plantations.
Do you remember the novel and movie, "KIDNAPPED"?
Although the story is fiction, it was based on actual events.
Even after England outlawed the practice, Scottish orphans would be kidnapped and sold into slavery on the Carolina plantations.
In my own family's history, it is recorded that one of the escaped slaves assisted by the Underground Railroad was a "mysterious white boy who never spoke".
I've often wondered if the reason the white boy never spoke was because, being a Highlander, his only language was Gaelic, and therefore, he couldn't communicate in English.
Then again, maybe he was just too traumatized by the combination of being orphaned, kidnapped, and enslaved.
Thank you.
John Robert Mallernee
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Gulfport, Mississippi 39507
Very interesting. Do you have more information? By the way I added your link and thanks. Were you in Vietnam?
ReplyDeleteMr. Townsend:
ReplyDeleteI spent two years in Viet Nam.
The story of the "mysterious white slave boy who never spoke" is recorded in "THE TRUEBLOOD FAMILY IN AMERICA 1682 - 1963", which is out of print.
Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of that book.
Here's another interesting incident recorded in that same book:
When President Lincoln ordered Union troops to invade the South, the Quakers in Southern Indiana were so outraged, they threatened to secede.
Union troops were quickly dispatched to Kentucky to stop that from happening.
Thank you.
John Robert Mallernee
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Gulfport, Mississippi 39507