Difference between revisions of "HIST 131--Week 11 Questions/Comments"
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(→Bennett Barrow’s Plantation Journal, May, 1838) |
(→James Henry Hammond, 1845 “Letter to an English Abolitionist”) |
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I, like many others, was completely puzzled when I read this account. I realize we have to look at things differently because this was written when different social standards were in place. However, to say that slaves were in an "Eden" and that because the absence of pain is pleasure that the slaves must be the happiest in the world is just completely mind boggling. I did a bit of research and found that It was reported, in 1841, that seventy-eight of his slaves died in a ten-year period. Was he so far removed, so invested in the production of cotton and the "old south" view of slaves and so blind that he actually thought these ludicrous things despite all the evidence against it? Or was it simply for his convenience that he looked at slaves this way?--Kathleen Dray | I, like many others, was completely puzzled when I read this account. I realize we have to look at things differently because this was written when different social standards were in place. However, to say that slaves were in an "Eden" and that because the absence of pain is pleasure that the slaves must be the happiest in the world is just completely mind boggling. I did a bit of research and found that It was reported, in 1841, that seventy-eight of his slaves died in a ten-year period. Was he so far removed, so invested in the production of cotton and the "old south" view of slaves and so blind that he actually thought these ludicrous things despite all the evidence against it? Or was it simply for his convenience that he looked at slaves this way?--Kathleen Dray | ||
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| + | There were two things I found interesting from James Henry Hammond's "Letter to an English Abolitionist." First, I was surprised that he used the example of Thomas Jefferson's "all men are born equal" statement to represent the opposite of what slave holders believed. Did he ever consider that Jefferson meant "all WHITE men"? Second, I found it interesting that he compared the child labor conditions in Great Britain to the conditions of slavery. He makes slave owners seem just and compassionate toward children because he says that "we never put them [slaves] to any work, under ten, more generally twelve years of age, and then the very lightest." I wonder what the response would be from someone who lived in Britain and read this? -- Katie Mauro | ||
== Frederick Law Olmsted, 1861, Cotton Kingdom == | == Frederick Law Olmsted, 1861, Cotton Kingdom == | ||
