II. Whitesplaining Slavery to Black Children (ADDED, 1894)
While recognizing “the hand of Providence in it all…
“I know folks think the books tell the truth, but they shore don’t.” — Martin Luther Bost (1937)
A “faithful, consistent, and valuable” member of the German Reformed church, “Major Finger” was described by the Charlotte Observer as “a worthy member of the Masonic fraternity, a consistent Christian, an educated gentleman and a valuable citizen” when he died suddenly, and unexpectedly, at his home in Newton on December 26, 1896. North Carolina’s Democratic Governor Elias Carr sent the following dispatch to the former Confederate Quartermaster and retired Democratic politician’s widow, as reported in The Messenger in Wilmington: “Accept my sincere sympathy in your sad bereavement. The state has lost an honored son, who has been devoted to her interests.”
Fourteen months later, “Warren Coleman and his associates laid the cornerstone for the nation’s first black-owned cotton mill in Concord” — just a few miles from where Major Finger lived and died. The event in Concord was keynoted by the newly elected Republican Congressman George Henry White, and one of Coleman’s associates in this venture was Edward Austin Johnson. Just two years had passed since Finger, retired from office as the Superintendent of Public Instruction for North Carolina, had supervised the 1894 revision to Johnson’s Black history textbook for use in public schools in our state.
As noted in my post on the Preface, Johnson’s original textbook “sought to promote the progress of the black race and their role in the creation of America and beyond” according to Sarah Shepard:
“In his attempt to challenge the Lost Cause, however, Johnson promoted ideas of racial uplift and racial progress, born out of the belief that slaves benefited from slavery. This problematic idea reinforced the narrative of the faithful slave and the Lost Cause…[and] ended up accommodating and reinforcing it.”
To even further reinforce this “pseudohistorical negationist mythology,” a whole new chapter (II) on the “General View of Slavery in the World” was added in the Finger-supervised revision (1894) of Johnson’s textbook. The full text of this chapter is included below.
Before we proceed to the study of the Negro in the Colonies and in the United States, it may be well to glance at the subject of slavery in ancient times. From the earliest dawn of history slavery existed in some form, and it was not circumscribed by color or race lines. It was rather a question of physical power, and the number of slaves was very great as compared with those who owned and controlled them.
Even in cultured Greece and Rome there were slaves from various causes as follows:
1. By capture in war;
2. By birth, that is, slavery was hereditary;
3. By sale of children by their parents;
4. By judicial sentence for crime;
5. By commerce, that is, slaves were bought and sold for gain;
6. By failure to pay debts, etc.
Slavery was interwoven into the whole life of the people in all ages until comparatively recent times, whether we consider the life of savages or civilized peoples. Its character was of the most abject kind, and involved the most severe and menial labor. Even under the old Roman law, the master had such authority over his slaves as allowed him to put them to death.
As we come down through the Middle Ages slavery gradually gave way to serfdom; and finally serfdom disappeared, and in modern times personal freedom has been almost universally declared in civilized nations.
The progress from slavery to freedom was very slow. For thousands of years Negroes had been sold from the eastern coast of Africa to Arabia, Persia, India, the Barbary States, Egypt and Asia Minor. After the discovery of America they were sold from the western coast of Africa to the West Indies, Brazil — to all the American colonies, which were under the control of the British, French, Spaniards, Dutch and Portuguese.
About the middle of the fifteenth century the Portuguese began the Western African slave trade by selling Negroes to the Spaniards, and soon thereafter the Spaniards introduced the children of these slaves into their colonies in the West Indies. It was not long after this introduction of Negro slaves into the colonies of the newly-discovered western world until the slave trade was eagerly engaged in, and none of the governments of the old world interfered or considered it wrong, although they were largely under the influence of the Christian Church. This can be accounted for by considering the firm hold that slavery had upon the world and the unfortunate condition of the Negroes themselves. Perhaps it was in most cases the weakest of the Negro tribes in Africa that were conquered by their neighbors, and by them sold to the white slave traders.
In 1792 Denmark led off in the abolition of the slave trade; England followed in 1807, and the United States in 1808. After the abolition of the slave trade by these and other nations that made it unlawful to bring slaves from Africa and sell them in the markets of the world, there remained the great problem of freeing those slaves that had been bought and were owned by individual citizens. This problem will be considered in this book.
While it seems strange to people of this generation that Negro slavery should ever have existed, yet the wonder will not appear so great if we consider that slavery in some form is as old as history. While the conscience of the civilized world either approved or tolerated Negro slavery, the traffic in slaves went on. Men invested their money in them and naturally were slow to set them free or allow the Government to do so. So the conflict between conscience and self-interest grew.
The Negroes became more intelligent by contact with the whites, and so more and more did it become necessary that repressive measures be adopted to keep them in subjection. This fact accounts for the harsh means that were sometimes adopted to keep them to their labor and to keep them from running away from their masters. In the United States the usual means adopted was whipping, but sometimes other and, perhaps, more severe punishment was used. The master, however, did not have authority to put his slave to death.
That the Negroes were improved during their term of slavery in the United States is admitted, but the time came when they were to be set free and given opportunity more rapidly to improve as citizens of a great Republic. There are persons who believe that a term of slavery was really the best means of starting the Negroes on the road to civilization and citizenship; and there are also those who believe that the Negro’s experience and training in the United States are to result in the more speedy civilization of his brethren in Africa. So let us approach the study of the Negro in the United States with toleration, and free from prejudice.
As to the hand of Providence in it all, let us weigh the following words of Dr. A. G. Haygood:
“Let me ask, and let sober people answer, whether the wild Africans were fitted for freedom when they were first landed from the slave-ships that brought them from their savage homes to the plantations. Were not their American masters, unworthy of their sacred trust, as many of them were, better fitted, judged by any test, to prepare these people for freedom than were their African masters and conquerors who sold them to the slavers? For what is generally forgotten should be always remembered — most of the Negroes sold into slavery in America were brought from slavery in Africa. And surely I do not go too far when I say American slavery was freedom compared with the slavery from which they were taken.”
“One may be entirely consistent when he says, I recognize the hand of Providence in the coming to this country of several thousands of savage and heathen Africans; I recognize the hand of Providence in the circumstances of their enslavement in such a country and among such a people, and I rejoice now, and thank God from day to day, that this same Providence has set them free forever. If any object, he must say, either Providence was not in their comings, their enslavement, or their emancipation.”
Contents (Revised 1894):
Preface (this post)
I. Introduction. — Debunking the “Curse of Ham”: Because… “T̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶q̶u̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶i̶p̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶r̶e̶c̶t̶l̶y̶”!
II. General View of Slavery in the World. — ADDED (this post)
III. Beginning of Slavery in the Colonies.
…
XVI. Frederick Douglass. — “̶H̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶q̶u̶o̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶l̶i̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶s̶m̶a̶n̶.̶”̶
…
XX. Examples of Underground Work.
XXI. The Slave Population of 1860.
XXII. The Civil War T̶h̶e̶ ̶W̶a̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶e̶b̶e̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ — what’s in a name?
…
X̶X̶X̶I̶V̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶F̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶P̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶N̶o̶r̶t̶h̶ ̶C̶a̶r̶o̶l̶i̶n̶a̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶e̶v̶.̶ ̶J̶o̶h̶n̶ ̶S̶[̶i̶n̶c̶l̶a̶i̶r̶]̶ ̶L̶e̶a̶r̶y̶ — Hmmm, a deleted chapter — was it something John said? Or perhaps something his brother did?
XXXV. Conclusion
Tschüss!
— Wilhelm
