Book Review: The Slaves’ War

It was one of those books that I ordered expecting it to languish on my shelves until I should happen to be in the mood for it. Though it sounded terribly interesting, interesting enough to prompt me to buy it, it was thick and had the sort of college-course-assignment vibe to it. But it didn’t languish nearly as long as I expected, and my expectations for how long it would take me to finish were even more exceeded.

The Slaves War by Andrew Ward is billed as “The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves,” and that’s exactly what it is. Woven together with more standard historical battle accounts and report from generals are first-hand accounts from slaves collected during several interview projects in the early 20th century.

The book is arranged in chronological order, covering from just before the war through some of reconstruction. It’s incredibly interesting to see how the slaves’ ideas about and reactions to the Yankees change as the war goes on.  From an initial fear of an unknown described to them as a monster, to an almost idolizing, to disgust, distrust and near hatred, there’s a very visible evolution that comes with the war, occupation and Reconstruction.

Nearly every anecdote popular about slavery and the Civil War seems to come out as true in some area another. The South was (is) a big place and there was great variety among slave-holders, slave treatment, and direct effects of the Civil War.  Some stories of society in the mid 1880s seemed to have a striking resemblance to aspects of current society. Stop snitching has deep roots.

But for me, the most striking part of the book was this photograph from the Library of Congress,

which immediately brought to my mind this picture,

and reminded me of Ba Faye (fourth from left, back row) telling me while we were picking cotton that she wished someone would kidnap her son (front row, 2nd from left) to make him a slave because then he would be in America.

 

I recommend the book.

Note: My “Zam Fam” pic also appears on the post “Mosquitos Kill, Kill Mosquitos” from October 26, 2008.

Yes, I’d Like that Broken Vase in the Window

I’ve been reading Roots lately.  I’m up to the part where Kunta’s been bought, but not yet renamed Toby.  I don’t get it.

I’m not talking about the whole slavery thing.  Slavery was around long before the first black man was taken out of Africa.  All you need do is look through your Bible to find stories of slavery stretching back almost to the dawn of man.  African tribes even had their own slaves.  I’m not trying to get into the whole morality of slavery thing.  Cultures change, ideas of what’s right and wrong change, whatever.  What I don’t understand is this whole boat thing.  How on earth did these slave ships make any sort of business sense?! 

The traders thought of these people as chattel, so we’re speaking in terms of ‘stuff’ here.  - Again, I am not getting into that whole moral debate. – Now, when a tradesman is transporting stuff to sell, stuff that can be valuable, he’ll want it to arrive in sellable condition, not destroyed.  What the vampire is the point of beating and killing your merchandise?!

If a goat seller at the local fair has goats… you know what, forget the goats, we don’t even need to be talking about live animals; it could be any products.  Say I have a computer parts store (I’ve been hanging around Mr. Trizzle too much).  Am I going to do around dropping all the pieces on the floor, drop-kicking them, bashing them into the walls whenever I get mad, leaving some barely working and others needing to be thrown out?  No.  Am I going to cut the casing on the wires open to expose the inside copper pieces and figure the buyer can just patch it up with some black tape later?  No.  Of course not.  I’m going to store my goods in a way that protects them, with minimal cost to me, so that I get the most value from them.

I just don’t understand why these slave traders, who went all the way to Africa, who risked their own lives and plenty of investment money to capture people from their homes would then show complete and utter disregard for the well-being of those captured on the journey back.  Not because of any moral sense of obligation or the humanity of it – we’ve been told time and again the slave traders didn’t regard their captures as human – but because of the pure illogicalness of not taking care of such a large investment.

We know the traders didn’t have compassion; they don’t seem to have had much logic either.  I bet even Posner* couldn’t explain this stuff!

 

*Posner’s a judge in IL, and one of my least favorite because the man things people act as machines.  He’s of the law & economics field where everything is explained as rational choices and cost-benefit analyses.  I know lots of people, and I only know one who goes through life that way, but he thinks he’s part Vulcan, so not sure he counts.