This stimulated me to actually make a new post! I have been neglecting my blog so terribly because I spend so much time publishing on Facebook. And for personal reasons it has been challenging. It’s good to make another post.
A response to the YouTube presentation, Untold History: White Slaves in America
In reality there is nothing to do with political correctness when we do not refer to indentured white servants as slaves. It has to do with historical fact. Indentured servitude was exactly that. It was a form of bondage, but at that time apprentices were often treated very poorly as well.
Still, both groups retained their basic human rights. They were not property. Their testimony in court was accepted. Their children were not born into bondage. Their children could not be sold away from their parents. They could not be brutally beaten. They could not be raped. They could not be tortured. They could not be murdered.
At least not legally.
All of those things could be legally done to black slaves who were considered to be chattel, that is, property. Or, as the Dred Scott decision pointed out, not human.
Now, I would agree that there was a form of white slavery in America. These men (and it only applied to men) were treated very much as chattel property, although legally they were not. Again, technically they had rights. Said rights were almost never respected. They could be beaten and brutalized, and if they were murdered it was unlikely to ever have been accurately reported. That is, those whites who were swept up in the Jim Crow chain gang down South. Technically, they were convicted prisoners, but they were treated as slaves.
Of course, they would be released after they served their sentences, which was not true of actual slaves. Neither could they be sold to a new owner, although they were sometimes “rented“ or “loaned“ to local businessman to complete specific tasks before being returned to their cells at night.
So, for both the indentured sevants and the men in the chain gang, at the end of the term of servitude, they were released and were full, free human beings. This was never true of a black chattel slave.
On a rare occasion, such a slave might be allowed to buy his freedom from his master, and perhaps even be allowed to buy his family’s freedom, but it was very hard for a slave to earn any amount of money much less the cost of such high-quality “property”. Finally, once free, a slave was always subject to being seized and resold.
Our history is very ugly. We humans are known for our cruelty and greed, but chattel slavery was the worst of the worst.
I must note that there were actual white slaves at the time of the founding of America, but not in America. The Barbary pirates and other Muslim groups had for centuries been perfectly content to enslave whites. It was one of the causes of the Barbary Wars (a series of two wars). They are recalled in the Marines’ hymn as “the shores of Tripoli”.
Furthermore, the speaker does have a correct point in that slavery has existed for all of human history as far as we can tell. The Romans enslaved everybody, but actually their slaves were able to become freedman and, once free, were respected Roman citizens, something impossible to America’s black slaves. Some slaves, once freed, actually became wealthy in Rome.
The Greeks also enslaved anyone they could, except fellow Helenes. Well, some Greek cities toward the end of the Greek era did enslave their fellow Greeks, and the rest of the Helenes were horrified at the practice.
It is worthy to note that many of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes became slaveowners. Numerous slaves died on the Trail of Tears along with their Native American masters.
If the author’s case is that we humans are really stinking and pretty rotten as a species, I won’t argue with him. But black slavery was a different thing in America from other forms of slavery at other times in history, except when it was much the same (it all depends on what nation and what era we are referring to), but white slavery never existed in America. Forms of bondage, yes. But not slavery. And certainly not chattel slavery.
These facts are bitterly denied by many conservative websites, but they are conflating the very harsh and sometimes brutal treatment of indentured servants with chattel slavery. The conditions, as harsh as they were, were much better for the indentured servant, although they were still horrific by today’s standards.
It’s all a matter of historical fact.
If you’re interested in a fact check on the subject click on the following link:
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-irish-slaves-idUSKBN23O2BS
Additional notes:
It is interesting note that the author also wants to see the American public school system destroyed and to return to the appalling situation of 200 years ago with apprenticeships replacing education. No more free education. You have to pay for it, and suffer for it, and be abused for it.
Remember, he himself identified apprenticeship as often brutal and sometimes even a form of slavery. Yet he wants to return to it for our children. It’s better than a public education, isn’t it?
Throughout the presentation, horrific pictures are posted as if they are signs of the evils of white slavery. In fact most of these are pictures of atrocities committed against criminals, rebels, and other “ne'er-do-wells” which have nothing to do with the slavery. I’m pretty certain that some of those pictures were Russian serfs being abused. What does that have to do with slavery in America? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Amazingly, the author compares illegal acts such as kidnapping and shanghaiing individuals to serve on ships as proof that slavery was an accepted practice. Such actions were illegal. While it was very difficult to get the captain convicted for such a crime, he was a criminal. Peddling in human flesh in America, as long as the flesh was black, was totally legal and even actively encouraged by our laws.
Better yet, we suddenly see a picture, for no discernible reason, promoting Michael Hoffmann‘s hate filled screed, Judaism Discovered. Hoffman is a notorious holocaust denier and antisemite. At first it’s shocking to see this suddenly appear in the middle of the interview, but on second thought, of course this website is also promoting vile bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred. Are you really surprised? I am not.
In fairness to the interviewee, I do not know if he was aware that this book was being pushed during his presentation. Nevertheless, the fact that it was promoted tells you what kind of website promotes his book.
And now, I will confess. Halfway through the video I simply couldn’t stand any more of this nonsense. I did not watch the second half of the video. My patience was exhausted. To put it another way, “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Revelation 21:8
