The Study of Racialism Discussion of U.S. Racialism Please read The Rules before posting.    FAQ   Search     Register     Log in  ' Encyclopedia of Slavery in the Americas          The Study of Racialism Forum Index -> History of the U.S. Color Line Author Message Powell Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2462 } Posted: Tue 31 Jul 2007 03:45    Post subject: Encyclopedia of Slavery in the Americas This proposed Encyclopedia seems designed to promote the idea that slavery in the Americas was synonymous with African descent. What abou the enslavement of Indians and whites? Quote: From: Edward Baptist [mailto:eeb36@cornell.edu] Sent: Thu 7/26/2007 5:15 PM Subject: Contributors needed for Historical Encyclopedia of Slavery in the Americas I am seeking contributors for the third round of article assignments for the three-volume Historical Encyclopedia of Slavery in the Americas. This project , to be published by Facts on File, will be the first multivolume reference work to focus on slavery in the New World, and will be aimed at both lay and scholarly audiences. Contributors will be paid to write entries on all topics related to the enslavement of Africans and people of African descent in all areas of the Americas. Many topics are still available. Encyclopedia entries will range in length from 500 to 5,000 words. If you are interested, please contact: Edward E. Baptist, Editor Associate Professor Cornell University Department of History 450 McGraw Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 607-255-1881 eeb36@cornell.edu ------------------------- Bruce E. Baker Lecturer in United States History Royal Holloway, University of London http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/unra/373 List Editor, H-SOUTH Back to top Salsassin SuperWizard Joined: 04 Apr 2005 {Posts: 3515 } Posted: Tue 31 Jul 2007 12:57    Post subject: So have you emailed him and sent him records and articles? Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Fri 11 Jan 2008 12:50    Post subject: IMO, the average Joe/Jane has NO idea that slavery was multiracial. if they're lucky, they might know a tidbit about indentured servitude. Seems to me like the 'bottom line' of this site is to spread such awareness. However, we won't succeed if we keep up this biased exclusivity. Truth & Knowledge is useless & meaningless if we keep it partial and to ourselves - i.e., "preaching to the choir", if you will... Hopefully, more of us will publish & dialogue beyond our mixed-race comfort zone. Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Fri 11 Jan 2008 12:53    Post subject: Salsassin wrote: So have you emailed him and sent him records and articles? If anything, they should be soliciting US more directly. Back to top anonymouse Wizard Joined: 09 Oct 2007 {Posts: 677 } Posted: Mon 14 Jan 2008 23:14    Post subject: While the Holocaust was an attempt to systematically eradicate various ethnic groups and other undesireables it is most commonly associated with the Jews as they were the group that was primarily targeted. And while factually correct I would hazard a guess that few people (percentage wise) think of Russians, Gypsies or gays (among others) when talking about the Holocaust. This is akin to slavery in the Americas. Yes others were enslaved but their numbers paled in comparison to the sheer numbers of Africans toiling under involuntary servitude, a system which persisted from generation to generation. I don't understand why would you have a problem with associating slavery with Africans and/or people of African descent? What would be the purpose of such an exercise? Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Tue 15 Jan 2008 01:52    Post subject: anonymouse wrote: I don't understand why would you have a problem with associating slavery with Africans and/or people of African descent? What would be the purpose of such an exercise? I believe in a complete dialogue regarding this issue which would include ALL available details of the european/west-african holocaust for partial-truths are of NO use to future generations! Yes, I acknowledge/study the fact that the majority of holcaust victims are Jewish & Subsaharan; but that doesn't make the Gypsy/Irish, etc. slave experience any less arduous. Back to top anonymouse Wizard Joined: 09 Oct 2007 {Posts: 677 } Posted: Tue 15 Jan 2008 06:31    Post subject: lsgh wrote: anonymouse wrote: I don't understand why would you have a problem with associating slavery with Africans and/or people of African descent? What would be the purpose of such an exercise? I believe in a complete dialogue regarding this issue which would include ALL available details of the european/west-african holocaust for partial-truths are of NO use to future generations! Yes, I acknowledge/study the fact that the majority of holcaust victims are Jewish & Subsaharan; but that doesn't make the Gypsy/Irish, etc. slave experience any less arduous. Comparing tragedies is an exercise in futility. I would never compare the Stalin era purges in Russia to the Rwanda genocidal killings or to the near extermination of the Native Americans in North America. In my opinion these were all events that time and time again exposed the evil that haunts the soul of all humanity. But comparing the number atrocities committed during a historical event is only natural. One might point out that that there were undoubtedly many Thai and Vietnamese people killed during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror during the 1970s. While each and every one of those deaths was indeed tragic, their stories are but a footnote compared to the stories of the millions of Cambodians that were starved, tortured and/or subsequently executed during that time period. It is of my opinion that the same holds true for the institution of slavery throughout the Americas. Now I do not know what half-truths you are referring to: indentured servitude and the enslavement of Europeans was taught when I was in school and I would assume it is still being taught to this day. But attempting to give equal weight to circumstances which are anything but equal seems to me to be the work of a rabble rouser as opposed to that of an intellectual. Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Tue 15 Jan 2008 20:49    Post subject: Quote: But attempting to give equal weight to circumstances which are anything but equal seems to me to be the work of a rabble rouser as opposed to that of an intellectual. I was with you up to this point, mate. Seems that any scholar that transcends the intellectual status quo is perceived as a "rabble rouser" or such. We tend to push the envelope BEYOND [and are usually persecuted or killed in the process]... Thanks for the Khmer Rouge/Cambodia info. I'll be sure to expand my knowledge in this area. What's your view on the Russian Holocaust of WWII? Are you willing to collaborate on a pan-holocaust themed paper/encyclopedia entry? Back to top fwsweet Administrator Joined: 26 Nov 2004 {Posts: 5380 } Location: Palm Coast, FL Posted: Tue 15 Jan 2008 22:29    Post subject: The following statement by Anonymouse is totally inappropriate for this venue: anonymouse wrote: I don't understand why would you have a problem with associating slavery with Africans and/or people of African descent? What would be the purpose of such an exercise? No one should be required to defend why they are interested in any subject. That Africans were shipped across the Atlantic as slaves is indisputable. That Europeans and especially Native Americans were also forced into lifelong hereditary involuntary labor is also indisputable. That, after the first few generations in the New World, almost everyone was a mix of the three populations should be obvious. With that in mind, to say that the enslaved descendants of Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans were solely "African" (ignoring their other ancestries) merely because they were slaves or, worse, because of a retroactive anachronistic application of the ODR is puerile and unworthy of this site. If you want to continue this discussion, stick to issue at hand: Is it pedagogically sound to pretend that (1) only Africans were enslaved (ignoring the encomienda is especially ludicrous) and (2) that the descendants of African slaves were somehow of purely African ancestry? The next time that Anonyouse challenges any other member's right to be interested in any topic whatsoever, Anonymouse will be suspended for two weeks without further warning. Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Tue 15 Jan 2008 22:44    Post subject: thank you for your input, Mr. Sweet. It is my sincere hope that dispute here shall translate into credible publication. Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Wed 16 Jan 2008 02:47    Post subject: Quote: Are you willing to collaborate on a pan-holocaust themed paper/encyclopedia entry? Any other takers out there Back to top anonymouse Wizard Joined: 09 Oct 2007 {Posts: 677 } Posted: Wed 16 Jan 2008 03:37    Post subject: lsgh wrote: Quote: Are you willing to collaborate on a pan-holocaust themed paper/encyclopedia entry? Any other takers out there I would be interested as long as you understand that while I am a fairly intelligent guy I am in no way shape or form an intellectual. Back to top fwsweet Administrator Joined: 26 Nov 2004 {Posts: 5380 } Location: Palm Coast, FL Posted: Wed 16 Jan 2008 14:28    Post subject: fwsweet wrote: Is it pedagogically sound to pretend that (1) only Africans were enslaved (ignoring the encomienda is especially ludicrous) and (2) that the descendants of African slaves were somehow of purely African ancestry? There are two issues: Who was sold into slavery? and What do you call their descendants? On the first issue, Anonymouse is factually correct. Relatively few Europeans were sold into slavery (involuntary, lifelong, hereditary servitude). The main exception were the Irish whom Cromwell sold to plantations in St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat. But for any text on slavery to leave out the enslavement of Native Americans is inexcusable. On the second issue, the evidence shows that the condition of being a slave and the label associated with genetic traits of African origin became conflated in the United States during the first half of the 19th century. As anyone familiar with the topic knows, continent-of-ancestry was legally irrelevant to the condition of slavery. You were legally a slave if your mother was legally a slave, no matter what you looked like nor what "race" you were. Many slaves, of course, were of mixed ancestry, as are virtually all African Americans today. And early in the century, slaveowners had no qualms about refering to their "white" slaves, especially in ads offering rewards for the capture of runaways. Similarly, in the North, abolitionists often referred to the thousands of "white" people who were in slavery. But around 1830-35, the terminology shifted. In 1825, a slaveowner would answer a Northern visitor's question, "Yes, she certainly is white, but she is a slave nonetheless." But by 1845, the same question would be answered, "Yes, she certainly looks white, but she is black nonetheless." In other words, the terms "black" and "white" began to move away from being purely descriptive (as they remain in Latin America today) and began to be associated with slavery itself. This shift in meaning laid the foundation for what became the nationwide ODR a half-century later, and it had several causes. One cause was legal precedent. By 1835, at least two state supreme courts had set a law that no white person could be a slave, and other courts subsequently followed suit. The effect was not to free people with Euro ancestry, of course, but to help shift the termnology. If you were legally a slave, then you were not legally White, even if your ancestry was completely European. See The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830s North for details. Back to top sagascend Moderator-at-Large Joined: 17 Jun 2006 {Posts: 2418 } Posted: Wed 16 Jan 2008 16:17    Post subject: fwsweet wrote: If you were legally a slave, then you were not legally White, even if your ancestry was completely European. "White" as a social status rather than race is an interesting bit of pretzel logic. Indeed the "White" category itself constricts and expands as politics change (as well as immigration). Did it necessarily have much to do with "race" or ethnicity even in those days or is this just the result of justifying the chattel status of slave-mother offspring and furthering the economic engine of the time? Back to top fwsweet Administrator Joined: 26 Nov 2004 {Posts: 5380 } Location: Palm Coast, FL Posted: Wed 16 Jan 2008 16:43    Post subject: sagascend wrote: Did [Whiteness] necessarily have much to do with "race" or ethnicity even in those days or is this just the result of justifying the chattel status of slave-mother offspring and furthering the economic engine of the time? Well, if you ask three historians you will get four answers. For one thing it varied over time and region. Nevetheless, talking about the semantic shift that happened from about 1835 on (if you were legally a slave, then by definition you could not be White), then I personally have no doubt that it was economically driven. The whole idea of capitalizing labor (as an asset rather than an expense) meant that southern agribusiness had most of its wealth tied up in slaves (in contrast to today's land and machinery). Their wealth was in slaves. So anyithing threatening that wealth had to be defeated or ignored. When some courts began to rule that "Whites" could not be slaves, the obvious solution was simply to shift the semantic meaning of "White." It is a tough tangle to unravel, however, because the semantic shift was happening at the very time when the whole nation was becoming obsessed with slavery. On the one hand, southern slaveowners insisted that Euro slaves were not "White," while abolitionists insisted that they were (some even to the extent of implying that slavery might be tolerable if it were limited to Africans -- see Tenzer). The cataclysm of war ended the debate. It then remained dormant until it was revived as a way of keeping compassionate Whites in line during the Jim Crow terror, in which form it survives today as the ODR. In the end though, yes, I think that it originated in economics. Back to top lsgh Mentor Joined: 02 Oct 2007 {Posts: 226 } Location: Seattle Posted: Wed 16 Jan 2008 17:11    Post subject: Quote: Well, if you ask three historians you will get four answers. truetruetrue. Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First         The Study of Racialism Forum Index -> History of the U.S. Color Line All times are GMT Page 1 of 1 Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group