tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post4460471621838193991..comments2024-03-26T13:46:42.738-05:00Comments on 4 Quarters, 10 Dimes: The Revenge of Nathaniel BaconDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-4170017226187475162020-06-20T12:54:32.347-05:002020-06-20T12:54:32.347-05:00Well, they'd been working on it since the 1640...Well, they'd been working on it since the 1640s (all the laws I describe in the post about that) and doing it piecemeal after Bacon's Rebellion - the 1705 slave code is just them systematizing it in a single place. <br /><br />And it's more than just Virginia.<br /><br />South Carolina, for example, was a slave society from the start. It was settled mostly by English settlers already in Barbados (which was itself a slave society by then) in the 1670s/80s/90s and when they looked at Bacon's Rebellion they decided to skip the indentured servant phase and continue with what they knew. This is why South Carolina had a black majority throughout the colonial period and indeed into the 20th century - it was built to look like Barbados, with a small white master class ruling an enslaved non-white population. If you're wondering why South Carolina was the leader in the Confederate rush to treason in defense of human slavery, you can probably start there.<br /><br />I haven't done the specific legal research you're looking for, but I would suspect that there were laws encoding white supremacy into the legal system for some time before they got collected into one place.<br /><br />Now where's Eric to set us straight? :)<br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-14640031514813570952020-06-20T11:32:20.567-05:002020-06-20T11:32:20.567-05:00I think we’re on the same page here. The differen...I think we’re on the same page here. The difference really comes down to how history is taught.<br /><br />The problem with the manner in which history is taught in this country is precisely that it presented, taught as it were, as a string of facts one after another. That was my experience until hight school. That was how my daughters were taught history, my grandkids, and now the great grandkids. And I don’t see any easy fixes to that - you belong to a special breed - instructors that make the subject worth expending the energy to learn >>> The Sir Elton John to Dr. John. One of those is a Rock Star, the other a one hit wonder.<br /><br />To the larger point, I agree whole-heartedly that the shift to slavery from indentured servitude was made up of a thousand cuts over many epochs which could easily be your next book (you are working on your second book now, aren’t you?); However, and please correct me if I’m wrong about this point: It took them (let’s see, 3+6. carry the one) some 29 years to work out how to do it - but the <i>Virginia Slave Codes of 1705</i> was the first time white supremacy was actually, blatantly, purposefully, codified into law. <br /><br />Damn. Where’s Eric when I need him for the legal shit?<br /><br />LucyLucyInDisguisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08169432604954981941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-62168703346886566022020-06-20T10:47:04.571-05:002020-06-20T10:47:04.571-05:00Thanks!
Good history is all about the why, real...Thanks! <br /><br />Good history is all about the why, really. That's the best part! We use the who/what/etc to get to the why, and unfortunately a lot of students (and historians) get caught up in the journalistic questions and never get to the why, but still.<br /><br />I tell my students that there are two questions in history. The first is What? That's the journalism stuff - who, where, when, how, etc. The evidence, in other words. The facts. It's the core of history. But the core is not the most appealing part of the apple, and if all history is to you is facts one after another you're going to be bored. The interesting question is the one everyone asks but not enough people actually answer, which is "So What?" Who cares? How does this affect anything? Why did it happen? How does it connect to this or that? The interpretations, in other words. If you answer those questions, history gets a lot more interesting.<br /><br />Getting into the how - the mechanics - of the shift from indentured servants to slaves is a multi-thousand word post of its own. You can see it starting before Bacon's Rebellion - the rebellion is, in a sense, a tipping point for a pre-existing trend - and you can see all sorts of things afterward. But those are mechanics, and I was mostly focused on the larger connection.<br /><br />From small beginnings come very large trends. Most people have never heard of Bacon's Rebellion today, but they're living with the fallout from it even so.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-89300760960796778342020-06-20T10:08:26.382-05:002020-06-20T10:08:26.382-05:00Damn you’re good. Everything I studied about Colo...Damn you’re good. Everything I studied about Colonial America and the founding of this country, and I never connected those two dots. Shit. <br /><br />One little nit to pick on this post: you didn’t do the .How’. What actual device did they use to accomplish this dastardly deed, specifically? That’s something I did know about, but never made the connection. I’m going to admit that this is next bit has been shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia (because you made me go find it and wiki is the easiest source and I’m shamelessly lazy about such things):<br /><br /><i>It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part (a somewhat similar uprising in Maryland involving John Coode and Josias Fendall took place shortly afterwards). The alliance between European indentured servants and Africans (many enslaved until death or freed), united by their bond-servitude, <b>disturbed the ruling class. The ruling class responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. </b></i><br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slave_Codes_of_1705<br /><br />[Bolding added]<br /><br />It may just be my perception, but Historians seem to concentrate on who, what, when, where. and, how. They rarely spend much time on WHY, which is what ties it all together and makes it interesting. Even in that article they only hint at ‘why’ without going into the detail that you do. <i>That</i> is what makes you sooo good. That, and the way you tell the story in such a way that the student [at least this student] wants to go do more research on their own.<br /><br />“Please, sir, I want some more.”<br /><br />LucyLucyInDisguisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08169432604954981941noreply@blogger.com