Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XIV

Before going any further I feel I should share my sources as I might not have been thorough enough going along. 

As it came as a shock to me to know that Connecticut had slaves before the American Revolution, I wish to give everyone the background I have used.  I try very hard to provide sources when I think necessary. If it is something as simple as a quote that has been heard through the years, or something that "sounds" like a funny comment made by one of my major players in the WBTS, I don't bother.

I also probably have mentioned that the federal census showed that in 1790 most prosperous merchants in Connecticut owned at least one slave, as did 50 percent of the ministers. (I am sorry to be repeating myself, but I believe from one of my earliest paragraphs I also said that some Connecticut slaves actually lived on farms as large as what one would consider a "plantation" in the South.)

I like using Avery Craven's books, CIVIL WAR IN THE MAKING and THE COMING OF THE CIVIL WAR, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, plus many online sources and newspaper articles.

I also mentioned that what turned out to be true in Connecticut turned out to be true in New York, Massachusetts,etc., New England ..........

One source of Connecticut slavery that can be found online is Venture Smith, Narrative of the Life, p. 19, online: www.docsouth.unc.edu/neh/venture/venture.html

Another: Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population before the Federal Census, pp. 50,64,92.

Information that I got concerning the New England states came from several books that I've been reading. Another example is: COMPLICITY: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank, Ballantine Books, N.Y. (the first mention of Connecticut having 5,000 slaves before the American Revolution came in the preface xviii).

In the book COMPLICITY, p. 64, "In the Area of this Quadrangle...", Atkins, Voyage to Guinea, p. 269 I capsulized bits of Venture Smith's life as a slave. (But he also wrote his own life story, which he dictated to Elisha Niles, a schoolteacher and Revolutionary war soldier. It provides a look at Northern slavery. Black armies had been plundering Africa's rich west coast since the 16th century to provide labor for the New World. Lining the coast were about 40 "slave castles," or "slave factories," in which traders from Europe and the colonies could SELECT and BUY captive human beings.

There were also slave-worked farms belonging to New Yorkers Lewis Morris and Augustus Van Cortlandt: Burrows and Wallace, GOTHAM, pp. 87,105,123; and Web Site of New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, www.nycgovparks.org

And in discussing Manhattan I should include Governor Cornbury, as quoted in Burrows and Wallace, GOTHAM, p. 147 and McManus, HISTORY OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN NEW YORK, p 131.

Concerning the fires in New York that were set by slaves, sources include Thomas J. Davis, RUMOR OF REVOLT, p 17. and various people quoted in Horsmanden's book, CONSPIRACY, p.15,pp42-43,pp 65-66.

I hope this proves helpful. I am not denying ANY of the South's participation in slavery, I am only stating facts about Northern slavery that started even before the American Revolution, involved many prominent names whose businesses today have a past that they would much prefer remain hidden since their original successes were built on slavery.

It is too common for forums to skip blithely over what the North was up to and the way some history is written it would appear that the South got their slaves on their own ships (they owned NONE), brought them to America (another untruth) and were the only ones in this country who turned a profit on slave labor (another untruth.)

If these facts are new to people (as they were to me) then I would think that everyone would appreciate a broader picture of the beginnings of this fair country. We might as well know the truth because the truth always comes out in the end and I would much prefer it come out now than seventy years from now have some historian say that we, in 2007 STILL did not see the whole picture of slavery or, if we did see it, COVERED IT UP.

By Allen (Piewacket1861) He is member in the forum