Module 6: Racism Prevails

Slavery was rather disparate between the North and South. There were more free blacks in the North, while the South held more slaves. In the North, the free blacks were more relentless and persistent in abolishing slavery especially with the support of white abolitionists. In the South, however, antislavery was a bit more reserved, with perhaps a few oppositions here and there; and yet, there were enough troubles to stir up fear of rebellion. With the North against the expansion of slavery in South, their disparities provoked dissatisfaction between the different regions and lead to the Civil War. Although they had their differences, especially with the South being proslavery, racism was prevalent and just as cruel in both the North and South.

In Chapter 9: Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom, Zinn mentioned that the slavery system in the South was very intricate and secure. The South seemed very determine to keep their slaves working because there was a lot of cotton being produced in the south. It was a time of greed because everyone wanted to profit as much as they could. Apparently owning slaves to work on plantations deemed appropriate and profitable, especially to those that lived in the South. According to Eric Foner, “others argued that slavery was essential to human progress.” Unfortunately, some people believed that in order to prosper and progress, slavery would be the answer. The slaves would work, while planters who own plantations would never have to do any labor at all. While the slaves worked to death, the planters reaped all the rewards and profits without having to lift a finger.



Slaves working in cotton fields.


It certainly seemed as if the North was entirely against slavery, but “racism in the North was as entrenched as slavery in the South.” (Zinn 141) It was perhaps like how Wendell Phillips described it: “Not an Abolitionist, hardly an antislavery man, Mr. Lincoln consents to represent an antislavery idea. A pawn on the political chessboard, his value is in his position; with fair effort…” Abraham Lincoln “opposed slavery, but could not see blacks as equals, so a constant theme in his approach was to free the slaves and send them back to Africa.” (Zinn 140) Lincoln’s attitude toward African American was very reflective of the people in the North because the people in the north were supposedly against slavery, but when it came to certain situations, the northern people still discriminated and looked down upon the blacks. During the Civil War, “black soldiers were used for the heaviest and dirtiest work, digging trenches, hauling logs and cannon loading ammunition, digging wells for the white regiments.” (Zinn 144) The African American soldiers even got three dollars less than the white soldiers, until Congress passed a law granting equal pay. While the North was abolishing slavery, they were discriminating toward the blacks. The South, on the other hand, held their ground with continuing slavery until the Civil War ended.

One would imagine that with the end of the Civil War, there would be peace amongst the people; unfortunately, “violence began almost immediately with the end of the war.” (Zinn 150) Between the 1860s to the 1870s, there were massive murders, organized raids, lynching, beatings, and burnings of African Americans. The Civil War may have freed the slaves and eliminated the disparities between the North and the South, but it certainly did not end the racial discrimination; therefore one can say that racism prevails.


A black woman lynched. Upon closer look, this woman was married (her left ring finger still has a ring). She was a wife and perhaps a mother that was lost to racism.

Module 5: Were Women or American Indians Better Off After the War?

After the war, women and American Indians were still treated unequally. These groups were not only underrepresented, but also constantly subjected to physical and psychological torments. Any signs of resistance would lead to more oppression and punishment. In Chapter 6: The Intimately Oppressed and Chapter 7: As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs, Zinn describes the terrible conditions that these groups endured after the war.

Women's status after the war was essentially equivalent to those of African Americans and American Indians because their husbands were their superiors and masters. Women did not have personal property because their husbands collected their income. At the time, women like Anne Hutchinson, who rebelled and challenged the elite system and Mary Dyer, who spoke for Anne Hutchinson were both either banished from the colony or killed. Women did not have the right to vote because politics was not for them; their "job was to keep the home cheerful, maintain religion, be nurse, cook, cleaner, seamstress, flower arranger. A woman shouldn't read too much, and certain books should be avoided." (Zinn 87)


Women were expected to do housework and take care of their children.

In Chapter 6, The Intimately Oppressed, Zinn includes a sermon preached in 1808 in New York: "How interesting and important are the duties devolved on females as wives...the counsellor and friend of the husband; who makes it her daily study to lighten his cares, to soothe his sorrows, and to augment his joys..." Again and again, people especially women were brainwashed to believe that their place was under the authority of men, to succumb to their demands.

Perhaps more disturbing, after the war, the American Indians became an obstacle for the Americans to expand their canals, railroads, new cities and cotton/grain plantations. Hence, the American elite used aggressive force to remove the American Indians. Bribery, deception and force were involved to slowly make the American Indians surrender.

In 1832, one of the American Indian Chiefs, Black Hawk made a surrender speech:

The white men are bad schoolmasters; they carry false books, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives....

The white men do not scalp head; but they do worse-they poison the heart....Farewell, my nation!...Farewell to Black Hawk.


Portrait of Chief Black Hawk

Many of the American Indians tried to fight for their land, but did not succeed and faced more aggression from the Americans. Chief Black Hawk's surrender speech best describes the American elites because the Americans not only killed their people, but poisoned them with betrayals.

Although there were a lot of treaties involved, many of them were broken. For the most part, it seemed as if the treaties were more beneficial to the Americans rather than the Indians. In Chapter 7: Founding a Nation, Eric Foner mentioned, “The treaties secured national control of a large part of the country’s western territory.” Unfortunately, many of the treaties resulted in “large surrenders of Indian land.” (Foner 239) The Americans essentially reaped as much as they could without holding any considerations for the Indians. Greed and profits outweighed ethical and moral standards to the Americans.

Unfortunately, after the war, only the American elites benefitted. Women and American Indians were certainly not better off as they were before the war. Women had to be submissive and obedient. And the American Indians, well, their situation got worse. The American Indians had massive deaths during their treaties and fights with the whites. One can continue question, who really benefitted from the war?

Sources
1. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, Volume I: American Beginnings to Reconstruction, The New Press, New York, 2003
2. Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, New York, 2009.

Images Sources
1. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-americanhistory/Colonial%20Women,%201876,%20H.%20W.%20Pierce-500.jpg
2. http://www.picturehistory.com/images/products/0/1/3/prod_1377.jpg

Module 4: Preventing Internal Trouble

The Revolutionary War

In Chapter 5, A Kind of Revolution, Zinn points out that in the beginning, the colonial militia consisted of mainly “hallmarks of respectability or at least of full citizenship.” Initially the colonial militia refused Indians, free blacks, white servants, and some free whites that did not have a stable home. However, they eventually succumbed to desperation and began accepting the less respectable whites. Soon “the military became a place of promise for the poor, who might rise in rank, acquire some money, and change their social status.” (Zinn 61) According to Foner, in Chapter 5: The American Revolution, “slaves suddenly gained considerable bargaining power” because black slaves were military substitutes for their master’s or their sons. At times, the black slaves did it in exchange for freedom, but again, there were no guarantees.

The slaves that fought in the Revolutionary War in promise for freedom

Ironically, however, this was a bit of a deception because Zinn argues that the American Revolutionary War “was making the ruling elite more secure against internal trouble.” I strongly agree with Zinn because the elite had the lower white class believe that they were fighting in the Revolutionary War to gain something of value, when in fact, the elite were essentially trying to control the potential white lower class rebels.

Like many of the Revolutionary fighters from the poor white class, they believe that joining the military would mean rewards in return. A wounded American lieutenant explained that he joined the military in hopes for promotion:

I was a Shoemaker, & got my living by my Labor. When this Rebellion came on, I saw some of my Neighbors got into Commission, who were no better than myself. I was very ambitious, & did not like to see those Men above me. I was asked to enlist, as a private Solider…I offered to enlist upon having a Lieutenants Commission; which was granted. I imagined myself now in a way of Promotion.

Little did these Revolutionary fighters know, it was perhaps the white elite’s mask to control them, to prevent rebelling or joining the blacks and underrepresented groups. Apparently, Carl Degler’s point best describes what had happened during the American revolution: “ No new social class came to power through the door of the American Revolution. The men who engineered the revolt were largely members of the colonial ruling class.” There was some distribution of land like giving “some benefits to small landholders,” yet that still left the “poor white working people and tenant farmers in very much their old situation.” (Zinn 65)

The promises of the American Revolution to the lower class whites and blacks prevented internal troubles. The white elites used the Revolutionary War as a way to maintain control, to essentially stop the lower class whites from joining the blacks in rebelling or protesting. Foner concludes Chapter 6: The Revolution Within with, “the debate over who should enjoy the blessings of liberty would continue long after independence had been achieved.” One can dispute that the Revolutionary War benefitted everyone in some ways, but I think the war ultimately provided more control for the white elites while leaving the rest with little to none to work with.

Notes

1. Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Volume I: American Beginnings to Reconstruction, The New Press, New York, 2003

2. Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, New York, 2009.

Image Sources

http://www.thecaptainsmemos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Revolutionary-War.jpg

http://picture-book.com/files/userimages/106u/battleofri.jpg

Module 3: Drawing the Color Line

In Chapter 2: Drawing the Color Line, Howard Zinn discusses how slavery was developed in the English colonies. He begins by describing that the Virginians of 1619 needed labor, to grow corn and tobacco. Since the English were outnumbered by the Indians, they had to resort to black slaves for labor. Apparently black enslavement was easy because Zinn explains that, “The blacks had been torn from their land culture, forced into a situation where the heritage of language, dress, custom, and family relations was bit by bit obliterated.” American slavery became “the most cruel form of slavery in history.” (Zinn 25)

According to Zinn, slavery in America became terribly cruel and absurd due to limitless profit that came from capitalistic agriculture; “the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.” Helpless black Africans were often captured, sold on the coast and packed onto slave ships. Many of them died of suffocation, suicide, etc during their transport overseas. Although one of every three blacks may have died during the terrible trip overseas, Zinn points out that it was still very profitable.

Despite the terrible trip overseas, the blacks were subject to a system that was “psychological and physical at the same time.” (Zinn 29) Zinn further explains the psychological and physical system that the blacks had to endure as slaves in America; he mentions that the blacks slaves were “taught discipline, to see blackness as a sign of subordination, to be awed by the power of the master, to merge their interest with the master’s, destroying their own individual needs.” (Zinn 29) Just as damaging as the psychological effects, the black slaves were physically forced to hard labor; breakup of the family; and constant whipping, burning, mutilation and death.

This is an example of what the slaves had to endure from their masters.

The inhumane practices toward the black slaves resulted in rebellions and escapes. A Virginia slave code in the 1700s warns slaves that if caught for escaping, the masters may at “their discretion shall think fit, for the reclaiming any such incorrigible slave, and terrifying others from the like practices…” (Zinn 29) At one point, during the early years of slavery, treatment of white indentured servants and black slaves were about the same. However, the American colonies prevented indentured white servants and black slaves from cooperating by passing special slave codes; The Virginia Assembly, “proclaimed that all white men were superior to black” and “went on to offer their social (but white) inferiors a number of benefits previously denied.” (Zinn 30) It was perhaps this turning point that divided and drew the “color line” because during 1660s, indentured white servants and black slaves formed conspiracies or planned escapes together, but the white elite always seemed to be one step ahead of the game. Hence, one can agree with Zinn that American slavery was the most cruel form of slavery in history.

1. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, Volume I: American Beginnings to Reconstruction, The New Press, New York, 2003

2. http://answersinhistory.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/slave.jpg