Mr November

The slavery element of the civil war was inflated by the north to gloss over the more legitimate details of contention for the history books. As much as I'm an advocate of equal rights and against slavery, I also think its useful to consider how common place slavery is in human history, and how easy it would be to accept if you'd grown up in a society with it. And it's especially the case with American history that has such strong ties between slavery and racism contemporarily - but these should be looked at as separate issues as well. A lot of this discussion ends up being too heavily influenced by the narrow historical context that we've all been presented growing up.

midnight rain

Slavery may be common place in human history, but slavery based on race is unique to the United States.

Also, the slavery element definitely was not inflated by the North. I suggest you look up some of the speeches from Secession Commissioners of the South for a little insight as to their main reasons for war.

Mr November

I was almost ready to say that slavery based on race was unique to the US but then I stopped myself because while it's the greatest contemporary example of race based slavery, its not the only place that used black slaves - and throughout history any kind of differences between people has been "useful" in distinguishing which groups might be used as slaves - race normally being an obvious one. But in the US racism and slavery are especially well tied together.

And I don't mean to say that slavery was a non-issue in the war, only that this kind of good vs. evil/right vs. wrong slant that you can put on the war was a bit overplayed by the victors. A major reason slavery ended up being abolished was probably just that it became more expensive to own slaves than it was to hire workers and have them clothe, feed, and house themselves. It seems kind of silly to pretend that an epidemic change of heart could induce that kind of massive social change.

midnight rain

Do you have another historical example of slavery that was determined by race?

Oh I agree that the North weren't completely innocent as they still treated blacks pretty poorly in the North (though not to the extreme of the South). Still a lot of Northerners were against the institution of slavery (abolitionists) for religious reasons or whatever else and even more realized that slavery just made our country look bad and behind the times.

The Civil War was years in the making. There was no "epidemic change of heart", it had existed for a long time before the war started.

Owning slaves was definitely cheaper than hiring workers, by the way. It had nothing to do with costs, otherwise the South would've most likely been on board for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Mr November

Well aside from Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe during the same general time period I don't know of any examples that were quite as clear cut - mostly because in other places, although the slavery has been racially based it's been more diverse about the different racial groups enslaved. I'm pretty sure though, that in one way or another Nazi Germany, the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, Russia, the Mongols etc have all used racially determined slavery (but not as clear cut as blacks and whites more like slavs and romans or whatever).


I think the abolitionist thing started with the Spanish and then the US got a kick in the ass when Britain jumped on board, but in the grand scheme of things, and considering the old testaments stance on slavery, it still seems to me like a pretty sudden change of heart for slavery to be abolished over a 100 year period based on religious reasons - I suspect there were some other reasons but I can only speculate without doing serious research.

On a large plantation slavery was still extremely cheap especially considering the standard of life. But in the cities and developed areas (think of Europe more so than the American South) there were enough people to work the land without slaves. Slavery tends to be profitable in farming, mining, primary labour etc. But industrialization and slavery don't mix as well - which is why we now have something even "better" than slavery - sweatshops. Considering the way the economics of slavery works, it kind of makes sense which places were for it and which were more likely to go against it. Its kind of telling that this whole shebang took place right on the cusp of the industrial era.

Mr November

This is a... podcast?... about history etc thats pretty good. This video is a sample of the episode about slavery "Addicted to Bondage". It's about and hour long and the real thing in its entirety talks more about American slavery - but this snippet is still interesting even if it isn't as much about american slavery.

Janszoon

It is a podcast. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is fantastic. One of the only podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. Good call!

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Unknown Soldier

The US model of slavery was quite unique and really can't be compared with slavery say in the Roman Empire etc. The US model was based on race with slaves being imported from a different continent. Traditionally, slaves have usually been recognized by the clothes they wore and places they frequented. The US slave was recognized instantly by his skin colour.

Mr November

Granted.

It was the most clear cut example of racial slavery. Hard to compete with a difference as obvious as black vs. white skin when you're talking about humans.