Slavery existed. Since the 1600s. It was brought in by the British, who had huge rice farming in South Carolina.
Also the British developed plantations in the Islands.
Both the French and Spanish had slavery, and held Florida, and all the land drained by the Mississippi.
Free Blacks owned slaves in South Carolina. They were famous for buying them off the boat and training them for field work. Resold, they made money and bought a lot of land.
Slightly further inland, was Creek. They captured runaway slaves and enslaved them. The Five Civilized tribes of the Southeast all farmed and owned slaves. They had been trading with the French, Spanish, British, for over two hundred years. They also owned cattle, horses, pigs.
Early 1800s, the south was French, Spanish, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek. The Cherokee had an alphabet and printed a news paper. They were teaching all their children to read, and translating books into Cherokee.
When the British were driven out by the revolting criminals, runaway indentured servants, transported prisoners, they sold their slaves. Many were shipped to their island plantations. They also sold their Rice Plantations to their own New York Holding Companies.
Free Blacks sold developed land to the incoming Americans, with slaves. They also developed Creek Lands, and that was sold as plantations with slaves. They had seen the Cherokee lose their lands, they chose to sell.
Most of the south was good for nothing but Pine. The soils were thin, over hard red dirt, or sand.
Cleared, making pine lumber, Pitch, Turps, Charcoal, planted in Cotton, it looked great.
Sold at a price that the cotton crop would pay for it, in Silver and Gold, the sellers were not around when the first hard rain washed all the topsoil into the creek. Also the slaves were the ones culled for disease and unsellable.
Most of the south is not suitable for cropland. Only the floodplain along rivers would work for continuous farming.
There was not much of that, and Native Americans who had been growing Corn, Beans, Squash for a few thousand years used village rotation farming. Cleared land was planted, the trees built a village, and in two or three years it was time to move on. A people may have a dozen sites where they live and farm, using one at a time and letting soil fertility improve, the deer repopulate, and the trees grow a crop of house poles.
Another slave related business was construction. Now that you have that fine plantation, you need a house that shows your status. Making bricks, Saw Timber, Building, Plaster, and the fine wood work of windows and doors.
Slaves also produced the iron, from smelting ore to finished goods.
No one was importing slaves. The British had stopped, so breeding them became a business. Some people took a personal involvement, producing their own children to sell as slaves. It happened to the extent that hardly any Blacks are less than one third white today.
Sally Hemmings was half sister and slave to Jefferson's wife, and her mother was likely half sister a generation before. Jefferson married rich.
1800, the coast of South Carolina is half Black. 1850, the entire South is half Black. This took keeping everything that could, pregnant. Good Breeder, her Mammy produced 15 in twenty years. New York Investment bankers financed Breeder Farms.
So the South was cleared, of trees and Native Americans, and the soil was exhausted and eroded.
Money was made, Cotton is a high labor crop. Plow and plant, chop weeds with hoes twice, pick, then remove the seeds. A lot of labor went into a bale. Yields declined from the first crop on.
In 1800 none of these people existed. A quarter million slaves along the East Coast. 1850, all new people come into the South, from that America place, and there are several million slaves. There are now forty million. Does anyone think?
Reconstruction was worse, millions arrested, then as prison labor set to cutting down the rest of the trees, Long Leaf Yellow Pine, and 5,000 year old Cypress. That was not slavery, it was Prison Labor, a Judge gave them ten years for no visible means of support.
Around here Reconstruction ends when a one armed Confederate General rounded up all the Union Troops, Carpet Baggers, and put them on a ship. Told if you come back, your next trip down river will be without a ship.
That was during the Teapot Dome Scandal, and the Panic of 1893. They had a right to sell the Navel Oil Reserves to their friends who gave them money, and Wall Street has a right to make money.
Give me a headline that does not involve Washington and Wall Street stealing.
They had to send the Army to hunt down the terrorist Chief Joseph who was going to destroy our Freedoms.
125 years later, nothing has changed.
Great set of maps OAnaO.
05 Jul 2015, 10:13 am
