Is this true? Black slave masters

[Razgovory]

I was never taught that Lutherans specifically owned slaves, but presumably some did.

[Berkut]

In high school grade 10 I took an optional course in US history.  Pretty sure that "blacks also owned slaves" wasn't mentioned - thee's only so much nuance you can fit into a one term class for 16 year olds.

Mind you as an adult with a history obsession I certainly knew that fact.  But I wouldn't be shocked if someone didn't.

I am not sure why you bring this up.  There is a difference between "it isn't always taught that blacks owned slaves" and "the general narrative is that no blacks ever owned any slaves."  If you were taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves, that would support one position in the discussion.  If you taught nothing on the topic, then what you were taught is neither here nor there.

It wasn't that I was "taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves" - it was just that when slavery was discussed, only whites owning blacks was ever mentioned.  Just "white slaveowners, black slaves".  I think about as complex it got was mentioning that not all whites owned slaves, and some blacks were free.

You specifcally remember NOT being told that blacks could own slaves?

Or do you specifically remember being told that blacks could NOT own slaves?

Or do you specifically remember being told that ONLY whites owned slaves?

Is it possible, counselor, that you actually weren't told anything at all about the allowed races of slave owners, and are simply projecting your assumptions onto your education?

I'm gonna take his defense here, and I'll say it was #1 for me, and I guess it was the same in his province.

That is functionally identical to #4, if you are saying you were not told #2 or #3.

What were you told about the Irish owning slaves?

Assuming you were not told they could, and not told they could not, did you assume they could not?

[garbon]

It wasn't that I was "taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves" - it was just that when slavery was discussed, only whites owning blacks was ever mentioned.  Just "white slaveowners, black slaves".  I think about as complex it got was mentioning that not all whites owned slaves, and some blacks were free.

Now obviously a single Canadian high school class in US history isn't going to go into the detail that a US class would (in particular a class in the south).

I was never taught that there were high schools in Canada, so I guess I would (if i were like you) use that fact to support an argument that the general narrative is that there are no high schools in Canada.

Luckily for me, I know that that is not how evidence works.

Are there high schools in Canada though?

[viper37]

What were you told about the Irish owning slaves?

Not much.

Assuming you were not told they could, and not told they could not, did you assume they could not?

That is not what BB said.  That is not what I said either.
But since we are taught that blacks were imported to the US as slaves, that freed black men did not have the same rights as white men, I guess it never occured to any of us, in high school, without internet at the time, that there could have been black slave owners.

[Grey Fox]

It wasn't that I was "taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves" - it was just that when slavery was discussed, only whites owning blacks was ever mentioned.  Just "white slaveowners, black slaves".  I think about as complex it got was mentioning that not all whites owned slaves, and some blacks were free.

Now obviously a single Canadian high school class in US history isn't going to go into the detail that a US class would (in particular a class in the south).

I was never taught that there were high schools in Canada, so I guess I would (if i were like you) use that fact to support an argument that the general narrative is that there are no high schools in Canada.

Luckily for me, I know that that is not how evidence works.

Are there high schools in Canada though?

There not "high" per se.

[viper37]

It wasn't that I was "taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves" - it was just that when slavery was discussed, only whites owning blacks was ever mentioned.  Just "white slaveowners, black slaves".  I think about as complex it got was mentioning that not all whites owned slaves, and some blacks were free.

Now obviously a single Canadian high school class in US history isn't going to go into the detail that a US class would (in particular a class in the south).

I was never taught that there were high schools in Canada, so I guess I would (if i were like you) use that fact to support an argument that the general narrative is that there are no high schools in Canada.

Luckily for me, I know that that is not how evidence works.

Are there high schools in Canada though?

There not "high" per se.

don't the anglos use "High school" in Quebec?

[Berkut]

What were you told about the Irish owning slaves?

Not much.

Assuming you were not told they could, and not told they could not, did you assume they could not?

That is not what BB said.  That is not what I said either.
But since we are taught that blacks were imported to the US as slaves, that freed black men did not have the same rights as white men, I guess it never occured to any of us, in high school, without internet at the time, that there could have been black slave owners.

Weird.

I was never taught that free black people had restrictions on what they could own. I don't recall every being told anything specific about whether they could own slaves, but at the same time I can't recall a time when I was not aware that black people did in fact own slaves.

So maybe Marty is right about this latent liberal racism around black people not being slaveowners, but it is a uniquely Canadian thing?

[Jacob]

you have to read about it.  That's hard.

[viper37]

So maybe Marty is right about this latent liberal racism around black people not being slaveowners, but it is a uniquely Canadian thing?

I would file it under "Canadian high schoolers don't know every detail of US history".

[grumbler]

So maybe Marty is right about this latent liberal racism around black people not being slaveowners, but it is a uniquely Canadian thing?

I would file it under "Canadian high schoolers don't know every detail of US history".

Also under "The general narrative in Canada is that no blacks benefited from the slavery system in the antebellum US South."  Maybe Canadian schools should teach that lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack.

[Berkut]

Well, there is an easy check on this I suppose. My son, in 11th grade, is taking AP American History. I shall check his textbook, and see what they were taught...

Page 346 of "The American Pageant, AP Edition".

"...Many free blacks owned property...Some, such as William T. Johnston, the "barber of Natchez", even owned slaves. He was the master of fifteen bondsman..."

So there you go. Turns out that this was yet another large helping of bullshit from our alt-right friends.

Here is some interesting stuff from later in the next couple of pages...

"Ironically, the supression of the international slave trade fostered the growth of a vigorous internal slave trade, as upper South states like Virginia became major sources of supply for the booming cotton economies of the Deep South. Most of the increase in the slave population of the United States came not from imports, but from natural reproduction - a fact that owed something to the accident of geography that the slave South lay outside the area where tropical diseases took such a grisly human toll."

I find this interesting in contrast to having finished up the podcast on the Haitian revolution, where slavery was so deadly that basically they had to keep re-importing the entire slave population every year or two, because they basically just all died off from disease and poor treatment long before they did any procreating.

...
"Above all, the planters regarded their slaves as investments into which they had sunk nearly $2 billion of their capital by 1860. Slaves were the primary form of wealth in the South, and as such were cared for as any asset is cared for by a prudent capitalist. Accordingly, they were sometimes, though by no means always, spared dangerous work, like putting a roof on a house. If a neck was going to be broken, the master preferred it to be that of a wage earning Irish laborer rather than that of a prime field hand, worth $1800 by 1860 (a price that had quintupled since 1800). Tunnel blasting and swamp draining were often consigned to itinerant gangs of expendable Irishmen because those perilous tasks were "death on niggers and mules." "

That is fucking harsh when your overall ranking of value falls below "niggers and mules".

[derspiess]

Okay, so it's in the AP History book.  Big whoop.

[Berkut]

Okay, so it's in the AP History book.  Big whoop.

I don't think it is a large or small whoop, just disproving your claim that it was not taught in high school. Another alt-right pile of crap.

Go find something else from brietbart to regale us all with...

[Ideologue]

In high school grade 10 I took an optional course in US history.  Pretty sure that "blacks also owned slaves" wasn't mentioned - thee's only so much nuance you can fit into a one term class for 16 year olds.

Mind you as an adult with a history obsession I certainly knew that fact.  But I wouldn't be shocked if someone didn't.

I am not sure why you bring this up.  There is a difference between "it isn't always taught that blacks owned slaves" and "the general narrative is that no blacks ever owned any slaves."  If you were taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves, that would support one position in the discussion.  If you taught nothing on the topic, then what you were taught is neither here nor there.

It wasn't that I was "taught that no blacks ever owned any slaves" - it was just that when slavery was discussed, only whites owning blacks was ever mentioned.  Just "white slaveowners, black slaves".

Seriously?  I mean, I know that parochialism is an element of, like, every high school history curriculum, but they didn't mention Spanish/Indian or North African/European slavery?  (Or comparisons to serfdom in Eastern Europe?)  I'm not sure if they ever made a point of American black slaveowners, but they did make a point of black slave traders in Africa.

And obviously I'm assuming that classical slavery was mentioned, but I know that's not what you meant.

I will say that the Crimean slave trade was not taught in my high school, and if they mentioned the East African trade, then I don't recall it.

[Berkut]

"ZOMG the liberals were hiding that black people owned slaves!"
"No they weren't, that is pretty known..."
"It is not part of the narrative! Totally unknown until now!"
"Uhh, if you look at the wikipedia section on US slavery, there is an entire section about. You know, the most commonly accessed general knowledge resource in the world?"
"Well, maybe, but it sure as hell was not taught in schools! This was never part of US history!"
"Here is a textbook that they use in schools, today, right now. And it states it right here on page 346."
"BFD, some high school textbook says it, so what? I am out"