Slavery, Company Towns, and the World Economic Forum

The average life expectancy of an Irish immigrant worker after arriving in America was just fourteen years =

In the current year, when the 1619 Project is considered history, Django Unchained is treated like a documentary, and Gone With the Wind has been thrown into the burn pile, most Americans have a very distorted understanding of how the institution of slavery operated on a day-to-day basis. Pop culture portrayals (the ones that have not been banned) would have us believe that sadistic Southern plantation owners routinely starved, beat and killed their slaves for the sheer thrill of it. When we meet Leonardo di Caprio’s planter character in Django Unchained, he is amusing himself by forcing two slaves to fight a gladiator death match. Well, as with all historical events that are integrated into a founding mythology – for example, the American Revolution, slavery & the Civil War, and World War 2 – the truth is a bit more complicated than the legend.

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19 Replies to “Slavery, Company Towns, and the World Economic Forum”

  1. In Barbados it was only three years. Actually surviving a 7 year term of indenture was unusual.

    1. A lot of that was due to mosquito-borne diseases, which immigrants from many places in northern or western Europe had not had much exposure to; thus arose the desirability of the “well-seasoned” mariner, worker, servant or slave: people who had survived oftentimes multiple rounds of infection and had acquired natural resistance (if not outright immunity) to the mosquito as a disease vector.

      1. Is their not a link between sickle cell anemia and malaria resistance? Or is that racist?

        1. No, that is not racist, it is a fact. And yes, the upside of sickle cell anemia is that you do have malaria resistance. But both are deadly.

        2. Sickle cell trait provides resistance to malaria. Sickle cell anemia is deadly at an early age without modern treatment. The gene for sickle cell is recessive so the majority of individuals carrying the gene will not suffer a sickling crisis but will be resistant to malaria. The unfortunate few expressing two sets of the gene will suffer from sickle cell disease and in the past, and even to some extent now, will die prematurely.
          A good descriptor of the condition and its associated conditions can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/sicklecell/facts.html
          Also, the condition is not restricted to individuals whose ancestors originate from the African continent but can also be found among some individuals of middle eastern or Mediterranean ancestry although less commonly so.

  2. Let’s look at it from a wealth standpoint. Each slave was worth a fairly substantial amount of money–so, like the land and livestock, slaves were assets for the owner. Why would an owner destroy an asset (much less two) or willingly injure the slave to the point of ineffectiveness, especially if it’s still in its most productive years? And, old slaves were kept around, fed and were part of the plantation community–they weren’t killed off once their productive years were over (thus costing the slave owner food, medical care–you didn’t want a slave to become sick or he/she might infect the rest of the slaves, lodgings, etc).

  3. Slavery is just too good a gimmick to not use in grift.

    In the intestinal blockage that is woke, the lynchpin is the media. Eliminate that problem, and all the rest flush out.

  4. In the early seasons of “Finding Your Roots”, Louis Henry Gates presented a far more thoughtful and nuanced picture of slavery in the USA. I don’t remember the actual stats anymore, so bear with me. Of the 11 million slaves exported from West Africa, something like 5% wound up in North America, though you’d never know it, since the USA is represented as the sole villain. Mentioning this is not to defend or justify slavery; it is a criticism and example of how fictionalized and distorted the history is, as if the south was exclusively massive plantations with hundreds of slaves. If, a slave owner were to “routinely starve, beat and kill their slaves for the sheer thrill of it”, most would be committing economic suicide, since slavery represented a significant percentage of the South’s wealth. I’m reluctant to point this out, and NO, I’m not equating a human being to an inanimate machine, I’m just saying that harming a slave would be the equivalent of a farmer setting fire to his tractor or a small businessman taking a sledge hammer to his truck. Not saying heinous acts didn’t occur, but imagine how stupid these people would have to have been.

  5. If you go through census records from the slavery era you find that a typical family would be 6-8 whites owning 2-5 slaves. Think about how such a unit could function and provide an economic surplus.

  6. Just a reminder that Kamala Harris Jamaican grandfather was a plantation owner who kept slaves.

  7. “Dilsey Pope was born a free woman, and when she was older, she bought the man she loved in order to marry him. Many state laws at the time would not allow slaves to be emancipated, so it was common for family or spouses to technically own their family. Dilsy owned her own house and land, and she also hired her husband out as labor.
    What makes this particular situation so unique is that when Dilsey and her husband had a fight, Dilsey sold him to her white neighbor out of spite. While many modern women might wish to get rid of their husbands, Dilsey truly takes the cake when it comes to method. Also like many other spouses, she later felt bad about the argument and tried to reconcile. The only problem was that when she went buy her husband back and apologize, her neighbor refused to sell him.”

    https://theweeklychallenger.com/top-10-black-slaveowners/

    Also: https://historycollection.com/10-black-slaveowners-that-will-tear-apart-historical-perception/3/

  8. This is also a self-own by conservatives. All those second wave immigrants in the post-Civil war period continued to vote majority Democrat through their descendants until Trump, when it became obvious that Democrats had abandoned white people.

    Funny how Swedes in Minnesota vote like Swedes in Sweden, despite not being in Sweden.

  9. I couldn’t agree with you more, Kate. MartyrMade is the best blog/podcast out there for the money. His three-part Epstein series is absolutely killer!

  10. A meaningless statement. How old was the Irish immigrant when they landed? 14, 19, 30? What was the average life expectancy for the general population? Did the immigrants come with pre-existing conditions? How long would they have lived if they stayed home?

  11. All this is interesting. My paternal granny was brought to Canada by her brother and his wife so she could look after their children. Fortunately, they let her go and work elsewhere, but I rather think there were a fair few woman whose family members were not so obliging and who kept them on in a form of informal slavery.

  12. I remember reading an article (which I cannot locate at the moment) regarding illegal immigration and its parallels to slavery in nineteenth century America.

    As vulgar as this comparison is, a black slave was like a piece of machinery that one bought. One might be cruel to him but one would not kill him or disable him to the point of uselessness.

    An Irish indentured servant, on the other hand, was a dime a dozen. He and others came off of boats every other week. It was no loss if his back was broken as another Irish servant could be found.

    Considering these facts would be beyond and beneath race hucksters who are, in no way, real historians.

  13. Outrage is proportional to the ‘government’ money available for reconcilliation. If the government is foolish enough to roll out the cash then there are scammers available to take it. And we certainly have fools in government. Hopefully the conservatives will realize that racism, sexism, and any number of isms can be solved by cutting off the funding. No funding, no grifters, no manufactured outrage.
    Favorite Mohamed Ali story is the one after the Rumble in the Jungle someone asked him what he thought of Africa. His reply – ‘Glad Grandpappy caught the boat’. Ok it has also been attributed to his opponent’s trainer but love the sentiment.

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