The South Shot First
Mar. 17th, 2025 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutToday we go to Fort Sumter! I got A. and I breakfast, and then R. drove the three of us to the visitor center in Liberty Square where we looked at things. I had no idea that the National Democratic Party Convention was here in Charleston in 1860 and that they were unable to come to agreement on a party plank about slavery. The actual secession declaration was by a “South Carolina Social Convention” or something along those lines. I’m still really unclear what their authority was, but it is very clear that there was a well-established alternative source of authority in South Carolina, reinforced by going to college together, by the Citadel and similar institutions.
I didn’t think we’d be able to do the 9ish ferry, and the 2:45 ferry was cutting too close to our 5 pm dinner reservation, so we did the noon ferry. Lunch was snacks on the boat. Presentation by the ranger on arrival was excellent. The interpretative displays were uniformly good. B. had texted me a photo from the visitor center the day before saying that slavery hung on in the South longer than the North, because agriculture, however, a little wikipedia reading revealed that New Jersey didn’t get rid of slavery; it went away there with the 13th amendment, and there were slaves listed on the 1860 census (even tho they were not supposed to be included and there was no separate slave census) so it’s not like a de facto / de jure difference, either. Also, the South was far more industrialized than the 20th century Lost Cause depiction presented it as. The southerners presented the secession as a second American Revolution, and given the textile production going South - North - South with substantial value extracted by northern mills, you can kind of see what they were getting at.
Any explanation for the continuation of slavery in the south must involve something other than agriculture as an explanation.
In any event, I did a bit of a dive on slavery through the millenia, because I knew about latifundia and the throughline was clear, but I wasn’t sure about the details of transmission. Surfing through wikipedia built a story in my mind of ambient warfare and what to do with the losers who surrender. Some peoples enslave and keep the losers; some sell them elsewhere. When you have a lot of ambient warfare, you get established slave routes and markets, and when there is a mismatch of supply from warfare and demand from buyers, you get people out there looking to capture.
Faith-based strictures on enslaving one’s own meant that there was a vigorous Xtian / Islamic swapping of slaves. Egypt and on occasion other empires had entire slave armies always in search of young men. But all cities were looking for girls and women to do domestic labor from laundry to food to childrearing to concubinage. Islamic explorers started working down the coast of Africa, and when their empire receded, they were replaced with Iberian xtians from Portugal and then Spain. That trade was readily available when Native Americans as a source of slaves dried up due to pandemic resulting from exposure to Euro-Asian diseases. I have no idea what was going on around the Pacific, but the story around the Atlantic is horrifyingly clear.
As one absorbs this erased migration of people-as-property, it becomes painfully clear this story has been actively erased, probably due to shame. But it’s got to be un-erased, because this is actually how technological diffusion occurs. The knowledge and technique goes with the captured humans. I knew that from paper and from rice, but it may well explain everything everywhere all the time.
So when A. wanted an explanation of what all these interpretative exhibits were about and slavery and so on, I actually had a mildly coherent story to tell. But there’s so much more to learn.
We had dinner at Park & Grove, which was absolutely fantastic, other than that we all overate to some degree and A. most of all. Duck leg salad, duck rillette, yellowfin tartare with spicy wonton crackers, clams, but really the best of all of it was the hoppin john with broccolini and mushrooms. I had a mocktail which was yummy, and a manhattan, also good. The restaurant is near Hampton Park, where we will be doing pictures later in the week.
A. passed out briefly when we went back to the hotel. She’d had the steak frites and a brownie with ice cream. I gave her two lactase so I don’t think that was the problem. I think it was just way too much food, especially fries. R. got her a couple pepcid, so she didn’t actually vom, yay, but she was still overly full at midnight and we ate at 5ish. Clearly, I need to make some different life choices.
My sister and I did laundry later in the evening.
I didn’t think we’d be able to do the 9ish ferry, and the 2:45 ferry was cutting too close to our 5 pm dinner reservation, so we did the noon ferry. Lunch was snacks on the boat. Presentation by the ranger on arrival was excellent. The interpretative displays were uniformly good. B. had texted me a photo from the visitor center the day before saying that slavery hung on in the South longer than the North, because agriculture, however, a little wikipedia reading revealed that New Jersey didn’t get rid of slavery; it went away there with the 13th amendment, and there were slaves listed on the 1860 census (even tho they were not supposed to be included and there was no separate slave census) so it’s not like a de facto / de jure difference, either. Also, the South was far more industrialized than the 20th century Lost Cause depiction presented it as. The southerners presented the secession as a second American Revolution, and given the textile production going South - North - South with substantial value extracted by northern mills, you can kind of see what they were getting at.
Any explanation for the continuation of slavery in the south must involve something other than agriculture as an explanation.
In any event, I did a bit of a dive on slavery through the millenia, because I knew about latifundia and the throughline was clear, but I wasn’t sure about the details of transmission. Surfing through wikipedia built a story in my mind of ambient warfare and what to do with the losers who surrender. Some peoples enslave and keep the losers; some sell them elsewhere. When you have a lot of ambient warfare, you get established slave routes and markets, and when there is a mismatch of supply from warfare and demand from buyers, you get people out there looking to capture.
Faith-based strictures on enslaving one’s own meant that there was a vigorous Xtian / Islamic swapping of slaves. Egypt and on occasion other empires had entire slave armies always in search of young men. But all cities were looking for girls and women to do domestic labor from laundry to food to childrearing to concubinage. Islamic explorers started working down the coast of Africa, and when their empire receded, they were replaced with Iberian xtians from Portugal and then Spain. That trade was readily available when Native Americans as a source of slaves dried up due to pandemic resulting from exposure to Euro-Asian diseases. I have no idea what was going on around the Pacific, but the story around the Atlantic is horrifyingly clear.
As one absorbs this erased migration of people-as-property, it becomes painfully clear this story has been actively erased, probably due to shame. But it’s got to be un-erased, because this is actually how technological diffusion occurs. The knowledge and technique goes with the captured humans. I knew that from paper and from rice, but it may well explain everything everywhere all the time.
So when A. wanted an explanation of what all these interpretative exhibits were about and slavery and so on, I actually had a mildly coherent story to tell. But there’s so much more to learn.
We had dinner at Park & Grove, which was absolutely fantastic, other than that we all overate to some degree and A. most of all. Duck leg salad, duck rillette, yellowfin tartare with spicy wonton crackers, clams, but really the best of all of it was the hoppin john with broccolini and mushrooms. I had a mocktail which was yummy, and a manhattan, also good. The restaurant is near Hampton Park, where we will be doing pictures later in the week.
A. passed out briefly when we went back to the hotel. She’d had the steak frites and a brownie with ice cream. I gave her two lactase so I don’t think that was the problem. I think it was just way too much food, especially fries. R. got her a couple pepcid, so she didn’t actually vom, yay, but she was still overly full at midnight and we ate at 5ish. Clearly, I need to make some different life choices.
My sister and I did laundry later in the evening.