Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1963-08-04

captured Dy corrupt AFRICAN
chieftains and traded for rum
and guns. In 1885, Col. William
Byrd Of Virginia said in q letter
to the Earl of Egmont, "They
import so many Negroes hither
that I fear this colony will some
time or other be confirmed by
the name of New Guinea" BY
the time Col. Byrd's children
were grown, the Virginia popu-
lation was estimated ct $780, 900
whites and 100000 slaves.
Put at Is Million
When the trade finally pet
cred out. more than Is million
Africans--a conservative guess
had been forcibly exported,
and another 80 to 40 million
had died before they could be
sold.
1t wasn't the custom Of slav-
ery-an institution as old as
Moses-but the commercializa-
ton Of it that had such mel
ancholy results.
Historically, slaves were
merely unfortunate folks who
happened to have been cap
tured In battle or maybe went
bankrupt. It could happen to
anybody. Race certainly wasn't
a factor, and there was no
stigma or basic inferiority at
tached to their lot.
Portugal, for example, had
elaborate codes developed over
the centuries which made slav-
cry far from a HOPELESS plight.
Families could hot be split up;
masters were forbidden to in
jure slaves: slaves could tes-
tify in court, even against their
owners, and SO forth.
No Slave Codes
In America, on the other
hand, there were no slaYe codes.
Moreover, only Negroes were
slaves. Thus, unlike the atti-
tudes which developed in other
countries of the Western Hem
sphere where the slave ships
locked, slavery in the United
States gradually came to be re-
garded as the natural condition
of the black man and his color
therefore a mark of intrinsic
inferiority.
As it became necessary from
time to time for American law
to define a slave, he was de-
scribed variously as "a chattel"
or real estate" or finally, in
the opinion Of Chief Justice
Roger B. fancy in the 1856
bred Scott. decision, merely an
article of merchandise"
Legally, slaves were incapa-
BILE of matrimony, which meant
they could have children but
not families. In 1888, slave
dealer Benjamin Davis Of HAM
burg, s. c., advertised that his
current stock consists Of /.
several small boys without their
mothers"
The law forbade a slave to
learn to read or write, to leave
the premises without a pass or
to assemble with fellow slaves
without q white person present
10 overhear any insurrection
plots. He-or she-couldn't tes-
tify in any litigation involving
white person.
Takes Decades
It took decades, however, for
the idea of black inferiority fl
nally to mature. Perhaps it
never would have had not a
Yale-trained tutor named Eli
Whitney spent a few idle days
in 1892 at the home Of the
Widow Green in Savannah and
noticed how frustratingly tedi-
Gus was the job Of extracting
seeds from the tenacious fibers
In a boil of short-Staple upland
cotton.
His invention of the cotton
gin moved slavery from con-
venient luxury to economic me-
cessity as small farms became
huge plantations. BY 1850.
three fourths of the worlds
cotton was being supplied by
the Gulf States, and planters
felt the economy of the entire
Southland depended on slave
labor. To q great many in the
cotton kingdom, 1t appeared OBJ
vious that slavery was a posi-
tive good, and practicing 1t was
simply following the natural
order Of things.
Our new government" exc
planned Alexander Stephens, of
Georgia, the day he was named
vice president of the Confed-
eracy, lis based upon this
great physical, philosophical
and moral truth that the
Negro is not equal to the white
man, that slavery subordina-
ton to the superior races
his natural and normal condi-
ton"
"SlOw In Process"
Mr.. Stephens acknowledged
that "this truth has been slow
in the process Of its develop
ment," but once the process
was complete there could no
longer be any such thing as
a literally free Negro.
An owner could, Of course.
free a slave, though in some
cases 1t required consent of
the legislature or a $1,000 bond
to insure his good behavior
But he still remained the pri-
soner Of his skin.