A Liberal Dose, December 28, 2023 "Disqualified? Trump and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment"

 

A Liberal Dose

December 28, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Disqualified? Trump and Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment”

 

First, I hope everyone had a merry Christmas (or other holiday) and wish all a happy new year.

That said…. Boy, is this year ending with a political bang. As you probably already know, the Colorado Supreme Court has upheld a lower ruling that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection, and further ruled that -pursuant to Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment -he is barred from appearing on the presidential ballot in Colorado. The U. S. Supreme Court, which last week declined to expedite the decision about whether Trump is immune from prosecution because he was president, may agree to hear this case almost immediately. There is a lot riding on that SCOTUS decision. If they overturn the Colorado decision, everything will proceed as normal (if you can call what we do nowadays normal); if they sustain that Colorado decision, Trump may well be barred from appearing on ANY state’s ballots.

This has divided people along more than just political lines. Some people argue in favor of the Colorado decision, claiming it is an accurate reading of the Constitution and that the rule of law must be followed (“Let justice prevail, though the heavens fall”, as the Romans used to say). Others -and I’ve heard this from both ends of the political spectrum -say that voters alone should get to choose who to vote for as president. An opinion poll from Dec. 21 shows that 54% of Americans think Colorado made the right decision, while 35% disapproved of that decision (with 12% undecided). Not surprisingly, 84% of Democrats polled supported the decision. What I found surprising was that 48% of Independents supported Colorado, while only 35% disapproved -and that 24% of Republicans supported it with 66% disapproving. Why is that surprising to me? Significantly more Independents polled believe Trump should be disqualified to run for president than whose who disagreed. And while 24% is a small number, it means that one-quarter of Republicans think Trump should be disqualified -that is a minority, but a significant one. Not surprising: support for the decision is lowest in the South. Surprising: even so, in the South it is 48% in favor vs. 38% opposed.

Of course, opinions are like a certain body part: everyone has one, and everyone’s stinks except your own. So what are the facts? Let’s take a look at that 14^th amendment, one of the three “Reconstruction amendments.” Here is Section 3, in its entirety:

 “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

The original district court ruling said that this did not apply because it does not specifically mention running for president. Colorado’s Supreme Court overturned that ruling as erroneous, pointing out that the president is named as an office 28 times in the Constitution and that, as the wording was being argued in the 1860s, the question came up and one of the authors said that “any office, civil or military”, obviously included the office of president.

Not having participated in or supported an insurrection is a qualification to run, just like the fact a candidate must have been born a citizen, must be at least 35, and cannot serve more than two terms.

The only question, then, is: did Trump participate in or support an insurrection? I’ll address that next week -on the anniversary of the insurrection.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, Dec. 21, 2023 "It Is Not Just Donald Trump That Is on Trial"

 

A Liberal Dose

December 21, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“It is not just Donald Trump that is on trial”

 

As you read this, the Supreme Court is in the process of deciding whether or not to hear an expedited case brought by special counsel Jack Smith on whether Trump, as a former president, has blanket immunity from criminal charges for anything he did while in office. That is Trump’s claim, a claim that would be tested in court in March and, should he lose there, he has announced he will appeal. Smith’s intention is to skip over all the appeals and go straight to the Supreme Court right now -not on the merits of the case itself, but just on the question of presidential immunity -a move that has precedent. The same approach was taken half-a-century ago to make Nixon immediately turn over the Watergate tapes instead of dragging out the process for years. Trump’s goal is to delay the actual trial as long as possible, and all his other trials as well, in hopes the presidential election will occur before any judgments are reached against him and he will win -making himself immune and forcing all cases to be dropped.

Trump is currently under indictment in four different criminal cases, with over 90 charges against him. There are so many crimes it is hard to keep straight, so let’s tick them off:

1.       There’s the one in question, in which the Justice Department has charged Trump and several accomplices with conspiring to prevent the lawful certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory, by various means including the disruption of Congress by a riotous mob and, more to the point, by participating in an illegal scheme to replace legitimate electors with fake pro-Trump electors.

2.       A second case, also federal, in which Trump is charged with illegally taking -and repeatedly lying about and refusing to give back -classified documents.

3.       A state case in Georgia, wherein Trump and various accomplices (including Rudy Giuliani) are charged with conspiring to coerce the Georgia state government into falsifying the election results.

4.       A state case in New York, wherein Trump is accused of illegally using 2016 campaign funds to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels and keep her quiet about their affair. Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has already served time in prison for his role in this transaction (a role played under Trump’s direction).

Those are just the criminal charges, there are many civil actions as well. For example, Trump has already been found liable in New York for years’ worth of illegal business practices, which could cost him his New York businesses and even the right to do business in that state. The judgment against Trump has already been made, right now the court is just trying to decide how big the fines should be.

Trump was also found liable for the sexual assault, battery, and defamation of E. Jean Carroll in a department store in the mid-90s (after she had made fun of him). The jury did not find him liable for rape, only sexual assault, but the judge later explained that in most other states the attack would qualify as rape -New York’s definition of the crime is extremely narrow and specific, in a way I’m not sure I can describe in a family newspaper. The judge’s clarification came after Trump tried to sue Carroll for calling him a rapist after the trial. The judge responded that, actually, that’s what he is.

Any single one of those things, proven or not, would be enough to keep any normal person from being considered as a viable candidate for anything. Yet Trump is the odds-on favorite to win the Republican nomination, and has a real chance of being elected president again. He has so much support, most Republican challengers are afraid to anger his base by condemning his behavior.

The fact that is even a possibility is an indictment against the Republican Party and anyone who can still support this reprobate.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, December 14, 2023 "Understanding the Past is the Key to the Present AND the Future"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 30, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Understanding the Past Is the Key to the Present AND the Future”

Recently my friend John Gottlied complained that I had spent two columns in a row talking about how bad Trump and the Republicans are rather than being balanced and talking about what I am for, instead of what I am against. In both his recent columns, he has zeroed in on one of the many points I made (such as arguing semantics on whether Trump’s claims of election fraud were thrown out of court 60+ times disproves them) and ignored all the others. This is like if I wrote a column saying that Trump kicks children, eats people’s pets, and runs rabbits, and John responded in-depth about how technically Trump doesn’t run rabbits he just walks them very fast, plus Democrats often frighten rabbits as well. He also said that my specialty is history but I, and other historians, don’t understand the present very well. I’m going to address those points.

First, and foremost, the reason I spent two weeks in a row talking about the “badness” of Trump and what he has turned the Republican Party into is that it has become an existential threat to democracy and we all need to sound the alarm. I don’t say that lightly. Both George Bushes, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney -all those guys were normal politicians. I disagreed with them, vehemently on some things, but I did not have a legitimate fear that they might destroy America, nor had that idea ever entered my mind about anyone. Joe Biden, too, like Obama and the Clintons, is just a normal politician. You might not like his policies, and you might wax poetic about how he is wrecking the country (like I did with George W.), but everyone understands that nothing he or any other politician does cannot be undone when the next party inevitably comes to power.

Trump is different. He has shown us what he is, and what he wants to be, and the only thing that stood in his way last time was that many of his own people had a conscience and a sense of duty to the Constitution (though it took them an awful long time to find it), which he would correct if he got back into office. It is precisely my understanding of the past that enables me to recognize this and compels me to cry it from the rooftops. Consider:

A cartoonish rabble-rouser comes along who has the power to sway a significant minority of the population by appealing to the racism of some, to their base and violent passions, and their outrage at the establishment for “selling them out.” He gives them groups to blame all their woes on, and encourages them to do so. His every word is hung onto by thugs, many of them mentally disturbed, who are eager to go into violent action to win his approval. He is underestimated by opponents who think he is too buffoonish for anyone to take seriously, and by the conservative establishment who believe they can use his popularity to gain/maintain political power for themselves and control him (but they can’t). He uses his often-imaginary enemies and conspiracy theories to justify terminating the rule of law, and using it instead as a cudgel against his opponents. He does all this by insisting only he can make his country great again. Most of his countrymen ignore his antics and just go along, even as it gets worse and worse, and later claim they had no idea it would get so bad, oops.

Am I talking about Hitler, Trump, or any number of past wannabe dictators? I guess it depends on whether enough people pay attention. I can tell you this, though, what I describe is the very sort of tyrant the Founding Fathers warned us about and tried to circumvent in the very Constitution Trump said we should terminate to return him to power. BECAUSE THEY KNEW HISTORY.

Note: this column was scheduled for November 30. In the two weeks since then, Trump has announced he will only be “a dictator on Day One.” That’s like a fox saying he will only eat chickens on the first day you let him into the henhouse. Meanwhile, all the conservative Republican leaders I mentioned by name above, and others, have sounded a warning that America needs to take him at his word and recognize the threat he poses to democracy.

Bear in mind -returning to history -everyone who supported Hitler was not a racist or a violent thug. Most were just normal people who went along because they liked some things about him and ignored the rest. But history does not give them a pass, because it was all right there in front of their eyes and they refused to see it.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, November 22, 2023 "Tennessee Wants to Reject 1.8 Billion Dollars in Education Funding"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 22, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Tennessee Wants to Reject $1.8 Billion of Education Funding”

 

 

Tennessee -where we’re always the first to jump out of the plane, because we skip the line where they’re handing out parachutes. This time we are -once again -in the news because of education. Our legislature has spent two weeks discussing the possibility of rejecting almost 2 billion dollars of federal education funding, which would make us the first state to ever do so -because federal money comes with “burdensome stipulations” such as paperwork. When educators brought before the panel were questioned about which stipulations felt burdensome to them, they couldn’t think of any. They did say that education needs more money, not less. About ten percent of students are directly affected by the federal funds under discussion, mostly low-income kids and students with disabilities. It is worth noting that no parents or local advocacy groups were allowed to speak… but two out-of-state conservative groups were.

One argument is that Tennessee has a pretty sizable treasury surplus, and could make up the difference in much of the federal funding lost if this goes through. This raises the question: what could the state accomplish if they used part of that surplus on top of the federal funding to improve education? They could pay teachers more, provide incentives for people to become teachers in the first place (which is increasingly hard to convince people in red states to do nowadays, as teachers are treated like third-class citizens), replace some of the state funding withdrawn from higher education over the last couple of decades, or maybe even replace some of the classroom libraries our laws have bullied and intimidated teachers into removing. I don’t know about you, but if I were a public-school teacher I would feel far more burdened by the oppressive and ridiculous education laws passed by our state legislature the last few years than I would by any federal mandates. Public school teachers I’ve talked to are terrified to breathe funny for fear it might hurt someone’s feelings and get them fired.

Could it be that the “burdensome stipulations” of the federal government includes things like diversity programs, academic freedom, and education standards that reflect the truth of our history (and our present) and recognizes that there are a lot of different kinds of people in America and that’s all right, rather than the politicized, propagandistic, majority wishful thinking that our Republican legislators prefer? Could it be that many Republican politicians would like to have even more power to control what teachers teach and how they teach it, and what kinds of people are benefited by various educational programs, without the federal government being able to interfere -and they’re willing to shoot themselves (and all of us, and our kids) in the foot to do so? And what happens when there is an economic downturn in Tennessee (no bubble lasts forever) and all that surplus disappears? That is a second barrel waiting to shoot their (and our) other foot.

Notice that it is not educators asking for this to be done. Educators’ voices, in fact, are being ignored -as they always are. I’ll keep saying it as long as I have breath left in my lungs: leave teachers alone and let them to their jobs, which they are trained to do (and you are not), and give them all the financial support they need to do that job effectively. Because it is the single most important job in this country -our whole future depends on it. For all the folks out there who want one political party to have absolute control of what your kids are exposed to, for fear it may be something you don’t like, consider this: one day those kids will be applying to colleges, grad schools, or jobs in other states with more opportunities… and they’ll be woefully unprepared to compete against kids from states where the teachers are supported and students are allowed to learn.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, November 16, 2023 "Civic Virtue, Duty, and Honor: The Sad Decline of the Republican Party"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 16, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Civic Virtue, Duty, and Honor: The Sad Decline of the Republican Party”

 

I write this the day after Veterans Day -and, for various reasons, service has been on my mind lately. Last week, I co-taught a class on facilitating civil discussion with visiting retired Major-General Edward Dornan, a 1983 graduate of Tennessee Tech. He asked how many of the students present had considered pursuing public service, and pointed out that there were many ways to do so without donning a military uniform. There was one half-raised hand. This motivated me to talk briefly about a subject dear to my heart, republicanism, a theme I will return to soon.

Another service-related thing that got me thinking was seeing a Nashville news station interview with my dear friend Jim Sutcliffe (age 101), decorated WWII veteran and German POW camp survivor. Jim’s story, which many of you know, is inspiring. It made me think of several other WWII vets I’ve been privileged to know and whom we’ve lost in the past few years. These were men (and there were plenty of women, too) who were willing to put their lives on hold for years, and to risk losing those lives or suffering horrible injury, to protect democracy from the threat of fascism.

My father and all three of his brothers served in uniform during the Vietnam era. They all survived, but the two who saw combat were deeply scarred by it. I myself did not follow that tradition (though many of my good friends from high school did); when I was a senior my goal was to do preaching and mission work. And I did, full-time, for three years -a little of it here in White County, but also in South Florida and New York City, serving in French-speaking congregations and working with Haitian immigrants. Neither South Florida nor New York City were very safe places in the ‘80s (heck, for that matter, neither was White County). Despite the fact I was carrying a Bible instead of a gun, my life was legitimately threatened on several occasions. I’ve stared down the barrels of guns multiple times. I’ve walked into drug deals and stumbled onto murder scenes. I did it out of a sense of duty to God and love for neighbor. So, though I did not serve in uniform, I served… and am much the better for it.

Back to republicanism, with a small “r.” That is the principle espoused by the founding generation -that a representative democratic republic cannot survive unless its citizens have civic virtue -unless they are willing to shoulder burdens that are onerous to them, but which must be done, for the greater good of the community. To provide for the general defense and promote the general welfare… in order to form a more perfect union.

And then I think of the man many Americans chose to be their president, and are seeking to return to that office, Donald Trump -a man who has never done anything that did not immediately and profoundly benefit himself. A man who has referred to our honored military dead as losers, to those who have served in uniform as saps. Who did not want to have grievously wounded veterans messing up his photo ops and making him look bad. Who did not want to honor fallen WWII heroes because of a little rain and pouted about it. And I wonder what has happened to the Republican Party.

I never fully agreed with many of the precepts of conservatism -but there were conservative politicians I respected, and trusted to be good people, and to have the greater good of the country foremost in mind, even if I disagreed with them about how. But it is now the Party of Trump -of selfishness, ego, and vanity. They never encourage you to help people -only to jealously guard your own benefit. They barely even give lip service anymore to Jesus and all the things he said were important.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, November 9, 2023 "The Republican Party Is Eating Itself Alive"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 9, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“The Republican Party Is Eating Itself Alive”

 

Before I go to my main topic, I want to commend John Gottlied for his article last week about depression. I have dealt with depression and anxiety issues for most of my life, and I know many people who struggle quietly and privately. It is on all of us to make such people feel safe in being human without judgment.

Now let’s talk about how jacked up the Republican Party is.

Man. The Republican Party is jacked up.

I’m serious. House Republicans tossed out their own speaker, which has never been done before, and it took them three weeks and several candidates to pick a new one. Three weeks without a Speaker -so, effectively, three weeks without a House of Representatives or any kind of funding bills, at a time when we are facing multiple crises overseas. Nothing like this has ever happened in American history. Will Rogers famously said, “I’m not a member of any organized political party -I’m a Democrat.” That was funny because it was true. For way over a century, it was Democrats who had trouble rallying together, whereas Republicans presented a united front. The sad part is, I don’t think Democrats have gotten any more organized -they just look like it when compared to the mess Republicans have devolved into.

And what a cast of characters: Matt Gaetz, implicated in sex-trafficking and, so far as I know, still under investigation for sexual misconduct; Lauren Boebert, last seen drunkenly engaging in sexual behavior at a family performance of Beetlejuice; and George Santos, who probably couldn’t even tell the truth about what day it is. Perhaps the most shocking part of it all is the fact that Republican Congressmen standing for the Speaker position were receiving death threats to their families -from Republicans who supported one of the other people for the spot. This demonstrates how badly things have devolved -after several years of promoting hatefulness and encouraging, directly or tacitly, political violence against liberals, Republicans are now receiving threats of violence from supporters of their own party.

Then you have the U.S. Senate. Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has single-handedly kneecapped the entire U.S. military power structure at a time when, again, we are facing multiple military issues around the globe. Why? To force the military to change their insurance coverage for things he does not personally approve of. This is not to even mention all the suffering he is inflicting on military families who are losing money that should be theirs, with officers forced to do the work of two or more people until they are stretched so thin their health is threatened.

And then there is the presidential campaign. Hooboy. I can’t even keep track of all the trials and criminal charges Donald Trump is involved in -and I’m a historian! Yet he is the overwhelming choice of the Republican electorate to be their presidential candidate. Yes. The same party that castigated Bill Clinton’s sexual impropriety because “ethics matter” is continuing to support a man already found liable for sexual assault and massive fraud. A man who, as I heard someone say recently, handles a Bible like he thinks it will burn him. Their biggest arguments are that the 2020 election was rigged (which has been proven to be untrue multiple times) and… Joe Biden is old. They’re practically the same age! Trump can’t keep straight what state he’s in, or for that matter finish a thought. As Bill Barr said (and this is an understatement), “his verbal skills are limited.”

The whole apparatus seems totally incapable of solving any problems or even offering any plans to do so. The whole party has become a massive clown show, with each individual throwing their country and even their party to the winds in order to out-Trump Trump and get as much attention (and raise as much money) as possible.

Maybe it’s time for some of y’all to switch sides.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, November 2, 2023 "Why the True History of Slavery and Race Matters Today"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 2, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Why the True History of Slavery and Race Matters Today”

 

I have been talking about the origins of slavery in America. In part, I’ve been doing so because there is a lot about that subject that most people don’t know -and our current political climate, especially in red states like ours, suppresses honest discussion and true understanding of the subject. You can’t understand the present without understanding the past, nor can you effectively build the future, and some people would rather you not do any of those things. Their strategy for controlling the present and shaping the future is controlling your ability to know the past.

That said. For roughly the first century of the English colonies, labor in the South was done by three groups: African slaves, white indentured servants, and American Indian slaves. For reasons discussed last week, by about 1720 it had become exclusively the task of African slaves. Southern colonies started passing laws to keep even free blacks separate from poor whites, the better to control them both and avoid a replay of Bacon’s Rebellion.

Those laws became, in fits and spurts, more and more restrictive as the eighteenth century progressed. Every time there was a failed slave revolt, or word was leaked of a planned one, Southern colonial legislatures passed more laws exerting ever more control over the black population, free and slave alike. Free blacks lost most of the rights they had possessed the previous century, and slavery became harsher and harsher. This continued after the Revolution and into the nineteenth century. Race was simultaneously defined by LAW, and shaped by custom. This was a way for the planter class -who controlled the economy and the politics -to tell poor white workers and farmers, “Hey, you may not have any money or access to education or many opportunities in life, but you are white like us and we are all on the same side. You are not like those OTHER people... so stop hanging around with them. They are inferior to US.” This was a way to both delude the white “lower classes” and keep them from turning on the powers that be, and to protect the institution of slavery which was making the elites rich.

I’ll return to the cookie analogy I’ve used often. Picture three guys sitting around a table: a black guy, a poor white guy, and a rich white guy. There are ten cookies at the table. The rich guy has eight and the other two each have one. The rich guy tells the poor white guy, “You’d better watch that black guy, he wants to steal your cookie.” And while the poor white guy and the black guy are watching each other, neither notices that the rich guy now has ALL the cookies. Or, as Lyndon Johnson put it, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

This was done to maintain the social status quo, and keep the empowered in power. And it worked. Thousands and thousands of poor white Southerners who had never owned a slave and never would fought and died to protect the institution that only benefited the people at the top. And when that war ended slavery in America, the same economic/political class leaned in heavier than ever on reinforcing racism in order to hold on to that control -and that worked, too.

Today many Americans -95% or more of them white, I would guess -want to gloss over all the history I have laid out these last few weeks, because they think it makes America look bad… and because they want people to stop complaining about racial injustice, because doing so is a “divisive concept.” “Let’s forget it and move on.” But “forgetting” it (or never learning it in the first place) only further cements it.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

 

A Liberal Dose, October 26, 2023 "How America's Bloodiest Forgotten War Affected Slavery"

A Liberal Dose

October 26, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“How America’s Bloodiest Forgotten War Affected Slavery”

Last week I talked about how slavery started in the English colonies, and the fact that for much of the 1600s plantation labor was done by three groups -African slaves, white indentured servants, and American Indian captives/slaves -who not only worked closely together in the fields, but who learned from one another, interacted socially, and often intermarried. By about 1720, that had changed.

The widespread use of indentured servants on plantations ended after Bacon’s Rebellion (1676). If you recall from earlier columns, in the early 1600s most of those white indentured servants had not lived to the end of their seven-year contracts, due to disease, hardship, and Indian wars. By the late 1600s conditions had improved, and most of them did survive. Which meant that, suddenly, there were large numbers of free, unemployed, landless poor whites who now wanted the land they had been promised, and it was mostly already taken. This led to an armed uprising of -not only angry landless whites -but also angry landless free blacks who wanted the same thing. The rebels actually burned Jamestown to the ground. After that, it no longer seemed like a good idea to planters to import large numbers of indentured servants from Europe. The war also led authorities in Virginia -and soon in other Southern colonies -to start passing laws meant to prevent poor white and black workers from teaming up again. Interracial marriage was made illegal, and free blacks found their rights being whittled away to insert a wedge between the two groups.

After that, then, most of the plantation labor was done by African and Native American slaves. The latter were still being used extensively -in 1700, there were more Indian slaves than black ones in Charleston, South Carolina (the colony with the most slaves overall). From the mid-1650s to the early 1700s, the English had been at the heart of a massive Indian slave trade in the Southern colonies -the same situation that Europeans had exacerbated in West Africa. At first, English authorities and planters would buy extra captives taken by Indians raiding enemy tribes, but eventually the royal governor of South Carolina actually made contracts with certain tribes (and helped arm them), such as the Westo and the Shawnee, to provide slaves to planters. These tribes then made perpetual war on everyone around them, actually wiping out many of the tribes in northern Florida. Again, as with West Africa, this resulted in social chaos.

Incidentally, most of the founders of the Carolina colony were second or third sons of wealthy plantation owners in the English colonies of Barbados, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. They couldn’t inherit their fathers’ estates, so they set up a new colony -and brought with them the much harsher, deadlier slavery practices common in the Caribbean. The South Carolinians operated lucrative rice plantations, which required far more workers than tobacco did.

The Indians figured out that it was against the best interests of all the tribes to be set against each other in the slave trade, so in 1712 virtually all the tribes in the Southeast (except the Cherokees, who tended to stay isolated) stopped raiding each other and decided to wipe out the English colonists of South Carolina instead. In the Yamasee War, so named for one of the leading tribes, they almost succeeded. Only the fact that the English persuaded the Cherokees to come in on their side turned the tide and saved the colony.

After that, enslaving Indians also seemed like a bad idea. After all, if an African slave escaped he would have no idea where he was, whereas Indians knew the area. Africans were hardier than Indians, who lacked resistance to many diseases. Most importantly, an African slave did not have large numbers of heavily armed friends and neighbors living right down the road. Slavery became an exclusively African experience in the colonies -and laws increasingly reflected that.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

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A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

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