July 13, 2023
Troy D. Smith
“Dispossessing the Poor, Part 6- The Legacy of Slavery and
Race”
I have written five installments about the history of
labor and capitalism, and have not mentioned slavery. I’m mentioning it now,
because it played such a role in both capitalism and labor for much of this
country’s history, and its echoes persist (much as our state legislature would
like us to pretend they do not).
Slavery was not a factor in the establishment of
Jamestown and the Virginia Colony in 1607… it first appeared there, and in any
English colony, in 1619. In that year, an English ship sailing under the flag
of the Dutch (England’s allies) stopped in with wares to sell that it had
captured from a Portuguese slave ship, including 20+ slaves. In 1626 an
additional hundred slaves were brought in, and the number grew steadily after
that. Nonetheless, in mid-to-late 1600s Virginia, agricultural labor was
performed by three groups: white indentured servants, captured Native
Americans, and African slaves. The three groups worked side-by-side, exchanged
stories and customs, and frequently intermarried (which, we now know due to
genetic testing, is where Melungeons came from).
Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 saw white indentured
servants, white former indentured servants who could not find land or jobs,
former African slaves who’d been freed, and current black slaves join forces
against the colonial government. This led the Virginia government to pass laws
discouraging white and black laborers from intermingling any further.
Interracial marriage was banned, and more laws were passed stripping rights
away from blacks, free or slave. Poor whites were told “you are one of us, you
are better than THEM.” This was the beginning of laws that reinforced racism,
with the goal being to prevent poor whites and blacks from joining together.
By the 1800s, black slaves were doing all the forced
labor in the South. This actually hurt poor white workers, as there were fewer
job opportunities for them than in the non-slavery North. Some white Southern
workers moved west for better opportunities, but of those who remained, many bought
into the philosophy of white supremacy -even though it worked against them
personally (though it sure did benefit the wealthy).
What was the main factor causing the Civil War? It was
not tariffs, that’s for sure. It was not even the existence of slavery in the
South. It was the question of whether slavery would be allowed to exist in the
new states out West. Many Northerners, particularly Republicans, believed that
if slavery was allowed in those new territories, plantation owners would gobble
up all the land and poor whites who wanted to go west to start farms would be
squeezed out. White workers would be squeezed out of a job.
Bear in mind, there were strong pockets of Union
support in the South. That included East Tennessee, western North Carolina, northern
Georgia and Alabama, and Western Virginia. In other words, the Appalachian Mountains,
where you can’t grow cotton and the people were therefore not as attached to
slavery. In other words, subsistence farmers as opposed to commercial
plantation owners.
Even after the Civil War, though, racism was used as a
wedge to keep the working class divided. This was done, first by conservative
Democrats, and then by conservative Republicans. Black Lives Matter is a modern
case-in-point. Most BLM protesters, black or not, have been peaceful, and their
goal has been an end to the phenomenon of being shot-while-black. However,
conservative media has stirred up the white working-and-middle-class portion of
the GOP base into sheer paranoia, to the extent that whenever there has been
such a protest locally (usually in Cookeville), the police have had to protect
the protesters from white locals who show up with guns, because they are
CERTAIN the protesters are there to riot and kill people.
This is a pattern that has been in place for 350
years, and it keeps working… stop letting it. Think for yourselves, as someone
said.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
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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