GRRRR Brit versions of American History

[zimmerstutzen]

While doing some household chores last evening, I had flipped some channels and came across a"documentary" about colonial through civil war history. The commentator had a heavy Brit accent and once or twice I saw BBC credits for the show. When i settled down to the TV room to finish sorting a few boxes of stuff, I heard a few inaccuracies, which had me a bit perturbed, but as the show went on, I realized there were a great many inaccuracies. Some of the inaccuracies were so outlandish I couldn't believe it. Not just difference of opinion things, out right manure.

For instance, slavery had been outlawed in the North for decades before hostilities. Huh? Two slave states fought with the North.

The show was on Maryland Public Television. (I watch quite a bit of the nature and how to shows on MPT. A few of the special historical series have been very worth while, like the one about the buffalo harvest a few years ago)

I can overlook the left leaning news and reporting, but the false manure spewed in this show had me PO'd.

 

[Tommy Bruce]

I don't know about the rest of the show but the two points that you mentioned are true. A great many Northern States had abolished Slavery long before the civil war and I admit this is stretching it a bit but I believe the two states in question were probably Kentucky and the newly formed West Virginia.

 

[Cowboy2]

Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware did not leave the union, and in each slavery was legal. An argument can be made about KY and MO, since each had two separate governments, one that went with each side, but for most intents and purposes, the union controlled almost all of their territory for almost the entire duration of the war.

For what its worth, the abolition of slavery was explicitly and repeatedly denied by the north to be a war aim until well into the conflict. Why? Because Lincoln feared (with good reason) that a third of his army would go home if was stated as such.

 

[satx78247]

Cowboy2,

The MAIN reason that Lincoln didn't abolish slavery in the areas under Yankee control was that he was a STONE RACIST & an ANTISEMITE.
(For starters, Secretary Seward, answering a personal letter for Lincoln, wrote to a party functionary in MA & said that NA were "-----not even persons. They are savage creatures with neither immortal souls nor even humanity and as such they can be disposed of, in full good conscience, as we may desire.")

Also, as late as 1864 numerous members of the Yankee High Command (Including GEN Grant) were still holding slaves. = Unfortunately for the Radical Revisionists, many "officer's personal property records" still exist & "name names" of the slaves held by senior Union officers more than 2 years after "The Emancipation Proclamation" was announced.

Despite the leftist/Revisionist/Anti-Southern nonsense banded about today on college campuses, the WBTS was NEVER about slavery. Instead the war was "about" government intrusiveness into citizen's lives, $$$$$$$$$$$$, taxes & the desire of the South to be FREE.

Evil, vicious & open racism was commonplace in the North long after TWBTS. = For example, MG Benjamin "The Beast" Butler of MA, answering a question of a journalist in the mid-1870s about "freeing the slaves", said (LAUGHING) that, "Of course we freed them. We freed legions of them from being alive."

US Senator (& COL, USA) James Lane of KS said, in an interview published in THE KANSAS CITY STAR, that "This Union is to be a white, Christian, country. Those 'muddy-colored people', who may refuse to leave our boundaries, will be gathered together and 'put to the sword'."

Also, the former commanding officer of Point Lookout Prison Camp in southern Maryland, when asked about why so few "non-white" CSA prisoners survived his POW camp said, "Bullets were cheaper than beans. They simply were not worth feeding."

A good place to start, should readers desire more information upon this subject, is in the footnotes & bibliography of THE UNCIVIL WAR by Robert R. Mackey.

yours, satx

 

[tenngun]

I dont have a lot of use for abe but its wrong to call him a raceist.Today his attituds would be unacceptable but at his time they were very avant-gaurd.
Although slavery was dejure illeagle it was de facto in many westren states.Most people in the north couldn't give a rats hind end about slavery. It was only after the war and yanks were standing knee deep in southren and northern blood that freeing slaves became the cause bella. Taking away southerners rights to self rule didn't seem a fair trate for nearly 700,000 thousand lifes.

 

[satx78247]

Actually the total cost in lives during TWBTS was about a MILLION people, counting civilians who starved to death or who were murdered by the northern army.
(To quote Sandra Brownmiller, author of AGAINST OUR WILL: MEN, WOMEN & RAPE, "The Union army raged through the prostrated southland, raping poor and non-white women, robbing and abusing unarmed civilians, looting and burning both private residences and public buildings with gleeful abandon and murdering defenseless civilians on a wholesale basis. The Army's deportment was that of a herd of rabid swine. It cannot be longer denied that the armies of the Union engaged in war on the defenseless for fun and profits.")

Note: While Brownmiller's political comments are those of a leftist/socialist/radical feminist, hardly body in academia disputes her research ability or the truthfulness of her facts.

yours, satx

 

[Wes/Tex]

I dont have a lot of use for abe but its wrong to call him a raceist.

"I am not now, nor ever been in favor of bringing about, in any way, the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of making voters, or jurors, of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriage with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man."

Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln/Douglass Debates, October 13, 1858

I'm not saying he's a racist either, but he's not and never was a saint. I've never decided if he was playing to a crowd or changed his mind to fit circumstance.

 

[TFoley]

I have to say, in defence of the British, since I'm married to one and actually live here, that I've also encountered some pretty odd versions of American history, written by American authors and either on sale in American book-stores, or actually in use in schools as definitive learning material.

The opposite is also worth thinking about - where a scientific fact is displayed as a fiction, as in one school library of my acquaintance. In it, a definitive and very readable geological study of the state of Oregon, 'In search of Ancient Oregon' has a note stuck inside it, which reads - 'This book is a work of fiction, to be read only with a teacher either in tandem or conjunction with the Holy Bible for purposes of true revelation and explanation'.

tac

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

"History is written through the eyes of the victor ..."

Anonymous

 

[poordevil]

I don't know about the rest of the show but the two points that you mentioned are true. A great many Northern States had abolished Slavery long before the civil war and I admit this is stretching it a bit but I believe the two states in question were probably Kentucky and the newly formed West Virginia.

Of the states that stayed with the Union and allowed slavery, I believe were, Rode Island, Delaware and Maryland and of course Washington DC

 

[Wes/Tex]

"History is written through the eyes of the victor ..."

Anonymous

Or....."History is a falsehood sworn to by two liars, both of whom are dead".

Ambrose Bierce

 

[palladius]

"History is a set of lies agreed upon."

Napoleon

(and we can probably find earlier people with the same sentiment)

 

[tenngun]

I don't know about the rest of the show but the two points that you mentioned are true. A great many Northern States had abolished Slavery long before the civil war and I admit this is stretching it a bit but I believe the two states in question were probably Kentucky and the newly formed West Virginia.

Of the states that stayed with the Union and allowed slavery, I believe were, Rode Island, Delaware and Maryland and of course Washington DC

The states that stayed in the union that were still slave states were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missiouri. West Virginia had to ban slavery to get admission to the union.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

IIRC, Pennsylvania only half abolished slavery. It outlawed slavery as to those born after a certain date. Those born before the date remained slaves. The war came 50 or 60 years later, so the number of slaves would have been minimal, but not totally abolished.

That said, my GGGGGGF, Gerhardt Hendricks, proposed outlawing slavery in Pennsylvania in the 1690's. (Two of his grandson's became mayors of colonial Philadelphia)

 

[tenngun]

Yes and de facto slavery was still in Illinois Wisconsin and ohio as indentured servants who kept getting their terms extended.
NYC,LA.CHI still have lots of slaves...mostly east Asian and Latin Americans, but some of every color and some natural born Americans, most tried to the sex trade.

 

[satx78247]

During The New York Draft Riots, NYC's residents lynched more A-A men, women & even small children in less than 72 hours than were lynched in the entire USA over the next 150 years. - According to a senior correspondent of THE NEW YORK POST, the corpses of Black people "decorated every lamp-post for miles", throughout the city. The reporter stated that some corpses were "left hanging" until they fell of their own weight.

Btw, in 2013 there are more KKK-members/morons in NYC than in all 13 of the former Confederate States combined but "the NY press" constantly makes disparaging comments about those 13 States & tars the whole of the Southland with comments about our supposed "vicious racism targeted against 'non-white persons'". - That seems "more than a bit ironic" to me.

yours, satx

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Don't get me started on "klan wannabes" A family of them (renters) just moved in across the street from my farm. Within days the prerequisites were met, two non-running pick up trucks in the yard, stars and bars hung from the porch roof and refrigerator & sofa on the porch. The bus picks up in front of my mail box and last Friday,the momma was in the running pick up truck, blocking my driveway with the kid waiting for the bus. Must have been all of 10 feet closer to where the bus stops than their front door. I suppose next, I'll hear banjos being played on the porch.

 

[tenngun]

I fly a confederate flag and like banjos... don't have any use for klan, raciest, sexiest, or the most racist group ever the DNC

 

[satx78247]

I would be stunned if your "wanna be klansmen" are flying The Stars & Bars. = Most living Americans, North and South don't have a clue what that CSA flag looks like in any of its 3 different versions.- FYI, there were 7, 11 and 13 star versions flown during TWBTS, even after the 2nd National flag was approved.
(I frequently fly a 5x8 foot S&B on CSA holidays, as it is NOT used/abused by "the moron haters" & I am frequently am asked here in SA if it is a "foreign flag".)

In point of fact, NONE of the official CSA National flags are well-known outside of academia, Southron Rights advocates and the "re-enactor community".

Let me tell you about a "somewhat humorous incident" that happened to me about 5 years ago. = I was riding the DC Metro into WDC to attend a Memorial Ceremony in rememberance of our CSA veterans at the US Capitol and was wearing a 3rd National flag pin. An older couple, who were sitting in an adjacent bench asked me where they should get off the train to visit the US Archives. - I told them.
The man of the couple asked me if the pin was the Mississippi flag. - I said, "No". He then said, "Must be Louisiana." - Again I said "No" and before I could say anything else, he then said, "Well then, it's New Mexico".
His wife then said (rather loudly) to him, "Oh Oscar, New Mexico is NOT EVEN IN the United States of America".
(At that point, the train stopped "at Archives" and the couple got off the train. After the doors closed numerous people on the train started LOL. - I'd bet money that most of those "laughing persons" didn't know what flag that my pin represents, either.)

Note: I routinely fly the Confederate Revenue Service flag aboard the FOREVER PRINCESS & in over 15 years I've had ONE person, who seemed to know what flag that it is.

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

EXACTLY.

yours, satx