Marcus Rediker Quotes
The truth that we are required to face about the slave trade is that it was founded on violence and terror … not done to Americans but done by Americans to others.
Marcus Rediker, Historian, Lecture, The Atlantic Slave Trade, University of Pittsburgh, American History TV, C-SPAN, December 18, 2010
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He was also himself a ship owner in the slave trade and he was the brother of the leading Rhode Island abolitionist, Moses Brown. See {585793}. Brown became the first American, prosecuted in federal court for illegal slave trading –-- a prosecution brought, in part, by his own brother. He was, however, acquitted.
Louisiana to this day has a different legal system from the rest of the United States as it was originally based on the French Napoleonic Code. Most people did not realize that Louisiana had strictures against breaking up families—even with slaves.
Generally, Jefferson was not in favor of whipping slaves, but this quotation shows that he essentially accepted the basic principles of Southern Slavery—including the one that says if the person does not want to work for you, you may whip, beat, or torture him or her to produce “reasonable work.” This acceptance of slavery and profiting from it, is the terrible blot on the record of the man who otherwise was among the few greatest of Americans.
What is interesting is that when he cites the dreadful facts about American slavery, he never points out that the American slave traders rarely raided the villages and captured the slaves themselves. Most often this was done my Khamenei’s Muslim brethren slave traders who dominated the slave trade in Africa. Nor does he point out what after realizing the evil that Americans perpetrated with slavery, we ended it in the 1860s. Saudi Arabia, the central nation of Islam, did not make slavery illegal until 100 years later, and even today, there are many Saudi’s who get caught practicing slavery with household servants and forms of indentured servitude. And while Christians and the Bible tolerated slavery, the Koran and the Prophet never once condemn the practice of slavery. Democracy at any point in time is not always morally right, but it is a process by which under pressure from the people it improves over time because the people can change it and do.
Eldest son of Robert Walpole. Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, had issued a proclamation offering freedom to slaves willing to defend the Crown
The phrase “give him a call” is interesting before the telephone. The ad gave a general area where he hunted and might be found. Potential customers were to go to that general area and “give him a call” vocally.
In 1831 a slave preacher, Nat Turner, led a rebellion in North Carolina killing over 50 whites. Even though Turner and the rebels were captured and executed, whites throughout the South, took vengeance on any slaves they could find. This description was of a North Carolina community.
Many historians of higher education to not agree with Wilder’s overall generality. However, it was certainly the case that slavery was a major factor in generating the funds for some early universities in the North, but others were “hotbeds” of abolition from their very inception.
Marcus Rediker (born 1951 in Owensboro, Kentucky) is an American professor, historian, writer, and activist for a variety of peace and social justice causes. He graduated with a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1976 and attended the University of Pennsylvania for graduate study, earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in history. He taught at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1994, lived in Moscow for a year (1984-5), and is currently Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History of the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.
