Slave Revolt Quotes
This fear was great among many who were abolitionists as potentially there might be mass slaughter of all Southern whites.
His fear was well founded. That is exactly what the British tried to do.
Southerners complained that abolitionists were advocating revolution. While most did not, some did advocate mass rebellion. The fact that Remond was himself a Black, created even more distress to the South.
She was one of the early abolitionists. Despite the Southern attempted repression of information of slave resistance, some of the facts emerged and were well known in the North. The South tried to suppress these incidents lest other slaves get ideas from it. Also the Southerners often maintained that Africa was so primitive and underdeveloped, that the slaves were better off in America; these actions of rebellion belied this notion.
The Southerners were terrified at the thought of runaway and freed slaves as soldiers for the Union Army—even moreso than the Union leadership assumed. The Southerners knew far better than the Northerners how badly the slaves had been brutalized and assumed that the Blacks would want the same kind of revenge that they would seek if the roles were reversed.
Holland was trying to write a justification of the particularly barbarous and cruel methods of punishing Negro Slaves. These not only included the whippings, but also crucifixion and burning at the stake. To justify these, Holland gave the above example of what had occurred which in his view justified the “law enforcement” techniques that the South used to “protect” its citizens. Holland sent a copy of this essay to James Madison in the hopes that there might be a change of pubic opinion, not only in the Northern states but even in Virginia which looked upon the other Southern States as backward and barbarian. Apparently, Madison did not think enough of the pamphlet of Holland to even write an acknowledgment and/or that you.
