By the way on the issue of the wealth built on slavery going on to our generation: everyone conveniently forgets that the Emancipation Proclamation provided for UNCOMPENSATED emancipation, thus wiping out the wealth that a slave represented.
A slave was worth roughly what a Mercedes-Benz is today in inflation- and buying power-adjusted dollars. When millions of Southern slaves were emancipated without compensation, that meant that slaveowners were ruined and the entire region economically devastated.
That’s not even counting the scorched earth tactics: the farm burning, city flattening efforts of the Union Army that caused even more economic catastrophe. And the enormous fraction of Southern manhood that was killed or maimed.
- Irish
This is a good observation. I also pointed out before that white countries without any history of African slavery are just as wealthy as white countries that had black slaves. (The money made off of slaves would be long gone by now, destroyed by inflation and maintenance of families for 150 years.)
Never mind that only a tiny percentage of whites are descendants of slave owners and most – Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles – didn’t even arrive here until after slavery was eliminated in the country or at least the state where they lived.
But one more thing: compare the South to the North.
The slave-owning South was poorer and remains poorer than the North. If white wealth is/was the product of slavery, wouldn’t you think that the South would be wealthy and the North would be poor? And states that never had any slavery, like Washington State and Alaska, would look like Haiti?
Even if all whites in non-slave states magically benefited from slavery, wouldn’t you still think that those in the South would benefit more than those in the North? And those in the United States prior to 1861 would benefit more than those who showed up here after the last former slave was already dead? Why is it then that we do not see any correlation between slave ownership and wealth?
The idea that whites do well today not because of their intelligence and culture, but due to the history of slavery does not survive the most basic logical reasoning.
This is awesome! I just tweeted you.
Here’s a thought–Africa should be incredibly wealthy since Africa had slavery in the past, and African peoples engaged in the slave trade.
For that matter, isn’t Sudan the wealthiest country in Africa because it has slavery?