Originally posted by MikeboydUS
reply to post by Tiger5
It is true that most Southerners did not own slaves. Slaves were very expensive.
Most slaves were owned by very wealthy plantation owning aristocrats.
Some of these aristocrats in Louisiana were not white, but Creole.
In a US census before the Civil War, around 8 million whites lived in the South. Out of these 8 million, less than 380,000 owned slaves. Over 260,000 free blacks lived in the South. Over 3,000 free blacks owned slaves, primarily in Louisiana around New Orleans.
Extreme prejudice against blacks in the South originated primarily with Irish immigrants. The Irish were at the bottom of society in the South. They were very poor and were often hired by plantation aristicrats to do dangerous work, such as construction. Slaves were kept in the fields and in the households. The immigrants were known as rednecks, from the fact they plowed their small fields. House slaves also gave them the names "white trash" and peckerwood. The latter name orginated from the house slaves who compared the red headed and loud Irishmen to woodpeckers. There was much hostility between the poor whites and the slaves.
Society in the South before the Reconstruction was somewhat feudal. Immigrants, especially from Ireland were at the very bottom. Wealthy aristocrats held all of the power and money.
After the war during the Reconstruction, the Aristocracy was destroyed. Most of the South that did not own slaves resented the blacks and blamed them for the war. They became scapegoats for poor whites.
Even in Louisiana, the once powerful Creoles found themselves victims of hate and found themselves being segregated. The landmark Supreme Court case Plessy Vs. Ferguson in 1896, by Creole Homer Plessy who refused to sit in a rail car for blacks only, lead to the court ruling that "separate but equal" was not unconstitutional.
Edited for some figures
[edit on 12/3/10 by MikeboydUS]
Well to be honest with your you seem to be on point. I have to get some other stuff done. so will do this in pieces.
The slave figures taken from consensus does make since there is always the paretto (80/20) phenomenon by which the major of assets are always held or controlled by the minority.
I am currently watching a brilliant programme on the decline of detyroit. It is a great american city that is dying and kids are asking why go to school?
Anyway I digress. What interests me is the role of the Irish who actually became white in the 1960s in the UK. During the 50s and early 60s the signs in rooming houses stated "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish". prior to that there were caricatures of these monkey men or people with coarse features who were similar to the black caricatures without the colour.
The racial problem in 2010 should not exist because the truth is out there.
i enjoyed the verbal sparring.
