this recording is a product of audio anarchy now before i get started with this reading i'd like to issue a bit of a content warning this chapter contains uh depictions of violence sexual violence uh slavery racial violence and racism um it also features the use of words that are pretty commonly known to be slurs that said if you're willing to carry on carry on a people's history of the united states by howard zinn chapter two drawing the color line a black american writer jay saunders reading describes the arrival of a ship in north america in the year 1619 quote sails furled flag drooping at her rounded stern she rode the tide in from the sea she was a strange ship indeed by all accounts a frightening ship a ship of mystery whether she was traitor privateer or man of war no one knows through her bulwarks black-mouthed cannon yawned the flag she flew was dutch her crew a motley her port of call an english settlement jamestown in the colony of virginia she came she traded and shortly afterwards was gone probably no ship in modern history has carried a more portentous freight her cargo 20 slaves there is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important for so long a time as the united states and the problem of the color line as w.e.b du bois put it is still with us so it is more than a purely historical question to ask how does it start and an even more urgent question how might it end or to put it differently is it possible for whites and blacks to live together without hatred if history can help answer these questions then the beginnings of slavery in north america a continent where we can trace the coming of the first whites and the first blacks might supply at least a few clues some historians think those first blacks in virginia were considered as servants like the white indentured servants brought from europe but the strong probability is that even if they were listed as servants a more familiar category to the english they were viewed as being different from white servants were treated differently and in fact were slaves in any case slavery developed quickly into a regular institution into the normal labor relation of blacks to whites in the new world with it developed that special racial feeling whether hatred or contempt or pity or patronization that accompanied the inferior position of blacks in america for the next 350 years that combination of inferior status and derogatory thought we call racism everything in the experience of the first white settlers acted as a pressure for the enslavement of blacks the virginians of 1619 were desperate for labor to grow enough food to stay alive among them were survivors from the winter of 1609 to 1610 the starving time when crazed for want of food they roamed the woods for nuts and berries dug up graves to eat the corpses and died in batches until 500 colonists were reduced to 60. in the journals of the house of burgesses of virginia is a document of 1619 which tells of the first 12 years of the jamestown colony the first settlement had a hundred persons who had one small ladle of barley per meal when more people arrived there was even less food many of the people lived in cave-like holes dug into the ground and in the winter of 1609 to 1610 they were quote driven through insufferable hunger to eat those things which nature most abhorred the flesh and excrements of man as well of our own nation as of an indian digged by some out of his grave after he had lain buried three days and wholly devoured him others envying the better state of body of any whom hunger has not yet so much wasted as their own lay weight and threatened to kill and eat them one among them slew his wife as she slept in his bosom cut her in pieces salted her and fed upon her till he had clean devoured all parts saving her head a petition by 30 colonists to the house of burgesses complaining against the 12-year governorship of sir thomas smith said in those 12 years of sir thomas smith his government we aver that the colony for the most part remained in great want and misery under most severe and cruel laws the allowance in those times for a man was only eight ounces of meal and half a pint of peas for a day moldy rotten full of cobwebs and maggots loathsome to man and not fit for beasts which forced many to flee for relief to the savage enemy who being taken again were put to sundry deaths as by hanging shooting and breaking upon the wheel of whom one for stealing two or three pints of oatmeal had a bodkin thrust through his tongue and was tied with a chain to a tree until he starved the virginians needed labor to grow corn for subsistence to grow tobacco for export they had just figured out how to grow tobacco and in 1617 they sent off the first cargo to england finding that like all pleasurable drugs tainted with moral disapproval it brought a high price the planters despite their high religious talk were not going to ask questions about something so profitable they couldn't force the indians to work for them as columbus had done they were outnumbered and while with superior firearms they could massacre indians they would face massacre in return they could not capture them and keep them enslaved the indians were tough resourceful defiant and at home in these woods as the transplanted englishmen were not white servants had not yet been brought over in sufficient quantity besides they did not come out of slavery and did not have to do more than contract their labor for a few years to get their passage and a start in the new world as for the free white settlers many of them were skilled craftsmen or even men of leisure back in england who were so little inclined to work the land that john smith in those early years had to declare a kind of martial law organize them into work gangs and force them into the fields for survival there may have been a kind of frustrated rage at their own ineptitude at the indian superiority at taking care of themselves that made the virginians especially ready to become the masters of slaves edmund morgan imagines their mood as he writes in his book american slavery american freedom if you were a colonist you knew that your technology was superior to the indians you knew that you were civilized and they were savages but your superior technology had proved insufficient to extract anything the indians keeping to themselves laughed at your superior methods and lived from the land more abundantly and with less labor than you did and when your own people started deserting in order to live with them it was too much so you killed the indians tortured them burned their villages burned their cornfields it proved your superiority in spite of your failures and you gave similar treatment to any of your own people who succumbed to their savage ways of life but you still did not grow much corn black slaves were the answer and it was natural to consider imported blacks as slaves even if the institution of slavery would not be regularized and legalized for several decades because by 1619 a million blacks had already been brought from africa to south america and the caribbean to the portuguese and spanish colonies to work as slaves 50 years before columbus the portuguese took 10 african blacks to lisbon this was the start of a regular trade in slaves african blacks had been stamped as slave labor for a hundred years so it would have been strange if those twenty blacks forcibly transported to jamestown and sold as objects to settlers anxious for a steadfast source of labor were considered as anything but slaves their helplessness made enslavement easier the indians were on their own land the whites were in their own european culture the blacks had been torn from their land and culture forced into a situation where the heritage of language dress custom family relations was bit by bit obliterated except for the remnants that blacks could hold onto by sheer extraordinary persistence was their culture inferior and so subject to easy destruction inferior in military capability yes vulnerable to whites with guns and ships but in no other way except that cultures that are different are often taken as inferior especially when such a judgment is practical and profitable even militarily while the westerners could secure forts on the african coast they were unable to subdue the interior and had to come to terms with its chiefs the african civilization was as advanced in its own way as that of europe in certain ways it was more admirable but it also included cruelties hierarchical privilege and the readiness to sacrifice human lives for religion or profit it was a civilization of 100 million people using iron implements and skilled in farming it had large urban centers and remarkable achievements in weaving ceramics sculpture european travelers in the 16th century were impressed with the african kingdoms of timbuktu and mali already stable and organized at a time when european states were just beginning to develop into the modern nation in 1563 ramuccio secretary to the rulers in venice wrote to the italian merchants let them go and do business with the king of timbuktu in mali and there is no doubt that they will be well received there with their ships and their goods and treated well and granted the favors that they ask a dutch report around 1602 on the west african kingdom of benin said the town seemeth to be very great when you enter it you go into a great broad street not paved which seemeth to be seven or eight times broader than the warmos street in amsterdam the houses in this town stand in good order one close and even with the other as the houses in holland stand the inhabitants of the guinea coast were described by one traveler around 1680 as quote very civil and good-natured people easy to be dealt with condescending to what europeans require of them in a civil way and very ready to return double the presence we make them unquote africa had a kind of feudalism like europe based on agriculture and with hierarchies of lords and vassals but african feudalism did not come as did europe's out of the slave societies of greece and rome which had destroyed ancient tribal life in africa tribal life was still powerful and some of its better features a communal spirit more kindness in law and punishment still existed and because the lords did not have the weapons that european lords had they could not command obedience as easily in his book the african slave trade basil davidson contrasts law in the congo in the early 16th century with law in portugal and england in those european countries where the idea of private property was becoming powerful theft was punished brutally in england even as late as 1740 a child could be hanged for stealing a rag of cotton but in the congo communal life persisted the idea of having private property was a strange one and thefts were punished with fines or various degrees of servitude a congolese leader told of the portuguese legal codes asked to portuguese once teasingly what is the penalty in portugal for anyone who puts his feet on the ground slavery existed in the african states and it was sometimes used by europeans to justify their own slave trade but as davidson points out the quote slaves unquote of africa were more like the serfs of europe in other words like most of the population of europe it was a harsh servitude but they had rights which slaves brought to america did not have and they were quote altogether different from the human cattle of the slave ships and the american plantations unquote in the ashanti kingdom of west africa one observer noted that quote a slave a slave might marry own property himself own a slave swear an oath be a competent witness and ultimately become heir to his master an ashanti slave nine cases out of ten possibly became an adopted member of the family and in time his descendants so merged and intermarried with the owners kinsmen that only a few would know their origin one slave trader john newton who later became an anti-slavery leader wrote about the people of what is now sierra leone quote the state of slavery among these wild barbarous people as we esteem them is much milder than in our colonies four as on the one hand they have no land in high cultivation like our west india plantations and therefore no call for that excessive unintermitted labor which exhausts our slaves so on the other hand no man is permitted to draw blood even from a slave african slavery is hardly to be praised but it was far different from plantation or mining slavery in the americas which was lifelong morally crippling destructive of family ties without hope of any future african slavery lacked two elements that made american slavery the most cruel form of slavery in history the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred with that relentless clarity based on color where white was master black was slave in fact it was because they came from a settled culture of tribal customs and family ties of communal life and traditional ritual that african blacks found themselves especially helpless when removed from this they were captured in the interior frequently by blacks caught up in the slave trade themselves sold on the coast then shoved into pens with blacks of other tribes often speaking different languages the conditions of capture and sale were crushing affirmations to the black african of his helplessness in the face of superior force the marches to the coast sometimes for one thousand miles with people shackled around the neck under whip and gun were death marches in which two of every five blacks died on the coast they were kept in cages until they were picked and sold one john barbat at the end of the 17th century described these cages on the gold coast as the slaves come down to feed feeder from the inland country they are put into a booth or prison near the beach and when the europeans are to receive them they are brought out onto a large plain where the ship's surgeons examine every part of them to the smallest member men and women being stark naked some are allowed good and some are set on one side marked on the breast with a red-hot iron imprinting the mark of the french english or dutch companies the branded slaves after this are returned to their former booths where they await shipment sometimes 10 to 15 days then they were packed aboard the slave ships in spaces not much bigger than coffins chained together in the dark wet slime of the ship's bottom choking in the stench of their own excrement documents of the time describe the conditions the height sometimes between decks was only 18 inches so that the unfortunate human beings could not turn around or even on their sides the elevation being less than the breadth of their shoulders and here they are usually chained to the decks by the neck and legs in such a place the sense of misery and suffocation is so great that the negroes are driven to frenzy on one occasion hearing a great noise from below decks where the blacks were chained together the sailors opened the hatches and found the slaves in different stages of suffocation many dead some having killed others in desperate attempts to breathe slaves often jumped overboard to drown rather than continue their suffering to one observer a slave deck was quote so covered with blood and mucus that it resembled a slaughterhouse unquote under these conditions perhaps one of every three blacks transported overseas died but the huge profits often double the investment on one trip made it worthwhile for the slave trader and so the blacks were packed into the holds like fish first the dutch then the english dominated the slave trade by 1795 liverpool had more than a hundred ships carrying slaves and accounted for half of all the european slave trade some americans in new england entered the business and in 1637 the first american slave ship the desire sailed from marblehead its holds were partitioned into racks two feet by six feet with leg irons and bars by 1800 10 to 15 million blacks had been transported as slaves to the americas representing perhaps one third of those originally seized in africa it is roughly estimated that africa lost 50 million human beings to death and slavery in those centuries we call the beginnings of modern western civilization at the hands of slave traders and plantation owners in western europe and america the country's deemed the most advanced in the world in the year 1610 a catholic priest in the americas named father sandoval wrote back to a church functionary in europe to ask if the capture transport and enslavement of african blacks was legal by church doctrine a letter dated march 12 1610 from brother luis brandeon to father sandoval gives the answer your reverence writes me that you would like to know whether the negroes who are sent to your parts have been legally captured to this i reply that i think your reverence should have no scruples on this point because this is a matter which has been questioned by the board of conscience in lisbon and all its members are learned and conscientious men nor did the bishops who were in sao tome cape verde and here in lawando all learned and virtuous men find fault with it we have been here ourselves for 40 years and there have been among us very learned fathers never did they consider the trade as illicit therefore we and the fathers of brazil buy these slaves for our service without any scruple with all of this the desperation of jamestown settlers for labor the impossibility of using indians and the difficulty of using whites the availability of blacks offered in greater and greater numbers by profit-seeking dealers in human flesh and with such blacks possible to control because they had just gone through an ordeal which if it did not kill them must have left them in a state of psychic and physical helplessness is it any wonder that such blacks were ripe for enslavement and under these conditions even if some blacks might have been considered servants would blacks be treated the same as white servants the evidence from the court records of colonial virginia shows that in 1630 a white man named hugh davis was ordered quote to be soundly whipped for abusing himself by defiling his body in lying with a negro unquote ten years later six servants and quote a negro of mr reynolds unquote started to run away while the whites received lighter sentences quote emmanuel the negro to receive 30 stripes and to be burnt in the cheek with the letter r and to work and shackle one year or more as his master shall see cause unquote although slavery was not yet regularized or legalized in those first years the lists of servants show blacks listed separately a law passed in 1639 decreed that quote all persons except negroes unquote were to get arms and ammunition probably to fight off indians when in 1640 three servants tried to run away the two whites were punished with a lengthening of their service but as the court put it quote the third being a negro named john punch shall serve his master or his assigns for the time of his natural life unquote also in 1640 we have the case of a negro woman's servant who begot a child by robert sweat a white man the court ruled quote that the said negro woman shall be whipped at the whipping post and the said sweat shall tomorrow in the forenoon do public penance for his offense at james city church unquote this unequal treatment this developing combination of contempt and oppression feeling and action which we call racism was this the result of a natural antipathy of white against black the question is important not just as a matter of historical accuracy but because any emphasis on natural racism lightens the responsibility of the social system if racism can't be shown to be natural then it is the result of certain conditions and we are impelled to eliminate those conditions we have no way of testing the behavior of whites and blacks toward one another under favorable conditions with no history of subordination no money incentive for exploitation and enslavement no desperation for survival requiring forced labor all the conditions for black and white in 17th century america were the opposite of that all powerfully directed toward antagonism and mistreatment under such conditions even the slightest display of humanity between the races might be considered evidence of a basic human drive toward community sometimes it is noted that even before 1600 when the slave trade had just begun before africans were stamped by it literally and symbolically the color black was distasteful in england before 1600 it meant according to the oxford english dictionary quote deeply stained with dirt soiled dirty fowl having dark or deadly purposes malignant pertaining to or involving death deadly painful disastrous sinister foul iniquitous atrocious horribly wicked indicating disgrace sentior liability to punishment etc unquote and elizabethan poetry often used the color white in connection with beauty it may be that in the absence of any other overriding factor darkness and blackness associated with knight and unknown would take on those meanings but the presence of another human being is a powerful fact and the conditions of that presence are crucial in determining whether an initial prejudice against a mere color divorced from humankind is turned into brutality and hatred in spite of such preconceptions about blackness in spite of special subordination of blacks and the americas in the 17th century there is evidence that where whites and blacks found themselves with common problems common work common enemy in their master they behaved toward one another as equals one scholar of slavery kenneth stamp has put it negro and white servants of the 17th century were remarkably unconcerned about the visible physical differences black and white worked together fraternized together the very fact that laws had to be passed after a while to forbid such relations indicates the strength of that tendency in 1661 a law was passed in virginia that quote in case any english servant shall run away in company of any negroes unquote he would have to give special service for extra years to the master of the runaway negro in 1691 virginia provided for the banishment of any quote white man or woman being free who shall intermarry with a negro mulatto or indian man or woman bond or free unquote there is an enormous difference between a feeling of racial strangeness perhaps fear and the mass enslavement of millions of black people that took place in the americas the transition from one to the other cannot be explained easily by natural tendencies it is not hard to understand as the outcome of historical conditions slavery grew as the plantation system grew the reason is easily traceable to something other than natural racial repugnance the number of arriving whites whether free or indentured servants under four to seven years contract was not enough to meet the need of the plantations by 1700 in virginia there were six thousand slaves one twelfth of the population by 1763 there were 170 000 slaves about half the population blacks were easier to enslave than whites or indians but they were still not easy to enslave from the beginning the imported black men and women resisted their enslavement ultimately their resistance was controlled and slavery was established for three million blacks in the south still under the most difficult conditions under pain of mutilation and death throughout their 200 years of enslavement in north america these afro-americans continued to rebel only occasionally was there an organized insurrection more often they showed their refusal to submit by running away even more often they engaged in sabotage slowdowns and subtle forms of resistance which asserted if only to themselves and their brothers and sisters their dignity as human beings the refusal began in africa one slave trader reported that negroes were quote so willful and loath to leave their own country that they had often leaped out of the canoes boat and ship into the sea and kept underwater till they were drowned unquote when the very first black slaves were brought into hispaniola in 1503 the spanish governor of hispaniola complained to the spanish court that fugitive negro slaves were teaching disobedience to the indians in the 1520s and 1530s there were slave revolts in hispaniola puerto rico santa marta and what is now panama shortly after those rebellions the spanish established a special police for chasing fugitive slaves a virginia statute of 1669 referred to quote the obstinacy of many of them and in 1680 the assembly took note of slave meetings quote under the pretense of feasts and brawls which they considered of quote dangerous consequence unquote in 1687 in the colony's northern neck a plot was discovered in which slaves planned to kill all the whites in the area and escape during a mass funeral gerald mullen who studied slave resistance in 18th century virginia in his work flight and rebellion reports quote the available sources on slavery in 18th century virginia plantation and county records the newspaper advertisements for runaways describe rebellious slaves and few others the slaves described were lazy and thieving they feigned illnesses destroyed crops stores tools and sometimes attacked or killed overseers they operated black markets and stolen goods runaways were defined as various types they were truants who usually returned voluntarily outlaws and slaves who were actually fugitives men who visited relatives went to town to pass us free or tried to escape slavery completely either by boarding ships and leaving the colony or banding together in cooperative efforts to establish villages or hideouts on the frontier the commitment of another type of rebellious slave was total these men became killers arsonists and insurrectionists slaves recently from africa still holding on to the heritage of their communal society would run away in groups and try to establish villages of runaways out in the wilderness on the frontier slaves born in america on the other hand were more likely to run off alone and with the skills they had learned on the plantation try to pass as free men in the colonial papers of england a 1729 report from the lieutenant governor of virginia to the british board of trade tells how quote a number of negroes about 15 formed a design to withdraw from their master and to fix themselves in the fastness of the neighboring mountains they had found means to get into their possession some arms and ammunition and they took along with them some provisions their cloths bedding and working tools though this attempt has happily been defeated it ought nevertheless to awaken us into some effectual measures slavery was immensely profitable to some masters james madison told a british visitor shortly after the american revolution that he could make 257 on every negro in a year and spend only 12 or 13 on his keep another viewpoint was of slave owner landon carter writing about 50 years earlier complaining that his slaves so neglected their work and were so uncooperative either cannot or will not work that he began to wonder if keeping them was worthwhile some historians have painted a picture based on the infrequency of organized rebellions and the ability of the south to maintain slavery for 200 years of a slave population made submissive by their condition with their african heritage destroyed they were as stanley elkins said made into sambos a society of helpless dependents or as another historian ulrich phillips said biracial quality submissive but looking at the totality of slave behavior at the resistance of everyday life from quiet non-cooperation in work to running away the picture becomes different in 1710 warning the virginia assembly governor alexander spotswood said freedom wears a cap which can without a tongue call together all those who long to shake off the fetters of slavery and as such an insurrection would surely be attended with most dreadful consequences so i think we cannot be too early in providing against it both by putting ourselves in a better posture of defense and by making a law to prevent the consultations of those negroes indeed considering the harshness of punishment for running away that so many blacks did run away must be a sign of a powerful rebelliousness all through the 1700s the virginia slave code read quote whereas many times slaves run away and lie hid and lurking in swamps woods and other obscure places killing hogs and committing other injuries to the inhabitants if the slave does not immediately return anyone whatsoever may kill or destroy such slaves by such ways and means as he shall think fit if the slave is apprehended it shall be lawful for the county court to order such punishment for the said slave either by dismembering or in any other way as they in their discretion shall think fit for the reclaiming of any such incorrigible slave and terrifying others from the like practices mullen found newspaper advertisements between 1736 and 1801 for 1138 men runaways and 141 women one consistent reason for running away was to find members of one's family showing that despite the attempts of the slave system to destroy family ties by not allowing marriages and by separating families slaves would face death and mutilation to get together in maryland where slaves were about one-third of the population in 1750 slavery had been written into law since the 1660s and statutes for controlling rebellious slaves were passed there were cases where slave women killed their masters sometimes by poisoning them sometimes by burning tobacco houses and homes punishments ranged from whipping and branding to execution but the trouble continued in 1742 seven slaves were put to death for murdering their master fear of slave revolt seems to have been a permanent fact of plantation life william byrd a wealthy virginia slave owner wrote in 1736 quote we have already at least ten thousand men of these descendants of ham fit to bear arms and these numbers increase every day as well by birth as by importation and in case there should arise a man of desperate fortune he might with more advantage than catalan kindle a servile war and tinge our rivers wide as they are with blood it was an intricate and powerful system of control that the slave owners developed to maintain their labor supply and their way of life a system both subtle and crude involving every device that social orders employ for keeping power and wealth where it is as kenneth stamp puts it a wise master did not take seriously the belief that negroes were natural born slaves he knew better he knew that negroes freshly imported from africa had to be broken into bondage that each succeeding generation had to be carefully trained this was no easy task for the bondsman rarely submitted willingly moreover he rarely submitted completely in most cases there was no end to the need for control at least not until old age reduced the slave to a condition of helplessness this system was psychological and physical at the same time the slaves were taught discipline were impressed again and again with the idea of their own inferiority to know their place to see blackness as a sign of subordination to be awed by the power of the master to merge their interests with the masters destroying their own individual needs to accomplish this there was the discipline of hard labor the breakup of the slave family the lulling effects of religion which sometimes led to great mischief as one slave holder reported the creation of disunity among slaves by separating them into field slaves and more privileged house slaves and finally the power of law and the immediate power of the overseer to invoke whipping burning mutilation and death dismemberment was provided for in the virginia code of 1705. maryland passed a law in 1723 providing for cutting off the ears of blacks who struck whites and that for certain serious crimes slaves should be hanged and the body quartered and exposed still rebellions took place not many but enough to create constant fear among white planters the first large-scale revolt in the north american colonies took place in new york in 1712. in new york slaves were 10 of the population the highest population in the northern states where economic conditions usually did not require large numbers of field slaves about 25 blacks and two indians set fire to a building then killed nine whites who came on the scene they were captured by soldiers put on trial and 21 were executed the governor's report to england said some were burnt others were hanged one broke on the wheel and one hung alive in chains in the town one had been burned over a slow fire for eight to ten hours all this to serve notice to other slaves a letter to london from south carolina in 1720 reports i am now to acquaint you that very lately we have had a very wicked and barbarous plot of the design of the negroes rising with a design to destroy all the white people in the country and then to take charlestown in full body but it pleased god it was discovered and many of them taken prisoners and some burnt and some hanged and some banished around this time there were a number of fires in boston and new haven suspected to be the work of negro slaves as a result one negro was executed in boston and the boston council ruled that any slaves who on their own gathered in groups of two or more were to be punished by whipping at stono south carolina in 1739 about 20 slaves rebelled killed two warehouse guards stole guns and gunpowder and headed south killing people in their way and burning buildings they were joined by others until there were perhaps 80 slaves in all and according to one account of the time quote they called out liberty marching on with colors displayed and two drums beating the militia found and attacked them in the ensuing battle perhaps 50 slaves and 25 whites were killed before the uprising was crushed herbert abhiker who did detailed research on slave resistance in north america for his book american negro slave revolts found about 250 instances where a minimum of 10 slaves joined in a revolt or conspiracy from time to time whites were involved in the slave resistance as early as 1663 indentured white servants and black slaves in gloucester county virginia formed a conspiracy to rebel and gain their freedom the plot was betrayed and ended with executions mullen reports that the newspaper notices of runaways in virginia often warned quote ill-disposed unquote whites about harboring fugitives sometimes slaves and free men ran off together or cooperated in crimes together sometimes black male slaves ran off and joined white women from time to time white ship captains and water men dealt with runaways perhaps making the slave a part of the crew in new york in 1741 there were ten thousand whites in the city and two 000 black slaves it had been a hard winter and the poor slave and free had suffered greatly when mysterious fires broke out blacks and whites were accused of conspiring together mass hysteria developed against the accused after a trial full of lurid accusations by informers and forced confessions two white men and two white women were executed 18 slaves were hanged and 13 slaves were burned alive only one fear was greater than the fear of black rebellion in the new american colonies that was the fear that discontented whites would join black slaves to overthrow the existing order in the early years of slavery especially before racism as a way of thinking was firmly ingrained while white indentured servants were often treated as badly as black slaves there was a possibility of cooperation as edmund morgan sees it there are hints that the two despised groups initially saw each other as sharing the same predicament it was common for example for servants and slaves to run away together steal hogs together get drunk together it was not uncommon for them to make love together in bacon's rebellion one of the last groups to surrender was a mixed band of 80 negroes and 20 english servants as morgan says masters quote initially at least perceived slaves in much the same way they had always perceived servants shiftless irresponsible unfaithful ungrateful dishonest and if freeman with disappointed hopes should make common cause with slaves of desperate hope the results might be worse than anything bacon had done and so measures were taken about the same time that slave codes involving discipline and punishment were passed by the virginia assembly quote virginia's ruling class having proclaimed that all white men were superior to black went on to offer their social but white inferiors a number of benefits previously denied them in 1705 a law was passed requiring masters to provide white servants whose indentured time was up with 10 bushels of corn 30 shillings and a gun while women's servants were to get 15 bushels of corn and 40 shillings also the newly freed servants were to get 50 acres of land morgan concludes quote once the small planter felt less exploited by taxation and began to prosper a little he became less turbulent less dangerous more respectable he could begin to see his big neighbor not as an extortionist but as a powerful protector of their common interests we see now a complex web of historical threads to ensnare blacks for slavery in america the desperation of starving settlers the special helplessness of the displaced african the powerful incentive of profit for the slave trader and planter the temptation of superior status for poor whites the elaborate controls against escape and rebellion the legal and social punishment of black and white collaboration the point is that the elements of this web are historical not natural this does not mean that they are easily disentangled dismantled it means only that there is a possibility for something else under historical conditions not yet realized and one of these conditions would be the elimination of that class exploitation which has made poor whites desperate for small gifts of status and has prevented that unity of black and white necessary for joint rebellion and reconstruction around 1700 the virginia house of burgesses declared quote the christian servants of this country for the most part consist of the worser sort of the people of europe and since such numbers of irish and other nations have been brought in of which a great many have been soldiers in the late wars that according to our present circumstances we can hardly govern them and if they were fitted with arms and had the opportunity of meeting together by musters we have just reasoned to fears they may rise upon us it was a kind of class consciousness a class fear there were things happening in early virginia and in the other colonies to warrant it so ends chapter two of howard zinn's of people's history of the united states i'll tell you guys that was a rough one for me to read there is some of those words in there that i do not love forming with my mouth um some parts of the text are still dated since it's written in 1980 referring to black people as blacks is uh rough stuff um somebody needs to tell howard zinn that uh black people are in fact uh people now he can he can say the whole thing um but despite that discomfort it's obviously a very uncomfortable um uh chapter in general just the sheer brutality of it and i think that that's you know not something to overlook like chapter one and two of the people's history of the united states are simple brutality brutality for profit and uh a capital i mean you could not get more clear-cut than that mercantilism capitalism colonialism racism these ideas are deeply threaded together they are entrenched they they intertwine there is no disentangling any of them without disentangling all of them um you know and here zinn outlines this idea of like and even i would have seen this even i've heard this you know in high school history classes like well if it was so bad why how i would have rebelled like well first of all number one people did rebel and number two that kind of brutality to maintain authority if anything demonstrates how unjust the system must be that its maintenance requires bloodshed of that level i mean it's it's crazy to me that there are people who still are like slavery wasn't that bad that's an insane opinion to have that's like you are fully in defiance of everything but i mean even those who have this idea of like you know uh get over it you know that was a long time ago these events have lasting impacts that are literally written into many of our core laws in the u.s without dismantling the systems that they have built that have been built on foundations of genocide racism slavery exploitation mercantilism colonialism capitalism it's impossible to move toward equity parity community so i think zen starts here not just because it demonstrates that the american beginning was brutal it's that brutality is the beginning of america which is different i don't mean the beginning of america featured brutality i mean the brutality of the pursuit of profit the brutality of greed the brutality of expansionism and colonialism are the reasons america exists the way that it does today well on that note that's going to do it for me uh go ahead and get out there and seize the means of production my little anarchist friends you