Buy the Book
Northern Slavery
An illuminating new book on an ugly chapter of Massachusetts history.
Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery
in the North
By C.S. Manegold
(Princeton University
Press, 345 pages,
$29.95)
For John Winthrop his appointment in 1630 as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a financial, social, and political boon. He was out of a job as an attorney at the Court of Wards and was accruing debts rapidly. His young second son, the aggressive Henry, had been unable to make a success of his venture in Barbados, and was now back in England looking to his family for help.
The image of the family led by the patriarch has been well managed by later descendants who sought, as Robert C. Winthrop did in the late 1800s, to paint the family with the lofty aim to inhabit the new land, living there with a profound ambition of self-rule. In fact, the family’s purpose was initially and afterward strictly a matter of business, personal advancement, and the accrual of wealth and maintenance of status.
After arriving in the colony, the elder Winthrop quickly learned that in practical terms he had to increase his efforts to encourage his Puritan co-religionists to come along, as C.S Manegold writes in her excellent new book, “to build a refuge for the religiously oppressed, escape England’s corrupt and teeming population, and take and settle a new land.” All this was cloaked in a religious challenge of which Winthrop appointed himself spiritual leader to accompany his administrative appointment as governor.
These elements set the scene for all that followed: the introduction of slavery by the signing of the “Massachusetts Body of Liberties” in 1641 was a masterful exercise in legal hypocrisy. There never should be bond slavery (item 91), the document stated — unless:
It be a lawful captive taken in just wars.
And such strangers as willingly sell themselves.
Or are sold to us…
This exempts none…
It is calculated that 1,200 Indians were enslaved before the end of the 1600s as well as an estimated 200 to 400 Africans, depending on the source. The pre-Revolutionary War census of Massachusetts in 1765 listed the number of black slaves as 5,779. These figures apparently do not include the Africans and Indians transshipped as cargo to the West Indies, the commerce that continued after the post-war emancipation to satisfy the supposed “equality of all.” Approximately 5,000 slaves were quietly freed after the Revolution in Massachusetts in belated recognition of the state constitution’s claim: “All men are born free and equal…” which, according to Manegold, when written in 1780, had no “intention to liberate all slaves…”
In turn there eventually were, as Manegold writes, “enduring links to the rapidly growing slave economies of Antigua, St. Christopher, and Barbados” that would build the Winthrop family holdings and other of the successful merchant families of New England. In other words, there was an integration of African slavery with the entire upper echelon of Boston’s mercantile life.
As the factors of wealth, prestige, servitude grew symbiotically, so did the proliferation of a financially ambitious social class that would come to dominate the life of the Massachusetts colony. The Ten Hills Farm grew symbolically as well as a model for the others of this newly created haute monde of the region. They married each other, bought out each other, exploited each other, but always pretended to their supposed Puritan sense of piety. As the Farm changed hands new families assumed the sense of the “rights of the nobility” personified by the original owner, Governor John Winthrop.
As the generations of this privileged class succeeded each other, so did their reliance on the trade in slaves as an engine of their private economy. It never was of the size and scope of the Southern colonial plantations, but quite vigorous enough to stimulate the economic competition of colonial mercantilism. Pious justification was not really necessary. Slaves were considered a traditional form of property and treated accordingly — the essential point of this fascinating and evocative book. As Manegold writes, “Though slaves never made up more than three percent of the New England population, slave ownership was an integral part of the life for those who shaped and ran that culture.”
As has been shown, the use of slaves and the trade in slaves was an important part of the growth of colonial Massachusetts and environs. It must be remembered, however, slavery was not limited to Africans and their progeny, often of mixed race, in spite of laws against miscegenation. Indians from the earliest times became slave property when they were taken prisoner during the so-called Indian Wars. Their property was confiscated or as often as not obtained for very little payment.
None of this is a pretty picture, and the author in no way gilds it. The groundwork for reparations is historically drawn, though not argued one way or the other. It is clear that Manegold has worked unstintingly to provide evidence to support her objective of uncovering the hypocrisy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a righteous Christian environment that was non-exploitive and always rooted in truth and justice.
One is struck by the talents Manegold, an experienced journalist and penetrating writer, displays in Ten Hills Farm. The history that evolved from this manor house and an initial 600 acre plot of land not only reflects the experiences of its several generations of owners and their neighbors over nearly 140 years, but defines the conquest and settlement of the of Massachusetts Bay Colony as a whole.
This is a book that draws one into the world of pre-Revolutionary New England and beyond with a storyteller’s intensity and a historian’s integrity. Ten Hills Farm will win awards — and deserves them.
About the Author
George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy.
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Pingback| 1.8.10 @ 6:43AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Northern Slavery [spectator.org] on links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
S.L. Toddard| 1.8.10 @ 10:24AM
" They married each other, bought out each other, exploited each other, but always pretended to their supposed Puritan sense of piety"
I do not understand the use of "pretended" and "supposed". Are we to infer that slaveowners were all un-pious and evil?
Alan Brooks| 1.8.10 @ 9:55PM
"Are we to infer that slaveowners were all un-pious and evil?"
Biblically, the answer is YES.
Couldn't care less, it is up to you, Todd, but you might for your sake want to keep in mind though AS's is a secular blog, it is not the Madalyn Murray O' Hair site ( or was her surname O' Hare?) either.
Alan Brooks| 1.8.10 @ 10:13PM
Edukation is becoming so poor (scholastically, Christopher Columbus is considered evil, while Ho Chi Minh is depicted far more favorably) you have to explain everything in Middle Skool terms.
So to qualify it, 'Biblically' would tend to mean more the New Testament sense of Christ arriving to fulfill the Law and such would be IMO moving away from the Old Testament's complicity in slavery-- or the OT's turning a blind eye to it.
Again, so there is no doubt, taken as a whole the books of the Bible WOULD condemn ALL slave owners as evil, un-pious: not precisely for being slave owners but also for their other abundant sins.
New England, being Puritan to begin with, was required to not only accept the Bible's ethics, but also English Common Law, which was partially derived from the Bible.
Doesn't matter you might think this is idiosyncratic interpretation... this is AS, not a Commie blog, Todd.
Alan Brooks| 1.8.10 @ 10:18PM
#3) the Law being God's Law, paramount, to supersede.
Alrighty?
S.L. Toddard| 1.9.10 @ 6:33PM
I've no idea what you're talking about, Mr. Brooks. The Bible nowhere explicitly condemns slavery - on the contrary, it seems to condone it, and (I believe) urges slaves to remain loyal to their masters. IMO slavery violates Christ's admonition to "do unto others", and perhaps there is an argument there.
Still, to claim that all slaveowners throughout history were either unpious, evil or both is, I think, ridiculous. Anyone who holds that opinion should shun the ideals of the Founders, so many of whom were - according to that argument - evil.
Alan Brooks| 1.9.10 @ 9:58PM
The Bible said those who lead into slavery will themselves be led into slavery.
Remember, the Bible was written VERY LONG ago, back to 500 BCE. Don't as the commenter wrote below judge it in today's terms. Of course the Bible didn't explicitly condemn slavery, Paul didn't write,"I HAVE A DREAM! A DREAM OF A WORLD WITHOUT SLAVERY."
The founders of this nation were evil, but no more evil than you or I, Todd. Naturally, you'll want to get hyper-pedantic about it, you want to deconstruct this interesting article above 'til the very last drop of academic verbiage is squeezed out.
Alan Brooks| 1.9.10 @ 10:03PM
Read this again, Todd, and try not to absolutely deconstruct it like a shark taking apart a tuna:
Taken as a whole the books of the Bible WOULD condemn ALL slave owners as evil, un-pious: not precisely for being slave owners but [also] for their other abundant sins.
Adheeb| 1.8.10 @ 10:28AM
Bare 'human nature' stinks and it always has been so. However, what ocurred in New England be it slavery or witch hunt, was also taking place in England and Europe as well. We cannot divorce these people from the time in which they lived.
Alan Brooks| 1.8.10 @ 9:42PM
"We cannot divorce these people from the time in which they lived."
Yes, you got it, Adheeb, and the knowledge of such is quite essential to conservatism.
Important piece above: Southerners don't usually (being that Southern publik skools are as bad as Northern) describe very succinctly what was flawed in the North. Northerners wanted to impose Northern-oriented wage slavery on the South, while Southerners lied in announcing-- frequently-- they merely wanted to be left alone. Attempting to spread slavery into the vast Western territories was defensive, yes, but not virtuous. Too much injured 'innocence'.
We lie, we die,
albeit the mills grind slowly. Lies are treason against the mind.
Stephen Zierak| 1.8.10 @ 10:41AM
I have to wonder if those who commit or tolerate abortions in today's culture will be so simplistically dealt with in future, hopefully more enlightened, times. Humans can do some pretty awful things, and slavery (which has existed in many cultures) is one of the worst. The wholesale killing of babies may be the worst. That being said, people are more fairly evaluated on the totality of their contributions to their societies, with due attention paid to the perverse cultural influences of the time. It is possible to praise the early opponents of such as slavery and abortion without holding Washington and Jefferson to be throughly evil people because they were slaveholders (and what liberal heroes will be looked at askance in future because of complicity with abortion?). Unfortunately, humans are human, and enlightenment comes slowly even (especially?) for the intellectual elite.
james wilson| 1.8.10 @ 11:31AM
Assuming that and much more is all true, the fact is that the Massachussetts Anglo-English Puritan culture was responsible for powering the eventual settling and governing of America and beyond. It ought to make us stop and think how deep the faults lay in every other culture by comparison, because every one of them failed in the New World.
Bob Fay| 1.8.10 @ 2:30PM
Perhaps Barney Frank is descended from the Winthrops.
victor| 1.8.10 @ 4:07PM
No, but John F. Kerry is.
Kris Lepine| 1.8.10 @ 6:13PM
There but for the Grace of God go I, as I have often been able to "justify" my sins with the best of them. How about you Ms Manegold? Oh, that's right, there are no sins in the eyes of the liberals. "If it feels good, do it" is still their mantra.
Hopefully, someday a learned historian won't write a book about her "to prove she was a hypocrite". I happen to believe we all are in some way, shape or form.
victor| 1.8.10 @ 6:27PM
Ahh, yet another slander of the Puritans. Another "historical account" based on "historical biases" and filled with many inaccuracies, which lead to many inaccurate conclusions.
"These elements set the scene for all that followed: the introduction of slavery by the signing of the "Massachusetts Body of Liberties" in 1641 was a masterful exercise in legal hypocrisy. There never should be bond slavery (item 91), the document stated -- unless:
It be a lawful captive taken in just wars.
And such strangers as willingly sell themselves.
Or are sold to us…
This exempts none… "
Speaking of "masterful exercise in legal hypocrisy", this book is just such an example and it is full of much hypocrisy.
From the original documents of :
THE LIBERTIES OF THE MASSACHUSETS COLLONIE IN NEW ENGLAND, 1641.
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/masslib.html
91. There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitie amongst us unles it be lawfull Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of god established in Israell concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie.
The above section has been severely and biasedly edited.
They have taken great liberties with the facts and compressed and conflated early American History.
The author, C.S. Manegold has written for the NY Times, Newsweek and other left wing outlets.
She has such a left wing and PC bias towards her subject material, that it is not surprising that her book was endorsed by Henry Louis Gates, yes, THAT Henry Louis Gates (of Breaking and Entering His Own House-Gate).
The Harvard Professor in Boston, Mass, who was invited by Barack Obama to have a beer at the White House with the arresting officer. The Mighty Professor had a Might Positive, of course, Book Review.
He said~
"C. S. Manegold's admirable clarity, dazzling intelligence, and resourceful reporting well serve the story of the North's participation in U.S. slavery. Ten Hills Farm is a feat of historical excavation, and Manegold's contribution to the study of this period of our nation's past is significant."
(Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University )
Although it is meant to indict John Winthrop with the following:
"It is calculated that 1,200 Indians were enslaved before the end of the 1600s as well as an estimated 200 to 400 Africans", it would be more truthful to mention how many, if any, there were at the time of his death in 1649.
He was not the Governor in 1641 when these were enacted so it is not clear what part he had in them.
This book should be taken with many grains of salt and even then should not be taken seriously.
A book that should be taken seriously is the following:
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Gl.....amp;sr=1-1
A book that tells the true story about the early settling of America and the Puritans, without whom, we would not be here today.
victor| 1.8.10 @ 6:29PM
Continued (on account of too many links)
Another biased example:
" Approximately 5,000 slaves were quietly freed after the Revolution in Massachusetts in belated recognition of the state constitution's claim: "All men are born free and equal…" which, according to Manegold, when written in 1780, had no "intention to liberate all slaves…"
Quietly Freed???
There were several trials and appeals to the courts, which resulted in a decision by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachussets in 1783 that resulted in abolishing slavery in that state.
www.masshist.org/endofslavery/?queryID=54
The author states on several occasions that John Winthrop crossed the Atlantic in 1631, when it actually was 1630.
http://tenhillsfarm.com/2/Imag.....y=3CTF7J7Z
This book should have been so lucky to have some of those AP guys that "fact-checked" Sarah Palin's book.
Jack| 1.9.10 @ 8:27AM
And you might want to check your facts by actually reading the book... where on page 16 Manegold quotes from Charles Banks' The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 when discussing the passenger list on that journey. You might use caution in the future citing from websites like the one above that is clearly still under construction. So much for your fact checking skills...
victor| 1.9.10 @ 11:08AM
Jack:"So much for your fact checking skills..."
This is HER website. From the home page:
Copyright ©2010 Catherine S. Manegold All Rights Reserved
Simple proofreading should be the purview of any academic, don't you think?
http://tenhillsfarm.com/2/Arti.....mp;tid=662
Defending the indefensible seems to be your forte, eh?
Jack| 1.9.10 @ 1:55PM
There, there, Victor. No reason to get your tailfeathers all ruffled. Thanks for embedding the link. I followed it and nowhere do I find any reference to Winthrop crossing the Atlantic in 1631. It says 1630. The site, on the bottom of the home page, clearly says it is currently under construction. This is all a red-herring.
When you actually read the book, then your opinions may hold some credibility. However, since it is clear you have not yet done so, I would advise you proceed with more caution. Ignorance is an unattractive quality. All I am saying is that any book that draws admiration from the two far flung sides of the socio-political spectrum, as exemplified by positive reviews from George Wittman and Henry Louis Gates, must be a rather exceptional and unusual work. Not to mention that Steve Hahn, author of A Nation Under Our Feet, and a Pulitzer Prize winning historian calls Ten Hills Farm "...quite simply one of the best works of history I've read in a long time." Victor, lay off the knee jerk responses and open your mind, and your wallet - that's a big $20 expenditure - and then there might be some grounds for discussion. I am halfway through my copy, and frankly the book is nothing short of fascinating.
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 2:15PM
Spoken like a true Leftist.
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 3:00PM
By the way, it's not a matter of Right vs. Left, but it IS a matter of truth vs. lies.
This woman is a Leftist and the Left can not be trusted. They love to lie about the Founders and do not present accurate accounts. Anybody in their right mind wouldn't trust a Leftist who writes anything no less a book on the Founders!
victor| 1.9.10 @ 4:13PM
Jack:
"This is all a red-herring."
This is most likely the most appropriate description of this book.
I cited two egregious examples of biased editing and reporting and you simply ignored them.
Henry Louis Gates? The man who accused a Boston Police Officer of "Racial Profiling" when he was responding to a call of Breaking and Entering and the description was a "man in an overcoat"?
Unlike you, I have better things to do with a perfectly good $20 bill than spend it on Left Wing Propaganda.
The 1631 date was there this morning when I copied the page that it was on for the copyright at the bottom.
Someone must have emailed them, you perhaps?, and they fixed it.
I had the copy, but did not save it. Pity for you.
Richard Baker| 1.8.10 @ 7:38PM
This proves that the "Peculiar Institution" was not just a Southern habit. Slavery is as old as mankind and will always exist somewhere that men live. The New Englanders may have rid themselves of the institution but I wonder whose ships the Southern slave trade used for transport?
Jack| 1.9.10 @ 5:57PM
Exactly.
victor| 1.10.10 @ 10:30AM
Hey Jack, you never answered the question,
does the following document appear in the book?
"Massachusetts Body of Liberties" in 1641 and is it complete and accurate?
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/masslib.html
The ships that were used are immaterial as well as who owned them.
I don't see you getting too upset about the present day slave trade and who takes part in it, do you?
It's easy to get upset over something that happened 300 years ago, but not last week, eh?
Pingback| 1.9.10 @ 2:16AM
The American Spectator : Northern Slavery Tools links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Mary Louise| 1.9.10 @ 9:29AM
Thank you for this review and recommendation. I've got a few B&N gift certificates that are a burning a hole in my purse.
In '58, which really isn't that long ago, my parents settled in the US. My parents had never seen a black person until they came to the United States.
Some months after their arrival a neighbor mentioned, as a black man was walking past them, that it was a better time when a black man was forced to walk on the opposite side of the street. This was in a town very close to the Canadian border.
The final conquest of the Samnites by the Romans has only a chronicle and no evocative images. In many ways that's a good thing. It prevents one from believing in the singularity of his suffering and allows him to move on more readily.
victor| 1.9.10 @ 11:12AM
1958 IS really that long ago.
I was 5 years old.
That was an entire world away.
It was not last week.
This book is flawed by biases and agenda.
The following is a much better book about the lives and times of the Puritans.
Light and the Glory, The: 1492-1793 (God's Plan for America) (Hardcover)
~ David Manuel and Peter Marshall
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Gl.....amp;sr=1-1
A book that tells the true story about the early settling of America and the Puritans, without whom, we would not be here today.
Pingback| 1.9.10 @ 2:34PM
kite surfers – Steve's Digicams Forums | Water Sports Leisure Knowledge links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Mary Louise| 1.9.10 @ 2:42PM
I appreciate the Puritans. They gave birth to a dynamism not seen before them. I don’t consider them evil, just flawed like every other people. But I think a doctrine of election is probably idolatrous. John Adams did not think Providence gave America and its people His stamp of approval. He thought we’d be like every other great Nation in that we would reach both apotheosis and nadir.
Here's the problem: the Puritan god, that god of Calvin who was an invigorated, double predestinating God is incoherent.
Such a god need not care how one becomes rich. That's not really even Calvin's fault. He was no 'big business' man. And he didn’t go easy on those who flouted the Commandments. I don’t dislike Calvin. Tom Wolfe is right; Jesus, Calvin and Freud reordered the world. But Calvin’s ruthless consistency made it easy for American Calvinist settlers to never look at the Black man as deserving of the same inalienable rights as any one of them. To say this was the ethos of the time, and to say we don't have a right to judge it as right or wrong is nonsense. Newton and his Amazing Grace tell us otherwise.
From Weber’s Protestant Ethic:
In spite of the necessity of membership in the true Church for salvation, the Calvinist's intercourse with his God was carried on in deep spiritual isolation. To see the specific results of this peculiar atmosphere, it is only necessary to read Bunyan's, Pilgrim's Progress, by far the most widely read book of the whole Puritan literature. In the description of Christian's attitude after he had realized that he was living in the City of Destruction and he had received the call to take tip his pilgrim-age to the celestial city, wife and children cling to him, but stopping his ears with his fingers and crying, "life, eternal life", he staggers forth across the fields. No refinement could surpass the naive feeling of the tinker who, writing in his prison cell, earned the applause of a believing world, in expressing the emotions of the faithful Puritan, thinking only of his own salvation. It is expressed in the unctuous conversations which he holds with fellow-seekers on the way, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Gottfried Keller's Gerechte Kammacher. Only when he himself is safe does it occur to him that it would be nice to have his family with him.”
I would recommend reading John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me. I found it on my older brother’s desk when I was 16 and read it.
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 4:07PM
"But Calvin’s ruthless consistency made it easy for American Calvinist settlers to never look at the Black man as deserving of the same inalienable rights as any one of them."
~This is an outright lie. They Puritans were not ruthless and they did not look at the black man as you say. But if you desire to be justified in that lie you will of course be helped in that by reading this woman's book, as she shares the same attitude.
If you care to know the truth about them you can read their own writings, and a book that reflects the truth is "The Light and the Glory" by Peter Marshall.
Mary Louise| 1.9.10 @ 3:00PM
Links are reversed. Sorry about that.
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 3:32PM
"John Adams did not think Providence gave America and its people His stamp of approval."
In truth, here is what Adams said~
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
John Adams
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 3:36PM
"But I think a doctrine of election is probably idolatrous."
In truth, God does choose who is to be both called, and eventually, saved. The Bible is the only source to find the truth.
"And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called he also justified; and those whom He justified he also glorified." Rmns. 8:30
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 4:01PM
"Here's the problem: the Puritan god, that god of Calvin"
Actually, the Puritans were Christians and held to the Bible for their direction, not any man or his doctrine.
The doctrine of Man is not the doctrine of Christ. Doctrines divide and separate, Christ unites. That is if you stick to the Bible.
"..so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ." Eph. 4: 14 & 15.
Margie| 1.12.10 @ 5:11PM
I will add that the motto of the Puritans was this: No King but Jesus."
This is who they loved and worshipped, and served. Not Calvin, nor any other man. And their love for Christ was also reflected in the way they treated both one another, and the rest of mankind.
The Leftist authors will continue to abuse the Puritans and try and distort history till the end of time. Look for conservative authors for a real view of history, not distorted to suit their Leftist leanings.
Try The Conservative Book Cub.
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 4:14PM
Lastly, Pilgrim's Progess is Biblical and a correct spiritual analogy of Christianity. It is one of the most loved books in the world, next to the Bible. There is nothing haughty about it, and it is written by a beloved and humble Christian man, John Bunyan, who loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He like anyone else who wants to, came to Christ by Grace through faith, not needing to go through a Religion or theology, but through Christ Jesus, the only Mediator between God and man.
"For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Tim. 2:5.
Mary Louise| 1.9.10 @ 6:02PM
Let me expand and/or clarify.
From The Passionate Sage, Irreverencies and Oppositions, 106 - 107.
"…Adams refused to attribute the buoyant prospects of America to divine providence; he did not think that Americans were a special people rendered immune by God’s grace from the customary ravages of history. He had always been clear about this. Throughout his letters and formal political writings in the 1780s, for example, he had warned that “there is no special providence for Americans, and their nature is the same with that of others.” The steady flow of letters from Quincy after his retirement frequently reiterated the point. “There is no special Providence for us,” he wrote Rush. “We are not a chosen people that I know of, or if we are, we deserve it as little as the Jews…We must and we shall go the way of all earth…” [Works, IV, 401 for the quotation from the Defense; Adams to Benjamin Rush, October 22, 1812, Reel 118.]
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 7:28PM
It looks to that in the quote I posted he's talking about America's settling as being the hand of God, but in the one you posted he's talking more about the nature of man, and that Americans are no different in nature than anyone else. Which is correct. As for the rest of the quotes in that paragraph..they were his Son's it looks like. John Q.
Margie| 1.9.10 @ 7:36PM
That said though, God did use the Puritans, and they were godly people, small 'g'. They were in fact Christians, that certainly makes them special in the Biblical sense of being loved and called to Christ to have a personal relationship with Him. But that is available to whoever calls on the name of Christ. Jn. 3:16. Rmns. 10:9&10;. In that sense as in with anyone who accepts Christ is special.
Dr. Mark Skid| 1.9.10 @ 8:55PM
Hello Fellas,
First off I would like to congratulate C.S. MANEGOLD on the release of her newest book. I look forward to reading this fine piece of literature about the truth of the American slave industry. First off, I don't understand why you guys are bashing CS for writing for the Time and News Week. Just because they see the truth and look beyond the bible you need to call it biased news. Come on. Please smarten up. Its quite an accomplishment to write for not only one, but both of those papers and I because I know none of you can ever do that, don't use that lame excuse.
These quotes your using from your holy scriptures and ancient text books are completely out of context. CS put many years of sweat into the book and you should use that thing in your thick skulls called a brain for something other than a hat rack. All the facts in that book are accurate and she would have no reason to take them out of context as you do. She is simply writing the book to inform people about the slave industry in the North. CS doesn't want to send these men to hell, she just wants to write a non-fiction novel about slavery.
I am too flustered to write more about your ignorance and fatuousness. Don't deny the fact that slavery happen in Boston just as well as the dirty south. It was just as bad up here and CS lays out the truth.
One more thing.. Margie... Its not a case of the left and right always being wrong. Both sides have had their moments and because I have a keen sense of the world I would know that. Your just too into your bible to ever see the real world. Sorry if I have to be the first to tell you that. My B.
Dr. Mark Skid
Linda Ross| 1.12.10 @ 2:40PM
"dirty south" you're an ignorant fool!
"Your just too into your bible to ever see the real world. Sorry if I have to be the first to tell you that" Great job on grammer, DOCTOR.
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As the generations of this privileged class succeeded each other, so did their reliance on the trade in slaves as an engine of their private economy.