Which American History spines ..

[SorrelZG]

..include information on white slavery in colonial America?

 

I realize enslavement or subjugation of people groups and even the "lower classes" of ones own people has been common throughout history but I apparently missed that there were white slaves in the colonies and trading going on across the Atlantic in similar fashion to African slave trade.

 

Does the relevant volume of SOTW mention it? Besides curricula, are there any other books you can recommend for me?

[sagira]

Really? I was unaware. I'm curious too.

 

I'm surprised, as one of the overarching arguments for continuing to get Africans was that white people or Native Americans were not "strong enough of constitution" to do the hard work on plantations. I think Bartolomeo De Las Casas implied something to this effect and someone had the bright idea to use Africans as slaves for the New World (insert sarcasm here).

[SorrelZG]

From the little I've read so far, the whites were of less value than the black slaves.

[Susie in MS]

I would love to know of one too. Personally, I think it is gonna be hard to find because it is politically incorrect.

[CAtoVA]

Yes, the (politically incorrect) information that whites were held as slaves in the colonies is akin to the information that a black man winning a court case to keep a  black slave (in Virginia) largely was the genesis of slavery in the colonies in the first place.

 

You can find information about that court case (from the 1620's-1630's I believe) on Wikipedia but I have not seen it in any textbook. I have seen some passing reference to white indentured servants being held as slaves after their terms were up but, again, not in any mainstream type of textbook. This very true information would blow up the fiction that slavery in the US started (and was kept going) as a racist enterprise and not an economic system.

 

 

[Farrar]

I personally think spending much time on that fact in elementary school would present a skewed and misinformed picture of American history.

[SorrelZG]

I wasn't looking to spend a lot of time on it, I just would like to find a resource that doesn't give a misinformed picture of American history. A frank acknowledgment of facts would suffice. As it is, I continue to feel like I can't teach U.S. history at all because I can't trust the books to not give a skewed picture. The majority of the population, it appears, have a skewed and misinformed picture of history and I don't want to pass it on to my children. For the love of the Irish, Scotts, and Britain's own children, their stories shouldn't be left out entirely, ykwim?

[Farrar]

You can never tell every story, especially to younger kids.  I'm okay with leaving out stories that represent such a tiny fraction of the American experience in favor of a more representative look.

[SorrelZG]

If I'm going to mention slavery at all, I'm not going mention one people and not another. That gives a skewed picture. One can't teach U.S history without discussing slavery. That would give a skewed picture. And not being able to tell every story doesn't justify the misrepresentation of not telling any of their stories so that this part of the history slips entirely out of the picture. Perhaps I don't understand clearly - is it slavery you consider only a tiny fraction of the American experience or only white slavery? If the latter, why is there a distinction?

 

Perhaps because I was born in a nation that grew out of a convict colony, or my theological belief that no person or group is of itself better or worse than any other in the sight of God, I don't comprehend the seeming need to glorify the past by passing over the parts we don't like about our own history or anyone else's.

[jmarchman]

This isn't a spine or something you would read to kids, but I recommend Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King.  It is about Capt James Riley who was captured off the coast of NorthWest Africa and enslaved by the Tuareg.  He was redeemed (pretty miraculously) a little over a year later.  He went on to write his memoirs, and what is utterly fascinating to me is that Abraham Lincoln lists it as one (among others) of the most formative books he read as a child.  It helped form his views against slavery.  Riley's experiences, I believe, helped somehow lead to the abolishment of slavery in the US.  I wrote an age-appropriate story for my kids based on James Riley and we studied him and Harriet Tubman back to back.  My kids also know that they have ancestors who were transported as war criminals during the Scottish Uprisings and were enslaved for a period of time.  And I don't intend for any of that to diminish (later) studies of the horrors of the transcontinental slave trade (which was on another scale with regards to pure numbers of individuals involved.)

 

It was important to me that my kids understand that it is wrong for any human to subjugate another human based on any reason whatsoever.  It's a big picture item for me, especially around an issue that weighs so heavily on European American consciences.  For elementary, that's the take-away message I want them to get: Humans have been doing crappy things to "other" humans since forever, but we can do our little part in our time and place (just as these courageous historical figures did) to see and treat all humans as One.

 

I would recommend supplementing a regular US spine, like the Story of US, with stories, vignettes even, of the sorts of things you are interested in sharing with your kids--- all with a light touch. 

 

[SorrelZG]

I've been browsing around the Internet and not any single organized source. I do see there are quite a few books on the subject but I'm hesitant to invest in any one without a recommendation or having spent more time reading the reviews.

 

Regarding an elementary spine, I really would just like one that acknowledges it. Racism is an additional issue (although something in either the Irish or Scottish history sites mentioned ethnic cleansing but the British slave traders were stealing poor children and others from their own nation also .. there is another -ism for that which is escaping me, I'm sure).

 

(Edited to change some wording I didn't like.)

[happybeachbum]

Really? I was unaware. I'm curious too.

 

I'm surprised, as one of the overarching arguments for continuing to get Africans was that white people or Native Americans were not "strong enough of constitution" to do the hard work on plantations. I think Bartolomeo De Las Casas implied something to this effect and someone had the bright idea to use Africans as slaves for the New World (insert sarcasm here).

Thank you!  I think the main reason is that we didn't know the land while the Indians did. When you learn about what happened with the Arawaks and other cultures with the arrival of Europeans you will see it was more than NA's not having "strong enough of constitution)

[justasque]

Zombie thread, from three years ago.

[jgrabuskie]

I teach it all, the good, the bad, the ugly. I agree that finding a text is very difficult as most have been rewritten to exaggerate certain topics and avoid others. Much like science, I have come to realize that I will have to cobble together multiple sources to put together a history of the United States that is more in balance with historical events. I kind of have a plan for the coming years...

 

Elementary Years using SOTW/CHOTW --concerned about the quantity of US history in this series.

Middle School Years probably the History of US or stick with SOTW for 6th and History of US for 7/8

High School Years leaning toward preparing for AP/CLEP so Western Civ 1&2, Government, U.S. History 1 & 2

 

Much like some of the posters here, my husband and I have a genealogies that have pilgrims, penal colony survivalists, indentured servants, runaway convicts, traders, explorers, war veterans, pioneers, no slavers, colonial farmers, immigrants, religious persecution survivors, ranchers, retailers, dairymen, one-room school teachers, etc.. My plan is to use this information to further those topics that are lacking in the textbooks where I can.

 

One of the big problems is that all the books are being rewritten from textbooks to kids books under the pretense of the common core. I picked up a children's reading book on Egypt the other day and the back gave a short description then went on to a longer description on how it was aligned to the common core. Nope, it wasn't a textbook just a little paperback you would buy for extra reading.