From: dixieforever@hotmail.com
To: squawkbox@albanyherald.com
Dear Albany herald.com
The statements in the recent article or letter- "Southern cause was no noble one" – are half truths at best. That means, for lack of whole historical facts– the letter is half false by virtue of omitting the facts as to WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE WHY, and HOW?.
The real owners of ships such as the Wanderer were Yankees. The major Investors in buying, transporting and selling slaves were Yankees. The cotton brokers set up for lucrative business in most Southern ports were Yankees. In conjunction with European textile and cloth markets, THE YANKEES controlled the price of the raw material. The insurers of slaves sold North and South were Yankees. Do the research on the histories of WALL Street and the English stock exchange. Many slaves sold South were sold by Yankees. Some Yankees even came South to continue having slaves for their personal agricultural and industrial profit. "King" cotton produced by slave labor was sold North to voracious and lucrative Northern textile mills. Cotton and related products were transported North in Yankee sailing ships, Yankee steamships and later- on Yankee railroads. Cotton was much more financially beneficial to Yankees and English markets than to Southerners. Remember the most basic element of Economics for agriculture- the humble and lowly farmer and gardener is NOT the middle man and does NOT make the greater profit. Many Northern banks and financiers loaned finances (with hefty interest rates) to Southern plantations to grow crops with slave labor— blame ALL these aspects of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade — ON THE YANKEES! IT looks like MOST of the critical details in the slave trade and the division of labor (including slaves) in the USA was the handiwork of the Yankees. Then, when slavery became an untenable prospect as a viable part of the division of labor– for reasons of the Tariff issue, abolitionist pressure, European markets becoming competitive, etc. the Yankees waged a total war on the South to make even more money off yet another Northern enterprise. Then along came yet another Northern enterprise— the full-fledged westward expansion with Sherman and Sheridan’s Yankee policy of "good Indians are dead ones" to enable the North to recover massive war expenses and to remain the dominant political predator of the Western Hemisphere. Sound funny? If it is "funny" it is because Yankees are funny. Read the history of the Brown family, the Gracie family, the Phelps and Dodge families and a host of other wealthy or greedy Yankee individuals and families who created this peculiar dynamic market of labor and profit— from stem to stern. THEN make a judgment call against the South!
As a historian, I see very clearly that IF the Europeans had NOT created the systems of slave labor all throughout the Americas and the wealthy and greedy Northern Yankees had NOT institutionalized and maintained African slavery as a part of the division of labor in North America for lucrative financial gain– there would NOT have been any slavery- White or Black in North America! Look at the Brown family investing in ships, slave markets in Africa and in the Americas and textile factories in Northern states. Look at the Gracie mansion in New York City. It was owned by a cotton broker— Mr. Archibald Gracie, Sr- comfortably established in a very lucrative business in the port of Mobile, AL. Look at the history of the Phelps—Dodge, Corp. My God- they made their multi-millions off slavery from pious positions of wealth and religion in the North. Then they made huge amounts of money off the so-called Civil War. These were the elite class of people that made the dynamics of capital, slave labor and resources work in North America. To deny the simple facts is just- well, hebetudinous and prejudicial.
If everything in the North built by the financial gain from Black slave labor was destroyed, most of the fine old homes, businesses, and corporations still extant the North would be adversely affected and the Wall Street exchange would be history. The very economic foundation of the United States of America as it was for Greece and Rome, Mexico and Egypt, etc. was built on slave labor. Even a government building in New York City is built over most of the actual site of an abandoned African slave graveyard. Many of the skeletal remains show evidences of poor diet, lack of medical care and of being practically worked to death. How fitting the symbolism. The Dutch colony and the Yankees are the ones to blame for that nasty historical detail but the blame is put on the South.
What is the objective for blaming everything on the South and on the CSA in particular when the Europeans started slavery and the North maintained it? Don’t you find it most Interesting that Yankees like Whitney made the cotton gin work in the South when Southern cotton was desperately needed by the North and then Whitney mass produced the rifled musket to kill Southerners en mass when they were no longer needed?
No wonder many Southerners still call "Those people"— damnyankees! Why can’t you as a journalist see AND publish the truth? Ignorance of historical fact is NO EXCUSE to perpetuate more ignorance in journalism.
Mr. Griffin
Douglas, AZ
