re: American Civil War Animated Maps

quote:

---

The forced servitude of blacks was the linchpin that held the fabric of the South's economy together.

---

It held the economy of the NATION together, not just the South (although the South leaned heavily upon it). Where do you think all that cotton came from to feed the textile mills of Boston, NYC and Philly? Where do you think all that tariff revenue came from to fill the U.S. treasury's coffers? No one was willing to forge a glide path and gentle landing from slavery, so war was the only other option to the status quo.

And, to be fair, beyond the abject moral depravity of the entire deal, the South was beset by a sloth that accompanied the institution and the cotton trade, at large. It funded large homes and holdings for a select few, and forced the economy into a single dimension that did few any good. Heck, it was almost stupid to grow anything other than cotton or sugar on large farms in the South, and both relied heavily upon slave labor. And the landless white farmer had more in common with the agricultural slave than he did the rich planter (and he was more likely to go off to fight the Yankees in Virginia and Tennessee, BTW, than did the rich planter), with the exception of being legally free.

A popular example is Republican sugar planter Antoine Dubuclet - he was not particularly fond of slavery, but had a large slaveholding in Iberville Parish. His wealth and his livelihood was intertwined with slavery (as was that of the entire country). He was one of the richest men in Louisiana and held a number of statewise posts after the war, during Reconstruction. Why can I say, confidently that he was neither a fan of slavery nor a white supremacist/racist? You've probably guessed it, but Dubuclet was black himself.