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Section is poorly written. I think the quote should be smaller. The source is also not that good looking. I think the content could be interesting and valid, though.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.20.205.3 ( talk) 01:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Abolitionism in the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Williams":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 02:31, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
This article is in some ways a textbook example of a bad Wikipedia article. The story has no sequence, facts come up here and there, the same things are said twice. And some things aren't said, like there's not even a brief section on the American Anti-slavery Society, which was sending out waves of anti-slavery lecturers, up to 70 at once. The article doesn't have someone like a traditional encyclopedia editor, to take the whole and put it in shape (and sign it). I've taken some steps to clean it up. But it would be a big task to do this, and I'm not going to do it, because I can't sign it, and I wouldn't even get any thanks (and I might piss some people off). I've got more enjoyable things to do with my finite time. But the article is an embarassment. I've demoted it to C class because it needs so much cleanup. deisenbe ( talk) 18:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free on condition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go " back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?. This original undergraduate stream of thought is followed by an outrageous self=published quote that is unsourced and written by a person unknown to google scholar There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit.... These mystery anti-slavery people have no names, no organizations, no location, no publication, and no RS is cited. Rjensen ( talk) 14:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
@ Rjensen: It's pretty discourteous of you not to even give me time to post something explaining what I did. deisenbe ( talk) 14:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
(@ CaroleHenson:)
The talk page is where you discuss how to improve the article. I think the article would be better if these beautifully-written, well-organized, and seemingly well-thought-out sections were restored. (I'm a sucker for good writing.) I did not write them. A definition at the beginning of such a complicated topic I found very helpful. If you know something better add it, but I think the article has been made poorer and less useful by the deletion of the following. I know what the policy is, but following the policy has made the article poorer, in my judgment. Isn't there something about being bold and breaking rules?
_____________________
Under the general heading of abolitionism were a number of sub-movements which did not get on particularly well. There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free oncondition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go " back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?
“ | The guilt of American slaveholding exceeds the guilt of slaveholding in any other age or country. |
” |
— Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1838 [1] |
There were a number of antislavery movements, which at times made for strange bedfellows. There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit. In distinct opposition to these folks, there was an anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of persons of color, which sought improved conditions of life for persons of color, ameliorations both material and spiritual. To cut across the division that was created by two such contrasting motivational patterns, there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons who sought gradual, step-by-step, piecemeal practical improvements, new good amelioration following new good amelioration, a building process, and there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons like William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Dwight Weld, Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan who demanded immediate utter freedom and emancipation regardless of the personal or social cost, a tear-it-all-down-and-start-over project[,] and they were willing to see great harm done to real people if only the result would be some change in the wording of a law, written on paper somewhere. There was an Old Abolitionism which was racist, and an Old Abolitionism which was paternalist. There was a New Abolitionism which was Evangelical and millenialist and sought total top-down changes in society, and there was a New Abolitionism which was immanentist and demanded total bottom-up personal transformation, within each individual's soul. [2]
References
deisenbe ( talk) 14:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
"Put differently, the ending of slavery in Northern states did not always mean that slaves were freed. Some slaves were taken to Southern states and sold before the prohibitions on slavery went into effect. Enslaved people in the North might be freed as indentured servants who had to work without wages, but always with an ending date and with no more splitting of families. In New York, the remaining indentured servants were freed July 4, 1827, and there was a big celebratory parade, repeated on subsequent July 4ths. There were still hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 Census. In the South there were millions."
Again, I think the article now follows a policy and the policy makes the article less helpful. I wrote it, so I don't claim impartiality, but I think it's an important point that should be here. deisenbe ( talk) 15:00, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
It seems as if the current sections are just a list of unrelated topics. Would anyone have a problem with me organizing the sections, and grouping related content in subsections, so that in the end the Table of contents looks like a good outline of the article?– CaroleHenson ( talk) 00:47, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure how far back it occurred, but at some time a citation was orphaned with the refname=Report. I made this change, because the refname and the title of the source seemed congruent. Is that change right? Or perhaps there was once a "Report" citation that is different?
I went back about 20 versions before I started moving sections and couldn't find it.– CaroleHenson ( talk) 05:24, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Most of the article is well cited, but there are areas where there are no citations. Sometimes a sentence at the end of a paragraph. Sometimes an entire paragraph. And some of it looks like commentary or original research.
There are very few {{ cn}} tags, though. What am I missing?– CaroleHenson ( talk) 05:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
This paragraph at the top has some points that show the complexity of the situation but suffers from "lost cause" revisionism. - The next paragraph says the movement was motivated by moral causes but acknowledges economic issues, so this paragraph adds little. Also, is wrong to cast the abolitionist movement as non moralists, primary leaders were furiously religious. -To say that anti-black riots didn't happen in the south, is to forget lynching and state suppression against free blacks. -Lack of citations is bad - " Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings." - point has merit but need phrasing work to not imply most free blacks were at fault for lacking education
"It would be a great oversimplification to say that American abolitionism was a movement of the virtuous North directed against the sinful South. As we have already seen, slavery in the North was dying but not dead. Free blacks, seen as immigrants who would work for cheap, were just as unwelcome in the North as in the South, if not more so, and subject to discrimination and mistreatment almost inconceivable today (2020). It was not only legal but routine to discriminate against and mistreat blacks. (See below.) Anti-free Black riots were common in the North, not the South. The abolitionist movement, in its early years, was directed at Northerners, convincing them, by providing speakers and documentation, that slaves, frequently if not always, were horribly mistreated in the South. Incidentally, Northerners got to see first-hand that Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings. Northern support for ending slavery—once a radical position—grew steadily." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.116.169.104 ( talk) 06:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC) This unsigned comment was made by me. deisenbe ( talk) 18:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
@ Anwegmann: Could you please explain your objections to the term "black American" ? Also, your addition of enslaved people to the group of people sent to Liberia is unsourced. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 06:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
I know much of this can't be included in the main article but its still useful to provide context. In the early 1770s as the Patriots were still to some extent in their infancy and developing their identity one of the features that their identity contained was abolitionism. That portion of their views was never fully allowed to blossom because "The pillar of the slave trade"(as pointed out by the report of the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, [1]) kept preventing their laws in many colonies from going into effect. For this reason slavery and the slave trade became its own "football" of sorts with a lot of tit-for-tat and back and forth finger pointing on part of patriot supporters and tory loyalists. Two examples of this in legislative or 'official' work are how the Continental Association placed restrictions on slave trading for economic(not humanitarian) reasons and Dunmore's Proclamation tried to recruit within slave ranks for militaristic(not humanitarian) reasons. Slavery became a way for the patriots to hurt England, and for England to hurt the patriots.
Many patriots came to view slavery as "The King's institution" with Jefferson's philippic in the Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence "he has waged cruel war against human nature itself". Jefferson is hardly the only one on either side of the Atlantic who recognized the British Empire's primary role in regards to slavery. Edmund Burke also noted how odd it was for England to have maintained slavery for so many hundreds of years but then to do an about face and all of a sudden offer freedom. He said: [2] "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? From that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffick? An offer of freedom from England, would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes."
Even after the celebrated decision in the Somersett case, there were some abolitionists who viewed England as being stingy with abolition and keeping it for themselves instead of being generous and having abolitionism in all parts of the British Empire. It could have all ended in 1772, but it didn't. Benjamin Franklin stated it the most pointedly [3], saying: "Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men? Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!"
George Mason, like Thomas Jefferson, recognized Royal vetos on colonial attempts to put an end to slavery. At the Constitutional Convention, Mason said: "This infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it." [4] That the Patriot leaders were out in front and ahead of the Empire in regards to abolitionist efforts makes friendships that Granville Sharp had with some of the early colonial leaders more easy to understand. Another who found favor with abolitionism and many of the Patriot leaders was Richard Price, who plainly stated it that "It is not the fault of the colonies that they have slaves among them." [5] A statement like this goes too far as plenty of people in the colonies did their part with regard to fostering slavery. However, there came a point when slavery was not just a fact of life. For centuries in every continent slavery had been around and a part of human life whether the Romans or disparate tribes and warlords. But everything changed when patriot leaders consciously decided to put abolitionist measures on the desks of colonial governors to be enacted, and even moreso everything really changed when the King consciously decided to veto abolitionist laws to prevent these laws from becoming colonial law. Progressingamerica ( talk) 15:40, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
a movement which sought to end slavery, not as a movement to "limit" slavery. So I think that efforts to "limit" slavery are simply irrelevant for this article.
early colonial abolitionist efforts ... were forcefully put to an end by decree. I don't think that's what mainstream historians say. As far as I know, abolitionist efforts were successful during or soon after the revolution in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, while the Virginian élite, including Jefferson and Washington, never made any serious abolitionist effort. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 16:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
we should follow the lead of academic scholarship, that is, we are not the judges on the relevance of certain detailsbut your objection rests solely on Wikipedia:IDONTLIKEIT because you have now said
I still can't see a serious connection between the tax and the abolitionist movementi.e., "I don't like it". These are well-researched historians on the subject who have even won a Pulitzer prize for their work on the whole body. In the first these laws passed were important enough for the abolitionists to push for them, in the second they were(conversely) important enough to the King's wishes that he just had to veto them, in the third these laws took many forms in many colonies, and in the fourth they were important enough to have been discussed repeatedly by historian after historian after historian after historian. You're approaching Wikipedia:NPOV. I have met every one of your requests in good faith. Progressingamerica ( talk) 05:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
@ Rsk6400: I really think we should start over. With your citation of WP:SYNTH that leaves no question in my mind that you're not really reading what's being put in the article and you're too heavily focused(to the point of mixing them) on objecting to what's being put on the talk page. I didn't know WP:SYNTH was intended for these talk pages, but so its said you didn't do a revert here on the basis of SYNTH either. One of the few things you did actually say specifically which was directly about the article changes were that "Onuf doesn't support your claims". Yes he does, and its indicative that you're reading the talk page moreso than anything else. Onuf says in paragraph two of the cited work: (p. 154)
.....one of those tyrannical acts - the Privy Council's veto of the colony's act to impose a small duty on slave imports.....
I wrote in respect of Wikipedia:CLOP:
The colony of Virginia was another colony which passed similar laws in an "effort to curtail" human trade from Africa, leading to the legislature being "blocked every time" by royal authority.
Note that I said "royal authority" here and not necessarily the King. I was reading Onuf specifically at the time I made those last minute changes. So here's my question. How can you say this isn't supportive? It is affirming that a veto occurred. Progressingamerica ( talk) 07:05, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
An editor who repeatedly restores their preferred version is edit warring, regardless of whether those edits are justifiable( WP:WAR). That's why we should try to reach consensus here. If we don't reach consensus, WP:NOCON applies:
In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. BTW: I didn't claim that Onuf contradicts himself. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 05:56, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S.are the judges for what is relevant for this article and what not. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 19:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
More quotes related to the preceding discussion
|
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What the historians are saying about the Royal Veto of anti-slavery lawsIn the book Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner's Rebellion, historian Eva Sheppard Wolf writes the following, page 23: [8]
Again:
Bio: two books concerning slavery, manumission, and race in Virginia [9] In the Pulitzer prize winning book The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 historian Alan Taylor writes the following, page 20: [10]
Bio: has been a professor at the University of California at Davis, where he teaches courses in early North American history, the history of the American West [11] In A Slaveholders' Union, George Van Cleve writes the following, page 30: [12]
Again:
Again:
Bio: George Van Cleve is Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of History at the University of Virginia. In The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, historian David Brion Davis writes the following, page 12: [13]
Bio from the Organization of American Historians: It is hard to imagine American history without David Brion Davis ... His pathbreaking trilogy, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966), The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (1975), and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation (2014), [14] Again:
Bio from Yale: the founder of the Gilder Lehrman Center, David Brion Davis, one of the world’s leading scholars of slavery and abolition in an international context [15] In History of the United States of America, George Bancroft wrote the following, page 410: [16]
Again:
Bio from Britannica: whose comprehensive 10-volume study of the origins and development of the United States caused him to be referred to as the "father of American history." [17] In Thomas Jefferson - Westward the Course of Empire, Lawrence S. Kaplan writes the following, page 84: [18]
Bio: Lawrence S. Kaplan was History and University professor emeritus at Kent State University [19] More than one of these historians keep making reference specifically to King George III's 1770 veto and the threats that were contained in that veto. Here you can find the full text of that veto to read for yourself. The King wrote as follows: [20]
I know you keep saying you don't want Jefferson history books around here, you don't want some other history books around here, or the books can't be slavery books they have to specifically be abolition books and only abolition books,(slavery books don't count) but it doesn't really work that way. You can't construct a unicorn for your STONEWALL. There's an overlap in history which is why the Wikipedia article in its long-standing form already includes many of these different types of books. In the references and further reading cites sections there's religion books, there's Andrew Jackson books, there's books cited about specific American states, there's general American History books, there's a book about a college, books cited about other countries, there's books cited about Women's rights, there's Alexander Hamilton books cited, there's already several Jefferson books. If you need to, please take the time to create a WP:RFC, so that books not about abolitionism but instead only about slavery or books about specific people or any others deemed off-topic by you might be removed and half of the article's content can also be removed to meet your standards. Perfection is not required and these are all extremely good historians; good abolitionism and slavery historians. And all of these historians are in agreement. Give WP:FIXFIRST a try it's a good one. Progressingamerica ( talk) 02:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
In The Slave Struggle in America, Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner wrote: [26]
In The South in the Building of the Nation, historian John Bell Henneman wrote: [27]
In Enjoy the Same Liberty - Black Americans and the Revolutionary Era, Edward Countryman wrote: [29]
In Patrick Henry - Champion of Liberty, Jon Kukla wrote: [30]
In Challenging Slavery in the Chesapeake - Black and White Resistance to Human Bondage, 1775–1865, T. Stephen Whitman wrote: [31] (page 23)
Bio: assistant professor of history at Mount Saint Mary's University [32]
@ Progressingamerica: Would you please, please read the "Good practices for talk pages" at WP:TPYES ? My special recommendation is the paragraph "Be concise". -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 05:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your edits in the article earlier on this. I was curious, in the history books you have written did you ever research this topic? One of the concerns raised was of a particular type of phrasing I used, but I cannot just cut and paste entries from other works not in the public domain. Perhaps a better phrasing based on the many cites I provided could help here? Progressingamerica ( talk) 15:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Anthony Benezet and the slave tradeSurprisingly, this article doesn't mention Anthony Benezet who was one of the more important abolitionists of the pre-revolutionary era. That omission alone probably had a role to play in the previous consternation. The early abolitionists like (but not limited to) Benezet wrote both of slavery and the trade, but focused mainly on the slave trade. The article already states this much in the third sentence: The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade - though sadly that isn't connected very well throughout. Benezet is one of the main gaps in the history as it happened. In Unrequited Toil, A History of United States Slavery, Calvin Schermerhorn writes: (page 43) [37]
Bio: He teaches slavery and human trafficking in comparative perspective, viewing modern slavery in historical terms and is engaged in public history shining a light on the domestic slave trade. His research has been funded by fellowships and grants from the Smithsonian, Huntington Library, Gilder Lehrman Center, American Philosophical Society, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, among other organizations. [38] On pages 14 and 15 Professor Schermerhorn notes that Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all passed some sort of anti-slavery measure in one degree or another and in all cases, the King overruled the measures. [39] In Migration, Trade, and Slavery in an Expanding World a collection of essays where one in particular titled Divergent Paths historian Seymour Drescher writes: (page 263) [40]
Again:
He explains that where there were absolutely no voices raised in Britain against slavery, "American colonial legislatures from Virginia northward" passed law after law after law to prohibit or curtail overseas slavery and in every case, these measures were vetoed. He further explains that Virginia and Maryland were particularly anti-slavery according to one Quaker author, and writes of Benezet's letters to Granville Sharp. Bio: Seymour Drescher (born 1934) is an American historian and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, known for his studies on Alexis de Tocqueville and slavery. Source:Wikipedia. In The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History, professors Vincent Brown, Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Laurent Dubois, and Karen Ordahl Kupperman collaborated, where the following is written: (page 253) [41]
Again:
Bio: Vincent Brown (historian) is Charles Warren Professor of History, Professor of African and African-American Studies, and Director of the History Design Studio at Harvard University. Source:Wikipedia. Bio: Jorge Canizares-Esguerra is a faculty member in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professorship in History. He is most notable for his work in Atlantic history, the history of science in the early modern Spanish empire, and the colonizing ideologies of the Iberian and British empires. Source:Wikipedia. Bio: Laurent Dubois Laurent Dubois is the Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History and founder of the Forum for Scholars & Publics at Duke University. His studies have focused on Haiti. Source:Wikipedia. Bio: Karen Ordahl Kupperman is an American historian who specializes in colonial history in the Atlantic world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Source:Wikipedia. In Barbaric Traffic, Philip Gould writes the following: (page 192) [42]
Bio: Philip Gould is the author of numerous books focusing on British America. [43] In Let this Voice be Heard, Maurice Jackson wrote the following: (page 198) [44]
Bio: Maurice Jackson is an Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies and an Affiliated Professor of Performing Arts (Jazz) at Georgetown University. Source:Wikipedia. In Sugar and Slavery, Richard B. Sheridan wrote the following: (page 484) [45]
Bio: Sheridan dedicated his academic career to the study of slavery in the Caribbean and is acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent historians of the British West Indies, best known for his pioneering works, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775 (1974), and Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680-1834. [46] In African's Life, 1745-1797: The Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano James Walvin writes the following: (page 103) [47]
Bio: Walvin has written widely on slave history and on British social history. [48] All of this and in particular this last one from Professor Walvin explains the following. The early Quakers focused on the slave trade, they had to stop because of the revolutionary war, and then they got back to it after 1783. In Remaking Custom, Law and Identity in the Early American Republic, Ellen Holmes Pearson writes the following:
In the book Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner's Rebellion, historian Eva Sheppard Wolf writes the following: (page 23) [50]
Bio: two books concerning slavery, manumission, and race in Virginia [51] In Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Junius P. Rodriguez writes: (page 20) [52]
The full text of that petition against that "trade of great inhumanity" can be found here at the Library of Congress. [53] It reads:
As a bonus, I'll add that it wasn't all too long before this that Britain passed An act for extending and improving the trade to Africa [54], which opens with the following:
These historians and their work also do well to explain what is meant in the third sentence: The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. That one line in and of itself explains how pre-revolutionary colonies came to attempting to put an end to the slave trade, the King's machinations notwithstanding. Progressingamerica ( talk) 05:13, 24 August 2021 (UTC) Motivation and focus on the tradeThe article starts with this (accurately) in the third sentence: The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Prior to 1808 and indeed for several decades(some of the information above already touches on this) abolitionists focused exclusively on putting an end to the slave trade [55] [56] and naturally, legislative acts followed the same pattern - ending the slave trade. The celebrated historian David Brion Davis stated that "there was widespread confusion of "slavery" with the "slave trade."" in the days of early abolitionism. [57] This isn't to say that abolitionists were clueless and didn't see the distinction, of course they did. What Davis is getting at is that abolitionists were motivated to end the trade because they believed that ending the trade would accomplish the goal of also ending slavery as a "two birds with one stone" scenario. Helen Thomas quoted Clarkson: "By aiming at the abolition of the sslave-trade, they were laying the axe at the very root." [58] So from that point of view, the "issue" was "confused" in that killing one killed the other. This is recognized quite often, ".... that the movement's objectives were confined to the African Trade." [59]; "Abolitionists had hoped that the end of the trade in slaves would lead naturally to the end of slavery itself...." [60]; "The abolitionists were so explicit in the distinction they drew between amelioration and emancipation that it is surprising that they should have been misinterpreted, then or now." [61]; "In 1775 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, founded by the Quakers, sought to abolish the slave trade and slavery. ... The slave trade was the initial target of abolition because abolitionists calculated that fewer people profited from the trade than from the larger institution of slavery." [62]; ""Without purchasers," he argued, "there would be no trade." [63] However, those hopes went further. "Abolitionists hoped that an end to the trade would bring about not only an end to the inhumanities of trading on the African coast and the high seas, but would persuade West Indian planters to rethink their treatment of the slaves on the islands." [64]; "Initially, the abolitionist movement concentrated on making the slave trade illegal. Their hope was that by ending the trade, the value of individual slaves would rise dramatically, forcing owners to treat their slaves better." [65] Ron Walters notes that :"One source of alienation of the colonists that led to the 1776 Revolution was that when they became alarmed at the growing number of Africans in their midst they attemtpedt to curtail their importation....... Antislavery measures began to be passed.... Massachusetts, 1771; Pennsylvania levied stiff tariffs, 1773" and "Virginia, and North Carolina in 1774 and Georgia in 1775". [66] Walters too (again) notes that these laws were vetoed. At the time it was damaging to "the importation of a considerable article of British commerce". [67] [68] but the efforts of abolitionists like Benezet were taking hold. As already noted above by Drescher: "By the early 1770s Benezet took advantage of broadening hostility to the slave trade to expand his appeal." [69] Benezet's influence at ending the slave trade is widely recognized. [70] "The Quakers helped the cause along. In 1767, an attempt was made in the legislature to discourage the slave trade, but it failed." And "In 1774, an act was passed ... to prevent importation... but it was vetoed by Governor Hutchinson." [71]; "From a similar motive, the Quaker-controlled Pennsylvania Assembly in 1712 imposed prohibitive tariffs on the importation of slaves, but the Privy Council in London vetoed this action, to keep up the lucrative slave trade." [72] It's also important to note that the abolitionists on both sides of the ocean were in communication with each other [73] (Benezet and Granville Sharp, for example) so while many had different reasonings for holding certain views they had an idea what each was thinking through direct contact. Progressingamerica ( talk) 04:25, 1 September 2021 (UTC) |
Should the historian-acknowledged veto of prohibitive taxation for the purpose of stifling the slave trade passed in the colony of Virginia be included? Progressingamerica ( talk) 16:13, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
References
I've been looking into this further as to why this veto should be known by historians to be so aggressive when compared to the vetos of anti-slavery laws in other colonies. The text of the King's veto(above) also appears in the writings and correspondence of William Nelson (governor), who was known to be favorable to the needs of the colonists over the King's needs. Nelson was only interim governor for about a year and was replaced by a completely loyal King's-man, Lord Dunmore who became very unpopular. William Nelson's son grew up and was a signer of the Declaration. Surely there might have been other factors, such as how much tax revenue was generated for England from so big a slave market.
The veto appears on page 82. [74] Progressingamerica ( talk) 16:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S.are the judges for what is relevant for this article" [76]. But yet you have hung your hat on a historian who isn't a historian of abolitionism at all. How does that work exactly? You are violating your own rule.
@ Rsk6400: Ok, look, in light of Wikipedia:BRINK, I don't want to go back into the heated exchanges from earlier. I only have one single question for you, this is a yes or no question. Just want to keep it simple, straightforward.
Will you accept historian David Brion Davis as a historian in the field of slavery and abolition? Progressingamerica ( talk) 19:10, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible., see WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. You might also want to look at WP:ONUS. And finally, no, I didn't laugh at you. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 20:27, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
@ Rsk6400: I humbly ask, will you please accept historian David Brion Davis as a historian in the field of slavery and abolition? Progressingamerica ( talk) 06:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S.are the judges for what is relevant for this article, and that's what's in the books. What I personally think is irrelevant for what goes into the article. Also, it needs to be said that you didn't provide any proof for your claim of C when I requested it, that makes your claim of C a WP:REDFLAG - it's an extraordinary claim.
Should the historian-acknowledged veto of prohibitive taxation for the purpose of stifling the slave trade passed in the colony of Virginia be included? Progressingamerica ( talk) 16:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
1: The king's veto and Virginia's humanitarian plea for redress.
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This demonstrates most clearly what Virginia's motivations were for the tax and points to the success of the proliferation of abolitionists views. These laws were passed affirmatively in colonial legislatures and it was responded to, from thousands of miles away overseas. That kind of response is a big deal and so in part also because of the colonists plea it elicited. Edgerton [86] and Davis [87] and Rodriguez [88] highlight that the Burgesses response recognized "a trade of great inhumanity".(This is a direct quote from the actual plea itself, "a trade of great inhumanity") |
2: The abolitionists in Pennsylvania used higher taxation to achieve their purpose just the same. This was a known abolitionist tactic in the colonies and not just a Virginia one-off.
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Historian Maurice Jackson notes a campaign conducted in Pennsylvania of both Benjamin Rush and Anthony Benezet that resulted in the imposition of a higher tax to discourage slave trade imports. [89] That campaign didn't just locally affect Pennsylvania, it was followed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware. Historian Garry Wills notes that prohibitive taxation was used as early as 1712 by Pennsylvania Quakers, again to be vetoed by London. [90] |
3: Copies of Benezet's works were known to be sent to prominent Virginians where it was positively received, demonstrating openness to the abolitionist viewpoint and the presence of abolitionist views among some Virginian leaders.
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Historian James Walvin writes that Benezet was influential among prominent individuals, and Benezet also influenced "So too was the Virginia House of Burgesses" in 1772.
[91] The action of Virginian Robert Pleasants to free his slaves was well known at the time, and Pleasants distributed Benezet's pamphlets to some members of the legislature,
[92] while Benezet personally corresponded with some of them.
[93] Benjamin Franklin credited Benezet's pamphlets with the decision/plea in Virginia.
[94]
Its worth pointing out that some historians note also the popularity of Montesquieu's works throughout this decade and with Benezet himself [95], and Montesquieu [96] similarly Adam Smith [97] opposed slavery in addition to Benezet. [98] Benezet was not the only voice of opposition received. The popularity of both Montesquieu and Adam Smith in the colonies during this period has been widely acknowledged by historians but for other reasons not necessary for this discussion. |
4: Abolition of the slave trade was generally viewed by abolitionists as a means to the end of the abolition of slavery itself prior to the 1800s.
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See the numerous citations in this Talk Page section above titled "Motivation and focus on the trade" and also parag. 2 parag. 1 parag. 2 [99] [100] [101] [102] [103]. Abolitionists in those days believed(according to many historians) that slavery was a lake and the slave trade was its source of water. Dry up the river and the lake would disappear. Clarkson is quoted by historians as using a tree/root analogy in disrupting the first to eliminate the second. Its worth noting that the main Wikipedia body already has some acknowledgment of this. In the third sentence at the top of the article it states: "The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade." What was this focus about? What did the focus look like? What were their successes of the focus? Virginia is on that success list. The abolitionists did not lose Virginia according to historians, the bills passed in the Burgesses and were becoming law. What they lost was the crown, the crown probably never read Benezet. |
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Section is poorly written. I think the quote should be smaller. The source is also not that good looking. I think the content could be interesting and valid, though.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.20.205.3 ( talk) 01:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Abolitionism in the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Williams":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 02:31, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
This article is in some ways a textbook example of a bad Wikipedia article. The story has no sequence, facts come up here and there, the same things are said twice. And some things aren't said, like there's not even a brief section on the American Anti-slavery Society, which was sending out waves of anti-slavery lecturers, up to 70 at once. The article doesn't have someone like a traditional encyclopedia editor, to take the whole and put it in shape (and sign it). I've taken some steps to clean it up. But it would be a big task to do this, and I'm not going to do it, because I can't sign it, and I wouldn't even get any thanks (and I might piss some people off). I've got more enjoyable things to do with my finite time. But the article is an embarassment. I've demoted it to C class because it needs so much cleanup. deisenbe ( talk) 18:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free on condition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go " back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?. This original undergraduate stream of thought is followed by an outrageous self=published quote that is unsourced and written by a person unknown to google scholar There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit.... These mystery anti-slavery people have no names, no organizations, no location, no publication, and no RS is cited. Rjensen ( talk) 14:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
@ Rjensen: It's pretty discourteous of you not to even give me time to post something explaining what I did. deisenbe ( talk) 14:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
(@ CaroleHenson:)
The talk page is where you discuss how to improve the article. I think the article would be better if these beautifully-written, well-organized, and seemingly well-thought-out sections were restored. (I'm a sucker for good writing.) I did not write them. A definition at the beginning of such a complicated topic I found very helpful. If you know something better add it, but I think the article has been made poorer and less useful by the deletion of the following. I know what the policy is, but following the policy has made the article poorer, in my judgment. Isn't there something about being bold and breaking rules?
_____________________
Under the general heading of abolitionism were a number of sub-movements which did not get on particularly well. There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free oncondition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go " back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?
“ | The guilt of American slaveholding exceeds the guilt of slaveholding in any other age or country. |
” |
— Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1838 [1] |
There were a number of antislavery movements, which at times made for strange bedfellows. There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit. In distinct opposition to these folks, there was an anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of persons of color, which sought improved conditions of life for persons of color, ameliorations both material and spiritual. To cut across the division that was created by two such contrasting motivational patterns, there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons who sought gradual, step-by-step, piecemeal practical improvements, new good amelioration following new good amelioration, a building process, and there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons like William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Dwight Weld, Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan who demanded immediate utter freedom and emancipation regardless of the personal or social cost, a tear-it-all-down-and-start-over project[,] and they were willing to see great harm done to real people if only the result would be some change in the wording of a law, written on paper somewhere. There was an Old Abolitionism which was racist, and an Old Abolitionism which was paternalist. There was a New Abolitionism which was Evangelical and millenialist and sought total top-down changes in society, and there was a New Abolitionism which was immanentist and demanded total bottom-up personal transformation, within each individual's soul. [2]
References
deisenbe ( talk) 14:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
"Put differently, the ending of slavery in Northern states did not always mean that slaves were freed. Some slaves were taken to Southern states and sold before the prohibitions on slavery went into effect. Enslaved people in the North might be freed as indentured servants who had to work without wages, but always with an ending date and with no more splitting of families. In New York, the remaining indentured servants were freed July 4, 1827, and there was a big celebratory parade, repeated on subsequent July 4ths. There were still hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 Census. In the South there were millions."
Again, I think the article now follows a policy and the policy makes the article less helpful. I wrote it, so I don't claim impartiality, but I think it's an important point that should be here. deisenbe ( talk) 15:00, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
It seems as if the current sections are just a list of unrelated topics. Would anyone have a problem with me organizing the sections, and grouping related content in subsections, so that in the end the Table of contents looks like a good outline of the article?– CaroleHenson ( talk) 00:47, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure how far back it occurred, but at some time a citation was orphaned with the refname=Report. I made this change, because the refname and the title of the source seemed congruent. Is that change right? Or perhaps there was once a "Report" citation that is different?
I went back about 20 versions before I started moving sections and couldn't find it.– CaroleHenson ( talk) 05:24, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Most of the article is well cited, but there are areas where there are no citations. Sometimes a sentence at the end of a paragraph. Sometimes an entire paragraph. And some of it looks like commentary or original research.
There are very few {{ cn}} tags, though. What am I missing?– CaroleHenson ( talk) 05:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
This paragraph at the top has some points that show the complexity of the situation but suffers from "lost cause" revisionism. - The next paragraph says the movement was motivated by moral causes but acknowledges economic issues, so this paragraph adds little. Also, is wrong to cast the abolitionist movement as non moralists, primary leaders were furiously religious. -To say that anti-black riots didn't happen in the south, is to forget lynching and state suppression against free blacks. -Lack of citations is bad - " Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings." - point has merit but need phrasing work to not imply most free blacks were at fault for lacking education
"It would be a great oversimplification to say that American abolitionism was a movement of the virtuous North directed against the sinful South. As we have already seen, slavery in the North was dying but not dead. Free blacks, seen as immigrants who would work for cheap, were just as unwelcome in the North as in the South, if not more so, and subject to discrimination and mistreatment almost inconceivable today (2020). It was not only legal but routine to discriminate against and mistreat blacks. (See below.) Anti-free Black riots were common in the North, not the South. The abolitionist movement, in its early years, was directed at Northerners, convincing them, by providing speakers and documentation, that slaves, frequently if not always, were horribly mistreated in the South. Incidentally, Northerners got to see first-hand that Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings. Northern support for ending slavery—once a radical position—grew steadily." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.116.169.104 ( talk) 06:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC) This unsigned comment was made by me. deisenbe ( talk) 18:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
@ Anwegmann: Could you please explain your objections to the term "black American" ? Also, your addition of enslaved people to the group of people sent to Liberia is unsourced. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 06:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
I know much of this can't be included in the main article but its still useful to provide context. In the early 1770s as the Patriots were still to some extent in their infancy and developing their identity one of the features that their identity contained was abolitionism. That portion of their views was never fully allowed to blossom because "The pillar of the slave trade"(as pointed out by the report of the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, [1]) kept preventing their laws in many colonies from going into effect. For this reason slavery and the slave trade became its own "football" of sorts with a lot of tit-for-tat and back and forth finger pointing on part of patriot supporters and tory loyalists. Two examples of this in legislative or 'official' work are how the Continental Association placed restrictions on slave trading for economic(not humanitarian) reasons and Dunmore's Proclamation tried to recruit within slave ranks for militaristic(not humanitarian) reasons. Slavery became a way for the patriots to hurt England, and for England to hurt the patriots.
Many patriots came to view slavery as "The King's institution" with Jefferson's philippic in the Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence "he has waged cruel war against human nature itself". Jefferson is hardly the only one on either side of the Atlantic who recognized the British Empire's primary role in regards to slavery. Edmund Burke also noted how odd it was for England to have maintained slavery for so many hundreds of years but then to do an about face and all of a sudden offer freedom. He said: [2] "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? From that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffick? An offer of freedom from England, would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes."
Even after the celebrated decision in the Somersett case, there were some abolitionists who viewed England as being stingy with abolition and keeping it for themselves instead of being generous and having abolitionism in all parts of the British Empire. It could have all ended in 1772, but it didn't. Benjamin Franklin stated it the most pointedly [3], saying: "Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men? Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!"
George Mason, like Thomas Jefferson, recognized Royal vetos on colonial attempts to put an end to slavery. At the Constitutional Convention, Mason said: "This infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it." [4] That the Patriot leaders were out in front and ahead of the Empire in regards to abolitionist efforts makes friendships that Granville Sharp had with some of the early colonial leaders more easy to understand. Another who found favor with abolitionism and many of the Patriot leaders was Richard Price, who plainly stated it that "It is not the fault of the colonies that they have slaves among them." [5] A statement like this goes too far as plenty of people in the colonies did their part with regard to fostering slavery. However, there came a point when slavery was not just a fact of life. For centuries in every continent slavery had been around and a part of human life whether the Romans or disparate tribes and warlords. But everything changed when patriot leaders consciously decided to put abolitionist measures on the desks of colonial governors to be enacted, and even moreso everything really changed when the King consciously decided to veto abolitionist laws to prevent these laws from becoming colonial law. Progressingamerica ( talk) 15:40, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
a movement which sought to end slavery, not as a movement to "limit" slavery. So I think that efforts to "limit" slavery are simply irrelevant for this article.
early colonial abolitionist efforts ... were forcefully put to an end by decree. I don't think that's what mainstream historians say. As far as I know, abolitionist efforts were successful during or soon after the revolution in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, while the Virginian élite, including Jefferson and Washington, never made any serious abolitionist effort. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 16:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
we should follow the lead of academic scholarship, that is, we are not the judges on the relevance of certain detailsbut your objection rests solely on Wikipedia:IDONTLIKEIT because you have now said
I still can't see a serious connection between the tax and the abolitionist movementi.e., "I don't like it". These are well-researched historians on the subject who have even won a Pulitzer prize for their work on the whole body. In the first these laws passed were important enough for the abolitionists to push for them, in the second they were(conversely) important enough to the King's wishes that he just had to veto them, in the third these laws took many forms in many colonies, and in the fourth they were important enough to have been discussed repeatedly by historian after historian after historian after historian. You're approaching Wikipedia:NPOV. I have met every one of your requests in good faith. Progressingamerica ( talk) 05:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
@ Rsk6400: I really think we should start over. With your citation of WP:SYNTH that leaves no question in my mind that you're not really reading what's being put in the article and you're too heavily focused(to the point of mixing them) on objecting to what's being put on the talk page. I didn't know WP:SYNTH was intended for these talk pages, but so its said you didn't do a revert here on the basis of SYNTH either. One of the few things you did actually say specifically which was directly about the article changes were that "Onuf doesn't support your claims". Yes he does, and its indicative that you're reading the talk page moreso than anything else. Onuf says in paragraph two of the cited work: (p. 154)
.....one of those tyrannical acts - the Privy Council's veto of the colony's act to impose a small duty on slave imports.....
I wrote in respect of Wikipedia:CLOP:
The colony of Virginia was another colony which passed similar laws in an "effort to curtail" human trade from Africa, leading to the legislature being "blocked every time" by royal authority.
Note that I said "royal authority" here and not necessarily the King. I was reading Onuf specifically at the time I made those last minute changes. So here's my question. How can you say this isn't supportive? It is affirming that a veto occurred. Progressingamerica ( talk) 07:05, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
An editor who repeatedly restores their preferred version is edit warring, regardless of whether those edits are justifiable( WP:WAR). That's why we should try to reach consensus here. If we don't reach consensus, WP:NOCON applies:
In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. BTW: I didn't claim that Onuf contradicts himself. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 05:56, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S.are the judges for what is relevant for this article and what not. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 19:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
More quotes related to the preceding discussion
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What the historians are saying about the Royal Veto of anti-slavery lawsIn the book Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner's Rebellion, historian Eva Sheppard Wolf writes the following, page 23: [8]
Again:
Bio: two books concerning slavery, manumission, and race in Virginia [9] In the Pulitzer prize winning book The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 historian Alan Taylor writes the following, page 20: [10]
Bio: has been a professor at the University of California at Davis, where he teaches courses in early North American history, the history of the American West [11] In A Slaveholders' Union, George Van Cleve writes the following, page 30: [12]
Again:
Again:
Bio: George Van Cleve is Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of History at the University of Virginia. In The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, historian David Brion Davis writes the following, page 12: [13]
Bio from the Organization of American Historians: It is hard to imagine American history without David Brion Davis ... His pathbreaking trilogy, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966), The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (1975), and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation (2014), [14] Again:
Bio from Yale: the founder of the Gilder Lehrman Center, David Brion Davis, one of the world’s leading scholars of slavery and abolition in an international context [15] In History of the United States of America, George Bancroft wrote the following, page 410: [16]
Again:
Bio from Britannica: whose comprehensive 10-volume study of the origins and development of the United States caused him to be referred to as the "father of American history." [17] In Thomas Jefferson - Westward the Course of Empire, Lawrence S. Kaplan writes the following, page 84: [18]
Bio: Lawrence S. Kaplan was History and University professor emeritus at Kent State University [19] More than one of these historians keep making reference specifically to King George III's 1770 veto and the threats that were contained in that veto. Here you can find the full text of that veto to read for yourself. The King wrote as follows: [20]
I know you keep saying you don't want Jefferson history books around here, you don't want some other history books around here, or the books can't be slavery books they have to specifically be abolition books and only abolition books,(slavery books don't count) but it doesn't really work that way. You can't construct a unicorn for your STONEWALL. There's an overlap in history which is why the Wikipedia article in its long-standing form already includes many of these different types of books. In the references and further reading cites sections there's religion books, there's Andrew Jackson books, there's books cited about specific American states, there's general American History books, there's a book about a college, books cited about other countries, there's books cited about Women's rights, there's Alexander Hamilton books cited, there's already several Jefferson books. If you need to, please take the time to create a WP:RFC, so that books not about abolitionism but instead only about slavery or books about specific people or any others deemed off-topic by you might be removed and half of the article's content can also be removed to meet your standards. Perfection is not required and these are all extremely good historians; good abolitionism and slavery historians. And all of these historians are in agreement. Give WP:FIXFIRST a try it's a good one. Progressingamerica ( talk) 02:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
In The Slave Struggle in America, Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner wrote: [26]
In The South in the Building of the Nation, historian John Bell Henneman wrote: [27]
In Enjoy the Same Liberty - Black Americans and the Revolutionary Era, Edward Countryman wrote: [29]
In Patrick Henry - Champion of Liberty, Jon Kukla wrote: [30]
In Challenging Slavery in the Chesapeake - Black and White Resistance to Human Bondage, 1775–1865, T. Stephen Whitman wrote: [31] (page 23)
Bio: assistant professor of history at Mount Saint Mary's University [32]
@ Progressingamerica: Would you please, please read the "Good practices for talk pages" at WP:TPYES ? My special recommendation is the paragraph "Be concise". -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 05:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your edits in the article earlier on this. I was curious, in the history books you have written did you ever research this topic? One of the concerns raised was of a particular type of phrasing I used, but I cannot just cut and paste entries from other works not in the public domain. Perhaps a better phrasing based on the many cites I provided could help here? Progressingamerica ( talk) 15:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Anthony Benezet and the slave tradeSurprisingly, this article doesn't mention Anthony Benezet who was one of the more important abolitionists of the pre-revolutionary era. That omission alone probably had a role to play in the previous consternation. The early abolitionists like (but not limited to) Benezet wrote both of slavery and the trade, but focused mainly on the slave trade. The article already states this much in the third sentence: The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade - though sadly that isn't connected very well throughout. Benezet is one of the main gaps in the history as it happened. In Unrequited Toil, A History of United States Slavery, Calvin Schermerhorn writes: (page 43) [37]
Bio: He teaches slavery and human trafficking in comparative perspective, viewing modern slavery in historical terms and is engaged in public history shining a light on the domestic slave trade. His research has been funded by fellowships and grants from the Smithsonian, Huntington Library, Gilder Lehrman Center, American Philosophical Society, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, among other organizations. [38] On pages 14 and 15 Professor Schermerhorn notes that Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all passed some sort of anti-slavery measure in one degree or another and in all cases, the King overruled the measures. [39] In Migration, Trade, and Slavery in an Expanding World a collection of essays where one in particular titled Divergent Paths historian Seymour Drescher writes: (page 263) [40]
Again:
He explains that where there were absolutely no voices raised in Britain against slavery, "American colonial legislatures from Virginia northward" passed law after law after law to prohibit or curtail overseas slavery and in every case, these measures were vetoed. He further explains that Virginia and Maryland were particularly anti-slavery according to one Quaker author, and writes of Benezet's letters to Granville Sharp. Bio: Seymour Drescher (born 1934) is an American historian and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, known for his studies on Alexis de Tocqueville and slavery. Source:Wikipedia. In The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History, professors Vincent Brown, Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Laurent Dubois, and Karen Ordahl Kupperman collaborated, where the following is written: (page 253) [41]
Again:
Bio: Vincent Brown (historian) is Charles Warren Professor of History, Professor of African and African-American Studies, and Director of the History Design Studio at Harvard University. Source:Wikipedia. Bio: Jorge Canizares-Esguerra is a faculty member in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professorship in History. He is most notable for his work in Atlantic history, the history of science in the early modern Spanish empire, and the colonizing ideologies of the Iberian and British empires. Source:Wikipedia. Bio: Laurent Dubois Laurent Dubois is the Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History and founder of the Forum for Scholars & Publics at Duke University. His studies have focused on Haiti. Source:Wikipedia. Bio: Karen Ordahl Kupperman is an American historian who specializes in colonial history in the Atlantic world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Source:Wikipedia. In Barbaric Traffic, Philip Gould writes the following: (page 192) [42]
Bio: Philip Gould is the author of numerous books focusing on British America. [43] In Let this Voice be Heard, Maurice Jackson wrote the following: (page 198) [44]
Bio: Maurice Jackson is an Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies and an Affiliated Professor of Performing Arts (Jazz) at Georgetown University. Source:Wikipedia. In Sugar and Slavery, Richard B. Sheridan wrote the following: (page 484) [45]
Bio: Sheridan dedicated his academic career to the study of slavery in the Caribbean and is acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent historians of the British West Indies, best known for his pioneering works, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775 (1974), and Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680-1834. [46] In African's Life, 1745-1797: The Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano James Walvin writes the following: (page 103) [47]
Bio: Walvin has written widely on slave history and on British social history. [48] All of this and in particular this last one from Professor Walvin explains the following. The early Quakers focused on the slave trade, they had to stop because of the revolutionary war, and then they got back to it after 1783. In Remaking Custom, Law and Identity in the Early American Republic, Ellen Holmes Pearson writes the following:
In the book Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner's Rebellion, historian Eva Sheppard Wolf writes the following: (page 23) [50]
Bio: two books concerning slavery, manumission, and race in Virginia [51] In Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Junius P. Rodriguez writes: (page 20) [52]
The full text of that petition against that "trade of great inhumanity" can be found here at the Library of Congress. [53] It reads:
As a bonus, I'll add that it wasn't all too long before this that Britain passed An act for extending and improving the trade to Africa [54], which opens with the following:
These historians and their work also do well to explain what is meant in the third sentence: The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. That one line in and of itself explains how pre-revolutionary colonies came to attempting to put an end to the slave trade, the King's machinations notwithstanding. Progressingamerica ( talk) 05:13, 24 August 2021 (UTC) Motivation and focus on the tradeThe article starts with this (accurately) in the third sentence: The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Prior to 1808 and indeed for several decades(some of the information above already touches on this) abolitionists focused exclusively on putting an end to the slave trade [55] [56] and naturally, legislative acts followed the same pattern - ending the slave trade. The celebrated historian David Brion Davis stated that "there was widespread confusion of "slavery" with the "slave trade."" in the days of early abolitionism. [57] This isn't to say that abolitionists were clueless and didn't see the distinction, of course they did. What Davis is getting at is that abolitionists were motivated to end the trade because they believed that ending the trade would accomplish the goal of also ending slavery as a "two birds with one stone" scenario. Helen Thomas quoted Clarkson: "By aiming at the abolition of the sslave-trade, they were laying the axe at the very root." [58] So from that point of view, the "issue" was "confused" in that killing one killed the other. This is recognized quite often, ".... that the movement's objectives were confined to the African Trade." [59]; "Abolitionists had hoped that the end of the trade in slaves would lead naturally to the end of slavery itself...." [60]; "The abolitionists were so explicit in the distinction they drew between amelioration and emancipation that it is surprising that they should have been misinterpreted, then or now." [61]; "In 1775 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, founded by the Quakers, sought to abolish the slave trade and slavery. ... The slave trade was the initial target of abolition because abolitionists calculated that fewer people profited from the trade than from the larger institution of slavery." [62]; ""Without purchasers," he argued, "there would be no trade." [63] However, those hopes went further. "Abolitionists hoped that an end to the trade would bring about not only an end to the inhumanities of trading on the African coast and the high seas, but would persuade West Indian planters to rethink their treatment of the slaves on the islands." [64]; "Initially, the abolitionist movement concentrated on making the slave trade illegal. Their hope was that by ending the trade, the value of individual slaves would rise dramatically, forcing owners to treat their slaves better." [65] Ron Walters notes that :"One source of alienation of the colonists that led to the 1776 Revolution was that when they became alarmed at the growing number of Africans in their midst they attemtpedt to curtail their importation....... Antislavery measures began to be passed.... Massachusetts, 1771; Pennsylvania levied stiff tariffs, 1773" and "Virginia, and North Carolina in 1774 and Georgia in 1775". [66] Walters too (again) notes that these laws were vetoed. At the time it was damaging to "the importation of a considerable article of British commerce". [67] [68] but the efforts of abolitionists like Benezet were taking hold. As already noted above by Drescher: "By the early 1770s Benezet took advantage of broadening hostility to the slave trade to expand his appeal." [69] Benezet's influence at ending the slave trade is widely recognized. [70] "The Quakers helped the cause along. In 1767, an attempt was made in the legislature to discourage the slave trade, but it failed." And "In 1774, an act was passed ... to prevent importation... but it was vetoed by Governor Hutchinson." [71]; "From a similar motive, the Quaker-controlled Pennsylvania Assembly in 1712 imposed prohibitive tariffs on the importation of slaves, but the Privy Council in London vetoed this action, to keep up the lucrative slave trade." [72] It's also important to note that the abolitionists on both sides of the ocean were in communication with each other [73] (Benezet and Granville Sharp, for example) so while many had different reasonings for holding certain views they had an idea what each was thinking through direct contact. Progressingamerica ( talk) 04:25, 1 September 2021 (UTC) |
Should the historian-acknowledged veto of prohibitive taxation for the purpose of stifling the slave trade passed in the colony of Virginia be included? Progressingamerica ( talk) 16:13, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
References
I've been looking into this further as to why this veto should be known by historians to be so aggressive when compared to the vetos of anti-slavery laws in other colonies. The text of the King's veto(above) also appears in the writings and correspondence of William Nelson (governor), who was known to be favorable to the needs of the colonists over the King's needs. Nelson was only interim governor for about a year and was replaced by a completely loyal King's-man, Lord Dunmore who became very unpopular. William Nelson's son grew up and was a signer of the Declaration. Surely there might have been other factors, such as how much tax revenue was generated for England from so big a slave market.
The veto appears on page 82. [74] Progressingamerica ( talk) 16:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S.are the judges for what is relevant for this article" [76]. But yet you have hung your hat on a historian who isn't a historian of abolitionism at all. How does that work exactly? You are violating your own rule.
@ Rsk6400: Ok, look, in light of Wikipedia:BRINK, I don't want to go back into the heated exchanges from earlier. I only have one single question for you, this is a yes or no question. Just want to keep it simple, straightforward.
Will you accept historian David Brion Davis as a historian in the field of slavery and abolition? Progressingamerica ( talk) 19:10, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible., see WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. You might also want to look at WP:ONUS. And finally, no, I didn't laugh at you. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 20:27, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
@ Rsk6400: I humbly ask, will you please accept historian David Brion Davis as a historian in the field of slavery and abolition? Progressingamerica ( talk) 06:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S.are the judges for what is relevant for this article, and that's what's in the books. What I personally think is irrelevant for what goes into the article. Also, it needs to be said that you didn't provide any proof for your claim of C when I requested it, that makes your claim of C a WP:REDFLAG - it's an extraordinary claim.
Should the historian-acknowledged veto of prohibitive taxation for the purpose of stifling the slave trade passed in the colony of Virginia be included? Progressingamerica ( talk) 16:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
1: The king's veto and Virginia's humanitarian plea for redress.
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This demonstrates most clearly what Virginia's motivations were for the tax and points to the success of the proliferation of abolitionists views. These laws were passed affirmatively in colonial legislatures and it was responded to, from thousands of miles away overseas. That kind of response is a big deal and so in part also because of the colonists plea it elicited. Edgerton [86] and Davis [87] and Rodriguez [88] highlight that the Burgesses response recognized "a trade of great inhumanity".(This is a direct quote from the actual plea itself, "a trade of great inhumanity") |
2: The abolitionists in Pennsylvania used higher taxation to achieve their purpose just the same. This was a known abolitionist tactic in the colonies and not just a Virginia one-off.
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Historian Maurice Jackson notes a campaign conducted in Pennsylvania of both Benjamin Rush and Anthony Benezet that resulted in the imposition of a higher tax to discourage slave trade imports. [89] That campaign didn't just locally affect Pennsylvania, it was followed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware. Historian Garry Wills notes that prohibitive taxation was used as early as 1712 by Pennsylvania Quakers, again to be vetoed by London. [90] |
3: Copies of Benezet's works were known to be sent to prominent Virginians where it was positively received, demonstrating openness to the abolitionist viewpoint and the presence of abolitionist views among some Virginian leaders.
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Historian James Walvin writes that Benezet was influential among prominent individuals, and Benezet also influenced "So too was the Virginia House of Burgesses" in 1772.
[91] The action of Virginian Robert Pleasants to free his slaves was well known at the time, and Pleasants distributed Benezet's pamphlets to some members of the legislature,
[92] while Benezet personally corresponded with some of them.
[93] Benjamin Franklin credited Benezet's pamphlets with the decision/plea in Virginia.
[94]
Its worth pointing out that some historians note also the popularity of Montesquieu's works throughout this decade and with Benezet himself [95], and Montesquieu [96] similarly Adam Smith [97] opposed slavery in addition to Benezet. [98] Benezet was not the only voice of opposition received. The popularity of both Montesquieu and Adam Smith in the colonies during this period has been widely acknowledged by historians but for other reasons not necessary for this discussion. |
4: Abolition of the slave trade was generally viewed by abolitionists as a means to the end of the abolition of slavery itself prior to the 1800s.
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See the numerous citations in this Talk Page section above titled "Motivation and focus on the trade" and also parag. 2 parag. 1 parag. 2 [99] [100] [101] [102] [103]. Abolitionists in those days believed(according to many historians) that slavery was a lake and the slave trade was its source of water. Dry up the river and the lake would disappear. Clarkson is quoted by historians as using a tree/root analogy in disrupting the first to eliminate the second. Its worth noting that the main Wikipedia body already has some acknowledgment of this. In the third sentence at the top of the article it states: "The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade." What was this focus about? What did the focus look like? What were their successes of the focus? Virginia is on that success list. The abolitionists did not lose Virginia according to historians, the bills passed in the Burgesses and were becoming law. What they lost was the crown, the crown probably never read Benezet. |