• BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    19 days ago

    Slavery didn’t end because the slaves revolted. It ended because white people fought to abolish it. The North could have allowed the South to continue on as a separate nation with slaves, but they insisted the Confederacy remain with the Union, AND end slavery.

    Often the downtrodden need those in power to use that power to fight for them.

    • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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      19 days ago

      Slavery didn’t end because the slaves revolted. It ended because white people fought to abolish it.

      Holy revisionist history!!

      White abolitionists absolutely played a role in ending chattel slavery in the United States, not the least of which were John Brown, the 48ers, and others who were doing what they did for the goal of Abolition primarily.

      The vast majority of northern politicians, generals, and soldiers, were engaged in the Civil war to preserve the Union, first and foremost. Abolition was a distant secondary concern for most of them.

      Furthermore, Slaves weren’t just sitting on their asses waiting to be freed by the benevolence of white people, they were agents of history all on their own. W.E.B. DuBois argued in Black Reconstruction in America that an underdiscussed turning point in the Civil War was when slaves engaged in one of the largest general strikes in American history. A strike which crippled the southern economy and thus its ability to sustain the war.

      So yes, Slavery did end in very large part because the slaves revolted.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        19 days ago

        It’s not revisionist at at all. In fact you partially agreed with me, that WHITE abolitionists were prime agents of ending slavery.

        Slavery ended IN PART because the slaves resisted, but it’s revisionist history to pretend that the enormous Civil War that killed millions of Americans, mostly white, didn’t play the most major role in the end of slavery.

        There wasn’t a single American slave revolt that contributed substantially to the end of slavery. When Union armies started encroaching on Southern territory, slaves abandoned their posts, and headed to Northern lines, but it wasn’t anything organized. DuBois characterized it as a General Strike, but it was really just the slaves taking advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime. There was no organized revolt, no General Strike, just individual motivation to escape while it was possible.

        Sure, the Union Army was fighting to preserve the Union, but they were also well aware that the ONLY issue that was dividing the Union was slavery. Literally every Southern Constitution, and the Confederate Declaration of Independence made it very clear that their single issue was slavery. Without Slavery, there is no Civil War. And without the mostly white Union Army, the South would have continued with slavery.