I agree with you 100%. What they are latching on to is the fact that SOMETIMES, in EXTREMELY LIMITED AND SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES, some enslaved people were able to “hire themselves out” as craftsmen when they had done whatever work the enslaver had required of them. An even more limited number of those enslaved people were paid for their work and got to keep their pay.
But the percentage of people we are talking about here is tiny … but it is nonzero. The standard therefore isn’t completely wrong, but it absolutely gives the impression that these cases were waaaay more common than they actually were.
An unnamed(!) victim of slavery had an agreement with her enslaver to keep excess wage money from her work, which she used to buy the freedom of another person, Sally. Her enslaver figured she didn’t have the right to own “property” and it was his lucky day to now own 2 human beings. The courts disagreed and said Sally was a free person. However this was still South Carolina so they made sure to patch up that little “loophole” after the case was over.
The full list is quite interesting. The ~1780 cases in New England outlawing slavery (while the Revolution was ongoing!). Dred Scott and Amistad, of course. Cases mostly from 1780 to 1859. But then heinously, but somehow unsurprisingly, there’s a case from 2021: Nestle Inc makes an appearance using child slave labor for cocoa.
I wish more people realized that when we talk about child slavery in the cocoa industry we are not talking about kids working alongside their parents.
We are mostly talking about trafficked and stolen children taken to plantations in the middle of nowhere and forced to labour long hours by themselves.
Well this is news to me and I say if you have some articles bookmarked already fuckinf share them here (as a new post)*** cuz on lemmy rn it’s more likely to reach front page. I consider myself more aware than average American and I still didn’t know this.
The standard therefore isn’t completely wrong, but it absolutely gives the impression that these cases were waaaay more common than they actually were.
It’s also dishonest because it leaves out the limitations that slavery put on those same people.
One of them could have been the next Mozart but we will never know because they weren’t allowed to do anything more than hire themself out as a piano tuner at wages far below those a white person would get.
I agree with you 100%. What they are latching on to is the fact that SOMETIMES, in EXTREMELY LIMITED AND SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES, some enslaved people were able to “hire themselves out” as craftsmen when they had done whatever work the enslaver had required of them. An even more limited number of those enslaved people were paid for their work and got to keep their pay.
But the percentage of people we are talking about here is tiny … but it is nonzero. The standard therefore isn’t completely wrong, but it absolutely gives the impression that these cases were waaaay more common than they actually were.
You reminded me of a legal case I read recently: Guardian of Sally v. Beatty
An unnamed(!) victim of slavery had an agreement with her enslaver to keep excess wage money from her work, which she used to buy the freedom of another person, Sally. Her enslaver figured she didn’t have the right to own “property” and it was his lucky day to now own 2 human beings. The courts disagreed and said Sally was a free person. However this was still South Carolina so they made sure to patch up that little “loophole” after the case was over.
The full list is quite interesting. The ~1780 cases in New England outlawing slavery (while the Revolution was ongoing!). Dred Scott and Amistad, of course. Cases mostly from 1780 to 1859. But then heinously, but somehow unsurprisingly, there’s a case from 2021: Nestle Inc makes an appearance using child slave labor for cocoa.
I wish more people realized that when we talk about child slavery in the cocoa industry we are not talking about kids working alongside their parents.
We are mostly talking about trafficked and stolen children taken to plantations in the middle of nowhere and forced to labour long hours by themselves.
Well this is news to me and I say if you have some articles bookmarked already fuckinf share them here (as a new post)*** cuz on lemmy rn it’s more likely to reach front page. I consider myself more aware than average American and I still didn’t know this.
It’s also dishonest because it leaves out the limitations that slavery put on those same people.
One of them could have been the next Mozart but we will never know because they weren’t allowed to do anything more than hire themself out as a piano tuner at wages far below those a white person would get.