Negro Slave Revolts in the United States [antikvár]

I. INTRODUCTION The wholly erroneous conception of life in the old South which is still dominant in our movies and novels and textbooks was invented by the slaveholders them-selves. They and their spiritual—and even lineal—de-scendants have written the history of American Negro slavery. These Bourbons have been motivated by a desire to apologize for and, more than that, to justify a barbar-ous social systém. To do this, they have been forced to commit every sin of omission, falsification and distortion. That they have done their job well is attested by the fact that the monstrous myth created by them is believed by most people today. The apologists and mythologists who are responsible for this distorted picture of the sláve system acknowledge as their pioneer and leader the late Professor Ulrich B. Phillips, of Georgia. His attitude clearly presents the ap-proach of the entire school. In one öf his early articles (1905), Phillips referred to himself as a peíson who had "inherited Southern traditions." That by this he meant Bourbon traditions is indicated by his dedication of an early book (1908) "to the dominant class of the South." Since he openly affirms such an allegiance, it is easy to imagine what he says of the old South. To Phillips, under the slave system "severity was clearly the exception, and kindliness the rule." Indeed, at one point he places quo-tation marks around the word slavery, indicating that that harsh word is hardly the proper one with which to label the system he describes. And the opinions of this "authority" on the people who 3