A few facts for the Tennessee knuckledraggers who proclaimed April "Confederate History Month":

[raging moderate]

11. Yes, Abolitionists who traveled in the South saw many poor white people looking so discouraged.

Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2023, 05:53 AM - Edit history (3)

They said that most of the Black slaves looked scared, exhausted, and emaciated, with many scars, bravely limping through their heavy work loads. But they also mentioned how tired and sad and underfed many of the poorer white people looked. Ulysses S. Grant mentioned in his memoirs that the lower-ranking Confederate soldiers, who were mostly poor whites, seemed to have good work skills but extremely poor tools to work with, and very poor directions from their rich slave-owner commanders. Having grown up in a rural working-class family himself, Ulysses S. Grant had grown up doing hard, dirty, difficult, skilled work, with everybody around him doing the same, so he knew what he was talking about. A few years ago, I read a book about the economy of slavery, and it mentioned that the rich slaveowners wielded too much power in the decisions about which tools were sent to stores in the Old South, dictating dogmatically about tools when they knew nothing worth mentioning about working with tools. The technical experts consulted for the book said that, yes, most of the tools sold in the South were generally not as good as most of the tools sold in the North. It had apparently been very difficult to obtain good-quality tools in the Old South. The conceited plantation owners thought they knew better than everybody about everything, especially the things about which they knew almost nothing. The book also said the the banking system had been heavily slanted to favor the rich. Apparently they operated like the rich aristocrats in medieval Europe, demanding loyalty, obedience, and veneration from everyone else.