summing up Re: MDDM hist. refs re non-Intervention, W & G & Martha

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
To: "Otto" <ottosell at yahoo.de>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 3:02 AM
Subject: Re: summing up Re: MDDM hist. refs re non-Intervention, W & G &
Martha
> Otto wrote:
> >
> > All your really mighty fine links seem to present a GW that has been (at
> > times) indeed a little ahead of his time. And that's how Pynchon
presents
> > him, compared to the only other slave-holder in the novel. That it
remains
> > an oscillating image, undecideable, is ok to me. That's how the lesson
we
> > can draw out of history very often is. In the GW-case we have seen that
> > neither uncritical patriotic hagiography nor simple moralistic
condemnation
> > are appropriate. People like him (who should've known better) remain a
> > mystery to me.
> >
> > Otto
>
> Why should he have known better? Known what? Should he have known that
> slavery was
> wrong? And what should he have done?
>

Very good questions, Terrance.
1. he should have known better that black people are not inferior to whites
by birth. His laments that they're not trustworthy & words like that are
highly hypocritical.
2. yes, his Bible tells him that before his God all men are equal.
3. the same as he did, be a better slave-owner within the system he maybe
could not change. I wonder if the revolution would have been successful if
the slave-owners had opted for King George, if they had to decide between
getting political freedom by loosing part of their "property" or staying
wealthy, but remaining British subjects.

>
> Are the novel's "historical" characters to be given some sort of litmus
> test to determine where they stood on the issues surrounding slavery?
> Why didn't they know better? Why did they act so inconsistently? How
> about..., the religious....
>

Look, I haven't judged GW, I don't send him to Christian Hell, but
Christians should have no reason to believe that he or any of those other
slave-holders has gone to Heaven. Indeed, why did he act so inconsistently?
If (and it really looks like) he has *kept* (my fingers refuse to type this
word) his slaves relatively well he maybe could have afforded free workers,
even within the system by getting better crops through higher motivated
workers.

>
>
> How does one go about freeing slaves? Is this too naive? I guess it is,
> but freeing slaves, while no mystery from our enlightened POV, was no
> simple matter for people at the time. What do you do with slaves that
> are too old or too young to fend for themselves? This was only one of
> the  issues debated at the time.
>

Yes, we are not free from naivete. We can ask ourselves what are the similar
questions of our time. What do we do when we see some injustice, maybe on
the job, and stay quiet because we have to fear for our own social security.
Or on larger scale, how to react to the Aids-catastrophe in Africa and Asia.

> Again, I suggest _Quakers and Slavery in America_ by Thomas E. Drake
>
> Ben and Tom pass the historical litmus test. George doesn't. The links
> that Doug provided this time are better support for Jbore's position
> than Doug's. Maybe Paul is correct, Doug seems to playing some sort of
> joke. I kinda admire that myself. Anyways, way back yonder Doug provided
> the links that show how Washington used his power to frustrate and limit
> the Quaker anti-slavery movement.
>

Indeed the links seem to support the ambiguous position. Doug's not playing
a game here. He calls it "flame-free" when he provides material that
supports the opinion of his opponent.

>
> Ben Franklin (not sure he gets zapped by Pynchon either, just can't see
> how the founding fathers are being dissed in this novel)  was
> progressive on the slave questions early on, printing "abolitionist's"
> books as early as 1729. By 1759 he was arguing that slavery should end
> because it was stunting the growth of the economy. During the
> revolutionary period, Franklin and Jefferson called for an end of
> slavery. In 1784 Franklin became honorary president of the Society for
> the Relief of Freed Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Franklin was
> also the President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and he
> introduced a petition against slavery as delegate to the First
> Constitutional Convention. Franklin's last public act before his death
> was the publication of a parody defending himself and Quakers for their
> positions on the slavery questions.
>

It's very interesting that the Founding Fathers had such different views.

Otto


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