M&D Deep Duck Where are all the children?
Laura Kelber
kelber at mindspring.com
Fri Jan 23 11:51:21 CST 2015
The Salem witch hysteria began among indentured servant girls ( one can only imagine the sexual and/ or physical abuse they must have endured within the confines of such a repressive theocracy). Whether conscious or subconscious, their accusations constituted a failed rebellion against the powers that be.
Laura
Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>I heard a piece on the radio recently about indentured servitude. A very common and miserable status at the time.
>
> In New York State most land was owned by large holders and those who worked on this land had great difficulty both legally and financially escaping a condition of impoverished renters. Slavery was a common feature of successful ventures.
>
>The farms had to be very large to sustain families and the unsustainability of these practices eventually led directly to the violent seizure of western lands.
>
>Some places were better than others, opportunities were many, but it is my sense that you seem to be mythologizing the situation a bit.
>
>
>
>
>On Jan 23, 2015, at 4:42 AM, alice malice wrote:
>
>> Though these Americans do carry with them some of the European Myths
>> of Destruction, that they have come to a Virgin Land, to a Promised
>> Land, to a New World, to a land of Savages, who must be Exterminated
>> or made Noble, to a place that Providence had Promised their brave
>> predecessors and so on, by now, they have new Myths, and they have a
>> reality that is not European, not what Britannia Dreamed, but what
>> they know. The streets are not paved with gold, their are no fountains
>> of youth, but america is a place of incredible opportunity. The family
>> is big because America can support big families. They can marry
>> younger, get land and a home, prosper, be fruitful and multiply. And
>> they do.
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:40 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> If P wants to show us what might have been, what was possible, if only
>>> the Americans had...he has to begin with prosperity and success, and
>>> that is the case in Christmastide 1778. There were no serious economic
>>> reasons, not even taxes, or taxes on Tea even, fro the colonies to
>>> rebel. Things were mighty fine. But they had other reasons to get rid
>>> of the English. The had money and power and people and prosperity and
>>> they didn't need England so why not get rid of the then and make start
>>> their own country? And this where it began with so much promise,
>>> though there are dark and bloody hauntings, the murder of the Indians,
>>> the enslaving of Africans, the destruction of the Earth etc.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:33 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> in 1775, the 13 colonies has a population of apx. 2.6mm, 2.1mm white,
>>>> 540000 blacks, 50,000 or fewer Native American; 21% of the people
>>>> lived in Virginia and 22% were in Penn. and Mass., 11% each. In
>>>> Philadelphia there were 35,000. The 13 colonies were not dependent,
>>>> for anything, on England, Europe, or anyplace else. Still the case in
>>>> the US, where trade comprises a relatively small percentage of the
>>>> Economy. In 1775, the Colonies had 1/3 as many inhabitants as the
>>>> mother country, and more than 30% of her economic output. As
>>>> Franklin's famous demographic publications, though flawed, as were
>>>> Malthusian Theories all, predicted, the colonies would, in a few
>>>> generations, far outnumber the inhabitants in England. This because
>>>> the average family had 8 children in the colonies but only 4 in
>>>> England. It was not the poor who, in their ignorance and poverty,
>>>> living on the 1% of the wealth of the nation that were supporting
>>>> large families, for other than the enslaved population, where family
>>>> size was also 8 children, America was not 19th century industrial or
>>>> urban Europe, the black poverty of Pip or Blake's Chimney Sweeper did
>>>> not exist in America, as it was only the 18th century, but more so
>>>> because America was prosperous and people married younger and
>>>> sustained large families on the land and wealth, not on poverty and
>>>> infant mortality and abuse.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>> a valid point but the large families may not have been the ones cashing in on economic growth.
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>-
>Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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