American History - Here Comes The Russians

Prior to the foundation of the North American fur trade, Siberia was the dominant source of furs in the world.  Traders from nations such as Russia, Sweden, the Ottoman Empire, and China had trading posts at the edge of the great frozen taiga from whence they traded good with the Siberian inhabitants for sable, fox, squirrel, and other furs.  Not wishing to brave the harsh elements of the northern Asiatic interior, these nations otherwise left the region alone.  However, this status quo began to end beginning in 1580.  Over the prior hundred years, the nation of Russia had coalesced from the collapsing former Mongol kingdoms which had ruled the region, and the new nation was eager to prove it was a power to be reckoned with.  By 1605, the last of the old Mongol kingdoms had been swept away, and the Russians set their eyes eastward, eager to dominate the ever more profitable fur trade.

Russia’s movement eastward into Siberia was part exploration and part conquest.  Following rivers and establishing trading posts, the Russian heavily armed Russian expeditions forcefully convinced the locals to accept the rule of the Russian tsars, forcing them to pay an annual tax in furs for the right to live on lands their ancestor had inhabited for millennia.  Though some resisted, victories in resisting were few and far between.  Already sparsely populated, with likely no more than 300,000 people in the entire region, epidemics of smallpox and other diseases, introduced by the Russian expeditions, wiped out over half of the formerly isolated Siberian peoples.  Those who remained largely lacked the modern weapons of the Russians and faced increasingly cruel treatment and torture if they resisted.  The Russians reached the Pacific Ocean in 1639, and though scattered resistance continued for another century, they completely controlled the region by 1690. 

At the start of the eighteenth century, Russia underwent a bit of a renaissance.  A series of European educated tsars took a great interest in art, science, and literature.  Not wishing to be seen as a backwards nation, they invested heavily in endeavors to prove Russia was the cultural equal of any nation in Europe.  Amongst these investments were the funding of various scientific and exploratory expeditions, several of which had the mission of mapping out the eastward coastal extent of Siberia and Kamchatka, specifically to ascertain the possibility of a Northeastern Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and to see whether or not Kamchatka was connected to North America. The largest and most expensive of these expeditions, led by a Danish shit heel named Vitus Bering, became the first Europeans to step foot on what we today call Alaska in 1742. 

Now most people, Russian or otherwise, didn’t really give two fucks if a blank spot on a map was no longer quite as blank as it used to be.  However, what they did care about was the abundance of sea otters in this new land, the furs of which fetched an amazingly high price in Europe and China.  Not long after the return of Bering’s expedition, fur traders began crossing the ocean to Alaska to trade for furs with the local natives, the most prominent being the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands.  Now while many traders treated the Aleuts fairly, giving them European goods in exchange for furs, others went with the method of give me furs or I’ll fucking kill you.  As one can imagine, this didn’t sit well with the Aleuts, who began resisting, but this resistance was short lived as they didn’t have guns, the Russians were vicious sons of bitches, and some 80 percent of the Aleuts died of various European diseases by the end of the century.

Though at first only using temporary trading posts, the Russians built their first permanent settlement, Unalaska, in the Aleutians in 1774.  This was followed by the first permanent settlement in Alaska proper, on Kodiak Island to be precise, in 1784.  Having heard of what happened with the Aleuts, this new settlement of course instantly came under attack by the local natives, to which the Russians responded by beating the ever living crap out of them, burning their villages, killing their children, and other various horrifying atrocities in the name of profit.  Over time, these types of tactics, along with the accompanying wiping out of a significant part of the population via various diseases, calmed the situation somewhat, but not in a way that wasn’t shitty for the locals.

American History - Resistance

There is something that is often not talked about in American history, something that helps answer the age old question of if slavery was so terrible, why didn’t the slaves ever revolt?  The short answer is, they most certainly did.  Between 1650 and 1775, over two hundred slave revolts occurred in the Thirteen Colonies, some large involving slaves across multiple counties, and some small, including only a handful of slaves on a single plantation.  Some were plots which involved months of planning, while others were spur of the moment affairs, lit by sparks of a single action fanned into flames by a lifetime of indignities.  Unfortunately, these revolts have largely been expunged from history, evidence of them only existing in the remains of local newspapers, personal diaries, and other such sources, conveniently forgotten to aid in the myth of an antebellum south which never existed. 

It shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise that such things were not widely talked about.  Slave revolts were undoubtedly one of the greatest fears of slave owners, perhaps one of the few shreds of evidence that those perpetrating such crimes against humanity had at least some awareness that what they were doing was wrong.  Why else would they be so afraid of what might happen if they even gave an inch?  How could they not be frightened of someone treating them and their oved ones in a similar fashion as they had treated others?  This fear was only heightened in areas where slaves made up a significant portion of the population.  When revolts took place, or plots were discovered, those involved were given the harshest of punishments.  The least of these was shipment to the Caribbean.  It was well known amongst most slaves in the Thirteen Colonies of the backbreaking labor which awaited any who were unlucky enough to be sent to the warm green islands.  More harsh punishments included hangings, beheadings, and being burned alive, most often with other slaves watching. 

A planned slave revolt was not an easy thing to carry off.  First was the problem of communication, especially between different plantations and farms.  Why some communication may take place at public events, such as a funeral, or during the course of carrying out their master’s business, as time went on this became increasingly difficult as laws and custom encouraged slave owners to avoid creating or allowing such opportunities.  The second was the problem of betrayal.  Numerous slave revolts died in the cradle, betrayed by slaves who were given either special privileges or at times even their freedom.  The more people involved, the more likely such betrayals would take place.  Even if revolts were carried out, whether via planning or the spur of the moment, their effectiveness was limited.  Though some revolts successfully managed to kill handfuls of people and burn several plantations, they were never as well equipped as the colonial militias which quickly moved to stamp them out.  If not immediately wiped out, most revolting slaves ended up in the wilderness, acting as bandits to survive, while others attempted to flee to French Canada or Spanish Florida, areas which allowed slavery but had declared themselves safe for escaping slaves just to fuck with the British.  Few attempts were successful in either endeavor.

Though little discussed, the numerous slave revolts did have a significant affect on the Thirteen Colonies.  For example, early revolts often included not just slaves, but also indentured servants and transported convicts.  As a result, the colonial assemblies passed laws giving more rights to indentured servants and limiting the transportation of convicts for a time.  As well, several widespread conspiracies covering several counties led to new laws which limited the movement, education, and assembly of not just slaves, but also freed Africans, the latter of whom were few in number, but looked at distrustfully by the broader colonial society.  Perhaps one of the biggest results of the revolts was the shift towards home grown slaves rather than those imported in the latter half of the eighteenth century.  Often slave revolts were led by groups of slaves freshly imported from Africa, people who knew what they were experiencing was in no way okay.  In comparison, for those born into slavery in the Thirteen Colonies, having never experienced any other type of life, it was normal.  Due to this, slave owners began to focus more on forced breeding to ensure as many children were born as possible, with it becoming the primary business for many slave owners over time.     

Due to the above measures, over time the overall number of slave revolts dropped, though they never fully ceased.  However, even as the revolts became less common, other types of resistance rose to take their place.  The relationship between slave and slave owner was a strange one, kept separate by the power dynamics involved, but also strangely intimate due to the close nature of the work being done.  Many slaves were put in positions of trust, loyalty assured by the granting of special privileges.  As with any system of oppression, many slaves worked against their own brethren to assure they retained such privileges, but not all.  Others exploited the trust given to them via poisonings or arson.  Such acts were an assured route to a painful execution, but still they occurred.  No matter what was done to suppress them, thoughts of freedom were never fully stamped out.    

American History - An American Institution

At the start of the eighteenth century, there were around 28,000 African slaves living in what is today the United States, mostly owned by wealthy plantation owners in Virginia and Maryland, in addition to some 150,000 native slaves mostly in New England and the Carolinas.  By that time slavery had become legally institutionalized in most colonies as a status distinct from indentured servitude.  Though early iterations of what became known as the slave codes set the primary difference between the two as slavery being for life rather than a set period of time, changes made at the turn of the century limited the practice while making it abjectly worse for those who could still be enslaved.  By the newly enacted slave codes, people could only become slaves if they were imported from a non-Christian nation or were natives sold to colonists by other natives or captured during conflicts.  However, a person could be born into slavery if their mother was a slave at the time of their birth, a concept which followed similar laws regarding who was regarded as a British citizen and therefore eligible to vote and hold office in the colonies.  This of course makes a lot of sense if you’re a terrible greedy asshat.

Significant growth in the number of African slaves in the Thirteen Colonies began in the 1730s.  Prior to this time, the high cost of importing African slaves compared to buying native slaves or indentured servants limited the practice.  However, a combination of dropping prices for African slaves, fewer people willing to become indentured servants, and the increasing demand for buckskins and ravages of disease literally and figuratively killing off the native slave trade, changed everything.  By 1770, some 250,000 African slaves had been imported and the population had risen to 460,000, the equivalent of nearly 25% of the people in the Thirteen Colonies, though they were not equally distributed.  In New England 3% of the population was African slaves, in the Mid-Atlantic 6%, and in the South over 30%. 

In the more northern colonies, the majority of slaves worked as house servants, artisans, laborers, and craftsmen, with the largest concentration being in New York City.  Comparatively, those in the southern colonies worked in agriculture.  Plantations growing tobacco, indigo, and rice were largely dependent on slaves.  These were labor intensive crops and plantations using slave labor were significantly more profitable than those who did not.  Charleston in South Carolina became the center of slave importation, with its auctions deciding prices across the Thirteen colonies.  While wealthy owners of large plantations often had 50 or more slaves, the majority belonged to a burgeoning population of middle-class farmers who most often had 10 or fewer.  The purchase of slaves, combined with the availability of cheap land, allowed people to accumulate wealth at a much faster pace then would otherwise be possible, the dream being to first establish a farm, then buy some slaves to work alongside the owner to expand it, to eventually reaching the point where the owner wouldn’t have to work at all.

The great success of the Thirteen Colonies over time was the growth of a middle class.  In the northern colonies, this was achieved through trade and industrialization.  In the southern colonies, this was achieved through the availability of slaves, meaning that a significant portion of the population was dependent upon the practice.  As a result, there was significant social pressure to turn a blind eye towards the terrible abuses and consequences of slavery, first by viewing them as being less than human and eventually no different than livestock, though livestock it was apparently perfectly okay to fuck if one had the inclination.  The theft of humanity from the slaves greatly increased the likelihood of whippings, beatings, and rapes, and encouraged practices such as brandings, forced selective breeding, and the breaking apart of families.  This in turn further reinforced the need to ignore the humanity of the slaves, given how could someone view themselves as an ethical and good person if they were willing and able to do such things to other people.  It was a shit cycle of self-reinforcing cognitive dissonance.      

The level of this cognitive dissonance varied from place to place.  For example, though slavery was common in the French colony of Louisiana, slaves had the right to marry, could not be tortured, families could not be broken up, and had to be instructed in the Catholic faith.  It was also easier for slaves to become free, especially if their fathers were of European ancestry, and once free it was relatively easy for them to get an education.  Though not encouraged, interracial marriage was not uncommon.  Though the offspring, known as Creoles, were treated as second class citizens, they sat higher than slaves in the social hierarchy.  Similar conditions existed across New Spain.  While certainly not great, it was a definitive step above the treatment experienced by slaves in the Thirteen Colonies and the Caribbean.