Your tent on the mall that is booth 141. Books are available for purchase at this location. Chase mr. Kinde will be 20 minutes late to the signing area due to a live interview with cspan following the program we hope you are enjoying the festival and we invite you to become a t friend of the festival bythe fet texting friend 2520214 book,an and thats on a sign at the front of the room, or you can visit the friend of the festival booth, number 110 on the mall. Your gift makes a difference in keeping the festival programming free of charge and supporting critical literacy programs inn the community. Ct out of respect for the authors in your audience members please turn off your cell phones. Let me introduce the authors to you. The first one in sebring kinde, an assistant professor, called his book called stamped from the beginning, the history of racist ideas in america. The book this book won the National Book award, it was a finalist for tha National Book critics circle award and nominated for an naacp image award. Andre is another presenter at the panel. His book is the other slavery. It was a finalist for the National Book award. Hes a professor at the university of california davis and he specializes in colonial history and the history of theof border. Jonathan bryant is a full professor at Georgia Southern sr university, his specialty is United States constitutional and legal history and also slavery. His book is, dark places of the earth. Al histo it was a finalist for the los angeles book price in history and has one several other academic words. An lets begin. On and t it is truly an honor for me to be here, thank you to the people of tucson, and the tucson festival, thank you to my co panelist and thank you for you for coming to listen to this panel of slavery in america. Ill be talking about my book stamped from the beginning. I dont often have the opportunity to talk about the book specifically as it relates to its chapters and sections of slavery. Im excited to be on this panel. The book is a narrative history of racist ideas. It chronicles the history of racist ideas from their origins in 15th century western europe to the present. People are more interested in the present than the history, especially history of slavery. Racist ideas developed as an effort to justify the enslavement of African People. Surly in my research as i was chronicling the history i realized our conception of the origins of racist ideas our conceptions that their ignorant and hate so there is ignorant and hateful people who produced racist ideas. The people who had the racist ideas instituted racist policies like in slavery. That was actually not true when we looked at the actual producers of racist ideas. Specifically it becomes easy to understand when we think about it in context to slavery. In people who begin the enslavement of African People began thatpeob enslavement for economic gain. Sometimes political but principally because they wanted to make money. Everybody understands that. Then they wanted to continue to enslave African People, they wanted to continue to make money. How did they do that . What did they need to continueue this enslavement of African People . They needed to produce racist ideas that justified slavery the state black people were fit for slavery there are better suited for slavery them freedom. That they were so inferior tosl white people that they would be better at slaves them free. In ra what i found in researching the history of racist ideas is that really it was racist policiesfy and the need to justify them that led to the production of racist ideas. Then we americans began consuming ideas that black people are fit for slavery, descendents of hamm who was cursed by god or for permanent enslavement of the black skin or black bodies are good for labor and black people are physically superior beings so they are fit for picking cotton and not for reading books. These ideas were used to normalize slavery so people would not resist slavery so then would think it was natural and normal. St therefore those who benefited would continue to benefit fromt. It. This book is broken into five sections. Each section has a major character. Each of these characters serve as windows to the larger racial debate in america. When youre talking about the i history of racist ideas youre really talking about the history of a debate between racist and anti racist ideas. Youre talking about powerful people who were involved, these ideas did not come out of nowhere. They came out of peoples minds, although some of us would call those mines like desert if they could create those ideas. The third major character in this text is that William Lloyd garrison. And for those not familiar with the history of the abolitionist movement, he went on to become one of the most famous if not the most famous abolitionist in history. He was the fnding editor of the liberator. He was involved in the founding of antislavery societies thatofm challenged slavery in the 1800sn the section begins with a speech he gave Independence Day in 1829. He gave the speech for the american colonization society. W in the 1820s the most prominent powerful racial Reform Organization became the american colonization society. A society geared toward sending free black people back to africa. Thereby encouraging this gradual abolition of slavery and then getting newly free people and sending them back. It was interesting for black folk at the time who knew they had been here against their will. Now the nation was talking about sending them back to africa on ships. This Prominent Organization invited garrison to speak at their annual fundraising event in boston in 1829. In this speech, garrison who is a young editor and he says in his speech that im sick of our hypocritical camps about the rights of man. We should be demanding a gradual abolition of slavery, not promoting colonization. Ten days later garrison went to a black church in boston and went to a celebration of englands abolition of the slave trade, so people in boston wouls annually celebrate the slave trade. At this event unlike clergymen address the clout crowd. During the lecture he advocated that emancipation was not wiser prudent. That black people needed a long time qualifying them forem for freedom. Basically black people were not ready for freedom. So when the speaker said this garrison heard a member go through the crowd. You know how the crowd gets angry without saying so. S, and it cost him to think back about what he said in his speech ten days earlier when he advocated this gradual abolition of slavery. He thought about that as he he described it as a wild vision in his speech. Or was it wilder to stand on middle ground between simple slavery and righteous freedom. So i said i have nothing left to stand on. By august 1829, garrison had moved to baltimore and became the coeditor of. He wrote no valid excuse can be given for the continuance of the evil of slavery a single hour. He would then become thehe principal advocate of what became known as immediate emancipation i say this very briefly because over the next 30 years they became a threeway debate about slavery and rayson america. With three position. Carson took the position of immediate emancipation. Others took the position of gradual emancipation and the third took the position of permanent slavery. These three positions were indicative of a larger racial debate over the course of american history. On notions of equality. The larger debate im referring to that i chronicle throughout the history, debate that continues with the end ofcontine slavery had three positions, one was permanent inequality. This position stated there all these racial inequalities in our society there caused by black and for your dm black and for your is permanent. Theres no way we can have anything other than racial inequities in our society. The co a second position has been gradual equality. This stated that black people are inferior right now. Even if we were to create equal opportunity we would not have racial equality because black people are inferior. We have the capacity to civilizp black people so monday will be able to create equality. The third position has been what i call immediate equality. It is this position that suggest the racial groups are equal. And that even if we were to provide equal opportunities forn black people we would be able to create racial equality because theres nothing wrong or. About black people. Ac that is really what garrison spent the next 40 years promoting. We need to end slavery now because black people are ready for freedom. Pe thank you. Ople are [applause] thank you thank you all for coming it is a pleasure to share some of my work. Thank you for carving out time, part of your precious saturday to discuss and think aboutut bos books. I will start out with the interesting discussion of race and slavery and extend that to the case of native americans. I began this work like an accident and i wanted to write a very concise and targeted history of the enslavement of native americans in the 16th century. I wanted to provide some broader context of the story. I began collecting information about indian enslavement in subsequent centuries under spain, mexico and the United States. I gradually came to see a very longrunning threat and i became persuaded the best thing i could do was try to put it all together, pete the pieces that scholars have been working on as different regions and try to give a sense of the forest to get a better understanding ofang these. So i started with specific withy questions. One question was try to come up with an estimate of the numbers of indian slaves. Numbers have a way to impress her mind powerfully. Whenever we talk about the 12. 5 million africans forcibly transported across the atlantic, that makes a strong impression on our mind. Re whenever were talking about slavery weather in virginia, or brazil of the caribbean were talking about a system that span continents around to the entire ocean. The same thing for nativenative americans and i gradually put together some estimates. And i think that begins to speak about the scope of the phenomenon. The estimates i provided a very tentative but necessary is 2. 5 s enslaved from the time of columbus in 1900 when the institution disappeared. There are additional interesting similarities and contrast. For example, like african slavery which targeted mostly adult males in the case of native americans the majority m were women and children, that puts a different spin on that story. Another interesting this difference and perhaps the mosti fundamental in terms of the story i tell, is the fact indian slavery was early on permitted because there is another racialized group suitable for enslavement, but early on they decided that native americans were not translatable. As early as 1542 they prohibited enslavement of indians. So owners who had benefited from the labor for half a century by the resorted to euphemisms to get around but retain mastery over their slaves. Nd when i talk about the other slavery not only is mader native americans but fundamentally because it operates different ways. I sometimes it requires detective work to figure out what the real Labor Conditions are for thingse that arent but mainly based on debts are based on the legal system or some other circumstances. That is what i started out doing. Now i start out by emphasizing slavery was not a european invention. Native americans had enslaved each other before the arrival of europeans. With the arrival of europeans these practices expanded in unexpected ways he came to resemble the kinds of Human Trafficking that areo recognizable to us today. Ng stoy the story i tell is a moving story. It begins in the caribbean. Where i try to show that it asf much a biological aspect of native americans of the native population of the caribbean. In fact as myself and other scholars have argued theres aob synergistic relationship between epidemics and enslavement. It actually spreads diseasewh which the population and the dwindling population has more slavery rate. Its a vicious circle. That is what happened in thes caribbean and where he began. Probably the first and worst native enslavement in the world. It moved onto the mainland. I focus on the silver mines of northern mexico. Silver mines are incredible enterprises that require following down the deepest manmade shafts in the world were made as a result of these exploitation of the silver mine. Its incredibly laborintensive process that requires him to bring up the oil from the shaft, mix it with toxic agents like mercury and all of it happened at the time when the spanish empire had to rely primarily on its own labor resources that is the indigenous population existed round the mines. That population was wiped out or disappeared or moved away is anr rational people would do. So very quickly they moved into what is now the american southwest. The richard was very well the place of these rating campaigns from the silver mines into this area. The book loose from the caribbean into mexico and gradually makes its way into the american southwest where we have plenty of evidence of enslaving going on through the end of the spanish empire and into the mexican time. The the institution became sontrence entrenched that it was very difficult to stamp it out. Spain tried to prohibit it, the Mexican Government did the sames it extended Citizenship Rights to all native americans living within the territory. And it continued into theeand th american. Then widespread movement of americans from the east to the west rekindled the slaving practices. So the American West became the site where the practice lasted through the 19th century. I briefly going to how the civil war and the introduction of the 13th amendment may have alleviated some problems because it prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude opening the door for liberation, in fact the Supreme Court interpreted these amendments and very mere narrow ways that applied mostly to africans and excluded native americans who are not granted citizenship until the 20ththth century. American the story goes into the end ofed the 19th century for other economic reasons may be the institution to client. But by then were talking about a vast system of enslavement that affected as many as 5 Million People and we have pretty much forgotten all about it. Thank you. [applause] i usually teach in a darkened theater and cannot see the faces in front of me. This is a very wonderful thing to be able to see you. As a writer, and you have heard the term from the other speakers, i am convinced most powerful tool of the story is narrative. Narrative or storytelling lies at the heart of what historians do. Historical analysis naturally falls from a well told story. When i first encountered the story i envisioned a quick article. E. Then the story grew. Sailing ships, cannons, pirates, youd think i was ten years oldh hundreds of an sleeved captives, rescue, three trips to the United States Supreme Court resulting in John Marshallsre most important statements of slavery. Then i came across thousands of pages of documents from district as circuit courts that were in the National Archives in atlanta. No one had really utilized theso before. As on th suddenly, i was on the back of the tiger. En how could any storyteller resist. Most european nations in the United States had out loud the african slave trade. Spain and portugal i continued the tray. The antelope was a spanish slave ship based in cuba. In the summer of 1819 the left another voyage to trade for slaves in africa. In march of 1820 the antelope was anchored that the coast of west central africa. She was captured by the privateer ceiling, this comes to bad ambit you have to read the book. To find that out. The antelope was then brought back to the americas, there were at least 331 captives onboard the vessel. Off the coast of brazil the captor was wracked in the antelope continued on in a dramatic voyage throughout the Atlantic World in many ways until finally in june 1820 antelope was captured by United States cut her off the coast of florida. Ultimately she was taken into savanna and by that time the 156 surviving im sorry the 256 surviving captives we started with 331 were unloaded from ther vessel. Ves on average they were 14 years of age, 42 were ten or younger. This is actually not unusual for the slave trade. Ly at that time despite the use and illness of many of the captives they were worth a fortune. Whenever there is a lot of money to be fought over there are lawyers. I was a lawyer, i had to leave that and do Something Else so, the legal battle begins over these captives. The spanish investor who had owned the antelope hires attorneys and files a claim. Others claiming to represent portuguese investors who had their captives taken from their ships filed the claim. The commander of the revenue cutter filed account name forcav salvage. Even the captain who are taking over the antelope, and its a an appropriate name for someone whos a pirate, john smith also files a claim for the value of these captives. Then to everyones dismay, as they come before the districtis court in savannah today via the United States attorney for savannah, a man named havishamsr enters the case and says under american law these captives are not slaves, they are free and they should be returned to africa. Ica. What follows is an eight year legal battle. The captives, during the legalin battle find themselves laboring as slaves, even though no court has adjudicated them to be slaves. The battle looks lost at someava point, ultimately they managed to get in order to free eight of the captives. It is a remarkable story but again you have to buy the book to learn about. Ultimately Francis Scott key, you have probably heard of him who is one of the managers after seeing these captives of prime e candidates for the new americane colony being built manages to make sure the cases brought before the Supreme Court. In 1825 william, the attorney general of the United States ana Francis Scott key enter the court to argue for the freedom of the captives. Francis scott key is a remarkable argument and the presentations made me think of some elements i was not otherwise going to mention. He argues that by the law of nature all men are free and then he goes further and uses an analogy and he says if we had a shipwreck on american shores and it was loaded with white people, we would not assume them to be slaves. N so how then he asked can we assume these men from africa and women who have been cast upon our shores as if from a shipwreck are slaves . Astonishing, there are six justices listening to the case and for slaveowners, Francis Scott key as a slave owner, a very convoluted story, ultimately it ends with John Marshall having to weigh the natural rights of liberty versus the rights of property. You can perhaps figure how that came out. Came ou ultimately through a sleightofhand by John Marshall, substantial portion are returned to liberia, 1700 miles away from their homeland and was probably the congo. And another 40 or so and up in the hands of the United States congressman on his plantation. Thus making him wealthy enough to reach retire to florence and write bad epic poetry. I could go on but i think its better for us to have a chancece for question. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much for your introductions. We are not going to open for questions. Youll notice there are two microphones, one any child. If you have questions please come to the microphones we canm hear you. Can you hear me . My question, i read books by think the historian then he discuss slavery extensively in humana, that is haunted me. D toe let us see if you can maybe speak to this. He said in doing the demographics of the slaveowners of the primary slave that the majority were clergy and i just read that and i cannot get out of my head and i wanted to know if you can speak to it or heard anything to confirm or deny. Thank you. Thank you for that question, did not know that. If it is the case then to some extent it makes sense because for instance in the south probably the most popular racist idea up until the civil war substantiating the enslavement of people were theological idead suggesting the god had ordainedo the enslavement of African People. So a specific brand ofbrand christianity because they had a different type of christianity was more or less justifying. Also showed one of the earliest debates between racist ideas in america was the debate as to whether enslaved people could become christian. I read about how you had slaveowners who many time which were christian sometimes were ministers and sometimes just doing that for political reasons. Theyre making the case that the people were too barbaric fororct christianity. In reality if they become christian they will read passages about human equality and try to run away. But then you had another group which were mainly missionaries which are people like the first major character in the text who is a very famous boston theologian who is making thethes case that black people could become christian, that we need to separate the body and yes black bodies can be enslaved from the soul. And all souls are equal. He made the case that yes these dark ugly souls are black but they have the capacity to be white if they become christian. Thank you all for being here. It is a critical time in much much soul food. I had to wait 6 8 weeks free book of the public labor library. There were 22 people had a man the list. I think because its a little long. Im sorry. [laughter] that middle group that you yu described on the role in slavery, im not remembering the word, the gradual if we fast forward to today, i know were talking the topic is slavery. If we look at contemporary slave ideas in our society, what does that middleoftheroad group look like . P some of its clearly defined on the periphery poet practices, policies, behaviors and ideas to you see by way of your research and writing are evident right now in this time and place as we look at places like ferguson, minneapolis, cleveland. Very quickly, i would say i define her i name three kinds of racial ideas what i call segregationist ideas. Those are the advocates, a permanent enslavement. Those were the people advocating permanent inequality. Nd the antiracist who are advocating immediate emancipation or immediate equality. The middle group is a group i call assimilationist who are advocating gradual emancipation who, after that era was advocating gradually quality. Typically these people today are people who imagine that blacke e people have become inferior by nature, by their environments by their history of oppression, that we have the capacity to civilize and develop them. So they say yes black people are inferior behaviorally and theres a case that black people are more criminally minded, more hypersexual, they are achieving at a lower level but its because of their environment. Ro. So they emphasize trying to civilize black people but alsola have tried to challenge racial discrimination. These are the people i wouldd classify they would say theres something wrong with black people but they have never been proven and money have been disproven. Let me open the question up, how do you see your research in terms of how it relates to contemporary times . If you could just briefly asked band on the. Following what youre saying, a lot of the School Reform stuff we hear today is based on the t idea that schools are failing minorities, we hear that again and again. The suggestion therefore is if we only provide some particular improved environment, if we only do something to help these children who grew up in a black families are lack of black families or other such things. Its always astonishing to me because its extraordinarily evident as a historian that really what the problem is his racism. Thats bold and straightforward, but it really comes down to me that is the case. As for as this particular work, dark places of the earth, what i really hope it does is help people understand that justice is not something that happens by nature. Human beings have to choose justice. They have to make justice happen. There are individuals in my book who are struggling to do that there are individuals in my book who fail mightily. Some of them names you would recognize, john quincy adams, is among the most known, that is where i would take that question, is justice is something we have to make happen. It will not happen naturally. This is excellent because i can also speak about so my book is about the enslavement ofnslae indians. And i call it the other slavery. In some ways this is the type os slavery that house that has outlived and remain today. Today there 45. 8 Million People experiencing modernday forms of enslavement. Yet slavery has been prohibited all over the world. So the way in which these people are enslaved i threw the centrifuges i was talking about through the criminal system, so i guess the story im telling it the one that that we have seen unfolding until today. S and further to my work it is not enough to prohibit enslavement for that to happen. We see people who benefit from the are very resourceful and will move from one region to another or resort for you for this summer some other to a circumstances. If there is one lesson from my book about slavery, those that want to eliminate the extremelyd committed and dynamic in pursuing that. Is primari this is primarily for doctor kendi, i would like the others to address it. Can we have full equality without reparation . I knew it was kind of hot here. So i think im happy this question comes up as it relates to slavery because the question is directly tied to slavery. My short answer to your question is no. What of the reasons i would say no is because one of the greatest causes of persisting inequality in this country is the wealth gap. The last i checked why people have 15 times more wealth than black people. The wealth caps on exists between other racial groups as well. Then the question becomes why d have such a massive wealth gap. Theyll say that black people dont want to save money, they dont want to work, all the ideas suggesting there is something wrong or inferior about black people, none of which have proven to be true. There is evidence suggesting that the wealth gap is due tore hundreds of years of state sanctioned policies that more or less suppress the ability for black people to build wealth. Then the question becomes so then what do we as a nation do about this . How do we equalize the wealth gap . Were not willing to create equal opportunities currently for g different racial groups to acquire wealth in a similar vantage point. From a everybody should know if you try to buy, owned and build wealth from a house in a black neighborhood you have a different experience than if you try to do it in a white neighborhood. The note ask people, how would you equalize the situation without reparation . So thats really the question im asking people who are against reparations. S. If they can give me a reason that makes sense that will solve the problem i would be all ears as im sure many people who have acute preparations would be. Thank you. Very briefly the same question can apply to native americans. At if you do believe americans are enslaved then the question is what about reparations. It be extraordinarily difficult, especially for two reasons. One is that first of all its difficult to documented who they were. Unlike african slavery they had to cross an ocean and you had these port records listing everybody who was there and thats why we have such great sources to investigate the numbers. For native americans we have vague references, we have vocational investigations. But theres a lot we dont know. That would be problem number one. Problem number two is native american slavery was something everybody engaged in. Including native american groups themselves. Theyre both enslaved enslavers. How you do that for reparations would be extremely difficult. I will make two comments. The first, if one were to seek reparations to the court you have a very difficult task of being able to show that any plaintiffs currently have damages. That would be an extraordinary act and they would have historian after historian trying to do this. Secondly the only route to reparation would be through congressional action. Good luck with that right now. [laughter] i have a question, one of the many passages i found fascinating in your book was related to the pursuit of indian slaves who had been taken tohe spain for their freedom through the courts. Could you speak more to the role that if they ever reached out to people, how did the indian slaves are there seek these opportunities . Are there agents seeking them out or were there agents in their own faith and the extent to which is being practice. The i also wonder the case of african slaves in the United States if we have comparable stories. Seems like this is a unique case. Th i dont know a lot about these cases in terms of african slavery in the u. S. That struck me. Could you speak to the maybe the others would have comments. One of the things we may assume only talk about the spanish ground and indian slaves is that when the king of spain prohibited absolutely the taking of indian slaves, he meant that. He meant business. We may think the spanish crowd is a refresher and complicit, at least in the case of spain much less on the case of a new world, it really did so. After indian slavery became outlawed, then the spanish legal system headways to make who had inquiries to people who had native american slaves. If so they urge those slaves for their freedom. In order to do that the spanish legal system put officers at the disposal of these native americans to help move the cases. Ic. Archives, there are 400 pages long, 800 pages long, i know, i talk about indian slaves, nameless but when you get into this, you get into the nittygritty, juan and pedro and how they were living in the houses of the owners and what they were doing exactly, et cetera. All of that to say, it seems remarkable that the spanish legal system was so advanced. My final comment to that is that while it worked in spain in these legal system eventually stamped out slavery in the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century, in the case of the new world that wasnt in possibility has the entire economy rested on the shoulders of indian labor. Thats wellmeaning victim only led to these convoluted covert, subterfuge is that im talking about. Thank you. I would. Anyone is interesting into two legal cases that are incredibly rich and give voices to people that would otherwise seem voices. As far as the United States is concerned there are numerous freedom suits where you will usually find them is in a Federal District Court Archive or in some of the states lowerlevel Court Archive. Of course, everybody here without thinking of it is a freedom suit is probably aware of one of the most known is the dred scott case. Question here. Le i have a couple of comments possibly contributions. Comments are with respect to gradualism i would argue that one of the most eloquent arguments against gradualism was written by a man within my a lifetime as a visitor in the birmingham jail. If you want to read about gradualism and the fight against it read doctor king letters from the birmingham jail. The second. I would make regarding the question about why clerics and the role christianity played. The the question comes aroundproper Property Rights. One of the things that infuriated me is the emancipation proclamation waited around for a long time. The president couldnt figure out a way to compensate the owners of the property that were going to be freed. What he said endquotes in the beginning he said that he almost reached the conclusion in this drive towards freedom wasnt a segregationist but the white moderate who says i agree with the goal you seek but i cannot agree with the actions. [applause] hes already talked about the Property Rights dealing with w slavery but that is a significant issue in the United States one of the tragedies of the decision. T it gives precedence over the natural rights. John marshall created the conditions that would lead to the westward expansion and that would lead us to civil war. Is so this is an essential thing one must consider when looking at this history into this a difficult thing. Op if you define human beings as property, here you go. I know we are seeing a rising today with minorities and peop people. I would like to ask if you have any solutions. [applause] thank you first and foremost for coming and having the courage to ask that question. I would say very briefly we as a society need need those of us tt are committed and care about creating equal opportunities we should start thinking about how not to be racist and think about how to be an antiracist to understand is that the groups are equal. L what that means is the inequities in society must not be because some of the people that cause us to look for thetho policies and then we become focused on eliminating the policies and thereby creating more equitable policies. Im sure everybody in the room has been manipulated into thinking they are caused because of people we are not even going to see the policies and racism will continue. So the people at benefit will continue to do so. Thank you for asking the most difficult question of the nightn one of the things historians can do is provide a broad context. You talk about the racing racism etc. In a story im telling i ended it by saying to a 45. 8 Million People are subject to two reforms of slavery that is a big number but in the actual percentage terms. Have we have made some progress. It is a low bar but over the course of the years. I can only offer a prosperous and we are always imagining ourselves and other peoplesourl shoes as we construct a narrative sense talk about people we try to put ourselvest into the world bea world they ag and if we can get what they were talking about also. [applause] we have run out of time for questions. But i do want to attend you for continuing and your support of the festival. F dont forget to become a friend to support important programs in the community. Audience members are asked to vacate quickly so we can begin the next program on time
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