Deep South “Piracy”

 

Most shockingly, but unsurprisingly, paired with the new practice of capitalist “piracy” or crime was the continuation of West Indian slavery, plantation production, and its accompanying Herrenvolk, or master race ideology. Southern agricultural capitalists and their “god of the slavemaster” disdained even the thinnest veil of morality in favor of personal profit. Edward Kimber’s accounts appeared in the pages of the London Magazine in the 1740s. He toured through and commented upon the rough American colonies and their crude methods. He pictured slavery in the form of an African "under the Torture of the Whip, inflicted by the Hands, the remorseless Hands of an American Planter.”^[1] The report of Brown University’s Steering Committee on “Slavery and Justice” found that “Of the ten million or so people who crossed the Atlantic before 1800, about eight and a half million – roughly six of every seven people – were enslaved Africans.”^[2] The transfer of African peoples and culture grew immense. Sugar, slaves, piracy, and American capitalism evolved in an even deeper sea of bloody, fundamentalist religious, slavery-supporting rhetoric designed to salve the soul - to justify the self-inflicted horrors that kept them up at night. They created the white-supremacist “god of the slavemaster.”

Only the most foolhardy, arrogant, and durable souls would brave disease, the sea, weather, and heat in such a rough and deadly business. Also, it was immensely more profitable than any venture yet tried. It proved the pecuniary value of ignoring morality which encouraged even further separation from England and English tradition – including the god they claimed to worship. This also encouraged a virtual separation from traditional Christian virtues, especially the hated Catholicism of old Europe.

Human nature devolved into something less than compassionate, natural and friendly. Instead, through demeaning rhetoric, it became seen as inherently greedy and self-serving. This delusion supported merchants’ needs for capitalization of these slaves and their work. Primarily Southerners believed “Inherently lazy, listless” people, especially slaves, deserved to be frightened into productivity.^[3] Social underlings must “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” to succeed or die trying. Indeed, wealthy American merchants became cynical of their own species by way of tautological and religious justification for their own convoluted immoral methods – the vengeful Old-Testament “god of the slavemaster” reigned supreme in the South. One might think that all of American society – both young and old – continuously warred with one another – fighting for profit! And, it would take many lives over the next century and a half!

The lines separating America from Britain grew into a wall with thorny vines growing densely upon it and filling the remaining holes – surrounded by Donald Trump’s alligator-filled moat and topped with spikes! Americans would fight to maintain their unique culture on their side of that wall – imperialistic and warlike – ideological royal domain of the Western Hemisphere established by the “Monroe Doctrine,” similar to the earlier Carolina charter of 1665. The isolationism, a war of radical liberal versus “godly” conservative ideology, Whig vesrsus Tory, progressive versus fixed, began at this point. And, as if warned by South Carolina’s John Routledge in 1789, the ideologically similar “War Between the States,” existed since the founding of Carolina and would never quite be decisive – a continuous war between Americans. The days of old Stuart or West Indian values, indeed the values that built early colonial America and continued in the Southern United States, fortified in the Confederate States of America of the 1860s, would remain until the present, converging with Republican Party conservative interests in 1968. America could neither quite be brought to heel by her mother, nor by themselves, always at each other’s throats like unruly spawn fighting over religion, slaves, and states’ rights. Roughly half of Americans found the old ways too severe. More northern colonies had the weakest connection to the brutal and feudal West Indies plantationists; thus, the old Stuart ideology was best exemplified and reified in the Deep South. Society there descended directly from the Stuart-born West Indian ideology of Barbados, “an oligarchy of acquisitive, ostentatious plantation owners” who modeled Carolina after Barbadian society.^[4] It proved a stubborn and persistent presence.

Inferring a West Indies connection to Carolina and Deep South culture, historian Richard Dunn said, “I believe that a social analysis of Barbados and Jamaica, circa 1670, does tell us something about the Goose Creek men and the thrust they imparted to South Carolina.”^[5] Furthermore, Lindley S. Butler ominously surmises that “The turbulent Carolina proprietary era covers the fascinating first century of North Carolina’s history, its formative years, and sets the course for the colony and state over the next three centuries.”^[6] Carolina, as the mother of the South, spread this same ideology throughout southern America. Slavery and piracy wove themselves indelibly into the fabric of our nation like a chronic violent disease.

The days of proprietary or private corruption lingered, continuing Stuart days of imperialism. Plantationist Confederate land barons embraced this same martial ideology in the Civil War and fired upon Fort Sumter to announce their decision to fight their “brothers” and “sisters” for it. They enjoyed smaller local control over larger federal control in a loose confederation of the early British colonies – at one time seen as separate “countries.” The South eschewed isolationism from the start – even before the Revolution. The Civil War saw resurgence of these martial independent ideals in the Confederacy, finally ending in their “Lost Cause” from which they claimed they would “rise again” against the hated Yankees of the North. Essentially, they attempted in that war to derail progressive radicalism in the form of abolitionism, establish a god-centered government, and protect their lucrative business of slavery. Compare these ideals to those of Jacobites of 1715 and the Republican Party since Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to bring in more Republican voters in 1968! Like their Jacobite ancestors who fought against a foreign “Dutch Dog” of a liberal king, the Confederacy literally betrayed the United States, commited true treason – as allowed by the U.S. Constitution – colluded with foreign governments, and killed 600,000 Americans. These people were sacrificed to preserve that immoral, yet highly profitable way of life – some say the figure was as high as 800,000! Make no mistake, despite the rhetoric of a god-centered Confederacy, the South attempted to maintain their immoral rights to enslave other human beings simply for profit! Moreover, wealthy Southern plantationists prosecuting the war were willing to kill more than half a million people to keep that right. They used their “god” to justify it all! This bit of capitalism was certainly not in its finest moment – if indeed it ever had one.

After losing the American Civil War of the mid-nineteenth century, unrepentant ex-Confederates politically opposed Reconstruction or reform efforts, vowing to “rise again.” Of course, not all Southerners can be blamed for this crime – the 97% merely followed the lead of their “betters,” the 3% wealthy elite – they deserved most of the blame. Their vengeance centered primarily upon profit loss on their plantations and the loss of slaves – indeed, considered their property! After incurring this perceived injustice against their property rights and losing their economic dominance, neo-Confederates following the war resisted any change – often out of spite. This “Lost Cause” desire affected civil rights of ex-slaves and installed racial segregation with Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. More directly and ominously, it initiated the resurgence of conservative rule in North Carolina of 1898, resulting in the only coup d’etat in United States’ history, led by a former U.S. Congressman! Wilmington’s Alfred Moore Waddell and his allies fought to prevent the horrifying enforcement of “Negro Rule,” as they saw it, heavily enforced upon a stubborn South, with their greatly wounded feudal pride. Plantationists sought a redress of grievances to cure its wounded elite socially conservative ideology – against another perceived invasion at the hands of federals and liberal abolitionists – England come again! The Herrenvolk or master-slave mentality had been too well established, first in the West Indies, and later in the plantation South for them to ever seriously entertain a moral alternative. Again, the wealthy plantationists perpetrated this crime – not the general populace.^[7]

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[1] Edward Kimber, Itinerant Observations in America, ed. Kevin J. Hayes (Newark, Del., 1998), 49.

[2] Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, Slavery and Justice, 7.

[3] Ralph E. Luker, The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform, 1885-1912 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 120.

[4] Woodard, American Nations, 82.

[5] Richard Dunn, “The English Sugar Islands and the Founding of South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 101, No. 2 (April 2000), 143.

[6]Lindley S. Butler, “Proprietary North Carolina: Politics, Shipping, and Pirates,” Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project: Research Report and Bulletin Series, QAR-R-07-03, August 2007 (Underwater Archaeology Branch, Office of State Archaeology, Department of Cultural Resources, State of North Carolina), 5.

[7] For more on this period of American history, see LeRae Umfleet, A Day of Blood: the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot (Raleigh: North Carolina Office of Archives and History, 2009).

Pirates Don Better Clothes…

 

What did the reputation for piracy and violence do to the new United States? Even before the Revolution, Samuel Johnson considered Americans “a race of convicts.”^[1] Indeed, many Americans – both white and black – came to American shores as criminals in chains. As surely as Alexander Hamilton, smuggler John Hancock, and the terrorist Samuel Adams, the pirate “criminal” Edward “Blackbeard” Thache might have been one of our earliest founding fathers, six decades before Washington, Madison, Jefferson, or Franklin. We may have seen Thache as stirring “up all Heroick and Active Spirits… to benefit their Prince and Country… and immortalize their Names by the like noble Attempts,” as one British author wrote in 1716 about the pirate Sir Francis Drake, the quoted author’s “English Hero,” a “Great Man” in American history!^[2] Thache, however, lost his revolution and certain British factions murdered him as certainly as King George III would have done the same to our founders – found guilty of treason and hung or shot Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Franklin – if they had also lost their later revolution.

As for Donald Trump’s alleged betrayal of the United States with Russia, George Washington clearly saw “foreign influence” in our affairs as disgraceful. For an American Administration to collude with foreigners is a betrayal of the nation. Let’s be clear, though – America diverged from Britain. This betrayal is still not considered “treason” as President Trump himself often accused of his many detractors, including the famed “whistleblower” exposing Trump’s extortion of Ukraine’s president – oh, no – it’s not treason. Again, according to the U.S. Constitution, no war had been declared by America – the “Commonwealth of Pyrates!” So, neither Trump nor his opponents can be accused of actual “treason” in the course of their betrayal of the United States of America! Trump et al basically pirate or rob our “democracy” to fill their coffers of treasure and stay in power – ostensibly indefinitely! These political brigands cared not with whom they colluded to obtain their goals – even America’s longest-term enemy, Russia!

After that second successful Revolution, America restored the older Stuart-like conservative atmosphere that it had cherished for centuries. This time, however, the United States became a sovereign nation and had no mother country chastising their actions. Owing to a distrust of outsiders – even other states – they first intended to form a “confederation” or loose separate governments held by a pact to support one another. This proved difficult during the Revolution – prosecuting tactics become problematic when thirteen separate governments don’t all agree – and it was decided against in the later Constitutional Convention in favor of Federalism. A more centralized government proved necessary. Owing to great divisions between the Puritan descendants of northern states and West-Indian-like southern states, the Confederate States of America, however, attempted to split – secede from the union – and reform a confederation in 1860.

“Piracy,” as a term, had been tainted by the Golden Age, but a new, slightly variant economic ideology had come more to the front with sugar and rice production for United States’ elites to rhetoricize – capitalism. The old zero-sum methods of the early Stuart period had given way to production of wealth by abusing slave labor rather than theft – not for noble reasons, by any means – still for greed and still immoral. The Deep South grew quite wealthy under this plantation capitalist economy – before losing the Civil War and industrialization later gave the North the capital edge. Still, little had changed – the same wealthy gentlemen ruled America. This slightly modified second “Stuart Restoration” became the narrative under which we all live today – as well as our stringently stubborn and Southern anti-government far-right politics. Pirates/capitalists/larcenists refined their methods and donned better clothes!

It is often mere convenience today to assume that a progressive, or truly unified capitalistic America “belongs” here, that it developed into a great nation through natural progress based on righteous principles of laissez faire capitalism. This is the notion taught to me in high school. It may be flattering and comforting, but it truly stretches the truth. The so-called “United States” has always tended toward battling within itself – moderated upon the old quarrel between North and South. Most of our “greatness” came by way of corruption and crimes against humanity masquerading as refined and cultured laissez faire capitalism. Barbadian descendants of Charles Town, South Carolina have usually been the primary culprits throughout this history, but there were northern notables as well.

The South has been more brutal and feudal in their methods, not despite of, but because of, their strong reverence for a supreme being. This was not the beneficent Jesus of the Bible’s New Testament – more like the vengeful jealous God of the Old Testament! Many have termed him the “god of the slave-master.” Furthermore, the South has usually been a reluctant participant in the “American Experiment” of democracy.

It may come as a surprise to find that West Indian families of the South held American democracy hostage in both 1776 and 1789, for the sake of their “peculiar institution” of slavery. Furthermore, these direct descendants of West Indians fought to preserve slavery throughout the antebellum period and they also instigated the violence in the Civil War. They still proudly discourse their firing on Fort Sumter, a federal installation – truly an act of treason or war – depending on whether or not you accept the sovereignty of the Confederate States – against the United States. Most like their Caribbean ancestors, they more quickly relied upon violence to solve their problems – force their own will over democracy or the will of the people. Understand that I’m trying not to be unnecessarily harsh on my own Southern culture – it’s simply the truth!

Thomas Jefferson saw the irony in a new nation based on freedom, yet still with an enslaved population. He included an anti-slavery clause in a draft of the Declaration of Independence, agreed to be a unanimous contract between all colonies. Remember, it was almost impossible to get these widely different colonies to agree – unanimously. North and South Carolina delegates demanded that this clause be removed before they would sign that “unanimous” document, however. They threatened to remain loyal to Britain, nearly denying a start to our unique American democracy. Jefferson removed the anti-slavery clause and the Carolinas relented. Not long afterward, during the Constitutional Convention, they made the same demand. Upon the constitutional debate following the American Revolution, John Routledge of South Carolina – in a rare moment of secular truth for the godly South – argued that “Religion and morality have nothing to do with this… interest alone is the governing principle with Nations.”^[3] Note that he spoke of capital interests and not those of the majority of the people who had rarely possessed extra change in their pockets. There was absolutely nothing democratic about slavery. For the Old South, all roads led to profit. Routledge, with an eye toward protecting his interests – specifically slavery – represented the Deep South as Colin Woodard described in American Nations. Lack of morality most certainly influenced Routledge’s argument. He used the South’s greater plantation wealth, derived from slave labor, as leverage at the Constitutional Convention – a leverage used to force legitimization of slave labor for most of the history of this undemocratic democracy of the United States. “The true question,” he said, “is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to the Union,” a financially depleted Union that badly needed the South’s dominant economic power.^[4] This was more than seventy years before the South decided finally to secede from a democracy for which they cared so little from the start.

The work of Colin Woodard helps us to see the disjoint nature of America more clearly and especially the sacrifice of democracy, merely an insincere political promise during the Revolution, in favor of privatization and capitalism. Woodard asserts that the U.S. Constitution itself was a betrayal of revolutionary principles:

 

[This document was] intentionally designed to suppress democracy and to keep power in the hands of regional elites and an emerging class of bankers, financial speculators, and land barons who had little or no allegiance to the continent’s ethnocultural nations. Indeed, the much celebrated Founding Fathers had made no secret of this having been one of their goals. They praised the unelected Senate [like England’s House of Lords] because it would “check the impudence of democracy” (Alexander Hamilton), and stop the “turbulence and follies of democracy” (Edmund Randolph), and applauded the enormous federal districts because they would “divide the community,” providing “defense against the inconveniences of democracy” (James Madison).[5]

 

Woodard tells how Vermont formed apart from New York to escape the union, forming their own progressive state “governed by a liberal constitution that banned slavery and property requirements for voting.”[6] Vermont was a precursor of the later United States. Still, West-Indian immigrant from Nevis, Alexander Hamilton appealed to the wealthy and pressured Vermont’s most elite land barons to give up this democratic effort. Moreover, Appalachian Borderlanders in Pennsylvania stormed out of the state’s assembly when they learned that a constitutional vote was to be forced upon them. Woodard tells “These delegates were later dragged out of their beds by a posse of ‘volunteer gentlemen,’ taken to the assembly hall, and literally dumped into their seats to create the necessary quorum.”[7] He also asserts that “Borderlanders weren’t against taxation or creditworthy behavior [as the resulting federalist rhetoric accused them], but were resisting a scheme so corrupt, avaricious, and shameless it ranks with those of Wall Street in the first decade of the twenty-first century.”[8]

Certain Founding Fathers of corrupt intent are best known today by their lines not-quite-sincerely praising “democracy,” feared as “mob rule.” Golden Age pirates today, also, are best known by terms that the independent Borderlanders may have used to describe these particular Founding Fathers – terms like “villain,” “bloodthirsty,” “rogue,” even “demons from hell.” Indeed, some early Founding Fathers were outsiders - immigrants themselves and often had no prior familiarity with the North American mainland. As Woodard says, “English-born [Robert] Morris and West Indies-born [Alexander] Hamilton both saw North America as the British had: as a cow to be milked for all it was worth.”[9]

One must understand that ideology did not stop at the water’s edge. A latecomer to sovereign nations, America is an orphaned child of eighteenth-century Britain, sharing its history, a semblance of social structure, and a large portion of its older Stuart ideology. Grown frighteningly powerful and imperialistic, its independent political structure and that of its mother ironically remain almost identical – differing only slightly in name and procedure. The two political systems still largely mirror one another. Structurally-speaking, England’s executive is a prime minister; America’s, a president. England’s bicameral legislature consists of a House of Lords and a House of Commons called “Parliament;” America’s is a similar body called “Congress.” We use the same language and the cultural family resemblance is uncanny – if more harsh than it’s liberalizing mother. Particularly in post-Revolution southern America, a new “England" had been restored on the Stuart model – a “piratish” model more in tune with the unique American brand of “freedom.” In this conservative atmosphere, it was almost as if America had forgotten the old British “Poor Laws” of the seventeeth century which had recognized that government had a responsibity to care for the poor and disabled. It was as if American thinkers had to re-invent social justice all over again. Today’s Social Security Administration’s website elucidates this history in the passage “Old Age in Colonial America,” although the time period actually centered upon the first few decades of the United States:

 

One of the first [American] people to propose a scheme for retirement security that is recognizable as a forerunner of modern social insurance was Revolutionary War figure Thomas Paine. His last great pamphlet, published in the winter of 1795, was a controversial [but, why controversial in light of England’s Poor Laws of almost two centuries earlier?] call for the establishment of a public system of economic security for the new nation. Entitled, Agrarian Justice, it called for the creation of a system whereby those inheriting property would pay a 10% inheritance tax to create a special fund out of which a one-time stipend of 15 pounds sterling would be paid to each citizen upon attaining age 21, to give them a start in life, and annual benefits of 10 pounds sterling to be paid to every person age 50 and older, to guard against poverty in old-age.[10]

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[1] James Boswell, The Life of Johnson, ed. Christopher Hibbert (London, 1979), I76.

[2] R. B., The English Hero: or, Sir Francis Drake reviv'd. Being a full account of the dangerous voyages, admirable adventures, notable discoveries and magnanimous atchievements of that valiant and renowned commander. I. His Voyage in 1572, to Nombre de Dios in the West Indies, where they saw a Pile of Bars of Silver near 70 Foot long, ten Foot broad, and twelve Foot high. II. His incompassing the whole World in 1577, which he perform'd in two Years and ten Months, gaining a vast quantity of Gold and Silver. III. His Voyage into America in 1585, and taking the Towns of St. Jago, St. Domingo, Carthagena and St. Augustine. Also his Worthy Actions when Vice-Admiral of England in the Spanish Invasion, 1588. IV. His last Voyage in those Countries in 1595, with the manner of his Death and Burial. Recommended to the Imitation of all Heroick Spirits. Inlarged, reduced into chapters with contents, and beautified with pictures, (London, 1716), A2. 

[3] John Routledge quoted from Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), Dover ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 2004), 213.

[4]Ibid.

[5] Woodard, American Nations, 157.

[6]Ibid.

[7]Ibid., 158.

[8]Ibid.

[9]Ibid., 159.

[10] “Old Age in Colonial America,” Social Security Administration, https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html.