Eerie, haunting, beautiful: Scottish Psalm Singing

[Phil]

Well, no. The connection was that the slave owners spoke only or mostly Gaelic, at least in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia.

You might think so but it is more than likely that the Scots were slaves themselves. See this link from a thread I posted recently - http://www.dunbarmartyrs.com/

Scottish slave owners would have come from the moneyed classes, the likes of the Stirlings who still have large landed estates. Gaelic speakers would generally have been at the other end of the social scale. Robert Burns planned to go to the West Indies himself in search of his fortune at one point but that fell through when he put Highland Mary in the family way. Some think he might have had a bit of slave owning in mind - quite a thought for the man who wrote "The man's a man for a that".

[gilmore]

You might think so but it is more than likely that the Scots were slaves themselves. See this link from a thread I posted recently - http://www.dunbarmartyrs.com/

....

It's not that I think so, it's that I have read so in quite a few histories of the colonial American south.

While it may be more desireable and politically correct these days to think of Scots as slaves than as slave owners, this just wasn't usually the case here at all.

While some Scots were indeed transported here as convicts (and by far most who came here were not), they could eventually become liberated, buy land and own slaves themselves. Africans could not. However they came here, Gaelic-speaking Scots tended to be deeply religious and felt it their Christian duty to teach their ways to their Gaelic speaking African slaves, stripping them of their culture and their religion in order to civilize and convert them, saving them from the fires of Calvinist hell in the afterlife.

[beloitpiper]

It's not that I think so, it's that I have read so in quite a few histories of the colonial American south.

While it may be more desireable and politically correct these days to think of Scots as slaves than as slave owners, this just wasn't usually the case here at all.

While some Scots were indeed transported here as convicts (and by far most who came here were not), they could eventually become liberated, buy land and own slaves themselves. Africans could not. However they came here, Gaelic-speaking Scots tended to be deeply religious and felt it their Christian duty to teach their ways to their Gaelic speaking African slaves, stripping them of their culture and their religion in order to civilize and convert them, saving them from the fires of Calvinist hell in the afterlife.

Of course there were Scottish plantation owners, but the Scottish plantation owners would've spoken English. Only the poor (i.e. slaves or sharecroppers) would've spoken Gaelic as their primary language.

[gilmore]

Of course there were Scottish plantation owners, but the Scottish plantation owners would've spoken English. Only the poor (i.e. slaves or sharecroppers) would've spoken Gaelic as their primary language.

This just wasn't true. Read a bit of history, such as that of Cumberland County, North Carolina, and the rest of the Cape Fear River valley.

Whether they spoke Gaelic or not, it was far more likely to have been slave owners who taught their slaves to sing by lining out the hymns than fellow slaves. It was slave owners, not fellow slaves, who determined the religion of the enslaved and how it was practiced.

[BoldHighlander]

While some Scots were indeed transported here as convicts (and by far most who came here were not), they could eventually become liberated, buy land and own slaves themselves. Africans could not.

Well, that isn't entirely correct. In 1650, there were only about 300 "Africans" living in Virginia, about 1% of an estimated 30,000 population. They were not slaves but indentured servants. Some black indentured servants even went on to patent and buy land (& slaves) of their own.

It wasn't until Anthony Johnson (a black man & former indentured servant) that the first recorded instance of slavery (for a lifetime) in the Virginia Colony was established in 1654 (of course this doesn't include the practice by the Spanish further south). In a lawsuit, Anthony Johnson of Northampton County on Virginia's Eastern Shore convinced a court that he was entitled to the lifetime services of John Casor, a black man (this lawsuit created the basis for the "peculiar institution" of slavery that lasted until the American Civil War).

Anthony Johnson had been one of 20 black men brought to Jamestown in 1619 as indentured servants. By 1623, he had achieved his freedom and by 1651 was prosperous enough to import five "servants" of his own, for which he was granted 250 acres as "headrights".

You can read more about Anthony Johnson & John Casor at:

http://nichecreator.com/sample/index...wn%2C_Virginia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Casor

It should be also noted that even up to the American Civil War there were freed blackmen who in turn became plantation owners & had numerous slaves of their own.

Sorry for hijacking the thread...

[gilmore]

Well, that isn't entirely correct. In 1650, there were only about 300 "Africans" living in Virginia, about 1% of an estimated 30,000 population. They were not slaves but indentured servants. Some black indentured servants even went on to patent and buy land (& slaves) of their own.

...
Sorry for hijacking the thread...

My understanding is that the period we are discussing was later than that.

[BoldHighlander]

My understanding is that the period we are discussing was later than that.

I'm not sure which time period your talking about, and I don't wish to hijack this thread further from the subject of Celtic Music, but to say that Africans (slaves /indentured servants) couldn't eventually become liberated, buy land and own slaves themselves just isn't correct (and if it wasn't for this statement I wouldn't even bother).
It did indeed occur (though I would agree that it wasn't as common as the Scots or Irish indentured servants circumstance).

Here are a couple of more links of later periods if it at all helps:

Black Slave Owners Civil War Article by Robert M Grooms
http://www.americancivilwar.com/auth...laveowners.htm

Black Slaveowners
Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860
by Larry Koger

http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/1995/3037.html

it isn't the p/c history that's being taught today, but it shouldn't be forgotten.
There are more articles etc out there on the subject, all one has to do is search.

Okay, I will not hijack this thread further