• Episode 50 – Slaves and Slavery in Texas – Treatment of Slaves and Slave Insurrections

  • Oct 20 2024
  • Length: 14 mins
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Episode 50 – Slaves and Slavery in Texas – Treatment of Slaves and Slave Insurrections

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  • This is Episode 50 – Slaves and Slavery in Texas Part 3 Treatment of Slaves and Slave Insurrections In this episode I’m going to continue my discussion about a topic that often makes some folks a tad uncomfortable and that’s because I’m talking about the history of slaves and slavery in Texas. In the last episode I covered how the early Anglo settlers of Texas had roots in the deep south and brought with them their prejudices and social customs and one of those customs was slavery. I looked at how even though Mexico and Spain eventually outlawed slavery, Texas was exempted from those laws. Government officials were so eager to profit from the production of cotton that they ignored the slavery issue. Steven F. Austin, said, “The primary product that will elevate us from poverty is cotton and we cannot do this without the help of slaves.” As a result, Anglo-Americans where able to bring their family slaves with them to Texas. Until 1840, they were also allowed to buy and sell them. As I mentioned, it's important to understand that Texas was actually the last frontier of slavery in the United States. Between the years of 1821 and 1865, slavery spread over the eastern two-fifths of the state. The reality of slavery tightly bound Texas with the Old South. I realize that there are some who refer to it as the “peculiar institution” because even though slavery was a reality in many other countries, how large it was and how it was so tightly woven into Southern society made it unique or "peculiar" only to the South. Over decades Southern politicians and writers used the term to defend the practice of slavery. One thing we need to keep in mind when it comes to the issue of slavery is that it was and is an absolutely barbaric practice. In the past Hollywood made movies that sometimes-showed images of scenes of “happy” slaves, sitting around singing and generally in good spirits. The reality is slaves lived a life that was totally under the control of their owners. They were whipped, not a childish misbehavior spanking, but a brutal ripping of the skin off the back of the person being whipped. They could be hung. They could be beaten. They could be and were often sold. Female slaves could be and were raped by their masters. Families were torn apart. Slaves were considered to be less than human. There were no happy slaves. As it was elsewhere, in Texas how slaves were treated did rely on who their owner was. One story about how slaves were treated is the story of Lavinia Bell, a Black woman who had been kidnapped when she was a child and sold into slavery. She eventually escaped and part of her story was how she had been forced to work naked in the cotton fields near Galveston. She had made multiple attempts to escape and after her first failed attempt she was physically mutilated and beaten severely by her owner. Hers is not the only such story, many others who were enslaved in Texas told similar stories of violence and cruelty by their owners. Hundreds sought to escape, especially to Mexico where they knew they would be safe from being returned. Now of course, there are the outliers, such as Joshua Houston. He was owned by Sam Houston, actually he was owned initially by Houston's second wife, and he became an important part of Houston's family. He was treated well, taught to read and write, and actually the Houston family helped to prepare him for his eventual emancipation. After the Civil War he became a politician, and, at one point, offered to lend money to Sam Houston's widow when she faced financial difficulties. While the treatment of slaves in Texas may have varied on the basis of the disposition of individual slaveowners, it was clear that Anglo Texans in general accepted and defended slavery. There was also one undercurrent of reality that existed for all slave owners, and that was the fear of a revolt or insurrection by the slaves. Actions by the Texas legislature provide an apt illustratio...
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