Entry #11 Zinn, Howard "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom"

Brian Gerker
ETHN 101
Reading Journal Entry #11
10-14-2007

Howard Zinn “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom ”

In “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom,” Zinn is reporting slavery and black freedom in the times of America in the 1800’s. “A system harried by slave rebellions and conspiracies developed a network of controls in the southern states, backed by the law, courts, armed forces and race prejudice of the nations political leaders.” Zinn is basically saying that in the times of the Civil War blacks were recognized, and “emancipated” but it still did not change the way white people perceived blacks, specifically in the south.
To summarize “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom,” Zinn’s main point is that blacks even after emancipation and the Civil War, still did not have the rights they should have been granted. Zinn offers examples of how slaves first began to achieve “freedom.” He says how slaves began rebellions against plantations and amassed in hundreds in some instances to rebel against plantations. Some even thought to burn Charleston in their revolt. Also, Zinn presents many key figures in history who were highlight people in the rebellion such as Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and George Washington Carver. These people were important in that they were part of getting the U.S. to give rights to blacks or helped other slaves be freed in the Underground Railroad. One big element that Zinn also entangles in his writing is the KKK and other white people fighting back against the slaves freedom. Even after the Civil War, many states did not acknowledge black freedoms. There were still free states and slave states, and blacks still could not even vote. It just shows that blacks were supposedly freed but still did not have freedom, and were still enslaved by society.
One question found in the Exercises that could be addressed would be “Why would the U.S. even talk about war with England over the Creole? Zinn gives his ideas about this in that the U.S. was very upset that the English Indies had abolished slavery and when the Creole slaves that took over the ship made it there, the English would nto give them back to the U.S. The U.S. considered war just because these slaves that “belonged” to the U.S. had escaped. It is ridiculous to think that war could even be conspired over something like this.
This reading didn’t really do it for me. It sort of seemed like an extension of a high school history class. The reading was dull and I did not learn much new information, except for some specific examples of slave rebellion.