Amie
11-01-2007, 11:27 AM
For those of you not familiar with the history of slavery in America, I invite you to read over this Wikipedia article summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_United_States
As early as 1849, Abraham Lincoln believed that slaves should be emancipated, advocating a program in which they would be freed gradually. Early in his presidency, still convinced that gradual emacipation was the best course, he tried to win over legistators. To gain support, he proposed that slaveowners be compensated for giving up their "property." Support was not forthcoming.
In September of 1862, after the Union's victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary decree stating that, unless the rebellious states returned to the Union by January 1, freedom would be granted to slaves within those states. The decree also left room for a plan of compensated emancipation. No Confederate states took the offer, and on January 1 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared, "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared free only those slaves living in states not under Union control. William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, commented, "We show our symapthy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Lincoln was fully aware of the irony, but he did not want to antagonize the slave states loyal to the Union by setting their slaves free.
The proclamation allowed black soldiers to fight for the Union -- soldiers that were desperately needed. It also tied the issue of slavery directly to the war.
Source in which you may also view the proclamation: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1549.html
The design on the website page above is interesting. It reads, "Judgment Day".
Similarly to this day in American history, a "Judgment Day" happened biblically, God having been the judge.
From the listed Wikipedia article:
Since the Confederate States did not recognize the authority of President Lincoln, and the proclamation did not apply in the border states, Lincoln's address actually failed to free a single slave. Still, the proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal that was implemented as the Union took territory from the Confederacy. According to the Census of 1860, this policy would free nearly four million slaves, or over 12% of the total population of the United States.
The sound of the proclamation of emancipation from the cross rang universally. Is it possible that, like Lincoln, God lacked the authority to succeed in such an endeavor?
Well, I'm going to continue here assuming that God is able to succeed well past human limitation :). Let's say that God carried out a judgment which would free Israel, and all of humanity from bondage. Let's say that God's proclamation of emancipation was sealed under a system represented symbolically by a temple; and let's say that seal has been visibly broken.
Surely, the proclamation of our emancipation by God himself would make it so: We have been freed. We live in a free world.
The way in which emancipated slaves responded to freedom offers some insight into what freedom actually means for those who have been in bondage. I remember learning that there was a varied response to freedom.
Not every person was happy about having their yolk cast off. Some were loyal to their owners, very much like victims of kidnapping become attached to their captors. It has been called "capture bonding" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_bond) and "Stockholm Syndrome" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome).
Some were angry because it became apparent that they had nothing. Many of them were given small shares of large estates, or chickens, and while it was akin to feeding crumbs to kings, they adapted and took pride in their holdings. They looked around and thought, "Is this all that there is! I was better off as a slave!"
This is again, a common reaction to freedom. Consider Israel's emancipation from Egypt and how they responded:
Exo 17:2 And the people wrangled with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you wrangle with me? Why do you tempt Jehovah?
Exo 17:3 And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why, then, have you caused us to go up from Egypt, to kill me and my sons and my livestock with thirst?
If the cross made the writ of proclamation so, and a chosen few entered the wilderness through faith in that, and such was declared as accomplished universally when the symbolic seal was broken.. then here we are. And this is it.
People finding themselves free from bondage also react with feelings of confusion. "What do we do now?" Some respond with elation and celebrate.
What every emancipated slave in America knew, was that a free road doesn't equal an easy one.
I lived the larger part of my childhood in Memphis, Tennessee. I could hear the blues in everything. The air that I breathed had rhythm ;). The blues was a romantic and sad call from the past (The history of the blues: http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/bluesmusic/a/bluesmusic.htm).
If you ever been mistreated
then you know just what I'm talkin' about
I worked five long years for one woman
and she had the nerve to put me out..
It was a culture that I lived within, without having ever been a part of. I grew up an abused child, and though I may not have been as unloved by peers as I felt because of that, I was among the alone. I found acceptance by the very people still deciding what to do with, and about, freedom. Even with one another, we were alone. We were alone, together. How's that for making sense!
I hope that you'll consider looking over some of these slave narratives: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/wpa/index.html
They share their lives as slaves, and after emancipation. I hope that you'll consider sharing some of the observations that you make as you read.. some things that stuck in your mind or that may stay with your heart.
As I reflect, I hear the voice of Otis Redding singing "I've Got Dreams". There was pain before freedom, and pain afterward, yet in the afterward, there are dreams.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4085381402518834909&q=otis+redding+i%27ve+got+dreams&total=7&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
Amie
As early as 1849, Abraham Lincoln believed that slaves should be emancipated, advocating a program in which they would be freed gradually. Early in his presidency, still convinced that gradual emacipation was the best course, he tried to win over legistators. To gain support, he proposed that slaveowners be compensated for giving up their "property." Support was not forthcoming.
In September of 1862, after the Union's victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary decree stating that, unless the rebellious states returned to the Union by January 1, freedom would be granted to slaves within those states. The decree also left room for a plan of compensated emancipation. No Confederate states took the offer, and on January 1 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared, "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared free only those slaves living in states not under Union control. William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, commented, "We show our symapthy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Lincoln was fully aware of the irony, but he did not want to antagonize the slave states loyal to the Union by setting their slaves free.
The proclamation allowed black soldiers to fight for the Union -- soldiers that were desperately needed. It also tied the issue of slavery directly to the war.
Source in which you may also view the proclamation: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1549.html
The design on the website page above is interesting. It reads, "Judgment Day".
Similarly to this day in American history, a "Judgment Day" happened biblically, God having been the judge.
From the listed Wikipedia article:
Since the Confederate States did not recognize the authority of President Lincoln, and the proclamation did not apply in the border states, Lincoln's address actually failed to free a single slave. Still, the proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal that was implemented as the Union took territory from the Confederacy. According to the Census of 1860, this policy would free nearly four million slaves, or over 12% of the total population of the United States.
The sound of the proclamation of emancipation from the cross rang universally. Is it possible that, like Lincoln, God lacked the authority to succeed in such an endeavor?
Well, I'm going to continue here assuming that God is able to succeed well past human limitation :). Let's say that God carried out a judgment which would free Israel, and all of humanity from bondage. Let's say that God's proclamation of emancipation was sealed under a system represented symbolically by a temple; and let's say that seal has been visibly broken.
Surely, the proclamation of our emancipation by God himself would make it so: We have been freed. We live in a free world.
The way in which emancipated slaves responded to freedom offers some insight into what freedom actually means for those who have been in bondage. I remember learning that there was a varied response to freedom.
Not every person was happy about having their yolk cast off. Some were loyal to their owners, very much like victims of kidnapping become attached to their captors. It has been called "capture bonding" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_bond) and "Stockholm Syndrome" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome).
Some were angry because it became apparent that they had nothing. Many of them were given small shares of large estates, or chickens, and while it was akin to feeding crumbs to kings, they adapted and took pride in their holdings. They looked around and thought, "Is this all that there is! I was better off as a slave!"
This is again, a common reaction to freedom. Consider Israel's emancipation from Egypt and how they responded:
Exo 17:2 And the people wrangled with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you wrangle with me? Why do you tempt Jehovah?
Exo 17:3 And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why, then, have you caused us to go up from Egypt, to kill me and my sons and my livestock with thirst?
If the cross made the writ of proclamation so, and a chosen few entered the wilderness through faith in that, and such was declared as accomplished universally when the symbolic seal was broken.. then here we are. And this is it.
People finding themselves free from bondage also react with feelings of confusion. "What do we do now?" Some respond with elation and celebrate.
What every emancipated slave in America knew, was that a free road doesn't equal an easy one.
I lived the larger part of my childhood in Memphis, Tennessee. I could hear the blues in everything. The air that I breathed had rhythm ;). The blues was a romantic and sad call from the past (The history of the blues: http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/bluesmusic/a/bluesmusic.htm).
If you ever been mistreated
then you know just what I'm talkin' about
I worked five long years for one woman
and she had the nerve to put me out..
It was a culture that I lived within, without having ever been a part of. I grew up an abused child, and though I may not have been as unloved by peers as I felt because of that, I was among the alone. I found acceptance by the very people still deciding what to do with, and about, freedom. Even with one another, we were alone. We were alone, together. How's that for making sense!
I hope that you'll consider looking over some of these slave narratives: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/wpa/index.html
They share their lives as slaves, and after emancipation. I hope that you'll consider sharing some of the observations that you make as you read.. some things that stuck in your mind or that may stay with your heart.
As I reflect, I hear the voice of Otis Redding singing "I've Got Dreams". There was pain before freedom, and pain afterward, yet in the afterward, there are dreams.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4085381402518834909&q=otis+redding+i%27ve+got+dreams&total=7&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
Amie