Why Are there Monuments and Memorials to Confederates But None to Slaves?

[thomhartmann]

[Thomas Hurt]

1. because the statues and flags are symbols of

southern conservatism and white supremacy not about states rights or slavery or freedom.

[applegrove]

2. There are actually slave monuments in the caribbean at the bottom of the ocean.

In memory of those people who died on route to being slaves or threw themselves overboard.Thousands and thousands.

http://www.ninasimone.com/2013/01/underwater-sculpture-in-honor-of-africans-thrown-overboard/

You are right. There has been some sort of sick collusion going on in the south over the years to diminish history.

[evlbstrd]

3. This isn't a monument, but...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quindaro_Townsite

[JDC]

4. Boston has a Harriet Tubman memorial as does NY

And I know there are several others. Portsmouth NH has an African Burial Ground Memorial also. I've been there and to drive by it about once a month.

That does not discount your point by any means. I agree that it is unbelievably lopsided.

http://www.africanburyinggroundnh.org/files/FinalABGrevision75-13-2011-1.pdf

[Yupster]

5. A lot of counties in the south have Confederate monuments

It has a lot to do with how the Confederate army was organized.

The Confederate Army was organized by counties. Basically the entire white male population of a county was mustered together and marched off to war. They elected the mayor or preacher their commander. The Confederacy put 75 % of the adult white males in the country into uniform at some point in the war. Other than Native Americans, no group of Americans ever put such a high percentage of men into battle.

It had some real advantages. The southern infantryman was considered as good as any in the world (the Prussians were better imo though) as they were fighting side by side with their sons, fathers, cousins and neighbors. That was some peer pressure.

On the other hand, there was a big disadvantage. The 26th North Carolina was from Crabtree North Carolina, a rural community of hills and mountains west of Asheville. It was in Pettigrew's Brigade in Heth's division at Gettysburg and fought in the first and third day of the battle. It suffered over 70 % casualties at Gettysburg. Can you imagine what it was like when the news got back to the home communities? Would it be a surprise if the people of he county or the veterans of the county who came back from the war made a monument to their fallen comrades?

This was not unusual either. There were units like this all through the south. In fact at the end of the war, 1/4 of the adult white men of the south were dead and another 1/4 wounded. That's amazing casualties compared to any other war we've ever had.

[hedda_foil]

6. That's true. And it's not generally known that most of the civilian work back home was done by wome

I'm not just talking about farming or minding the family stores, but the women went to work in the factories and plants, working with gunpowder and artillery. They also saw that neither side had even thought of hospital facilities for the wounded, so they organized and staffed field and convalescent hospitals. And when the war was over, Southern women searched battlefields and army records to find and bring home the dead. They created the Confederate cemeteries and war hero statues across the south. The northern women did this too but were able to get the government to do most of the job. That's some of why the south wound up fetishizing the war and idolizing its veterans, dead and alive.

I'm not a southerner and have no family from those parts.. My family is 6th generation Chicagoans with a California contingent. I took a couple of adult education courses on the era.

[MrPurple]

7. I think a lot of these monuments will built in the 20th century

and they were used to justify Jim Crow. Partially, they were glorifying the confederacy to validate continued segregation.