Let's Save Mr. Garner's Good Name

Let's not trash Mr. Garner because he likes to take a little pride in his work. Let's look at this relatively, and perhaps we can understand why people, such as Mr. Garner, may have thought as slaves as inferior people. They come from a country where, especially for the time, they had very little contemporary technology. They lived in tribes, wore little clothing, had little knowledge of the rest of the world, and raided each other's villages with machetes hacking up men, women and children alike. Then the people who hack the villages collect the survivors, the ones who look like they may make good trade bait for the Europeans and people living in the New World, and then sell them as slaves in exchange for goods, gold, spices, etc. This view may be a little one-sided yes, but let's think about the time period. The 1800's, there was no form of mass communication, and the only information these slave owners were receiving was coming from American Media (newspapers, town criers). From their perspective they were being sold these barbaric people, who lived in harsh conditions and ruthlessly carved each other's families apart with knifes. And on top of that, these slaves were being sold by other Africans. So should we really call him a racist with the information given? Everyone is bias toward their own country, of course Americans are gonna think themselves a superior people.

So with that said, Mr. Garner of course was a racist like most during this time, but this does not make him a bad person. "Garner called and announced them men--but only on Sweet Home, and by his leave. Was he naming what he saw or creating what he did not?" (260). Yes, he referred only to his slaves as "men" and no others. And yes, it was probably because he thought that he had reformed these savages into men, but is that a bad thing? During a time where no one gave a damn about these people, during a time where they were seen as barbaric, Mr. Garner steps up and takes it upon himself to turn these people into real men. He doesn't care about what other noble white people will think of him when he refers to his slaves as "men." It would even "sometimes [lead to] a fight" (13). Think of that . . . This noble is fighting other white slave owners because he calls his slaves men in public. Let's not forget that even Paul D mentions that slaves were "spoiled" under Mr. Garner because of all the rights he gave them that were considered "against the law" (267). These rights included "letting niggers hire out their own time to buy themselves. He even let em have guns!" (267). Those are two pretty big rights to be giving such a hated race during such a racist time.

So let's review. Was Mr. Garner a bad person? No he was not, and I will not sit here and read these blogs while people drag his good name through the mud. He gave his slaves rights, actually fist fought other whites "because he called his niggers men," and did all he could to turn them into "people" when the rest of society thought of them as savages (13). It's ABSOLUTELY ABSURD TO SAY THIS KIND OF TREATMENT OF SLAVES IS WORSE THAN VIOLENCE. I would much rather have a colony of slaves loving life, who can get married, and can buy their freedom, than a colony of slaves who get whipped, beaten, raped, or killed for not picking enough cotton or attempting to learn to read. I would bet that most people who went through slavery would agree that they wouldn't have minded staking it out a few more years if it could have been done without the lynchings.