I agree with you 100%. What they are latching on to is the fact that SOMETIMES, in EXTREMELY LIMITED AND SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES, some enslaved people were able to “hire themselves out” as craftsmen when they had done whatever work the enslaver had required of them. An even more limited number of those enslaved people were paid for their work and got to keep their pay.
But the percentage of people we are talking about here is tiny … but it is nonzero. The standard therefore isn’t completely wrong, but it absolutely gives the impression that these cases were waaaay more common than they actually were.
The standard therefore isn’t completely wrong, but it absolutely gives the impression that these cases were waaaay more common than they actually were.
It’s also dishonest because it leaves out the limitations that slavery put on those same people.
One of them could have been the next Mozart but we will never know because they weren’t allowed to do anything more than hire themself out as a piano tuner at wages far below those a white person would get.
I agree with you 100%. What they are latching on to is the fact that SOMETIMES, in EXTREMELY LIMITED AND SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES, some enslaved people were able to “hire themselves out” as craftsmen when they had done whatever work the enslaver had required of them. An even more limited number of those enslaved people were paid for their work and got to keep their pay.
But the percentage of people we are talking about here is tiny … but it is nonzero. The standard therefore isn’t completely wrong, but it absolutely gives the impression that these cases were waaaay more common than they actually were.
It’s also dishonest because it leaves out the limitations that slavery put on those same people.
One of them could have been the next Mozart but we will never know because they weren’t allowed to do anything more than hire themself out as a piano tuner at wages far below those a white person would get.