Common historical fallacies: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 01:08, 19 February 2022
Creating Common historical fallacies taught by high school & other teachers
- teachers are frequently responsible for erroneous historical facts or interpretations
- teachers have a point of view that inescapably informs their teaching
- the best teachers "teach" not "preach"
- but even the most objectively-minded teacher has as a point of view, an underlying outlook
US History fallacies[edit | edit source]
Slavery was the basis of the American economy[edit | edit source]
logical fallacy 1: colonial slave v. overall population growth[edit | edit source]
- the growth of colonial African slavery was linear until the development of the cotton gin
- after which, given the truly slave-dependent cotton economy ("king cotton") slavery became a more important element of the US economy
- but it was never a dominant or even majority source of American economic activity
- up to 1800, colonial population growth was much higher for whites than for slaves
- whereas, after 1800, slave population increased dramatically, overtaking white populations in many areas of the south
- therefore slavery was not the basis of the colonial development
- after which, given the truly slave-dependent cotton economy ("king cotton") slavery became a more important element of the US economy
Year | Free Population | increase % | Slave Population | increase % |
1610 | 350 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
1620 | 2300 | 657.1% | n/a | n/a |
1630 | 4540 | 197.4% | 60 | 30.0% |
1640 | 26003 | 572.8% | 597 | 290.2% |
1650 | 48800 | 187.7% | 1600 | 32.8% |
1660 | 72180 | 147.9% | 2920 | 78.8% |
1670 | 107365 | 148.7% | 4535 | 100.6% |
1680 | 144529 | 134.6% | 6971 | 90.5% |
1690 | 193671 | 134.0% | 16729 | 99.5% |
1700 | 223083 | 115.2% | 27817 | 86.0% |
1710 | 286834 | 128.6% | 44866 | 111.6% |
1720 | 397361 | 138.5% | 68839 | 107.7% |
1730 | 538379 | 135.5% | 91021 | 97.8% |
1740 | 755576 | 140.3% | 150024 | 103.6% |
1750 | 934380 | 123.7% | 236420 | 88.1% |
1760 | 1267794 | 135.7% | 325806 | 109.7% |
1770 | 1688278 | 133.2% | 459822 | 98.1% |
1780 | 2204980 | 130.6% | 575420 | 98.1% |
logical fallacy 2: colonial per capita wealth not reliant upon slavery[edit | edit source]
- as a proportion of per capita private wealth in 1774:
- chart to be completed
Wealth source | All 13 colonies | New England | Middle Colonies | South |
Land | 49.6% | |||
Servants & Slaves | 28.0% | |||
Farm & Non-Farm equipment, livestock, Materials Durables & Perishables | 22.9% | |||
Financial Assets | 16.2 |
late 1700s to early 1800s manumission[edit | edit source]
from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carter_III#Manumission
Manumission<br> In the years after the Revolutionary War, Virginia's legislature (having barred the slave trade in 1778) passed several laws sympathetic to freeing slaves, although it did not pass a law legalizing manumission until 1782, and throttled many petitions for wider emancipation. Numerous slaveholders in the Chesapeake Bay area freed their slaves, often in their wills (like Quaker John Pleasants) or deeds, and noted principles of equality and Revolutionary ideals as reason for their decisions. The number of free African Americans increased in the Upper South from less than one percent before the Revolution, to 10 percent by 1810. In Delaware, three-fourths of the slaves had been freed by 1810. In the decade after the act's passage, Virginians had freed 10,000 slaves, without visible social disruptions. The price of slaves reached a 20-year low as the percentage listed as "black, tithable" (i.e. slaves) fell below 40%, the lowest point in the century. However, Virginia's courts sidestepped issuing appellate decisions ratifying emancipation until 1799, and the methodology of within-life emancipation was not established.