Common historical fallacies
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
Slavery was the basis of the American economy
logical fallacy 1: colonial slave v. overall population growth
- the growth of colonial African slavery was linear (upward but constant) until the development of the cotton gin
- 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 increases in the slave population was not the basis of the colonial development
click EXPAND to view comparative table of colonial white and slave population growth:
| 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
- in 1774, slavery represented a significant proportion of per capita private wealth:
- 28.7% of national per capita wealth
- 31.7% of southern per capita wealth
- measured here as an asset, slavery was less than 1/3rd overall colonial wealth
- = static measurement (snapshot of current values)
- but not a measurement of economic output
- just as an office building has a value but its economic output is measured not by its value but by the sum of its rents
late 1700s to early 1800s manumission
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.