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Wild. Especially now, it's important to remind ourselves that American slavery isn't a thing of the the distant past - there are old people alive today whose f
by rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Wild.
Especially now, it's important to remind ourselves that American slavery isn't a thing of the the distant past - there are old people alive today whose fathers literally fought in the war to keep slavery legal. And the last former slave died in 1971 [1], which means there are probably tons of middle-aged people going about their lives who personally knew and had conversations with ex-slaves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee
- lsh123 6y agoI would be curious to find out how many Americans today have ancestors who lived in America during Civil war. Even more detailed question is with percentages cohorts based on how many ancestors were in America vs somewhere else during that time.
- hodgesrm 6y agoThere's a lot of us, especially in the South. My great-grandfather was a child in the siege of Petersburg. My mom still tells the story of how the family house was struck by a Union cannonball as they were sitting outside it. She heard it directly from her grandfather when she was a child herself.
- mleo 6y agoPossibly a lot, given the potential exponential descendants 1 person could have. I have several ancestors and their relatives that fought for the North. My kids could trace 5-6 generations back to the civil war, meaning 32-64 ancestors to consider.
- irrational 6y agoMy earliest ancestors came over in 1620, the last came over in the 1850s. So during the civil war, all my ancestors were already on this continent. However, none of them participated in the war since they all lived out west, beyond the boundaries of the USA, throughout the war.
- stormdennis 6y agoIn gangs of New York they portray immigrants getting off ships, being recruited and then being put on other ships to head south. Doubtless there's a good dollop of artistic licence involved but it possibly was a thing
- goda90 6y agoThe West was involved in the war in various ways. California was a state and Nevada became one. Gold and volunteers were sent east. There were troops sent to secure New Mexico from the confederacy.
- irrational 6y agoNone of those are places my ancestors lived.
- goda90 6y agoThe civil war took place after the Mexican-American war and the establishment of the border with British Canada. What is the western US now was under US control. Some parts were states, some territories. There was military and political activity all over the region related to the civil war. My ancestors lived in Utah. They didn't go fight, but that doesn't mean they were entirely isolated from the events.
- pmiller2 6y ago1620 huh? You might be my distant cousin.
- Izkata 6y agoThrough census and immigration records, it looks like every branch of my family tree came over between 1890 and 1910. Thing is, only one of those branches was even well-known among my family, the others are all lost history. Out of curiosity I've asked some friends and co-workers and several have said similar things - they don't know when their ancestors immigrated, their personal family history just doesn't go back that far.
- 082349872349872 6y agoIt takes some legwork, but both my wife and I (thanks to our parents' curiosity during their retirements) have been able to go back to the 1700's for at least some lines. Even the europeans were moving around a lot internationally, though. The portion of my family tree from the US is about half pre-Civil War, of which most were pre-Revolution. (and my father told me that, while researching, he found the Mormons for some reason have records on way more people than just their adherents. Could be useful)
- Someone 6y agoThe Mormons believe they can baptize people after their death (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/baptisms-for-the-dead?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi...). That’s why they collect lots of genealogical information, world wide (https://www.familysearch.org https://www.familysearch.org), so that they can baptize all forefathers of current Mormons. The baptizing leads to critique, for example when they baptize people of other faiths. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/mormons-holocaust-victims-baptism-lds-church https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/mormons-holoca...: “Mormons have recently posthumously baptised at least 20 Holocaust victims, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and the Queen Mother, according to a researcher who has spent two decades monitoring the church’s massive genealogical database.”
- lowdose 6y agoHow does one baptize a death person?
- adventured 6y ago~31 million Americans in 1860, so it's likely to be a large number. Half of my family, of German Dutch ancestry, dates along the east coast to before the Revolutionary War, and spent the better part of 200 years as farmers in the northern Union Appalachia region (the last generation that were farmers is almost gone now; the family farm land - which isn't very valuable land - has been gradually sold off over the past century; the area is difficult land to farm, it's a rough way of life, and it's nearly impossible to compete with modern corporate farming). The other half came over during one of the large immigration waves toward the end of the 19th century.
- pmiller2 6y agoI have ancestors living in America in the 17th century.
- bitbckt 6y agoSome of my ancestors arrived as early as the 1620s. There have been several books about them. Here's one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1333427255 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1333427255 My Civil War era ancestors were in Nevada at the time, where we've largely remained since.
- danieltillett 6y agoI have serious doubts about Sylvester’s claims - people just don’t live to 130.
- duckMuppet 6y agoI think Russ Roberts of econtalk went into this pretty in depth. EconTalk: John Cogan on Entitlements and the High Cost of Good Intentions http://www.EconTalk.org http://www.EconTalk.org http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2017/Coganentitlements.mp3 http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2017/Coganentitlement... Ironically, everyone here seems to be angling at the political angle, not the fact that pensions can be easily survive well beyond what they were intended, especially public ones.
- smt88 6y agoThat seems completely irrelevant to GP's point. If a Civil War veteran were born in 1845, served in his late teens, and died at 85, then anyone older than 90 could have spoken to him. Play with assumptions a bit, or go back a few decades, and the numbers become much less extreme.
- ghettoimp 6y agoThat is a pretty wild Wikipedia page.
- WalterBright 6y agoI heard that the last Civil War soldier died in the 1950s.
- pfranz 6y agoI know someone (born in 1951) who said they remember a school announcement that the last Civil War soldier died. That matches what you had heard.
- ponker 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Woolson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Woolson
- WalterBright 6y agoWW2 ended 75 years ago, so someone 16 serving in 1945 would be 91 today.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoIf I remember correctly the "why we fight" series of WW2 propaganda films opens with elderly American Civil War veterans participating in the 1940 Washington DC memorial day parade.
- CommieDetector 6y ago>fathers literally fought in the war to keep slavery legal. The civil war was never about slavery.
- lsiebert 6y agoI'd also point out that while slavery may have supposedly ended after the civil war, crimes were created and applied selectively to black people. Combined with racial violence, sharecropping that kept black people in constant debt, and other policies, many black people were still forced to labor against their will. Even now, prison labor is still regularly exploited. For example, low level offenders in California are a big part of the fire fighters that fight wildfires, but they are paid below minimum wage (like a dollar an hour), and then, despite that training, they typically can't work as firefighters after release because of their criminal history. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/14/california-is-paying-inmates-1-an-hour-to-fight-wildfires.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/14/california-is-paying-inmates... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4928680/Haunting-pictures-little-life-changed-slaves.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4928680/Haunting-pi... https://theconversation.com/exploiting-black-labor-after-the-abolition-of-slavery-72482 https://theconversation.com/exploiting-black-labor-after-the... https://listverse.com/2017/06/21/10-ways-american-slavery-continued-long-after-the-civil-war/ https://listverse.com/2017/06/21/10-ways-american-slavery-co...
- rowawey 6y agoSlavery didn't end in the US, it changed forms. See the: - text of the 13a - the highest incarceration rate per capita on Earth except Seychelles (5% of pop, 25% of prisoners) - demographics of prisoners: mostly minorities and the poor - for-profit prisons run by such illustrious corporations as GEO Group - politicians receiving kickbacks from for-profit prison companies - numerous corporations who exploit prison slave labor, the average citizen just doesn't know about it or see it Prisons are plantations 2.0
- akatechis 6y ago> - the highest incarceration rate per capita on Earth except Seychelles (5% of pop, 25% of prisoners) Maybe they commit more crime.
- godzillabrennus 6y agoMostly agree. We live in the era of Jim Crow 2.0 and the media are blind to it. Incentives for politicians exist to keep percentages of felonies High in these communities to keep the people from voting. Drug war is a war on the poor and people of color. If we want change we end the drug war. Make drugs legal and treat addiction as a medical issue. That means single payer healthcare needs to be the law of the land. Doubt that any of these protests will do anything to solve the issues though. Way too much money at stake. Expecting small concessions like police being stripped of their military gear.
- DrBazza 6y agoThe past isn't that far away: "Samuel James Seymour (March 28, 1860 – April 12, 1956) was the last surviving person who had been in Ford's Theatre the night of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. " "Two months before his death, Seymour[4] appeared on the February 9, 1956, broadcast of the CBS TV panel show I've Got a Secret." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Seymour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Seymour
- ThinkingGuy 6y agoVideo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4