cactuswatcher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cactuswatcher) wrote2015-09-30 08:56 am
cactuswatcher) wrote2015-09-30 08:56 am
Wednesday Book
Our Man in Charleston by Christopher Dickey tells the true story of Robert Bunch, the British consul in the city of Charleston, South Carolina for just over a decade before and during the American Civil War. Bunch had been sent to help smooth out the troubles left by the previous consul in Charleston, who was too inflexible to do anything but make matters worse between the United States and Britain.
The original issue was a paranoid South Carolina law that required that any black seaman arriving on the coast of the state be arrested and held in jail until his ship was ready to sail off to different waters. The excuse for this law was that, supposedly, free black seamen from other parts of the world including the northern US would incite South Carolina slaves to riot, revolt, massacre, and otherwise create mayhem against the establishment. Since slaves greatly outnumbered their white masters there, the fear was real.
The problem for Britain was that the law permitted local sheriffs to board British-flagged ships and seize black British seamen whether they had any interest in going ashore or not. Once ashore, at best they’d be kept in jail in bad conditions while the ship did its business. at worst they could be kidnapped and enslaved without the local authorities caring very much.
Bunch was actually born in the United States, but he was thoroughly British and saw everything from that perspective. Unlike his predecessor he was wise enough to recognize that the Carolinians were never going to bow to threats from Britain or even to legal action in Federal courts. So he worked his way into Charleston society, pretending to be receptive to whatever arguments the locals would present, while slowly trying to convince them that solitary black seamen posed no threat to their social order. It took a number of years, but Bunch succeeded in having the law changed.
Bunch’s position as a seemingly neutral, but friendly observer allowed him to mix with the powerful in the state and hear their candid opinions. Then using diplomatic pouches he was able to send his honest opinions of what was happening in the South to his senior in Washington, D.C. and on to London. While there were a number of British consuls across the South before the war it seems that most of them had gone native. Some of them had even bought crop land and slaves. What distinguished Bunch was that he was willing to risk the possibility of his true feelings being discovered in Charleston which as the war got closer might have meant his violent death.
The major issue the book discusses isn’t slavery in the US which the British government was reluctantly willing to tolerate, but the slave trade across the Atlantic. Britain was spending considerable funds to stop it. Theoretically African slave trade was banned in US on penalty of death. But practically because of southern US Presidents and weak northern ones, US Navy ships supposedly in place off the coast of Africa to stop American ships from transporting African slaves were actually protecting them from boarding by British navy ships. Almost all of these slaves were taken to Spanish owned Cuba, which also, in theory, banned importation of Africans. Once there the slaves were worked to death or died of disease in a few years creating a demand for yet more slaves from outside. A few of the slave ships were bold enough to land slaves directly in the Southern US where the locals had no desire to report it to Federal authorities. But that was a very dangerous business.
Politically the South’s power in the Federal government was fading. With a much larger population in the North, the US House of Representatives was hopelessly lost to the South. With a tenuous balance in the US Senate between North and South, slave holding interests were able to block what they felt was antislavery legislation including the admission of new states that would negate the balance. Among the British worries were that some Southerners were clamoring for the invasion and conquest of Cuba and territory in Mexico, specifically to add new states where the plantation system could spread to balance out the new states which sooner or later were going to be carved out of the northern territories where plantations made no economic sense.
Bunch was keen to hear what the people in Charleston had to say about this. The consensus was that if the new states were established, there would be no way to supply enough slaves for the new plantations from within the US. African trade would have to be made legal again, or the law so thoroughly ignored that it would be de facto legal.
The clamoring for secession just made matters worse. Bunch correctly predicted to his superiors that the Democratic convention in 1860 would be so divided that the party would split throwing the national election into the arms of the Republicans.
I’ll leave what happened with Bunch once the Civil War started to those who may be curious enough to read the book for themselves.
It was a very interesting book to see the events from British perspective. My only gripe about the book is that perhaps both the author and the publisher have somewhat exaggerated Bunch’s influence on the developing international situation. It could be that what the author implies is 100% true, but there is evidence even in the book that it isn’t. Personally I would suggest that others read the book with a little healthy neutrality toward what Dickey says about Bunch’s influence, and read it more for the horrors of the slave trade that the British were trying to battle against without going to war with the US.
The original issue was a paranoid South Carolina law that required that any black seaman arriving on the coast of the state be arrested and held in jail until his ship was ready to sail off to different waters. The excuse for this law was that, supposedly, free black seamen from other parts of the world including the northern US would incite South Carolina slaves to riot, revolt, massacre, and otherwise create mayhem against the establishment. Since slaves greatly outnumbered their white masters there, the fear was real.
The problem for Britain was that the law permitted local sheriffs to board British-flagged ships and seize black British seamen whether they had any interest in going ashore or not. Once ashore, at best they’d be kept in jail in bad conditions while the ship did its business. at worst they could be kidnapped and enslaved without the local authorities caring very much.
Bunch was actually born in the United States, but he was thoroughly British and saw everything from that perspective. Unlike his predecessor he was wise enough to recognize that the Carolinians were never going to bow to threats from Britain or even to legal action in Federal courts. So he worked his way into Charleston society, pretending to be receptive to whatever arguments the locals would present, while slowly trying to convince them that solitary black seamen posed no threat to their social order. It took a number of years, but Bunch succeeded in having the law changed.
Bunch’s position as a seemingly neutral, but friendly observer allowed him to mix with the powerful in the state and hear their candid opinions. Then using diplomatic pouches he was able to send his honest opinions of what was happening in the South to his senior in Washington, D.C. and on to London. While there were a number of British consuls across the South before the war it seems that most of them had gone native. Some of them had even bought crop land and slaves. What distinguished Bunch was that he was willing to risk the possibility of his true feelings being discovered in Charleston which as the war got closer might have meant his violent death.
The major issue the book discusses isn’t slavery in the US which the British government was reluctantly willing to tolerate, but the slave trade across the Atlantic. Britain was spending considerable funds to stop it. Theoretically African slave trade was banned in US on penalty of death. But practically because of southern US Presidents and weak northern ones, US Navy ships supposedly in place off the coast of Africa to stop American ships from transporting African slaves were actually protecting them from boarding by British navy ships. Almost all of these slaves were taken to Spanish owned Cuba, which also, in theory, banned importation of Africans. Once there the slaves were worked to death or died of disease in a few years creating a demand for yet more slaves from outside. A few of the slave ships were bold enough to land slaves directly in the Southern US where the locals had no desire to report it to Federal authorities. But that was a very dangerous business.
Politically the South’s power in the Federal government was fading. With a much larger population in the North, the US House of Representatives was hopelessly lost to the South. With a tenuous balance in the US Senate between North and South, slave holding interests were able to block what they felt was antislavery legislation including the admission of new states that would negate the balance. Among the British worries were that some Southerners were clamoring for the invasion and conquest of Cuba and territory in Mexico, specifically to add new states where the plantation system could spread to balance out the new states which sooner or later were going to be carved out of the northern territories where plantations made no economic sense.
Bunch was keen to hear what the people in Charleston had to say about this. The consensus was that if the new states were established, there would be no way to supply enough slaves for the new plantations from within the US. African trade would have to be made legal again, or the law so thoroughly ignored that it would be de facto legal.
The clamoring for secession just made matters worse. Bunch correctly predicted to his superiors that the Democratic convention in 1860 would be so divided that the party would split throwing the national election into the arms of the Republicans.
I’ll leave what happened with Bunch once the Civil War started to those who may be curious enough to read the book for themselves.
It was a very interesting book to see the events from British perspective. My only gripe about the book is that perhaps both the author and the publisher have somewhat exaggerated Bunch’s influence on the developing international situation. It could be that what the author implies is 100% true, but there is evidence even in the book that it isn’t. Personally I would suggest that others read the book with a little healthy neutrality toward what Dickey says about Bunch’s influence, and read it more for the horrors of the slave trade that the British were trying to battle against without going to war with the US.
no subject
no subject
I just mention the possibility that Bunch's importance might be overstated (to sell more books) for what it's worth. It's not a reason not to read the book!