Chapter 16

I had discovered on our journey south into the southern colonies that the populace was a mixed lot with the additions of a sizable contingent of dark skinned laborers brought in by the landed gentry to run their large plantations. Surprisingly, precious few of the settlers of the common variety mentioned the fact that “slavery” existed even in this modified form.

In fact, I perceived the normal reaction was to equate their status as the same as the European common labor that was arriving into the big city ports on the east coast of the new breakaway nation. Some of the conditions in the mills and factories in the urban areas were less advantageous than the large plantations in the southern colonies with an abundance of food and the makings of a rustic civilized society.

I felt no need to apologize for the distasteful fact that slavery existed in the beginning roots of the new nation because it was simply an extension of an economic necessity that was in vogue in all corners of the world and not constrained to the new world and its fledgling experiment in freedom and liberty.

The simple fact was that a great portion of the British Empire and the other European colonial powers like Spain, Portugal and France depended on slave labor to increase their wealth and influence. In a way, the seeds of that evil were already planted in the new world by the policies of the expansionists in the European seats of power. That is not an excuse for the founders of the new nation to use in justifying their decisions, but it gives more credence to the truth that it was incidental and not intended to be part of the patriot dream for equality for all regardless of faith or circumstance. Of course, that is little solace to the victims of such practices and time is the only solution to washing that stain from the national character.

I had already witnessed the effects of the challenge in my journey back in time to the period of the American Civil War and the dreadful aftermath. The bloody loss of life was a direct result of poor decisions made in the formation of the American structure of government and the consequences will still be with the new nation even beyond the scope of my third and final journey into the past albeit in the distant future from my perspective in the seventh decade of the eighteenth century after the birth of Jesus Christ.

It was strange for me to see the hordes of dark-skinned workers engaged in labor to make the rich European settlers even richer and with little interest in the fact that their owners were engaged in a “life and death” struggle against a formidable adversary. The fact that many of them participated in that very same struggle is often overlooked in the History textbooks but if one looks closely, they are seen in the New England region as freed men just as fired up against the excesses of the Crown as any patriot listening to the words of the immortal Patrick Henry. They could be seen as mitigating the rigors of Valley Forge and bringing food and supplies to the suffering Continental Army. I could now see them as “backing up” their owners on the battlefield bringing ammunition and powder to help them fight and digging holes for their protection against the British Artillery or for graves for the fallen. They fed the horses and helped set up the tents to protect the soldiers from the bitter cold of winter. I noticed that they blended in well with my Indian scouts because they had the experience of being equally treated as “second-class citizens” by the ruling masters.

In any event, it looked like the slavery issue was a “fait accompli” swept under the rug from the fields of Yorktown right up to the opening salvos of Fort Sumter in South Carolina during the period of the American Civil War. There were many instances when conscience came to the forefront and events like the whole “John Brown” saga and other conflicts related to pro-slavery and anti-slavery laws in various states came down on one side or the other with a vengeance.

It was more an instance of idealistic concepts of freedom and liberty coming up against the reality of accepted economic practices in the civilized sectors of the world at that period in history.

Turning back to our steady movement further south, we disengaged from the sleepy little town in the outback and headed toward the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to search for those areas of contention that would allow us to decimate the redcoat invaders without losing too many of our own number in the process. Our SOP (standard operating procedure) of never forcing an issue and coming into close direct contact with the enemy was definitely a tactic that was much in our favor. The British regular army had proven time and again that they were unable to compete on a battlefield facing an enemy that was constantly on the move and did not stay in one place too long to be overwhelmed by their superior force.

I knew that Lord Cornwallis was becoming increasing uneasy with the tendency of General Howe to remain immersed in the defense of New York harbor and lack of any sense of urgency to repair south to give much needed support to his field armies in the south. Still, there was no sign of any panic on the part of the higher ranks in the British regular army field headquarters because the bulk of the officers thought that it was only a matter of time before the Americans under General Washington could bring themselves to commit to surrender in the face of overwhelming odds. Right up to the end, the British forces failed to understand how closely they were skirting to a disaster of immense proportion and surrender on their part that would bring the entire conflict to a swift conclusion.