Among the events of world history most familiar to the Russian reader, the Civil War in the United States (War of the North and South, War between the States, War of Independence of the South, War of Secession) occupies one of the most important places. It is covered in school and university textbooks, works of historians and publicists, works of art. At the same time, the myth of the war "for the freedom of slaves" occupies a central place.
This is the main myth about the war between the North and the South. If you ask any person who has heard about this war (unfortunately, the "reforms" of Russian education have already led to the fact that a significant percentage of young people do not know basic things) why the North and South fought, most will say: “We fought for the abolition of slavery in the South, for the freedom of black slaves. " Allegedly, the South stood on the positions of racism and slavery and wanted to enslave everyone, and the progressive northerners led by Lincoln sincerely believed in the equality of all people and started a war to abolish slavery.
The truth is not that romantic. The precondition for the conflict was the weakness of the central government and the division of the country into two economically independent regions - the agrarian South and the industrial North. In North America, two elite groups emerged with conflicting interests. In the North, a powerful industry and banking sector was formed in the previous period. They realized that the slave trade and slavery, as well as the agrarian sector, does not bring such fabulous profits as enslaving loan interest and the exploitation of millions of "free" people, visiting migrants. Moreover, the working conditions in enterprises where "free" people worked were often worse than the life of slaves in patriarchal plantations.
The capitalist economy of the North demanded an expansion of the labor market, new millions of "two-legged tools" that would work in enterprises and become consumers. This is also slavery, but on a different, more advanced level. At present, this system has been perfected - "consumption for the sake of consumption". Moreover, further expansion is impossible, the capitalist system has come to the limit of growth. It was already approaching this border in the 1970s, when the West was on the verge of defeat. But the West was able to survive by destroying, plundering and capturing the markets of the socialist bloc. Currently, the entire system of development of capitalism stops, and the global systemic crisis can only be overcome by a transition to a more advanced system (fair in its essence), or by “resetting the matrix”, that is, destroying the old world (global war), which is what is happening.
The United States came to this conflict in the middle of the 19th century. The owners of the North needed millions of new workers for their enterprises, new consumers. The expansion of the system was required, otherwise there would be a crisis and degradation. Thousands of agricultural machines could replace slaves in agriculture, increasing profitability. The northern clans needed power over all the states. Before the outbreak of the war, the United States ranked fourth in terms of industrial production. To do this, they used a sweatshop system - a form of production that allowed the most extreme exploitation of the worker (in fact, workers were crippled or killed in a fairly short period of time, preventing them from living to old age).driving to death the white poor and "white slaves", visiting white migrants - Irish, Germans, Scots, Swedes, Poles, Italians and others. But the masters of the States needed first place in the world.
As you know, the States were the advanced project of the masters of Western civilization. The "founding fathers" of the United States were Masons, representatives of closed structures, clubs and lodges. Therefore, all the symbols of the United States are filled with Masonic symbols. And at present, almost all representatives of the American elite come from clubs and organizations hidden to the ordinary man in the street, where they undergo a certain upbringing that determines their worldview and world outlook. It is there that future governors, senators and presidents are determined. Everything else is a game, an illusion of choice for millions of "two-legged weapons", which are kept under control with the help of "bread and circuses." The United States consumes more than anyone else in the world, during the years of the existence of the USSR, a "social paradise" was created, where even idlers, parasites and all sorts of social parasites lived much better than most labor workers in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. In recent years, this freebie has been curtailed, so the United States is in for a big socio-political upheaval. The riots in Ferguson are just flowers, berries are ahead. Total control over the media is another powerful method of governance. To maintain control, the American elite took the path of moronization, stupidity of the masses. For this American man in the street from morning to evening they are stuffed with all sorts of stunning shows and news about love affairs or drunken antics of "stars".
In the 19th century, the States were just moving towards world leadership, so the northern clans needed control over the South. The discovery of the richest gold deposits in California in 1848 allowed in 1850-1886. mine more than a third of the world's production of this precious metal. Prior to that, thanks to the growth of the gold industry in Siberia, the Russian Empire was ranked first in the world in gold mining. Thanks to gold, as well as the cruel exploitation of workers, the United States was able to launch the construction of a huge railway network. However, to complete the internal preparation of the country for the battle for dominance on the planet, it was necessary to close the issue with the South.
The southern planters created a self-sufficient region and were content with what they had. They had no grandiose plans to build a New World Order. For agriculture, which was the backbone of the South, the existing labor resources were sufficient. The main crops in the South were tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, and rice. Raw materials from the South went to northern enterprises and abroad.
The southern elite was pleased with the prevailing order. At the same time, the southern elite was in some respect even more humane towards representatives of other races, peoples and confessions than the masters of the North. The French lived in Louisiana, the Spaniards in Florida, and the Mexicans in Texas. Anglo-Saxon Protestants, occasionally Germans and Dutch, could break into the elite of the North. Catholics were discriminated against. In the South, the attitude towards Catholics was much more favorable, the elite there included Catholics of French and Spanish descent.
In the South, the Negroes, on the one hand, were property, as in the North, they could be sold, lost or killed for offenses. On the other hand, it was valuable property, the negroes had food, housing, their own plots of land, could join the achievements of culture, and in some cases even were like family members. They weren't starving. And what did "freedom" give them? They will simply be kicked out of the barracks, huts, from the land of their plantation owners, they will be deprived of all that little that they had. At the same time, a law banning vagrancy will be passed. As a result, the country will be overwhelmed by a wild rampant "black crime". In response, the whites will begin to create people's guards of the Ku Klux Klan, a wave of "Lynch Courts" will roll. Mutual hatred and fear will create an atmosphere of fear, a fully governed society.
Therefore, it is not surprising that a fairly large military contingent of Negroes - slaves and free - fought on the side of the Confederates. Already in 1862, large (up to several thousand) detachments of armed Negroes were noted in the Confederate army. According to various estimates, from 30-40 to 65-100 thousand blacks fought on the side of the Confederates. True, most of them were in non-combatant positions - builders, blacksmiths, cooks, orderlies. The military units of the army of the Confederate States of America (CSA) began to recruit slaves only at the end of the war. But in the militias of individual states, which were subordinate to the governor of the state, and not to the central government, blacks served almost from the very beginning of the war. Quite often Negroes fought with their masters, they were their squires, bodyguards. At the same time, in the army of the southerners, unlike the army of the northerners, there was no discrimination on the basis of race. So, in particular, the monetary allowance for white and colored fighters was the same. The Confederates had mixed parts, formed from representatives of different races. For example, in the 34th Cavalry Regiment, White, Black, Hispanic and Red Confederates served. Separate Negro regiments were formed among the northerners, where officers were white. Negroes were not allowed to serve in the same units with whites. Negroes were also discriminated against in the assignment of officer and non-commissioned officer ranks. So, by the end of the war, only 80 blacks became officers in the army of the northerners - out of about 180-185 thousand who were numbered in the negro regiments.
Most of the Indians sided with the Confederation. This is not surprising, since in the North the principle of “A good Indian is a dead Indian” was applied to the Redskins. Therefore, many Indians sided with the Confederation. So, even before the outbreak of war, the Cherokee had their own court, government, writing, newspaper and even several thousand slaves. They were already part of the civilization of the South. For the service of the Confederation, they were promised the payment of all debts, their admission to the Confederate Congress, the soldiers were provided with weapons and all social rights.
Preparing for the fight
The North-South War was a clash between two American elites. The elite of the North wanted to establish dominance over all of North America, and then the planet. Both whites and blacks were "cannon fodder" for the elite of the North. The elites of the South were satisfied with the current situation and when the northerners began to exert too much pressure, they decided to fight for independence, for their own way of life. For the majority of southerners (the real slave owners in the South were an insignificant minority, the planters were less than 0.5% of the population), this was a war for trampled independence, freedom, they considered themselves a nation in danger. The southerners decided to commit secession - it is quite legal in the States to secede from the federal state.
Preparations for the war took a long time. In the United States, even then, before the war, they carried out an information campaign, prepared public opinion. It was necessary to create an image of the enemy, the damned planters who oppress the blacks (although the position of the blacks in the North was no better). In the US, they have always tried to look like the "good guys." The preparatory stage was quite successful. So successfully that until now in the mass consciousness, especially in the States themselves, the opinion prevails that the valiant army of the northerners heroically fought "for the freedom of blacks."
Back in 1822, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society (an organization established in 1816) and other private American organizations, a colony of "free people of color" was created in Africa. In the northern states, several thousand blacks (vagabonds, escaped slaves, from whom there was little use) were recruited and sent to West Africa. In 1824 the colony of "free people" was named Liberia. It should be noted that the American-Liberians, as they called themselves, did not seek to join the "roots of the ancestors." They behaved like Western colonialists: they captured the entire coast of modern Liberia, then also occupied parts of the coast of modern Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire. Liberians did not consider themselves Africans, called themselves Americans, retained American state symbols, and tried to create a caste society, to dominate the indigenous people, whom they considered barbarians and people of the lowest class.
After that, a loud information campaign "against the oppression of blacks" began in the United States. Moreover, the campaign was carried out not only in the press, which served the interests of big business, but also among southerner blacks. For a long time Negroes did not succumb to provocation, they did not want to seek happiness in distant and unfamiliar Africa. However, in the end, the situation in the South was shaken. A wave of senseless and violent riots swept through, which were brutally suppressed.
An important role in this process was played by the movement for the emancipation of black slaves in the United States (abolitionism). It was created in the 1830s, when the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded and the Liberator newspaper was published. Even earlier, many abolitionists were members of the American Colonization Society. That created Liberia. Abolitionists orchestrated the flight of slaves from the South to the North, undermining the peace between the states. They were able to carry out a large information campaign on the occasion of the attempt to seize the arsenal at Harpers Ferry by John Brown in 1859. Brown, a former religious fanatic who was inspired by images of the Old Testament, where heroes did not disdain mass murder "in the name of the Lord", was already "famous" for the Potawatomi Creek massacre. In May 1854, he and his gang knocked on houses, posing as lost travelers, broke into those houses where people were opened and killed for them. On October 16, 1859, Brown attempted to seize the government arsenal at Harpers Ferry (in present-day West Virginia), hoping to cause a general uprising of the negroes. However, the gamble failed. Brown's small force was blocked and destroyed. Brown was arrested and executed. In the North, a fanatic and a murderer were turned into a hero.
The organizers of the information war could be satisfied - an offensive to the South could be launched under the "humane" slogans of "liberation of slaves." Thus, the information campaign was won even before the start of the war. That is why the South during the war found itself in diplomatic isolation and could not get loans.
In addition, the fact that England, France and Spain were engaged in the war in Mexico played a role. They got involved in an adventure, but in the end they lost. You can also recall that Russia, offended by the Eastern (Crimean) War, sent two squadrons to New York and San Francisco with an order, in case England and France entered the war, to immediately start a cruising war in support of the North. Therefore, England, although sympathetic to the South, did not intervene in the war. The threat was serious, Britain at this time did not have the strength to protect trade communications.
