The Racism of Robert Gould Shaw
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Last week I shared a bit of writing from my current book project about Robert Gould Shaw, specifically about his views of the freedpeople along the sea coast islands of South Carolina and Georgia. Our popular perception of Shaw, especially given our emphasis on race and emancipation, leaves little room for views that today strike us at best paternalistic and at worst racist.
A reader left the following comment:
I wish the paternalism had been confined to Shaw, but it arises again and again in accounts of white people working to help the freedpeople. Seems to show that good motives and even personal experience do not overcome embedded prejudices/world views.
It certainly does and it can be somewhat draining the more you come across it, especially from people who we assume should have known better, but of course, that is part of the challenge of studying history. We must always remember that they did not occupy our world.
In Shaw’s case, I am struck by how little he appeared to evolve in his attitude towards the African Americans he came across during the roughly eight weeks he was stationed in the low country before his death at Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.
In last week’s post I offered a few examples of his interactions with the few formerly enslaved people still on St. Simon’s Island during the brief period that Shaw and the Fifty-fourth was stationed there between June 10 and the end of the month.
Today I am going to share a bit more about Shaw’s experience interacting with African Americans, this time on St. Helena Island, where the regiment was stationed from June 25 until July 8.
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