Tag Archives: William King

The Spin-offs of the Cotton Gin

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The cotton gin created a 25-fold increase in the amount of cotton that could be processed.
The cotton gin created a 25-fold increase in the amount of cotton that could be processed.

The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney, greatly increased the efficiency of processing cotton and, ironically, greatly increased the demand for slaves to clear more land, plant, weed, harvest and process the crop.

From William King’s autobiography, “Up to the invention of the cotton gin the seed of the cotton could only be separated from the fibre by hand-picking, and that process was so slow, that it did not remunerate the planter to raise it. But Whitney, who invented the cotton gin, a machine for separating the seed from the fibre, rendered slave labour profitable, quadrupled the price of cotton land and afforded a ready market for the surplus slave raised in the farming states. Cotton became a valuable article of commerce, and found a ready market in Europe. It could be raised in large quantity by slave labour in the US and just as the price of cotton went up the price of slaves went up with it, and a large traffic was thus opened up between the farming and cotton growing states. The surplus slaves raised in Virginia Maryland and Kentucky were collected annually by slave dealers and carried to the cotton and sugar growing states where they were readily disposed of. A traffic was thus carried on between the farming and cotton growing states demoralizing in its nature and evil in practice, it was the means of separating parents and children, brothers and sisters, never to meet again in this world. Marriage was encouraged in the farming states (of the north) for the purpose of raising slaves for the southern market.” (40)

Inventions always have spin-off effects. What are some you’ve noticed?

What Is A Man Profited? – Wm. King, 7 of 28

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The passage that was to shape young William's life.
The passage that was to shape young William’s life.

“What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?” Mark 8:36 of The Bible. William King heard these words and the sermon that accompanied them from a minister who was freeing his slaves and returning to New England in the early days of King’s tenure at Matthews Academy. They were to have a profound impact on him. “I have now lived long enough in the country to see the evils of slavery,” he wrote in his autobiography.

“The evils, of the system that were necessarily connected with it bore as heavily on the white families as on the black. The moral evils connected with the system were such that it could not exist with Christianity. It would either destroy Christianity or Christianity would destroy it. They could not exist together. When I lived in the south slavery had reached the zenith of its power and was ripening for destruction.” (39) “I saw the danger to which I would be exposed from the world in the situation I was about to enter upon. There was the prospect of wealth and a gay and fashionable world with all its pleasures spread out before me, including the human heart to settle down in their midst and make this world my portion.” (37)

In 1841 he married Mary Phares, the oldest daughter of a wealthy planter.

When did you come to a point where you realized you were losing your soul? What did you do about it?

Or

What moral evils do you believe should not be tolerated today?

Spanish daggers & Nightingales – Wm. King, 6 of 28

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Lanterns - King's way of controlling the boy's dormitory.
Lanterns – King’s way of controlling the boy’s dormitory.

William King was offered the position of Rector (Headmaster) of a preparatory department of Louisiana College. Before he accepted he asked the Trustees to change the laws that required all boys above 12 years of age to be treated as gentlemen. He wanted the power to correct them because he knew amongst other things that the “boys would leave their rooms at night and visit neighbouring plantations for improper purposes”. (33) “Sometimes they would have company with them in their rooms feasting and drinking and having a good time generally and wholly neglecting their studies.” (32) William King would have none of that. He had the floor of small bedrooms changed into a single dormitory. One unmarried teacher slept at each end and a lamp was kept burning throughout the night so that bed checks could be made.

He also prohibited (and confiscated) the weapons that the boys brought to school: pistols and bowie knives in the hands of the French and English boys and stillettoes or Spanish daggers in the hands of the Spaniards.

In his time at the Academy King loved his nightly horse ride through the 100 acres of the college. “On these excursions I would sometimes meet students going out to the country for a spree. Sometimes I would meet the Patrol visiting the negro quarters to see that they were all in their right place and if any negro was found off the plantation to which he belonged without a written permit from his master he was whipped and sent home.” (36) On these evenings he loved the “the fragrance of the magnolia, honeysuckle and cape jasmine and the song of the mocking bird and the nightingale”. (36)

What memories does this passage stir up for you?

Standing His Ground – Wm. King, 5 of 28

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Bayou Sara, Louisiana, 1840s
Bayou Sara, Louisiana, 1840s

Given the “disturbed state” of the south, William King, “did not wish to be entangled with a business that would confine (him) to the country”. So he began teaching the seven children of three related, Irish-Spanish, Planter families inland from Bayou Sara. The schoolhouse was surrounded by “crepe myrtle roses, cape jasmine and several beautiful magnolias”.  Within two months a long-standing disagreement between two of the pupils who were cousins resulted in one hitting the other on the head with a porter bottle, almost breaking his skull. The young William told the father of the assailant that he would not tolerate such contact at school and should the boy be found guilty, King himself would thrash him and make him obey. The father “felt annoyed that (King) was going to treat his boy as he was in the habit of treating his slaves when they offended him, so he took his children away.” This left King with two pupils.

But word got around the district of King’s actions and he was approached by a wealthy planter who was also a Senator in the Louisiana Legislature. The man had two sons who had beaten two of their teachers. He wanted King to instruct them.

“The first day the boys came to me I kept them in at night and talked kindly to them. I told them they could review their character by good behavior and applying themselves to their books. I would teach them if they would only apply themselves. They promised amendment and kept their word. They were with me two years and I had not two better boys in the school, they were diligent and obedient. They applied themselves to their books and made good progress. Before I opened the school for all who would choose to come, I had only two scholars; by the end of the year I had forty.”

What stories do you have about “standing your ground” (or not!)?

Clearing Forests & Outlaws – Wm. King, 4 of 28

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The Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
The Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

The spring of 1834 William King was reunited with his family on the 634 acres of newly purchased bush 12 miles from the Maumee River in Ohio. For the next 1 ½ years he labored clearing the land of the stands of massive oak, sycamore and walnut trees. He reports in his autobiography, “At the end of two months I could work all day without feeling tired, and could cut down a tree, and take cut about with my companion in cutting up the body of the tree.”(20) This skill was to serve him well years later when clearing for the settlement at Buxton, Canada West. But he wanted to move on. In his words: “I was determined to teach a few years before I would study theology, to be no longer a burden to the family but to support myself and paddle my own canoe.” (21)He had been told he could get a job in southern USA, so he headed down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The further south he went, the more he could see that the country was in a “disturbed state.” (27)

Bands of outlaws were making their way through the slave states, often posing as land speculators. Accompanied by a “body servant” they had stolen from another plantation they would wine and dine at their new host’s expense and, if possible, “sell” their servant who was instructed to steal a horse in the night and meet up with the outlaw some miles down the road. “In this way the master would travel selling his “body servant” perhaps two or three times and then the master, in travelling through a long stretch of forest would shoot the servant and cast him into some pool where he would never be found and never tell tales on his master, who had already received two thousand dollars by the sales that he had made.” (23)

This is a long post and I can’t think of a good question. Feel free to post one!

Potatoes & Buffalo and Bear Skins – Wm. King, 3 of 28

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Potatoes and a ticket to Philadelphia, USA
Potatoes and a ticket to Philadelphia, USA

The young William King departed for Philadelphia, USA with his brother’s entire potato crop days after his graduation from college. The crop that year had been exceptional in Ireland, but dismal in America and King was to sell it to help finance his family’s migration to Canada. The remainder of his family followed in the fall of 1833, but “unfavourable accounts of Canada as a place for farming…(where) people went six months of the year clothed in Buffalo and Bear skins to keep warm”(10), caused them to decide to go to Ohio following spring. To pass the winter, King taught, without remuneration, “the large and advanced scholars” (10) in a primitive log school near Cleveland. The building had “a large fire place at the north and (was) capable of taking in four foot wood.”(10).

What experience first defined you as an adult?

Or

When did your plans completely change?

Teachers of Influence – Wm. King, 2 of 28

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Glasgow University
Glasgow University

From the age of 14-17 the young William King studied the classics at an Academy under the tutelage of a Presbyterian minister from Scotland. At the end of this time King himself decided to become a minister and left Ireland to study at Glasgow University. In his autobiography he talks a great deal about the political issues of the day to which his professors introduced him. Emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies caught his attention. “ …I warmly expound the cause of the slave, but little did I think then that in a few years I would be placed in the midst of a slave country..”(16)

What topics from school really caught your interest?

Or

What teacher had an influence on your life choices?

Salt Water and Horses – Wm. King, 1 of 28

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Limavady, Ireland
Limavady, Ireland

William King, the youngest in the family of 7 children, was born near the village of Newton-Limavady, Ireland in 1812. When the boy was 13 his family moved to a larger farm on the banks of Loch Foyle, “where a stream of pure water empties in Loch Folye just opposite Mouelle where the Atlantic steamers land their passengers for (London)Derry. There being no common school near I remained at home during two years, and wrought on the farm, learned to drive and ride horses and acquired some knowledge of farming and read a good deal of history and biography. It was a favourite amusement, in a summer evening to take a horse and go down to the river when the tide was in and take a swim in the salt water, during the two summers, I was at home I became quite adept in riding and swimming.

I believe that all knowledge is useful even of the common affairs of life and when the opportunity appears of acquiring knowledge it should be embraced. I find in my own experience the knowledge I had acquired of riding and managing a horse of great use to me…in (southern USA) the roads are bad for carriages and almost every one, both ladies and gentlemen ride. At Buxton (north of Lake Erie), when attending the matters of the settlement I had to go on horseback.”

What is one childhood experience that has been useful to you in adulthood?

Black History Month – William King

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I have been thinking a great deal about the injustices so many aboriginal people face and wonder why more of us who are concerned do little about it. I also think a great deal about our changing climate and why it’s so easy to “fiddle while Rome burns”.

Perhaps my desire to hold on to the privileges I have, and the fear that if I let them go, I’ll be bereft of everything I value keeps me from doing more. That takes me to William King and Lucretia Mott, two 19th century reformers who feature prominently in the Emma Field series. Neither one, seemed to let fear govern their lives. Nantucket Island-born, Quaker Lucretia Mott played a key role in the anti-slavery, women’s and native rights movements of her day. On the north shore of Lake Erie, Irish-born William King established an exemplary community of some 1,200 free Blacks and fugitives from the Underground Railroad.

I think I still have a lot to learn from them. So in honour of Black History Month, I will post passages from Williams King’s autobiography of 1892. And using the “Circle of Trust” approach of author Parker Palmer, I invite you to contribute your own musings about your own experiences.