No, Gov. DeSantis, Slavery Did Not Confer "Personal Benefits" on Blacksmiths or Anyone Else

My new essay in The Daily Beast is in response to Florida’s revised Black History curriculum. It is the remarkable story of Allen and Temperance Jones, and the enslaved blacksmith’s struggle to free his family in antebellum North Carolina. Here is the gist:

How an Enslaved Blacksmith Had to Enslave His Own Family to Win Their Freedom

Most historians were appalled when the Florida Board of Education adopted new standards for the state’s African American History curriculum, including instruction on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis, however, thought it was just fine. “They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” the Republican presidential candidate explained.

Trained as a blacksmith, Allen had been able to work for wages on Sundays, the slaves’ only day of rest, eventually saving the $685 required to buy his freedom.

Now able to work full time and keep his earnings, Allen saved the $3,000—a small fortune in those days—necessary to free Temperance and their three children.

North Carolina law required manumitted slaves to leave the state unless they had been freed under narrow circumstances. Allen was compelled to purchase his own wife and children, enslaving them to himself.

So yes, Allen Jones was trained as a blacksmith by an enslaver, but the brutal system did everything possible to deprive him and his family of any personal benefit.

You can read the entire essay in The Daily Beast.