Talk:Thomas Spalding

This article was started using public domain text found at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. LarryQ 20:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Notability

In 1830, he owned 400 slaves. In 1840, he owned 348 slaves. In 1850, he owned 200 slaves.

These slave-counts seem to be popping up more often, and I suspect a new breed of diversity editor. Unless those figures are notable in some way, I can't see that they need quoting, any more than the number of horses on the estate, or how many bedrooms in the planter's house. I believe that the category 'American slave owners' should be restricted to people whose slave-owning history is notable in itself. Valetude (talk) 23:16, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Spalding owning that amount of human beings is pretty notable. There is a big difference between the notability of the number of slaves a person owned and "the number of horses on the estate or how many bedrooms in the planter's house." Humans are not the equivalent of livestock or something mundane as rooms. Owning a single slave ever is notable. Most people in history in general and American history did not own slaves.

You seem to be the type of editor who is trying to downplay slavery and erase what history gives even a slight mention of it.

In particular to Spalding, he did enslave a lot of other human beings. Spalding's plantation shaped the economic, demographic, and cultural history of Sapelo Island and coastal Georgia. Giving a definite and verifiably sourced number makes for a better quality of an article than stating something vague like "He had owned some slaves." The article for the September 11 attacks gives a definite number of deaths. We would not state something like "a lot of people died that day" and not give a definite number when a definite number is number is known. That article does not list the name of every victim. Likewise, I would agree that if somebody attempted to add a complete list of all 200 humans who owned at the time of deaths, that would probably go beyond wikepedia's purpose. CaptainStegge (talk) 09:11, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

‘Human beings’ - repeated twice - is the giveaway Woke keyphrase. (And “Owning a single slave ever is notable” seems a very odd claim). This is a moralising jag, not appropriate for the wiki profile of an individual, unless his slave-owning career was exceptionally notable - maybe the biggest slave-owner in the state, or leader of a major movement in Congress. There are other wiki pages on which to expound the moral issues, and plenty of opportunities to create new pages for this purpose. Valetude (talk) 07:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

'Human beings' is not a "woke keyphrase." It is an accurate description. He enslaved human beings. “Owning a single slave ever is notable” is not an odd claim in the slightest. Most individuals throughout world history have not owned slaves. Most people in the United States at the time did not own slaves. Most people in Georgia at the time did not own slaves. All of that has been thoroughly documented by historians. That phrase does not appear in the subject's wiki profile. It would indeed be odd if that phrase appeared in the article

Wikipedia has categories for people born in 1809, American people of English descent, and 19th-century American politicians. By your same logic, we should only include people in the 1809 category if them being born in 1809 is somehow notable in itself, in the English descent category if their English heritage is somehow particularly notable, and in the 19th-century American politicians category if their Americaness, career as a politician, or relevance to the time period are particularly notable. How you would have it, is not how Wikipedia is. There is plenty of precedent across Wikipedia for having such exceptionally large categories and including people in such categories. Categories in Wikipedia are designed to be encyclopedic as long as the relevant information is present and cited in the article. The category of American slave owner is extremely small in comparison to 19th-century American politicians and so so many other categories.

Your use of the weasel words "diversity editor" and "woke keyphrase" are indicative of you having an agenda in your editing, which could potentially make it difficult for you to maintain neutrality in your edits.

Spalding was one of the largest slave owners in the state. His plantation was all of Sapelo Island. The Georgia Encyclopedia, ran by the state of Georgia, makes mention of his slave owning. The citing in the Wikipedia article should be improved upon since it mentions the Georgia Encylopedia, but does not properly cite it up to Wiki standards. I am getting ready to fix that particular citation problem. In addition, his slave Bilali created the [Bilali Document]]. That document is one of very, very few documents created by slaves who had been born free in Africa, and is just one of a handful of such documents written in Arabic script.

So far the article has refrained from moralizing regarding Spalding and slavery. It sticks to cited facts. The article does not say Spalding was a terrible person for owning slaves. The language used is neutral. It states that he owned slaves. The Georgia Encylopedia gives the 350 number. The cited census records show that the number fluctuated considerably over time. The mere addition of a page to the category is not moralizing. If the text of the article has information that is reliably cited related to the category, an article belongs to that category.

The category is "American slave owners." There is nothing inherently moralizing in any of those words or their total combination. The Category is not "Good American slave owners" or "Bad American slave owners." Likewise, the category is not "American violators of human rights" or "American perpetrators of genocide." The names of those categories would involve moralizing. The name of the category as it now exists is neutral. CaptainStegge (talk) 00:10, 22 June 2021 (UTC)