Ben Fields: History, education and the tourism of cruelty (ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä)

I've heard it said that most American males go through a period where they're really into the Civil War or World War II. That hasn't happened to me, but I guess there's still time. 

Given my lack of in-depth knowledge regarding the conflict betwixt the states and some preceding events, my curiosity was piqued while reading a plaque within Fort Sumter describing the installation's brief stint as a cruelty tourism destination. 

Specifically, the plaque told the story of the slave ship Echo, which, in 1858, was caught by the U.S. Navy near the coast of Cuba. Slavery was still legal in the Southern states at the time, but the United States had banned the transatlantic slave trade through a series of laws going back to 1807. Illicit human trafficking became big business as a result. 

How big? It's estimated more than 250,000 slaves were smuggled into the United States between 1808 and 1861.

The Echo was originally carrying 450 people bound for the antebellum plantations and other destinations. Of those, the plaque says 144 died during the journey from Africa, although the National Park Service puts that number at 137. Five more died in the time it took the U.S. government to bring the ship to ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, where the crew faced charges of piracy (they would be acquitted on a technicality). The surviving remnants of the human cargo were moved to Fort Pickney, then Fort Sumter under quarantine while authorities debated their fate.

In the meantime, local entrepreneurs started charging for harbor cruises around the fort, allowing tourists to gawk at the malnourished and haggard individuals, many of whom were children, huddled together on Fort Sumter's parade ground. 

If selling tickets to look at people who were near death and robbed of their humanity sounds messed up, that's because it is, regardless of the time period.

Before anyone says that would never happen today, think about Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., and other politicians posing for pictures in front of prisoners at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador last month. Those prisoners were rounded up and shipped out of the United States without any due process simply because they were immigrants, some of whom were here legally. And now, through unconstitutional actions, they find themselves in crowded cells at a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador, while people like Moore treat them as props.

For those who view cruelty as a novelty or opportunity, there is no shame. That hasn't changed. 

As for those shipped aboard the Echo, 35 more died while at Fort Pickney and Fort Sumter. Advocates for slavery used the incident as an argument for making the trans-Atlantic slave trade legal again, because apparently, when it was legal, it was somewhat less cruel. Some of those same people also argued that those brought to Fort Sumter should be sold into slavery since they were already in the United States. 

Neither were good arguments, and they failed. The U.S. government decided the survivors should be sent back to Africa, specifically Liberia, although most of the people who had been kidnapped and stuffed into the coffin-sized individual holds of the Echo were from Angola. More than 70 others would die on the voyage back to Africa.  

While I was captivated by the story of the Echo and modern analogues, I left Fort Sumter with another thought gnawing away at me. I kept asking myself if we will continue to provide education on topics like the Echo.

I like to think I have a broad knowledge of history, but I don't consider myself an expert and, although someone likely tried to teach me about it at some point in my life, I had never heard about the incident of the Echo before.

Reading that little plaque encouraged me to read more from other sources about what happened, why and the circumstances surrounding the incident. I consider that a good thing. But would someone else find it "woke" to provide information on such incidents that illustrate the depravity of slavery? Is it a damnable act of diversity, inclusion and equality to present facts about what transpired at a historic site, considering those facts are uncomfortable and break along racial lines? 

I don't know. And that bothers me.

In today's political climate, I've asked myself more than once if something educational, which is usually paid for by the government, will survive funding cuts or the undiscerning eraser some would apply to science, medicine, history, literature and a host of other important fields of study. I'd like to think we know better, but history suggests even if we do, that's not always an obstacle.