Deadlands is retconning the Confederacy away. They lost the war, no longer playable.

[Doug McCrae]

The Civil War in the original version of Deadlands seems to be in a long stalemate. I don't think it's plausible the South would free its slaves in any capacity, let alone full emancipation, under such circumstances.

"By March 13, 1865, the situation was extremely dire as the relentless press of the armies under the command of Ulysses S. Grant drove into the heart of Virginia, threatening Richmond, the Confederate capital. After a plea from Robert E. Lee for black troops, the Confederate Congress, under siege in Richmond, that day authorized the recruitment of black slaves into the Southern Army.

Although this particular statute technically freed no slaves—under its terms only slaves who were voluntarily freed by their owners could enlist in the Confederate Army—opposition to the end of slavery was still so strong that the bill only passed by narrow 40-37 and 9-8 margins in the Confederate House and Senate...

The Confederate turn to the use of manumitted African-American troops in the last days of the Civil War was first and foremost an act of desperation and not likely the result of a newly found commitment to the cause of anti-slavery."​

Source

 

[Derren]

But this is exactly the problem: ‘what the Flag stood for’ was slavery, but confederate apologists spent decades lying about that fact, to convince people it was about states rights and southern pride. Which is why you get a bunch of black guys proudly flying it, and why you get a whitewashed CSA in a weird-west RPG. And to people who know the truth, that’s offensive.

It’s like someone claiming the swastika is a symbol of white-pride rather than murder and oppression. It doesn’t matter if they honestly believe that, it’s still a lie.

That sounds rather silly to me.
Deadlands is obviously a fictional alternate history setting, so nothing presented in it has any meaning or connection with the real world. A alternate WW2 setting in which Staufenberg succeeded to assassinate Hitler and turn Germany back into a minarchy does in no way deny the crimes real world nazis have commited. And in the same way a CAS that eventually frees its skave dies not deny that real world slavery happened and sparked the civil war.

Also, from what I gather in this thread Deadlands never claims that the CAS didn't fight to keep slavery. Them freeing slaves only happened later after the setting deviated from history. So it is clearly fictional.

 

[Celebrim]

To me, that is ancient history, nothing more.

No history is ancient if you can use it to justify hating your neighbor.

 

[Umbran]

The Civil War in the original version of Deadlands seems to be in a long stalemate. I don't think it's plausible the South would free its slaves in any capacity, let alone full emancipation, under such circumstances.

You may not feel it is plausible, but in the canon setting, they did so in 1865. Remember, the war was more deadly than in our world.

And, ideas of this kind it was proposed in the real world: Early in 1864, General Patrick Cleburne proposed enlisting slaves in return for their freedom. And that proposal wasn't just roundly ignored.

General Cleburne's Radical Plan

Why one prominent Confederate leader wanted to enlist slaves as soldiers.

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

So, figure that when the dead were walking around the battlefields maybe that suggestion seemed more acceptable...

 

[macd21]

That sounds rather silly to me.
Deadlands is obviously a fictional alternate history setting, so nothing presented in it has any meaning or connection with the real world. A alternate WW2 setting in which Staufenberg succeeded to assassinate Hitler and turn Germany back into a minarchy does in no way deny the crimes real world nazis have commited. And in the same way a CAS that eventually frees its skave dies not deny that real world slavery happened and sparked the civil war.

Your alternate WW2 scenario is not equivalent. The equivalent WW2 scenario would be one in which the Holocaust never happened because the Nazis weren’t really that bad after all, Hitler was really nice when you get down to it, loved dogs and children etc. Jews proved their worth by valiantly fighting for National Socialism. Afterward the 3rd Reich ends up being a pretty progressive place.

Such a setting would be considered disgusting by many, it’s fictional nature notwithstanding.

 

[Derren]

Your alternate WW2 scenario is not equivalent. The equivalent WW2 scenario would be one in which the Holocaust never happened because the Nazis weren’t really that bad after all, Hitler was really nice when you get down to it, loved dogs and children etc. Jews proved their worth by valiantly fighting for National Socialism. Afterward the 3rd Reich ends up being a pretty progressive place.

Such a setting would be considered disgusting by many, it’s fictional nature notwithstanding.

That doesn't really match at all how others describe Deadlands and the CAS in this thread.

 

[Umbran]

Deadlands is obviously a fictional alternate history setting, so nothing presented in it has any meaning or connection with the real world.

Fiction presents examinations of morals and ethics, what we find acceptable, and the nature of what it means to be human, using situations that didn't happen to allow that exploration. To say it is without meaning... basically invalidates fictional literature as human experience, which, sorry, is rather too far to go to defend a work, especially when there are better ways...

The Man in the High Tower for example, uses an alternate history where the Axis won to explore what occupation and oppression is like, and how we might respond to it, in a setting that modern Americans have never had a chance to experience, but can likely identify with. Using this fictional conceit did not mean Philip K Dick was a Nazi sympathizer. It was a setting used for effect to say things against such regimes.

I will accept an argument that the mere fact that the setting has the Confederacy surviving is not necessarily meaningful - but what we then do with that is meaningful.

 

[Celebrim]

So, figure that when the dead were walking around the battlefields maybe that suggestion seemed more acceptable...

No argument from the counter-factual carries much weight, but the introduction of magical horrors from beyond time and space would seem likely to alter peoples perceptions of what was important.

That said, we are doing exactly what I feared we do - make a bunch of trivial arguments about which outline of an imagined counter-factual history in a game is important to believe in.

The next step in this would be attacking people for which counter-factual view of an imagined history involving zombies and ghost dancers having real magical power they prefer based on how some nitpick of that history somehow proves the person they are yelling at cathartically is a White Supremacist who wants to ban people of color from gaming.

 

[the Jester]

Sure, a game can feature the CSA without promoting it. The problem being that Deadlands did promote the Confederacy (though thankfully not the values it stood for).

I honestly never got that sense, but I was a player, not the GM, and I didn't honestly read the setting, just play in it. So my sense of how it was treated was probably the result of how my GM ran it rather than the actual material.

 

[Umbran]

That said, we are doing exactly what I feared we do - make a bunch of trivial arguments about which outline of an imagined counter-factual history in a game is important to believe in.

Um... do remember that your first post in the thread was to announce how you weren't a customer.

If you want to firmly establish that you lack investment in the topic, but want to then proclaim how those who do should go about it... I don't think that will turn out well.