400 Years of African Slavery in America

[HondurasKeiser]

I think Coates is right here — the objection to the 1619 Project and reparations is on one level a refusal to reckon with the history that America was structurally built — through slavery, terrorism, segregation, federal law, local law, socially, economically, etc. — for the preferential treatment of white people. Many of us are not ready for that reckoning, so there’s a lot of screaming about the dangers of “Cultural Marxism” and “Critical Race Theory” and people like Josh demand that black people legitimize their pain to them. The issue here isn’t really money, but identity and understanding who we are as a people.

I think that is exactly right. The amount of moral panic that this one particular take on American history has generated on the right is truly breathtaking. Legislatures in red states are wasting time trying to censor this material in their public schools. Conservative authors all over are parsing this work with microscopes, looking for the slightest mis-statement to jump on. The reaction this work has stirred up is quite astonishing.

Every work of American history uses its own filters from which to view the past. The 1619 project uses slavery and race and I found it both informative and thought-provoking. As was the accompanying podcasts. But it is just one of many parallel histories that one could write about the American experience.

One could write a history of America from the point of view of immigration and come up with a completely different narrative.



One could write a religious history of America that would paint a completely different picture



One could write a Native American history that would look completely different still



One could write a military history of the United States



Or a business history of the United States



All of them would be informative of our past, and all of them will help explain our present. But none of them would paint a complete and comprehensive picture of this country. In fact, hundreds of different histories of this country are written every year from every conceivable point of view and emphasis. And all of them present new points of view. In fact, all history is either revisionist history or plagiarism.

Why is it that the only one to generate the slightest notice or attention not to mention all the fear and loathing is the the one that focuses on slavery and race? I find that both curious and telling.

Roger Daniels & Richard Vague don’t make sweeping claims about the true founding of America being about business or attempt to reframe American history tout court around immigration.

[Ken]

Roger Daniels & Richard Vague don’t make sweeping claims about the true founding of America being about business or attempt to reframe American history tout court around immigration.

Actually Richard Vague pretty much does claim that business and public/private industrial policy were integral to the founding of the US and it's initial success: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/rich ... s-history/

[Ken]

What’s the matter with Baylor?

I don't know. Perhaps it is that the denomination that runs Baylor was explicitly founded in support of slavery and to provide a safe refuge for slaveowners? That the university administration virulently supported the Confederate cause and encouraged faculty and students to join the fight for slavery and against abolition? Or perhaps that Baylor operated as a segregated whites-only university until 1963, a full 100 years after the end of the Civil War? Perhaps it is rather unseemly for Baylor to deflect and point to say the Aztecs and say "look at them...they were worse than us"

It was a simple question that did not require a sarcastic response. I agree with Josh; your logic is faulty.

Everything I wrote was accurate. Baylor has been on the wrong side of history for the majority of its existence. That doesn't necessarily indict anything written by a Baylor professor today. Times have changed. I was simply answering the question "What's the matter with Baylor"

Baylor is actually going through it's own truth and reconciliation process this very moment as it uncovers the depths to which the founding of the university was linked to slavery. The wealth upon which Baylor was founded was generated by slave labor. Perhaps not surprising given its location. But a fact that the university itself was loath to admit until this year: https://www.kcentv.com/article/news/loc ... 6307911128

[HondurasKeiser]

I don't know. Perhaps it is that the denomination that runs Baylor was explicitly founded in support of slavery and to provide a safe refuge for slaveowners? That the university administration virulently supported the Confederate cause and encouraged faculty and students to join the fight for slavery and against abolition? Or perhaps that Baylor operated as a segregated whites-only university until 1963, a full 100 years after the end of the Civil War? Perhaps it is rather unseemly for Baylor to deflect and point to say the Aztecs and say "look at them...they were worse than us"

It was a simple question that did not require a sarcastic response. I agree with Josh; your logic is faulty.

Everything I wrote was accurate. Baylor has been on the wrong side of history for the majority of its existence. That doesn't necessarily indict anything written by a Baylor professor today. Times have changed. I was simply answering the question "What's the matter with Baylor"

Baylor is actually going through it's own truth and reconciliation process this very moment as it uncovers the depths to which the founding of the university was linked to slavery. The wealth upon which Baylor was founded was generated by slave labor. Perhaps not surprising given its location. But a fact that the university itself was loath to admit until this year: https://www.kcentv.com/article/news/loc ... 6307911128

It was the tone, not the accuracy of your claims that was so off-putting.

[Ken]

It was a simple question that did not require a sarcastic response. I agree with Josh; your logic is faulty.

Everything I wrote was accurate. Baylor has been on the wrong side of history for the majority of its existence. That doesn't necessarily indict anything written by a Baylor professor today. Times have changed. I was simply answering the question "What's the matter with Baylor"

Baylor is actually going through it's own truth and reconciliation process this very moment as it uncovers the depths to which the founding of the university was linked to slavery. The wealth upon which Baylor was founded was generated by slave labor. Perhaps not surprising given its location. But a fact that the university itself was loath to admit until this year: https://www.kcentv.com/article/news/loc ... 6307911128

It was the tone, not the accuracy of your claims that was so off-putting.

Well, I apologize for my tone.

But it's actually an apropos question and relevant to this thread because Baylor would not even exist were it not for the stolen labor of slaves that produced the wealth that enabled its founding. For that matter, Texas itself would not exist were it not for slavery. I'm currently reading "Forget the Alamo" by Chris Tomlinson

https://www.amazon.com/Forget-Alamo-Ris ... 08JKN9RCM/

Which documents the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution and founding of the republic. Which is most certainly not the history that my daughter learned in 8th Grade Texas History back when we lived in Waco. That book is creating it's own moral panic amongst Texas Republicans along with attempts to censor the authors and prohibit any mention of slavery in the context of the founding of Texas in middle and high school curriculums. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/01 ... -canceled/

[HondurasKeiser]

Roger Daniels & Richard Vague don’t make sweeping claims about the true founding of America being about business or attempt to reframe American history tout court around immigration.

Actually Richard Vague pretty much does claim that business and public/private industrial policy were integral to the founding of the US and it's initial success: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/rich ... s-history/

I read your link and it seems like a very interesting history of business and the American Economy. I may have missed it but I found nothing that makes something like the bold pronouncement that the NYT and NHJ did when they said:

“The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

“I argue that 1619 is our true founding,” she tweeted the week after the project launched. “Also, look at the banner pic in my profile”—a reference to the graphic of the date 1776 crossed out with a line.”

Mr. Vague simply seems to be fascinated by the economic aspect of history and wants to highlight it.

[Ken]

Roger Daniels & Richard Vague don’t make sweeping claims about the true founding of America being about business or attempt to reframe American history tout court around immigration.

Actually Richard Vague pretty much does claim that business and public/private industrial policy were integral to the founding of the US and it's initial success: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/rich ... s-history/

I read your link and it seems like a very interesting history of business and the American Economy. I may have missed it but I found nothing that makes something like the bold pronouncement that the NYT and NHJ did when they said:

“The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

“I argue that 1619 is our true founding,” she tweeted the week after the project launched. “Also, look at the banner pic in my profile”—a reference to the graphic of the date 1776 crossed out with a line.”

Mr. Vague simply seems to be fascinated by the economic aspect of history and wants to highlight it.

We are getting pretty far into the weeds. But essentially Vague claims that business and government were so inextricably linked in the early days of the republic that they were essentially one and the same:

RV: That’s absolutely right. We see this in our history. America always had an industrial policy. Alexander Hamilton and his associates made the decision to steal experts in industrial engineering from England and smuggled them into the United States—that’s what created Paterson, New Jersey, the first planned industrial center in the nation.

Hamilton knew we needed roads, bridges, canals. They were all government subsidized. Plenty of problems ensued, but the investments were made. Illinois Central was the biggest railroad before the Transcontinental Railroad—they tried for 10 to 15 years to scrape together the private funding for it, but the private sector was not big enough to do it on its own.

LP: In that way, for all those who lambaste business, you make the case that business and government are not only inextricably linked, they’re often one and the same.

Which is a pretty different narrative from the Jeffersonian "yeoman farmer" narrative about the founding of the country that that is more commonly taught. That America grew and thrived in spite of government not because of it. And so forth.

The point is that every history of America chooses how to frame the story. The 1619 project is no different from any other. As best as I can figure, much of the controversy and fact checking of the 1619 project is about the claim that the American Revolution was in part about the preservation of slavery. That is a provocative claim and has stirred up a hornet's nest. And Jones has admitted that she overstated the claim. But it is also an interesting claim and one that has probably not been adequately explored. I, for one, would be interested in seeing more research exploring that thread. The Southern colonies were indeed a majority of the original 13 colonies both in terms of area and population. We have endless histories of Massachusetts. A whole lot less about why Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia revolted from colonial rule.

[Szdfan]

But I think that this relates to what Josh is saying - that the people today (those who are not espousing ethnic prejudice) are not indebted to people they have never oppressed. And there are lots of people here now whose ancestors were in some other place, also being oppressed, at the time this oppression via slavery was taking place here. (I could go on - because there were also lots of "whites" who were here in the States when this was going on, and they never took part in it, nor profited from it. If they had, they would not have been "poor white trash".)

If the subject is really about ethnic prejudice NOW, then that's what should be dealt with, and it doesn't matter how it came about that they are now an ethnic minority in some country other than their ancestral home. There are people experiencing ethnic prejudice whose ancestors were never sold into slavery in known history.

This is Coates’s response to Mitch McConnell when he made a similar point during a 2019 Congressional hearing on reparations:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/t ... tions.html

Yesterday, when I asked about reparations, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a familiar reply. America should not be held liable for something that happened 150 years ago, since none of us currently alive are responsible. This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations. But well into the century the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers. We honor treaties that date back some 200 years despite no one being alive who signed those treaties.

Many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for. But we are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach. It would seem ridiculous to dispute invocations of the founders, or the Greatest Generation, on the basis of a lack of membership in either group. We recognize our lineage as a generational trust, as inheritance and the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that: a dilemma of inheritance. It’s impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery.

Coates then cites figures from historian Ed Bishop that by 1836, almost half the economic activity in the US was from slave labor and that by emancipation, slaves made up the single largest economic asset in the US — $3 billion in 1860 dollars. Slavery was a massive economic powerhouse prior to the Civil War that benefited whites beyond those who directly owned slaves. The US was built on the backs of slaves.

A lot of us here don’t feel a strong connection with American civil religion, but it is odd that American patriotism claims the “founding fathers,” the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as a part of our collective inherited identity and then turn around and say that we aren’t collectively liable for slavery because nobody from that period is alive anymore. Well, neither are George Washington or Thomas Jefferson and yet “we” claim them. Many of the same people who claim that the history of slavery is irrelevant, also invoke 1776 and the American Revolution as historical events and symbols that inform who we are today.

It is tempting to divorce this modern campaign of terror, of plunder, from enslavement, but the logic of enslavement, of white supremacy, respects no such borders, and the god of bondage was lustful and begat many heirs. Coup d’états and convict leasing. Vagrancy laws and debt peonage. Redlining and racist G.I. bills. Poll taxes and state-sponsored terrorism.

We grant that Mr. McConnell was not alive for Appomattox. But he was alive for the electrocution of George Stinney. He was alive for the blinding of Isaac Woodard. He was alive to witness kleptocracy in his native Alabama and a regime premised on electoral theft. Majority Leader McConnell cited civil rights legislation yesterday, as well he should, because he was alive to witness the harassment, jailing, and betrayal of those responsible for that legislation by a government sworn to protect them. He was alive for the redlining of Chicago and the looting of black homeowners of some $4 billion. Victims of that plunder are very much alive today. I am sure they’d love a word with the majority leader.

The argument for reparations is not just an argument about slavery, since the brutality against blacks in America did not end in 1865. Coates cites cases that have happened with many of our lifetimes. In his “Case for Reparations” essay, Coates writes about about the Tulsa Massacre. Obviously, I don’t know this for sure, but chances are you knew or encountered some of the survivors and perpetrators during your childhood there. Coates is not just describing, ancient history, but something that continued into living memory and today.

If the subject is really about ethnic prejudice NOW, then that's what should be dealt with, and it doesn't matter how it came about that they are now an ethnic minority in some country other than their ancestral home. There are people experiencing ethnic prejudice whose ancestors were never sold into slavery in known history.

Coates is arguing that many of the difficulties in the black community today are directly tied to the prejudices of the past — in particular using redlining, predatory lending and housing discrimination that both robbed blacks of wealth and created poor, dysfunctional urban ghettos. Coates argues that how we got to today’s ethic and racial prejudices DOES matter because it’s a continuation of what has happened in the past. As William Faulkner wrote, “the past is never dead, its not even past.”

[Dan Z]

The American legal apparatus for cattle slavery was created only in the time of De-Christianization

Cattle slavery still exists, and aside from a few animal rights activists nobody seems to have a beef with it. Allow me to steer you toward the term "chattel slavery", which cud be what was intended.

Not to horn in on your post Ohio Jones, but it was an udderly insightful observation - funniest thing I have herd in a while - laughed so hard I thought they'd have to carry me out on a guernsey. Regarding cattle slavery, I'd steak my reputation on it continuing - I don't think beefeaters can be cowed into changing their habits that easily.

[RZehr]

The American legal apparatus for cattle slavery was created only in the time of De-Christianization

Cattle slavery still exists, and aside from a few animal rights activists nobody seems to have a beef with it. Allow me to steer you toward the term "chattel slavery", which cud be what was intended.

Not to horn in on your post Ohio Jones, but it was an udderly insightful observation - funniest thing I have herd in a while - laughed so hard I thought they'd have to carry me out on a guernsey. Regarding cattle slavery, I'd steak my reputation on it continuing - I don't think beefeaters can be cowed into changing their habits that easily.

One day we may actually move Beyond Meat. And then it won’t seem Impossible. Burger may be the salvation of cattle slavery.
However the completion won’t happen without a Ripple. Nor will it be as smooth as Silk. It’s going to go nuts. But the day may come when we can all say, Well folks, that’s all she Oat. Ley will be filled with happy and free bovines once more.