Should African-Americans Celebrate The Independence Day?

Woooh! Slow down brother TEA! You're going to steal my thunder bringing up the 1st Rhode Island. We are also chartered as the 1st Rhode Island Regiment of Foot, Continental Line (1st RI). I'll discuss that  historical connection in my next article. 

One suggestion, you are correct about the black participation. However, whether they were free or slaves, depended on several factors. Whether they came from, New England, Mid-Atlantic, or the South;  most free blacks came from New England. Whether you are talking about American or Crown forces. The British offered immediate manumission, drawing thousands to the British lines, and really got the South up in arms.  General Washington, a slave owner, changed his policy against blacks serving in the army, because of this. But, if you served, with  your master's permission, or as a substitute, you had to wait until the end of your term of service. Are you really fighting as a free man, then?   The ratio of free to slave is unclear. 

A scenario. Given. Once you are enlisted, you could not be removed you from service per claim of ownership. So, you ran away from a plantation in Delaware, made your way to Pennsylvania. Slave catchers are hunting for you. You walk into camp to enlist. The officer asks you if you are free. 

• For 1 shilling, a jigger of rum, and an all expense paid trip (march) to sunny Monmouth, NJ in July, what is the correct answer?
• For the bonus prize of wintering  in scenic Morristown, NJ (no provisions), what happened to the 1st Rhode Islanders when they returned from the War?

Suffice it to say, the problem is not the history, but how it's taught and portrayed! To be clear, my article is not a criticism of black identity sentiments.  Don't be too quick to condemn this view. Remember what I said about the Constitutional status of Africans in America. These facts only begin to scratch the surface. Indentured servitude for Africans evolved into life-time "servitude", into a multi-generational system of chattel slavery. Being chattel means your very identity as a human being is stripped from you. While Europe was dismantling slavery,  this country, which had won its' liberty, codified this system into the Law of the Land. We are talking about millions of people, subject to 4 more generations of systematic dehumanization, until the Civil War. We have yet to assess the real consequences of this, not only to African-Americans, but but to the country. As you indicated, it distorted and had an impact on other groups as well.

 What all Americans need to understand about this history, is the economic dimension you bring up.These things that groups experience in our history is not an accident.  The boot heel of industrial exploitation in the North, and the most heinous  institution to ever exit in the South, ground whatever grist was required to prosper.   And all too often, those who are under the heel lash out to those who are the closest (e.g. the 1860's New York draft riots, 1960's urban riots). Qui bono?

Thanks, Mr. TEA

In terms of the war and a rightful African American Independence Day celebration. The revolution was a war for independence and a free nation. There was nothing legitimately American prior to the war. Any promise of freedom for any slave or even the idea of equality of rights for a freeman was placing the cart before the horse. In that no promise could be fulfilled unless the war ended in an American victory. And of course you had to survive the war itself. Washington knew this and so did every Black enlistment, free or slave.

By 1770 there was an estimate 40,000 free Black's in Colonial America. Which ever side they fought on was their decision. That they reasoned and participated as freemen places them with in the ranks of the White draftee and thus every African American owns a part of that history and it should be celebrated by them as Americans. It's a perspective lost by many when only considering the African [American] as slave.

That's the only point I wanted to make. I have no opinion on any ones African American identity today. If their sense of identity prohibits them from celebrating Independence Day that's their choice... I only wanted to point out that African Americans have good reason to celebrate in spite of the history that followed. Their forefathers participated free or slave in the nations emergence and given all the trials and tribulation here we are today with a African American President.

By that reasoning, there was nothing legitimate about American Independence at all! When the founding fathers declared country to be independent and free, they didn't wait for someone to legitimize this claim. They declared it first, an "inalienable right", then, in today's parlance said, "Deal with it!" . But in doing this, they also determined specifically it didn't include black people. The word "freedom", does not appear anywhere in the Declaration of Independence. It and the Articles of Confederation were worded specifically, so as not to be interpreted as applying to slaves. Any language construed to directly or indirectly  challenge the institution of slavery, was removed. A promise of liberty was made, but not for every one, especially blacks.

Again you anticipate our  reasons for participating. In fact, I would go so far to say that not to do so is counter productive. The military contributions of African-Americans in war have long been written out, ignored, and in some cases purposely distorted. By not recognizing American Independence, for so-called identity issues, adherents only perpetuate the problem.  Inadvertently we end up giving up what others sought to deny us, our rightful stake in our claim to the American enterprise. A price of blood was the down payment, years of involuntary extended credit through uncompensated toil, unending delay in delivery, and finally outright explicit denial (Dredd Scott). On occasion of war, we stepped up, continuing to make down payments, but  as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, when it was time cash in on America's promisary note of liberty, the return receipt said "insufficient funds".

Slavery. Slavery wasn't dying on its' own any time soon. Southern elites' strategy and vision was to expand their control of strategic resources in international markets, using the competitive advantage of free labor over their European competitors. If left uninterrupted, they may have realized their ambitions to expand slavery in the continental US, and establish plantations, mines, etc.  in Central and South America. They had imperial ambitions of empire building, as European powers had done in Africa and Asia. I find "The Cousins War" interpretation of the events of the time most compelling. With the preservation of the Union, powerful Northern industrial familial interests won an ongoing struggle for hegemony over the Southern plantation aristocracy.

No MLK's. It's a bad habit to wait on a "MLK". I call it the messiah complex - waiting for a leader, a great man, a president, Godot. No one's going to save our people or the country by himself. We need to direct our collective efforts to make institutional change. The founding fathers pledged to the mutual sacrifice of  lives, property, and wealth to the cause. 

Black Politics. Individuals, colonies, yo men, and aristocrats forged together an American identity. There is nothing wrong with black politics. No group in this country ever overcame societal  barriers without identifying as group, and organizing for power. Over 300 years of institutional racism is ingrained in the fabric of this country, and it is not going "to die out naturally". Slavery was a fact. Its' impact is still felt to this day. Whether you believe slavery was either created because of racial prejudice, or that slavery fostered and reinforced racial prejudice,  will determine what is needed to address  institutional racism. Group identity politics is a natural, healthy, and necessary adaptation of minority groups to gain power when being targeted by the larger society 

Here is something to consider along with your Slave State "world domination" theory:
The potential for political conflict over slavery at a federal level led politicians to be concerned about the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, where each State was represented by two Senators. With an equal number of slave states and free states, the United States Senate was equally divided. As the population of the free states began to outstrip the population of the slave states, leading to control of the House of Representatives by free states, the Senate became the preoccupation of slave state politicians interested in maintaining a Congressional veto over federal policy in regard to slavery. As a result of this preoccupation, slave states and free states were often admitted into the Union in pairs to maintain the existing Senate balance between slave and free.

Had the emerging territories been Left to their own devices, and had their Statehood been freely accepted with out being forced into the Slave/Free State debate by the Federal government, the issue would have remained something between the old, leaving the new untouched and uninvolved. And people of every color [as they did before] would have voted with their feet.

Unfortunately, the Federalist in Washington couldn't keep they hands off of State's Rights issues and fairly demanded participation. All of a sudden people with no horse in the race are seeking alliances and choosing sides so Washington "feels" assured they are in full control and able to dictate to the Slave State. ie: Controversy over whether Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, resulted in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which specified that Louisiana Purchase territory north of latitude 36° 30', which described Missouri's southern boundary, would be organized as free states and territory south of that line would be reserved for organization as slave states. As part of that compromise, the admission of Maine as a free state was secured to balance Missouri's admission as a slave state.

Even before the War of 1812 Southern Slave State's were questioning their capacity to maintain the "institution" of slavery in the face of the steady industrialization of agriculture. More specifically cotton. By the time of the out break of the Civil War less than half the Black population resided in the original "Slave State's". There being a "reinvigorated" slave trade as Southern [big city] slave holders sought to divest themselves of said "property", while Southern [rural] slave holders faced a demand for slaves as the poor White subsistence farmers sold off or left farms and moved to the industrial North for a steady wage. Countering this was the influx of Catholic Irish driven out of the North for being Catholic, who would take a cheaper wage and do more dangerous work than the local White or freed Black. Slave economics in the US was gasping it's last deep breath.

Again, I make the argument that left to their own devices and in the absence of Federalist intervention into State's Rights. Slavery in America would have died a natural death. AND I believe that in the absence of the forced animosity between State's [and color] our Civil Rights issues would have been equally transitioned with out violence as State's matured.

People who think there is "nothing wrong" with our Black politics are either politically and socially near-sighted or their personal wealth and status is bound to the ghettoization of the Black people in America. There seems now to be a social struggle between those of us with ideals of Black inclusion, and those who argue for more Black exception. The state of Black "society" [read ghetto] in America today is a direct result of Black exception. It has nothing to do with slavery or even "whitey". This "condition" is completely on the shoulders of Black social politics and Black politicians getting the exceptions to society they demanded for their own empowerment. It sure as hell wasn't for mine.

The free and slave who fought for the Revolutionary ideals of our Founding Fathers didn't do so that Black Americans would be herded into some self-made "Auschwitz", some "killing ground" by our own self-professed elite/racial leadership. The day of blaming "Whitey" for our problems is long past.