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On the Record: The Enslaved at the President’s House Memorial
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by Karen Hatter | October 26, 2010 at 10:46 am
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Philadelphia attorney and community activist Michael Coard is co founder of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC). The organization has fought tirelessly for recognition of the nine enslaved persons held in bondage by the man known by many around the world as the ‘father of his country’, George Washington.
Numerous scholars have uncovered extensive documentation during this project regarding the lives of the enslaved persons held by America’s first president.
During excavation for the President’s House memorial, in addition to those enslaved persons kept inside the house, it was determined some of the enslaved of African descent were housed in the stable area near the current location of the Liberty Bell Center.
Until the complete history of the brutality and indignities of chattel slavery, as practiced in the so called New World, are thoroughly exposed, there are many in the United States of America and the world who will continue to believe the nearly four centuries’ long enslavement of Africans and those of African descent in the Americas and various islands in the Caribbean was merely unfortunate people, working without wages when, tragically, it was so much more.
Between 1518 and 1870, the transatlantic slave trade supplied the greatest proportion of the Caribbean population. As sugarcane cultivation increased and spread from island to island--and to the neighboring mainland as well--more Africans were brought to replace those who died rapidly and easily under the rigorous demands of labor on the plantations, in the sugar factories, and in the mines.
Acquiring and transporting Africans to the New World became a big and extremely lucrative business. From a modest trickle in the early sixteenth century, the trade increased to an annual import rate of about 2,000 in 1600, 13,000 in 1700, and 55,000 in 1810. Between 1811 and 1870, about 32,000 slaves per year were imported. As with all trade, the operation fluctuated widely, affected by regular market factors of supply and demand as well as the irregular and often unexpected interruptions of international war.
Here is an excerpt from The Black Eye on George Washington’s White House, written by Michael Coard. The article can be found at the ATAC website:
While schoolchildren often were taught and sometimes still are taught about his wooden teeth, a story based on myth, they never were taught about his “slave” teeth, a story based on truth.Notwithstanding that it was quite likely a dentist from Philadelphia made Washington’s first total set of normal dentures in 1789, the complete story is much more interesting or, better stated, much more disturbing.
Instead of, or in addition to, wooden teeth or standard dentures, Washington had teeth that actually were “yanked from the heads of his slaves and fitted into his dentures... [and also] apparently had slaves’ teeth transplanted into his own jaw in 1784...” (Parentheses added.) (16)
Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) is:
Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) .... a broad-based organization of African American historians, attorneys, elected officials, religious leaders, media personalities, community activists, and registered voters.
My interview with attorney and community activist Michael Coard, co founder of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC):
Karen Hatter (KH): Mr. Coard, how did the Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) come into existence?
Michael Coard (MC): A newspaper article was written in 2002 about the move of the Liberty Bell Center from Fifth and Market Streets to Sixth and Market Streets.
In that article was information indicating that not only was that Sixth and Market Street site the original site of the President's House, America's first "White House" but, it was also the site where President George Washington enslaved Black people.
As a result of reading that in 2002, many in Philadelphia's Black community were outraged about the malicious failure of Independence National Historical Park (INHP) and the National Park Service (NPS) to publicly and conspicuously acknowledge that earth shattering historical fact, a fact, by the way, both entities had been well aware of since at least 1973.
When the Black community's demands to INHP and NPS were ignored, Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) was born in 2002. The rest, as they say, is history. We've been meeting, strategizing, demonstrating, protesting, debating, negotiating, and winning ever since.
KH: What has been ATAC’s principle concern regarding the construction of the President’s House memorial?
MC: The permeation of slavery in the project, in its most graphic, hence, horribly realistic form, is our principle concern. Far too long, American history has minimized slavery as a long past, relatively minor aberration in America's financial and material greatness. But America is great today only because of slavery yesterday.
Imagine if you owned a company that for 246 years, from 1619-1865, did not have to pay or insure its employees. You'd certainly have a financially and materially great company. Well, America is that company- because, from 1619, my ancestors were first held in bondage in what is now America until 1865 when the 13th Amendment was enacted.
Throughout all of that time, slavery permeated every aspect of America, just as it has permeated every aspect of the President's House. It was there with President George Washington in 1790 when he moved in. It was there when slave trader Robert Morris leased it to the federal government to house the president. It was there from the beginning in 1767 when the estate of major slave owner William Masters, the former mayor of Philadelphia, built the house.
KH: When visiting Philadelphia’s historic attractions, visitors from across the U.S. and around the world have remarked they were unaware that George Washington held slaves. Please share your thoughts regarding what many consider to be a glaring omission in the telling of the historical narrative of the America’s first president.
MC: That question can best be answered by reading The Black Eye on George Washington's White House, archived at the ATAC website. The article was written at the request of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.
In addition, I respond by stating that the glaring omission you reference is revealed as follows: If American visitors and tourists want to say that George Washington was a great patriot, they can say that. If they want to say that he was a great general, they can say that, too. And if they want to say that he was a great president, they can say that, as well. But, can he be a great human being when he enslaved 316 of his fellow human beings in brutal bondage at his Mt. Vernon, Virginia estate?
KH: Please share your insight into the discussion of the inclusion of the histories of the nine persons of African descent held as slaves at the President’s House as it evolved over the seven year planning phase of the memorial.
MC: Highlighted and conspicuous inclusion of the history of the nine is absolutely essential. If there was not sufficient inclusion, there would not be a project, at least, not without relentless and zealous protests, even constant civil disobedience.
KH: There has been contention among the various entities involved in the project regarding what balance to strike while covering the accomplishments and legacies of U.S. Presidents George Washington and John Adams, both having resided at the President’s House, as well as offering an accurate representation of the harshness of the lives of the enslaved. How was that issue resolved?
MC: I'll quote Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana and Ken Burns, noted filmmaker and historian, in response to the complaint by numerous vocal White historians regarding the project:
"The history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written as the history of its dominant class." - Nkrumah
"The black-white rift stands at the very center of American history. It is the great challenge to which all our deepest aspirations to freedom must rise. If we forget that- if we forget the great stain of slavery that stands at the heart of our country, our history, our experiment- we forget who we are, and we make the great rift deeper and wider." - Burns
Although Washington and Adams are effectively addressed in this project, equality is not the point. Why? Because equality in one project where inequality has been the rule in more than hundreds of previous projects is not only insufficient, it's just plain wrong.
What's right is equity, meaning the leveling of the historic playing field. In this project, that means more about the enslavement of Black humans, which is rarely highlighted and less about the deification of White heroes, which is always highlighted.
I would prefer that the project be "blacker", more emotionally intense in terms of accurately, graphically portraying the horrors of slavery. But, as a Black man who realizes that this is a government-funded project on federal property, I'm a pragmatist who views this project as a giant step in the right direction.
Those aforementioned white historians and others will certainly attack the project as politically correct, meaning controversial. But I respond by quoting a representative of publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston who said "When you're publishing a book, if there's something that is controversial, it's better to take it out."
Similarly stated, when you're designing and interpreting a historical project, the powers that be will caution you to play it safe. However, playing it safe brings you nothing but safety. It does not bring you truth.
KH: Research has revealed President Washington’s concern for his public image and his association with America’s system of institutional slavery.
For instance, in private correspondence to his chief secretary Tobias Lear, President Washington directed him to assess his obligation to comply with Pennsylvania’s statute granting emancipation to any enslaved person(s) residing in the state for at least six months. He also directed that efforts to recapture an enslaved runaway not be linked to his name.
1791/03 While the Capital was still located in Philadelphia, George Washington, fearing the impact of a Pennsylvania law freeing slaves after six months residence in that state, instructed his secretary Tobias Lear to ascertain what effect the law would have on the status of the slaves who served the presidential household in Philadelphia.
In case Lear believed that any of the slaves were likely to seek their freedom under Pennsylvania law, Washington wished them sent home to Mount Vernon. "If upon taking good advise it is found expedient to send them back to Virginia, I wish to have it accomplished under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public."
When one of his slaves ran away in 1795 Washington told his overseer to take measures to apprehend the slave "but I would not have my name appear in any advertisement, or other measure, leading to it."
(Tobias Lear, Letters and Recollections of George Washington, NY, 1906, page 38; Washington to William Pearce, 22 Mar. 1795, Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union.
Recounted in "That Species of Property": Washington's Role in the Controversy Over Slavery by Dorothy Twohig.
Originally Presented at a Conference on Washington and Slavery at Mount Vernon, October 1994)
President Washington’s statute inquiry and his desired handling of attempts to retrieve an escaped enslaved person reveal a strategy to juggle the logistics of his personal life as a slaveholder with that of his public persona.
Has any research reconciled the contradictory nature of President Washington’s private and public actions regarding slavery in America?
MC: No research has reconciled or can or will reconcile Washington's contradiction. His public face as the selfless friend of freedom directly contradicts his not-so-private face as the selfish enemy of freedom. There's no getting around it and no way of stating it euphemistically: simply put, he was a hypocrite.
KH: Scholars associated with the project worked diligently to assure the incorporation of the stories of those known enslaved persons that traveled with President Washington between his Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during his tenure as President of the United States. What additional facts regarding slavery might scholars involved with the project have included at the President’s House memorial?
MC: Everything in the article I wrote, archived at the ATAC website, should be included in the project.
KH: On December 6, 2010, there is a planned public event, characterized as a “soft opening” by Rosalyn McPherson, who is overseeing the project for the city of Philadelphia. The official opening is scheduled to occur in July 2011. Have details for the December event been finalized?
MC: Not yet. ATAC will play a prominent role at both openings.
KH: Having assured the memorial will provide Philadelphians, the nation and the world with a finite glimpse into the lives of the nine enslaved persons at the President’s House, who labored under the brutality of the United States’ system of chattel slavery, what’s next for Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC)?
MC: The Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) will address a number of issues, including the renaming of public schools that are currently named after slave owners.
We will also continue our fund raising for historic Eden Cemetery, the oldest Black public cemetery in America. Some of history's greatest African Americans are interred there.
Eden's creation was a cumulative effort. It was the original idea of its founder and organizer, Jerome Bacon. Bacon was a teacher at the Institute for Colored Youth on Bainbridge near 9th Street, which was later renamed Cheyney State College.
In 1900 most African Americans in Philadelphia lived in the SP Ward, an area examined in W.E.B. DuBois' study, The Philadelphia Negro. As the city's population increased. neighborhood" cemeteries were condemned due to improvements in sanitary and sewage systems.
Out of respect for those currently interred and to provide a future resting place for African Americans, Bacon discussed with his contemporaries a plan for a unified African American cemetery. Eden's first president, J. C. Asbury; first manager, Daniel W. Parvis; first treasurer, Martin Lehmann and first vice president, Charles Jones, agreed with Bacon on a fifty-three acre plot in Collingdale, Pennsylvania.
The area was selected because of its proximity to Philadelphia, beautiful landscape, size and availability.
Sadly, it has consistently been victimized by racist desecration, beginning with its opening in 1902 when its entrance was blockaded by racist thugs and most recently, in 2008, when more than 200 headstones were vandalized by racist thugs, with many other examples of outrageously shocking racist desecration throughout the decades.
KH: Mr. Coard, is there any additional information you’d wish to share or thoughts you’d wish to express?
MC: Everything that needs to be said is at our website. However, in conclusion, I'll say this.
History has been made in America with this President's House/Slavery Memorial project.
This project is the first of its kind anywhere at anytime in the United States. For African Americans, it is our Mt. Rushmore, our Statue of Liberty, our Liberty Bell. Finally, people will be shown the real history of America and that means the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
From the ATAC website, in Mr. Coard’s words:
When considering the issue of slavery, whether in connection with Washington in Philadelphia or other slave owners throughout America, it is essential to recognize that the so-called “slaves” were sentient human beings, not inanimate things. They had personalities. They had aspirations. They had thoughts. They had feelings. They had names and backgrounds. And those names and backgrounds must be made known so that they, as real human beings, are both humanized and personalized.Accordingly, and because this article pertains specifically to Washington’s Philadelphia “White House,” it will humanize and personalize the nine whom he brought to the city (27), eight of them in 1790 and the ninth in 1796. These nine, it must be noted, were not the only black human beings enslaved by Washington and his wife who together either owned or had the lifetime use of a total of 316 as listed in his official Mount Vernon records. (28)
The names of the nine enslaved persons who labored in the household of George and Martha Washington at the President’s House, whose names and histories will be enshrined as a part of the memorial, due in large part to the activism of the Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), are Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe (Richardson), Moll, Oney Judge, Paris and Richmond.
Mr. Coard, my heartfelt thanks for your activism and the dedication of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) in righting one of American history’s enumerable wrongs, in the form of omissions, reclaiming from anonymity the contributions of these nine enslaved persons of African descent, nine among countless millions who will remain unsung and unknown, who toiled nearly 400 years in this land, first in the 13 British colonies and later, in the United States of America.
Also at NowPublic:
Slavery & Washington's Legacy: Conflict at White House Memorial
The President's House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (56)
at 12:56 on October 26th, 2010
African Americans might argue that the hole from which they had to dig was far deeper than other American immigrants because 1) they did not come to the USA by their own free will, 2) they were discriminated on for their race and not just their nationality, 3) they were institutionally repressed for a long period even after their emancipation.
I witnessed discrimination in my generation and therefore African Americans still have a very fresh set of issues.
This is an excellent story, Karen.
at 13:14 on October 26th, 2010
Thank you so much, Jim.
at 13:59 on October 26th, 2010
Awesome story Karen, with excellent writing to boot,
at 14:22 on October 26th, 2010
Thanks a lot, Barry.
at 16:18 on October 26th, 2010
What color was the first slave master in America? Yup, black.
at 16:19 on October 26th, 2010
Thats just a little bit of information that just happens to be left out of any conversation about slaves in America.
at 16:30 on October 26th, 2010
And thats "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about American history."
at 17:37 on October 26th, 2010
There isn't any legitimate scholarship that supports your bizarre assertion, JustMyOpinion.
Nor does your assertion dispute any of the information provided here in this article.
at 02:38 on October 27th, 2010
Indicted and convicted bigot.
at 18:34 on October 26th, 2010
Not only is it true but I can also name his slave. You seem to act as though you are so knowledgeable of American History with regards to slaves and their masters, you certainly should have known this black slave masters name and his slaves name who, hint, was the first black slave for life.
at 18:37 on October 26th, 2010
Pass the information along to the ATAC so as they can have the full history of slaves and their masters.
at 06:03 on October 29th, 2010
JustMyOpinion, this article details the efforts of historians, concerned about the unsightly nature of slavery and the possible diminished esteem in which George Washington may be held if the truth were known regarding him holding enslaved people while laying claim to " .... life liberty and the pursuit of happiness ...." for himself.
Source: avengingtheancestors.com
Source: ancienthistoricalsociety.org
at 02:42 on October 27th, 2010
You know nothing about slave history and the context. In the process, some slave traders conscripted Africans in the process of providing slave labor. Yes, there is a history, including modern history, whereby some Africans and non Africans employ slavery. But, is your point to undermine the overwhelming evidence about who led the travesty to employ humans without their free will into slave bondage in America? I can only speculate your motivation.
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"thirty-aught-six" (not verified)at 21:25 on October 26th, 2010
Black African slave traders raided opposing tribes and enslaved fellow blacks long before American whites engaged in an already ongoing trade that went back thousands of years. Blaming 'whitey' is a cop out. Blacks had no more reverence for color than the color of gold.
at 21:54 on October 26th, 2010
Source: pbs.org
Source: abolition.e2bn.org
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'thirty-aught-six" (not verified)at 23:07 on October 26th, 2010
Complete and utter B.S. Europeans had little use for slaves outside of the Roman Empire. Tracing African slavery prior to American "whites" find slaves across the know world. Europeans got their first slaves from the Arab slave trade including the Romans, excluding those taken in warfare. Europeans offered full release from slavery, albeit selectively, going back to The Romans. This is verified by written histories. Same took place in the US. In the US even "freed" slaves took slaves themselves, so did some Native American Tribes. Slavery was a known and an accepted more for centuries across many different societies. The American history of slavery came at the tail end of that history. Chattel is a legal term relating to property. Wives were considered property under chattel laws. You need to read more and parse less. One key reason for the extended debate on slave labor in the US was political. The Northern [industrial] States unwillingness to find timely accommodation for a [agricultural] dependence in the Southern States to acclimate to changing mores. Instead the North placed the condition of economical survival of the South as immaterial to the social changes with in a industrial society where the slave was unneeded. The South chose economical survival over the ultimatum of social change. As a result....Civil War. Had it been handled differently. True emancipation would have resulted and the prolonged civil rights movement unnecessary. We see the same reactionary defensive behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of establishing democratic governance. Your comments suppose that there is a ingrained hatred or superiority within the human social color spectrum. This analogy is false. In spite of the white/black history in America there is substantial intermarriage and social acceptance. The extremes either way are not the norm.
at 05:46 on October 27th, 2010
Digging into ancient history to demonstrate the roots of evil among human beings sheds no light on the current history and your personal contribution to it.
at 06:49 on October 27th, 2010
Shell casing (not verified), that is nonsense.
at 09:24 on October 29th, 2010
Source: old.antislavery.org
The European nations of Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Portugal participated in the Transatlantic African Slave Trade.
Source: slavevoyages.org
From Elmina Castle: Trading Outpost and Slave Factory:
Source: pbs.org
Source: ghanaweb.com
at 02:43 on October 27th, 2010
Conjuring up such stories serves what purpose for you?
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T1 (not verified)at 21:45 on October 26th, 2010
Karen, pleasure. As you must know, several of this countries early presidents had slaves. This idea of jmo that the first slave owner in America was black would be somewhat difficult or impossible to prove; and that such a statement would have little significance to your commentary.
History generally can be skewed by society, those writing it, and the time period it's written in. As for correcting American black history, how it's been recorded and being taught, will only be accomplished by those interested enough in doing something about it today. Thanks for the sharing your interview with the organization, Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC). 1
avengingtheancestors.com/
at 21:53 on October 26th, 2010
You're welcome, T1 and thank you for reading the interview.
Indeed, I am aware that several presidents and many of the so called founding fathers were slaveholders but, since the focus was the President's House memorial, I didn't explore those ties to chattel slavery.
at 05:35 on October 27th, 2010
As I said, I not only know the black slave owners name, but also his slave's name that he fought for, in court and won, and who because of the black slave masters actions became the first black slave for life. So not only is it rather simple to find but is also very, very true. However that information doesnt sit well with Karens and the ATAC because it goes against their bias agenda of the white man and America as a whole.
at 07:52 on October 27th, 2010
In the context of the issues in discussion in this interview and article, JustMyOpinion, alleging to know of a slaveholder said to be a Black person, pales in the telling of the subjugation of an entire continent and enslavement of an entire people by European colonizers and is simplistically silly in comparison.
at 09:39 on October 27th, 2010
"Pale," is that a pun?
at 09:49 on October 27th, 2010
I guess it CAN be , Jim! LOL!
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JohnJB (not verified)at 23:04 on October 26th, 2010
Karen, wonderful and informative article, but I don't understand the point. (Probably because I'm white and from a nation without a big history of slavery. We used the convicts instead.) Is the idea to make modern white Americans feel bad by showing that their ancestors did bad things? Is it to satisfy some sort of persecution complex? Similarly I don't understand the idea behind "Avenging the Ancestors" as that name implies bringing a past blood feud into the moder era and exacting "Vengeance". If their intention is truth, wouldn't something like "Reclaiming the Ancestors" have been a better name? . I must add that judging Washington by todays standards seems a bit of a stretch. He was a product of his times and his views and actions reflected that. Hence he wasn't a "hypocrite" by both championing freedom and keeping slaves because he didn't see the slaves as human. We certainly disagree with that belief today, but his actions were internally consistent with his beliefs then. . Please don't take the above as argumentative as it's not meant as such. I'm trying to understand.
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JohnJB (not verified)at 23:05 on October 26th, 2010
PS. And I still can't get the papragraphs to work. :)
at 07:24 on October 27th, 2010
Beginning with the name of the organization ATAC, JohnJB, you would need to contact someone from the organization to ask them why they chose the name they have for their organization.
As for your other queries, in America, as has been the track record of most European countries and their colonies, when it comes to telling the story of the oppressed of whatever land they came to dominate, most likely the sin of omission is committed or a total whitewash of facts is offered.
The founders of this nation signed on to a document in 1776, the Declaration of Independence, which declared ....,
Source: ushistory.org
.... whose author, Thomas Jefferson, held enslaved the half sister of his deceased wife, since his father in law was the father of the enslaved person Sally Hemming, with whom Jefferson fathered several children. Jefferson referred to slavery as a "peculiar institution".
When he and those gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for their first gathering to form the United States of America in the summer of 1776, it is believed there were approximately 250,000 persons of African descent being held enslaved. For Jefferson to write about God given rights in the face of that reality is hypocritical.
At the end of the centuries long custom of institutional chattel slavery in the United States, it was estimated there were over 4,000,000 people that had survived the institution.
Only in modern times have modern historians, of all colors, sought to set the record straight regarding the stories of those millions of people for hundreds of years, whose forced labor created the wealth of this nation and the world.
The enslaved people of African descent were represented to be not truly human, as a means to ease the mindset of those engaged in the use of the enslaved, forced labor. Jefferson himself has opined his beliefs in that regard as well as Lincoln, Washington and many other well known historical figures that lived while the system of chattel slavery was in place.
Enslaved people were to be thought of as beasts of burden for this purpose. When so called African Americans seek to find their histories, they often, if they're really lucky enough to find evidence of their ancestors, will find long gone relatives listed among the records of the livestock owned by a specific slaveholder. (Personal note: My husband found his great grandmother listed in livestock records in Mississippi. In my case, like in the case of Whoopi Goldberg, whose common maiden name Johnson made it difficult to get very far into her family tree, my maiden name is also a common name.)
There was an uproar a few years back when, after work began on revamping some part of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., it was discovered several slaveholders had been paid for the 'use' of their enslaved people during the construction of the Capitol in the 1800s, with it also being learned, which really shouldn't have been a surprise, that an enslaved labor also helped build the White House.
Source: pbs.org
The uproar, raised by African American legislators, centered around the fact that there did not exist any history of the enslaved people that had worked there at such a monumental project, which, given the machinations of denial of the day, why would there be any record?
Obviously, when work was done by any beasts in those days, odds are there would be no record of the names of the horses, oxen, mules OR the enslaved people because they were to be viewed as one in the same by those who used the enslaved people's labor as they would that of the animals that were also used.
The concern for the preservation and control of the narrative of the nation's founding required, for posterity, that the condition of existence of millions of enslaved people toiling for hundreds of years not be acknowledged in an open fashion.
JohnJB, those who founded this nation, who enslaved people of African descent knew those they were enslaving were people; they just chose to rationalize their actions, to assuage their own consciences, that they were not. They were indeed hypocrites.
Jefferson attempted to add language that would blame the mother country, Great Britain, for continuing the sin of chattel slavery in the colonies but, that language was voted down. Eleven years later, when the U.S. Constitution was written, it detailed that not until 1808 could the nation, as a matter of national policy, seek to end slavery.
In Jefferson's omitted clause addressing slavery, alleged to be forced upon the 13 colonies by the Crown, he refers to the descendants of Africa as " .... persons of a distant people ....". In the omitted clause in the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, he wrote:
Source: digitalhistory.uh.edu
So, those responsible for founding the nation, those gathered at the Continental Congress, at the time of the nation's founding, could have chosen to abolish slavery but, it did not. As a matter of fact, when many of the same individuals gathered to draft the U.S. Constitution, adopted 11 years after the Declaration, ratified a year later, 12 years after the Declaration, they chose to devise a formula for the purposes of voting privileges and for acknowledging the wealth, in number of enslaved persons held, for those who held enslaved people.
The various writings of the so called founding fathers reveals they knew their actions were humanly wrong but, they decided, if they needed to build the nation, they needed the extremely profitable economic enterprise of slavery. Enslaved people were used as collateral on loans, to pay debts, like any other type of held property or possession of value.
Source: usnews.com
The nation's founders were careful not include the word slavery in the Declaration being well aware of the incongruity of the proclamation of the " .... the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness ...." clause with the word slavery also appearing in the nation's founding document.
Now, in this time period, alleged to be modern times, since most if not ALL of us Americans, are on the same page, that is in ACKNOWLEDGING African Americans are people, when and if there are plans to build future monuments to the founders of this nation, the true story should be told, that is BOTH sides, including the imperfection that was/is the greatest stain on America's founding and collective consciousness, the brutal institution of chattel slavery.
The reason for reluctance to tell the oppressed people's side of any story of any nation is obvious, the oppressed people's stories take away from the loftiness of the oppressors' narratives, in this case, the creation and founding of the United States of America.
Detailing orchestrated campaigns to give the Native people smallpox laden blankets in an effort to kill them to aid in the reduction of their numbers to expedite taking their land and enslaving Africans for centuries, doesn't sound so awe inspiring.
The tale of Europeans fleeing the homeland to pursue religious freedom when it is known that the indigenous Native population, as well as the enslaved African population, were denied their religious freedoms doesn't fit well with that narrative.
History is what it is as relates to the founding of this nation. It never was the sugar coated fairy tale WE, and I do mean WE, as in MY generation, were taught.
There are elements within the United States currently that are right now, as I write this, doing everything within their power to scrub clean the histories of those not related to the original European population that came to inhabit and dominate this land, seeking to relegate everyone else's histories, even certain European histories, inconsequential, not necessary in the telling of the story of America's history.
Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), no matter what the rationale for its name, has succeeded in preserving an almost lost reality that tells of those human beings whom George and Martha Washington claimed ownership, who labored without recognition. Now, over 200 years later, that error has been rectified.
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JohnJB (not verified)at 19:37 on October 27th, 2010
Karen, thanks for the detailed reply. I was unaware of the omitted clause in the Declaration of Independence and obviously (wrongly) assumed that the attitudes of the slave holders were simply products of their times. The omitted clause shows that this is not the case. Keeping the institution alive was a conscious political choice. I think you answered all my other questions in this one paragraph; "Now, in this time period, alleged to be modern times, since most if not ALL of us Americans, are on the same page, that is in ACKNOWLEDGING African Americans are people, when and if there are plans to build future monuments to the founders of this nation, the true story should be told, that is BOTH sides, including the imperfection that was/is the greatest stain on America's founding and collective consciousness, the brutal institution of chattel slavery." The truth should be told, all of it. I'm more a student of ancient history and am quite familiar with the various forms of slavery that were practiced up to 5,000 odd years ago. The "peculiar institution" of American chattel slavery is demonstrably the worst form of slavery ever practiced in human history. It is also very unfair to compare it in any way to English "serfdom" as after the Magna Carta even serfs were given protection under the law. Under the Law, a serf was miles ahead of an American slave. I suppose I sometimes have misgivings about the ATAC type projects because I wonder if they concentrate too much and perhaps demand "disproportionate"? recognition. What I mean by this is that there were 9 slaves in the Washington household and we know their names. Were there any paid servants? Do we know their names, or have they been forgotten? Similarly in a large construction project it is right to include the fact that slaves were used, but it isn't right to conclude that they were omitted because they were slaves. Hundreds of average workers and apprentices weren't put in the history books either. The subversion of history for political purposes can cut both ways.