Posted on 07/15/2019 4:18:23 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
In his speech on Conciliation with America, Edmund Burke said the following to the House of Commons:
Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters?--from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes.
Now, there may be some issue raised as to if Burke really is the Founder of modern Conservatism, that's a title given to him by (I think) Kirk and repeated by many, many others. If that's the primary response to this, you missed the forest and the trees. Keep in mind, Burke isn't just stating that Britain brought them across the sea. Burke is also stating another crucial fact - The future Americans (then British subjects) were fighting back and trying their best to prevent future shipments. What does Burke mean when he talks about "refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina"?
According to some estimates, less than 300,000 slaves were brought to America after Independence was declared. More than double that were brought here per the wishes of Parliament and/or the King. That represents some roughly 5% total of human traffic. As horrible as this is, let's understand the full scope of what was done.
According to the same estimates with less numbers omitted, Britain shipped out over 3 million souls from Africa. What percentage is that? These estimates state that in total roughly 12 million were trafficked including what was done by Portugal, Spain, France, and others. Over 3 million is at least 25%.
Is Edmund Burke correct on his call of hypocrisy? If so, then the question is this: Is slavery really America's original sin? At 25%, is it more correct to say that slavery Britain's original sin?
Why should America get the blame when our forefathers repeatedly and desperately tried to tell the King "NO"?
” The point is what do the facts say. The facts say that early colonial and yes some founders were fighting against the British to prevent slavery from coming to these shores meanwhile his highness fought against this abolitionist wave and imposed slavery on us anyways, against our will. “
Speaking of facts, how exactly could founders be “fighting to prevent slavery from coming to these shores” when it had arrived here some time in the 1600s?
And as for a founding era “abolitionist wave”, good luck with that. Abolitionism wasn’t even popular 90 years later when Lincoln was President.
Thomas Fleming’s “A Disease in the Public Mind” presents an excellent history of all this, in contrast to the a-historical nonsense cranked out by Dinesh and others who think that they can outdo the Left in playing the slavery/racism game.
Eugene Genovese’s “Roll Jordan Roll” is another good book. As well as Fogel’s “Time on the Cross”.
That's why I referenced Edmund Burke's speech without some history book filter. He spelled out exactly how the colonists were doing what they could to prevent a superpower from landing slave ships on these shores. Historian George Bancroft also wrote about some of the prevention efforts in his history books, particularly his best known 1854 work History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.
Again a speech, but Abraham Lincoln also defended the Founders against charges made by the slave owners of the south (this argument really isn't all that new) and this false distortion of history. To keep this short, if you are curious what Lincoln said it is here: http://tinyurl.com/n3aazgz
I'll ping to your book recommendations in case others would like to read these.
Here are some book recommendations from another FReeper for any interested:
Thomas Flemings A Disease in the Public Mind
Eugene Genoveses Roll Jordan Roll
Robert Fogels Time on the Cross
Impressment isn’t slavery?? I guess it will have to do until the real things come along!
Thanks--just borrowed it from digital library.
“Impressment isnt slavery?? I guess it will have to do until the real things come along!”
That used to be a popular refrain for some Americans who went to Canada in the ‘60s.
Impressment was compulsory military service. We have it, it’s called the draft.
The Brits claimed that the sailors they were impressing circa 1812 were British citizens who had jumped ship to sail on American vessels.
It was nothing like the draft. There was no select service in which every able man registered for the draft and therefore knew in advance that he was liable to go off to war. He had no advance notice. Additionally, impressment, which was really a Royal Navy problem, often simply took sailors off the street and forced them onto ships. They gangpressed American sailors! I suggest you read some Melville before accepting that this was not a noxious practice. Laws were passed in the 1830s to stop the practice; unsurprisingly, around the same time they abolished slavery. I’m sure many noticed the similarity.
Show that the sailors were bought and sold and you have a case to equate impressment with slavery.
I never said it wasn’t a “noxious practice”. I said it was compulsory military service and not slavery.
https://www.marinersmuseum.org/sites/micro/usnavy/08/08a.htm
For goodness sake, it was cited as one of the reasons for the 1812 War!
“You don’t think gangpressing men onto ships isn’t akin to forcing Africans onto ships?”
It’s akin to being “shanghaied”, a term I suspect you know since you are well read. But it doesn’t imply slavery. Slavery is the ownership of human beings. And impressed or shanghaied sailors aren’t owned by anyone.
Moreover gangpressing is something that England did to its own people, and had done for centuries, long before they were involved in slaving.
“The British practice of manning naval ships with “pressed” men, who were forcibly placed into service, was a common one in English history, dating back to medieval times.
“Under British law, the navy had the right, during time of war, to sweep through the streets of Great Britain, essentially arresting men and placing them in the Royal Navy.”
“Legally, foreigners were protected from the press, but this legality was often ignored, and the practice of pressing men at sea became common. In the eyes of the Royal Navy, all Englishmen were available for service even if they were on the ship of a foreign nation. Therefore, it was not uncommon for British naval vessels to stop American ships searching for English crewmen. During these searches, American sailors who could not prove their citizenship were often pressed.”
https://www.marinersmuseum.org/sites/micro/usnavy/08/08a.htm
I guess it depends on what the meaning of slavery is. I happen to think taking away people’s free choice to where they can work or live is slavery. Your quotes do not deter me from my opinion. If today, you found that Barbra Streisand was forcing Mexicans off the street of Los Angeles to work at Versailles...er, I mean her extensive estate at Malibu, without a means of escape, you wouldn’t call that slavery? I would. (She’s done no such thing.) In fact, here on the east coast, we’ve had examples of rich middle-eastern emigres enslaving their hired servants from the Philippines and being arrested and prosecuted for it. So, I guess it is all in the definition.
You know I love you Pelham, even if we disagree on this one!!!
It may be that having been subject to the draft inclines me to see it differently. If they selected your name you didn’t have any choice in it. It was show up or jail. They ‘own’ you for the duration but it’s not slavery. It’s military conscription and that has existed for millennia.
It has its own negatives that differ markedly from slavery. You could get maimed or killed, whereas no master would willingly endanger his slaves because they were valuable. The canals in New Orleans were famously dug by immigrant Irish because no one was about to risk a slave in a trench collapse.
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