Posted on 04/08/2026 10:54:23 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Full Grok question: "If the United States must be blamed for slavery before the U.S. did not even exist in the year 1776, don't Americans get the privilege of taking the credit for abolitionism that existed prior to 1776 since Britain did not do that?"
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Yes, by that exact same logic of retroactive national attribution, Americans (specifically, the colonists who formed the United States) get full credit for the early abolitionist movements that predated 1776—movements Britain itself did not pursue or enact at the time, and which Britain actively hindered in the colonies.
The premise is straightforward and consistent: The United States did not exist as a sovereign nation before July 4, 1776. The 13 colonies were British territories, governed by British law, protected by the British Crown, and deeply integrated into the British transatlantic slave economy. Slavery arrived in Virginia in 1619 under British colonial rule, and the British Empire was one of the largest participants in the transatlantic slave trade for centuries. If critics assign "blame" for pre-1776 slavery to the later United States (rather than to the British Empire that actually ran the colonies), then any pre-1776 opposition to slavery in those same colonies must logically be credited to the proto-American society that produced it—not retroactively to Britain.
Pre-1776 abolitionism was real, organized, and American (i.e., colonial)
The earliest sustained anti-slavery efforts in the English-speaking New World came from within the colonies, especially Pennsylvania Quakers:
* 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition: Four German Quakers (and Mennonites) in Pennsylvania issued the first formal religious protest against slavery in the colonies. It condemned the trade on humanitarian and Christian grounds and called for its end within the Quaker community. This is widely recognized as the beginning of organized abolitionism in what became the United States.
* Quaker leaders like Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, Benjamin Lay, and Ralph Sandiford published pamphlets, preached, and agitated against slavery throughout the mid-1700s. Benezet's work influenced later British figures, but it originated in the colonies.
* 1758: The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers) officially resolved against slavery.
* 1774–1776: Quakers formally prohibited members from buying, selling, or owning slaves and began disowning those who refused to manumit (free) them. By 1776, the Society of Friends had essentially ended slaveholding among its members in the colonies.
* 1775: The Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery was founded—the first abolition society in America (and the world in the modern sense).
Colonial legislatures also tried practical restrictions. Multiple colonies (Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, others) passed or attempted laws taxing or banning slave imports to curtail the trade—only to have them vetoed or disallowed by the British Crown or royal governors, who prioritized imperial commerce. The 1774 Continental Congress (pre-independence) passed resolutions opposing the slave trade. These were homegrown efforts by people who would soon become Americans.
Post-1776, the new states moved faster: Vermont banned slavery outright in 1777; Pennsylvania passed gradual abolition in 1780; Massachusetts courts effectively ended it by 1783. These built directly on pre-Revolution colonial activism.
Britain did not lead or match this before 1776
Britain's own timeline shows no equivalent empire-wide abolitionism at the time:
* Slavery was legal and economically central to the British Empire. Britain transported millions of Africans and profited enormously.
* The 1772 Somerset v. Stewart case ruled that slavery was unsupported by English common law in England itself, but it explicitly did not apply to the colonies and had no practical effect on the slave trade or colonial slavery.
* Organized British abolitionism (Wilberforce, Clarkson, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade) only gained momentum in the 1780s—after American independence. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery throughout most of its empire only in 1833 (effective 1834–1838, with "apprenticeship" periods).
Britain did not "do abolitionism" before 1776; the colonies did—and Britain often stood in the way to protect its economic interests.
The point is consistency, not absolution
History is messy. The United States inherited slavery, tolerated it via constitutional compromises (e.g., the 20-year slave-trade protection), and required a civil war to end it in 1865. Britain profited from the trade for generations and only ended colonial slavery decades later. Selective narratives that pin pre-1776 slavery solely on "America" while ignoring colonial abolitionist pioneers (or Britain's role) are simply inconsistent. The same standard applies: credit where credit is due. The early anti-slavery impulse in the colonies was American in origin, predated independence, and happened while Britain was still expanding the institution.
Lincoln....
Speaking of President Lincoln, when my great, great grandfather for whom I was named (my first and middle real names) volunteered and was in the Michigan volunteers arriving in time for several of the famous battles. Lincoln had faced setbacks and said: “Thank God for Michigan!”
He is buried in Michigan under a Grand Army of the Republic insignia. He made it back and lived long enough to have my grandfather and raise him.
So, I’ll accept reparations from people who are not enslaved thanks to the result of that war.
Then the U.S. should not get blamed for it when the U.S. did not exist.
The owners of those ships, THAT, that country is who should get blamed. The country of the owners of those ships.
From the previous related thread.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4373631/posts
Did the United States inherit slavery from the British Empire?
Let us reverse this.
Did the United States inherit abolitionism from the British Empire?
No. No no no. The U.S. invented abolitionism.
Thank you very much.
I fail to see the connection between slavery hundreds of years ago and the lack of black achievement today.
All I’m really focusing in on is the white achievement of abolitionism and how credit for it belongs to the Americans, not to the Empire.
I mean, you’re not wrong. But that does not help us in the slightest against CRT and The 1619 Project.
Estimates suggest that slaves made up 10% to 20% of the Roman Empire’s total population, roughly five to ten million people at its peak in the 1st century AD. In Italy specifically, slave labor was highly concentrated, with estimates suggesting 30% to 40% of the population, or potentially even higher in certain areas.
Not many places in the world didn’t have slavery and not just blacks they owned many too.
No. Whites get credit for nothing, not even ending the transatlantic slave trade.
Arabs get blamed for nothing, not their role in capturing blacks to feed the salve trade, and certainly not for the slavery that continues to this moment.
There is truth and then there is revisionist truth... The truth of the matter... Slavery in the United States ended in December of 1865 with the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
Before that, it was completely legal and completely acceptable to a vast majority of Americans.
It’s still around in the ME, Asia, and Africa, but no Karens will protest over there (not for women’s rights either). Besides being raped/killed there is no money in it or ability to grandstand.
How is a snake destroyed? Until and unless the project is illustrated for what it literally is, the project simply evolves ... Follow the money ... the devil's isms are magnetic bank vaults for the trouble makers .. most especially IF said 'isms' can charge the US taxpayer to fund their ism.
I have relatives who refused to do genealogy searches, because they FEARED that some in their genealogy had slaves ... I did not have the FEAR, because my ancestors were dirt poor and were among those that willingly or unwillingly SERVED...
We should take the credit. We should TAKE the credit. Do you understand?
I don't care about the arabs. None of the original 13 colonies were founded by arabs and we didn't have a war for independence against arabs in 1776 so arabs are irrelevant.
We should TAKE take TAKE the credit. We earned it, we fought for it, and we were first. This credit is our birthright. It is worth fighting for.
The only place where slavery still exists is in Africa - blacks holding other blacks as slaves.
I have zero white guilt. Whatever sins whites have committed other races have done that and worse.
Whereas when it comes to contributions to civilization - sciences, technology, medicine, the arts, music, literature, governance, law - whites have been responsible for 90% of it. no other race can comes close!
I don’t know why you copied me in this post. I haven’t even commented on this thread.
Wait. The US invented abolitionism........even though Britain pass a law requiring abolition in 1832 and managed via a compensated emancipation scheme to abolish slavery in 1838?
Doesn’t matter - some folks want their reparations.
Slavery as a practice existed since time began. The British and the Americans ended it. They ended it throughout the anglosphere. That, among many other things, is our contribution to history.
Look at the numbers . Union states population approx 25 million
Seeding 11 Southern states 9 million of which 3
5 million were slaves and only 35% actually owned slaves
So you are wrong
The majority were Not in favor of slavery
Granville Sharp was an English scholar, philanthropist and one of the first campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. Born in Durham, he initially worked as a civil servant in the Board of Ordnance. His involvement in abolitionism began in 1767 when he defended a severely injured enslaved person from Barbados in a legal case against his master. Increasingly devoted to the cause, he continually sought test cases against the legal justifications for slavery, and in 1769 he published the first tract in England that explicitly attacked the concept of slavery.
Granville Sharp's efforts culminated in 1772 when he was instrumental in securing Lord Mansfield's ruling in Somerset v Stewart, which held that slavery had no basis in English law.
Granville Sharp understood that to get rid of slavery, you would need the legal system to accomplish that task. In 1807 the Slave Trade Act was passed by the British parliament, which banned the slave trade but not slavery itself. Then the British parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833... Which freed slaves in all British territories.
While there were quakers in the United States who opposed slavery long before 1872... Their numbers were few and far between and they brought no legal cases to the American judiciary system.
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