By: William F. Spivey
America is a great country and therefore needed a great history; the one that existed wouldn’t do. Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America; it was already inhabited when he landed. Not only had the Indians been there long enough to have been considered Native Americans, but Africans had visited American shores multiple times, as indicated by Christopher Columbus and others.
The biggest stain on the legacy of America is its original sin…slavery. Of the early Presidents of the United States, twelve enslaved people during their lifetime, eight while they served as President. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that “all men were created equal” while having owned over 600 enslaved people over his lifetime and taking one for his long-term mistress at the age of 14. Even if you consider that a girl of that era might be regarded as a woman and not a child, someone you own cannot consent. The potential penalty for saying no is too high — being sold away or even death. There is only one word to describe a master taking a slave for a sexual relationship which is rape.
Most of the revered Founding Fathers were enslavers. John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and others were not. Fourteen of the 21 white men generally considered the Founding Fathers enslaved people, including; Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” while he simultaneously deprived slaves of theirs. He couldn’t even justify his position, which he admitted in a letter to John Alsop of the Society of Friends (Quakers). He shrugged off his ownership of slaves as a matter of convenience.
“Would anyone believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not — I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct.” — Patrick Henry
Given the fact that almost all of our early leaders held enslaved people captive, they also bought and sold them. The men who the country needed to build up as heroes had their flaws minimized or erased. The whole institution of slavery and how it was practiced in America was literally whitewashed, made to seem not as bad as it was. Along with diminishing the heinous nature of slavery, the myth of the good slave owner was created and deemed applicable to almost all who owned them. That myth was born of necessity, as the truth would not do.
One of the criteria that made one a good slave owner was whether they freed their slaves after death. Jefferson freed only two, one of whom paid him $200. George Washington freed his slaves after his death (the only President that did), although his death did not free Martha’s slaves. She released hers within a year as each slave had a great incentive to see her dead, which would result in their freedom. George was therefore considered a good master. He happened to have notoriously bad teeth. His dentures were not made of wood as most stories say, but of human teeth taken from his slaves whom we’re to believe he loved so much. Indeed an important man like himself had a greater need for those teeth than his slaves.
Thomas Jefferson may have done more to promote cruel practices related to slavery than any other American. He negotiated and fought for inclusion in the Constitution that the import of enslaved people from Africa wouldn’t end for at least 20 years (Article One: Section Nine). People have spun this as an attempt to begin the process of ending slavery. In truth, it was a protectionist measure to increase the value of domestic enslaved people in areas with an abundance, like his native Virginia and Maryland, to the detriment of states like South Carolina, which imported the bulk of their slaves. Jefferson’s policies promoted the forced breeding of enslaved people with the systemic rape of females whose children were ultimately sold to Southern stock plantations. The actual end of slavery didn’t take place for 50 years after the act by President Jefferson ended the International Slave Trade. That act enriched him far more relatively than any current violations of the Emoluments Clause.
John Jay is the best case for an excellent enslaver among the founders. Jay’s father, Peter, was one of the largest enslavers in New York. As early as 1777, John Jay proposed the abolition of slavery there. He helped establish the New York African Free School, which he supported financially during his lifetime. When he was Governor of New York, he signed a bill showing enslaved children of enslaved people would be accessible in 1799. Yet he profited from the slaves he owned, and as well as he may or may not have treated them, they lacked freedom. His slaves could earn their freedom through good works and, of course, provide a sufficient investment return. He might not have been the worst enslaver or one of the best. But does that make him good?
“I purchase slaves and manumit them at proper ages and when their faithful services have afforded a reasonable retribution.” — John Jay
The truth is that the curve on which slave ownership is measured goes only from bad to worse. No slave, under the best of circumstances, was exempt from the possibility of being sold away, separated from their families, at the whim of their master. They were subject to having their mates selected for them to breed the best-enslaved people for sale or forced to submit to their master’s desires. They could legally be beaten or killed and had to carry that weight each day. America typically only scratches the surface of the history of becoming a great nation. It was slavery that made much of that possible, yet slavery is a painful sore whose scab dare not be ripped off. There never was such a thing as a good slave owner; only some who were not as bad as the rest.
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