August 1619 and 400 years after slavery landed in N. America

[funinspace]

It is odd, 400 years after the first slaves arrived from Africa, we have a few paranoid white people frothing over their fearful musings that somehow they might face a 'white genocide'. Some parrot fools like Paul Crank Roberts, without looking to see if any of his make believe notions have any real truth to them...

Anywho, a good article on its starting history, noting that there were slaves earlier in South Carolina, but the site was quickly abandoned:
https://www.france24.com/en/2019081...0-years-anniversary-virginia-birth-white-lion

Just along the boardwalk in Virginia's seaside town of Hampton – once known as Point Comfort – stands a stark plaque. It reads: “The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived here in Aug. 1619 on the White Lion, an English privateer based in the Netherlands.”

Four hundred years ago, the ship dropped anchor in what was then a British colony. John Rolfe, the plantation owner and official overseeing the colony (who is perhaps best remembered for marrying Pocahontas), noted that it “brought not anything but 20 and odd Negroes”.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

Official Staff Notice.

This topic could be interesting. Please stay within the topic of the OP.

 

[SLD]

It is odd, 400 years after the first slaves arrived from Africa, we have a few paranoid white people frothing over their fearful musings that somehow they might face a 'white genocide'. Some parrot fools like Paul Crank Roberts, without looking to see if any of his make believe notions have any real truth to them...

Anywho, a good article on its starting history, noting that there were slaves earlier in South Carolina, but the site was quickly abandoned:
https://www.france24.com/en/2019081...0-years-anniversary-virginia-birth-white-lion

Just along the boardwalk in Virginia's seaside town of Hampton – once known as Point Comfort – stands a stark plaque. It reads: “The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived here in Aug. 1619 on the White Lion, an English privateer based in the Netherlands.”

Four hundred years ago, the ship dropped anchor in what was then a British colony. John Rolfe, the plantation owner and official overseeing the colony (who is perhaps best remembered for marrying Pocahontas), noted that it “brought not anything but 20 and odd Negroes”.

The problem seems to have really come to fruition later on. What’s sad is that they just kept taking another step towards it, every few years. They had so many opportunities to stop it, but racism and greed just got in the way of basic decency. Slavery as we knew it wasn’t really in place until 1705 when the slave law was codified.

SLD

 

[dismal]

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[Trausti]

Seattle is named after a slave owner.

 

[Politesse]

Seattle is named after a slave owner.

As are Washington D.C., New York City, Austin TX, Charleston SC, Jacksonville FL, and the entire states of Washington, Delaware, and the Carolinas. Quite a lot of our major cities, states, and public institutions borrow their names from slavers and perpetuators of genocide (Seattle was both). There's a town near me named Kelseyville and another named Sutter, both after men who kept slave farms and raped little girls for fun in the early days of California. Slavery has tainted this nation to its core. I would strongly support a renaming of these places, but very few Americans would. We are so very comfortable with a past based on chattel slavery and cruelty that suggesting a substantive (or even just symbolic) reversal of those crimes seems "ridiculous" to most voters. "We can't erase the past", they say, whenever someone suggests pushing the present in a better direction.

 

[Horatio Parker]

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[dismal]

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[laughing dog]

Renaming sites does get people's hackles up. Should the fact that Washington owned slaves overshadow his importance in our history to rename our capital, and every street or school or town? I don't think so. Maybe some day, our citizenry as a whole will agree, but now it is simply more of a diversion from more important issues of racial and social inequality.

 

[SLD]

Renaming sites does get people's hackles up. Should the fact that Washington owned slaves overshadow his importance in our history to rename our capital, and every street or school or town? I don't think so. Maybe some day, our citizenry as a whole will agree, but now it is simply more of a diversion from more important issues of racial and social inequality.

I agree. The issue of slavery is of historical interest. But we need to focus on the issues we face today in terms of racism and other related problems. We are not our ancestors. Nor should we judge them by today’s standards even. Many, if not all societies practiced slavery at some historical time. African and Native American included.

SLD

 

[dismal]

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[Politesse]

Renaming sites does get people's hackles up. Should the fact that Washington owned slaves overshadow his importance in our history to rename our capital, and every street or school or town? I don't think so. Maybe some day, our citizenry as a whole will agree, but now it is simply more of a diversion from more important issues of racial and social inequality.

Ah, but what does it actually say about us that the idea seems so risible? And the connected issue of legal slave labor in the prison system similarly gets you disbelieving gapes. I don't think we're nearly as far from the chattel slavery era as most people on both the "left" and "right" would like to pretend. Prejudices and group assumptions die hard, and it has not been that long. If you're an American of a certain social class, especially in the South, you probably know someone who knew someone whose family owned slaves when they were young. I know I do (my 3rd-great-grandfather). That shit is not so easy to erase as just winning a war.

 

[Jarhyn]

Renaming sites does get people's hackles up. Should the fact that Washington owned slaves overshadow his importance in our history to rename our capital, and every street or school or town? I don't think so. Maybe some day, our citizenry as a whole will agree, but now it is simply more of a diversion from more important issues of racial and social inequality.

Ah, but what does it actually say about us that the idea seems so risible? And the connected issue of legal slave labor in the prison system similarly gets you disbelieving gapes. I don't think we're nearly as far from the chattel slavery era as most people on both the "left" and "right" would like to pretend. Prejudices and group assumptions die hard, and it has not been that long. If you're an American of a certain social class, especially in the South, you probably know someone who knew someone whose family owned slaves when they were young. I know I do (my 3rd-great-grandfather). That shit is not so easy to erase as just winning a war.

Yeah... I think we need to outlaw slavery period. We just exchanged "is black" with "broke a law (primarily one targeting black people)".

It's a fig leaf and always has been.

 

[laughing dog]

Renaming sites does get people's hackles up. Should the fact that Washington owned slaves overshadow his importance in our history to rename our capital, and every street or school or town? I don't think so. Maybe some day, our citizenry as a whole will agree, but now it is simply more of a diversion from more important issues of racial and social inequality.

Ah, but what does it actually say about us that the idea seems so risible?

I think it says we have a sense of history. Washington is an icon of US history. He led the successful military revolt that won the Colonies their independence, caused the USA to have the first elected President because he refused to be named king, successfully led our new nation for 8 years, and instituted the practice of serving only 2 terms. It is not as if he is being honored for being a slave owner.

 

[Politesse]

Renaming sites does get people's hackles up. Should the fact that Washington owned slaves overshadow his importance in our history to rename our capital, and every street or school or town? I don't think so. Maybe some day, our citizenry as a whole will agree, but now it is simply more of a diversion from more important issues of racial and social inequality.

Ah, but what does it actually say about us that the idea seems so risible?

I think it says we have a sense of history. Washington is an icon of US history. He led the successful military revolt that won the Colonies their independence, caused the USA to have the first elected President because he refused to be named king, successfully led our new nation for 8 years, and instituted the practice of serving only 2 terms. It is not as if he is being honored for being a slave owner.

I kind of like Washington, too, but I don't think this (or any) nation profits over the long term from hiding its dirty laundry, especially not when most of it is "hidden" in plain sight, written on the lives of American citizens who are still suffering where they could be thriving. Washington's slaves at this point have tens of thousands of living descendants, and their stories are as much a part of America's history as any battle. Heck, a lot of them are his descendants too, if rumor prove true, and those battles you talk about are their family history as well as the national history. People are so quick to dismiss any serious talk about historical legacies when they are propaganda-polished to the point of absurdity, but our history doesn't cease to shape us just because we refuse to acknowledge it. I don't think Washington is in any danger of being forgotten just because we (very hypothetically) changed the name of the capital. Did everyone forget Constantine when they renamed pet project city Istanbul? Indeed, I doubt people would so much as stop calling it "Washington" even in the incredibly unlikely event that we tried to do this. Legislation can only do so much if hearts are unchanged.

By the way, Washington was opposed to monarchy, and he did pen a pained letter to that effect halfway through the war when an over-zealous colonel tried to promote him in advance. But it is a historical myth that he was ever actually offered the job.

 

[laughing dog]

I think it says we have a sense of history. Washington is an icon of US history. He led the successful military revolt that won the Colonies their independence, caused the USA to have the first elected President because he refused to be named king, successfully led our new nation for 8 years, and instituted the practice of serving only 2 terms. It is not as if he is being honored for being a slave owner.

I kind of like Washington, too, but I don't think this (or any) nation profits over the long term from hiding its dirty laundry, especially not when most of it is "hidden" in plain sight, written on the lives of American citizens who are still suffering where they could be thriving. Washington's slaves at this point have tens of thousands of living descendants, and their stories are as much a part of America's history as any battle. Heck, a lot of them are his descendants too, if rumor prove true, and those battles you talk about are their family history as well as the national history. People are so quick to dismiss any serious talk about historical legacies when they are propaganda-polished to the point of absurdity, but our history doesn't cease to shape us just because we refuse to acknowledge it. I don't think Washington is in any danger of being forgotten just because we (very hypothetically) changed the name of the capital. Did everyone forget Constantine when they renamed pet project city Istanbul?

I don't see how calling our capitol after Washington is hiding dirty laundry in anyway. Providing more context and a wider and more inclusive view of history should be done, but that does not require the renaming of our capitol.

 

[dismal]

Seattle is named after a slave owner.

Hmm, and not far from where slaves first arrived in North America 400 years ago people root for the Washington Redskins - who were both slave owners.