Excerpt 2 from the Missing Foundation

Taken from the chapter What's Not Told, brief analysis of first few president's who were also slave owners. George Washington is examined.

Excerpt from Missing Foundation by Iotha copyright 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hid from the eyes of the American public, in a differing form of servitude, enslaved Africans were used by the states to build public works including famous U.S. landmarks such as the White House, foundation wall of Wall Street (built by African and Indian slaves to protect the Dutch from British troops), dome of the U.S. Capital building which was designed by a Black man, Manhattan Island, and the original homes of Newport, Virginia. Another well kept secret is that it was prevalent amongst the wealthier slave owners to give away Africans to their family members and friends as gifts for holidays and birthdays. It’s well documented of people receiving a ‘n****r’ for a wedding or Christmas gift.

 

Something you never find in the history books of American grade schools and high schools is the fact that 11 of the first 15 U.S. presidents owned enslaved Africans including U.S. Grant, general of the Union army. The most famous is Thomas Jefferson. The most reviled is arguably Andrew Jackson of Nashville, Tennessee. The most notable but least talked about is the very first president himself, George Washington. He owned over 300 Africans and kept them in quarters spread over 8,000 acres.

 

 

On his plantation, you lived where you worked as the acres were divided into small enclaves. Slaves began work as early as 11-14 years old, were off for Christian holidays, and were given 2 sets of clothes per year and one blanket (to suffer thru cold Virginia winters). The president eventually stops selling off Africans without their consent and would by 1778 stop selling them away period but not before shipping multiple runaways to the Caribbean. He frees his slaves upon his death. Martha still owned 123.

 

Want to know what else isn’t told? How about that Francis Scott Key the composer of the United States National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, owned Africans as did famed orator Patrick Henry (“give me liberty or give me death”). The song How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds was penned by a slave ship captain. The president of the Continental Congress and signers of the Declaration of Independence were instrumental in the importation, purchase, and ownership of Africans.

 

 

 

They included Henry Laurens who supplied slaves to South Carolina and Philip Livingston, the man who founded Yale Universities Theology chair (and noted slave trader). Many slave owners were rich but they did not make up the majority. John Anderson would be an example of the former as he was an owner making over 800K per year. Landon Carter of Virginia is another good example in that he owned over 2,400 Africans.  An example of the not so well off would be many of the owners in King George II’s royal colony named after himself (Georgia) where 60% of slave owners owning only one slave owned a Black woman under the age of 45.

 

According to the PBS series ‘The Abolitionists,’ by 1840, the monetary value of America’s slaves was greater than all the manufacturing, corporations, and other industries of the country combined! The only thing in America at the time that was more valuable than enslaved Africans was the land itself which no one had placed a monetary value on. On a countrywide level, the millions of dollars wrapped up in the actual slaves themselves generated billions of dollars for both the south and the north.