A bit of uncomfortable truth about the early slave trade
We’ve all heard about how guilty white Southerners were of owning slaves, But what about black slaveowners? And there were some who owned quite a few slaves, but they are seldom, if ever, mentioned. The increasing narrative being put forth, even by some conservatives who should know better, is that slavery was a particular white Southern crime.
This slick propaganda is supposed to create the illusion that slavery was a white man’s problem alone and therefore no one else need apply for any collective “guilt” in that regard. The true history of slavery around the world tells quite a different story.
In his book Slavery 101, published by Sea Raven Press of Cody, Wyoming, author Lochlainn Seabrook tells us, on page 32, that: “America’s first known official slave owner was Anthony Johnson, an Angolan who came to the colonies as a black African servant. After his arrival in 1621, he worked off his term of indenture and began purchasing human chattel in Virginia, where he accrued great wealth and a large plantation. Later, in the chronicles of Northampton County, there is a record of a suit brought by Johnson ‘for the purpose of recovering his negro servant.’ “
Seabrook continued: “This being the first case of its kind, Johnson, who owned both black and white slaves, actually helped launch the American slave trade by forcing authorities to legally define the meaning of ‘slave ownership.’ In 1652 his son John Johnson imported and bought eleven white slaves, who worked for him at his Virginia plantation, located on the banks of the Pungoteague River.”
Seabrook also observed that “New York was founded to serve as a slave state and New York City was founded to serve as a slave port.” When the slave trade really got underway in this country, all the ships that carried slave to this country operated out of Northern ports—Boston, Newport, Rhode Island, New York City and other ports in New England and the ship captains were all Northerners—yet it’s the South that gets blamed for the slave trade!
The anti-South propagandists have done a good job at blaming the South for something many of their Northern ancestors were probably guilty of. But then, this is a notable trait of those of a leftist persuasion—the blaming of others for what they, themselves, are usually guilty of. They operate, even today, on the principle of “condemn others and elevate yourself.” The uncomfortable truth is that the North benefitted from the slave trade every bit as much, or more, than the South did. However, our current “historians” seldom, if ever, will address that. It just doesn’t fit the narrative they wish to promote of a saintly, virtuous North fight to do away with the evil of Southern slavery. In truth, slavery was, at one point, legal in all the 13 original colonies, not just the Southern ones.
It is long past time for a little more truth in this area—something to replace the hyper South-hating drivel we have all grown up with. I was born and raised in the North. Now I live in Louisiana. I understood the historical games being played with slavery in this country long before I moved to the South, though. Enough for now, though. I will deal more with this issue in the future.