{"id":104755,"date":"2020-07-22T17:16:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T00:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=104755"},"modified":"2020-07-22T17:18:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T00:18:31","slug":"five-slaves-and-four-slaveholding-presidents-in-the-early-united-states-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/07\/22\/five-slaves-and-four-slaveholding-presidents-in-the-early-united-states-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Slaves and Four Slaveholding Presidents in the Early United States of America"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Stop the Runaway. Fifty Dollars Reward\u2026\u2026 A Mulatto Man Slave,\nabout thirty years old, six feet and an inch high, stout made and active, talks\nsensible, stoops in his walk, and has a remarkable large foot\u2026..will pass for a\nfree man\u2026..The above reward will be given any person that will take him\u2026…and\nten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the\namount of three hundred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • ANDREW JACKSON,\n ADVERTISING FOR THE RETURN OF A RUNAWAY SLAVE IN THE TENNESSEE GAZETTE AND\n METRO DISTRICT ADVERTISER, SEPTEMBER 26, 1804<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    You white folks have easy times, don\u2019t you? ALFRED JACKSON\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was a general in the US army, known for\nhis toughness and determination, before he took to politics; he was the hero of\nthe War of 1812 during which, among other battleground successes, he led the\ndefence of New Orleans against a full scale attack by the British, scoring a\nsurprise victory over them and forcing them to withdraw from Louisiana, which\nadded millions of acres to the present day southern United States. Jackson was\nelected as the seventh president of America; he was in office from 1829 to\n1837. President Jackson sought to promote the rights of the common man\u201d in the\nface of opposition from a corrupt aristocracy\u201d, and to preserve the Union. He\nonce said, The individual who refuses to defend his rights, when called upon\nby his government, deserves to be a slave.\u201d It was clearly a given that in that\nsociety a slave did not have any rights to defend, which Andrew Jackson\naccepted without caring to question the contradiction involved in his own\nreasoning. The early America that he helped in a big way to build was founded\non the utter dehumanization of the defenceless Afro-American component of its\npopulation\/citizenry (but, obviously, the blacks were not considered to be\ncitizens).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Andrew Jackson owned more than one hundred slaves when he became\npresident, and apparently, he had no qualms about the fact. He was the last\nsurviving American president to have participated in the American Revolution\n(1765-1783). The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) in which the American\nPatriots in the Thirteen Colonies defeated the British with the assistance of\nthe French led to independence from Britain and to the creation of the United\nStates of America. Alfred Jackson was Andrew Jackson\u2019s slave, his legal\nproperty. Alfred was born to black parents who were slaves in Andrew Jackson\u2019s\nHermitage plantation in Davidson County in Tennessee, US, in 1802. Alfred lived\nthere until his death in 1901. (Incidentally, the Statue of Liberty, standing\nin Liberty Island Manhattan in New York City, New York, US, dedicated on\nOctober 28, 1886, was a gift from the people of France to the people of\nAmerica.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The quote at the top which prompted this short note on Andrew\nJackson forms the epigraph to the last chapter (Chapter Seven titled \u2018How\nwould you like to be a slave?\u201d: The Story of Alfred Jackson\u2019) of the book \u2018IN\nTHE SHADOW OF LIBERTY – The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and FIVE BLACK\nLIVES\u2019 (Henry\nHolt and Company, New York, 2016) by New York Times best selling author Kenneth\nC. Davis, known for his \u2018Don\u2019t Know Much about History\u2019 series of books for\nadults and children. It is a book about slavery in the early United States of\nAmerica that explores the great tragedy \u2018that a nation conceived in liberty\u201d\nwas also born in shackles\u2019. The exploration is in the form of a well researched\nnarration of the true, but hardly heard, stories about five enslaved people\nwho, notwithstanding their menial situation, contributed to the shaping of\nAmerica through their close personal association with, and loyal service to,\nthe four great men or \u2018national heroes\u2019 who presided over the epoch-making\nevents that stimulated the birth of the American nation. The author\u2019s purpose\nis to raise essential awareness among adults and children about a tragic chapter\nof their history. Appropriately, the book is dedicated \u2018To the devoted teachers\nand librarians who help guide us in our quest for truth\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u2018Us\u2019 here means ordinary American people living today who are just\nas human as common people living anywhere in the world including ordinary Sri\nLankans, who want to enjoy their inalienable rights to \u2018Life, Liberty, and the\npursuit of Happiness\u2019. The \u2018truth\u2019 sought in this book is a historical truth.\nIt is a  truth hidden in the shadows of America\u2019s past, which, though the\nauthor does not explicitly refer to it, has useful implications for all\nhumanity, as America\u2019s hegemonic political, economic, and military power\naffects every human on earth. The truth that the book tries to articulate,\nparticularly for the enlightenment of the new generation of Americans, relates\nto the historical fact of slavery indulged in by their forefathers of the past\nfew centuries. By 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, there were\n500,000 enslaved African Americans among a population of 2.5 million in the\nThirteen Colonies. What we usually learn as history, Kenneth C. Davis says, is\nabout dates, battles, famous speeches, and court decisions, etc; but, while it\nis important to understand these things, in the end, history is about people,\nreal people. The book tells the real story of real people – \u2018all of them born\nin slavery\u2019s shackles – who were considered the property of some American\nheroes\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The author says in his Note to the Reader that he uses the term\n\u2018enslaved person\u2019 instead of \u2018slave\u2019 when referring to individuals who, under\nthe laws of the day, were legal property of other people. The crucial\ndistinction between the two terms here (enslaved person and slave) is that\n\u2018enslaved\u2019 means that slavery was forced on the person; it doesn\u2019t define who\nthey were, unlike the term \u2018slave\u2019. Davis means it as a term that expresses\nrespect for the individuality of the people who were unfortunate victims of the\nslavery system. His book tells the stories of five enslaved persons who closely\nlived with and served four US presidents, who are remembered to this day with\ngreat respect by Americans as national heroes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These four heroes were among the Founding Fathers of the United\nStates of America. Quite a number of the Founding Fathers, heroes in the\nAmerican struggle for liberty, held slaves or profited from slavery in some\nway. Benjamin Franklin owned slaves, but salved his conscience by calling them\nservants. Later, in 1790, however, he changed his mind and provided leadership\nto one of the first societies that aimed at abolishing slavery. Virginia\npolitician Patrick Henry, famous for the words Give me liberty or give me\ndeath\u201d, never thought his slaves deserved the same human right. He held that\nslavery was \u2018repugnant\u2019, but did not free any of his slaves because of the\n\u2018inconveniency of living without them\u2019! Henry Laurens of South Carolina, who\nwas the president of the Continental Congress for a term, had become one of\nAmerica\u2019s richest men. He made his money by shipping eight thousand people as\nslaves from Africa to America. Some of the most raucous cries for freedom from\nBritain came from the Founding Fathers, something that provoked Dr. Samuel\nJohnson to ask, How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the\ndrivers of negroes?\u201d (The use of the word \u2018yelp\u2019 in this context was bitingly\nsarcastic, as Davis points out. Bloodhounds were used to track runaway slaves;\nthey made short, sharp barks, or \u2018yelped\u2019 on their trail.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The five enslaved people whose stories are told in the book are as\nfollows (with the names of the four presidents who legally owned them, and some\nhints of their individuality): William Billy\u201d Lee and a young woman called Ona\nJudge, in bondage to George Washington (army general and one of the Founding\nFathers and 1st president of the United States of America (1789-1797). Billy\nLee spent all his life with his owner. But the brave young Ona Judge made her\nescape from bondage to the most powerful man in America at that time. President\nWashington inserted an advertisement promising a reward for her return: Ten\ndollars will be paid to any person who will bring her home\u201d in \u2018The\nPennsylvania Gazette\u2019, May 23, 1796. No one claimed the ten dollars. The\nescapee did not leave room for anyone to do so. Ona Judge \u2018absconded from the\nhousehold of the President\u2019 because I wanted to be free\u2026\u2026.wanted to learn to\nread and write\u201d. Isaac Granger grew up among enslaved people on Thomas Jefferson\u2019s\nplantation during the American Revolution; the principal author of the 1776\nDeclaration of Independence and third US president (1801-1809) called these\npeople his family\u201d. Though a slave owner, Jefferson held that the enslaved\nblack were destined to be free, but that the two races could \u2018not live in the\nsame government\u2019. Isaac Granger was freed in 1834 when he was sixty. After his\nmanumission, Granger worked as a blacksmith and paid taxes. Tax records showed\nthat he even hired enslaved workers to work in his shop! A former slave hired\nslaves to work for him! That was the system. The next enslaved person whose\nstory is recorded in this book is Paul Jennings. He is the protagonist of a\nmost colourful story.  Born enslaved, Jennings was taken to the White\nHouse as a young boy by James Madison, the fourth president of USA (1809-1817).\nHe fought as one of the African American troops in the War of 1812. Paul\nJennings later remembered how brave these black soldiers were, although they\nwere still slaves: A large part of Commodore Barney\u2019s \u2018men were tall strapping\nnegroes, mixed with white sailors and marines. Mr Madison reviewed them just\nbefore the fight, and asked Com (modore) Barney if his negroes would not run\non the approach of the British?\u201d No, sir,\u201d said Barney, they don\u2019t know how\nto run; they will die by their guns first.\u201d (I think the blacks were\nconsciously or unconsciously determined to prove that they were worthy humans\ncapable of bravery.) Like Jefferson, James Madison believed that \u2018The two races\ncannot co-exist, both being free and equal\u2019. After Madison\u2019s death, his widow\nDolley (who had once been the nation\u2019s Queen\u201d) temporarily fell on hard times\nbefore she got some money from the Congress for some of her husband\u2019s papers.\nShe ran short of even the necessaries of life. Though Dolley had treated\nJennings very badly – she had rented out and then sold him to other people to\novercome her financial difficulties – he \u2018occasionally gave her small sums from\nmy own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom from her\u2019.  The\nfifth and last enslaved person whose story is narrated in the book is Alfred\nJackson. He was the son of an enslaved cook on the Hermitage plantation, Andrew\nJackson\u2019s Tennessee plantation. He survived the civil war and is buried in the\nfamily garden near the grave of the seventh president of USA and his wife\nRachel Jackson. After Andrew Jackson\u2019s death on June 8, 1845, his son Andrew\nJackson Jr and his wife Sarah took over the Hermitage. They hired a tutor for\ntheir children, who remembered an encounter with Alfred Jackson: Alfred was a\nman of powerful physique, and had the brains of a major-general\u2026\u2026.He was\nthoroughly reliable, and was fully and deservedly trusted in the management of\nplantation affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    According to Davis, thirteen American presidents (including the\nfour mentioned above and nine others among whom feature some  such well\nknown names as Martin Van Buren, Ulysses S. Grant, and Woodrow Wilson) owned\nenslaved people or grew up in slaveholding households. Six slaves worked in\nMartin Van Buren\u2019s father\u2019s tavern in Kinderhook in New York. Grant\u2019s slaves\nwere the property that his wife got from her father. Woodrow Wilson, born in\nVirginia in 1856 before the Civil War began, became the twenty-eighth president\nin 1913. He was the last US president to have been raised in a slaveholding\nhousehold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    IN THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY contains the extremely fascinating\nstories of the five enslaved people who were the legal property of four of\nAmerica\u2019s most celebrated men. The four enslaved men and the single enslaved\nwoman whose stories are told in the book lived with these famous men and their\nfamilies every day, sometimes 24-7 as we say today, and witnessed the great\nevents in which they figured as leaders. The reader gets glimpses of the\nindomitable courage, dignity, and nobility of the human spirit that persisted\nin them even in their most wretched state of dehumanization. One cannot be sure\nthat all slaveholders were free from pangs of conscience about their absolutely\nmean, cruel treatment of a group of fellow humans of a different skin colour\nand physical traits. Both groups were victims of the evil slavery system, one\nfully, and the other partly, and were dehumanized in opposite ways. George\nWashington, in a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 1786, wrote: I hope\nit will not be conceived from these observations, that it is my wish to hold\nthe unhappy people \u2026.. .in slavery. I can only say that there is not a man\nliving who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the\nabolition of it.\u201d The same Washington got annoyed when his slaves failed to\nreport for work. Once he saw a man with his arm in a sling. He grabbed a rake\nand told the man: Since you still have one hand free, you can guide a rake\u201d.\nDeliberate laziness and apathy were actually subtle forms of rebellion, the\nonly ways slaves could fight back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The brutal killing of George Floyd, a 46 year old Black truck\ndriver and security guard at Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, by Derek Chauvin, a 44\nyear old White police officer on May 25, 2020 reminded the Americans and the\nwhole world that the systemic racism that dehumanized USA\u2019s first president\nGeorge Washington still blights that society. The media started saying that the\nincident divided the American society. In fact, the incident traumatized all\nhumanity and had a profound polarizing effect on it. This happened in the midst\nof the Covid-19 global pandemic, whose origin could have something to do with\nthe primarily (white vs coloured) race based East\/West economic \u2018war\u2019 triggered\nby the West\u2019s determination to sustain or regain its monetary superiority,\nwhere both America and China could have equal claim to be identified as either\nvictim or assailant. The West\u2019s political economic and military domination\nmovement may be seen as a globalized manifestation of white supremacist racism.\nResponsible grown up people around the world who possess average intelligence\nand adequate awareness (who form the majority in any country) must, for the\nsake of the very survival of human civilization, seize this globally critical\nsituation as an opportunity to unite as friends rather than divide as enemies\nin order to put a stop to this rotten state of affairs. To achieve this, they\nmust peacefully and democratically force the terrorist ruling elite in America\nthat Noam Chomsky identifies (in his writings over more than half a century)\nand its fawning agents across the globe to reform or, if they don\u2019t budge,\nelect new leaderships to rule the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In this endeavour, the relatively young but mature adult\ngeneration that both George Floyd and Derek Chauvin (automatic victims of a\ndeep rooted systemic evil) come from have a leading role to play before they\npass the baton to the young Darnella Fraziers of the world. Darnella Frazier is\nthe brave seventeen year old young Black woman, a high school student, who\nvideoed with her phone the scene of George Floyd\u2019s coldblooded murder \u2018from\njust five feet away\u2019, while all the time imploring and yelling (with other\nbystanders) at the demon-possessed policeman to let the victim breathe who was\nbeing choked with his booted foot  pressing hard on the latter\u2019s\nneck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Kenneth C. Davis\u2019s book addresses both these generations in\nAmerica and across the world and means to stimulate them to take\nhumanity-saving action. This essay is not intended to be read as a book review.\nIts purpose is to highlight the importance of Davis\u2019s cogent message to the\nadult and young people of today\u2019s crisis ridden \nworld.            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island Stop the Runaway. Fifty Dollars Reward\u2026\u2026 A Mulatto Man Slave, about thirty years old, six feet and an inch high, stout made and active, talks sensible, stoops in his walk, and has a remarkable large foot\u2026..will pass for a free man\u2026..The above reward will be given any person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}