(CW: dot gov link lol) From George Washington to Anthony Whitting, 16 December 1792

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1792 is 16 years after 1776, I assume he’s not president at this time. That’s what George Washington seceded from Britain for, so he could obsess over measuring wheat and telling his underlings to kill all but 1 or 2 of the Africans’ dogs—shit he probably coulda done either way. But now he answers to nobody

But anyway, I really saw this pbs article which tells similar dog stories about founding father slavers, but incredibly refers to the enslaved Africans as “African Americans”.

In what sense were Africans held captive in the US in 1792 “Americans”? I understand it’s a common way to refer to people in the contemporary US, but it’s fucking crazy to project that term into the past like that IMO. Extremely powerful ideology

  • LeninWalksTheWorld [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    In what sense were Africans held captive in the US in 1792 “Americans”

    According to Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), not at all. Black people were not citizens and thus had no protections or rights under the law. They were explicitly defined at not American: "Persons of African descent cannot be and were never intended to be citizens under the U.S. Constitution"

    Taney supported his ruling with an extended survey of American state and local laws from the time of the Constitution's drafting in 1787 that purported to show that a "perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery"