A good friend who lives in Florida writes guest columns for several papers. This one made me think, hey, why not? Lots of good facts here. Thanks for letting me use it here, Don.
The following article appeared in TC Palm this morning. TC Palm is a daily newspaper distributed in south Florida, between Vero Beach and Stuart.
Don
Donald L. Gilleland: Slavery an abomination, but U.S. and England should get credit for ending it before many other nations
Only 5 percent of slaves came to U.S. shores; nation helped to rid world of practice
Donald L. Gilleland, of Suntree, is a former corporate director of public affairs for General Dynamics Corp.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Every year since 1976, the United States and Canada have celebrated Black History Month. Many believe it is an outgrowth of Negro History Week, started by Carter G. Woodson in 1926.
Traditionally, Black History Month highlights the importance of black history to the development of North America. Unfortunately, there is some myth associated with black history as it relates to slavery.
For as long as I can remember, our news media and educational system have treated slavery as though it was a uniquely white American phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Certainly we should be ashamed of our early history. No man should ever have had the right to own another. Unfortunately, they did. Even our founding fathers owned slaves.
By the 1860 U.S. Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to 4 million. But it is wrong to portray American history as though we alone participated in this morally reprehensible practice. Just as it is wrong to pretend it was a uniquely unsavory effort at bondage by white Americans.
What is seldom remembered is that some black Americans in the 19th century also owned slaves. According to the U.S. census of 1830, in Charleston, S.C., alone, 407 back Americans owned slaves. By 1860, the numbers of black Americans owning slaves grew, according to numerous sources. I wonder how that bit of information fits into the movement to gain historical reparations for black Americans.
Keep in mind that the majority of black slaves were sold to slave traders by their black owners.
According to "Slavery, Terrorism & Islam" by Peter Hammond, as many as 28 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic, 95 percent of whom went to South and Central America. Only 5 percent of the slaves came to the United States.
Hammond says slavery was indigenous to African and Arab countries well before it made its way to Europe and America. It was also widely practiced by American Indians before Christopher Columbus set foot on the shores of the New World.
After the Civil War, the United States made slavery illegal with adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
Considering that only 5 percent of all the trans-Atlantic slaves ended up in North America, it is amazing that the majority of U.S. films, books and articles concerning the slave trade concentrate only on the United States, as though slavery was a uniquely American aberration.
The lesson here is not that we should ignore our shameful history. There were valuable lessons that we had to learn, with vestiges of our disgraceful past dragging its feet right up through the 21st century.
Rather, the lesson is that we were part of an unholy and irrational worldwide practice that had to be eliminated. And, while change often comes slowly, we have reached a point in our society where we can look through the rear-view mirror and take some pride in the fact that the United States and Great Britain lead the way to eradicating this blight on our world.
© 2011 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
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