History Test; Part Three

     “And I hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty's Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to this Majesty's crown and dignity.”

     -- Lord Dunmore's Proclamation

     Whoa whoa…wait a minute. Lord Dunmore? Lord Dunmore was appointed as a Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia…meaning, he was on the side of the British. But, the British were the bad guys and were against freedom. America was the “Freedom Fighter” giving freedom to colonists and slaves alike…right? Haven’t we been told, in history textbooks, school and movies that America was the one who offered to free slaves? After all, America is “land of the free”.

     “A few American slaves, for their service to the rebels were rewarded with liberty, but the operative word is few. For the most part, slaves who fought for the rebels remained the property of their masters. Anglo Americans were fighting for their freedom, but not for the freedom of their slaves. Those who sided with the British were told, more or less, that they were manumitted and would be given land and self-government. They had a better hope for freedom with the British than they had with Americans.” (History.org)

     Their were a few slaves who join the Continental army, and some were blessed with freedom once the war was over, but not many.

     In the movie, “The Patriot” a slave by the name of ‘Occam’ enlists in the Continental army in place of his master, Benjamin Martin. Later, as Occam is waiting at the camp, he spies a notice posted up for all to see:

     “By order of GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON and the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, all bound SLAVES who give minimum ONE YEAR SERVICE in the CONTINENTAL ARMY will be GRANTED FREEDOM and paid a bounty of FIVE SHILLINGS for each month of service.” (The Patriot)

     For those of you who were unaware of this, the idea that George Washington (a man wise beyond his years) and the Continental Congress (made up of many intelligent men) would offer freedom to slaves so early in our nation’s beginnings, is a stupid and foolish idea. Think about it; America, an infant nation at war with Great Britain, decides to free all slaves if they join the continental army, hoping, that just maybe, slave and plantation owners would NOT get upset and rebel? Uh…no.

     “Had Washington and the Continental Congress truly offered freedom for a single year of service…slaves by the tens of thousands would have rushed to sign up. This would have seriously disrupted Southern society…” (Raphael, pg 177)

     Another problem; who would pay the slave owners? I mean, if the Continental Congress was offering freedom to slaves, didn’t that mean slave owners should be compensated for those lost workers?  

      “It has been estimated that between the years 1775 and 1783 the state of South Carolina was robbed of twenty-five thousand negroes, valued at twelve million five hundred thousand dollars.” (Raphael, pg 179-180)

     My math skills are pretty bad, but that estimates about five hundred dollars PER SLAVE. Imagine if slaves really had been offered freedom and had left their masters. Lets see…in 1775, an estimated 450,000 slaves were in the 13 colonies. So if each slave was about 500 dollars, the Continental Congress would have had to reimburse slave owners a total of 225,000,000 dollars. America, in the beginning, could not afford to pay slave owners for their slaves.

    “…but to free slaves without compensating their masters would surely have provoked an outright rebellion among Southern whites. The union would have collapsed at the very beginning had Washington and the Continental Congress followed the plot line of ‘The Patriot’.” (Raphael, pg 177)

     But...why? What was the purpose behind this myth? I think Samuel Johnson, English writer and dictionary writer, answers our question very well with his own question,
     "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?"
    It seems ironic, that the colonies, who were fighting so adamantly for freedom and liberty, didn't want to let the slaves go. That was a generalization; a logical fallacy. Excuse me and let me amend my previous statement; not everyone wanted to keep slaves 'slaves'. The reason it wasn't put in the constitution in the very beginning, was because many of the founding fathers were unsure whether slavery was morally right or wrong and knew that, by freeing these workers, they would face great southern economic hardship.
     Today, slavery is viewed as "the epitome of evil" and is a pretty touchy subject to be discussing. (Slavery, contrary to what many believe, is not wrong. I will discuss this in a later post.) So why would we want to tell our children about America's daring fight for freedom and but also tell them about the hundreds of slaves still in bondage? Does that make sense? No...so, instead of telling our future generations what really happened, why don't we tell them a fabrication of what we wished happened. Does that make sense? Uh...no.

Bibliography

Dobyns, Lloyd. "Colonial Williamsburg." Fighting... Maybe for Freedom, but Probably Not : The Official History Site. History.org, 2007. Web. 20 May 2012. http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn07/slaves.cfm.

Raphael, Ray. Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic past. New York: New, 2004. Print