Number 3 has already experienced quite a concerted effort in that regard..
Teach the Controversy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Idaho and Critical Race Theory
- Thread starter Trunkage
- Start date
Recommended Videos
en.wikipedia.org
That comes to my biggest problem with 1619 project. Also 1776 project. Pretending there is ONE origin story for the US is nonsense.
I can agree with 9. 1619 doesn't not contridict 10... unless we are now pretending that history doesn't exist
We're not pretending that history doesn't exist, we're just saying that America never has and likely never will fully meet the ideals on which the nation was founded. There is a moral contradiction between idealizing liberty and maintaining slavery, that meant that America fell short of it's own ideals (and still does and likely will forever, which is not reason to quit pursuing them), that doesn't mean that slavery was part of the values the nation was founded on.
Dude, shhh! He's right there!
I can accept that Liberty was a goal of the founding fathers
For a long time, they're interpretation of Liberty was owning slaves.
Being a slave owner WAS seen as liberty (and not just in America, it was everywhere.) The US also went a LONG way to protect that right
So no, I would not calling it a deviation. I would use your term - falling short. Or maybe a realignment/reinterpretation of what liberty means.
I think it's good that the understanding of the word liberty changed. It shows growth
The US went a long way to end that practice. The ability for Congress to ban the slave trade was decided when the Constitution was written. The mechanisms that limited the power of the states fighting for slavery were started immediately upon the founding of the country. The intention to ban slavery was already in the minds of many of the founding fathers, and only the threat of the south dividing the country in two slowed that down. The 1619 Project really is a load of crap.
Oh yes. Heaven forbid people draw a line between slavery and Jim Crowe. Or between the police brutality against African Americans of the 60s and today... where we had a report of particular police precinct in 2015 showing how police dogs were only ever used on African Americans. 100%. Not even a latino in there. That can only happen under two conditions, both of them unpleasant to think about.
1619 sure is a story, and should never be a whole story. But it highlights some very interesting history that has been whitewashed over the years that should be listened to
I promise you, American history is not whitewashed often. If anything, the flaws are magnified. The 1619 project goes beyond that and ceases to be history at all. The American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery? Excel workbooks are the legacy of slavers? Not everything in there is so absurd, but all the things that aren't absurd lies are common knowledge already.
Certainly not everywhere. There were already enough places where slavery was forbidden or practically so rare that no one considered slave ownership some important right.
The slave based industries in the Americas (not just the US) were pretty much the exception, not the rule.
No, pretty much everywhere. All of Africa, all of Asia, all of the Middle East, etc. While there's been 'abolition blips' throughout human history, as a whole, the insitution only really started to be disbanded in the 19th century.
Not really true but more complicated.
First, many countries only had other social groups of unfree and halffree people who were not technically slaves.
Second, i included "practically so rare ..." for a reason. Many countries technically allowed slavery but in practice didn't have any.
Third, Your chart starts from 60. And counts each little colony in addition to souvereign states. Which is not really that impressive a number in the first place.
I mean, Charles V. already outlawed slavery in one of the biggest empire of known history in 1542 (not that he managed to force that through in his American holdings). And It wasn't even particularly early. E.g. Poland abolished slavery in 1347 nearly two centuries earlier. And you will find similar acts all over the world.
Last edited:
Are you really pulling a "technically" here, or the "not really slavery" argument?
The "not really slavery" argument is a disingenuous one. Even if we concede that some forms of slavery have been more severe than others, there isn't a leg to stand on here. This isn't conflating serfdom with slavery, it's simply a fact of world history. You can find slaves and 'unfree people' side by side in multiple societies, it doesn't stop being slavery ipso facto.
Such as?
The number itself isn't the point, it's the percentage There's fewer countries in the world in the 19th century than the later one, because the idea of countries/nation-states is relatively recent in human history, whereas up to the 20th century, large parts of the world were considered to be part of empires. The point the chart shows (and others, such as the one I'll leave below), is that widespread abolition only really kicked off in the 19th century, with the first wave occurring in the Americas, and the second wave in Asia and Africa in the 20th.
Sorry, but that chart is rubbish. There is no way that there had been less than 5 abolitions until 1775. The one event above where it was made illegal everywhere the Habsburgs ruled would count for more alone.
But how about looking at Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom#1500–1700_(Early_Modern)
And that is only abolishment events. Countries that never had slaves are not even listed there as are those where it was technically legal but not practiced.
But how about looking at Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom#1500–1700_(Early_Modern)
And that is only abolishment events. Countries that never had slaves are not even listed there as are those where it was technically legal but not practiced.
Last edited:
It's not literally saying there's been five abolitions, again, it's the trend that matters - the X axis isn't large enough to account for every little abolition that occurred in human history, said abolitions dating back to the ancient world, however ineffective they generally were in the long term. Even by the time period, there's issues around, because it's possible for slavery to be banned in some areas of an empire and not others (take Europe for example - slavery banned on the continent itself, but practiced in its colonies).
And the Wikipedia article (which I considered posting to make my point) is indicative of what I was saying - slavery was practically universal until about the 19th century. Yes, it lists abolitions before that, but if you care to count the number, the abolition rate soars in the 19th and continues into the 20th, which again, is part of what I said - there's basically two abolition waves of slavery in history, the first in the 19th, the second in the 20th. Hopefully, in the 21st, there'll be a third wave to deal with the 20-45 million slaves that still exist, but I'm not counting on it.
Basically, we're some of the luckiest bastards in the history of the planet to live in a time period where even if slavery hasn't been erradicated, it's at least been driven underground.
I won't dispute those two big waves. But when Russia, Japan, China, the Spanish Empire, France (except overseas and in the Provence) and many others abolished it long before or never had it, it was certainly not "practically universal".
Yes i meant things like serfdom. If you are willing to not count serfdom and similar institutions, there is no disagreement. Of course if you do count serfs and the like as slaves, stuff suddenly looks quite different.
Many of the HRE principalities. They didn't have a way to become a slave or trade a slave and didn't try to import any, but they didn't outlaw it and some traveller bringing a slave with him would not make that slave free. Also for some short period it was fashionable for the prince to have a court slave, likely as the only slave in the whole realm.
Last edited:
Every one of those countries you listed has practiced slavery. And if we're looking at the abolition timeline, Russia abolished slavery in 1723 (and serfdom in 1861), Japan in 1590 (but brought it back in WWII), France in 1794 (but brought it back under Napoleon), and China's gone back and forth on slavery throughout its entire history, before banning it a final time in 1910. As for the Spanish Empire, that's a weird one, because it's a case of pre-empire Spain having no shortage of being enslaved and doing enslaving, moving onto an empire where decrees are one thing and enforcement is another - most of the former Spanish Empire banned slavery in the 19th century for instance (see South America). Basically, aside from Japan, these aren't really as much a group of outliers as you might think.
As I've said, yes, there's been abolitions of slavery before the 19th century, but as a worldwide, general trend, that's when the momentum picks up. Well done for any country that outlawed slavery prior to that, but the exceptions don't disprove the rule.
France already did it in 1315, but only for France proper, not overseas territories and it wasn't fully enforced in the south. Russia got rid of most slaves already in 1679, it only took some decades more to end the process.
Generally at least for most of Europe slavery was once allowed, partly owning to Roman law code, but had became irrelevant economically by the 11th century. Only with colonization it started to become a thing again because suddenly land was available but workforce was not. But the thing is, that didn't lead to any more slaves in Europe itself nor to a change in perspective there.
And yes, forbidding slavery is one thing, having the power to set it in practice is quite another. Still, having some illegal practice continue because the gouvernment is to weak is not something i would describe as " Being a slave owner WAS seen as liberty (and not just in America, it was everywhere.) ".
Generally at least for most of Europe slavery was once allowed, partly owning to Roman law code, but had became irrelevant economically by the 11th century. Only with colonization it started to become a thing again because suddenly land was available but workforce was not. But the thing is, that didn't lead to any more slaves in Europe itself nor to a change in perspective there.
And yes, forbidding slavery is one thing, having the power to set it in practice is quite another. Still, having some illegal practice continue because the gouvernment is to weak is not something i would describe as " Being a slave owner WAS seen as liberty (and not just in America, it was everywhere.) ".
Last edited:
I mean, everything I've heard about from Americans about their schooling system, especially history, says otherwise.
it was A reason. Not THE reason. (Or even the dominant one). Nor was it a reason for most Americans
Totally agree that this is nonsense. Maybe you could make a line to 'legacy of capitalists' somehow but that's an incredible stretch. But then you're just going to be called a Marxist class reductionist