|
Which U.S. Presidents
Owned Slaves?
By Rob Lopresti;
Edited by Rudolph Lewis
Of the first five
presidents, four owned slaves [Washington,
Jefferson,
Madison, and
Monroe]. All four of these owned slaves while they
were president. [The exception was
John
Adams]
Of the next five
presidents (#6-10), four owned slaves. Only two of them
owned slaves while they were president [Andrew
Jackson and
John Tyler]
Of the next five
presidents (#11-15), two owned slaves. Both of these two
owned slaves while they were president. [James
K. Polk and
Zachary Taylor]
Of the next three
presidents (#16-18) two owned slaves. Neither of them
owned slaves while serving as president. [Andrew
Johnson and
Ulysses S. Grant]
The last president
to own slaves while in office was the twelfth president,
Zachary Taylor (1849-1850).
The last president
to own slaves at all was the eighteenth president,
Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877).
So twelve of our
presidents owned slaves and eight of them owned slaves
while serving as president.
* * *
* *
1. George Washington
[February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799]
1789-1797 Virginia
When George
Washington took over Mount Vernon at age 22 there were
18 slaves. When he married he gained control of 200 more
which technically belonged to the estate of his wife’s
first husband. By 1786 he owned 216 slaves. (Flexner,
James Thomas. George
Washington: Anguish and Farewell. Boston:
Little, Brown,1969, p.114)
While GW was
serving as president in Philadelphia a Pennsylvania law
was passed freeing slaves whose owners had been citizens
of the state for six months. GW sent his two most
valuable slaves home, telling them it was for his wife’s
convenience.(Wilkins, Roger.
Jefferson’s Pillow:
The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism. New
York: Beacon Press, 2001, p.76)
|
In 1796 Oney (or
Ona) Judge ran away to New Hampshire. She was one of
GW’s slaves—Martha’s
personal servant. President GW asked the Treasury
Secretary and a customs agent for help in getting her
back, by force, if necessary—but
she never returned. (Wilkins, Roger. Jefferson’s
Pillow:
The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism. New
York: Beacon Press, 2001, p. 82. also: Gerson,
Evelyn. "Ona
Judge Staines: Escape From Washington."
When GW
left the presidency he apparently left some
house slaves behind in Philadelphia, knowing
that under state law they would be quietly
freed by having spent a certain amount of
time in Pennsylvania. (Flexner, James
Thomas. George
Washington: Anguish and Farewell. Boston:
Little, Brown,1969)
When he
died in 1799 his will called for his
manservant William Lee to be freed
immediately, and given a pension. The other
slaves were to be freed when his widow
died. Martha chose to free them two years
later. According to Abigail Adams this was
because MW feared her life might be in
danger, since her death meant freedom for
the slaves. (Hirschfield, Fritz.
George Washington and Slavery: a Documentary
Portrayal. Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 1997, p. 214)
Neither
George nor Martha could legally free the
dower slaves which still belonged to the
Custis estate. |
 |
1786: ”I
can only say that no man living wishes more sincerely
than I do to see the abolition of (slavery). . . . But
when slaves who are happy & content to remain with their
present masters, are tampered with & seduced to leave
them . . . it introduces more evils than it can
cure."(Hirschfield, Fritz
George Washington and Slavery: a Documentary Portrayal.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997, p.187)
A Slave's Defiance: The story of rebellious Oney Judge
is finally being told
The Handmaiden's Untold Tale, Oney
Judge:
Martha Washington's favorite slave
Who
Was West Ford?
* *
* * *
2. John Adams
[October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826]
1797-1801 Massachusetts
 |
John
Adam's cousin
Samuel Adams apparently received a
slave named Surry as a gift in 1765. Some
sources say she remained a slave; others say
Samuel freed her immediately.
In any
case she stayed on as Samuel's family cook
for several decades—even
after slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts
by a bill Samuel introduced.
1820:
“I
shudder when I think of the calamities which
slavery is likely to produce in this
country. You would think me mad if I were
to describe my anticipations. If the
gangrene is not stopped I can see nothing
but insurrection of the blacks against the
whites.”
(Smith,
Page.
John Adams. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1962,
p. 138) |
* * *
* *
3. Thomas Jefferson
[April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826]
1801-1809 Virginia
|
Thomas
Jefferson inherited many slaves. His wife
brought a dowry of more than 100 slaves, and
he purchased many more throughout his life.
At some points he was one of the largest
slaveowners in Virginia.
In 1790
Jefferson gave his newly married daughter
and her husband 1000 acres of land and 25
slaves. (Miller, John Chester.
The Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson and
Slavery. New York: Free Press,
1977)
In 1798
Jefferson owned 141 slaves, many of them
elderly. Two years later he owned 93.
(Bigelow, John. “Jefferson’s Financial
Diary.” Harper’s. March 1885, v.70, n. 418,
p.537.)
One of
Jefferson’s slaves was Sally Hemings,
allegedly the half-sister of his deceased
wife. |
 |
During Jefferson’s
presidency a rumor appeared in print that she was his
mistress. Jefferson denied this story, which was also
passed on as Hemings family tradition. The youngest of
Heming’s six children (and the only one whose paternity
can be traced through DNA) definitely descended from
the Jefferson line, presumably either through Thomas,
his brother Randolph, or one of Randolph’s sons.
Jefferson was in the vicinity of Sally Hemings during
each period of conception.(See Miller, John Chester.
The Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery.
New York: Free Press, 1977, p.148-176) For a discussion
of the DNA issue see:
http://tinyurl.com/ckfkk2 and:
http://jeffersondna.com
Jefferson freed one
of Heming’s children and allowed another to run away
unpursued. Both of them were light enough to
successfully pass for White. (See Miller, John Chester.
The Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery.
New York: Free Press, 1977, p165.)
Jefferson freed
five slaves in his will, all members of the Hemings
family. Sally was not among them. 130 slaves were
sold when Jefferson's estate was auctioned off. (See
Stanton, Lucia. "Monticello to Main Street: The Hemings
Family and Charlottesville." The Magazine of
Albemarle County History. 1997. v. 55. pp. 94-96)
Jefferson’s
daughter Martha freed Sally Hemings years later. (See
Miller, John Chester.
The Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery.
New York: Free Press, 1977, p.168.)
When Jefferson's estate was
auctioned off at his death that 130 slaves were sold.
1776: (King
George III) has waged cruel war against human nature
itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and
liberty in the persons of a distant people who never
offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery
in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in
their transportation thither. This piratical warfare,
the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the
CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open
a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
prostituted his negative for suppressing every
legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors
might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now
exciting those very people to rise in arms against us,
and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived
them, by murdering the people upon whom he also
obtruded them thus paying off former crimes committed
against the liberties of one people, with crimes which
he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”—from
TJ's draft of the Declaration of Independence. This
paragraph was voted down by the Congressional Congress.
(Jefferson, Thomas.
Writings. NY: Library of America, 1984, p 22.)
Like [Benjamin] Franklin, Jefferson
found blacks esthetically displeasing. He wrote that
just as it was normal for men to prefer good
conformation in their horses and dogs, it was natural to
distinguish plain from handsome races. As a livestock
breeder, Jefferson knew that young animals inherit the
characteristics of their parents. He saw no reason why
eugenic principles should not be applied to humans and
toyed with the idea of regulating human breeding.
Today, it is fashionable to call
Jefferson a hypocrite, both because he condemned slavery
but owned slaves and because he considered blacks
inferior but may have had a black mistress. The authors
of this book think it entirely possible that Jefferson
had a liaison with his slave, Sally Hemmings. As they
point out, she was, at most, only one quarter black and
was widely described as beautiful. The affair would have
begun after the death of Jefferson’s wife.—amren
About the Getting Word Project /
African American Families at Monticello
Teflon Sense
of History / Interview
with Fountain Hayes
/
Uncle
Jeff and His Contempos (Wilson) /
* * *
* *
Report of the Research Committee
on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Thomas Jefferson Foundation
January 2000
Conclusions
Based on the examination of
currently available primary and secondary documentary evidence, the oral
histories of descendants of Monticello's African-American community,
recent scientific studies, and the guidance of individual members of
Monticello's Advisory Committee for the Robert H. Smith International
Center for Jefferson Studies and Advisory Committee on African-American
Interpretation, the Research Committee has reached the following
conclusions:
Dr. Foster's DNA study was
conducted in a manner that meets the standards of the scientific
community, and its scientific results are valid.
The DNA study, combined with
multiple strands of currently available documentary and statistical
evidence, indicates a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered
Eston Hemings, and that he most likely was the father of all six of
Sally Hemings's children appearing in Jefferson's records. Those
children are Harriet, who died in infancy; Beverly; an unnamed daughter
who died in infancy; Harriet; Madison; and Eston.
Many aspects of this likely
relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson are, and may
remain, unclear, such as the nature of the relationship, the existence
and longevity of Sally Hemings's first child, and the identity of Thomas
C. Woodson.
The implications of the
relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson should be
explored and used to enrich the understanding and interpretation of
Jefferson and the entire Monticello community.—Monticello
* *
* * *
John Randolph of Roanoke
By Russell Kirk
John Randolph of
Roanoke, a distant cousin of Thomas Jefferson (whose
mother was a Randolph), cut one of the outstanding
figures in American politics in the first third of the
nineteenth century. Virtually nothing in his life was
uninteresting. From leader of the Republican Party in
the House in Jefferson's first term as president,
Randolph went to leader of a new opposition party after
his notorious break with Jefferson. Later, his famous
speaking style (the speeches here are worth the volume's
price and more!) and acerbic wit made him the terror of
administrations of both parties. His duel with Secretary
of State Henry Clay is immortal, his imbroglios with the
young John C. Calhoun are mesmerizing, and the story of
his death fascinates. Not included here is the
controversy over his will: in the end, one of Randolph's
wills was probated and the other failed, with the result
that Randolph freed more than 400 slaves! He also bought
them land in "free" Ohio, where the natives ran them
off; I don't know what became of the land (or of the
Randolph money that had bought it for them). Randolph's
long-standing insistence that the Yankees were
hypocrites when it came to slavery and emancipation
finds some support here, to say the least.
Kirk,
unfortunately, has a tendency to make every conservative
he admires into a bygone Russell Kirk. Randolph, for
one, was not nearly so religious as Kirk would have him,
and what Christianity he had was—as one might expect—of
an eccentric variety. Still, the text here is a nice
entre' to Randolph's life, and the speeches and letters
are priceless. We don't have politicians of this
intellectual level, or with this grasp of the English
language, anymore. Nor, alas, do we have any who are so
consistently, insistently conservative.—Amazon
customer /
Randolph Slaves
* *
* * *
The Randolphs of Virginia; America's Foremost Family
By Jonathan
Daniels
Jonathan Daniels'
earlier books have delighted readers with their
knowledgeable combination of public matters and private
affairs. In
The Randolphs of Virginia he pays due respect to
the powerful leaders the family produced, led by Thomas
Jefferson, John Marshall, and Robert E. Lee. He gives
attention, too, to the family's lapses and scandals such
as the mysterious elopement of John Marshall's
grandmother with a plantation overseer, "a dirty
plebian," and the trial of Jefferson's cousins Richard
and Nancy Randolph on charges of adultery and
infanticide. With a deft and precise hand, Daniels sorts
out the genealogical tangles to tell a moving,
informative and entertaining story of the greatness and
also the instability that close intermarriage can
produce. He has written a book steeped in American
history made human by the triumphs and misfortunes of a
powerful family. A scholarly guardian of one of the
greatest Randolph lines was dismayed by some of the
book's disclosures but he wrote that in comparison with
most pedantic family histories it was like the 23rd
Psalm in contrast to the multiplication table.
* *
* * *
4. James Madison [March 16, 1751 – June
28, 1836]
1809-1817 Virginia
 |
James
Madison grew up in a slave-owning family and
owned slaves all his life. In 1833 Madison
sold several of his farms but not his
slaves. A year later he sold 16 slaves to a
relative—with their permission. (Brant,
p. 637) He did not free his slaves in his
will. (Brant, Irving.
The Fourth President: A Life of James
Madison. Bobbs-Merrill,
Indianapolis. 1970. p. 640)
A
general emancipation of slaves ought to be
1. gradual. 2. equitable & satisfactory to
the individuals immediately concerned. 3.
consistent with the existing & durable
prejudices of the nation... To be
consistent with existing and probably
unalterable prejudices in the U.S. freed
blacks ought to be permanently removed
beyond the region occupied by or allotted to
a White population." (Madison, James.
Writings. The Library of America.
NY 1999. p. 729) / Madison, James. The
Papers of James Madison. Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1967 |
A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the
Madisons
By Elizabeth Dowling Taylor / Foreword by Annette
Gordon-Reed
Madison and
the White House, Through the Memoir of a Slave—Rachel
L. Swarns—16 August 2009—In 1809, a young boy from a
wealthy Virginia estate stepped into President James
Madison’s White House and caught the first glimpse
of his new home. The East Room was unfinished, he
recalled years later in a memoir. Pennsylvania
Avenue was unpaved and “always in an awful condition
from either mud or dust,” he recounted. “The city
was a dreary place,” he continued. His name was Paul
Jennings, and he was an unlikely chronicler of the
Madison presidency. When he first walked into the
Executive Mansion, he was a 10-year-old slave. But
over the course of his long life, Mr. Jennings
witnessed, and perhaps participated in, the rescue
of George Washington’s portrait from the White House
during the War of 1812 and stood by the former
president’s side at his deathbed. He bought his
freedom, helped to organize a daring (and
unsuccessful) slave escape and became the first
person to put his White House recollections into a
memoir. . . . In the
19-page memoir, Mr. Jennings, who served as a
footman and later a valet to President Madison,
recalled the chaotic escape from the White House
hours before the British burned the building in
1814.
|
He
described President Madison as a frugal
and temperate man who owned only one
suit, socialized with
Thomas Jefferson and was so careful
with his liquor that he probably never
“drank a quart of brandy in his whole
life.” Mr. Jennings said he often served
and shaved the president and recalled
that his master was kind to his slaves.
He was 48 when he finally bought his
freedom, years after Madison’s death in
1836.As a free man, Mr. Jennings worked
in the government’s pension office,
bought property and even helped support
the former first lady Dolley Madison
with “small sums from my own pocket”
when she fell on hard times.
Mr.
Jennings, who died in 1874 at age 75,
did not discuss his personal
difficulties in his memoir, but Ms.
Taylor and others say he encountered
many hardships. As a slave, he was
forced to live apart from his wife and
children, who lived on another
plantation. And he seems to have chafed
under Mrs. Madison’s ownership after her
husband died. |
 |
Articles in
abolitionist newspapers uncovered by researchers at
the
University of Virginia’s Dolley Madison Digital
Edition, an online collection of Mrs. Madison’s
correspondence, reported that she treated her slaves
poorly. In March 1848, the Liberator
newspaper published a letter charging that Mrs.
Madison had hired out Mr. Jennings to others and
then kept “the last red cent” of his pay, “leaving
him to get his clothes by presents, night work, or
as he might.” The letter also said Mrs. Madison had
refused to free Mr. Jennings, as her husband had
wished. Instead, she sold him to an insurance agent,
who in turn sold him to Senator Daniel Webster for
$120. (He promptly set Mr. Jennings free and let him
work off the debt as a servant in his household.)—NYTimes
Paul
Jennings, President James Madison's personal slave,
told the first tale of White House life written by
someone who lived there. Jennings, in his memoirs,
debunked the oft-repeated White House legend of
first lady Dolley Madison saving the portrait of
Washington from invading British troops."This is
totally false," Jennings said. "She had no time for
doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it
down. All she carried off was the silver."Instead a
Frenchman, John Suse, and Magraw, the president's
gardener, took the painting down and sent it off on
a wagon, Jennings said. Later in his life, he would
give part of the money he earned as a freedman to
help a destitute Dolley Madison after her husband's
death.—USHistory
Paul
Jennings is primarily remembered for having
published in 1865 the first memoir about life inside
the White House,
A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison.
Let Us Honor
Slave-Owning Presidents?—Elizabeth Dowling
Taylor—20 February 2012—Ten-year-old
Paul Jennings was one of the home slaves
selected by President
James Madison for the White House household
staff. As a footman Jennings set and served meals,
assisted the coachman, and ran messages and other
errands. Later he became Madison's personal
manservant or valet, and in freedom he authored the
first White House memoir.
One enslaved
man, John Freeman, served as a White House footman
during both Jefferson's and Madison's
administrations. [Thomas]
Jefferson purchased Freeman in 1804 with the
understanding, set by his former master, that he was
to be freed in sixteen years. In 1809, the year
Madison's first term began, the third president sold
Freeman to his successor for $231.81 (calculated to
the penny based on Freeman's remaining time as a
slave). This is the only recorded instance of the
sale of human property between these two presidents,
though Jefferson also sold a woman, Thenia Hemings,
and her five young daughters, to another of our
slave-owning presidents,
James Monroe.
It is easy to
see the contradiction—some say hypocrisy—in the
author of the Declaration of Independence and the
father of the Constitution lording over plantations
of more than one hundred slaves and presiding over a
government devoted to upholding individual rights
while being served by enslaved footmen in livery.
Yet we tend to
make excuses for the failure of our Founding Fathers
to end slavery. They were men of their time, they
had to put union first, they did not understand that
we are all one biological race. We look back and see
slavery less as a political issue, more as a moral
offense. The truth is that Madison and Jefferson saw
it that way, too. . . .
Paul Jennings's great grandson, Dr. C Herbert
Marshall, who, along with his fellow black doctors,
could not practice in all-white hospitals or even
join the American Medical Association, wrote an
"op-ed" in the Negro History Bulletin in February of
1960 that started off, " I have every reason to be
proud of being an American." It concluded, "Today,
we find ourselves on the threshold of a new era
ushering in the type of freedom for all for which my
fore-parents sacrificed so much."—HuffingtonPost
* * *
* *
5. James Monroe
[April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831]
1817-1825 Virginia
|
James
Monroe inherited a slave named Ralph. When
he owned the farm Highland he owned 30 to 40
slaves. ("James
Monroe and Slavery")
1801: “We perceive an existing evil
which commenced under our Colonial System,
with which we are not properly chargeable,
or if at all not in the present degree, and
we acknowledge the extreme difficulty of
remedying it." (Monroe, James.
The Writings of James Monroe. New
York: Knickerbocker Press, 1903. v3,
p. 292-294)
Monroe was part of the
African Colonization Society formed in 1816,
which included members like Henry Clay and
Andrew Jackson. . . . they helped send
several thousand freed slaves to Africa from
1820–1840. The concern . . . was to prevent
free blacks from influencing slaves to rebel
in southern states. With about $100,000 in
Federal grant money, the organization also
bought land for those people in what is
today Liberia. The capital of
Liberia was named
Monrovia after him.—Wikipedia |
 |
* * * *
*
6. John Quincy Adams
[July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848]
1825-1829
Massachusetts
 |
No Slaves
1841:
"What can I do for the cause of God and man,
for the progress of human emancipation, for
the suppression of the African slave-trade?
Yet my conscience presses me on; let me but
die upon the breach." (Adams, John Quincy.
The Diary of John Quincy Adams. NY:
Scribner's Sons, 1951, p. 519)
In 1841, Adams had
the case of a lifetime, representing the
defendants in
United States v. The Amistad Africans in
the
Supreme Court of the United States. He
successfully argued that the Africans, who
had seized control of a Spanish ship on
which they were being transported illegally
as slaves, should not be extradited or
deported to Cuba (a Spanish colony where
slavery was legal) but should be considered
free. Under President
Martin Van Buren, the government argued
the Africans should be deported for having
mutinied and killed officers on the ship.
Adams won their freedom, with the chance to
stay in the United States or return to
Africa.—Wikipedia |
* * *
* *
7. Andrew Jackson [March 15, 1767 –
June 8, 1845]
1829-1837 South Carolina
|
Andrew
Jackson bought his first slave, a young
woman, in 1788. By 1794 his business
included slave trading and he had purchased
at least 16 slaves. (Remini, Robert V. Andrew
Jackson and the Course of American Empire,
1767-1821. New York: Harper and
Row,1977, p.37, 55)
In the
1820s Jackson owned about 160 slaves.
(James, Marquis.
Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President.
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1937, p. 31) He
did not free his slaves in his will.
1822: "As far as lenity can be extended
to these unfortunate creatures I wish you to
do so; subordination must be obtained first,
and then good treatment." (James, Marquis.
Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President.
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1937, p. 31) |
 |
Genealogical History of the Slaves of
President Andrew Jackson
of
Hermitage, Tennessee (1840-1877)
* *
* * *
8. Martin Van Buren [December 5, 1782 –
July 24, 1862]
1837-1841 New
York
 |
Owned
slaves but not while he was president. When
Martin Van Buren was young his father owned
six slaves. (Cole, Donald B.
Martin Van Buren and the American Political
System. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. 1984, p.13) His only
slave, Tom, ran away in 1814 (approx.). When
Tom was found 8 years later, Martin Van
Buren offered him for sale to the finder for
$50. (Martin
Van Buren and the American Political System,
p.110)
1837: “(Before the election I declared
that:) I must go into the Presidential chair
the inflexible and uncompromising opponent
of every attempt on the part of Congress to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia
against the wishes of the slaveholding
States, and also with a determination
equally decided to resist the slightest
interference with it in the States where it
exists.”" ("Martin
Van Buren: Inaugural Address, Saturday,
March 4, 1837" ) |
* * *
* *
9. William Henry Harrison [February 9,
1773 – April 4, 1841]
1841 Virginia
|
Owned
slaves but not while he was
president. William Henry Harrison’s father
and grandfather owned many slaves. Harrison
took seven of them with him to the Northwest
Territory in 1800 where slavery was illegal.
They then became indentured servants on
terms undistinguishable from slavery. (Clanin,
Douglas E. Personal communication.
8/13/01, p.1, and Cleaves, Freeman.
Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and
His Time. Washington, New York:
Kenninat Press, 1939. p. 7, 253) )
1801: Harrison purchase a runaway slave
and later freed him. He stayed on for many
years as a servant. (Old
Tippecanoe, p.351). In 1804,
Harrison was appointed Governor of Indiana
territory, which was “free soil.” He
attempted to have slavery made legal there,
but generally followed the law by keeping
Blacks as indentured servants who were free
after about a decade of service. (Old
Tippecanoe, p.351) |
 |
1820: “We cannot
emancipate the slaves of the other states without their
consent… [except] by producing a convulsion which would
undo us all. We must wait the slow but certain progress
of those good principles which are everywhere gaining
ground, and which assuredly will ultimately prevail.” (Old
Tippecanoe, p. 254)
* *
* * *
10. John Tyler
[March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862]
1841-1845 Virginia
 |
Owned slaves.
1838:
“(God) works most inscrutably to the
understandings of men;—the
negro is torn from Africa, a barbarian,
ignorant and idolatrous; he is restored
civilized, enlightened, and a Christian.”
(Tyler, Lyon G.
The Letters and Times of the Tylers.
Richmond: Whittet and Shepperson, 1884, p.
569)
Tyler was a slaveholder for
his entire life.
John Dunjee claimed to be the
illegitimate son of John Tyler, a child of
Tyler and one of his female slaves. Early in
his presidency Tyler was attacked by a
newspaper alleging he had fathered (and
sold) several sons with his slaves,
prompting a response from the Tyler
administration linked newspaper the
Madisonian.—Wikipedia
|
Rev. John
William Dungy (1833-1903) was a Baptist minister,
journalist, politician, missionary, educator,
bibliophile, farmer, businessman, and public
speaker. He was born into slavery in New Kent County
, Virginia in 1833. His children stated that he was
the grandson of the 10th president of the United
States , John Tyler. The story of Rev. Dungy's life
is poignantly relevant to the topic of emancipation.
The story of his life would have been lost if not
for emancipation. In 1865, Rev. Dungy returned from
Canada to the United States, where he began life
anew as a freeman. As a freeman, he made an
extraordinary contribution to the life of the former
slaves and to their children. By any stretch of the
imagination, he was an extraordinary community
builder.
The country is
virtually littered with the churches he either built
or pastured, stretching from Augusta, Georgia to
North Carolina to Rhode Island and from Rhode Island
to Minnesota and later Oklahoma Rev Dungy helped to
build and/or administer numerous all black colleges
including Storer College in Harper's Ferry, Spelman
College in Georgia, Shaw College in North Carolina,
Hampton College in Virginia, and later Langston
University in Oklahoma.—Peggy
Brooks-Bertram
* * *
* *
11.
James K. Polk
[November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849]
1845-1849 North Carolina
|
In 1832 he had fifteen slaves.
1830:
“A slave dreads the punishment of stripes
(i.e. whipping) more than he does
imprisonment, and that description of
punishment has, besides, a beneficial effect
upon his fellow-slaves.” (Sellers,
Charles Grier, Jr.
James K. Polk, Jacksonian, 1795-1843.
Princeton: Princeton University Press,1957,
p. 186)
Polk
was a slaveholder for his entire life. His
father, Samuel Polk, had left Polk more than
8,000 acres of land, and divided about 53
slaves to his widow and children after he
died. James inherited twenty of his father's
slaves, either directly or from deceased
brothers. . . . Polk's will stipulated that
their slaves were to be freed after his wife
Sarah had died. However, the 1863
Emancipation Proclamation and the 1865
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution freed all remaining slaves
in rebel states long before the death of his
wife in 1891.—Wikipedia
|
 |
* *
* * *
12. Zachary Taylor
[November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850]
1849-1850 Virginia
 |
Zackary
Taylor's father owned 26 slaves in 1800.
(Hamilton, Holman.
Zachary Taylor: Soldier in the White House.
Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill,.1951, p. 30)
In 1847 Taylor owned
more than 100 slaves. (Zachary
Taylor, p.18)
Taylor supposedly never
sold a slave. (Zachary
Taylor, p. 31)
1847: “So far as slavery is concerned,
we of the south must throw ourselves on the
constitution and defend our rights under it
to the last, and when arguments will no
longer suffice, we will appeal to the sword,
if necessary.” (Zachary
Taylor, p. 45) |
Taylor was the
last President to
hold slaves while in office, and the last Whig
to win a presidential election.
Known as "Old
Rough and Ready," Taylor had a forty-year military
career in the
United States Army, serving in the
War of 1812, the
Black Hawk War, and the
Second Seminole War. He achieved fame leading
American troops to victory in the
Battle of Palo Alto and the
Battle of Monterrey during the
Mexican–American War. As president, Taylor
angered many Southerners by taking a moderate stance
on the issue of slavery. He urged settlers in
New Mexico and
California to bypass the territorial stage and
draft
constitutions for
statehood, setting the stage for the
Compromise of 1850. Taylor died just 16 months
into his term, the third shortest tenure of any
President. He is thought to have died of
gastroenteritis. Only Presidents
William Henry Harrison and
James Garfield served less time. Taylor was
succeeded by his
Vice President,
Millard Fillmore.—Wikipedia
* * *
* *
13. Millard
Fillmore
[January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874]
1850-1853 New York
|
Owned no slaves
1850: “God knows that I detest slavery,
but it is an existing evil, for which we are
not responsible, and we must endure it, and
give it such protection as is guaranteed by
the constitution, till we can get rid of it
without destroying the last hope of free
government in the world.” (Rayback, p.162)
He
opposed the proposal to keep
slavery out of the territories annexed
during the
Mexican-American War (to appease the
South), and so supported the
Compromise of 1850, which he signed,
including the
Fugitive Slave Act ("Bloodhound Law")
which was part of the compromise. . . . Some
northern Whigs remained irreconcilable,
refusing to forgive Fillmore for having
signed the
Fugitive Slave Act. They helped deprive
him of the Presidential nomination in 1852.
Within a few years it was apparent that
although the Compromise had been intended to
settle the slavery controversy,
it served rather as an
uneasy sectional truce.—Wikipedia
|
 |
* *
* * *
14. Franklin Pierce [November 23,
1804 – October 8, 1869]
1853-1857 New Hampshire
 |
Owned no Slaves
1838: " It is admitted that domestic
slavery exists here (Washington, DC) in its
mildest form. That part of the population
are bound together by friendship and the
nearer relations of life. They are attached
to the families in which they have lived
from childhood. They are comfortably
provided for, and apparently contented." (Congressional
Globe, 1838. V.6, N.1, p. 54)
The Act
[Kansas-Nebraska
Act] provoked outrage among northerners
who saw Pierce as kowtowing to slave-holding
interests, provided the impetus for the
formation of the Republican Party, and
contributed to critical estimates of Pierce
as untrustworthy and easily manipulated.
Having lost public confidence, Pierce failed
to receive the nomination by his party for a
second term. Pierce's hiring of a full-time
bodyguard— the first president to do so—is
testament to his ruined reputation.—Wikipedia |
* *
* * *
15. James Buchanan [April
23, 1791 – June 1, 1868]
1857-1861 Pennsylvania
|
Technically he owned no slaves. While
running for the senate from Pennsylvania
James Buchanan discovered that his sister’s
husband owned two slaves in Virginia.
Buchanan purchased them, immediately
converting them to his indentured servants.
Daphne Cook, aged 22, was indentured for
seven years. Ann Cook, age 5, was indentured
for 23 years.( Klein, Philip Shriver.
President James Buchanan: A Biography.
University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press,1962, p.100)
James
Buchanan was the only president who never
married. For more than a decade he shared a
home with Senator William Rufus King of
Alabama, leading to speculation, then and
now, that they were homosexuals. King was
a slaveowner and some historians think his
influence was the reason Buchanan was more
pro-South and pro-slavery than the typical
Pennsylvania politician. ("The
Other Buchanan Controversy") |
 |
1836: "The natural
tendency of their publications is to produce
dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves, and to
incite their wild passions to vengeance... Many a
mother clasps her infant to her bosom when she
retires to rest, under dreadful apprehensions that
she may be aroused from her slumbers by the savage
yells of the slaves by whom she is surrounded.
These are the works of the abolitionists." (Curtis,
George Ticknor.
Life of James Buchanan. New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1883, v.1 p. 317)
In his
inaugural address, in addition to promising not
to run again, Buchanan referred to the territorial
question as "happily, a matter of but little
practical importance" since the Supreme Court was
about to settle it "speedily and finally." Two days
later, Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney delivered the
Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had
no
constitutional power to exclude slavery in the
territories. Part of Taney's written judgment has
been characterized as
obiter dictum—statements commonly made by a
jurist that are not central to the decision in the
case; in this instance such comments delighted
Southerners while creating a furor in the North.
Buchanan, in his view, preferred to see the
territorial question resolved by the Supreme Court.
It is known that he was told of the Court's decision
a week before his inauguration.
Abraham Lincoln denounced him as an accomplice
of the
Slave Power, which Lincoln saw as a
conspiracy of slave owners to seize control of
the federal government and
nationalize slavery. However, there is no extant
contemporaneous statement that Buchanan interfered
in the Court's rendering of the
Dred Scott decision.—Wikipedia
* * * *
*
16. Abraham Lincoln
[February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865]
1861-1865 Kentucky
 |
Owned no slaves.
1865:
“I have always thought that all men should
be free; but if any should be slaves it
should be first those who desire it for
themselves, and secondly those who desire it
for others. Whenever I hear any one arguing
for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see
it tried on him personally.” (Lincoln,
Abraham .
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1953, 1953, v8, pp. 360-1)
Lincoln
was an outspoken opponent of the expansion
of
slavery in the United States, which he
deftly articulated in his campaign debates
and speeches. As a result, he secured the
Republican nomination and was
elected president in 1860. After war
began, following declarations of
secession by Southern slave states, he
concentrated on both the military and
political dimensions of the war effort,
seeking to reunify the nation. |
He vigorously exercised unprecedented
war powers, including the arrest and detention, without
trial, of thousands of suspected secessionists. He
issued his
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and promoted the
passage of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
abolishing slavery.—Wikipedia
August 14, 1862—A Historic White
House Meeting—Lincoln met with five free black
ministers, the first time a delegation of their race was
invited to the White House on a matter of public policy.
The President made no effort to engage in conversation
with the visitors, who were bluntly informed that they
had been invited to listen. Lincoln did not mince words,
but candidly told the group:
|
You and we are different
races. We have between us a broader
difference than exists between almost any
other two races. Whether it is right or
wrong I need not discuss, but this physical
difference is a great disadvantage to us
both, as I think your race suffers very
greatly, many of them, by living among us,
while ours suffers from your presence. In a
word, we suffer on each side. If this is
admitted, it affords a reason at least why
we should be separated.
... Even when you cease
to be slaves, you are yet far removed from
being placed on an equality with the white
race ... The aspiration of men is to enjoy
equality with the best when free, but on
this broad continent, not a single man of
your race is made the equal of a single man
of ours. Go where you are treated the best,
and the ban is still upon you.
... We look to our
condition, owing to the existence of the two
races on this continent. I need not recount
to you the effects upon white men growing
out of the institution of slavery. I believe
in its general evil effects on the white
race.
See our present condition
-- the country engaged in war! -- our white
men cutting one another's throats, none
knowing how far it will extend; and then
consider what we know to be the truth. But
for your race among us there could not be
war, although many men engaged on either
side do not care for you one way or the
other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the
institution of slavery, and the colored race
as a basis, the war would not have an
existence.
It is better for us both, therefore, to
be separated. |
An excellent site for black
resettlement, Lincoln went on, was available in Central
America [Chiriqui, Panama].It had good harbors and an
abundance of coal that would permit the colony to be
quickly put on a firm financial footing. The President
concluded by asking the delegation to determine if a
number of freedmen with their families would be willing
to go as soon as arrangements could be made.—IHR
* *
* * *
17. Andrew Johnson
[December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875]
1865-1869 North Carolina
|
Owned
slaves but not while he was president.
Andrew Johnson bought his first slave, a
manservant named Sam, in 1837. He eventually
owned 8. (Thomas, Lately.
The First President Johnson. New
York: William Morrow and Company. 1968, p.
87)
Johnson
owned slaves at the beginning of the Civil
War. He said that some of them came back
voluntarily after being confiscated by the
Confederates, and these he treated as
freemen. (Johnson,
Andrew.
The Papers of Andrew Johnson. Vol.
6. Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1983, p 549.)
If he
didn’t free all of his individually he
certainly freed them in 1864 when, as
military governor of Tennessee, he
proclaimed freedom for all slaves in the
state. (Johnson,
Andrew.
Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States. Boston: Little,
Brown,.1866, p. xxxvii) |
 |
1865: “You
tell me, friends, of the liberation of the colored
people of the South. But have you thought of the
millions of Southern white people who have been
liberated by the war?” (The
First President Johnson, p. 347)
Andrew Johnson
The 17th President, 1865-1869
By Annette
Gordon-Reed
* *
* * *
18. Ulysses S. Grant
1869-1877 Ohio
 |
The
only evidence that USG owned slaves is a
document he signed in 1859 freeing one,
William Jones. However, Grant certainly had
some control over and use of slaves his
father-in-law gave his wife. (Simon, John
Y.
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1967, p. 347)
1885: "The (South) was burdened with an
institution abhorrent to all civilized
people not brought up under it, and one
which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance
and enervated the governing class. . . .
Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the
masters, and, not being in sympathy with
them, would have risen in their might and
exterminated them. The war was expensive to
the South, as well as to the North, both in
blood and treasure, but it was worth all it
cost." (Grant, Ulysses S.
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. New
York: Century Co,1885, V.1, pp. 507-8) |
Source:
home.nas
* * *
* *
Report of the
Research Committee
on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Thomas Jefferson Foundation
January 2000
Conclusions
Based on the
examination of currently available primary and secondary
documentary evidence, the oral histories of descendants
of Monticello's African-American community, recent
scientific studies, and the guidance of individual
members of Monticello's Advisory Committee for the
Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson
Studies and Advisory Committee on African-American
Interpretation, the Research Committee has reached the
following conclusions:
Dr. Foster's DNA
study was conducted in a manner that meets the standards
of the scientific community, and its scientific results
are valid.
The DNA study,
combined with multiple strands of currently available
documentary and statistical evidence, indicates a high
probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings,
and that he most likely was the father of all six of
Sally Hemings's children appearing in Jefferson's
records. Those children are Harriet, who died in
infancy; Beverly; an unnamed daughter who died in
infancy; Harriet; Madison; and Eston.
Many aspects of
this likely relationship between Sally Hemings and
Thomas Jefferson are, and may remain, unclear, such as
the nature of the relationship, the existence and
longevity of Sally Hemings's first child, and the
identity of Thomas C. Woodson.
The implications of
the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas
Jefferson should be explored and used to enrich the
understanding and interpretation of Jefferson and the
entire Monticello community.—Monticello
* * *
* *
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account
Thomas Jefferson
(April 13, 1743 – July 4,
1826) was the principal author of the
Declaration of Independence
(1776) and the
Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom
(1777), the
third
President of the United States
(1801–1809) and founder of the
University of Virginia
(1819). He was an influential
Founding Father and an
exponent of
Jeffersonian democracy.
Sarah "Sally" Hemings (Shadwell,
Albemarle County, Virginia,
circa 1773 –
Charlottesville, Virginia,
1835) was a
mixed-race
slave owned by
President
Thomas Jefferson
through inheritance from his wife. She was the
half-sister of
Jefferson's wife,
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father
John Wayles. She was notable because most historians
now believe that the widower Jefferson had six children
with her, and maintained an extended relationship for 38
years until his death. When Jefferson's relationship and
children were reported in 1802, there was sensational
coverage for a time, but Jefferson remained silent on
the issue. Four Hemings-Jefferson children survived to
adulthood. He let two "escape" in 1822 at the age of 21
and freed the younger two in his will in 1826.
* * *
* *
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American
Controversy
By Annette
Gordon-Reed
Attorney
Gordon-Reed (law, New York Law Sch.) presents a lawyer's
analysis of the evidence for and against the proposition
that Jefferson was the father of several children born
to his household slave Sally Hemings. Gordon-Reed is not
concerned with Jefferson and Hemings as much as she is
with how Jefferson's defenders have dealt with the
evidence about the case. Her book takes aim at such
noteworthy biographers as Dumas Malone, who has been
quick to accept evidence against a liaison and quick to
reject evidence for one.—Library
Journal
* * *
* *
James Loewen on telling the truth about
Confederates
* * *
* *
|
 |
|
Lyndon Baines Johnson Signs 1964 Civil
Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
was passed after increasing political pressure
and violence against African-Americans. The drive for its
passage was boosted by the assassination of JFK. This was the
most far-reaching legislation of its kind since
Reconstruction. It included 11 titles which dealt with voting
practices, segregation, provided financial aid to
desegregating schools, extended the life of the Civil Rights
Commission for four more years, outlawed federal funds for
educations institutions or programs practicing discrimination,
outlawed employment and union discrimination, required
gathering census data by race in some areas, prevented federal
courts from sending a civil rights case back to state or local
courts, established the Community Relations Service (CRS) to
arbitrate local race problems and provided right of jury trial
in any case that arose from any section of the act.—Civil
Rights Acts and Other Remedies
The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L.
88-352, 78 Stat. 241,
enacted July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of
legislation in the United States that outlawed
major forms of discrimination against African
Americans and women, including racial
segregation. It ended unequal application of
voter registration requirements and
racial segregation in schools, at the
workplace and by facilities that served the
general public ("public accommodations").
Powers given to
enforce the act were initially weak, but were
supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its
authority to legislate under several different parts of
the
United States Constitution, principally its power to
regulate
interstate commerce under
Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all
citizens
equal protection of the laws under the
Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting
rights under the
Fifteenth Amendment. The Act was signed into
law by
President
Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later sign the landmark
Voting Rights Act into law.—Wikipedia
|
* *
* * *
The Black History of the White House (Clarence
Lusane)
Official histories
of the United States have ignored the fact that 25
percent of all U.S. presidents were slaveholders, and
that black people were held in bondage in the White
House itself. And while the nation was born under the
banner of "freedom and justice for all," many colonists
risked rebelling against England in order to protect
their lucrative slave business from the growing threat
of British abolitionism. These historical facts,
commonly excluded from schoolbooks and popular versions
of American history, have profoundly shaped the course
of race relations in the United States.
In this
unprecedented work, Clarence Lusane presents a
comprehensive history of the White House from an African
American perspective, illuminating the central role it
has played in advancing, thwarting or simply ignoring
efforts to achieve equal rights for all. Here are the
stories of those who were forced to work on the
construction of the mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
and the determined leaders who pressured U.S. presidents
to outlaw slavery, White House slaves and servants who
went on to write books, Secret Service agents harassed
by racist peers, Washington insiders who rose to the
highest levels of power, the black artists and
intellectuals invited to the White House, community
leaders who waged presidential campaigns, and many
others. Juxtaposing significant events in White House
history with the ongoing struggle for civil rights,
Clarence Lusane makes plain that the White House has
always been a prism through which to view the social
struggles and progress of black Americans.
My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House
is an autobiographical novel by
Lillian Rogers Parks (with Frances Spatz Leighton).
The memoir was based on Mrs. Park's recollections of
thirty years (1931-1961) as a seamstress in the White
House (the administrations of Coolidge, Hoover,
Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower) and on childhood
memories of her mother's 30 years of domestic service
(Margaret 'Maggie' Rogers was head housemaid at the
White House from 1909-1939, also spanning several
administrations). It became a Runaway Best-Seller &
Later NBC Produced their 11 time Emmy Nominated
Mini-Series on the Life of Lillian Rogers Parks and her
Mother, Maggie Rogers.
* *
* * *
 |
My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White
House
By Lillian Rogers Parks
This
memoir is based on Mrs. Park's recollections
of thirty years (1931-1961) as a seamstress
in the White House (the administrations of
Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, and
Eisenhower) and on childhood memories of her
mother's 30 years of domestic service
(Margaret 'Maggie' Rogers was head housemaid
at the White House from 1909-1939, also
spanning several administrations). It
became a runaway Best-Seller & later NBC
Produced their 11 time Emmy Nominated
Mini-Series on the Life of Lillian Rogers
Parks and her Mother, Maggie Rogers.—amazon
review
The
title of Mrs. Parks's 1961 memoirs, written
with Frances Spatz Leighton, was somewhat
misleading. For although Mrs. Parks worked
as an observant White House seamstress and
maid only from the beginning of the Hoover
Administration in 1929 to the end of the
Eisenhower years in 1961, she had been a
familiar figure at the White House since she
was a little girl. |
That is because her
mother, Maggie Rogers, who joined the White House staff
on the fourth day of the Taft Administration, would
often take her daughter to work with her. And when she
did not, she would come home to regale her family with
stories of what she had seen or heard at the White House
that day.—NYTimes
* *
* * *
|
American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro
By
Nathaniel Weyl and William Marina
This book shows that most of America's great
statesmen from the Revolutionary War to the
Kennedy years were not overly fond of Blacks
and did not believe in the intelligence of
Black people or their ability to assimilate
into American society. This is good in that
it provides some interesting statements from
Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, etc. that
are not well known. As the authors point
out, the United States inherited a race
problem. Negro slavery had already been
established by the Southern states before
the nation was even founded. In fact, the
question of whether slaves were people or
property was the most intractable problem at
the constitutional convention in
Philadelphia. . . .
As Mr.
Weyl and Mr. Marina point out, in its time,
the American Colonization Society enjoyed
the support of the most powerful and
prestigious men in America. |
 |
Its first meeting was called to order
in 1816 by Henry Clay. At various times it had, not
merely as members but as officers, James Madison, Andrew
Jackson, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, William
Seward, Francis Scott Key, Gen. Winfield Scott, Matthew
Carey (the prominent Philadelphia publisher), Edward
Everett (governor of Massachusetts and president of
Harvard) and two Chief Justices of the Supreme Court,
John Marshall and Roger Taney. The purpose of the
society was, in Henry Clay’s words, to “rid our country
of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous portion of
the population.”
The authors of this
book make it clear that the dividing line of respectable
opinion before the Civil War was not whether the Negro
should be slave or free but whether he should be a slave
or be driven out of the country. Even in the North, a
great many people were perfectly content for the black
man to remain a slave. Abolitionists, who dared not even
show their faces in the South, were seen as busybody
subversives in the North as well. They were often beaten
up or tarred and feathered. . . .
Mr. Weyl and Mr.
Marina describe the many efforts Lincoln made to promote
colonization even during the darkest hours of the war.
He persuaded Congress to appropriate money to buy up the
slaves in the District of Columbia and send them out of
the country. He invited a delegation of prominent blacks
to the White House—the first time blacks had ever
received such an invitation—to ask them to persuade
other blacks to go to Haiti or Central America. He even
considered setting aside Texas as an asylum for blacks
so that the rest of the country could be free of them. .
. .
Mr. Weyl and Mr. Marina report that Woodrow Wilson was a
firm segregationist, who, as president of Princeton,
used evasive means to prevent blacks from enrolling. . .
.
Warren Harding was dogged throughout his life by rumors
that his great-grandmother was part black. He was never
able to silence his critics for he himself was uncertain
about the facts. . . . He was one of the first
Presidents to promote the view that blacks could have
political and economic equality even if they were denied
social equality.
Truman and
Eisenhower continued to struggle with this slippery
idea. However, Truman finally concluded that even though
private citizens could discriminate in employment, the
government could not. He integrated the armed services,
even over the strenuous objections of the Navy, thereby
enforcing for others the social mixing he himself
avoided. . . .
Mr. Weyl and Mr. Marina end their narrative with John
Kennedy, who was the first President wholly to disavow,
at least in public, all racial consciousness.—amren
* * *
* *
 |
Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers
and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism
By
Roger Wilkins
This
astonishing book by the 1980s antiapartheid
leader Wilkins (a professor of history at
George Mason University and Pulitzer
Prize-winner) provides a brief, but
tremendously incisive demythologizing of
four Virginian founders Washington,
Jefferson, Madison and Mason (whose stature
Wilkins justly elevates) and their
conflicted attitudes toward race, in the
process humanizing them and deepening our
appreciation of the internal struggles
involved in achieving their greatness,
however flawed or incomplete. (There's
nothing forced in this evaluation, as
Wilkins acknowledges their enormous
contribution to activists such as himself
today.)
Where
others routinely excuse past figures or
judge them by present standards, Wilkins
exemplifies a subtler, sounder approach. |
Reaching
back to England and Virginia in the 1600s, he
briskly illuminates the historical, ideological and
socioeconomic contexts that made a burning concern
for freedom not just compatible with slavery, but
materially and psychologically dependent on it.
Surprising connections prove particularly revealing,
as when Wilkins describes two English-educated
second-generation Virginia aristocrats as suffering
"something akin to the problems encountered by the
bright barrio or ghetto youngster who is selected
and groomed and sent to Harvard and then tries to
return to his or her roots."
He gets inside the "addictive"
naturalness of privilege that slaveowners enjoyed via
his own draft-deferred student experience during the
Korean War, but without forgetting his ancestors'
suffering as slaves. Indeed, reflections on his family
history ground Wilkins and allow him to develop enormous
sympathy for and insight into his subjects without
losing balance or excusing the inexcusable. His insight
recalls James Baldwin, arguably the best we've ever had
for appreciating the humanity of even the most flawed
among us without yielding an inch of moral principle.—Publishers
Weekly
* *
* * *
|
Andrew Johnson
The 17th President, 1865-1869
By Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed sets the tone for
her study of Andrew Johnson . . . in her
introductory remarks: “Throughout the
entirety of his political career Andrew
Johnson did everything he could to make
sure blacks would never become equal
citizens in the United States of
America.”
The remainder of this study is devoted
to prove this conclusion. In overly long
sentences the author examines Johnson’s
roots. Beginning with “We can never know
for certain,” the author describes in
detail the psychological driving force
behind Johnson’s actions as Congressman,
Governor, U.S. Senator, and President.
It is certainly true that Johnson was a
politician in a slave holding state. As
such, the positions he took and the
votes he cast were in support of the
maintenance and expansion of slavery in
the United States.
|
 |
Despite this constancy, he was considered a maverick
within both the Whig and Democratic parties. When
secession came, he was the only U.S. Senator from a
slave state who remained in the Senate and loyal to
the Union. He was then stripped of his position,
lost his personal possessions and had his family
held virtually prisoner in eastern Tennessee.
Early in the war, Lincoln appointed Johnson as
military governor of Tennessee. During his tenure,
Governor Johnson was considered a hard line
Unionist. So, when Lincoln was challenged within his
own party in 1864, he chose Johnson, a boarder state
Unionist as his running mate on the National Union
Party ticket. Successfully elected, the
congressional radicals looked forward to working
with Johnson, after Lincoln’s assassination.
But Johnson reversed himself and revealed that he
shared Lincoln’s belief that the Southern states had
never actually legally left the Union. Thus,
Reconstruction was under the direction of the
executive branch of the government, not the Congress
and the Senate. So, during the recess of 1865,
Johnson moved swiftly to restore the Confederate
states to full participation in the Union. With this
action, Johnson set the stage for a clash with the
legislative branch over the separation of powers.
That struggle would begin in December of 1865 with
the refusal to seat delegations from the
“reconstructed” Southern states.
Ms. Reed recognized the dynamics of this situation
and insists that Johnson used the power of the
presidency to protect the right of white people and
suppress those of the new freedmen. So it would seem
that a president who supported federalism vs.
state’s rights in 1860 reversed his position in
order to insure white supremacy in 1865. She tells
the reader, “Though he remained loyal to the Union,
President Johnson was a white southerner to the
core.”
The author considers President Andrew Johnson a
racist. Certainly by modern standards, he was. He is
clearly seen to say that the Negro race is inferior
to the Caucasian. What the reader will not hear from
Ms. Reed is that most politicians of his time
believed in white supremacy, too. She also insists
that Johnson missed opportunities to work out the
Reconstruction differences between the
Administration and Congress; and that a man of
stronger character would have reached out to the
Radicals. But she decides that his racism prevented
him from doing so.
Ms. Gordon-Reed’s study is nonetheless a fascinating
look into a very difficult post-war time for the
leaders of the United States. We are given a small
glimpse into the monumental power struggle that
followed the Civil War and the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln. It is well worth the time to read.
Reviewer Dr.
Michael J. Deeb is the author of three novels: Duty and
Honor, Duty Accomplished, and Honor Restored. He is also
a retired university instructor of American history— NYJournalofBooks
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A Slave in the White
House
Paul Jennings and the Madisons
By Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
Foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed
Paul Jennings was born into slavery on
the plantation of James and Dolley
Madison in Virginia, later becoming part
of the Madison household staff at the
White House. Once finally emancipated by
Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he
would give an aged and impoverished
Dolley Madison, his former owner, money
from his own pocket, write the first
White House memoir, and see his sons
fight with the Union Army in the Civil
War. He died a free man in northwest
Washington at 75. Based on
correspondence, legal documents, and
journal entries rarely seen before, this
amazing portrait of the times reveals
the mores and attitudes toward slavery
of the nineteenth century, and sheds new
light on famous characters such as James
Madison, who believed the white and
black populations could not coexist as
equals; French General Lafayette who was
appalled by this idea; Dolley Madison,
who ruthlessly sold Paul after her
husband's death; and many other since
forgotten
slaves, abolitionists, and civil right
activists |
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” |
We learn how the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar cane have disrupted and
convulsed the planet and will continue to do so until we are
finally living on one integrated or at least close-to-integrated
Earth. Whether or not the human instigators of all this
remarkable change will survive the process they helped to
initiate more than five hundred years ago remains, Mann suggests
in this monumental and revelatory book, an open question.
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A Matter of Justice
Eisenhower and the Beginning of the
Civil Rights Revolution
By David. A. Nichols
David A. Nichols
takes us inside the Oval Office to look
over Ike's shoulder as he worked behind
the scenes, prior to Brown, to
desegregate the District of Columbia and
complete the desegregation of the armed
forces. We watch as Eisenhower, assisted
by his close collaborator, Attorney
General Herbert Brownell, Jr., sifted
through candidates for federal
judgeships and appointed five pro-civil
rights justices to the Supreme Court and
progressive judges to lower courts. We
witness Eisenhower crafting civil rights
legislation, deftly building a
congressional coalition that passed the
first civil rights act in eighty-two
years, and maneuvering to avoid a
showdown with Orval Faubus, the governor
of Arkansas, over desegregation of
Little Rock's Central High. Nichols
demonstrates that Eisenhower, though he
was a product of his time and its
backward racial attitudes, was actually
more progressive on civil rights in the
1950s than his predecessor, Harry
Truman, and his successors, John F.
Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. . . .
In fact, Eisenhower's actions laid the
legal and political groundwork for the
more familiar breakthroughs in civil
rights achieved in the 1960s. |
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The First Emancipator
The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the
Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves
By
Andrew Levy
In
1791, at a time when the nation's leaders
were fervently debating the contradiction of
slavery in a newly independent nation,
wealthy Virginia plantation owner Robert
Carter III freed more than 450 slaves. It
was to be the largest emancipation until the
Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham
Lincoln. Levy offers an absorbing look at
the philosophical and religious debate and
the political and family struggles in which
Carter engaged for years before very
deliberately and systematically freeing his
slaves as he attempted to provide a model
for others to follow. Drawing on historic
documents, including Carter's letters and
painstakingly detailed accounts of
plantation activities, Levy conveys the
strongly held beliefs that drove Carter
through the political and religious fervor
of the time to arrive at a decision at odds
with those of other prominent leaders and
slaveholders of the time, including George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Levy offers
a fascinating look at one man's redemption
and his eventual lapse into historical
obscurity despite his incredibly bold
actions. Well researched and thoroughly
fascinating, this forgotten history will
appeal to readers interested in the
complexities of American slavery.—Booklist
|
Robert
"Councillor" Carter III (February 1727/28 –
March 10, 1804) was an
American plantation owner,
founding father and onetime British government
official. After the death of his wife,
Frances Ann Tasker Carter, in 1787, Carter
embraced the
Swedenborgian faith and freed almost 500 slaves
from his Nomini Hall plantation and large home in
Westmoreland County. By a "Deed of Gift" filed
with the county in 1791, he began the process of
manumitting slaves in his lifetime. His manumission
is the largest known release of slaves in North
American history prior to the
American Civil War and the largest number ever
manumitted by an individual in the US. . . . Toward
the end of his life, Carter moved from Virginia to
Baltimore, Maryland. In part he wanted some
distance from family and neighbors who looked
askance at his Swedenborgian faith and program of
manumission. In 1803 the year before his death,
Carter wrote his daughter Harriot L. Maund, "My
plans and advice have never been pleasing to the
world."—Wikipedia
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 22 February 2011
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