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I spent some time with a fantastic tool online that enabled me to come to some very interesting conclusions that are even more amazing than what I thought about in the beginning.
Let's open this whole can of worms this way: We hear a lot about America's participation in slavery and most of it is either a lie, or a partial truth designed to get you to think that America was the biggest and most evil participant in the institution. Despite the fact that slavery was a worldwide phenomenon, and we were technically minor players in the overall scheme of slavery, the Critical Race Theory folks, and the purveyors of the false 1619 Project want you to believe slavery was all about America, and mostly America.
The problem is, the facts, and more importantly, the numbers disagree.
According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at PBS (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/) after utilizing a Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database at slavevoyages.org, of which he calls the "gold standard" when it comes to the field of the study of the slave trade, America played a minor role in the slave trade. While the numbers at slavevoyages.org are considered "estimates", Gates states the database is the best out there in terms of closeness to accuracy. So, writes Gates, according to his own manipulation of the website, "Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That’s right: a tiny percentage."
In other words, as we've been told, and as Mr. Gates was willing to admit, about 4% of the total. Small number to say the least. And, by the time we are done here, I will show you how that number is still twice the size it truly should be. The number of slaves who were legally imported into the United States while the United States was officially a country is a much different number.
Before I found Mr. Gates at PBS I had also stumbled upon a site called "statista".
Two charts caught my eye.
The first one at https://www.statista.com/chart/22057/countries-most-active-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/ shows a chart of The Countries Most Active in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. While the United States is near the bottom, I believe the 377,613 number provided is false. America, as I referred to earlier, was not a country until 1776, so if you wish to be purely honest about the U.S.'s participation in the slave trade, her colonial years should be considered as part of the United Kingdom's participation in the slave trade. After all, English settlers were the ones who began the slave trade here, with support from the British Government, and as the American concept of liberty began to percolate the Founding Fathers blamed Britain for the presence of slaves in America, and blamed the British Empire for the continuation of slavery as the years passed. In short, the mindset of the English who came here was much different from the mindset of the early Americans when it came to slavery. Thomas Jefferson referred to slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence not only stating that the liberty-minded colonists of his time considered those enslaved to be MEN as they themselves were, but that the Commonwealth of Virginia at one point had requested to abolish slavery inside its colonial borders, and the British Parliament had rejected the request.
The second chart at statista which can be found at https://www.statista.com/chart/19068/trans-atlantic-slave-trade-by-country-region/ shows how many slaves were sent to each region in the New World and Europe during the time period of 1514-1866, this time showing a number 307,000 going to the U.S. (which contradicts the 377,613 number from the previous chart). Something I took notice of on this particular page is that the article opens with the 1619 Project claim that in August of 1619 the first ship with enslaved Africans arrived in what was then the colony of Virginia. Curious, I decided to go to the database Gates at PBS mentioned, which turns out to also be the source for Katharina Buchholz, the author of the statista pieces, to see if I could find out how many slaves was estimated to have arrived in the New World in 1619 as we are being told.
Using the https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates part of the slave trade database I left only the U.S. box check-marked, then set the years from 1501 to 1625. According to the database there were zero slave arrivals in the U.S. portion of North America during that time period.
According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at PBS (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/) after utilizing a Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database at slavevoyages.org, of which he calls the "gold standard" when it comes to the field of the study of the slave trade, America played a minor role in the slave trade. While the numbers at slavevoyages.org are considered "estimates", Gates states the database is the best out there in terms of closeness to accuracy. So, writes Gates, according to his own manipulation of the website, "Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That’s right: a tiny percentage."
In other words, as we've been told, and as Mr. Gates was willing to admit, about 4% of the total. Small number to say the least. And, by the time we are done here, I will show you how that number is still twice the size it truly should be. The number of slaves who were legally imported into the United States while the United States was officially a country is a much different number.
Before I found Mr. Gates at PBS I had also stumbled upon a site called "statista".
Two charts caught my eye.
The first one at https://www.statista.com/chart/22057/countries-most-active-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/ shows a chart of The Countries Most Active in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. While the United States is near the bottom, I believe the 377,613 number provided is false. America, as I referred to earlier, was not a country until 1776, so if you wish to be purely honest about the U.S.'s participation in the slave trade, her colonial years should be considered as part of the United Kingdom's participation in the slave trade. After all, English settlers were the ones who began the slave trade here, with support from the British Government, and as the American concept of liberty began to percolate the Founding Fathers blamed Britain for the presence of slaves in America, and blamed the British Empire for the continuation of slavery as the years passed. In short, the mindset of the English who came here was much different from the mindset of the early Americans when it came to slavery. Thomas Jefferson referred to slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence not only stating that the liberty-minded colonists of his time considered those enslaved to be MEN as they themselves were, but that the Commonwealth of Virginia at one point had requested to abolish slavery inside its colonial borders, and the British Parliament had rejected the request.
The second chart at statista which can be found at https://www.statista.com/chart/19068/trans-atlantic-slave-trade-by-country-region/ shows how many slaves were sent to each region in the New World and Europe during the time period of 1514-1866, this time showing a number 307,000 going to the U.S. (which contradicts the 377,613 number from the previous chart). Something I took notice of on this particular page is that the article opens with the 1619 Project claim that in August of 1619 the first ship with enslaved Africans arrived in what was then the colony of Virginia. Curious, I decided to go to the database Gates at PBS mentioned, which turns out to also be the source for Katharina Buchholz, the author of the statista pieces, to see if I could find out how many slaves was estimated to have arrived in the New World in 1619 as we are being told.
Using the https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates part of the slave trade database I left only the U.S. box check-marked, then set the years from 1501 to 1625. According to the database there were zero slave arrivals in the U.S. portion of North America during that time period.
Kind of contradicts the 1619 Project claim, doesn't it?
Then I checked the following spans of years and got the following numbers:
1501-1775: 126,012
1776-1807: 166,162
1808-1866: 13,151
As a note, the number is zero 1822-1823, 1825-1826, 1828, 1830-1857, 1859.
The first period (1501-1775) was during the time that the English Colonies were under British Rule. The slave trade at that point was administered by Great Britain, therefore it would not be reasonable to count those numbers toward U.S. involvement in slavery.
The second period was from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to 1807 which is the last year the importation of slaves into the U.S. was legal. An act by Congress to outlaw the Atlantic Slave Trade into the States as authorized by Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution was passed and signed by President Jefferson in March of 1807, with an effective date of January 1, 1808. After 1776, and prior to the Act that went into effect in 1808 the importation of slaves into the United States was legal and allowed by the U.S. Government, so the number that corresponds with that time period above should count as a part of the overall number regarding U.S. involvement in the slave trade from Africa.
The third period (1808-1866) spanned a time in which the importation of slaves was at its lowest ever, with a number of years at zero. It was also during a time in which it was illegal to import slaves into the United States, so any slaves brought into the United States during that time-span should not be viewed as evidence the United States participated in the slave trade. The participation in the importation of slaves into the United States was not sanctioned by the U.S. Government, the activity was committed by outlaws. When it came to people who were acting outside the law this would include the Jekyll Island landing of a slave ship in 1858. That Georgia disembarkment of slaves was illegal, and also followed a long spell of years in which no slaves had been brought into the United States, even in the case of smuggling. Note that the Atlanta Journal article linked above states that 409 slaves were dumped off on Jekyll Island. The database at slavevoyages.com states only 350 slaves entered the United States in 1858. Interesting that the mainstream media has jacked the number up a bit. Is there a narrative they are trying to support with exaggerated numbers?
If we go by the numbers provided the actual number of slaves imported into the United States legally, based on U.S. law allowing it while the U.S. was a country, then, is 166,162; roughly 2% of the entire number of slaves that came to the New World from Africa.
So how is it that the United States is now being considered as such a major player in the overall scheme of the Atlantic Slave Trade?
Then, if we look at the numbers regarding slavery in America, less than 5% of southern white free persons owned slaves, and overall in the United States less than 1.5% across the entire United States owned slaves. Oh, and the first slave owner on legal record in the English Colonies was a black man.
As for the argument about the birth of slaves in the U.S., the reason more were born in the U.S. as compared to other countries in the sense of percentages was because the living conditions and services provided for the slaves in the United States were better than in any other country. In other countries the majority of slaves were beaten to death, or were in such poor health from the poor living conditions provided that they were unable to reproduce.
The message we are being told, this idea that the United States was somehow an evil leader in the sin of slavery is a smoke and mirrors show. An exaggeration. A case of sleight of hand to get you to not see the truth. Cultural Marxism, I'm afraid, at its worst.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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