Social Education 84(2), p. 76–82 ©2020 National Council for the Social Studies The American Contradiction: Conceived in Liberty, Born in Shackles Kenneth C. Davis America was conceived in liberty and But “The past is never dead,” as must acknowledge that slavery rocked born in shackles. This is the Great William Faulkner, a son of the South, the cradle of American history. Contradiction at the heart of our nation’s once wrote. “It’s not even past.” We need a new framework to teach story. Let’s be clear. American slavery was that subject. I believe it must begin When the United States of America not a minor subplot in the American with five central points about the role was founded in 1776, the Founding drama, but one of the central acts in its that racial slavery played in the found- Fathers declared the lofty ideal of “all history. For many years, the long, tragic ing, creation, and development of the Men are created equal.” The Framers narrative of slavery’s destructive power American republic. We must weave of the Constitution later set out to form and its cruel savagery were concealed these fundamental facts into the bed- a “more perfect Union” to secure “the rock of how we teach American History Blessings of Liberty.” and Civics. But among their ranks were many men “Let’s be clear. American who bought, sold, and enslaved people. •Enslaved people were in America Slavery was present at the nation’s birth slavery was not a minor before the Mayflower Pilgrims. and was essential to the foundation of subplot in the American the political and economic power that In August 1619, a shipload of Africans built the country in the early nineteenth drama, but one of the captured to be sold arrived in Jamestown, century. As the United States grew from a central acts in its history.” Virginia.1 These “twenty and odd thin ribbon of 13 states along the Atlantic Negroes” were traded in Virginia shortly coast to a nation spanning a continent, after the colony’s first elected assem- the spread of slavery created the fault in textbooks behind bland euphemisms, bly opened a session in a Jamestown line that eventually brought the nation code words, and court rulings. Papered church2—a fledgling step towards to Civil War. In its wake was left a over with political rhetoric, most school- democracy in the Anglo-American colo- ruinous legacy of racism, inequality, and books denied the harsh reality, or simply nies—and before the Mayflower arrived discrimination. ignored the stark hypocrisy of what is late in 1620. For some 30 years, as I have written called America’s original sin. At best, The African slave trade in the and discussed this history and its reper- slavery was treated like the awkward Americas had commenced in the early cussions in classrooms and with the gen- family relation whose picture gets pulled 1500s when the Spanish began to trans- eral public, I have repeatedly encoun- from the family photo album. At worst, it port kidnapped Africans to replace the tered a pair of stark misconceptions. was justified and explained away. But, as enslaved indigenous people who were The first is that American slavery was John Adams once said, “Facts are stub- dying at an astonishing rate from forced a sideshow in U.S. history, practiced by born things.” labor, draconian punishments, and pan- a relatively small number of Americans, Now more than ever, it is past time demic disease. That was the beginning of mostly in the Southern states. The sec- to set the record straight. Social stud- the Atlantic slave trade that took more ond fallacy is that since slavery ended ies educators need to take action. than 12 million African people from 150 years ago, we don’t need to talk While celebrating the Declaration of their homes and violently carried them about it anymore. Independence and the Constitution, we into bondage and death. Social Education 76 A depiction of the 1619 arrival of Africans at Jamestown. Courtesy of the Sidney Foundation E. King Collection,Williamsburg Colonial Democracy and slavery in America declared “in order to ensure slavery Fourth, and Valley Forge largely erased were, in essence, born as twins. But would continue.” Five prominent his- an important part of the story—the role their growth and development has not torians contested that and other claims slavery and African Americans played been equally recognized for much of made by the 1619 Project and the result- in the independence debate and revo- our history. All 13 of the original colo- ing conversation between them and the lutionary history. nies permitted slavery and most passed Times is an instructive exchange in the While slavery may not have been the laws that cemented racial slavery as a how and why of history.4 On March 11, central issue in the American Revolution permanent fixture, including the rule 2020, the New York Times added a clari- (as the 1619 Project claimed), its signifi- that children born of enslaved women fication on this point to the 1619 Project.5 cance can’t be diminished or denied. As were also enslaved—contrary to existing But the fact remains that enslaved the American Revolution got underway, English law. people were in the Americas long the nation was founded and governed That 400-year trajectory was at the before the first English settlers. And the by a group of Patriots, many of whom core of the ambitious 1619 Project pro- 400th anniversary of the first arrival bought, sold, and enslaved people. duced by the New York Times in August in Jamestown, acclaimed as a cradle The fact that men like Washington, 2019. This sweeping journalistic under- of American democracy, underscores Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, taking was an attempt to view American that reality. George Mason, Benjamin Rush, and history through the lens of slavery and scores of other Founders had a hand the impact of African Americans on •Thomas Jefferson condemned in enslaving people was the reason that every facet of American life and cul- slavery in drafting the Declaration Dr. Samuel Johnson famously asked in ture, going far beyond slavery’s role in of Independence but other 1775, “How is it that we hear the loud- history.3 Founders scrubbed the language est yelps for Liberty from the drivers The bold initiative had its critics who from the nation’s “birth certificate.” of negroes?”6 found shortcomings in some of the 1619 In Thomas Jefferson’s draft version Project’s conclusions, including the The proud, patriotic schoolbook ver- of the Declaration in July 1776, the view that America’s independence was sion of tea parties, midnight rides, July author called slavery the “execrable March/April 2020 77 The scene at There is no question that the Signers of the signing the Declaration, and many others in the of the Revolutionary generation, were risking Constitution, “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” in the oil painting struggle for Independence. But when we by Howard Chandler focus on that proud, patriotic narrative Christy, 1940 at the expense of the whole truth, we are not teaching history. Instead it is a Courtesy of comfortable narrative bleached of the the Architect searing reality that many of the Signers of the Capitol, Washington, owed the lives and fortunes they had D.C. pledged to slavery. One corrective to this “white his- tory” is to teach some “black history,” such as The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed’s magisterial Commerce’” and “this assemblage and Mary College to study law, his account of the black family so central of Horrors.” Jefferson’s original was childhood playmate, Jupiter—born to Thomas Jefferson’s home and life. then revised by the full Continental enslaved in the same year as Jefferson— Or read Frederick Douglass’s “What Congress, which had its own ideas and went along as his “trusty servant.” In his to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”11 made some changes. early legal and political career, Jefferson This tirade was delivered in 1852 in The alterations, Jefferson thought, would argue against aspects of slavery. Rochester, New York, to an audi- were “mutilations.” Distressed by the Yet the author of the Declaration was ence that included President Millard editing, he made “fair copies” of his completely dependent upon the labor Fillmore, who had signed the bills col- original sometime after July 4th. (The of enslaved people for his wealth, the lectively known as the Compromise New York Public Library holds one of food on his table, and the clothes on of 1850. Among them was the Fugitive only two known surviving copies, which his back. Slave Act that had so enraged Douglass is displayed on occasion.7) In his careful, His stinging denunciation of slavery and others—such as Harriet Beecher flowing script, Jefferson recreated his in the Declaration simply rings hollow Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin entire original wording to show what when set against a lifetime of profiting in response to the law—because it made the Congress had changed, underscor- from slavery and his personal behavior. the entire nation complicit in support ing words and phrases that had been Jefferson’s later published views on the of slavery. Douglass shocked many of deleted or altered. inferiority of African Americans are his fellow Abolitionists that day by The most startling of these changes is indefensible. Most offensive are his denouncing the hypocrisy of celebrat- a paragraph about what Jefferson calls degrading racist views of black women,8 ing freedom when so many people were “this execrable commerce”—in other especially in light of his now-acknowl- still in chains.12 words, slavery.