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For reference, characterizing the American Revolution as a war to preserve slavery was literally the central focus of a project that was published in the New Yo

For reference, characterizing the American Revolution as a war to preserve slavery was literally the central focus of a project that was published in the New York Times and that public schools are adopting as curriculum. It isn’t fair to characterize it as “nutpicking” when the nuts hold that degree of institutional power. FWIW I agree with you about the Confederacy and about Confederate symbology, and I think I said that at the very beginning. But to a large number of increasingly powerful people, the facts don’t actually matter. And to some degree, they never have: consider the differing treatment of Nazi and Soviet symbology. They will use the facts when they suit them, and invent new facts when they don’t.

softwaredoug 6y ago
The 1619 project said it was one cause, not the sole cause, as > that one primary reason the colonists fought the American Revolution was to protect the institution of slavery. This assertion has elicited criticism from some historians and support from others. > We stand behind the basic point, which is that among the various motivations that drove the patriots toward independence was a concern that the British would seek or were already seeking to disrupt in various ways the entrenched system of American slavery. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/magazine/an-update-to-the-1619-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/magazine/an-update-to-the...
- jcranmer 6y ago
  The British Caribbean held (far) more slaves than British North America did, and did not abolish slavery until 1833. One of the principal reasons that these Caribbean colonies did not follow the North American colonies in revolt was that they were far more terrified of slave revolts, as slaves were a much larger fraction of their population than the case in any North American colony. Personally, I think the existence of the nonrebellious slave-driven plantation economies in the Caribbean undercuts the argument that protecting slavery was a major motivation for those colonies that did revolt.
- philwelch 6y ago
  That’s a partial attempt to walk back a central point that received vast amounts of criticism from many actual historians.
gamblor956 6y ago
They're not wrong. For the Southern colonies, participation in the American Revolution was part of their effort to maintain slavery.
- zeveb 6y ago
  > For the Southern colonies, participation in the American Revolution was part of their effort to maintain slavery. Slavery was legal to some extent in every colony, northern or southern, throughout the Revolution. Some states had (laudably) started to abolish it in whole or in part by the end of the war. Interestingly, Wikipedia indicates that the last Pennsylvanian slaves died in the 1840s, which seems surprisingly late.

softwaredoug 6y ago

The 1619 project said it was one cause, not the sole cause, as > that one primary reason the colonists fought the American Revolution was to protect the institution of slavery. This assertion has elicited criticism from some historians and support from others. > We stand behind the basic point, which is that among the various motivations that drove the patriots toward independence was a concern that the British would seek or were already seeking to disrupt in various ways the entrenched system of American slavery. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/magazine/an-update-to-the-1619-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/magazine/an-update-to-the...

jcranmer 6y ago
The British Caribbean held (far) more slaves than British North America did, and did not abolish slavery until 1833. One of the principal reasons that these Caribbean colonies did not follow the North American colonies in revolt was that they were far more terrified of slave revolts, as slaves were a much larger fraction of their population than the case in any North American colony. Personally, I think the existence of the nonrebellious slave-driven plantation economies in the Caribbean undercuts the argument that protecting slavery was a major motivation for those colonies that did revolt.
philwelch 6y ago
That’s a partial attempt to walk back a central point that received vast amounts of criticism from many actual historians.

gamblor956 6y ago

They're not wrong. For the Southern colonies, participation in the American Revolution was part of their effort to maintain slavery.

zeveb 6y ago
> For the Southern colonies, participation in the American Revolution was part of their effort to maintain slavery. Slavery was legal to some extent in every colony, northern or southern, throughout the Revolution. Some states had (laudably) started to abolish it in whole or in part by the end of the war. Interestingly, Wikipedia indicates that the last Pennsylvanian slaves died in the 1840s, which seems surprisingly late.