Three Events Erased from History
I have called white supremacy in the United States a form of pre-pregnancy nationalism. This racism is always ready to give birth when needed to bear more buckskin lies when needed. People who vehemently refer to themselves as “white,” and are in positions of power, carry their protective castles, motes and borders included, around with them. They rely on the false history of the development of the United States and marry it to democracy. Their political institutions are poised to undermine discussions that threaten to derail their privileged status with claims that are rhetorical falsehoods. These anti-historical claims will become policy if left to grow. These racial narratives are molded into their past and fabricated to authenticate an invested and invented historical identity. This pollution of democracy always works to justify oppression and invent history along white supremacist lines. This is evident when one looks at the reasons for the American Revolution of 1776 and the facts that they never want to talk about.
There are three important events that led to the American war for independence that have been erased on purpose. The Somerset Case (1772) involved a Virginia slave owner named Charles Stuart, who sought to move a Black slave, James Somerset, from Virginia to England to eventually be sold in Jamaica. While Somerset was in English waters an English abolitionist sued for Somerset’s freedom, arguing that slaves became free when brought to England. The Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, ruled that slavery “had no basis in nature or under English law.”
Back in America, as Somerset was set free, slave owners went ballistic. Even though white political leaders and their followers thought they were champions of freedom and screamed such things, they were angered by the British ruling of freedom for the Black man named Somerset.
In the early days of American slavery, plantation owners were already propagandized by the scientific racism of Enlightenment thinkers. Blacks were not allowed to testify against whites in most of the American colonies. This brings us to “The Gaspee Affair,” which professor Gerald Horne (2014) explained in his research. This event took place about the same time as the Somerset Case. This event drove American racial anger. In this incident, a British ship was burned in Virginia and the captain killed. The only witness against the Americans was a Black man, Aaron Briggs, who testified against the Virginians. Briggs was hatred for doing so and Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry yeasted up this hatred. Historians believe that this event was a crucial moment in American history.
The final incident that sparked the Revolutionary War was the policies of Lord Dunmore. Lord Dunmore called for Blacks to escape slavery and join the British with a promise of freedom. In 1775, Dunmore offered freedom to enslaved people and indentured servants if they helped fight the Americans. In early 1776, about eight hundred enslaved Black men flocked to the British camps. and Dunmore organized them into a unit he called the Ethiopian Regiment. To discourage slaves from joining the British, Virginian slave owners brutally beat Blacks in the public square and often cut off ears in revenge. They sometimes cut off heads, stuck them on polls, and lined the streets with decapitated corpses. Later, in 1781, Lord Cornwallis led a British army to Richmond, Virginia. He attracted approximately five thousand runaway Blacks which included 23 slaves from the Jefferson plantation, and 16 slaves from George Washington’s farm. Francis Scot Key hated the fact that Blacks had joined the British forces and were now called Colonial Marines.
