The English had in mind colonies of free people. Owned, controlled, used, bought and sold as mere property was among man’s greatest inhumanity to man.ĭuring the latter 16th and early 17th centuries, even though the slave trade was already existing in other areas, the British had no plan to enslave people or to export people from Africa to North America to work on English farms. The evil, ugliness and injustice perpetrated on black slaves on those ships is deplorable. It was the first time in history that large numbers of slaves were sold and carried to distant lands where they lived among people unlike themselves. With the rise of advanced shipbuilding and sailing which made for reliable transportation of cargo, the transoceanic trade in slaves became lucrative business.
The color of skin has been important in some kinds of slavery, but not so much in others. Slavery has resulted sometimes from religious persecution, sometime from war, sometimes from debt. It has existed for short periods of time or often for long periods of time on every continent. It has taken different forms among different people in different places around the world. Slavery was not uncommon among Native American tribes either. The first African slaves arrived in Spanish Florida in 1526. The Spanish began importing African slaves to Hispaniola (West Indies) in 1501. Spanish colonists held slaves in the new world long prior to 1619 when British colonists imported slaves to America. did not create slavery, not even on the American continent. Slavery has been the rule rather than the exception among human civilizations since before written records were kept.
Might the Declaration of Independence be the only thing that prevents our country from further descent into violent chaos and the tyranny that typically follows? Within the wider context of slavery itself, one group of people, far from being morally perfect, dared to declare a universal, true moral idea: that all men are created equal in terms of inalienable natural rights. “Black lives matter! Systemic racism! Tear down those statutes! White privilege! Racial injustice! Reparations now!” Impassioned voices, many of whom want to tear down the system and the principles upon which it is built! How ironic - given that the Declaration of Independence is the greatest of all anti-slavery documents! It launched the greatest abolition movement in human history, the United States of America.
Constitution shed light on a better way forward? Might the Declaration of Independence & the U.S.