#Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

[kemetic-dreams]

"The original "Uncle Tom",

Rev. Josiah Henson and wife; Dresden ,Canada (c1907)

Josiah Henson (June 15, 1789 – May 5, 1883) was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County. Henson's autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), is widely believed to have inspired the character of the fugitive slave, George Harris, in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), who returned to Kentucky for his wife and escaped across the Ohio River, eventually to Canada. Following the success of Stowe's novel, Henson issued an expanded version of his memoir in 1858, Truth Stranger Than Fiction. Father Henson's Story of His Own Life (published Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1858). Interest in his life continued, and nearly two decades later, his life story was updated and published as Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (1876).

Josiah Henson was born on a farm near Port Tobacco in Charles County, Maryland. When he was a boy, his father was punished for standing up to a slave owner, receiving one hundred lashes and having his right ear nailed to the whipping-post, and then cut off. His father was later sold to someone in Alabama. Following his family's master's death, young Josiah was separated from his mother, brothers, and sisters.His mother pleaded with her new owner Isaac Riley, Riley agreed to buy back Henson so she could at least have her youngest child with her; on condition he would work in the fields. Riley would not regret his decision, for Henson rose in his owners' esteem, and was eventually entrusted as the supervisor of his master's farm, located in Montgomery County, Maryland (in what is now North Bethesda). In 1825, Mr. Riley fell onto economic hardship and was sued by a brother in law. Desperate, he begged Henson (with tears in his eyes) to promise to help him. Duty bound, Henson agreed. Mr. R then told him that he needed to take his 18 slaves to his brother in Kentucky by foot. They arrived in Daviess County Kentucky in the middle of April 1825 at the plantation of Mr. Amos Riley. In September 1828 Henson returned to Maryland in an attempt to buy his freedom from Issac Riley.

He tried to buy his freedom by giving his master $350 which he had saved up, and a note promising a further $100. Originally Henson only needed to pay the extra $100 by note, Mr. Riley however, added an extra zero to the paper and changed the fee to $1000. Cheated of his money, Henson returned to Kentucky and then escaped to Kent County, U.C., in 1830, after learning he might be sold again. There he founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, Upper Canada. Henson crossed into Upper Canada via the Niagara River, with his wife Nancy and their four children. Upper Canada had become a refuge for slaves from the United States after 1793, when Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe passed "An Act to prevent further introduction of Slaves, and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province". The legislation did not immediately end slavery in the colony, but it did prevent the importation of slaves, meaning that any U.S. slave who set foot in what would eventually become Ontario, was free. By the time Henson arrived, others had already made Upper Canada home, including African Loyalists from the American Revolution, and refugees from the War of 1812.

Henson first worked farms near Fort Erie, then Waterloo, moving with friends to Colchester by 1834 to set up a African settlement on rented land. Through contacts and financial assistance there, he was able to purchase 200 acres (0.81 km2) in Dawn Township, in next-door Kent County, to realize his vision of a self-sufficient community. The Dawn Settlement eventually prospered, reaching a population of 500 at its height, and exporting black walnut lumber to the United States and Britain. Henson purchased an additional 200 acres (0.81 km2) next to the Settlement, where his family lived. Henson also became an active Methodist preacher, and spoke as an abolitionist on routes between Tennessee and Ontario. He also served in the Canadian army as a military officer, having led a African militia unit in the Rebellion of 1837. Though many residents of the Dawn Settlement returned to the United States after slavery was abolished there, Henson and his wife continued to live in Dawn for the rest of their lives. Henson died at the age of 93 in Dresden, on May 5, 1883.

[90363462]

The Legend Of Ben Montgomery: From Enslaved Man To One Of The Richest Merchants In The South

Montgomery’s story is a testament to Black resilience and ingenuity. He was one of the most influential Black men in all of American history. Are

Source: creative services / iOne Digital

History is a very fickle thing. Although it’s a constant reminder of how far we’ve come, some of our most captivating stories have been lost in the abyss of time. But this is Black folklore, the time machine of storytelling, and our mission is to uncover the stories from our past that are steeped in Black excellence. One of those tales is the story of Ben Montgomery, the former slave who purchased his master’s plantation to build a utopia for Black people escaping the harsh realities of Jim Crow. Montgomery’s story is another great testament to Black resilience. He was one of the most influential Black men in all of American history.

MORE: The Legend Of O.T. Jackson And The Black Ghost Town Of Dearfield, Colorado

Benjamin Montgomery was born a slave in Loudon County, Virginia, in 1819. When he was 17, he was sent to a slave market in Natchez, Mississippi. Natchez was one of the largest domestic slave markets in the Deep South. It was known as the epicenter of American capitalism in the mid-19th century. The market operated for almost 30 years and tens of thousands of Black people were transported from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and the Carolinas to the Natchez market to be sold–but all slave owners were not created equal.

Benjamin Montgomery was purchased by Joseph Emory Davis at the Natchez market in 1836. Joseph Davis was the older brother of future Confederate president Jefferson Davis. The Davis family owned several plantations in Mississippi, including the Brierfield plantation and the Hurricane plantation in Davis Bend. Joe Davis took a different approach to manage his slaves than most other plantation owners in the deep south.

Davis didn’t believe in punishing his slaves with violence and mistreatment. Instead, he developed a system of self-government for his slave community. No slave living on the plantation in Davis Bend could be punished without being tried and convicted by a jury of his peers. If a slave happened to be convicted by his or her peers, Davis was usually very lenient when it came to handing down punishments. He also made sure his slaves live better than most in the antebellum south. Slave cabins were well-built, food was rarely rationed, and slaves were left to govern themselves. But don’t be confused, it was still slavery. Joesph Davis owned more than 300 slaves and never once freed any of them. No matter the conditions, people did not want to be owned by other people.

Ben Montgomery was originally from Virginia, which at the time was mostly a city environment compared to Mississippi’s isolated woodlands. When he first arrived at the Hurricane Plantation at Davis Bend he tried to run away seeking freedom, but was tracked down and returned to his owner. In 1793, congress passed the first-ever Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed local governments to seize and return escapees to their owners. It also imposed penalties on anyone who helped slaves hide or escape.

When Montgomery was caught and returned to Davis, he was not punished. Historians believe that instead of violence, Davis chose a diplomatic route and talked to Montgomery about why he was so unhappy. Their conversation impressed Davis and the two developed a mutual understanding that Montgomery would be allowed to flourish as a human being, as many slaves in the south were not afforded the same luxuries.

Regardless, Ben took full advantage. He learned to read and had access to the plantation library. Eventually, he began working as an office clerk for Davis, who was also an attorney. Montgomery wrote letters as well as legal briefs for his owner. He also learned land surveying and construction plans, designing special levees that protected the plantation during floods–they are still holding to this day. But Montgomery didn’t stop there. He was also the architect of several plantation buildings including the garden cottage, which became the Hurricane plantation library.

Montgomery was a true renaissance man–a person with many talents or areas of knowledge. Not only was he an office clerk and architect, but he also became a skilled mechanic who regularly maintained steam engines that operated the cotton gins and invented a boat propeller to improve the paddle wheels of river steamboats. His boat propeller invention was so efficient that his owner Joesph Davis tried to patent it under Montgomery’s name. U.S. law prohibited slaves from owning patents and it was ultimately denied.

Montgomery’s skill set wouldn’t stop there. Davis regularly rented out his slaves to work on other plantations. This allowed Montgomery to save up money and in 1842 he purchased a store on the Hurricane plantation. His store sold dry goods, wood, chickens, eggs, and even vegetables produced on the plantation. His store was so successful that he was able to maintain his own line of credit with wholesalers in New Orleans and Mississippi. His store was popular among whites and blacks, with some customers spending more than $1,000 worth of goods every year.

Source: Photo 12 / Getty

By the start of the Civil War, Montgomery had built a life for himself and his family that few Blacks in the south could have ever imagined, but it was at risk. The Civil War meant Davis and his plantation could fall and be seized by the Union army. Because Montgomery’s life was tied to Davis’ he believed if the Hurricane plantation failed, so would the life he built. Davis, his family, and most of his slaves fled the plantation, but Montgomery stayed behind to protect it as best he could. Ultimately Union soldiers burned down the Hurricane mansion in 1863 after the city of Vicksburg fell to the Union army. Davis’ land was confiscated by the federal government and Montgomery and his family would flee to Ohio.

Once the war ended in 1865, Montgomery returned to the Davis plantation and reassumed his role as the leader among the now-former slaves. Davis and Montgomery would work together to get Davis’ land back from the federal government. The move would ultimately bring the two men even closer, as their respect for one another had grown tremendously.

In October 1866, Montgomery wrote Davis a letter asking if he could lease the Hurricane and Brierfield Plantations from his former slave owner, but Davis countered with a better offer. He offered to sell Montgomery his plantation holdings for three hundred thousand dollars with yearly interest. The sale made Montgomery one of (if not the richest) ex-slaves in the country at the time. His new plan was to build a community for former slaves built on honesty, industry, sobriety, and intelligence.

In September 1867, Montgomery was appointed justice of the peace for Davis Bend by Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord, the commander of the Fourth Military District of Mississippi and Arkansas. This appointment made him the first Black person to hold public office in Mississippi. Like many establishing Black towns after the end of the Civil War, Davis Bend struggled to grow due to the harsh realities of the environment. The Mississippi River constantly flooded, making it nearly impossible to harvest sizable crops. But the Montgomery and Sons grocery store continued to flourish and by 1873 Montgomery’s net worth was estimated at $230,000, putting him in the top 7% of the wealthiest merchants in the south.

SEE ALSO:

The Haunting Of Lake Lanier And The Black City Buried Underneath

There’s A Black Village Under Central Park That Was Founded By Alexander Hamilton’s Secret Black Son

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[starstruckwitchfart]

The rest of that post (which you cut off) mentioned that the slaveowners in the American South reacted to the Haitian slave revolt with increasingly punitive measures like the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 and that Napoleon reinstated slavery in the French colonies between 1801 and 1803 and it was not formally abolished again until 1848, after Louis Philippe was overthrown.

From that context, one would infer that they were talking about whether slavery in the Americas was ended by the Haitian slave revolt, not whether it was ended in Haiti.

Obviously, the slave revolt in Haiti ended slavery there. Whether it played a role in the eventual abolition of slavery in the Americas is a widely debated topic.

W. E. B. Du Bois believed that the Haitian slave revolt did play a role in the British parliament's decision to outlaw slavery (though for self-serving economic rather than humanitarian reasons) while David Geggus believes that it did not, since slavery continued to exist in the Americas for many years afterwards.

Where do you stand on this debate? Or do you even have a stance?

I think the fandom bloggers on here are getting too comfortable sharing their input

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.18 (before 1920)

96 – Emperor Domitian is assassinated as a result of a plot by his wife Domitia and two Praetorian prefects. Nerva is then proclaimed as his successor. 324 – Constantine the Great decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire. 1048 – Battle of Kapetron between a combined Byzantine-Georgian army and a Seljuq army. 1066 – Norwegian king Harald Hardrada lands with Tostig Godwinson at the mouth of the Humber River and begins his invasion of England. 1180 – Philip Augustus becomes king of France at the age of fifteen. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: In the Battle of Chojnice, the Polish army is defeated by the Teutonic knights. 1544 – The expedition of Juan Bautista Pastene makes landfall in San Pedro Bay, southern Chile, claiming the territory for Spain. 1618 – The twelfth baktun in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins. 1714 – George I arrives in Great Britain after becoming king on August 1. 1739 – The Treaty of Belgrade is signed, whereby Austria cedes lands south of the Sava and Danube rivers to the Ottoman Empire. 1759 – French and Indian War: The Articles of Capitulation of Quebec are signed. 1793 – The first cornerstone of the United States Capitol is laid by George Washington. 1809 – The Royal Opera House in London opens. 1810 – First Government Junta in Chile. Though supposed to rule only during the Peninsular War in Spain, it is in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and is commemorated as such. 1812 – The 1812 Fire of Moscow dies down after destroying more than three-quarters of the city. Napoleon returns from the Petrovsky Palace to the Moscow Kremlin, spared from the fire. 1837 – Tiffany & Co. (first named Tiffany & Young) is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City. The store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium". 1838 – The Anti-Corn Law League is established by Richard Cobden. 1850 – The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. 1851 – First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times. 1860 – Second Opium War: Battle of Zhangjiawan: Now heading towards Beijing after having recently occupied Tianjin, the allied Anglo-French force engages and defeats a larger Qing Chinese army at Zhangjiawan. 1862 – The Confederate States celebrate for the first and only time a Thanksgiving Day. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickamauga begins between Confederate and Union forces. It involves the second highest amount of casualties for any American Civil War battle apart from Gettysburg. 1864 – American Civil War: John Bell Hood begins the Franklin–Nashville Campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to draw William Tecumseh Sherman back out of Georgia. 1870 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn. 1872 – King Oscar II accedes to the throne of Sweden–Norway. 1873 – The bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, contributing to the Panic of 1873. 1879 – The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time. 1882 – The Pacific Stock Exchange opens. 1895 – The Atlanta Exposition Speech on race relations is delivered by Booker T. Washington. 1898 – The Fashoda Incident triggers the last war scare between Britain and France. 1906 – The 1906 Hong Kong typhoon kills an estimated 10,000 people. 1914 – The Irish Home Rule Act becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I. 1919 – Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros.

[endquire]

[eug3n362]

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793: Crash Course Black American History #10

[congressarchives]

Petition of the Convention of Colored People of Ohio

In early 1849, freedmen of Ohio convened and composed this petition to Congress, urging lawmakers to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.  

We are an orderly, law abiding, and peace loving people, but when we see our brother, sister, father, or mother, chained and fettered to be dragged into disgraceful bondage, filial and fraternal affection forces us to release the captive and thereby subject ourselves to the penalty of said law, for doing what nature and nature's God imperiously require at our hands.  

In the decades preceding the Civil War, Colored Conventions brought black abolitionists together to organize and advocate for emancipation and civil rights.  This petition shows the political activism of the black community of Ohio.  The president of the Convention, Charles Henry Langston (1817-1892), was a noted activist and educator.  Born free in Virginia to a formerly enslaved woman and a wealthy white planter, Langston came of age in Ohio.  He and his brother Gideon were the first African-Americans to be admitted to Oberlin College, in 1835.  In 1858, Langston stood trial for his role in rescuing John Price, an escaped slave who was kidnapped in Ohio by slave-catchers (the case is known as the Oberlin-Wellington rescue).  Langston shared his activism with his two brothers, one of whom, John Mercer Langston, became the first black congressman from Virginia in 1890 (and the last, for another century). And activism and self-expression were inherited by subsequent generations: twentieth century poet, Langston Hughes, was Charles Henry Langston's grandson.

Petitions and Memorials Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, 30th Congress, U.S. House of Representatives, Record Group 233 

[dailyhistoryposts]

Mary Ellen Pleasant

An entrepreneur and abolitionist, some sources say that Mary Ellen Pleasant (1815-1904) was a self-made millionaire decades before Madam C.J. Walker.

Pleasant work in Nantucket, in the 1820s, at the center of the prosperous whaling industry, where she learned saleswomanship and how to keep books. Living with Quakers and married to an abolitionist, Pleasant and her husband conducted a part of the Underground Railroad until her husband died and she was harassed for her brave work.

Fleeing persecution after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which could have seen her arrested for her work, Pleasant traveled West. She first went to New Orleans, where she reportedly met Marie Laveau, the queen of Voodoo, and made it to San Francisco in 1849 via the Panama Canal.

Pleasant arrived in California during the California Gold Rush (1848-1855) when many people were traveling to San Francisco. It was a lucrative time for Black people to amass personal wealth, but very few women were making the journey. Pleasant worked as a cook and domestic laborer and invested her money broadly and smartly.

Pleasant used her money for philanthropy and to support the Underground Railroad. She employed former slaves and helped transport runaways to California. She helped build boarding houses to function as safe houses for escapees. Pleasant also financed the legal defense of Black people to prevent them from being returned to plantations and helped make the testimony of Black people admissible in California Courts. For this, she is known as the "Mother of Civil Rights in California" and a "one-woman social agency."

One of her most important accomplishments, however, was Pleasant funding the John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, a cause to which she donated $30,000 (now worth nearly 30x as much).

Madam Walker, nearly a century later, is also rightfully famous for her entrepreneurial accomplishments. But Pleasant perhaps did the same thing first--though the specifics of her wealth cannot be verified, what she did with it makes her an incredibly important figure in history.

[renardtrickster]

So I was right and everyone else was right in saying that conservatives will use CRT as a buzzword and extend it to mean “literally anything”. The Republican Texas Senate is trying to amend a bill that, if passed, would remove the following from school curriculum.

The history of the Native Americans.

The writings of anyone who isn’t directly a founding father, including their contemporaries, families, and the slaves who were owned by them.

Frederick Douglas’ newspaper, “The North Star”.

The Book of Negroes.

The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1840.

The Indian Removal Act.

Thomas Jefferson’s “Letter to the Danbury Baptists”.

William Still’s Underground Railroad Records.

Historical documents related to the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations, including documents related to...

The Chicano Movement.

Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights.

The Civil Rights Movement.

The Snyder Act of 1924.

The American Labor Movement.

The history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.

The history and importance of the Civil Rights Movement, including the following documents...

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail“ and “I Have A Dream” speech.

The United States Supreme Court’s decision in “Brown v. Board of Education”.

The Emancipation Proclamation.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

Mendez v. Westminster.

Frederick Douglas’ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave“.

The life and work of Cesar Chavez.

The life and work of Dolores Huerta.

The history and importance of the women’s suffrage movement, including the following documents...

The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments.

Abigail Adam’s letter “Remember the Ladies”.

The works of Susan B. Anthony.

The Declaration of Sentiments.

The life and works of Dr. Hector P. Garcia.

The American GI Forum.

The League of United Latin American Citizens.

Hernandez v. Texas.

Also says that teachers are not compelled to discuss current events, and if they do, they must not give deference to any one perspective. Which sounds benign, until you realize that this means we’re going to have to “both sides” on stuff like “is COVID real” and “did this black man deserve to be executed by the police”.

None of this should be a surprise to anyone. The CRT backlash was always an astroturf and always an excuse to ban any discussion of or even acknowledgement of racism in America. The only surprising element should be in how bold they decided to be about it. Despite adoring the aesthetic of MLK Jr. they secretly hate him, always hated him even when he was alive, but I never would have imagined that they’d actually try to exeunt him from Texas schoolbooks, nor would they bold-facedly try to scrub the Civil Right’s Movement or even the Emancipation Proclamation from the textbooks.

For those who say “oh, they aren’t being banned, they’re just being removed from the curriculum, teachers can still teach them if they want”, I remind you that textbooks are written based off the state curriculum. If MLK isn’t in the Texas curriculum, he isn’t going to be in the Texas textbooks. If you want to argue “why should these need to be taught”, I ask you why they shouldn’t need to be. We all know the saying “those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it”, so I ask why Texas is trying to make it such that the younger generations won’t be able to know their history specifically concerning the oppression of women and racial minorities, slavery, and the KKK, among other things.

My thing is, conviction and lack of conviction can both be used to intuit where someone’s principles lie. “I think we should teach kids about MLK” is pretty good. “I don’t really care one way or the other about teaching MLK” is pretty bad, because you’re basically saying you’re ambivalent to the Civil Rights movement and just really don’t see what’s so important, man. But I can’t even make the “lack of convictions” argument because there’s a group of people out there whose convictions are apparently “we don’t need people knowing about Civil Rights, or MLK, or women’s rights, or slavery, or” YOU GET IT, RIGHT? This bill doesn’t explicitly say “fuck women, fuck brown people, fuck civil rights, and fuck you”, but I’ve outlined the effects above. None of these will be in the textbooks, and it’s much more likely that they won’t be taught, or taught as extensively as everything else is taught. It would basically eradicate civil rights education, or at least cripplingly kneecap it, which I don’t even think I need to elaborate on why that’s bad. To deny that this would harm civil rights education and to argue “this is harmless, not racist, and morally neutral” is essentially “he brings up racial IQ and crime statistics a lot and he keeps mentioning ‘cultural insurgents’ a lot and he’s constantly going on about ‘reclaiming the fatherland’ but he doesn’t have an armband on so how can we really know he’s a nazi” meme being applied to STATE LEGISLATION CONCERNING SCHOOL EDUCATION.

[chaotic---calm]

"Anyone who can get pregnant must now face the reality that half of the country is in the hands of legislators who believe that your personhood and autonomy are conditional—who believe that, if you are impregnated by another person, under any circumstance, you have a legal and moral duty to undergo pregnancy, delivery, and, in all likelihood, two decades or more of caregiving, no matter the permanent and potentially devastating consequences for your body, your heart, your mind, your family, your ability to put food on the table, your plans, your aspirations, your life."

"In Missouri, this year, a lawmaker proposed a measure that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a resident of the state get an abortion elsewhere; as with S.B. 8, the law would reward successful plaintiffs with ten thousand dollars. The closest analogue to this kind of legislation is the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793."

The US is on a fast track to a dystopian nightmare of staggering proportions. Anyone who can look at this, at the potential future for women and other people with uteruses and be okay with this is either a monster or suffering from unbelievable levels of ignorance.

[fuckyeahtx]

Letters From An American

October 16, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On October 8, the executive director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, told a teacher to make sure to follow Texas’s new law requiring teachers to present opposing views on controversial subjects. The Carroll school board had recently reprimanded a fourth-grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom, and teachers wanted to know what books they could keep in their own classrooms.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” the curriculum director said. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust,” the director continued, “that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of about two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population—about six million people—during World War II.

“How do you oppose the Holocaust?” one teacher said.

“Believe me,” the director said. “That’s come up.”

The Texas legislature passed another law that is going into effect in December. S.B. 3, known as the Critical Race Theory bill. It specifies what, exactly, social studies courses should teach to students. Those guidelines present a vision of how American citizens should perceive their nation.

They should have “an understanding of the fundamental moral, political, and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government; the history, qualities, traditions, and features of civic engagement in the United States; the structure, function, and processes of government institutions at the federal, state, and local levels.”

But they should get that information in a specific way: through the Declaration of Independence; the United States Constitution; the Federalist Papers, including Essays 10 and 51; excerpts from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; the transcript of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate; and the writings of the founding fathers of the United States; the history and importance of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964; and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

While they managed to add in de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America—and I would be shocked if more than a handful of people have ever read that account of early America—there are some pointed omissions from this list. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees Black voting, didn’t make it, although the Nineteenth Amendment, which grants women the right to vote, did. Also missing is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, although the Civil Rights Act of the previous year is there.

Topics explicitly eliminated from the teaching standard are also instructive. Those things cut from the standards include: “the history of Native Americans,” and “[founding] mothers and other founding persons.”

Under “commitment to free speech and civil discourse,” topics struck from the standards include “the writings of…George Washington; Ona Judge (a woman Washington enslaved and who ran away); Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings (the enslaved woman Jefferson took as a sexual companion after the death of his wife, her half-sister),” and “any other founding persons of the United States.”

The standards lost Frederick Douglass’s writings, the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that forced Indigenous Americans off their southeastern lands, and Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists defending the separation of church and state. The standards lost “historical documents related to the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations” including documents related to the Chicano movement, women’s suffrage and equal rights, the civil rights movement, Indigenous rights, and the American labor movement.

The standards also lost “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong” and “the history and importance of the civil rights movement.” The legislature took three pages to outline all the things that teachers may not teach, including all the systemic biases the right associates with Critical Race Theory (although that legal theory is not taught in K–12 schools), and anything having to do with the 1619 Project.

Teachers cannot be forced to teach current events or controversial issues, but if they choose to do so, they must “strive to explore that topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.” Supporters of the measure said that teachers should teach facts and not “choose sides.”

The lawmakers who wrote the new standards said they had been crafted to eliminate redundancy. In 2019, the state wrote standards to teach character traits—courage, integrity and honesty—and instructions to include particular people or events could simply duplicate those concepts. “If you want to talk about courage, talk about George Washington crossing the Delaware, or William Barret Travis defending the Alamo,” a member of the state board of education said.

Editing from our history Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farmworkers’ Association—she was eliminated by name—as well as Abigail Adams and Frederick Douglass and the 1924 Snyder Act (by which the nation recognized Indigenous citizenship) does more than whitewash our history. That editing warps what it means to be an American.

Our history is not about individual feats of courage or honesty in a vacuum. It is about the efforts of people in this country to determine their own fate and to elect a government that will enable them to do that.

A curriculum that talks about individual courage and integrity while erasing the majority of us, as well as the rules that enable us to have a say in our government by voting, is deliberately untethered from national democratic principles.

It gives us a school that does not dare take a position on the Holocaust.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.18 (before 1940)

96 – Emperor Domitian is assassinated as a result of a plot by his wife Domitia and two Praetorian prefects. Nerva is then proclaimed as his successor. 324 – Constantine the Great decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire. 1048 – Battle of Kapetron between a combined Byzantine-Georgian army and a Seljuq army. 1066 – Norwegian king Harald Hardrada lands with Tostig Godwinson at the mouth of the Humber River and begins his invasion of England. 1180 – Philip Augustus becomes king of France at the age of fifteen. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: In the Battle of Chojnice, the Polish army is defeated by the Teutonic knights. 1544 – The expedition of Juan Bautista Pastene makes landfall in San Pedro Bay, southern Chile, claiming the territory for Spain. 1618 – The twelfth baktun in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins. 1714 – George I arrives in Great Britain after becoming king on August 1. 1739 – The Treaty of Belgrade is signed, whereby Austria cedes lands south of the Sava and Danube rivers to the Ottoman Empire. 1759 – French and Indian War: The Articles of Capitulation of Quebec are signed. 1793 – The first cornerstone of the United States Capitol is laid by George Washington. 1809 – The Royal Opera House in London opens. 1810 – First Government Junta in Chile. Though supposed to rule only during the Peninsular War in Spain, it is in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and is commemorated as such. 1812 – The 1812 Fire of Moscow dies down after destroying more than three-quarters of the city. Napoleon returns from the Petrovsky Palace to the Moscow Kremlin, spared from the fire. 1837 – Tiffany & Co. (first named Tiffany & Young) is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City. The store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium". 1838 – The Anti-Corn Law League is established by Richard Cobden. 1850 – The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. 1851 – First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times. 1860 – Second Opium War: Battle of Zhangjiawan: Now heading towards Beijing after having recently occupied Tianjin, the allied Anglo-French force engages and defeats a larger Qing Chinese army at Zhangjiawan. 1862 – The Confederate States celebrate for the first and only time a Thanksgiving Day. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickamauga begins between Confederate and Union forces. It involves the second highest amount of casualties for any American Civil War battle apart from Gettysburg. 1864 – American Civil War: John Bell Hood begins the Franklin–Nashville Campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to draw William Tecumseh Sherman back out of Georgia. 1870 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn. 1872 – King Oscar II accedes to the throne of Sweden–Norway. 1873 – The bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, contributing to the Panic of 1873. 1879 – The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time. 1882 – The Pacific Stock Exchange opens. 1895 – The Atlanta Exposition Speech on race relations is delivered by Booker T. Washington. 1898 – The Fashoda Incident triggers the last war scare between Britain and France. 1906 – The 1906 Hong Kong typhoon kills an estimated 10,000 people. 1914 – The Irish Home Rule Act becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I. 1919 – Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros. 1922 – The Kingdom of Hungary is admitted to the League of Nations. 1927 – The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air. 1928 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first Autogyro crossing of the English Channel. 1931 – Imperial Japan instigates the Mukden Incident as a pretext to invade and occupy Manchuria. 1934 – The Soviet Union is admitted to the League of Nations. 1939 – World War II: The Polish government of Ignacy Mościcki flees to Romania. 1939 – World War II: The radio show Germany Calling begins transmitting Nazi propaganda.

[autumnal-thunder]

Top 5 presidents

Calvin Coolidge. He was a founding-era President in the 20th century and a near perfect example of what a libertarian presidency could look like. He was also the second greatest vetoer behind..

Grover Cleveland, the greatest vetoer. 

Martin Van Buren, the greatest deregulator. 

Thomas Jefferson. Reduced the debt, large tax cuts, began to outlaw slavery, separation of church and state (though that concept has been misconstrued by the public today), expanded westward via the Louisiana Purchase (illegally or not) which avoided bloodshed as expansion was inevitable. 

George Washington. Creating the first national bank and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 were catastrophic mistakes. But he set so many valuable precedents by having a foreign policy of non-intervention, establishing veto power, and leaving office after his second term. 

Honorable mention for William Henry Harrison. Died one month into his term and therefore did no damage. 

I made a rough rankings of all the presidents earlier, though I already have a lot of changes to make to that list lol. But this is the sad state of US Presidents. I can’t find more than a few that did little to no damage. The majority have caused far more damage than they helped. 

[sunbookie]

A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing

The birth and development of the American police can be traced to a multitude of historical, legal and political-economic conditions. The institution of slavery and the control of minorities, however, were two of the more formidable historic features of American society shaping early policing. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to control the behaviors of minorities. For example, New England settlers appointed Indian Constables to police Native Americans (National Constable Association, 1995), the St. Louis police were founded to protect residents from Native Americans in that frontier city, and many southern police departments began as slave patrols. In 1704, the colony of Carolina developed the nation's first slave patrol. Slave patrols helped to maintain the economic order and to assist the wealthy landowners in recovering and punishing slaves who essentially were considered property.

Policing was not the only social institution enmeshed in slavery. Slavery was fully institutionalized in the American economic and legal order with laws being enacted at both the state and national divisions of government. Virginia, for example, enacted more than 130 slave statutes between 1689 and 1865. Slavery and the abuse of people of color, however, was not merely a southern affair as many have been taught to believe. Connecticut, New York and other colonies enacted laws to criminalize and control slaves. Congress also passed fugitive Slave Laws, laws allowing the detention and return of escaped slaves, in 1793 and 1850. As Turner, Giacopassi and Vandiver (2006:186) remark, “the literature clearly establishes that a legally sanctioned law enforcement system existed in America before the Civil War for the express purpose of controlling the slave population and protecting the interests of slave owners. The similarities between the slave patrols and modern American policing are too salient to dismiss or ignore. Hence, the slave patrol should be considered a forerunner of modern American law enforcement.”

The legacy of slavery and racism did not end after the Civil War. In fact it can be argued that extreme violence against people of color became even worse with the rise of vigilante groups who resisted Reconstruction. Because vigilantes, by definition, have no external restraints, lynch mobs had a justified reputation for hanging minorities first and asking questions later. Because of its tradition of slavery, which rested on the racist rationalization that Blacks were sub-human, America had a long and shameful history of mistreating people of color, long after the end of the Civil War. Perhaps the most infamous American vigilante group, the Ku Klux Klan started in the 1860s, was notorious for assaulting and lynching Black men for transgressions that would not be considered crimes at all, had a White man committed them. Lynching occurred across the entire county not just in the South. Finally, in 1871 Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibited state actors from violating the Civil Rights of all citizens in part because of law enforcements’ involvement with the infamous group. This legislation, however, did not stem the tide of racial or ethnic abuse that persisted well into the 1960s.

Though having white skin did not prevent discrimination in America, being White undoubtedly made it easier for ethnic minorities to assimilate into the mainstream of America. The additional burden of racism has made that transition much more difficult for those whose skin is black, brown, red, or yellow. In no small part because of the tradition of slavery, Blacks have long been targets of abuse. The use of patrols to capture runaway slaves was one of the precursors of formal police forces, especially in the South. This disastrous legacy persisted as an element of the police role even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In some cases, police harassment simply meant people of African descent were more likely to be stopped and questioned by the police, while at the other extreme, they have suffered beatings, and even murder, at the hands of White police. Questions still arise today about the disproportionately high numbers of people of African descent killed, beaten, and arrested by police in major urban cities of America.

[seeselfblack]

Congress Passes Second Fugitive Slave Act 

On this date in 1850 the United States Congress passed the second Fugitive Slave Law act. A similar act was enacted in 1793, both legislations were intended to help the recapture and transportation of runaway slaves to their owners and to commit the federal government to the legitimacy of holding slaves as property.

The 19th century legislation was an attempt to appease the South and was called the Compromise of 1850 revising the Fugitive Slave Bill. This created commissioners under federal court appointment to judge fugitive cases. They had active roles in ensuring retrieval of escaped slaves. Federal marshals also were enjoined to help recapture slaves, under $1000 penal fines for dereliction.

If a runaway escaped while in a marshal's custody, the marshal had to forfeit the slave's full value to the owner. Persons guilty of abetting slave escape were subject to fine and a maximum prison sentence of six months. As in southern courts, slaves could not testify against whites, but a master's circumstantial evidence was easily admissible. Federal commissioners received $5 for proslave verdicts, $10 for decisions favorable to masters. If warranted by a threat of interference, federal officers were authorized to accompany the slave out of the area of risk.

Due to northern resentments, both the acts of 1793 and 1850 faced legal challenges, primarily in the legal disputes over state personal liberty laws. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the U. S. Supreme Court had ruled against a Pennsylvania citizenship statute and upheld the first fugitive slave law's constitutionality. Nevertheless, some states continued to pass laws strengthening the applicability of habeas corpus writs and prohibiting state officials from accepting jurisdiction under federal law.

In Ohio, the chief objective was less a desire to expand black rights than to ensure that outright kidnapping was not condoned. (Ohio did not repeal its virulently discriminatory Black Code until 1849.) Southerners objected strenuously to personal liberty laws as a violation of sectional equity and reciprocal trust; but the 1850 act, seen in the North as punitive and tyrannical, only aroused greater sectional animosities.

Northern opposition was most dramatically illustrated when an abolitionist Boston mob tried to rescue Anthony Burns, a fugitive from Virginia, in May 1854. The mission failed. Commissioner Edward Loring had Burns returned to slavery, and U. S. troops escorted him through sullen crowds to a waiting ship. The effort cost the federal government more than $100,000.

See also: 

- Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law 

-  Fugitive Slave Act 

- The story of the American Civil War: 32 key moments in the landmark conflict 

- How the Dispute Over Runaway Slaves Helped Fuel the Civil War 

- End of the Fugitive Slave Law 

[afro-elf]

black history month has been so wack this year i’m sitting here fuming about the fugitive slave act of 1793 like it’s news