# The Dictionary of American Slave Traders



## spacetygrss (Dec 29, 2020)

The Dictionary of American Slave Traders
					

Could America Duplicate What British Acamedics Are Doing?




					williamspivey.medium.com
				




Could America Duplicate What British Academics Are Doing?


William Spivey
December 29, 2920



The Dictionary of British Slave Traderswill publish over 6,500 British investors' biographies in the slave trade and provide links to modern corporations who profited from the enterprise. Included in the biographies will be Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister, the Duke of Chandos, brewery Greene King, and Lloyd’s of London. Both Greene King and Lloyd’s of London have apologized for their role in the enslavement of Black people, with no mention of reparations.

The project has already received 1,000,000 pounds in backing from the British government after a year of Black Lives Matter supporters protesting and toppling statues and defacing monuments across Britain linked to the slave trade. Imagine what would happen if a similar project took place in the United States?

Imagine if you could flip through the pages and discover how Thomas Jefferson promoted enslaved people's forced breeding to make money for Virginia plantation owners like himself?

How about while Chinese laborers primarily built the western railroads at great risk and almost no pay. Enslaved people built the southern railway system. The major railroads of the day both leased and owned enslaved people, and it goes without mention today. Who owned the most enslaved people and established fortunes and generational wealth built literally on the backs of slaves?


How was the enslavement of human beings financed? Would you believe J.P. Morgan and Citibank's predecessors, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, among others? While many of America’s largest corporations have changed names and/or been part of mergers that obscure their beginnings. Many commonly known companies profited from the slave trade; they include; AIG, Wachovia Bank, USA Today, Brooks Brothers, Aetna, Tiffany and Co., and New York Life.

Johns Hopkins, the founder of the Johns Hopkins University and hospital in Baltimore, was long regarded as a staunch abolitionist and opponent of slavery. His personal papers were destroyed, and his history was made up by a great-niece in a 1929 novel touted as fact. It came as a great shock to discover Johns Hopkins was a slaveholder after all. Johns Hopkins University is now undergoing a period of “self-scrutiny.”

America has forgotten that twelve of its Presidents and many of the early Supreme Court Justices owned enslaved people. Visit Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, and guides will tell you he owned over 400 slaves there during his lifetime, neglecting to mention the other 200 he owned at other locations, making him one of the country’s largest owners of enslaved people. The Founding Founders, which included some relatively enlightened ones like John Jay, deserved to be judged harshly because others of the same time knew and did better.


America could stand to have its history scrutinized instead of whitewashed as Texas schoolbooks, and Donald Trump have already tried. Why have the Lincoln-Douglas debates long been touted as the best representation of American political discourse, but we never see depictions of the debates except for brief moments on television or in the movies. Could it be because the primary topic was slavery, and both men had things to say that would sully their reputations?

“What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.

* I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” Abraham Lincoln*

America has never been good at telling its true history. Preferring fairy tales about a first President that could not tell a lie while omitting, he fitted his dentures with teeth pulled from slaves. Constructing monuments to confederate soldiers and generals who committed treason against the country to preserve slavery. Saying the Civil War was not about slavery at all but state's rights. *An accurate dictionary of American slave traders would be a good start to cleansing the soul of this nation and perhaps starting an earnest discussion of reparations?*


----------



## Everything Zen (Dec 29, 2020)

Would there be any major corporation left?


----------



## silverbuttons (Dec 30, 2020)

taking time to build monuments to past pains are not helpful to us... but I suppose white people will have a better idea of the interconnected strands of racism.


----------



## LostInAdream (Dec 30, 2020)

We do need one here. It will shock many people and build our case of reparations. The government and the companies can start handing over what's ours.


----------



## frizzy (Dec 30, 2020)

It won't get done unless we do it.


----------



## Kalia1 (Dec 30, 2020)

frizzy said:


> It won't get done unless we do it.



Exactly! 
Such information could really make a positive difference if utilized properly.

Proof of such history could force not only reparations but also economic opportunities by creating jobs.

Holding accountable corporations who profited especially if they are still economically benefiting.

In all honesty we are still engulfed and ensnared in pain that was thrusted upon us from slavery. Systematic racism stands on the shoulders of slavery.


----------



## PatDM'T (Jan 1, 2021)

This thread reminds me
of this video:


----------

