OPINION: Teaching history of slavery is important

The President made his comment after visiting a fort on the African coast from which captured Africans were loaded onboard ships to be transported across the Atlantic into a life of slavery. He failed to mention that those Africans were captured and sold into slavery by other Africans.

The vast majority of those slaves were sold in south and central America and the Caribbean. Only a small percentage were delivered to North America. History seldom reveals this fact.

History talks about the “middle passage” as the part of a slave ships voyage in which slaves were transported across the Atlantic. They never discuss the cargo carried in the outward passage from the ship’s home port to Africa or that transported back to the home port during the inward passage. And you almost never see anything about the home port of these slave ships. (Here is a hint: not one Southern-owned slave ship has ever been identified.)

Then there is the identity of the labor force that constructed the U.S. Capital with its grand dome. Work on that building proceeded throughout most of the War For Southern Independence, and the Union government leased slave laborers to do the work. The District of Columbia Emancipation Act was not approved until after the building was completed.

Only recently did northern historians admit that Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, was founded with funds donated by slave traders. And it was in recent years that archaeologists discovered a slave cemetery in the heart of New York City.

Another fact that is left out of the history of slavery involves the number of free blacks living in the South in 1860. Of the four million blacks living in Dixie at that time 250,000 of them had gained their freedom and established their own communities, businesses and churches. That is far more than those who escaped slavery through the “underground railroad.” Most of them were allowed by their masters to offer their skills to the public until they earned enough money to purchase their freedom and that of their families.

History also neglects the fact that many of these free blacks joined in the defense of their homes against Northern aggressors. Nor do they report the stories of slaves who accompany their young masters to war, then undergo extensive dangers to return his body home when he is killed. Also missing are stories about slaves who gather up the family treasures and livestock and hide in the deep forest or swamps until Union scavengers leave.

Teaching the history of slavery in our schools is important, but only if the whole story is told.

Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frankgillispie671@msn.com. His website can be accessed at http://frankgillispie.tripod.com/