The 1519 Project: An Antidote to Caricature?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Predictably, and with more than average fanfare, The New York Times’s headline-grabbing The 1619 Project is coming to the small screen. Hulu has released a six-part docuseries on the controversial historical revision, which purports to demonstrate the racist foundations of the American Project. Brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones and Dean Baquet, this new “origin” myth has become something of a political hot-potato in the culture wars.
Though it’s not likely to go very far, I’d like to toss another potato into the fire and point out that slavery was well-established in North America at least one hundred years before the alleged “beginning” of the American slavery story. Complete with the myriad complexities, contradictions and paradoxes of real life, the Spanish Americas (including much of what is today the United States) were awash in slavery. Slavery between Indians. Enslavement of Indians by Spaniards. Enslavement of Spaniards by Indians. And yes, tragically, enslavement of blacks, ladinos , Moors, and every distinction between. It was messy, it was endemic, and it was very real—but it was certainly not confined exclusively to Blacks, nor to early Americans in Virginia. Perhaps this deeper, more complex history might be called the 1519 Project.
The 1619 Project’s film trailer claims that the “very first enslaved Africans were brought here over four hundred years ago.” This is not only inaccurate (it was well over five hundred years at least), but it promotes the very sort of historical amnesia it professes to redress by entirely ignoring the much-earlier history of slavery in America.
“Since then,” it goes on, “no part of America’s story has been untouched by the legacy of slavery.” This is true in the narrowest sense, but it studiously misses the larger point: no part of the history of the entire world has been untouched by the legacy of slavery. The 1619 Project makes only glancing reference to sixteenth-century American slavery, and instead seeks to make a special case of colonial English slavery, with a specific political aim to impugn “capitalism” and the “hypocrisy” of revolutionary founding ideals. By carefully ignoring the larger context of slavery in the Americas, it engages in weaponized, cherry-picked history that supports its own motivated ends, amongst which are special race-based preferences and “$13 trillion in reparations.”
Phil Magness and others have already done yeoman’s work in documenting the numerous historical inaccuracies and outright fabrications of the The 1619 Project (and, charitably, what the project gets right), so I won’t rehash except to say that, as a historical product the Project is, shall we say, questionable. But setting that aside, the biggest tragedy of all is that The 1619 Project’s tunnel-vision ignores so much rich history: remarkable people, troubling facts, and brutal truths that cut across all manner of ethnic and geographical boundaries.
It ignores, for instance, the astonishing story of Esteban de Dorantes , the Black Moroccan slave who was shipwrecked in 1527 on the coast of Florida and helped three survivors (out of some 600) walk across most of what is now North America (Florida to Arizona and thence to Mexico City), enduring years of serial enslavement by coastal Indians along the way.
It overlooks “ Madalena, ” the Tocobaga native who was swept up by conquistadors, sent to Cuba, traveled to Spain and ultimately returned to her people in an epic saga of enslavement, resilience, and redemption.
It discounts black slaves who escaped into what is now North Carolina (in 1539!) to marry and live with the Indian women of Xuala, and the curious reactions of their Spanish owners, who were surprised, “because they were regarded as good Christians and friends of their master.”
It sidesteps the endemic slavery of North America where Spaniards found:
[M]any Indians native to other provinces who were held in slavery. As a safeguard against their running away, [their captors] disabled them in one foot, cutting the nerves above the instep where the foot joins the leg, or just above the heel. They held them in this perpetual and inhuman bondage in the interior of the country, away from the frontiers, making use of them to cultivate the soil, and in other servile employments.
It neglects the experiences of Spaniards like Juan Ortiz and Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca , who were captured and taken as slaves, enduring treatment “more cruel than [that] of a Moorish master.”
And so on. Starting America’s slavery story arbitrarily at 1619 abandons to obscurity these equally important chapters of a collective tale. A 1519 Project , however, adds complexity that counters popular conceptions of a monolithic, European-dominated slavery culture. It would address Pueblo enslavement of Teya women, for instance. It would not shy from Hernando De Soto’s brutal “iron collars.” It would acknowledge the anti-slavery sentiment of large parts of Spanish society. It would, in short, force us to reckon with history as it was, instead of how it ought to have been.
To that end, while a 1519 Project may seem to some like an attempt to trivialize the egregious impact of a brutal institution in the United States, it is not. It is instead an attempt at a more honest, more complete history of slavery, so that we don’t delude ourselves into repeating the tragic mistakes of the past—treating one another differently based on the color of our skin, for instance.
Hulu’s 1619 Project tells us that “the truth is, Black Americans have always been foundational to the idea of American freedom” and that their “contributions are undeniable.” Yes, this is so. But to suggest that the experience of slavery is a uniquely Black, or uniquely North American phenomenon does a great injustice to the Blacks and other North Americans who came before 1619.
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A succinct explainer providing context to some of the misleading history the 1619 project pushes to advance its agenda.
The problem here is some conservatives need to diminish without internalizing anything other people have to say about themselves. Consider this:
The colonies had no business keeping slavery after 1776 declaring of its independence. Indeed, slavery should have been celebrated as ending that same 'day' with statement/s to that effect in the document. Instead, two colonies - Georgia and South Carolina - rebuked and maintained slavery for themselves and farther exacerbated slavery in the other willing to assent to slavery termination in the 'new' nation. That's on the new nation's leadership and lack thereof, and not on the King of England - George III.
They didn't know how to end it in the South were it was still profitable and the majority of US slaves lived. Should it be ended gradually or all at once, was restitution owed to slave holders, how should freeed slaves be taken care of, ect.
Omg, can we just all agree that colonization was supremely fucked up, a lot of groups and people got totally screwed, and that yes the effects can still be felt but are not as bad as they used to be?
BUT, the world is what it is, it will not be reverted back 400 years and we all just have to try our best to make shit better. Everyone grow the fuck up.
Emphatically. That said, have you observed and can you point to any ideology once pushed by the conservatives and MAGAns that they drop or accept the plain truth of once they 'start' 'sweet-talking" the narrative? I can not think of a one.
Nice idea,as long as you disregard the effect American slavery had on the 168 years since it was ended. Had racial prejudice ENDED the day after slavery was ended the writer would have a point. It didnt, and he doesnt.
The 1619 Project is about the beginning of slavery in Virginia, not somewhere in the Caribbean or South America.
Race based slavery begun in Virginia set the stage for all the slavery in the United States of America, which set the stage for 100 years of Jim Crow, segregation and white on black racism. In America.
The seeded article is comparing apples to road apples.
Why Virginia, why does it ignore the slavery the preceded it in the rest of the US, let alone the rest of the hemisphere or the world? Because, as the author wrote, "by carefully ignoring the larger context of slavery in the Americas, it engages in weaponized, cherry-picked history that supports its own motivated ends, amongst which are special race-based preferences and “$13 trillion in reparations.”
Context matters. The lack of it is why an idiotic writer from the Atlantic can claim police departments were created by the American government to hunt fugitive slaves and their credulous readers accept it. They wallow ignorantly in this 1619 worldview that British Slavery in Virginia was some unprecedented outlier.
Exactly, you don't see police departments in countries that didn't have slaves.
The ship sailed a long time ago. A long time ago, and you are still trying to tie it to the dock.
Slavery in other parts of the world had nothing to do with the effect slavery had on racial issues within the United States. Nothing. You can talk about the rest of the world all you want. It is immaterial. People like you back in 1789 should have spent their energy ending slavery and a lot of what happened since might have been mitigated or headed off.
In most cases, if Africans did not enslave and sell other Africans, there may have never been slavery in this country.
Cool, but racism in relation to slavery did exist in North America.
Slavery existed in the US because it was pretty much ubiquitous around the world including in America before Europeans arrived.
Liberals always to claim America is not unique, unless they want to attack it.
America was unique in that it became race based. That was the difference.
Yeah, but they did sell Africans, through hook or crook to the colonies. And even after the slave trade worldwide was terminated, the colonies determined to 'breed' their own blacks and others a slave property under force of law. Even worse, colonies made the entirety of its black citizens into slaves. That is on the colonies, not the world, not the King of England George III.
Exactly, our forefathers were ignorant of African slavery in the Caribbean, Central and South America and elsewhere around the globe.
Give up, its not working.
I am pretty sure you have heard the one about, 'two things can be true at the same time.' Apply it now. The fact is the colonies kept their slaves and wanted so much to do so that they created expansion plans to the western seaboard with slave-holding/breeding/chattel - but, for the world threatening to cut off relations with this nation and Lincoln realizing that their doing so would be national economic suicide.
Through all of the above dynamic politics. . .the South persisted and we know about the war that it produced. Plus, all the aftermath.
What was it in the Caribbean, Central America, South America?
What's not working?
Not like it became I the American south.
Reallly though, why are you trying to make excuses for slavery? I mean you are flat out “whataboutisming” slavery, Soviet style.
Should the course of race relations in America be considered a part of the entire history of slavery in the "Americas", or should we worry about our own back yard?
The fact that the effect of slavery in the United States directly led to , once slavery ended, the next 170 years filled with racial bigotry, in the United States, is uncontestable.
Still you guys want to contest it. Why?
Of course it did. Happened anywhere in the world where one race held another in slavery. The US is not unique in this.
That's not true in even the most narrow sense. Only a small fraction of slaves brought to the new world went to what would become America.
Not true. There were free blacks in every Americans state even those that allowed slavery. Some blacks owned slaves
Because they don't want to change. And the implication of some conservatives not wanting to change, means they would like to keep whatever gains/majorities/control over this nation that they have as to their ideology. Of course, that means they must insist/demand/give no respect to the facts of history, because recorded history is eating their 'bs' whole each time they try to take the country back to an earlier time. So they diminish, revise, repackage their alternative narratives which has the side-effect of allowing them so sleep at night; while the nation stays numb and dumb lying over the anguish of a nation pretending to be believe in freedom and liberties for all. Actually what conservatives believe in is power to conservatism and impotence to liberals and those they classify as 'Others' (not Some conservatives).
Call it what it is!
At different times. But individual free blacks only show the selective nature of white slave owners and abolitionists and describes the complexity of the mindset in those days. It does nothing to take away state/governmental control over the lives of black slaves as function of slave-holding states.
No one contests the 'complexity' of what white slave states/masters were doing, including hating/imprisoning/kidnapping blacks while insisting on making mulatto babies with the black women/girls which they lied and deluded themselves to believe were 'beasts.'
Slavery was stupid on its face. It was delusional. It was evil, because it was intentionally done to berate, debase, and set-back an entire 'stolen' people as property and fodder.
Some conservatives, you can't deny it. Slavery in this country and its aftermaths, plural were ugly, diabolical, and evil.
Yes, since the dawn of history across the world slavery has largely consisted of taking people from other groups and enslaving them. As the author details the situation the Spanish found upon their arrival:
Romans enslaved German and Gallic tribesman. Muslims along the Barbary Coast enslaved Christians. Slavery has pretty much always been a punishment imposed upon people from outside the dominate group, through out the world, throughout history.
Slavery has always been that way.
And so it is with this country in its inception. I am fully aware of what "this is that is occurring." Some conservatives want to shift the focus, dilute the potency and rawness of recorded history, . . . to the end that you can tell blacks and other people of color to go "fuck" themselves, okay I will play nice. . . so your predecessors can FINALLY get out from under the legacy of how dirty, cruel, vicious, and evil some conservatives have been throughout this nation's past.
What is so "rich" and stupid about this line of 'attack' or confrontation of the past, is you don't attempt to own it and make proper amends or even acceptances, y'all are doing the damnable thing of trying to GASLIGHT blacks and other people of color into just forgetting it all happened, while letting the same BS play out in politics in its many various forms and 'personalities.'
Where in U.S. colonial and legislative history do you see white slavery? Do point to it: Go!
I know you need to talk about 'world slavery' in order to 'lighten' the pressure of U.S. slavery. But, it is the United States at its inception that argued and kept whites free, with liberty, and the pursuit of prosperity - except those pesty state laws which made slaves of free blacks along with their children - lack of ownership of anything at all, and would not even let them own the children from their wombs in slave colonies.
Explain why that was necessary if 1776's land of the free!
You might want to direct this diatribe to your democrat friends. Their ancestors are the ones that held blacks in slavery in the 19th century and originated Jim Crow laws in the 20th century.
Point to a democrat who is making your 'argument' and I will. Go!
Dont expect an answer
Never said a democrat is making any argument.
I said to TALK to your democrat friends whose ancestors are the ones that owned slaves and formed and enacted Jim Crow laws.
BTW...I don't want you to go. Your posts are entertaining at most.
Whelp... you were wrong...
Again
Well, if you want to waste time you can talk to the 'sky' above and see if it answers you! I want a name!
You're right. I should have said dont expect a sensible answer.
Why would a Democrat today take responsibility for what Democrats did 150 years ago? The party ideology is completely different .
Put 100 people in a room , 50 liberals and 50 conservatives, or if you prefer 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, introduce the subject of race and listen to them talk. The difference will be night and day. Those disparaging people of color will be overwhelmingly conservative and Republican. I have seen this in my own experience more times than I could count.
The idea that the Democratic Party from 100 or 150 years ago has anything to do with today is ridiculous. Carry on though.
Sounds like you don’t accept responsibility for reparations.
Hilarious coming from someone who constantly believes that reparations should be paid to blacks, no matter that no one alive today was back in the 19th century.
"The idea that the Democratic Party from 100 or 150 years ago has anything to do with today is ridiculous."
They are exactly the same. Talk to any minority that escaped the democratic plantation and came to the light. Liberals and democrats call them the same exact names as they did in the 19th and 20th centuries.
OK, give me the name of some of your friends and I will tell you who you need to talk to.
It's amazing they can't see that.
Oh, they know it, but it is much easier for them to project their faults onto everyone else.
You will do better to talk to the sky. Have at it, 'warrior'!
What's amazing is how you and your co-associates work to make distractions which have nothing to do with this issue. This issue is not about democrats or republicans, it is about some conservatives attempts to fog up the issue of 1619 Project as a narrative. If you want to be a conservative, of any kind, well I, we, are going to make you grasp and 'own' the past with its good, bad, ugly, and atrociousness.
Other than that, you're just kicking $hit around, because history is recorded. All that can be done with it is hitting 'play'!
Probably would have been easier to say "OK, I can't back up my claims".
Would have made more sense
Nope. We are just reminding you that you can't 'muscle' your way out of history. Can't "gaslight" it through either.
Well bugsy, I have not made you any claim I wish to back up, but I'm okay with you blowing arrogant smoke up your fellow some conservatives 'echo chamber' - because I can't stop some conservatives from being dense. I will just carry on speaking truth to the error some conservatives are vainly attempting to make foundational. By the way, this is not new: Black people and people of color have been striving with lying ass conservatives -democrats and republicans politically since July 4, 1776! Same $hit Different Day!
Utter bullshit. The facts are: The white colonies of the United States did treat slaves differently and did so deliberately and with the force of law. The issue is not what other nations did back then, but what this newly founded country did and it was not done in ignorance. The colonies literally discussed freeing the black slaves and not coming to a unanimous consensus did not. Even to the point of a hundred yeas later coming to blows in a civil war over men, women, and children in this country being considered property of other men and women. And those slaves being determined by Chief Justice Taney of having, 'no rights that any white man had to respect.'
Tell the truth! Damn it!
As you argue against telling the truth. Nice touch.
You have your 'narrative' I see. I will take for granted I will not be able to get you to be reasonable. So let's just continue to talk pass each other. I am prepared to do just that!
Vermont did in 1777, and Massachusetts in 1781 before the Revolution had ended.
Which has what to do with the gist of this discussion? Vermont and Massachusetts do not represent an "unanimous" decision for the colonies in 1776. If so, then we would not be talking about this today. So what is your point?