Featuring Larry Kenneth Alexander
Discover the hidden truth about colonial slavery and its legal abolition before 1776 in our Deep Dive video series.
Discover how 500,000 Black colonials were unlawfully enslaved after the Treaty of Paris (1783) and became the foundation of America’s slave-based economy. Explore how Afrofuturism challenges historical distortions and reclaims Black narratives for the future.
Something Old, Something New Part 1: The Criminal Enslavement of 500,000 Black Colonials and Afrofuturism in the 21st Century Transcript:
Our preeminent American labor force was the 500,000 Black English colonials who were enslaved and became the cornerstone of the nation’s slave-based economy after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
Their unpaid and exploited labor was central to America’s political, economic, social, cultural, and technological transformations.
These unsung Black English colonials were the backbone of America’s labor force, and their historical recovery serves as a propitious and proper breakpoint for Afrofuturism: a cultural and artistic movement that blends science fiction, history, and speculative politics to reimagine Black identity, agency, and futures by framing such imaginative narratives and works as competitive speech forums, debates and public policy discussions.
Under the Treaty of Paris, these 500,000 Black English colonials were legally free British subjects, and they should have been “set at liberty.” However, fearing national disunity, the U.S. Congress yielded to the demands of influential slaveholders who claimed them as chattel property, denying them their rightful freedom.
As a result, they and their descendants remained enslaved until the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished the institution of slavery in the United States and then they were summarily victimized by sharecropping and Jim Crow Laws.
The prevailing claim that these 500,000 Black Englishmen were legally enslaved when independence was declared—based on colonial slave codes and Negro Laws—is historically inaccurate.
This narrative relies on the untested assumption that colonial slave codes were codified laws and that slavery was a lawful practice in the 13 colonies when America declared independence in 1776.
However, this claim overlooks critical legal and historical realities.
The idea that influential white Patriots lawfully owned these Black colonials due to colonial slave codes and Negro Laws has long been accepted without scrutiny.
This prompted me to challenge the historical narrative and move the discourse beyond its well-worn assumptions.
My approach was rooted in first-principle methodology—stripping away preconceived notions and questioning fundamental beliefs.
I began with a foundational legal inquiry: What act of the British imperial government granted the 13 American colonies the legislative authority to enact slave laws?
To answer this, I examined the legal framework of colonial governance, starting with colonial charters, which established a bicameral legislature under the authority of the British Crown.
These charters required royal approval and mandated that all colonial laws align with English law.
Additionally, I analyzed legislative acts of the British government and Parliament that defined and regulated colonial legislative authority.
As Stanley M. Elkins noted in Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, the study of colonial slavery as a distinct academic discipline was underdeveloped when the United States emerged in 1776.
He emphasized that English law was the discipline best suited to impose objective standards on slavery scholarship, citing England’s rule of law as a “fairly good and dependable tradition.” This led me to investigate England’s Magna Carta (1215), English common law, and key legal precedents to determine whether colonial American slavery had any lawful basis.
My research uncovered the American Colonies Act of 1766, commonly known as the Declaratory Act, which legislatively nullified any colonial law that denied and questioned Parliament’s supreme legislative authority.
This had profound implications for colonial governance, including colonial slavery, a decade before the Declaration of Independence.
Further, England’s Court of the King’s Bench affirmed Parliament’s legislative supremacy over colonial slavery in the landmark Somerset v. Stewart decision (1772), ruling that slavery was not “allowed and approved by the law of the Kingdom.”
In response to growing colonial unrest, Britain enacted the Intolerable Acts, exacerbating tensions that led to full-scale rebellion in April 1775 and, ultimately, the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
The Declaration of Independence became the nation’s seminal legal document when the Founding Fathers proclaimed independence.
Notably, it accused King George III of having “abolished our most valuable laws,” a grievance acknowledging that the British imperial government had exercised its supreme legislative authority—including abolishing colonial slave codes before America declared its independence.
Further supporting my thesis is that America’s first Congress and all 13 state legislatures adopted English common law despite Thomas Jefferson’s warnings.
Jefferson had sought a complete break from English jurisprudence, fearing it would undermine hereditary slavery.
However, Congress chose to formally adopt Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and English law, effectively reaffirming the legal precedent established by the Somerset decision, which ruled that slavery lacked lawful standing.
Ultimately, my thesis resolves both the legal and moral questions surrounding the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the enslavement of the 500,000 Black English colonials.
Thesis – Something Old: The Criminal Enslavement of 500,000 Black Colonials.
By English law, Africans brought to British America in 1619 were indentured servants, not slaves. The colonial government of Virginia was enforcing English law.
Under English jurisprudence, slavery was expressly prohibited on British sovereign soil, as established by the Magna Carta (1215) and England’s common law.
Colonial British officials were bound by law to adhere to and enforce English legal principles as mandated by their colonial charters.
Any attempt by a British government official to exercise legislative power in violation of English law was deemed a personal act, devoid of legitimacy, and void ab initio.
The historical record—reinforced by legal precedent—confirms that slavery was not “allowed and approved” in the American colonies in 1776, since Parliament abolished colonial slave codes and Negro Laws in 1766 and the Somerset decision affirmed parliamentary sovereignty in 1772 and also declared slavery in the Kingdom lacked legal standing.
Thus, the 500,000 Black colonials were not the lawful property of influential white Patriots when independence was declared in 1776.
They should have been freed under the Treaty of Paris (1783).