Featuring Larry Kenneth Alexander
Discover the hidden truth about colonial slavery and its legal abolition before 1776 in our Deep Dive video series.
The legacy of Foundational Black Americans is essential to understanding the true history of slavery in the United States. This final installment explores how Afrofuturism serves as a tool for historical recovery and envisions new possibilities for reparations and justice.
Something Old, Something New Part 3: The Criminal Enslavement of 500,000 Black Colonials and Afrofuturism in the 21st Century Transcript:
This is part 3 of the 3 part series titled: Something Old, Something New: The Criminal Enslavement of 500,000 Black Colonials and Afrofuturism in the 21st Century by Larry Kenneth Alexander
The 500,000 Black colonials who were wrongly enslaved in 1776—and whose descendants became the cornerstone of America’s slave-based economy by 1783—are the true Foundational Black Americans.
Their forced labor built not only the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and Georgetown University but also shaped the very foundation of early America’s economic and political systems.
Some argue that distinguishing Foundational Black Americans from other Black groups risks fracturing the broader Black community.
But this recognition is not about division—it is about historical accuracy.
This rediscovery of American history is essential to correcting revisionist historiography, and Afrofuturism plays a crucial role in this process.
Afrofuturism’s power lies in its fusion of historical rediscovery, political speculation, and the imaginative reconfiguration of legal and political structures that could have altered the course of the African diaspora.
The legal justifications for slavery, segregation, and systemic racism in the U.S. were built on deliberate distortions of Black legal rights during colonial times.
Afrofuturism challenges these foundations by exploring alternative legal histories—what if the British imperial government had protected Black agency from the outset?
What if colonial and early American leaders had upheld Black sovereignty rather than sacrificing it to preserve national unity in 1783?
One striking example is Afrofuturism’s interrogation of the enslavement of 500,000 Black colonials following the Treaty of Paris (1783).
While the United States pledged to “set at liberty” all Englishmen, it simultaneously enslaved legally free Black Englishmen—flagrantly violating both the rule of law and international norms.
This moment is central to understanding the legal and actual status of Foundational Black Americans and the contradictions upon which America was built.
Afrofuturism compels us to reimagine an alternative legal reality—one where British imperial law protected the rights of Black colonials, recognizing their agency and affirming the illegality of their enslavement.
It provides a lens through which historical injustices are not only critiqued but re-envisioned.
Through speculative narratives, Afrofuturism fosters debate, shapes policy discussions, and drives intellectual discourse—transforming history from a static record into a dynamic battleground for justice.
Afrofuturism contemplates and enables the imagination of a legal and proper beginning for American slavery, however, with the passage of time, England’s Court of King’s Bench, its highest court, came to declare colonial slave codes and Negro Laws in the American colonies unlawful, in the absence of explicit legal authority, which did not exist in English common law.
In Somerset v. Stewart (1772), this high Court established a controlling precedent by ruling slavery was an “odious” practice—unsupported by English law and required an explicit “positive law” to be legal in the Kingdom.
This Afrofuturistic narrative suggests that the 500,000 Black colonials residing in America’s 13 colonies when the American patriots declared independence in 1776 were, by law, free individuals.
The Somerset case was a landmark legal decision in England that had significant implications for the institution of slavery in the British Kingdom.
The case centered around James Somerset, an enslaved man from the American colonies, and Charles Stewart, his enslaver who purchased him in the colony of Virginia.
Stewart later brought Somerset to England in 1769.
In 1771, Somerset escaped but was eventually recaptured and put on a ship bound for Jamaica, where he was to be sold into slavery.
However, Somerset’s supporters, including abolitionists like Granville Sharp, challenged his detention through a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that English law did not recognize slavery and that Somerset could not be forcibly removed from the country.
The case was heard in the Court of King’s Bench by Lord Chief Justice William Mansfield, who elevated the matter to the Twelve Judges Procedure—a powerful legal mechanism that convened all four justices of the King’s Bench alongside the eight judges from the Court of Common Pleas and the Exchequer.
This tribunal was reserved for cases of profound legal significance, tasked with establishing controlling precedents, interpreting statutes, standardizing evidentiary rules, and resolving judicial disagreements.
After exhaustive arguments, the tribunal ruled unanimously in 1772 that James Somerset could not be forcibly removed from England and sold into slavery.
In its landmark decision, the court declared that slavery was “so odious” that it could only be sustained by explicit legal authority—an authority that did not exist in English common law.
This ruling not only shattered the legal foundation of slavery within Britain but also set a precedent that reverberated throughout the Kingdom, exposing the moral and legal shortcomings of colonial bondage.
This landmark decision was, in effect, England’s emancipation proclamation of all enslaved Blacks in the American colonies in 1772.
Brilliantly orchestrated by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, the unanimous ruling of Britain’s highest tribunal—the Twelve Judges Procedure in Somerset v. Stewart—delivered a decisive legal blow to slavery across the British Empire, including the 13 American colonies.
The court held that slavery could only be sustained in the Kingdom by explicit legal authority—an authority that did not exist in English common law.
Afrofuturism cuts through the web of lies, half-truths, and revisionist distortions embedded in America’s historiography.
It empowers historians, academics, and policymakers to navigate the deliberate obfuscations of the past, exposing historical realities that have been buried or manipulated.
By reclaiming the legal and political truths suppressed by colonial and post-colonial narratives, Afrofuturism drives the pursuit of historical justice and reconciliation.
Afrofuturism is more than a genre—it is a radical act of legal and political reimagination.
It dismantles the legitimacy of oppressive legal systems, challenges the historical narratives that justified Black subjugation, and constructs alternative futures where justice is not granted but inherent.
By reinterpreting history, envisioning political systems untainted by colonial corruption, and crafting speculative models of governance, Afrofuturism reclaims agency over the past, present, and future.