Featuring: Larry Kenneth Alexander
Unveiling the Truth About America’s Colonial history: Slavery Wasn’t Inevitable Transcript:
The story of America begins long before 1776 and even long before 1619, but the arrival of the first 19 Africans in Virginia in 1619 is often cited as a pivotal moment in our history. Yet the reality of their status tells a story of possibilities lost.
These Africans were not initially enslaved, but treated as indentured servants, a legal status that while oppressive held the promise of eventual freedom.
This fact changes everything. It reminds us that race-based chattel slavery was not an inevitability, but a choice, a deliberate system constructed over time to oppress, exploit, and dehumanize Black people.
It also reveals a stunning contradiction.
The colonial slave codes that emerged later were never authorized by English law.
In fact, the British legal system actively resisted the codification of slavery. In 1766, the Declaratory Act abolished colonial slave codes and Negro laws, affirming parliamentary sovereignty and rejecting the colonists’ attempts to create laws that institutionalized racial bondage.
And in 1772,The landmark case of Somerset versus Stewart dealt a blow to slavery’s moral and legal foundation. England’s highest court ruled that slavery could only exist if explicitly authorized by positive law, a law that England’s parliament refused to create. This historical reality forces us to reevaluate the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote, All men are created equal, the founders were rebelling not only against British taxes and governance, but against British laws that undermined their ability to maintain slavery.
Among the grievances against King George III, they condemned him for abolishing our most valuable laws. What were these valuable laws?
They were the very colonial slave codes that Britain had invalidated. This means that the Declaration of Independence, often celebrated as a beacon of liberty, contained within it an implicit acknowledgement that black colonials were part of the legal and moral fabric of the colonies.
It also reveals the founders’ moral failure, a failure to extend the promise of freedom to all people within their new nation. The founders’ fear of losing control over black labor and the potential for black resistance led them to horrific measures. They resorted to violent repression to prevent black colonials from siding with the British, who offered freedom to enslaved people willing to fight for the crown. Even those who privately opposed slavery, like John Adams, chose to remain silent, setting aside their convictions for the sake of unity. This calculated silence planted seeds of injustice that have grown throughout our history. The decision to prioritize political convenience over moral truth has left a legacy of systemic inequality that we are still fighting to dismantle.
Today, we must reclaim the truth embedded in the Declaration of Independence, the acknowledgement of black colonials within its grievances shows that equality was never a gift to be bestowed by the founders. It was a right inherent to all. As we celebrate Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us confront these truths with clarity and courage.
Let us honor the resilience of those who fought against slavery, even when the law was against them. Let us challenge the systems that continue to perpetuate inequality, and let us demand that the words, All men are created equal, are no longer a selective promise, but a universal reality.
Black history is American history. It is a history of struggle, of triumph, of justice sought and justice delayed.
But most importantly, it is a history of hope, hope that the truth can set us free and that the future we build can finally live up to the ideals we proclaim.
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