Debate Now The Dumbing Down of America

[Asclepias]

Proposed:

The modern generations are not being taught our history, our Constitution, or basic civics. They aren't being taught the reasoning of the Founders or about the great philosophers who informed them. Modern day students are not being required to study the Founding Documents or the circumstance that encouraged people to risk everything to come here and then to form a new nation.

They are not being taught basic economics, the principles of supply and demand in a free market system, the pros and cons of economic systems, or all the effect of government programs. The are not exposed to or encouraged to hear all points of view or use critical thinking to evaluate them.

They are spoon fed sound bites and slogans and the politically correct dogma of the day. Or what they know is gleaned from bits and pieces of internet sources or sounds bites from television or message boards. In short, too often they are being indoctrinated and effectively brainwashed instead of educated.

Some anecdotal evidence:


youtube watters world interviews - Bing video

youtube people can't answer political questions - Bing video

QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: Should basic history as described here be core curriculum, and should students have a reasonable command of it before graduating high school and college? Why or why not is that important?

RULES FOR THIS DISCUSSION:
1. Links are allowed but are not required and if used must be summarized in the member's own words.
2. Definitions for this discussion only will be provided by the OP as necessary.
3. Comment on the member's argument only and not directly or indirectly to or about the member making the argument.

I think it depends on what history they learn. There is the history I learned which I found out is selective and used to indoctrinate people and then there is real history that is not so flattering, honorable, or as easy to digest. If its real history I am all for it.

I tried really hard to describe in the OP what sort of history I want in that core curriculum. I am one a crusade to get away from indoctrination of students both in public schools and universities.

Well I noticed in your last sentence for example that you thought it was important to know why people risked coming here. The truth is not all people risked everything because they were forced to come. Those things are just as if not more relevant and missing in the curriculum.

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

 

[Foxfyre]

Proposed:

The modern generations are not being taught our history, our Constitution, or basic civics. They aren't being taught the reasoning of the Founders or about the great philosophers who informed them. Modern day students are not being required to study the Founding Documents or the circumstance that encouraged people to risk everything to come here and then to form a new nation.

They are not being taught basic economics, the principles of supply and demand in a free market system, the pros and cons of economic systems, or all the effect of government programs. The are not exposed to or encouraged to hear all points of view or use critical thinking to evaluate them.

They are spoon fed sound bites and slogans and the politically correct dogma of the day. Or what they know is gleaned from bits and pieces of internet sources or sounds bites from television or message boards. In short, too often they are being indoctrinated and effectively brainwashed instead of educated.

Some anecdotal evidence:


youtube watters world interviews - Bing video

youtube people can't answer political questions - Bing video

QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: Should basic history as described here be core curriculum, and should students have a reasonable command of it before graduating high school and college? Why or why not is that important?

RULES FOR THIS DISCUSSION:
1. Links are allowed but are not required and if used must be summarized in the member's own words.
2. Definitions for this discussion only will be provided by the OP as necessary.
3. Comment on the member's argument only and not directly or indirectly to or about the member making the argument.

I think it depends on what history they learn. There is the history I learned which I found out is selective and used to indoctrinate people and then there is real history that is not so flattering, honorable, or as easy to digest. If its real history I am all for it.

I tried really hard to describe in the OP what sort of history I want in that core curriculum. I am one a crusade to get away from indoctrination of students both in public schools and universities.

Well I noticed in your last sentence for example that you thought it was important to know why people risked coming here. The truth is not all people risked everything because they were forced to come. Those things are just as if not more relevant and missing in the curriculum.

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

 

[candycorn]

It would shock many in the South to know that about 20,000 confederate citizens were "smuggled" (use your own term) to Brazil to give the Confederates a stronghold in South America. The plan was to export the Southern way of life (that yes included massive numbers of slaves--as well as enslaving indigenous persons along the way) to South America.

If you don't believe me, google Confederates and check out the article in Mental Floss: The Confederacy's Plan to Conquer Latin America

If someone is interested in teaching accurate and complete history, sugar coating the vile, disgusting Confederacy into some sort of legitimate nation is probably doing a dis-service.

 

[320 Years of History]

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

Your thread; your rules. I have no issue with that. I think it comically ironic that you've acquiesced retrospectively to the use of "you" in place of "one" in a thread themed around the dumbing-down of America.

Using the impersonal pronoun is unnatural? Wow! That strikes me as tantamount to asserting that using standard English grammar is unnatural. Absent the personal pronoun, readers must constantly ask themselves "does the writer genuinely referring to me, or does s/he merely have poor grammar?"

The whole point of the impersonal pronoun is to make it clear to one's readers that one is not specifically referring to them as individuals and to signal that if "whatever" it be of which one writes applies to a given reader is entirely that reader's choice to apply it to themselves and not one's intent, as the writer, to do so. I think "you" in place of "one" is sometimes tolerable in conversation, but in writing, particularly on topics such as those often arising on USMP wherein the parties to a discussion are strangers, where readers have only one's words -- no facial expressions, no body language, no vocal inflections, no aural cadence cues -- with which to understand another's communicated thoughts, the impersonal pronoun is irreplaceable for the sake of denotation and connotation. That's doubly so given that writers have no good way to predict the readers' reading comprehension skills or emotional sensitivity.

 

[Foxfyre]

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

Your thread; your rules. I have no issue with that. I think it comically ironic that you've acquiesced retrospectively to the use of "you" in place of "one" in a thread themed around the dumbing-down of America.

Using the impersonal pronoun is unnatural? Wow! That strikes me as tantamount to asserting that using standard English grammar is unnatural. Absent the personal pronoun, readers must constantly ask themselves "does the writer genuinely referring to me, or does s/he merely have poor grammar?"

The whole point of the impersonal pronoun is to make it clear to one's readers that one is not specifically referring to them as individuals and to signal that if "whatever" it be of which one writes applies to a given reader is entirely that reader's choice to apply it to themselves and not one's intent, as the writer, to do so. I think "you" in place of "one" is sometimes tolerable in conversation, but in writing, particularly on topics such as those often arising on USMP wherein the parties to a discussion are strangers, where readers have only one's words -- no facial expressions, no body language, no vocal inflections, no aural cadence cues -- with which to understand another's communicated thoughts, the impersonal pronoun is irreplaceable for the sake of denotation and connotation. That's doubly so given that writers have no good way to predict the readers' reading comprehension skills or emotional sensitivity.

You know that and I know that and as an old debater I learned to omit the personal pronouns effortlessly and it is second nature to me. But for many it is not, and I got tired of having to correct folks who just naturally insert those pronouns in there with no intention of being personally insulting. My interruptions interrupted the flow of the discussion. And the thread isn't about how people express themselves. So it became one of those cases of 'how important is it?

 

[Asclepias]

I think it depends on what history they learn. There is the history I learned which I found out is selective and used to indoctrinate people and then there is real history that is not so flattering, honorable, or as easy to digest. If its real history I am all for it.

I tried really hard to describe in the OP what sort of history I want in that core curriculum. I am one a crusade to get away from indoctrination of students both in public schools and universities.

Well I noticed in your last sentence for example that you thought it was important to know why people risked coming here. The truth is not all people risked everything because they were forced to come. Those things are just as if not more relevant and missing in the curriculum.

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

 

[320 Years of History]

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

??? Personally, I find the telling of the slavery story as you have presented it above wanting. What's wanting about it is a huge contextual factor: the basis for enslaving humans as occurred as part of institutionalized slavery in the New World was the color of the skin of the people deemed "candidates" for enslavement. That contextual factor contrasts markedly with the form of slavery practiced in ancient civilizations where enslavement was a real possibility due to things like being on the losing side in a war, for example. No matter whether one was of Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid descent; enslavement was a social status derived from a variety of things, one's skin tone being circumstantial not given.

That notwithstanding, for I don't specifically want to engage on the nature of slavery through the ages, my point is that what is missing from most K-12 teaching of the humanities and social sciences is context. Indeed, context is something that many people just outright ignore in general, to say nothing of actually being taught the nuances of context that apply to any number of history's events. Additionally, it seems to me based one the remarks I hear from many quarters, that far too many people attempt to reduce to a binary matter damn near everything.

When asked to choose between two things, sure, one must make a binary decision; however, that does not make binary the situation one evaluated. My experience and education have shown me the world is now, perhaps more than ever before, grey, not black and white, yet much of American education attempts, I believe, to paint a black and white picture of it. That in my mind is among the major flaws that has resulted in the so-called dumbing-down of America.

“Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo.
"Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth​

 

[Foxfyre]

I tried really hard to describe in the OP what sort of history I want in that core curriculum. I am one a crusade to get away from indoctrination of students both in public schools and universities.

Well I noticed in your last sentence for example that you thought it was important to know why people risked coming here. The truth is not all people risked everything because they were forced to come. Those things are just as if not more relevant and missing in the curriculum.

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

 

[320 Years of History]

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

??? Personally, I find the telling of the slavery story as you have presented it above wanting. What's wanting about it is a huge contextual factor: the basis for enslaving humans as occurred as part of institutionalized slavery in the New World was the color of the skin of the people deemed "candidates" for enslavement. That contextual factor contrasts markedly with the form of slavery practiced in ancient civilizations where enslavement was a real possibility due to things like being on the losing side in a war, for example. No matter whether one was of Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid descent; enslavement was a social status derived from a variety of things, one's skin tone being circumstantial not given.

That notwithstanding, for I don't specifically want to engage on the nature of slavery through the ages, my point is that what is missing from most K-12 teaching of the humanities and social sciences is context. Indeed, context is something that many people just outright ignore in general, to say nothing of actually being taught the nuances of context that apply to any number of history's events. Additionally, it seems to me based one the remarks I hear from many quarters, that far too many people attempt to reduce to a binary matter damn near everything.

When asked to choose between two things, sure, one must make a binary decision; however, that does not make binary the situation one evaluated. My experience and education have shown me the world is now, perhaps more than ever before, grey, not black and white, yet much of American education attempts, I believe, to paint a black and white picture of it. That in my mind is among the major flaws that has resulted in the so-called dumbing-down of America.

Purple:
To further illustrate that point one need only read this:

It would shock many in the South to know that about 20,000 confederate citizens were "smuggled" (use your own term) to Brazil to give the Confederates a stronghold in South America. The plan was to export the Southern way of life (that yes included massive numbers of slaves--as well as enslaving indigenous persons along the way) to South America.

If you don't believe me, google Confederates and check out the article in Mental Floss: The Confederacy's Plan to Conquer Latin America

If someone is interested in teaching accurate and complete history, sugar coating the vile, disgusting Confederacy into some sort of legitimate nation is probably doing a dis-service.

Given the context of this thread, would someone tell me how learning of the Confederacy's efforts to conquer Central and/or South America rises to the level of importance that it needs to be taught at some point between grades K-12?

I'm not suggesting that knowing of that piece of history isn't useful. For a discussion such as this and among adults, it makes sense to introduce it as an illustration of the extent to which most American high school grads have an incomplete view of history. In a discussion about South America or Brazil, it makes sense to raise it. How that pearl of information and its inspiration, intentions and incidents are among the things an American undergraduate student absolutely must know of prior to matriculating to college is beyond me. It's not that the information itself is pointless; it's that it has little to no contextual relevance to the central theme of the discussion at hand.

candycorn, my remarks above are not aimed at aspersing you or castigating you. I'm merely amplifying my point about context. Your post was merely convenient for doing so.​

 

[Foxfyre]

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

??? Personally, I find the telling of the slavery story as you have presented it above wanting. What's wanting about it is a huge contextual factor: the basis for enslaving humans as occurred as part of institutionalized slavery in the New World was the color of the skin of the people deemed "candidates" for enslavement. That contextual factor contrasts markedly with the form of slavery practiced in ancient civilizations where enslavement was a real possibility due to things like being on the losing side in a war, for example. No matter whether one was of Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid descent; enslavement was a social status derived from a variety of things, one's skin tone being circumstantial not given.

That notwithstanding, for I don't specifically want to engage on the nature of slavery through the ages, my point is that what is missing from most K-12 teaching of the humanities and social sciences is context. Indeed, context is something that many people just outright ignore in general, to say nothing of actually being taught the nuances of context that apply to any number of history's events. Additionally, it seems to me based one the remarks I hear from many quarters, that far too many people attempt to reduce to a binary matter damn near everything.

When asked to choose between two things, sure, one must make a binary decision; however, that does not make binary the situation one evaluated. My experience and education have shown me the world is now, perhaps more than ever before, grey, not black and white, yet much of American education attempts, I believe, to paint a black and white picture of it. That in my mind is among the major flaws that has resulted in the so-called dumbing-down of America.

Well come on, give me a break. You want me to include EVERYTHING that should be included over hundreds of years into a couple of paragraphs? Seriously, though you are correct. While there were other forms of forced labor among the inheritors of the Roman Empire--indentured servitude for instance--making a race of people into chattel slaves has been a more modern phenomenon.

None of us can know what was going on the those minds that justified basing it on race. It would be interesting to research that but I wouldn't know where to start. I won't defend America's history of slavery myself. I only intend to put it into its full context. We Americans were not the first to institute chattel slavery nor the last to abolish it. (And I include the American Indians who captured and bought and sold slaves among the tribes and sometimes to the first Europeans.) It was not the first Americans who brought African slavery to the new world but rather first the Spaniards and then the English. It is a tragic and unjustifiable part of our history. But it does not define all or most of our history as some would have it be.

 

[320 Years of History]

Well I noticed in your last sentence for example that you thought it was important to know why people risked coming here. The truth is not all people risked everything because they were forced to come. Those things are just as if not more relevant and missing in the curriculum.

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

Purple:
I would hope that any and everyone recognizes that the particular form of slavery practiced/institutionalized in the United States and its New World neighbors is differs dramatically from the slavery that existed before the Age of Enlightenment. "Negro slavery [was] the South; the South [was] Negro slavery." That quite simply was not ever so before or since American slavery's abolition.

 

[320 Years of History]

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

??? Personally, I find the telling of the slavery story as you have presented it above wanting. What's wanting about it is a huge contextual factor: the basis for enslaving humans as occurred as part of institutionalized slavery in the New World was the color of the skin of the people deemed "candidates" for enslavement. That contextual factor contrasts markedly with the form of slavery practiced in ancient civilizations where enslavement was a real possibility due to things like being on the losing side in a war, for example. No matter whether one was of Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid descent; enslavement was a social status derived from a variety of things, one's skin tone being circumstantial not given.

That notwithstanding, for I don't specifically want to engage on the nature of slavery through the ages, my point is that what is missing from most K-12 teaching of the humanities and social sciences is context. Indeed, context is something that many people just outright ignore in general, to say nothing of actually being taught the nuances of context that apply to any number of history's events. Additionally, it seems to me based one the remarks I hear from many quarters, that far too many people attempt to reduce to a binary matter damn near everything.

When asked to choose between two things, sure, one must make a binary decision; however, that does not make binary the situation one evaluated. My experience and education have shown me the world is now, perhaps more than ever before, grey, not black and white, yet much of American education attempts, I believe, to paint a black and white picture of it. That in my mind is among the major flaws that has resulted in the so-called dumbing-down of America.

Well come on, give me a break. You want me to include EVERYTHING that should be included over hundreds of years into a couple of paragraphs? Seriously, though you are correct. While there were other forms of forced labor among the inheritors of the Roman Empire--indentured servitude for instance--making a race of people into chattel slaves has been a more modern phenomenon.

None of us can know what was going on the those minds that justified basing it on race. It would be interesting to research that but I wouldn't know where to start. I won't defend America's history of slavery myself. I only intend to put it into its full context. We Americans were not the first to institute chattel slavery nor the last to abolish it. (And I include the American Indians who captured and bought and sold slaves among the tribes and sometimes to the first Europeans.) It was not the first Americans who brought African slavery to the new world but rather first the Spaniards and then the English. It is a tragic and unjustifiable part of our history. But it does not define all or most of our history as some would have it be.

Red:
As a matter of fact, no. That's why I noted that I had no desire for you and I to engage on the nature of slavery. I really was focused solely on the context that came through (or didn't) in the understandably brief summary of slavery you wrote. Context is my focus because, in all reality, very few factual details are of note absent context.
For example, it's a fact that the Earth's surface is curved, everywhere; however, in the context of building a typical single family home, there's no need to account for that curvature in designing or building it. On the other hand, in the context of building, say, a bridge near or greater than ~320 feet long, one'd be greatly remiss not to account for the curve of the Earth.

I don't know the exact dimensions of the Palace at Versailles, but I am all but certain, given that it's larger than Buckingham Palace (108 meters across the front), its builders probably had to account for the curvature of the Earth, even if only by opting to build the thing in sections that remove the impact of Earth's curvature on the stability and construction/design factors concomitant with unbroken (or functionally unbroken) spans of solid structures.

 

[Foxfyre]

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

Purple:
I would hope that any and everyone recognizes that the particular form of slavery practiced/institutionalized in the United States and its New World neighbors is differs dramatically from the slavery that existed before the Age of Enlightenment. "Negro slavery [was] the South; the South [was] Negro slavery." That quite simply was not ever so before or since American slavery's abolition.

The full history suggests otherwise. It was not the New World that decided Africans would be profitable as slaves; that was determined in western Europe before the first settlers arrived on the east coast of America and it was those Europeans who introduced black slaves to America. However as I previous posted, the choice to look at skin color as the color of slaves was a fairly new phenomenon in world history, Because I cannot improve on the following I'll just post this:

[. . .The eighteenth century represented the apogee of the system, and before the century had ended, the signs of its demise were clear. About 60 percent of all the Africans who arrived as slaves in the New World came between 1700 and 1810, the time period during which Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands peaked as sugar producers. Antislavery societies sprang up in Britain and France, using the secular, rationalist arguments of the Enlightenment--the intellectual movement centered in France in the eighteenth century- -to challenge the moral and legal basis for slavery. A significant moral victory was achieved when the British Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, ruled in 1772 that slavery was illegal in Britain, thereby freeing about 15,000 slaves who had accompanied their masters there--and abruptly terminating the practice of black slaves ostentatiously escorting their masters about the kingdom. In the British Parliament, antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave system in the Caribbean could not recover. . . . Caribbean Islands - The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery [/indent]

 

[Foxfyre]

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

??? Personally, I find the telling of the slavery story as you have presented it above wanting. What's wanting about it is a huge contextual factor: the basis for enslaving humans as occurred as part of institutionalized slavery in the New World was the color of the skin of the people deemed "candidates" for enslavement. That contextual factor contrasts markedly with the form of slavery practiced in ancient civilizations where enslavement was a real possibility due to things like being on the losing side in a war, for example. No matter whether one was of Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid descent; enslavement was a social status derived from a variety of things, one's skin tone being circumstantial not given.

That notwithstanding, for I don't specifically want to engage on the nature of slavery through the ages, my point is that what is missing from most K-12 teaching of the humanities and social sciences is context. Indeed, context is something that many people just outright ignore in general, to say nothing of actually being taught the nuances of context that apply to any number of history's events. Additionally, it seems to me based one the remarks I hear from many quarters, that far too many people attempt to reduce to a binary matter damn near everything.

When asked to choose between two things, sure, one must make a binary decision; however, that does not make binary the situation one evaluated. My experience and education have shown me the world is now, perhaps more than ever before, grey, not black and white, yet much of American education attempts, I believe, to paint a black and white picture of it. That in my mind is among the major flaws that has resulted in the so-called dumbing-down of America.

Well come on, give me a break. You want me to include EVERYTHING that should be included over hundreds of years into a couple of paragraphs? Seriously, though you are correct. While there were other forms of forced labor among the inheritors of the Roman Empire--indentured servitude for instance--making a race of people into chattel slaves has been a more modern phenomenon.

None of us can know what was going on the those minds that justified basing it on race. It would be interesting to research that but I wouldn't know where to start. I won't defend America's history of slavery myself. I only intend to put it into its full context. We Americans were not the first to institute chattel slavery nor the last to abolish it. (And I include the American Indians who captured and bought and sold slaves among the tribes and sometimes to the first Europeans.) It was not the first Americans who brought African slavery to the new world but rather first the Spaniards and then the English. It is a tragic and unjustifiable part of our history. But it does not define all or most of our history as some would have it be.

Red:
As a matter of fact, no. That's why I noted that I had no desire for you and I to engage on the nature of slavery. I really was focused solely on the context that came through (or didn't) in the understandably brief summary of slavery you wrote. Context is my focus because, in all reality, very few factual details are of note absent context.
For example, it's a fact that the Earth's surface is curved, everywhere; however, in the context of building a typical single family home, there's no need to account for that curvature in designing or building it. On the other hand, in the context of building, say, a bridge near or greater than ~320 feet long, one'd be greatly remiss not to account for the curve of the Earth.

I don't know the exact dimensions of the Palace at Versailles, but I am all but certain, given that it's larger than Buckingham Palace (108 meters across the front), its builders probably had to account for the curvature of the Earth, even if only by opting to build the thing in sections that remove the impact of Earth's curvature on the stability and construction/design factors concomitant with unbroken (or functionally unbroken) spans of solid structures.

Agreed that this thread is not about slavery other than how that might be portrayed and/or distorted in the history that is taught. A member correctly alluded early in the thread that the story of the Pilgrims is not as rosy and warm and fuzzy as first grade history books often presented But neither was it all as bad as the member was subsequently taught. Honest history teaches the positives with the negatives and lets the student of history use critical thinking to form opinions about the morality or how people viewed their existence and the world in their own time.

We should absolutely do the same in the history of slavery in the world and in America.

 

[Asclepias]

Well I noticed in your last sentence for example that you thought it was important to know why people risked coming here. The truth is not all people risked everything because they were forced to come. Those things are just as if not more relevant and missing in the curriculum.

Those chapters in history are important of course, and should be taught honestly and completely. But they have nothing to do with the motivation of those who first arrived here which was a good deal of the inspiration for the Constitution.

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

That was interesting but already well known history of slavery. However it skips over the part where only recently humans were considered non humans which defines the slavery that existed here in the US. I have no wish to argue about what country did what since we are speaking specifically about American history. You say you want history to be taught correctly and I insist that since the model for chattel slavery was developed here in the US and practiced extensively in the US then its consequences, effect, and benefits should be taught in these classes. If its left out we are defeating the purpose of studying history since it was such a major factor in US history and continues to make its effects felt to this day.

 

[Asclepias]

I think the same thing applies to the NA's. I remember as a kid looking at a history book with a picture of NA's hiding in some bushes while Columbus walked onto the continent. The caption read: Columbus Discovers America. I remember asking the teacher how was it that columbus discovered america when there were Indians already there as the picture clearly showed? I was chastised and sent to the office for that.

 

[320 Years of History]

I think they have everything to do with how this country was shaped and formed. When you claim it has nothing to do with the motivation of those that first arrived here you are not telling the entire story. You are only telling a narrow point of view which again indoctrinates people into this false belief that the US is this honorable country when in fact its one of the most morally and ethically bankrupt countrys to ever exist.

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

Purple:
I would hope that any and everyone recognizes that the particular form of slavery practiced/institutionalized in the United States and its New World neighbors is differs dramatically from the slavery that existed before the Age of Enlightenment. "Negro slavery [was] the South; the South [was] Negro slavery." That quite simply was not ever so before or since American slavery's abolition.

The full history suggests otherwise. It was not the New World that decided Africans would be profitable as slaves; that was determined in western Europe before the first settlers arrived on the east coast of America and it was those Europeans who introduced black slaves to America. However as I previous posted, the choice to look at skin color as the color of slaves was a fairly new phenomenon in world history, Because I cannot improve on the following I'll just post this:

[. . .The eighteenth century represented the apogee of the system, and before the century had ended, the signs of its demise were clear. About 60 percent of all the Africans who arrived as slaves in the New World came between 1700 and 1810, the time period during which Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands peaked as sugar producers. Antislavery societies sprang up in Britain and France, using the secular, rationalist arguments of the Enlightenment--the intellectual movement centered in France in the eighteenth century- -to challenge the moral and legal basis for slavery. A significant moral victory was achieved when the British Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, ruled in 1772 that slavery was illegal in Britain, thereby freeing about 15,000 slaves who had accompanied their masters there--and abruptly terminating the practice of black slaves ostentatiously escorting their masters about the kingdom. In the British Parliament, antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave system in the Caribbean could not recover. . . . Caribbean Islands - The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery [/indent]

• Blackbirding -- Not literally slavery, but little different in substance. It persisted up to the 1970s in the United Kingdom, mainly Australia.
• Slave Trade Act of 1807 outlawed, within the British kingdom, the slave trade, not slavery itself.

There again, it's a matter of context and substance that is missed in the retelling you've shared.

 

[Asclepias]

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

Purple:
I would hope that any and everyone recognizes that the particular form of slavery practiced/institutionalized in the United States and its New World neighbors is differs dramatically from the slavery that existed before the Age of Enlightenment. "Negro slavery [was] the South; the South [was] Negro slavery." That quite simply was not ever so before or since American slavery's abolition.

The full history suggests otherwise. It was not the New World that decided Africans would be profitable as slaves; that was determined in western Europe before the first settlers arrived on the east coast of America and it was those Europeans who introduced black slaves to America. However as I previous posted, the choice to look at skin color as the color of slaves was a fairly new phenomenon in world history, Because I cannot improve on the following I'll just post this:

[. . .The eighteenth century represented the apogee of the system, and before the century had ended, the signs of its demise were clear. About 60 percent of all the Africans who arrived as slaves in the New World came between 1700 and 1810, the time period during which Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands peaked as sugar producers. Antislavery societies sprang up in Britain and France, using the secular, rationalist arguments of the Enlightenment--the intellectual movement centered in France in the eighteenth century- -to challenge the moral and legal basis for slavery. A significant moral victory was achieved when the British Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, ruled in 1772 that slavery was illegal in Britain, thereby freeing about 15,000 slaves who had accompanied their masters there--and abruptly terminating the practice of black slaves ostentatiously escorting their masters about the kingdom. In the British Parliament, antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave system in the Caribbean could not recover. . . . Caribbean Islands - The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery [/indent]

• Blackbirding -- Not literally slavery, but little different in substance. It persisted up to the 1970s in the United Kingdom, mainly Australia.
• Slave Trade Act of 1807 outlawed, within the British kingdom, the slave trade, not slavery itself.

There again, it's a matter of context and substance that is missed in the retelling you've shared.

Vagrancy laws after slavery was abolished and the prison industrial complex.

 

[Foxfyre]

DISCLAIMER: I started this thread with three rules and interpreted one of them as to disallow the rhetorical 'you' in an honest effort to prevent the usual personal references that tend to derail a thread. In retrospect I decided that was just too unnatural to most members and will no longer request that as part of the rules. I won't object to the use of you and yours to make an argument unless it is clearly intended to insult the person.

So now, to your argument:

While honest history must teach that slavery is dehumanizing, cruel, inhumane, and unjustifiable, it must also be taught as the universal culture that it was in the remnants of the Roman Empire in which slaves were seen as ordinary and the way things were. It is not an argument to excuse or justify the practice. It is just honest history that it was the way it was at that time. It was a world wide practice including the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the time the first Europeans arrived here. Honest history explains that it was not the Europeans who went into the African bush to capture people and make slaves of them. It was mostly the Africans themselves who did that and then turned them over to the European slave traders. And when you put it all together, America was no more and no less moral or immoral than the vast majority of the peoples who existed at that time.

The Spaniards to arrive in the new world were first in search of riches for Spain and secondly engaged in conquest to subject the indigenous people at that time to the will of Spain and were the first to introduce slavery other than that practiced by the Indian peoples. The African slave trade was a booming business among the Spanish conquered world so the first African slaves were brought here by the Spaniards on a very limited basis.

The Puritans who arrived in Jamestown had no intention or motive to acquire slaves--it was an uncommon practice in England at that time. It was only after the colonies became established and started thriving that the European aristocracy turned to slavery--already existing slavery at first from the Spanish controlled Caribbean, and ultimately from the mostly British slave traders who brought slaves to Africa to solve the growing need for labor in the fields, especially the tobacco crops.

To the credit of the new United States government, most of whose members saw slavery as the terrible thing that it was, stopped any new slaves from being brought to America by 1808 and ordered that slavery would not be legal in any new territories opened up and/or made eligible for statehood. But because the federal government was limited in power by the people, it could not order the remaining slave states to abolish slavery. Most did so voluntarily. Some did not, but at the time the Civil War was fought, the cultural pressures were strong against slavery. Canada and Mexico, both who practiced slavery, had already abolished slavery. Had the remaining slave states been left alone, it is a certainty that they too would have eventually also abolished slavery on their own.

It could be left to speculation whether that would have ultimately been the best course and would have eliminated much of the anger and resentment and allowed black people to be more quickly accepted and assimilated into mainstream society.

This is how history should be taught.

Those who wish to rewrite history on both sides of the argument do a great disservice to education.

I think what is missing in your narrative is that slavery was not a universal concept, at least not the way it was practiced in the US and the americas. Chattel slavery was a new concept that came about in order to build the economic base of this country. It was a major part of the construction of of the constitution. There is a reason the Corwin Amendment that made slavery a guaranteed right of the states was offered to the confederates as a means of avoiding war. The history of the US in forever intertwined with chattel slavery because without it the US would not have become a world power.

If you wish to argue that the United States of America is the only evil entity who condoned or practiced slavery, I am unlikely to dissuade you from that point of view, but for me, it is a compelling argument for why honest history needs to be taught on both sides--the proponents of black history and the standards for history taught to all American citizens. In fact I would argue that black history is counterproductive because it tends to set one group of Americans apart from the others instead of teaching the history of all of us completely and honestly.

But honest history would include:

. . .Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race.

Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery.

Life as a slave

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. . . . The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen | PBS​

Purple:
I would hope that any and everyone recognizes that the particular form of slavery practiced/institutionalized in the United States and its New World neighbors is differs dramatically from the slavery that existed before the Age of Enlightenment. "Negro slavery [was] the South; the South [was] Negro slavery." That quite simply was not ever so before or since American slavery's abolition.

The full history suggests otherwise. It was not the New World that decided Africans would be profitable as slaves; that was determined in western Europe before the first settlers arrived on the east coast of America and it was those Europeans who introduced black slaves to America. However as I previous posted, the choice to look at skin color as the color of slaves was a fairly new phenomenon in world history, Because I cannot improve on the following I'll just post this:

[. . .The eighteenth century represented the apogee of the system, and before the century had ended, the signs of its demise were clear. About 60 percent of all the Africans who arrived as slaves in the New World came between 1700 and 1810, the time period during which Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands peaked as sugar producers. Antislavery societies sprang up in Britain and France, using the secular, rationalist arguments of the Enlightenment--the intellectual movement centered in France in the eighteenth century- -to challenge the moral and legal basis for slavery. A significant moral victory was achieved when the British Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, ruled in 1772 that slavery was illegal in Britain, thereby freeing about 15,000 slaves who had accompanied their masters there--and abruptly terminating the practice of black slaves ostentatiously escorting their masters about the kingdom. In the British Parliament, antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave system in the Caribbean could not recover. . . . Caribbean Islands - The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery [/indent]

• Blackbirding -- Not literally slavery, but little different in substance. It persisted up to the 1970s in the United Kingdom, mainly Australia.
• Slave Trade Act of 1807 outlawed, within the British kingdom, the slave trade, not slavery itself.

There again, it's a matter of context and substance that is missed in the retelling you've shared.

Not a matter of context but simply a matter of including every possible interpretation of the subject matter all at once. It can't be done. Which advantages those who would distort and manipulate history for their own purposes as most people have not been taught comprehensive history. Which of course is the subject of this thread. I have however been careful not to equate stopping the slave trade with the abolishment of slavery.

 

[Foxfyre]

I think the same thing applies to the NA's. I remember as a kid looking at a history book with a picture of NA's hiding in some bushes while Columbus walked onto the continent. The caption read: Columbus Discovers America. I remember asking the teacher how was it that columbus discovered america when there were Indians already there as the picture clearly showed? I was chastised and sent to the office for that.

IMO, if you asked the question respectfully, you should not have been sent to the office. It was a legitimate and smart question that deserved an answer. If I had been that teacher I would have relished such an opportunity to teach the context of how things are expressed. I would have suggested that it would have been more complete to say that Columbus was thought to be the first known Europeans at that time to visit America and provide the full history. But for convenience sake, we sometimes reduce that to a kind of historical shorthand: "Columbus discovered America." "Lincoln freed the slaves." Etc. The complete story is much more complex and can include volumes if we learn all of it that is known of course, but those who know history save a lot of time by condensing it into that simple shorthand: "When Columbus discovered America, . . . . ."