Inaccurate smearing of American founder

This amusing video shows the very pompous Michael Coard being corrected on a fairly important point of history:

Coard is quite wrong to to smear American founder Robert Morris as a slave trader who profited from slavery. Morris was pressured by British policies into a single slave trading voyage which lost money, and subsequently became an opponent of the slave trade. (The claim that he financed the American revolution with slave money is preposterous.) From Morris's wiki entry:

Before the Revolution, Britain controlled the port of Philadelphia. The British Crown wanted to encourage the slave trade and enrich the King's friends. At the same time, during the Seven Years' War, the usual supply of indentured servants was not available because those people were conscripted to fight in Europe. Morris was a junior partner in Willing, Morris & Co when they sent out one ship on a slave trading voyage. They didn't carry enough to be profitable, and after a second trip their ship was captured by French privateers. They lost money in the business. Later they both supported the non-importation agreements that marked the end of the slave trade into Philadelphia. They also became advocates for free trade which would end the kind of trade restrictions that gave rise to the business. As time went on Morris tried to tax the slave trade and to lay a head tax on the slaves payable by the owner. His efforts were not appreciated by the Southerners who then proceeded to fight all his measures.
Not that any of this would matter to a demagogue whose business is smearing the founders, but I got a kick out of seeing that someone had the balls to correct him.

posted by Eric on 02.20.08 at 10:34 PM





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