Were enslaved people in the U.S. in any way responsible for their own misery? Were there any silver linings to forced bondage? These questions surface from time to time in the American cultural conversation, rekindling a longstanding debate over whether slavery—what has sometimes been called the nation’s “peculiar institution”—may have been something less than a horrific crime against humanity.
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When rapper and clothing designer Kanye West commented in May 2018 on TMZ.com that slavery was a “choice, he set off a social media firestorm of anger and incredulity. (He later attempted to clarify by tweeting that African Americans remained subservient for centuries because they were “mentally enslaved.”) Similar public outcry ensued that year after a charter school teacher in San Antonio, Texas, asked her 8th grade American history students to provide a “balanced view” of slavery by listing both its pros and cons. She had drawn the homework assignment from a nationally distributed textbook.
Such controversies underscore a profound lack of understanding of slavery, the institution that, more than any other in the formation of the American republic, undergirded its very economic, social and political fabric. They overlook the fact that slavery, which affected millions of Black people in America, was enforced by a system of sustained brutality, including acts—and constant threats—of torture, rape and murder. They ignore countless historic examples of resistance, rebellion and escape. And they disregard the long-tail legacy of slavery, where oppressive laws, excessive incarceration and violent acts of terrorism were all designed to keep people of color “in their place.”
In 1619, the Dutch introduced the first captured Africans to America, planting the seeds of a slavery system that evolved into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that would ultimately divide the nation.
The history is clear on this point: In no way did the enslaved, brought to this country in chains, choose this lot. Still, several damaging myths persist.