Black history month is a time that my family takes pride in the tremendous contributions that African Americans have made to our country.
Our debt to African Americans includes contributions of culture, music, language, art, religion, food, science, math, and artistry. In addition to the unimaginable cruelty of slavery, it acknowledges that slaves build a large amount of the infrastructure and the wealth of the US, Europe, and the Caribbean.
The following is quoted and distilled from several sources, including Harper‘s magazine, National Geographic, Pew research, and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
African Americans built the capital of the White House, Thomas Jefferson’s estate of Monticello and other presidential estates. Slaves repaired, reinforced and built parts of Fort Sumter. Harvard, Columbia Princeton, and Yale were funded by profits from slavery as were many of the buildings of colleges, including the University of Mississippi, UNC, and the University of Virginia. Slaves also served the university faculties and students.
All four major railroads in North America, southern CSX, Union Pacific and Canadian national Line, were built and operated by slaves. Lehman, who founded Lehman Brothers bank, was one of those who made a fortune from financing a slave-built railroad. A slave-built railroad also gave rise to Atlanta, the largest city in Georgia. Enslaved Americans were largely responsible for the construction of the early city of New York. They cleared the land and labored to build Fort Mills, bridges, stone houses, the first city hall, the docks, the city prison, Dutch and English churches, the city Hospital, Francis Tavern, and Trinity Church. In fact, more than 42% of New York City household owned slaves in 1703. In 1860, nearly 4,000,000 American slaves, worth about $3.5 billion dollars, were the largest single financial asset in the entire US economy. They were worth more than all the manufacturing and railroads combine. The estimated value of each slave was calculated and became the source of tax revenue for local and state governments. Also, taxes were collected on slave transactions.
By the start of the Civil War, the South was producing 75% of the world’s cotton. If the confederacy had been a separate nation, it would be ranked as the fourth richest nation in the world. The American financial and shipping industries were dependent on the transporting of slaves and the cotton produced by slaves. Northern textile industries were dependent on the cotton ship from the South. Enslaved Africans became the labor force of choice in the western hemisphere and in 1720, 65% of the population of South Carolina were slaves.
In addition to fueling much of the world’s economy, Harper‘s magazine estimated slaves in the US did a quarter billion dollars of free labor, valued at around $97 trillion in today’s dollars.
We hope this history will be preserved and will be taught as a crucial part of our shared American history.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-slavery-helped-build-a-world-economy
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-railroads
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/15/opinion/the-cost-of-slavery.html
-KB