Winston Churchill once said, “History will be kind to Britain, because it is the British who shall write it.” Perhaps it is true that the victor usually has the greater say-so on the legacy of some eventful chapter in which he has prevailed. Yes, This naturally raises questions of accuracy and of possible political distortions.
American history may suffer from some of these excesses but in the history books I have read I find our shameful acts are not whitewashed, trivialized, nor omitted.
Slavery and Native American ejection and persecution were probably America at its worst. Let me address only the slave issue today.
The practice of slavery dates back to around 6000BC when victors in conflicts enslaved the vanquished. It is believed that the first slaves on the American continent were brought here as early as the 1500s. In 1619 Captain John Pope brought the first slaves to Jamestown, VA, our first settlement. These were hapless natives from West Africa, kidnapped and pressed into bondage. They were regarded as private property and were instruments of commerce and agriculture. It was a lucrative business for the traders and, in time, the slave population increased substantially, totaling some four million at the start of the Civil war. Regretfully, mistreatment and abuse were widespread and basic rights enshrined in our constitution were denied them. Our founding fathers were conflicted by this practice which was a blatant contradiction to the fundamental precepts of the constitution they were writing. But fearing confronting this practice would jeopardize the formation of the young union; they elected to basically kick the can down the road. (Washington is now really proficient in that practice.)
Slavery was, no doubt, the darkest hour in our history and I think we are all justly ashamed of that period. At the same time, while we demonize the practice of slavery, we should celebrate the action of Abraham Lincoln for the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, ending that practice, and for the over 600,000 Americans who died in that effort, 360,000 of whom were from the Northern free states. Our history is clear on this. In no American war have we lost so many – – and for no greater cause. Surely there are lessons we can learn, but we can’t change the past, we can’t erase it and we shouldn’t try to doctor it to our liking. We do not need wokeism to remind us of those terrible times. Efforts to alter history, to topple monuments, to erase from memory those people we hold complicit, serves no useful purpose today. Nor should we continue to self-flagellate ourselves for that period 160 years ago over which we played no part. And, as to those clamoring for “reparations”, I ask, how does it make any sense that people today, who were never slave owners, should compensate people today, who were never slaves.
Let’s just focus on a better future where we can make a real difference and stop fiddling with times long past.
– – – – Just the view of a common man
Views of a Common Man 
A very wise view of a comm
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I agree with all you have written. I would just like to share a thought that I read in a novel by Ruth Druart, While Paris Slept. The novel is set during the holocaust and the question the author poses is as follows: “How can they expect to build a future when they keep dragging up the past?”
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