The truth about U.S. history and its people is being called into question in these chaotic days. White Americans are being told they are oppressors and all others, victims. People react in various ways; they do not know how to respond to what they hear. Many remain silent, not wanting to be called racist. Even school kids see the visible hatred being stirred up. Students question the guilt they feel being put upon them for something they had nothing to do with. Slavery’s beginnings, governing systems, nation groups, and Native Americans are topics many people are not prepared or scared to converse about. Anyone can research these topics in scientific journals, databases, or the Internet—sources concur, whether religious or secular, on certain important facts. To see the truth—people do need to know the root of the problem. When people research for answers—and they do not need to use religious sources today as secular sources confirm the following facts—they see that the problem is a human heart problem, which does not have a skin color.
Modern technology answers some of the hard questions of where the “races” come from: “The most robust statistical examination to date of our species’ genetic links to ‘mitochondrial Eve’—the maternal ancestor of all living humans—confirms that she lived about 200,000 years ago” (Rice University 2010, para. 1). All life began in the Mesopotamia area. Furthermore, “Mesopotamian civilization is the most ancient civilization recorded in human history until now. The name Mesopotamia derived from Greek word mesos, meaning middle and potamos, meaning river. Mesopotamia is a place situated in the middle of Euphrates and the Tigris rivers which is now a part of Iraq” (“Facts on Mesopotamia, World’s First Civilization Known for its Great Legacy of Mathematics, Astrology” 2019, para. 1). It is intellectually sound to conclude that humans had similar skin color in the beginning, since all came from “mitochondrial Eve.”
Today, scientists, aided by technology, can explain skin color variations:
Most people associate Africans with dark skin. But different groups of people in Africa have almost every skin color on the planet, from deepest black in the Dinka of South. Sudan to beige in the San of South Africa. Now, researchers have discovered a handful of new gene variants responsible for this palette of tones.
The study. . . traces the evolution of these genes and how they traveled around the world. While the dark skin of some Pacific Islanders can be traced to Africa, gene variants from Eurasia also seem to have made their way back to Africa. And surprisingly, some of the mutations responsible for lighter skin in Europeans turn out to have an ancient African origin. (Gibbons 2017, paras. 1-2)
Simply, the shades of skin tones eventually changed because of people’s environments as to where they migrated.
Most people have an understanding of how the Europeans came and African slaves were brought to this country, but many do not know how Native Americans arrived here. Researchers say they have pinned down the migrations of the Native Americans to America now: “Scientists have found that Native American populations—from Canada to the southern tip of Chile—arose from at least three migrations, with the majority descended entirely from a single group of First American migrants that crossed over through Beringia, a land bridge between Asia and America that existed during the ice ages, more than 15,000 years ago” (“Native American Populations Descended from Three Key Migrations” 2012, para. 1). Just as interesting as the migrations is how the Native American acquired the name Indian:
The word Indian came to be used because Christopher Columbus repeatedly expressed the mistaken belief that he had reached the shores of South Asia. Convinced he was correct, Columbus fostered the use of the term Indios (originally, ‘person from the Indus valley’) to refer to the peoples of the so-called New World. The term America came into use as a referent to the continents of the Western Hemisphere as early as 1507, when the German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller published a map naming them after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The word American was soon thereafter appended to Indian to differentiate the indigenous peoples of these regions from those of South Asia. (Pauls 2008, para. 2)
Columbus thought he had arrived in South Asia; the people looked South Asian, from India, hence, Indian. From 1492 to 1800s, Spaniards and Europeans came to America and made their homes. In 1787, the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal and created the Constitution for the people to be governed by themselves, so the people would never be subjugated to elite/royalty/the wealthy/mob rule again. The people held the power. Representatives were responsible to them.
People hate slavery and still today want to know who started it—where it came from. The answer is that slavery has been around as long as humans have, and the human race began in Mesopotamia—so slavery began in Mesopotamia. Thomas Sowell explains, “The very word ‘slave’ derives from the word for some white people who were enslaved on a mass scale—the Slavs—for more centuries than blacks were enslaved in the Western Hemisphere” (@ThomasSowell, June 10, 2020).
Historical Biblical accounts mark the Egyptians holding the Hebrews (Jewish people) in bondage as slaves as some of the first recorded accounts of slavery. Sowell writes with great clarity, detailing the facts around slavery and its abolition:
‘Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved – and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.
Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century – and then it was an issue only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and other American leaders. You could research all of the 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there. But who is singled out for scathing criticism today? American leaders of the 18th century.
Deciding that slavery was wrong was much easier than deciding what to do with millions of people from another continent, of another race, and without any historical preparation for living as free citizens in a society like that of the United States, where they were 20 percent of the population.It is clear from the private correspondence of Washington, Jefferson, and many others that their moral rejection of slavery was unambiguous, but the practical question of what to do now had them baffled. That would remain so for more than half a century
In 1862, a ship carrying slaves from Africa to Cuba, in violation of a ban on the international slave trade, was captured on the high seas by the U.S. Navy. The crew were imprisoned and the captain was hanged in the United States – despite the fact that slavery itself was still legal at the time in Africa, Cuba, and in the United States. What does this tell us? That enslaving people was considered an abomination. But what to do with millions of people who were already enslaved was not equally clear.
That question was finally answered by a war in which one life was lost [620,000 Civil War casualties] for every six people freed [3.9 million]. Maybe that was the only answer. But don’t pretend today that it was an easy answer – or that those who grappled with the dilemma in the 18th century were some special villains when most leaders and most people around the world saw nothing wrong with slavery.’
(“Thomas Sowell on Slavery and This Fact—There are More Slaves Today than Were Seized from Africa in Four Centuries” 2017, paras. 2-6)
One life lost for every six—618,222 deaths, “360,222 Union deaths and 258,000 Confederate” (Zeller 2022, para. 2)—was a huge price. Yet, people seldom—if ever—hear about those 360,222 from the North (became Republican Party) who hated slavery so much that they were willing to die to set slaves free. Those in the South, the secessionist Confederacy (became Democratic Party) wanted slavery so much they were willing to fight and die to keep it.
Sowell tweets, “As anti-slavery ideas eventually spread throughout Western civilization, a worldwide struggle pitted the West against Africans, Arabs, Asians and virtually the entire non-Western world, which still saw nothing wrong with slavery” (@ThomasSowell, June 16, 2022). He also points out, “. . . the most staggering thing about the long history of slavery — which encompassed the entire world and every race in it — is that nowhere before the 18th century was there any serious question raised about whether slavery was right or wrong” (Sowell 2005, para. 1). Sowell defines how the West succeeded: “But Western imperialists had gunpowder weapons first and that enabled the West to stamp out slavery in other societies as well as in its own” (@ThomasSowell, June 16, 2022). More specifically, Sowell clearly states the impetus behind abolishing slavery: “. . . within Western civilization, the principal impetus for the abolition of slavery came first from very conservative religious activists—people who would today be called ‘the religious right.’ Clearly, this story is not ‘politically correct’ in today terms. Hence it is ignored, as if it never happened” (@ThomasSowell, June 2, 2022). These facts are not taught—they need to be. Ultimately, slave holders needed to be held accountable for slave holding, not innocent Americans—Nazis needed to be held accountable for their crimes, not innocent Germans. We should celebrate these brave patriots who loved enough their fellowman and woman to die for their freedom.
The problem then and now is humans. Sowell provokes listeners by saying if people care about slavery then, they need to care about slavery now wherever it is happening, but so many people do not care. (He is right—we need to work to abolish slavery in all of its forms today, from sex trafficking to slave labor.) Those against slavery in 1861-64 were up against great hatred. The abolishment of slavery caused a civil war. People feel such animosity brewing today. We need to solve our problems, and we do need to get at the root of our problems—roots have to come out. We have to understand that we are one family. “Race” is color variation according to science, a man-made term.
Most families, if not all, no matter the “family system” they are operating from, have members who do wrong by each other. Some kill each other; many send that hatred into the next generation. Nothing brings more trouble than money matters in life—and death.
The problem is in each person; humans are the “systems”—by any name. The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from ourselves and limit the branches of government by giving us the Constitution; they knew that all people, if given a chance, have a problem with love of power.
Elie Wiesel pointed out decades ago that when man kills, man kills his brother—Cain killed Able. We have to exam ourselves, our own behaviors and inner motives, honestly, because no man has the answer for humanity as we look around and see all of our problems. We have seen so much fraud in science, politics, religions—everything under the sun—for greed or power.
Who owns the earth is the real question. The answer is obvious—whoever or whatever created it—is the owner, and the creator/owner has the answers. The next obvious questions are, who am I, where did I come from, and what can I do to make this world a better place for my brother?
Bibliography
“Facts on Mesopotamia, World’s First Civilization Known for its Great Legacy of Mathematics, Astrology.” India Today, August 21, 2019. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/facts-on-mesopotamia-world-s-first-civilization-is-known-for-its-greatest-legacy-of-mathematics-astrology-1590431-2019-08-22.
Gibbons, Ann. “New Gene Variants Reveal the Evolution of Human Skin Color.” Science, Oct. 12, 2017. https://www.science.org/content/article/new-gene-variants-reveal-evolution-human-skin-color.
“Native American Populations Descended from Three Key Migrations.” UCL, July 12, 2012.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2012/jul/native-american-populations-descend-three-key-migrations
Pauls, Elizabeth Prine. “Tribal Nomenclature: American Indian, Native American, and First Nation,” Jan. 17, 2008. In Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tribal-Nomenclature-American-Indian-Native-American-and-First-Nation-1386025
Rice University. “’Mitochondrial Eve’: Mother of All Humans Lived 200,000 Years Ago.”
ScienceDaily, Aug. 17, 2010.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817122405.htm
Sowell, Thomas. “Anti-Slavery Movement Born in Morality.” Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 5, 2005.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2005-02-11-0502100961-story.html
“Thomas Sowell on Slavery and This Fact—There Are More Slaves Today Than Were Seized from Africa in Four Centuries.”
American Enterprise Institute, October 17, 2017.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/thomas-sowell-on-slavery-and-this-fact-there-are-more-slaves-today-than-were-seized-from-africa-in-four-centuries/
Zeller, B. “How Many Died in the American Civil War?” Jan. 6, 2022.
https://www.history.com/news/american-civil-war-deaths
