The Monument
by John Lawrence, July 8, 2020
Perhaps replacing a statue of George Washington with a statue of Crispus Attucks, who was a black man and the first casualty of the Revolutionary War, would be an appropriate recognition of American history. Crispus Attucks (c.1723 – March 5, 1770) was an American stevedore of African and Native American descent, widely regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre and thus the first American killed in the American Revolution. The Boston Massacre was a confrontation on March 5, 1770 in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. Attucks was born in Framingham, Massachusetts. Town histories of Framingham written in 1847 and 1887 describe him as a slave of Deacon William Brown, though it is unclear whether Brown was his original owner. In 1750 Brown advertised for the return of a runaway slave named Crispas.
My own American history on one side of my family goes back to about 1650 when Harman Hendricks Rosenkrans arrived from Bergen, Norway. A couple generations later Col. John B Rosenkrans was able to acquire a 1000 acre plantation in the Walpack area of Sussex County, NJ, on which he had African American and Indian slaves. He fought in the French and American War and later in the Revolutionary War. There is a monument to him in Sussex County which consists of a big boulder on which is a metal plaque near the Old Mine Road. I have never been able to find it, but, if anyone wants to topple it because Rosenkrans was a slaveholder, it would be pretty hard to do. Rosenkrans' life is well documented and his role in American history is as well. The New Jersey Society of the Sons of the American Revolution would probably be upset if it were to be toppled, however.
My American ancestors have probably been in this country for 10 generations. That means that I have about 1000 direct American ancestors of whom only one was a slave holder to my knowledge. At least he was an equal opportunity slave holder keeping Native Americans and African Americans as well. I don't even know who most of my American ancestors even are. I must have thousands of cousins, all but a handful, I know nothing of. My Grandmother, Alice Clark, born Alice Rosenkrans, was in the direct line of Col. Rosenkrans so I would be too. So would be my Grandchildren who are of African American as well as European American descent. So the American situation is very complicated. The plot thickens.
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the nation's third President, is a case in point. He had six children with his wife, Martha, but only two survived to adulthood. Martha Jefferson died a few months after giving birth in 1782, and Jefferson's daughters, and later his grandchildren, became the focus of his domestic life supposedly. Jefferson also fathered six children with his slave Sally Hemings.
According to Wikipedia:
Jefferson became a widower at age 39 in 1782. He never remarried and died in 1826. Sally Hemings was his much younger slave and a likely half-sister of his wife. She accompanied his daughter Maria to France, where they are believed to have started a sexual relationship, and returned with him to Monticello. Most historians now believe that Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings that lasted nearly four decades, until his death, and that Jefferson fathered her six children.
Four of Hemings' children survived to adulthood. In the antebellum period, hers would have been called a "shadow family". Sally Hemings was also the child of a shadow family. Historians believe her father to be John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law, who as a widower had a 12-year liaison with his mulatto slave Betty Hemings and fathered six children with her. These children had three-quarters European, one-quarter African ancestry, and were, half-siblings to Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. Sally Hemings is the youngest child of this shadow family. Issac Jefferson described Sally as "mighty near white ... very handsome, long straight hair down her back."
Of the four Hemings children who survived to adulthood: William Beverley, Harriet, Madison and Eston Hemings—all but Madison Hemings eventually identified as white and lived as adults in white communities. Under the Virginia law of partus sequitur ventrem, because Sally Hemings was a slave, her children were also born enslaved. But the children were seven-eighths European, one-eighth African by ancestry. If free, they would have been considered legally white in Virginia of the time.
Oh what tangled webs we weave. Thankfully, the issue of slavery has finally been settled. DNA analysis proved that Jefferson had six children with Sally Hemings who was half black or, evidently much less than half. Jefferson probably has more descendants who have African American blood than those that don't. The same probably holds true for many other slaveholders. So America is a composite of many races and combinations of races.
Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." At the time of this writing it was more wishful thinking than anything else. Jefferson goes on: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Jefferson said it best - whenever government is destructive of the ends of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, it is the Right of the People to alter it or abolish it and replace it with a government that is more conducive to their Safety and Happiness. Is the present American government conducive to the most Happiness for most of the people? I doubt it. The French Revolution enshrined "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite". As Americans we've left out entirely "Fraternite" or the notion that "we're all in this together." Instead we've enshrined the notion "every person for themself." Egalite also has been given a very twisted definition. Perhaps we should go back to the original writings of the French philosophes who inspired both revolutions.
