Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus: What Your History Books Got Wrong (22 page)

these expenditures became part of his hallowed patrimony, giving history yet another reason to remember him kindly,

Other views are possible, however. In 1829, three years after Jefferson's death, David Walker, a black Bostonian, warned members of his race that they should remember Jefferson as their greatest enemy. “Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us have sunk deep into the hearts of millions of whites, and never will be removed this side of eternity.” For the next hundred years, the open white supremacy of the Democratic Party, Jefferson's political legacy to the nation, would bear out the truth of Walker's warning.

Textbooks are in good company: the Jefferson Memorial, too, whitewashes its subject. On its marble walls a carved panel proclaims Jefferson's \ boast, “I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the , mind of men,” without ever mentioning his participation in racial slavery. Per. haps asking a marble memorial to tell the truth is demanding too much. Should history textbooks similarly be a shrine, however? Should they encourage nuI dents to worship Jefferson? Or should they help students understand him, I wrestle with the problems he wrestled with, grasp his accomplishments, and I also acknowledge his failures?

The idealistic spark in our Revolution, which caused Patrick Henry suchI verbal discomfort, at first made the United States a proponent of democracy around the world. However, slavery and its concomitant ideas, which legitiJ mated hierarchy and dominance, sapped our Revolutionary idealism. Most ttttM books never hint at this clash of ideas, let alone at its impact on our fordgfl policy.

After the Revolution, many Americans expected our example woulfl inspire other peoples. It did. Our young nation got its first chance to help in thfll 1790s, when Haiti revolted against France, Whether a president owned slavJ seems to have determined his policy toward the second independent nationiflj the hemisphere. George Washington did, so his administration loaned hundred! of thousands of dollars to the French planters in Haiti to help them suppreB their slaves. John Adams did not, and his administration gave considerable SUM port to the Haitians. Jefferson's presidency marked a general retreat fromtbM idealism of the Revolution. Like other slaveowners, Jefferson preferred fll Napoleonic colony to a black republic in the Caribbean. In 1801 he reversed U.S. policy toward Haiti and secretly gave France the go-ahead to reconquer tn island. In so doing, the United States not only betrayed its heritage, but also acted against its own self-interest. For if France had indeed been able lo retakd Haiti, Napoleon would have maintained his dream of an American empire. !

United States would have been hemmed in by France to its west, Britain to its north, and Spain to its south. But planters in the United States were scared by the Haitian Revolution. They thought it might inspire slave revolts here (which it did). When Haiti won despite our flip-flop, the United States would not even extend it diplomatic recognition, lest its ambassador inflame our slaves “by exhibiting in his own person an example of successful revolt,” in the words of a Geotgia senator.46 Five of the twelve textbooks mention how Haitian resistance led France to sell us its claim to Louisiana, but none tells ofour flip-flop. Indeed, no textbook ever makes any connection between slavery and US, foreign policy.

Racial slavery also affected our policy toward the next countries in the Americas to revolt, Spain's colonies. Haiti's example inspired them to seek independence, and the Haitian government gave Simon Bolivar direct aid. Our statesmen were ambivalent, eager to help boot a European power out of the hemisphete but worried by the racially mixed rebels doing the booting. Some planters warned our government to replace Spain as the colonial power, especially in Cuba. Jefferson suggested annexing Cuba. Fifty years later, diplomats in the Franklin Pierce administration signed the Ostend Manifesto, which proposed thai the United States buy or take the island from Spain. Slaveowners, still obsessed with Haiti as a role model, thus hoped to prevent Cuba's becoming a second Haiti, with “flames [that might] extend to our own neighboring shores,”

in the words of the Manifesto.47 In short, slavery prompted the United States to have imperialist designs on Latin America rather than visions of democratic liberation fot ihe region.

Slavery affected our foreign policy in still other ways. The first requirement of a slave society is secure borders. We do not like to think of the United Slates as a police state, a nation like East Germany that people had to escape from, but the slaveholding states were just that. Indeed, after the Dred Scott decision in 1857, which declared “A Negro had no rights a white man was bound to respect,” thousands of free African Americans realized they could not be safe even in Northern states and fled to Canada, Mexico, and Haiti.48 Slaveholders dominated our foreign policy until the Civil War. They were always concerned about our Indian borders and made sure that treaties with Native nations stipued thai Indians surrender all African Americans and return any runaways.4 S. territorial expansion between 1787 and IS55 was due in large part avers' influence. The largest pressure group behind the War of IS12 was iveholdets who coveted Indian and Spanish land and wanted to drive Indian S farther away from the slaveholding states to prevent slave escapes. Even ugh Spain was our ally during that war, in the aftermath we took Florida from Spain because slaveholders demanded we do so. Indeed, Andrew Jackson attacked a Seminole fort in Florida in 1816 precisely because it harbored hundreds of runaway slaves, thus initiating the First Seminole War.'

The Seminoles did not exist as a tribe or nation before the arrival of Europeans and Africans. They were a triracial isolate composed of Creek Indians, remnants of smaller tribes, runaway slaves, and whites who preferred to live in Indian society. The word Seminolt is itself a corruption of the Spanish cinmrrou (corrupted to maroons on Jamaica), a word that came to mean “runaway slaves.”51 The Seminoles' refusal to surrender their African American members led to the First and Second Seminole Wars (1816-18, 1835-42). Whites attacked not because they wanted the Everglades, which had no economic value to the United States in the nineteenth century, but to eliminate a refuge for runaway slaves. The Second Seminole War was the longest and costliest war the United States ever fought against Indians," The college textbook America: P&i and Prtsent tells why we fought it, putting the war in the context of slave revolts:

The most sustained and successful effort of slaves to win their freedom by force of arms took place in Florida between 1835 and 1842 when hundreds of black fugitives fought in the Second Seminole War alongside the Indians who had given them a haven. The Seminoles were resisting removal to Oklahoma, but for the blacks who took part, the war was a struggle for their own freedom, and the treaty that ended it allowed most of them to accompany their Indian allies to the transMississippi West,

This is apparently too radical for high school: only six of the twelve textbook even mention the war. Of these, only four say that ex-slaves fought witih the Seminoles; not one tells that the ex-slaves were the real reason for the war.

Slavery was also perhaps the key factor in the Texas War (1835-36). Thl freedom for which Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and the rest fought at die Alamo was the freedom to own slaves! As soon as Anglos set up the Republic of Texas, its legislature ordered all free black people out of the Republic. The next major war, the Mexican War (1846-48), was again driven chiefly by Southern planters wanting to push the borders of the nearest free land farthsfl from the slave states. Probably the clearest index of how slavery affected USI foreign policy is provided by the Civil War, foe between 1861 and 1865 we had two foreign policies, the Union's and the Confederacy's, The Union lecog-j nized Haiti and shared considerable ideological compatibility with postrcvoluformal black suit, usually rumpled and always too short for his long arms and legs. Douglas was what we would call a flashy dresser. He wore shirts with rufiles, fancy embroidered vests, a broad fell hat. He had a rapid-fire way of speaking thai contrasted with Lincoln's slow, deliberate style Lincoln's voice was high pitched, Douglas's deep. Both had to have powerful lungs to make themselves heard over street noises and the bustle ofthe crowds. They had no public address systems to help them.

The author of The American Way concentrates in a similar fashion appearances and voices:

One member of the audience, Gustave Koerner, reported how each of the candidates looked and what effect each had on his audience:

“Douglas was fighting for his political life. No greater contrast could be imagined than the one between Lincoln and Douglas. The latter was really a little giant physically . . . while Lincoln, when standing erect, towered to six feet four inches, Lincoln, awkward in D posture and leaning a little forward, stood calm . . . He addressed his hearers in a somewhat familiar yet very earnest way with a clear, distinct, and far-reaching voice, generally well controlled, but sometimes expressive of sadness, though at times he could assume a most humorous and even comical look.. ,.” [ellipses in the textbook]

So we learn that Douglas was a flashy dresser and spoke powerfullybut' are his ideas? What did he say?

Although Way quotes nine sentences of this bystander's description, twelve textbooks combined give us just three sentence fragments from Doug himself. Here is every word of his they provide:

“forever divided into free and slave states, as our fathers made it,” “thinks the Negro is his brother,” and “for a day or an hour.”

Just twenty-four words in twelve booksl While celebrating the “Little Gia his ”powerful speech“ or ”splendid oratory,“ nine textbooks silence him pletely. Instead, the omnipresent authorial voice supplies his side of the ”Douglas was for popular sovereignty." This summary from Lift and Libi shorter than most but otherwise representative. Of course, phrased this abstractly, who would oppose popular sovereignty?

Douglas's position was not so vague, however. The debate was largely about the morality of racially based slavery and the position African Americans should eventually hold in our society. That is why Paul Angle chose the title Created Equal? for his centennial edition of the debates.58 On July 9, 1858, in Chicago, Douglas made his position dear, as he did repeatedly throughout that summer:

In my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men. ..,

I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the Negro man or the Indian as the equal of the while man, I am opposed to giving him a voice in [he administration of the government. I would extend to the Negro, and the Indian, and to all dependent races every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety and welfare of the white races; but equality they never should have, either political or social, or in any other respect whatever.

My friends, you see that the issues are distinctly drawn.

Texibook readers cannot see that the issues are distinctly drawn, however, muse textbooks give them no access to Douglas's side. American History is the only texlbook that quotes Stephen Douglas on race: “Lincoln 'thinks the Negro is his brother,' the Little Giant sneered.” Why do textbooks censor Douglas? Since they devote paragraphs to his wardrobe, it cannot befor lack of space. To be sure, textbook authors rarely te anyone. But more particularly, the heroification process seems to be operiling again, Douglas's words might make us think badly of him. Compared to Douglas, Lincoln was an idealistic equalitarian, but in llithern Illinois, arguing with Douglas, he too expressed white supremacist ideas. us at the debate in Charleston he said, “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of ringing about the social and political equality of the white and black races |applause|that I ant not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors groes,” Textbook authors protect us from a racist Lincoln. By so doing, they lish students' capacity to recognize racism as a force in American life. For if ttln could be racist, then so might the res! ofus be. And ifLincoln could trand racism, as he did on occasion, then so might the rest ofus.

During the Civil War, Northern Democrats countered the Republican charge that they favored rebellion by professing to be the “white man's party,” I They protested the government's emancipation of slaves in the District ofI Columbia and its diplomatic recognition of Haiti. They claimed Republicans had “nothing except 'nigger on the brain.'” They were enraged when the U.S.I army accepted African American recruits. And they made race a paramount! factor in their campaigns.

In those days before television, parties held coordinated rallies. On theI last Saturday before the election, Democratic senators might address crowds in each major city; local officeholders would hold forth in smaller towns. Each ofl these rallies featured music. Hundreds of thousands of songbooks were printed so the party faithful might sing the same songs coast to coast. A favorite of 1864 was sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy”:

THE NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM “NIGGER DOODLE DANDY”

Yankee Doodle is no more, Sunk his name and station; Nigger Doodle takes bis place,

And favors amalgamation.

CHORUS: Nigger Doodle's all thego, Ebony shins and bandy,

“Loyal”people all must bow To Nigger Doodle dandy.

The white breed is under par ft lacks the rich a-romy,

Give us something black as tar, Give us “Old Dahomey.”