Slavery - The Shaming of the American Idea

Of all the sins of our forefathers, slavery, even more than the ethnic cleansing of Indian cultures is the greatest stain upon the American idea. No discussion of the theme of slavery can consider slavery devoid of the morality of the decisions that brought it about, maintained it and finally brought it to an end.

Madison, Jefferson and Washington were all slave holders, though each of them were individually troubled, even tortured, by the hypocrisy of their positions.

Stanford University Panel:
Jefferson and Madison and the problem of Slavery in an Empire of Liberty
(April 7, 2009) Jack Rakove, Caroline Winterer, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss the politics surrounding American slavery during the 18th century in the first of a series of four lectures on the American Revolutionary era sponsored by Stanford University. Listen

Was slavery a good economic system?
Is the economic strength or lack of economic strength in the South today in any way a reflection of the legacy of slavery?

The Triangular Trade or the Slave Trade?
Some textbooks have engaged in the historic cleansing of the realities of the slave trade. In this description of regional differences in the colonies taken from Jerome Reich's textbook on Colonial History , the author uses the term "The Triangular Trade" to replace the term "Slave Trade." Triangular Trade during this period was not at all an unusual phenomenon. It occurred to some extent in all trading simply because, ships needed to be full in both directions in order to maximize profits and it was unusual to have a set of needs that formed the mirror image of one another where a shipping route between two points satisfied all the needs of the region. The norm instead was that good from one place were traded for goods in another place which were then sold or traded to a third location, meeting the needs of all three (or more) locations. Therefore, there was no single Triangular trade in the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s, there we literally thousands of them. Yet somehow the slave trade - which took on the form of this classical trade pattern - has been deemed by certain textbook publishers and authors at THE Triangular Trade. Critics condemn the use of the term as a whitewashing of the slave trade, a denial of the inhumanity of a system of trade that involved the trafficking of human beings as a part of the commerce.

The Terrible Transformation: The Narrative of Olaudah Equiano
Google Books Version - Difficult to read
LibreVox - Text and Audio - Recommended

Colonial Regions Roots and Reasons

Looking back on the early colonial period one can't help but wonder how three regions so different could eventually come together to form a Union that would reshape the world. Even within the three regions sub-regions developed that had profound effects on the development of the colonies and eventually on the new republic itself.

An Overview of the Regional Development of the Colonies of North America:
If you have not yet read the brief piece from Jerome Reiche's book Colonial America, please read it here.

Three Colonial Regions
Northern Region:
New England
The Founding of the Plymouth Colony - From Conceived in Liberty
The Puritans Purify Theocracy in Massachusetts
The Thanksgiving myth - obviously not an objective piece but accurate nonetheless.
The Massachusetts Bay Company/Colony
The Puritans
The Salem Witch Trials - Wikipedia

The ideals of the Puritans eventually began to form the core of a theocratic rule where the church controlled more and more the direction of governance within the colony. This reality led to the formation of groups that bucked the religious establishment. Tow leaders within this system were Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Both eventually were formally banned and both went on to form countervailing forces within the colonies. Leading toward the days of the Awakening when the forces of individual spirituality would come to predominate the more traditional (puritanical) theocracy imposed by the Puritan religious leaders.

Anne Hutchinson is Banished from the Colony
Wikipedia Biography
US History Biography

Roger Williams is Banished and founds Rhode Island
Biography
Wikipedia Bio
Family Biography and Association

Resources:
Chronicles of the First Plymouth Colony - Google Books
Mourts Relation - Plymouth Plantation - Google Books

Middle Region
New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey
The Middle Colonies Overview - Cerritos College, CA
William Penn and the Middle Colonies
Penn - The MLK of the Colonial World

Southern Regions
Virginia, Georgia, The Carolinas
The Virginia Company

From Company to Royal Colony

The Social Structures of Virginia
Part 1
Part 2

Bacon's Rebellion
A precoursor to Revolution or an act of insurrection and oppression?


Timeslines:
Horizontal Timeline - quite useful
Scarborough HS
The Avalon Project - Yale University has collected important documents by chronology

The Vanishing - The Disapearance of Roanoke Colony

One of the lasting mysteries of the colonial period, what happened to the colony of Roanoke, believed to be the second "permanent" settlement of Europeans in the New World.

The Lost Colony of Roanoke - American History Mysteries

The Birth, Death and Rebirth of the American Banking System

A Philosophical Clash with Economic Ramifications
Hamilton vs Jefferson and Madison and the Bank of The United States

Following the Revolution there existed no formal banking system in the young Republic. In the last decade of the eighteenth century the United States had just three banks and more than fifty different currencies in circulation: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese coinage, local money issued by states, cities, and businesses. White the national currencies were more stable than the local ones and more broadly traded, overall the currency values were very unstable creating a climate where currency speculators were thriving on that uncertainty.

Supporters of a national bank argued that if the nation were to grow and to prosper, it needed a universally accepted standard coinage and this would best be provided by a United States Mint, aided and supported by a national bank and an excise tax. Detractors were suspicious of such a venture being controlled by the government, particularly the Federal Government.


In 1791, the original Bank of the United States, sometimes referred to as "The First Bank of the United States", was proposed and brought into being under the support of the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

Along with establishing a mint and an excise tax, the purpose of Hamilton's proposed bank was to:

• Establish financial order, clarity and precedence in and of the newly formed United States.
• Establish credit—both in country and overseas—for the new nation.
• To resolve the issue of the fiat currency, issued by the Continental Congress immediately prior to and during the United States Revolutionary War—the "Continental".

The Bank of the United States(Wikipedia)
Alexander Hamilton on the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States

For a look at the areas of general agreement between Madison and Hamilton as well as some indications about where there were emerging differences it is useful to read Federalist #9 (written by Hamilton) and Federalist #10 (written by Madison).

The History of Central Banking in the United States (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_central_banking_in_the_United_States

A more comprehensive look at the history of centralized banking can be found in Edward Flaherty's web-based analysis of this process beginning with the formation of the first central bank and extending up to the first act creating the Federal Reserve in 1913.
Click here

Federal Reserve - History of Banking

The Debate
Opinions Against the Bank - based on Constitutionality: Jefferson
Hamilton's Opinion For the Bank on Constitutional issues

Early American Documents

AMDOCS Website a collection of some early American documents. Click here

Does Free Speech Have Limits?

Philosopher Tim Scanlon discusses the questions that surround the right of Free Speech.
Click here

Niccolo Machievelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527)

Niccolo Machievelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) - whose very name is synonymous with diabolical intent. Is in fact one of the most influential forces in political thought of the millennium.

Machiavelli was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and a playwright, but foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. In June of 1498, after the ouster and execution of Girolamo Savonarola, the Great Council elected Machiavelli as Secretary to the second Chancery of the Republic of Florence.

A Renaissance Man, Machiavelli is most famous for a short political treatise, The Prince, written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after his death.

Synopsis of "The Prince"

Listen to the Prince

Wikipedia Biography

A lecture series by Yale Professor Steven Smith
New Modes and Orders
New Modes and Orders 2

Lectures by Charles Anderson, Univeristy of Wisconsin - Madison

Rejecting the Medieval Synthesis Overview of Renaissance & Civic Humanism, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and the Rise of Nationalism 50:30 Professor Charles W. Anderson

Machiavelli, The Prince 44:05 Professor Charles W. Anderson Political, Economic and Social Thought

Anderson on Machiavelli Part 2

Niccolo Machievelli - Partially Examined - Optional
If you become fascinated enough with NM, this optional podcast examines his ideas in both historical context as well as in relation to the modern world of Stalin and George W. Bush.