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1619 project is an excellent piece of work by @nhannahjones but I really wish it was clear that this project is about US slavery, not American slavery. (A THREAD 1/6 )
America is not only the US. It is a continent. So if we are talking about when the first enslaved Africans arrived in this continent this date is OVER 100 yrs off (2/6)
The first slave ships arrived in the American continent in 1501 in La Hispaniola (currently Haiti & DR). (3/6)
This is not only about semantics. The reason why I think it's important to make that distinction is that if continue to refer to this date as the beginning of slavery in America we are erasing the millions of Africans that arrived on the shores of Latin America. (4/6)
We will continue to feed this narrative that enslaved Africans and their descendants only exist in the anglo colonies. (5/6)
We might even be erasing the fact that the very reason why US colonists brought slaves to the US colonies is precisely because the Spanish had already done so in Latin America and Spanish Florida, and were far more profitable at that point (cuz you know free labor). (6/6)
