Thread by @dianabutlerbass

Some history on the "indentured servants" comment by .@RalphNortham. (Know that I live in VA & asked for an apology & resignation immediately following recent revelations.)

It appears that Northam - or an advisor - is reading one the great classics of African-American history:

"Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America" by Lerone Bennett, Jr. First published in 1962 (my copy is the 5th revised edition, 1987) Penguin.

Bennett, who died last year, was a scholar, author, and social historian, a graduate of Morehouse College, who worked at several magazines, eventually becoming the executive editor of Ebony. He also served as a visiting prof of history at Northwestern.

Here's are pp. 34-35 of "Before the Mayflower" -- please note the highlighted section (and do read the whole -- it is a really good book):

And here's the history timeline from the back of that same book:

I don't know what more recent scholarship makes of this evidence. But this important book, one widely read for two generations, argues that the first Africans in Virginia seemed to have legal status as "indentured servants."

It also appears that Anthony Johnson, who may have been one of the first group of 20 Africans at Jamestown, worked off the indenture in 1651 and received a land grant of 250 acres in Northampton County, VA. (Bennett, 37-38).

And Bennett states that by 1660, "socioeconomic forces . . . tilted the structure in the direction of black slavery." (p.44)

There are alternate interpretations of this story and the early data (historians are always revising work). But what Northam said isn't stupid. There are authoritative works in the field (most are older books) that do support the comment he made.

I'm not defending these particular historical claims -- just pointing out that this book, widely influential as it was (my copy is from a course at Duke in African-American church history in 1989) may well be the source of the comments, interpretation.

And it is good to remember that historical claims can and do conflict -- as they exist within tangled structures of social location and political cultures and more recently discovered data.

And if you don't know about Lerone Bennett, you should! Add him to your #BlackHistoryMonth list! Here's his NYT obit: nytimes.com/2018/02/16/obi…