And this was before CRT took hold of the public schools by the throat, and before the New York Times’ “1619 Project” spread the lie that the colonists were fighting for slavery above all else in the Revolutionary War. (Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!) You know if that ridiculous misconception was rampant ten years ago, it must be even worse now.
The fact that this is even possible is depressing. If our education system and the culture can’t even inform our students that much, what hope is there? This is near Easter season: they show “The Ten Commandments” on ABC every year. Hello? Building the pyramids? Moses? “Exodus”? I knew that slavery was a long-time, world-wide, human practice by the time I was seven! How is it possible for today’s college grads to miss that little detail?
More from that 2016 College Fix article:
“They cannot tell you many historical facts or relate anything meaningful about historical biographies, but they are, however, stridently vocal about the corrupt nature of the Republic, about the wickedness of the founding fathers, and about the evils of free markets,” Pesta said…We must absolutely teach those areas where Western culture has fallen short, but always with the recognition that such criticism is possible because of the freedoms and advantages offered by Western culture.”
Well, ten years have passed and if anything that goal is more elusive than ever, and half the country furiously supports the people, ideology and party responsible for bringing us to this point.
Where’s that wood-chipper? Oh! There’s Steve Buscemi’s foot! I’m coming Steve! I’m coming!
Ethics Alarms 
This is near Easter season: they show “The Ten Commandments” on ABC every year. Hello? Building the pyramids? Moses? “Exodus”?
Jack, just curious…Do you think Moses/the Israelites built the pyramids?
Not that I don’t understand and agree with your point, but I find it a bit ironic to use false history to prove false history.
I am mixed here. It is a common myth that slaves were used to build the pyramids; perhaps pervasive enough to just ever so possibly suggest slavery existed elsewhere, thousands of years before Europeans knew of North America?
Its also commonly taught that slaves often escaped to Canada, but I guess less common to teach that is because Canada abolished slavery in the 1830’s (along with its then British overlords).
Interestingly, Mexico also abolished slavery in the 1830’s, but we don’t commonly hear about slaves escaping south. Maybe it was because fugitives slaves hit the relative comfort of the free states along the way, unlike traveling through the deepest of the Deep South to get to Mexico?
The point, of course, was that Americans – colonists or citizens of the United States – were not the first to practice slavery. Whether the Hebrew slaves of the Egyptians were the ones to build the pyramids or not, the fact remains that there were slaves centuries before white Europeans set foot in the New World.
I think Jack’s just saying slavery was a pretty prominent feature in Ancient Egypt and the rest of Africa and the Middle East, all of which were treated in those movies.
My point is that the movie, based (loosely) on the Old Testament, which was written long before the colonies were established, referred to slavery and depicted it in a foreign context. Whether in fact Hebrew slaves built the pyramids (which pre-dated the alleged presence of the Jews in Egypt by hundreds of years, so that’s unlikely) I do find the absolute certitude that slaves were not involved in building the many Egyptian monuments bizarre. So they were Egyptian slaves, or maybe not. The point is that there are mountains of evidence, historical, legendary and literate, that refer to slavery being common long before America entered the discussion. Yes, I should have been more precise: would it have been better if I pointed out that “Ben-Hur” depicts galley-slaves and “Spartacus” shows gladiators, who were Roman fighting slaves? Greek mythology includes enslaved characters. One shouldn’t need school to provide awareness of certain realities. Popular culture is educational as well.A student who thinks the US invested slavery is illiterate as well as ignorant.
There were almost certainly slaves in Egypt, as in pretty much all of the rest of the world through most of human history. It’s quite possible that some were employed in constructing he pyramids, but that could be said of just about any endeavor where their masters might have chosen to use them, from household servants to various trades.
The current thought, backed by continuing archaeological finds, seems to support the idea that the pyramids were mainly built by skilled craftsmen, and well-treated common Egyptians during the agricultural “off season” of Nile flooding.
I think the pyramids pre-date the Israelite time in Egypt.
If the Jews were slaves in Egypt 400 years, and if Jericho was destroyed around 1400 BC (using Garstang’s archeological results, which have stood up well under scrutiny over the last century), that puts the beginning of the Jewish time in Egypt in the 1900-1800BC range.
That’s half a millenium after the estimated time of construction for the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
I just happened to be reading about this last Saturday, so while it’s not “top of mind”, it’s been swirling around in the cranial soup.
Why is this a surprise? The Democratic Party and their Education Departments have been teaching this since at least the 1980’s. The Democratic Party has hated the United States and everything it stands for. They claim ‘we have a right to criticize our government’, but they never have anything good to say about our country. These are not good people and they never have been.
The only countries who ever decided, all by themselves, that slavery was morally wrong spoke English.
Just leave this here….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAAuG2pH8
If you find such a country that didn’t speak English, let me know. I am keeping a list.
So far, the list of countries that decided that slavery was morally wrong and sought to end it without being pressured by other powers is:
England
The United States
I know others abolished slavery, but many of them didn’t have slaves or the slavery they were abolishing was their own citizens being captured and enslaved. I am looking at slaveholding societies that woke up and decided to free all their slaves because slavery itself was morally wrong. Not a revolution that took the slaves from the upper class for political purposes or countries that claimed to ban slavery, but continued to practice it for some groups but not others. Mexico banned slavery in 1810 and 1813 and 1829 and 1830 and 1854 and I can’t tell when they really decided that slavery was gone. Turkey abolished slavery in 1830 and 1847 and 1854 and 1857 and 1880 and 1882 and 1889 and 1908 and 1924 and I think that a large number of people in Turkey today are OK morally with slavery since it is almost demanded in Islam. The Japanese outlawed slavery early in the 1800’s, but practiced it in the 20th century without moral qualms. It is really hard to find reliable sources because I keep seeing ones that claim that slavery was legal in Mississippi until 1995.
When the 1690 project was everywhere. I spent a rainy afternoon digging around about slavery. I found that the U.S. imported approximately 13% of the total number of slaves traded in the Atlantic slave trade. From Wikipedia:’ Approximately 45% of all enslaved people were transported to Brazil, with another 37% going to the British, French, Dutch, and Danish Caribbeans.’
To determine the severity of slavery conditions in various regions and to construct an overview of the Atlantic slave trade, the replacement rate (by purchase)was used as a metric by anthropologists. In places where slaves were fed and sheltered they were able to reproduce. The last slave purchase in the U.S. was in 1840 as slaves were reproducing, the replacement rate was brought to zero. In contrast, in the Carribbean, the replacement rate was a horrifying 75%, and only slightly better in Brazil. They were literally worked to death. All slavery is of course wrong, but I don’t quite see how the U.S. became the bogeyman of the Transatlantic slave trade. The rest of the history regarding the African traders’ and Great Britain’s roles, and the extent to which it existed in the Americas is ignored.
I’d like to see the mortality rates for the African slaves who remained in Africa compared to the mortality rates for slaves on American plantations. I think it’s quite likely that such individuals were better off having been brought to the US than if they had stayed in Africa. Again, not a justification for the slave trade, but still useful perspective, if “not as evil” is considered a virtue.
White Europeans and Americans certainly didn’t invent slavery. Not just Egyptians, Mayans savagely enslaved weaker tribes and worked them to death. People have been cruel and gawdawful forever.