“All Men Are Created Equal” Says the Men that Enslaved other Human Beings

Photo: Smithsonian Mag

It is no secret that many of the Founding Fathers were slaveowners. They are revered for their revolutionary texts and actions declaring independence and creating the new United States of America. The famous phrase, “all men are created equal” is from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, a man that enslaved Black men, women, and children.

It is said that the Founding Fathers agreed that slavery was neither ethical nor right but they did nothing to stop it. They were creating a brand new country and had all of the power to end slavery and free any enslaved people, yet they did not. The wrote the arbitrary “all men are created equal” while owning slaves themselves. They by no means meant all men. What they meant was white, wealthy, land owners. Black men, Black women, white women, middle class and poor white men were are excluded from this “all” that Jefferson wrote about.

In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson even condemned the British slave trade and criticized them for participating in the slave trade. This part was eventually removed. It is interested to see how adamant he was about condemning the slave trade while enslaving people himself.

It is estimated that between 34-41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners. This means that around 34 people signed a document that declared all men equal while exploiting slave labor in their own homes, therefore denying equality to those people.

The following are just some of the influential Founding Fathers that exploited slave labor and denied human rights to Black people.

George Washington

· Washington enslaved over 300 Black men, women, and children on his Mount Vernon estate at one time. He was pro-slavery most of his life and did not truly begin to question it until later in his life. He publicly avoided the issue for the most part.

· Washington wrote in his will that the people he enslaved were granted freedom, but only after his wife died. This only accounted for around half of the enslaved people at his estate as the other half were owned by the Curtis estate.

· Over the course of his life, roughly 577 enslaved people worked at his estate. 317 were working there when he died.

· The enslaved people working there had to cater to every single wish and command of Washington and his family and had very little, if any, time to take care of themselves. They also had to grow their own food and make their own clothes.

Thomas Jefferson

· Unlike Washington, Jefferson did not free his slaves even after death.

· Jefferson kept an enslaved woman as his mistress. Her name was Sally Hemings. He would rape and beat her often and even had at least six children with her. His children with her were then slaves as well.

· Jefferson made his disapproval of slavery public yet continued to enslave hundreds.

· Jefferson enslaved over 600 people throughout his lifetime and only ever freed 7 of them, mainly the children he had with Sally Hemings.

Benjamin Franklin

· Even Ben Franklin owned slaves during his life. It is estimated that he had enslaved between 2-6 people but later in his life, he began to question the morality of slavery and he became an Abolitionist.

· He proposed the teaching and education of Black people to allow them to become functioning members of society after being freed.

James Madison

· James Madison was born into money and his family owned a plantation with slaves.

· Madison had over 100 enslaved people on his estate in his life

· He did not free his slaves after his death

· He is also the creator of the 3/5th Compromise which counted enslaved people as only 3/5th of a person

Some of the other Founding Fathers that enslaved human beings

· John Jay

· Patrick Henry

· John Hancock

· Charles Carroll

· Samuel Chase

· Button Gwinnett

· Richard Henry Lee

· Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

· Benjamin Rush

· Edward Rutledge

It is clear that the Founding Fathers portrayed the idea of condemning slavery, but very few of them had the courage to do anything about it. This “all men” bullshit means absolutely nothing. The same people that cling to the Constitution and DoI today, are the ones screaming “All Lives Matter” in protest to Black Lives Matter. Clearly, many Americans today do not understand the meaning of “all”.

Black people are denied these basic freedoms laid out in these key American documents because these documents were never written for them in the first place. The Founding Fathers knew exactly who they meant when they said “all men”, and Black men were never supposed to be included.

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