Slavery and its Aftermath

(Presidents who Owned Slaves)

Richard Hollerman

The more we have examined the evidence, the more dismayed we have been with the slave-holding practices of people, of those who lived in the United States, and especially with the presidents of this country. We know that slavery has been known worldwide and only recently was discontinued, but the century-old practice went on for nearly 6,000 years!

We are aware that Arabians (or Muslims) were the ones who captured and then sold Africans as slaves to slave ships heading to the “new world” and that many of them died being transported. Of the millions who did come, only five percent came to North America. We also know that after Christopher Columbus discovered the West Indies (thinking that this was the East Indies islands), that more and more slaves arrived.

First, most of them were from Portugal and Spain (remember that Columbus was from Italy, but he sailed from Spain in search of a water route). Then in the seventeenth century (perhaps a hundred years later), many of them came from England, and then Scotland, France, Netherlands, and elsewhere. The first settlement in America was in Virginia (Jamestown) and shortly we also have people coming to Massachusetts (the so-called Pilgrims). The former were Anglicans and the latter were “non-conformists” in nature (Anglicans).

So in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we find not only the North American continent (the Colonies) populated, but others also, by enslaved people, mostly from Africa. The Spanish and French (in Florida, in Mexico, in California, and the later in the mid-section (and Quebec) would have been the French. The Spanish and Portuguese and others, of course, populated the Caribbean islands and South America, and this 95% would have been mainly slave-countries, until independence was declared in the 19th century.

But now we must return to the Colonies and then the United States (formed in 1776). What about the presidents of this new republic? What about the North and the South during this period? Our research gives us the following:

As we consider the various presidents of the United States, we are made to wonder and we are chagrinned. We discover the following facts:

George Washington—250 to 600 slaves

Thomas Jefferson—200 to 600

James Madison—100

James Monroe—100

Andrew Jackson—200

Martin Van Buren—2 or 9

William Henry Harrison—11

John Tyler—29

James K. Polk 56

Zachary Taylor—300

Andrew Johnson—9

Ulysses S. Grant—1

We need to acknowledge this as part of our research. We know that God does forbid a person pursuing and owning slaves (1 Timothy 1:10) and it also says that we are to do to others what we would like them to do for us or to us (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31). Can one own another human being and practice this?

(We realize that there are various opinions regarding slavery. In fact, books have been written on this subject (we’ve seen some of these advertised). So we will not indulge into this subject at this time.)

Is this something that they would do (enslave another person)? Is it something that we would want to have done to us? How are we to understand the so-called “Golden Rule?”

(See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_who_enslaved_human_beings.)

Yes, it would seem that “blacks” (as they have come to be called) are somewhat to blame, for Arabs or Muslims did enslave them and sold them to slave-traders. Although 95% did go to South America and the Caribbean, and worked with the sugar cane there) we know that this would mean that 5% came to the North American area. So in the 1600s and 1700s (especially), we find that the Northern Colonies had a proliferation of slaves—almost all from Africa. We must conclude that:

  • We do find that Arabs are to blame
  • And we find that Muslims are to blame
  • We know that “slave traders” were guilty of heinous crimes
  • We realize that these men were greedy beyond measure and were willing to “trade their soul” for riches
  • The nations that produced this and promulgated this were wrong.
  • But we also find that North American whites are also to blame. Why? They were willing to buy and sell these people like chattel. Even though most did not “own” slaves, we know that they allowed the slave trade to continue for two hundred years!

At the time of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, this was reversed and slavery was no more. Until this occasion, some whites (from the North and South) owned slaves, particularly from the African nations of Ghana and from other areas in Western Africa. Although the average farmer in the south didn’t own slaves, we know that many plantation owners did.

Sadly, this was part of the American experience of the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries. Yes, we do need to acknowledge that these people who became slaves were “rescued” from bondage and escaped their Arabian and Muslim traders. Yes, they were torn from their blindness, their paganism, and their benighted experience. Yes, they entered a new world with new possibilities. But they were torn from their rightful children, from their families, from their homes, and from their nations. And, yes, they did have the opportunity to return to Africa (and Haiti) but generally refused to go. But still they became slaves!

We must acknowledge this and go on. With shamefacedness, we must admit that people in our past (especially “leaders” or presidents) did wrong and history confirms this. Let us go on from here and do right at all times and in all circumstances. Only in this way, can we go on with the Lord’s blessing.