“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Continental Congress – July 4, 1776
Last week in the first installment of “By The Numbers – Founding Fathers,” we talked about how the presidents who assisted in writing the Constitution and were active in the Revolutionary War, lived up to the decree that all men are created equal and that they are endowed, by their Creator… blah, blah, blah. We measured their compliance by using a numerical grading system in which 10 is the highest score, while 1 is the lowest:
10 – You can sit next to the table and watch while we play a couple of hands of bid whisk.
9 – You are able to use the word “Bro” in front of us.”
8 – You can bring something to the barbecue and we’ll put it on the table with the other food.
7 – We will wave at you if we see you on the street.
6 – We won’t side-eye or sass if you bring a watermelon to our family dinner.
5 – You can leave with a little bit of your dignity after saying “My Nigga.”
4 – If we hear you calling for help, we will call the police after we have charged our phone.
3 – We will count to three before we let the dogs out if you come to our house.
2 – We won’t pee on your statue during daylight hours.
1 – Faque Off!!
So to put it bluntly they didn’t do that well. As a matter of fact, most of them would have had to go to the E.R. for stitches and rabies shots, while George would have to put an “Out Of Order” sign on his statutes. Only John Quincy Adams was able to pass the mustard… I mean pass the muster.
Now the time period covered in our article was from 1776 to 1829, which marked the end of the Adams administration. The next forty years of the American presidency will test men as they have never been tested before. In the balance, the lives of four million enslaved African Americans and a looming war that will see two percent of the population, or six hundred and fifty thousand killed on the altar of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Andrew Jackson – 1
Elected 1829 – 1837
Faque Off!!
I really hate to start off with such negativity, but Andrew Jackson’s official portrait should have been of him wearing a white hood covered in blood while beating an Indian with a baseball bat. This man was a menace to society on every level imaginable. So Jackson was one of those rags-to-riches stories. He worked hard and bought a slave, worked a little harder and bought another one. Before it was all said and done, Jackson enslaved over 160 people. He used their labor to build his fortune. They built his home, worked his cotton fields, and made him a leader in Southern society. The only thing he loved more than slavery was himself. Now it’s a matter of “public record”, that he beat his enslaved folks. There is one account of him brutely beating a black woman in public because as the records indicate, “She was putting on airs…” Jackson: “I SAW YOU SMILING!!, YOU THINK YOU ARE HAPPIER THAN ME!! IMA WHIP IT!!” Okay, it probably didn’t go down like that, but I bet it’s not far from the truth. Another thing is if you tried to escape and Jackson caught you… he would put you in chains! You might say, well you tried to escape so he put you in chains… that’s how it was in those days. How about if I told you he would put you in chains for the rest of your life… okay? In 1804 they had an advertisement Jackson put out for a 30 year old runaway slave named Tom. Now Tom must have really, really, pissed off Jackson, because in the advertisement Jackson offered an extra $10 for every 100 lashes given to Tom when they caught him. By the way, that $10 is worth $230 in today’s money! There is another story about a slave named Charles. Charles had been with Jackson since his days in the military, which we know was at least 14 years. Charles went with Jackson to the white house to be his carriage driver and messenger. Meanwhile, Charles’s enslaved family stayed on the plantation. Every once and a while he would see them when Jackson would send personal correspondence to his family, although sometimes it would be years in between. Charles’s wife was named Charlotte and they had three kids. Because of the very little amount of time, they could spend together, due to Charles staying with Jackson in Washington DC,… well things got a little strained between them. According to Jackson, Charlotte asked to be sold and Charles agreed to it. It was noted in a letter Jackson had sent to Mr. Robert Chester, indicating he would sell Charolette and her three children for eight hundred dollars. Now the sale never happened. History has the family listed as property as late as 1850. But it just goes to show you what type of diabolical person Jackson really was. The family was still there in 1850 only because Chester didn’t buy them. They didn’t find the letter in Chester’s estate.. they found it in Jackson’s estate!! He never sent it for who knows what reason… still it’s hard to believe he would sell the family of a loyal enslave person without him knowing it and maybe not finding out about it for years. Anywho, after becoming president, he opposed policies that would have outlawed slavery in the western territories. Western territories, meaning places like Texas and California among others. Just as an aside for you Civil War buffs, there were several battles fought between Union and Confederate soldiers in California. I always thought that Texas was as far as the racist went… but nope, they tried to take that stuff from sea to shining sea. Anywho, back to Herr Jackson. This president is also reviled as the perpetrator of the death march called the “Trail Of Tears.” Under a law called the Indian Removal Act, Jackson forced Native Americans off their lands so white settlers could claim them as their own. Tens of thousands died during forced removals like the Trail of Tears. He signed over 70 Indian removal acts during his presidency.
So I wish I had more time to throw Andrew under the bus… again and again…, but we have to move on. Andrew Jackson has made his grave, so let him lie in it.
Andrew Jackson: I just want to say… I’m sorry for everything I did while I was alive and want to beg all of you for forgiveness…
Us: Andrew… look at us… Look at us all the way into the windows of our soul… and shut the (cuss word) up. Shut all the way the (cuss word) up… until you reach the top of shut (cuss word) mountain where there are no more (cuss word) to shut!! (Quote from the movie “Shut (Cuss word) Mountain”) Mature language warning.
Martin Van Buren – 3
Elected 1837 – 1841
We will count to three before we let the dogs out if you come to our house.
Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York, in 1782. At that time slavery was legal in New York and the Buren family had them. The 1780 census showed that there were 628 slaves in Kinderhook at that time. Most of the people there had one or two slaves, while the more wealthy citizens had six or more. The Buren’s had six. Now in 1799, a law was passed in New York that would end slavery within a generation. It stipulated that any children born to enslaved mothers after July 4 of that year would be freed no later than July 4, 1827. Boys born after that 1799 date were enslaved until the age of 28, while girls remained in bondage until the age of 25. Anybody born before 1799, would be free by 1817. Now while this may sound progressive, the average life span for an enslaved person in the United States in the 1700s was 35 years. Men weren’t free until they were 28 yrs and women weren’t free until they were 25 yrs, you do the math. Those unlucky enough to be born before 1799, and wouldn’t be freed until 1817, might as well sleep in a coffin. Through the years Buren rose through the political ranks first in New York and then in Washington as Secretary of State. Buren arrived in Washington DC to take the post of Secretary of State in 1829. He bought three of his four sons with him. Now because he was a Cabinet member, he was expected to host parties for dignitaries, politicians, donors and what have you. With the presence of his three sons and the chance that he would have to entertain a house full of guests at a moment’s notice, he needed someone to take care of the household. Enter four women slaves, all under thirty something with big hips… okay I don’t know if they had big hips, but didn’t they have butlers back in those days? Yeah, I said it… Now, two of the enslaved women stayed at his home along with a white household keeper. The other two enslaved women were hired out and didn’t stay there. So the reason I brought all of this up about him moving down there and taking that job, was that he employed slaves, although slavery had been outlawed in New York for over ten years!! He was the (cuss word) governor of New York when slavery was abolished! Bark!! Bark!! Bark!! Buren would go on to be president, but since we don’t have much more time and have to move on, in a nutshell, Buren did not think that the president or Congress had the authority to free the slaves in the District of Columbia or any place else and if they did free them it would cause the break-up of the United States:
“The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, against the wishes of the slave-holding States (assuming Congress has the power to effect it) would violate the spirit of that compromise of interests which lies at the basis of our social compact; and I am thoroughly convinced, that it could not be so done, without imminent peril, if not certain destruction, to the Union of the States.”
The destruction of the US if we free the slaves in DC.. give me a break!!
Enslavia: Massa there is a man at the door with a big dog…
Buren: What?… let him in…
Willian Henry Harrison – 4
Elected 1841 – 1841
If we hear you calling for help, we will call the police after we have charged our phone.
Harrison was the son of a Virginia plantation owner. That should answer the question as to whether he had any slaves. He had eleven. Harrison rose up through the political ranks after serving in the U.S. Army. He was stationed in the Indiana territory and achieved the rank of Ensign. Yeah, I know that Ensign is a rank usually associated with the Navy but it was crazy back in those days. Anywho he spent most of his life out there. Around 1795 he got married to Anna Symmes and they had 10 children… because what else are you going to do way out in the boondocks surrounded by half-naked men with small hatchets bent on giving you a new hairline. Anyway, so Harrison really got on the national map after serving as aide-de-camp to General “Mad Anthony” Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Whenever they use the word “Mad” when referring to a General, that means he gonna win no matter how many people he has to send in there to fight to the death.
General Mad Dog: “Sargent, I want you and your platoon of 30 men to attack that Indian village!!”
Sargent: Sir you want me and my 30 men to attack Chief “Scalp Every Last One Of Them” and his 500 muscular and hostile naked warriors carrying hatchets and spears!
General Mad Dog: That’s right soldier! They don’t call me Mad Dog for nothing!!
So yeah, Harrison gained his fame with Mad Anthony. The battle of Fallen Timber opened up most of Ohio to white settlement. In 1801 he help introduce legislation to divide the Ohio territory. It was divided into Indiana and Ohio. Harrison became the governor of the Indiana Territory in 1801. In 1812 Harrison accrued more laurels as a Brigadier General in the War of 1812. At the Battle of the Thames, north of Lake Erie, on October 5, 1813, he defeated the combined British and Native American forces. Now I don’t know how many of you have heard of the name Tecumseh, but he was like castor oil to the white folks settling in that area. When they heard his name, they started running… Anyway, he was a great Native American Chief, who had gotten all the tribes together to stop the expansion of white settlers into the Northwest. Well, he was killed in the Battle of The Thames and the resistance to white settlement in the territories died with him. So I gave you this back story because it has a bearing on slavery. As a slave owner, he opposed the idea of Congress restricting slavery in new territories. When his political career took off, he avoided condemning slavery and instead professed the belief that the states themselves should decide if they wanted slavery or not. Harrison took the oath of office in March of 1841. A little more than a month after taking the oath, he died from a severe illness on April 4, 1841. He was the first president to die in office and his term is the shortest in American history.
Enslavia: Hello, is this 911?
Operator: Yes, How can I help you?
Enslavia: I want to report this woman beating up this old white guy carrying a Confederate flag
Operator: OMG!! Where are you!!!
Enslavia: I’m at the Wally’s Brown Bag Liquor Store on Indahood Avenue…
Operator : I’m sending someone right over!! You stay put!!
Police: Did you call 911!! Where is he!!
Enslavia: Oh he’s in the hospital…
Police: What!!!??
Enslavia: Well the lady asked me where I was at… I’m charging my phone…
John Tyler – 6
Elected 1841 – 1845
We won’t side-eye or sass if you bring a watermelon to our family dinner.
John Tyler was born in Virginia as were seven other presidents. Actually, the first five presidents were born in Virginia. Virginia was also the state that implemented the Virginia Slave Code of 1705. This was the blueprint for all successive laws enacted by the states to restrict black folks’ rights. One of the most fiendish elements of the 1705 law was it gave the right to give out punishment for any behavior deemed “insolent” or “disobedient.” In other words, they could beat the cuss word out of you for back sass…
Massa: Leroy… run down to the creek and get me some cold water afore I die of heat exhaustion… you don’t want your old Massa to die of heat exhaustion do you boy? Leroy?? I know you hear me…!!
Leroy: Does it look like I got Aquafina tattooed on my forehead…?
Massa: Now Ima whip it… Whack!!, Whack!!, Whack!!, Beat!! Beat!!, Beat!!
Anywho, I’m bringing this up because Tyler like all of the preceding presidents had slaves who worked on their plantations. Well, all except for John Quincy Adams. He didn’t have slaves, but his father, John Adams did. His father was the 2nd President of the United States. So giving a President a score of 6 during the Pre Civil War years is saying something. So John came from a wealthy family. His old man was a representative in the Virginia House of Delegates, governor of Virginia, and after retiring as governor became a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Virginia. His father owned 26 slaves as the records show in 1810. The average price for a slave back then was around $500. or around $12,000 in today’s money. Bossman had 26 and that means he had at least $ 300,000 tied up in slavery in today’s money. We are going to get back to Tyler in a moment, but this stuff was so interesting. The highest price recorded at a slave auction was for a family of 5. The bid was $6180.00 at the “Great Slave Auction” at Ten Broeck Race Course, in Savannah, Georgia on March 2, 1859. That’s equivalent to $190,000 in today’s money. I know that dude is mad because almost a year to the day after the sale, the Civil War began. Four years after that every black folk in the continental United States would be free. You thought you were going to sit up there with your two hundred thousand dollar nigras and talk shat about that’s what you do. Well, surprise! I just hope he wasn’t feeling some kind of way watching all that money laughing and joking when they walked off to freedom… if they walked off. That kinda money will make somebody go from zero to faque dat in under ten seconds… Anywho, let’s get back to Tyler. So I gave Tyler a 6 because of some incidents that happened at the white house while he was president. A couple of the slaves who worked there were accused of stealing two pieces of silverware. They were bought to trial and charged with “stealing silver table and teaspoons which were the property of the United States .” One of the men was Tyler’s personal valet. Now stealing back in those days was usually punished by a beating and or sending you to a plantation in the Deep South where the racists walked on four legs and eat their young. As a matter of fact that’s where the saying “Your’e going down the river,” comes from. They would put you on a boat and it would take you down the Mississippi River where you would be sold to Massa Whipalot Ovazz. Anywho Tyler didn’t believe the people accusing his slaves of stealing and there never was a prosecution. It not only happened once but twice during his presidency. Both times he rescued the accused. Both instances involved black folks who worked at the white house and who he had known for years. You see the racist were mad because Tyler up to that point was the only president to have had a black head butler. Being the head butler at the white house was a big deal. It was the head butler who greeted all the dignitaries and top government officials that came to the white house. He also oversaw the staff. The racist wasn’t feeling that. When they came to visit the president and the black butler said, “Sir please be seated in here while I tell the President you have arrived…,” they heard… “Get in there till I come back you disgusting varmint, and don’t steal nothing!! I’m the (cuss word) boss now!!” So yeah, the racist were hating and would say and do anything to undermine the black staff. Tyler knew and acted accordingly.
Police: Miss, I’m going to have to arrest you for calling in a false report!
Enslavia: Oh you gonna arrest me cause I was calling 911 while being black…
Police: No, Im gonna arrest you because you were the woman who attacked the old man!
Enslavia: Well he asked me to do it…
Police: Oh he asked you to hit him over the head with a fifth of Wild Irish Rose… huh?
Enslavia: Well he demanded to know why there was so much crime with the blacks and why was all of us nothing but a bunch of freeloading parasites…
Police: So that’s when you hit him?
Enslavia: No… I asked him what would it take for him to leave from in front of my house… He said the only way he was going to leave was in the back of an ambulance…
Police: Get in the car…
James Polk – 1
Elected 1845 – 1849
Faque Off!!
So some of you may think that my critique of our presidents may be skewed by bias and prejudice and that I am being unduly harsh in my judgments…
“James K. Polk maintained a different public position on slavery during his presidency (1845-1849) than he expressed privately. In addition to using enslaved labor at the White House, Polk secretly purchased enslaved people and separated children aged ten through seventeen from their families while in office. President Polk projected the persona of a benevolent and paternalistic slave owner who kept enslaved people because they were inherited from family members. In actuality, Polk was a profit-hungry slave owner rat fink, ripping apart families for his own personal gain.” – The White House Historical Association.
Okay, I put the word “rat fink” in there.. but still, you get the jest of the sentiment. Polk was born in Pineville, North Carolina, to Samuel and Jane Polk. Samuel was a judge, slave owner, and businessman. In 1806 he moved his family to Tennessee and lived there for the rest of his slave owning life. After his death in 1827, he left behind an 8000 acre plantation and 53 slaves to his wife and their 10 children. So it’s a fair statement to say that James Polk had been brought up with slavery and that on his tenth birthday, his father planted an oak tree and gave him a rope and a bull whip with the word “Naga” written on the handle. In the following years, James Polk would have a successful political career and would serve in the Tennesse House of Representatives and do a term as governor. So a while back we talked about Andrew Jackson and his infamous Trail Of Tears and how he forced Native Americans from their lands. Well, the Choctaw Nation had been forced off their land in Mississippi and as a result, speculators rushed to acquire the vacant lands. Polk was one of the speculators. He sold his Tennessee plantation and in a letter to his wife, revealed the true side of his “Massaness.” He told her that he was going to make money one way or another and had sent his man to buy land in Mississippi and have his overseer Beanland run the place. He also recounted the problem he had with runaways at his Tennessee plantation and told his wife that moving further south to Mississippi would make escape more difficult. Now we talked about being ” sent down the river,” too a little while ago, and what that meant to enslaved black folks. Clementine: “Massa said he gonna send you down the river and they gonna cut you in half so you can do twice as much work..” So yeah, it wasn’t something black folks aspired to. Anywho, Polk told his wife not to say anything around the house because he didn’t want his enslave people to know they were moving to Mississippi. History says that once in a while ole Massa Polk would have pity on them poor Nagas. On one occasion he fired an overseer after he beat an enslaved man and shot another with birdshot, but by and by he continued to hire cruel overseers and his problem with runaways continued despite the benevolent persona he tried to portray. So while Polk was governor, he made a salary of $2000 a year. When he became president it went up to $25,000 a year. I’ll bet you a shiny new dime if you can tell me what he did with that extra income. He bought more 19 more slaves… and he shipped them to work on his plantation in Mississippi. Now residing in Washington DC and with its attitude toward slavery, Polk endeavored to keep his purchase of slaves a secret. I mean the cuss word Constitution was in the same cuss word building… ” all men are created equal. You were pledged to uphold it! Anyway, that was not the only reason Polk wanted to keep his slave purchases secret. Out of the 19 slaves he purchased while he was president, at least 13 were children! At the end of his term and before he lost that money, he purchased more children to work on his plantation in Mississippi. He purchased them because they would live longer and bear children that he could enslave also that… cuss word! Besides the slaves he bought to work on his plantation, he also bought slaves to work in the white house. At least four slaves worked in the white for Polk. One of the slaves who worked for him in the white house used to be enslaved under President James Madison. When Madison died, his wife Dolly Madison fell under hard times and hired him out to Polk. It didn’t last long and she later sold him to an insurance salesman. After Polk left office, he returned to Tennessee, where had bought a plantation for retirement. However, four months after leaving office James Polk died of cancer of the ass… okay no he didn’t, he died of cholera in June of 1849. He was 53 years old. Sarah Polk continued to run their Mississippi plantation and even hosted Union soldiers throughout the war. During the war at least 10 enslaved people escaped and, another 7 joined the Union army to fight against the Confederacy and slave owners like President James K. Polk.
Police: Empty your pockets and put everything on the table…
Enslavia: I don’t keep nothing in my pockets… I keep it right here…
Police: OMG!! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!!
Enslavia: Well do you want it or not?
Sargent: WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE!!
Enslavia: He wanted me to take out my goodies and get on the table…
Police: I DID NOT!! SARGE SHE IS LYING!!
Sargent: You… go to my office…!! and you get in there… and PULL THEM BACK UP!! You will be seeing the judge in a couple of days…
Well, that’s all for now. The next installment of “By The Numbers – Civil War” will take us through Secession, War, and Freedom. Follow Enslavia and I, as we turn the pages of history in “By The Numbers.”
Thanks for reading ©Hill1News
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