Florida is at it Again

Florida is at it again. They published new African American History standards which included teaching that "slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” 

Obviously people jumped all over that. I sort of scratched my head and thought well imagine what they could have learned if they were free?

However, Florida's African American History Standard's Workgroup put out a response defending the claim. In it they included 16 names of blacks who, as slaves, had learned skills that they used to benefit themselves in later life.

I decided to check those names because, hey, Google is my friend.

Ned Cobb - Cobb was born in 1885 so he was never a slave.

Henry Blair - Blair was born in Maryland in 1807 but there is no record of him ever being a slave.

Lewis Latimer - Latimer was born in Massachusetts. He was the son of escaped slaves but he himself was apparently never a slave.

John Henry - Henry is an American folk hero who may, or may not, have actually existed. According to historian Scott Reynolds Nelson, the actual John Henry was born in New Jersey in 1848 so, again, if that's true he was never a slave.

James Forten - Forten was born in Philadelphia in 1766 and was never a slave.

Paul Cuffe - Cuffe was born in Massachusetts in 1759. He was the son of an emancipated slave but was himself never a slave.

Betty Washington Lewis - The only Betty Washington Lewis I can find is George Washington's sister so I don't know. 

Jupiter Hammon - Hammon was a slave in New York. He was allowed a rudimentary education and was the first black man in North American to be published. He was also an Anglican preacher that preached against the evils of slavery. Many of his poems were about slavery as well. He passed away in 1806. He appears to have remained a slave his entire life.

John Chavis - Chavis was born in North Carolina in 1763 and was an educator and Presbyterian minister. He fought in the Continental Army during the revolution but was never a slave.

William Whipper - Whipper was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania. He was the son of his enslaved mother and her white owner. He supported the Underground Railroad but does not appear to have ever been a slave.

Crispus Attucks - Attucks was born in 1723 in Massachusetts and was killed during the Boston Massacre in 1770. He had been a sailor and was either a freeman or an escaped slave. At least one report identified him as a Nantucket Indian so who knows?

Elizabeth Keckley - Keckley was born into slavery into Virginia. She learned to be a seamstress while enslaved and eventually earned enough money to buy her freedom in 1855. She opened a business in Washington DC and became the dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln in 1861. 

James Thomas - There are way too many people named James Thomas so I'm not sure who this was.

Marietta Carter - I could not find any reference to a Marietta Carter.

Betsey Stockton - Stockton was born into slavery in Princeton, New Jersey in 1798. She became a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton in 1817 and may have been freed the same year. She was commissioned as a missionary and sailed for Hawaii in 1822. She returned in 1835 and taught at a school for Native Americans in Canada and a school for blacks in Princeton. I'm going to say that she learned most of what she learned after she was freed.

Booker T. Washington - Washington was born in slavery in Virginia in 1856. He was nine when he gained his freedom under the Emancipation Proclamation when Union Troops occupied the area where he lived.

So, of the sixteen names presented to defend the Florida Workgroup's claim, eight appear to have never been slaves. Hell, one wasn't born until 1885. 

Two, Washington and Stockton, appear to have been freed before they learned any useful skills. 

One, Attucks, learned his sailing skill either after he escaped slavery or was never a slave. He might not even have been black.

Three I just couldn't find any information on in my Google searches.

That leaves two, Keckley and Hammon that learned useful skills as a slave. So, if you include the three that I couldn't locate assuming that the Workgroup had better sources than I did, that would be five out of sixteen.

That's pretty pathetic.