At least, that is what a current Texas high school history book calls slavery. In a chapter on immigration patterns in the US, African-Americans were included as an immigrant group:
McGraw-Hill, the book’s publisher, says they won’t do anything about it until the next edition is printed in five to ten years.
it’s true
so true
Aside from refering to the slaves as “workers from Africa”, I see nothing wrong with the quote. They BECAME involuntary workers upon reaching the Americas; it’s unclear what they did in Africa before becoming enslaved.
It was in context as immigrant groups and their patterns of movement. Referring to slaves as immigrants is the main problem, but characterizing them as agricultural workers is also offensive.
I agree. Some of them did house work.
Well, if you want comments on the context, cite the context.
It’s hard for me to get too worked up about this, given that the sentence in contention starts with, “The Atlantic slave trade…” The fact that the workers being brought over were slaves is pretty strongly implied, and was probably only worded that way because having “slave” twice in the same sentence would sound awkward and redundant.
I thought I did:
Well, it’s certainly not voluntary immigration, which is what is usually discussed as "immigration. But I don’t see why it’s out of place in a chapter about “how we got here.” Implying that these were some sort of migrant workers would be offensive, but I think most people, even in Texas, know the basic information about American slavery. So, I would have probably emphasized the capture, enslavement, and transit horrors, but maybe that’s covered elsewhere.
Obviously this is another attempt to whitewash the Peculiar Institution, but it is technically correct within a *very *narrow context.
[historical corner]In the first stages of settlement, black slaves brought over from Africa were treated like indentured servants were - which is to say treated like absolute crap but only on a temporary basis, earning their freedom as they went. It’s only in the late 17th that the British colonies revised their slavery policy to make it hereditary, permanent, yadda yadda.
At which point if freed slaves/indentured servants hadn’t scarpered from the South yet they were promptly captured right back, natch. Hell, even slaves granted manumission past that point had better make themselves scarce from the South, as they were always one eager slave catcher and a working lighter away from the cotton fields.[/hc]
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Aside from refering to the slaves as “workers from Africa”, I see nothing wrong with the quote. They BECAME involuntary workers upon reaching the Americas; it’s unclear what they did in Africa before becoming enslaved.
[/QUOTE]
The vast majority became slaves *before *leaving the shores of Africa, akshully. The various European powers in Africa weren’t numerous enough to get into any kind of scrap, nor were they much interested in delving further into regions rife with disease and dangerous critters.
They subcontracted the slave procuring to various coastal kingdoms, who in turn launched expeditions further inland.
Omg they only used the word slave once ro ro ro
It’s awkward, not incorrect. They could have included it was forced labor and they’re not paid to do it somewhere on the page though.
I’d need more context than the NBC news story contains before I’d be able to raise any of my remaining dudgeon. (I’m old, cut me some slack.)
Even knowing Texas’ ignoble past regarding whitewashed history and science-aversion, I don’t see a problem with discussing the slave trade in the context of immigration history. A very large part of human migration has been forced movement of large populations due to war or coercion. The effects and consequences of those movements are felt at the originating and receiving locations (and along the land routes used, if any) long after the impetuses for the movement no longer exist.
McGraw-Hill’s response seems appropriate. Publishers don’t typically do reprints for minor corrections, such as changes to the phrasing of graphic captions. They do revisions along some sort of schedule, and they issue addenda. This correction doesn’t add information not already included in other lessons in the program -which is on world geography btw, and not American history- so the immediate change to the digital material and the scheduled inclusion in the next revision would be more than adequate responses if the concern is about the accuracy and integrity of the program.
Unfortunately, this is being perceived by a lot of the respondents to the Facebook posts as some sort of attempt by the publisher to gloss over or minimize the fact of slavery. Maybe that’s a learned response based on half-assed attempts to do just that by some state legislatures, but it’s still a knee-jerk response that has nothing to do with the academic requirements for the subject (which are not in the control of the publisher in any case), or with the relative importance of the caption to the particular lesson it’s used in or to the overall arc of the program.
I have facebook blocked and am too lazy to unblock it to see the post. Does the book say something like the title of this thread African-Americans immigrated here as agricultural workers? Or is it just the sentence quoted in the OP?
If it’s the former, that’s messed up, but if it’s the latter, I can’t see any way to read it and not realize they were slaves. Maybe it could have been written better, and definitely fix it in the next revision, but everyone should know the slave trade didn’t bring workers here for high paying gigs.
They still have “workers” and “work,” which also is a bit cringe-worthy.
My phrasing was inelegant. I should have said “if you wanted comments on the context, quote the context.”
In isolation, the quoted sentence in the OP doesn’t strike me as particularly notable, let alone Pittable. I would have written the phrase “workers from Africa” as “persons from Africa” or, most simply, “Africans”. As far as I know, the major impetus for the slave trade was to get labour for agriculture, so I don’t see any problem there.
And as Freudian points out, having “workers” and “work” in one sentence is grating, but at least “slave” was right in there, so I’m not seeing any - heh - whitewashing in play.
The controversy is over the specific caption to a map included in a geography text.
Here’s the first paragraph of the publisher’s response:
There is no contradiction here. They were taken as slaves in Africa, transported to the Americas, and there made to work.
Of course.
What a joke. In a program that already contains several passages on African slavery, in a paragraph that begins “In the Atlantic slave trade…,” people are upset because the word *workers *is used? Is the state of education in the United States so impoverished that students won’t recognize the evils of slavery unless it’s shouted in their faces on every single occasion?