Slavery as an institution has plagued humanity since before recorded history and in one form or another is still with us today. The Sumerians, Egyptians, Assyrians and Hittites, along with every culture that followed them for the next 3,000 years, were slave holders. The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Mongols, Chinese, and Vikings likewise made slavery part and parcel of their everyday life. As a practice it knew no geographic boundaries and was commonplace among the Indigenous tribes of both North and South America. Even as late as 1866 the Tlingit tribes of Southeast Alaska sued the Federal Government to keep their traditional slavery laws intact following the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
The social justice warriors of today seek not equality nor human rights, but rather the destruction of history and are more reminiscent to me of Mao’s Red Guard than any other organization in recent memory. Not a single person reading this letter has to look too far back in their family tree to realize that their ancestors were either slaves or slave owners. Renaming parks, schools or even ferries won’t change those facts, but it does go a long way towards rewriting everything that has come before us. As humans we learn from our past mistakes and hopefully because of that we make a better tomorrow for all of humanity. There is a dire warning in the famous words of George Santayana who once said “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”
Mike Armour