slavery

British Empire Exposed As Leading The African Slave Trade

Lawrence , , , , ,

July 18, 2026

My long time friend and colleague Ed Spannaus, has recently authored, Busting the Myth of the “Abolitionist” British Monarchy. A fascinating historical essay on the history of the British Empire’s involvement in the slave trade, excerpted below. I would add, that my research on this topic indicates that the British continued to deport Africans into the second half of the nineteenth century. In other words, continued the slave trade while preaching “abolition” of slavery.

Excerpts follow:

Whenever my late wife Nancy would give a talk on her 2023 book Defeating Slavery, someone in the audience would invariably ask a question such as: “Well, weren’t the British ahead of the United States in abolishing slavery?” or “Weren’t the British more progressive than us when it came to opposing slavery?”

Those type of questions were, unwittingly, the product of a carefully cultivated image – especially by promoters and publicists of the Royal Family — that the Monarchy and the British in general were almost mere bystanders in the slave trade, abolitionists at heart, who got rid of that horrid institution as soon as they could possibly do so.

This myth of the benign, passive British monarchy is blown to pieces by a new book, The Crown’s Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas, written by Dr. Brooke Newman, a Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, and also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London.[i]

The liner notes for the book’s cover set the stage very succinctly:

For centuries, Britain has told itself and the world that it is an abolitionist nation, one that, unlike the United States, rejected human bondage and dismantled its Atlantic slave empire without tearing itself apart in violence.  An abolitionist nation headed by a just, humane monarch who liberated enslaved Africans and recognized their descendants as free and equal subjects of the British Crown. As Prince Willam put it recently, “We’re very much not a racist family.”

This is the myth that Dr. Newman dismantles, receipt by receipt, royal charter by royal charter. While then-Prince Charles claimed in 2023 to have opened the Royal Archives to make slavery records more accessible, Newman points out that this did not involve any new release of records.  The record of the Crown’s sponsorship and investment in the slave trade is not to be found in one set of archives, but is widely dispersed, fragmented, and deliberately designed to obscure the truth by “commodifying” enslaved human beings.

Ellizabeth I: The Beginnings

Newman takes this sordid story back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the mid-16th century, when British traders attempted to break into the Spanish and Portuguese near monopoly of the slave trade. In 1563, John Hawkins, a Plymouth-based merchant-adventurer, had kidnapped Africans from Portuguese slaving ships, and taken them across the Atlantic to be sold in the Spanish Caribbean. When Hawkins returned to England with his ships’ holds bursting with gold, jewelry, sugar, and other commodities, cash-strapped Elizabeth immediately understood the potential, and eagerly provided one of her largest warships in return for a share of the profits of his next slaving venture.  His second trip was wildly successful, with Elizabeth and other investors reaping an estimated 60% return on their investment.  As Newman puts it, Queen Elizabeth thus secured her legacy as the first English monarch – but certainly not the last – to profit directly from the transatlantic slave trade.

The Stuarts Expand the Slave Trade

The next significant expansion of transatlantic trade, and with it, the slave trade, is under the Stuarts. The English established a series of plantation colonies in the Caribbean in the early 17th century, and the planters, facing a shortage of indentured servants, quickly realized that enslaved Africans could be the solution to their labor shortage.

King James I, who had granted a monopoly to the Guinea Company is 1618, died in 1625, leaving a substantial Crown indebtedness to his successor, Charles I.  Charles tried to handle this debt with revenue from Virginia tobacco and other crops which were raised in the Caribbean. Despite complaints from traders and merchants, Charles granted a 31-year monopoly to the Guinea Company in 1631.  The first English colony to engage in the widespread use of slave labor was, ironically, the Puritan-founded colony of Providence off the coast of Nicaragua.

Cromwell’s “Western Design”

The Commonwealth period did not represent any pulling-back from England’s imperial aspirations. On the contrary, Oliver Cromwell played a critical role in the expanded use of England’s naval power to undergird an enlarged slave-labor empire in the Americas; this was known as Cromwell’s “Western Design” to challenge Spain’s colonial empire. The royal-chartered Guinea Company was re-oriented toward the slave trade from its previous concentration on gold and precious commodities.  One of the Commonwealth’s “crowning” achievements was bringing Jamaica under English control.  Jamaica’s eventual success in sugar production, along with the rise of Barbados, says Dr. Newman, “transformed the English Crown’s Atlantic Empire into a slave empire.”

The Stuart Restoration Invests in the Slave Trade

When Charles II succeeded to the throne in 1660 in the Stuart Restoration, he inherited enormous Crown debts accumulated by his late father, Charles I, and he embraced the imperial expansionism undertaken by Cromwell and the Commonwealth.  Newman says the Restoration marked a decisive, aggressive shift into the monarchy’s direct financial and institutional investment into the slave trade and slave labor.

The restored King almost immediately granted exclusive trading rights on the West African coast to the aptly named Company of Royal Adventurers, a joint-stock company whose investors included a virtual “Who’s Who” of the Royal Family and its courtiers. Although the company’s charter was silent on the subject, secret instructions to the company from the King’s brother James (the Duke of York, and the Lord High Admiral) included trafficking in enslaved Africans; the slaves were to be sold to Spanish and Portuguese planters in Africa or Europe. But the slave trafficking quickly became trans-Atlantic, with the Royal Adventurers transporting large numbers of slaves to Jamaica and Barbados.

When the Royal Adventurers company was rechartered in 1663, its charter was explicit in giving the company exclusive rights – a royal monopoly — over the “buying and selling bartering and exchanging of for and with any Negro Slaves Goods wares and Merchandize whatsoever.”  The monopoly was to be enforced by the Royal Navy.  Half of the proceeds of any seizures – including slaves – was to go to the King, and the other half to the company’s subscribers or shareholders. James was appointed Governor of the Company.

The Company provided enslaved Africans to both English colonies in the Caribbean, and, by contract, 3000 Africans a year to the Spanish colonies.

Figure 1: The seal of “The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa” featured the coat of arms of the Duke of York, an elephant, and two Africans naked from the waist up. The Latin inscription is the company’s motto, Regio floret patrocinio commercium, commercioque Regnum, meaning “By royal patronage trade flourishes, by trade the realm.”

The Royal African Company Takes over the Slave Trade

In 1671, the Company of Royal Adventurers was reorganized, and the next year it was chartered as the Royal African Company (RAC).  The RAC was granted exclusive control of all trade in African commodities (including “Negro Slaves”) for the modest term of one thousand years. The RAC was given state-like powers and privileges, including the power to declare war against any of the “heathen nations” along the African coast, and the power to erect Admiralty courts.

For a time, the Royal African Company dominated the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  In the first decade of its existence, its share of the trade jumped from 33 percent to 74 percent. In fact, during the entire period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to an historian quoted by Dr. Newman, the RAC “shipped more enslaved African women, men, and children to the Americas than any other single institution.”

Seal of the Royal African Company

During the reigns of Charles II and James II (1672 to 1688), the RAC is estimated to have shipped 100,000 slaves to the Americas, the vast majority to the English Caribbean colonies. Approximately 76,000 survived the passage. By the early 1720s, the RAC had transported more than 150,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

The proceeds and profits flowed directly to the Royal Family, especially to James, first as the Duke of York, and then as James II. To emphasize the point, the Duke’s initials, “DY” were branded onto the bodies of hundreds of slaves, including children, who were owned directly by the RAC and held at the company’s headquarters as “Castle Slaves.”…

George I and the South Sea Company

The new Hanoverian King, George I, immediately proved to be an enthusiastic backer of the SSC, including providing naval support, and displayed great optimism for the future of the slave trade to Spanish America. His eldest son George, now the Prince of Wales, requested SSC shares, and became its Governor.  Documents survive to this day which demonstrate the extensive links between George I, George II, and the slave-trading South Sea Company.

Despite their efforts, the SSC fell short of meeting its quota under the asiento. Between 1714 and 1718, the SSC shipped 13,102 enslaved African to Spanish America – of which only 10,521 survived the trans-Atlantic journey. This fell well short of the 19,200 healthy enslaved Africans the SSC was obliged to supply.

Meanwhile, the contraband slave trade flourished, among Jamaican smugglers and others, and this cut into the SSC’s efforts. To attempt to stem this “illegal” trade, SSC directors ordered their agents to brand African men, women, and children with the SSC company mark (see illustration). These royal symbols encouraged people to buy shares, i.e. “invest,” in the South Sea Company.

Figure 3: South Sea Company Mark. Source: The Crown’s Silence, p. 167.

A Bubble Floating on the Slave Trade 

With the King and the Prince of Wales ostentatiously pouring investments into the SSC, the public eagerly snapped up SSC shares, driving up their price.  But in August 1720, share prices began to drop sharply; between August 17 and Sept. 28, SSC shares fell from £1000 to £190, bankrupting many who had borrowed money to buy SSC stock.

In her recent talk at the Library of Virginia, Dr. Newman emphasized that the SSC “was not just a Ponzi scheme, even though that’s typically how we think about it now.”

She reported that the company had transported a total of about 43,000 Africans to the Americas. In her book, she notes the importance of the monarchy-sponsored slave trade in providing revenues used to increase the government’s surplus, and for building up the military capacity undergirding the rise of the British Empire.

George II and the “King’s Negroes”

When the Prince of Wales succeeded to the throne in 1727, he was already deeply immersed in the SSC and the slave trade, and it was a simple matter for him to continue as Governor of the SSC. George II became the first British monarch to directly buy and own slaves, when his Royal Navy began to purchase “seasoned Negroes, boys and men,” to labor in the naval shipyards in Jamaica. These men and boys, and later women and girls, became known as the “King’s Negroes.”

It was during the reign of George II that Britain came to dominate the trans-Atlantic slave trade, surpassing Portugal.

As Dr. Newman puts it, “Britain’s eighteenth-century empire was a slave empire and the Caribbean colonies its linchpin.”  Slave-produced sugar became the most important commodity in Britain’s world trade, and taxes on sugar imports grew into the largest single source of revenue to the Crown.

In the first half of the 18th century alone, British ships took 975,000 captives from African shores, of which 167,000 died during the Atlantic crossing. Most of the survivors landed in the Caribbean slave colonies, primarily Jamaica and Barbados; others were taken to Britain’s North American colonies and sold there.[ii]

French expansion in the Caribbean and North America threatened all this, and the British public favored an aggressive policy toward France, leading to the outbreak of war in 1756 (known as the Seven Years War in Europe, and as the French and Indian War in North America).

The above map, showing the volume and direction of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, can be found on p. 12 of Nancy Spannaus’s Defeating Slavery book, and was reproduced by permission of Yale University Press.

George III: The Empire fractures

In 1760, George III inherited the British slave empire as well as the global war that was launched to defend it.

As a teenaged Prince of Wales, George had expressed reservations about slavery, but as King, he cast whatever compunctions he had aside, and quickly came to regard slavery as a necessary evil.  Newman says he went further, utilizing enslaved people for his benefit. He attempted to consolidate the British territorial gains during the war, by using slave labor to transform these new colonial territories into profitable agricultural colonies using the model of Jamaica.

An example of how aggressively King George III pursued this policy is Cuba. In 1762, Spanish Havana fell to the British. At the end of the war, Cuba was returned to Spain as part of a deal in which Spain ceded all of Spanish Florida east of the Mississippi to Britain.

But meanwhile, in the just ten months during which Britain occupied Cuba, its enslaved population increased by 80 percent!  This was accompanied by a rapid growth of Cuba’s emerging sugar industry, based on slave labor. The legacy, historians have noted, was a lasting one.

Dr. Newman points to something that Nancy Spannaus stressed in her Defeating Slavery book –- that the Crown repeatedly rejected, and vetoed, efforts by Virginia and other colonies to regulate and curtail the slave trade. This was one of the major grievances cited by American patriots during the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence.  And what angered the colonists even more, was that the same monarch who had perpetuated the slave trade was now encouraging those slaves to rise up against the Americans in support of the King – Virginia’s weakened and desperate Governor Dunmore being a prime example of this.

British “Abolition:” Slavery by Another Name

After the Revolutionary War in America, a strong and articulate movement for the abolition of slavery took hold in England, led in part by two former enslaved men. But the monarchy dug in its heels in opposition, with one of the royals, William, the Duke of Clarence, being particularly outspoken in the House of Lords against abolition and in support of enslavers. The sole exception to the Royal Family’s rock-solid unanimity on the subject of slavery and the slave trade was cousin Frederick William, the Duke of Gloucester, who sided with the abolitionists. King George III privately saw his own priority as defending and expanding the British Empire, which he saw as threatened by an end to slavery. In public, he of course stayed above the fray, as required by his position.

In 1807, over Royal opposition, Parliament passed the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.  While prohibiting British ships from carrying out the slave trade as of January 1, 1808, Brooke Newman points out, “this made little impact on the lives of the seven hundred thousand individuals who remained enslaved in the Caribbean.”

The pro-abolition Duke of Gloucester was quickly recruited to the “African Institution,” a group formed by William Wilberforce and other abolitionists to bring “civilization and improvement” to Africa. But this actually meant (in Dr. Newman’s words), “the imposition of British norms and economic ambitions” upon Africa, which the Institution regarded as “sunk in ignorance and barbarism.”  They also held the view that if Africans rejected the Institution’s civilizing mission, this would itself prove the necessity and worthiness of British intervention.

The Africa Institution saw as one of its highest priorities, ensuring the enforcement of the Abolition Act.  What did this mean?

The Abolition Act declared slave ships and their cargo contraband, eligible for capture and seizure.  To reduce its own expenses and to enforce the law, the Crown “incentivized” anti-slave-trade activities, by demanding the conscription of Africans freed from slave ships into indentured servitude, involuntary apprenticeships, or military service. “Liberation” was no such thing.

African men, women, and children who were seized from slave ships by the Royal Navy were, in legal terms, “condemned as prize of war, or as forfeited, to the sole use of his Majesty, his heirs, and successors” — as stated in official Colonial Office documents.

And, to further “incentivize” such practices, British military officers were awarded financial rewards for each man (£40), woman (£30), and child under age 14 (£10), who were captured and handed over to colonial authorities.

In other words, Africans “liberated” from slavery lost any freedom of choice and action, for the rest of their lives. As Dr. Newman puts it, “this was essentially slavery by another name.”

The same practice was enshrined in the 1833 Emancipation Act, to which King William IV gave his assent, after Parliament passed the bill under enormous public pressure.

The Emancipation Act supposedly abolished slavery in the British Empire. But, as with the earlier Abolition Act, the bill simply established a new form of bondage in the Caribbean colonies, in order to preserve the plantation system.   £20 million in compensation was paid to slave owners out of the public treasury – what one might call “reparations for the enslavers” — while “freed” slaves got nothing.  And worse, they were apprenticed to their former enslavers for four to six years; the apprenticeship system meant working up to 45 hours per week without pay.  Infractions by “former” slaves would result in floggings, whipping, and hard labor in workhouses or penal gangs.  They remained destitute and propertyless. (There were obvious parallels to what happened with emancipated blacks in the defeated Confederacy after the U.S. Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction.)

(British taxpayers – not the monarchy – remained on the hook for at least 175 years for the loans that the British government took out to fund the £20 million compensation paid to enslavers. Taxpayers didn’t finish paying off these loans – worth billions in today’s money — until 2015.)…

Read Ed Spannaus’ entire article: Busting the Myth of the “Abolitionist” British Monarchy

Read below my earlier posts on this topic.

Everyone Should Know The Truth About Slavery in America

Slavery rips hearts, souls, and minds out of Africa

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

Remembering Nancy Spannaus, Historian & Advocate for American System of Economics

Lawrence , , , , ,

February 5, 2026

On Saturday, January 31st, 2026, I attended the funeral of a longtime friend and colleague, Nancy Bradeen Spannaus. (See obituary below). The service was filled with hundreds of people who were touched by the life of Nancy. She lived her mortal existence the way all of us should: to do good for the human race. She affected many people from different sectors of society. She left an indelible mark on humanity during her life on earth. In her retirement years, she wrote and published three books, which educated Americans among others, on the better principles that the United States of America was founded on and stood for. She discussed in detail the history of Alexander Hamilton’s American System of Political Economy. She wrote a groundbreaking history of the fight in the United States against slavery, which the vast majority of Americans and non-Americans alike, are completely ignorant of. She also discussed how British subjects, American colonists, became citizens of this Republic after defeating British imperialism.

I knew Nancy for almost fifty-seven years. I first met Nancy and her husband Ed, following my freshman year in college in 1969. She and I had various forms of political collaboration over the succeeding decades. Nancy had a significant impact on my life even though I never discussed it with her until the occasion of her eighty-second birthday in December 2025. Nancy influenced who I am today. She contributed more than anyone else in helping me to become a writer. For that, I will be thankful for the remainder of my life.

Nancy and her husband Ed, Annual Patriots Gala of the Maryland Society, Sons of the American Revolution (Dec 18, 2024)

Over the long period of time that I knew Nancy, I realized she was a person of strong intellect. Her writings on Hamilton and the American System of Political Economy were invaluable to me. Her work in this extended field of American history provided me with an in-depth education and motivated me to read and re-read many of the original works of Alexander Hamilton and his students, among others; Henry Carey, Fredrich List, Peshine Smith, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D Roosevelt. However, even though I knew her as a strong political figure, historian, and author, it was not until many years later that I realized the quality of her inner strength. This was amplified in the way she conducted her life in the remaining months after she was diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of cancer.

To help educate my circle of colleagues around the world, I would buy Nancy’s books and gift them to political allies, relatives and friends across the United States, Africa, and China. This practice continues today, in an effort to educate people on the true principles upon which the United States of America was founded. Among some African circles, this stimulated a discussion on how Alexander Hamilton and the American System of Political Economy could affect economic progress in African nations today. I will continue my efforts of distributing Nancy’s books to expand people’s knowledge of the profound history of the United States. Nancy once told me that I was her best customer.

Alexander Hamilton was an economic genius. He created a National Bank by converting outstanding debts from the Revolutionary War into credit. He allowed holders of U.S. debt to use their relatively worthless paper claims, to purchase shares (stock) in this new bank. This created new capital for lending (issuing credit) for investments in farming, manufacturing, and internal improvements (infrastructure). For decades I have advocated for a Hamiltonian approach to address Africa’s huge infrastructure deficits. Years ago, I collaborated with a group of Africans to establish an African Infrastructure Development Bank, modeled on Hamilton’s First Bank of the United States (1791). This approach remains valid for Africa today, especially when there is no competent policy to provide the trillions of dollars of credit required to build vital categories of infrastructure necessary to industrialize the nations of Africa.

Like Nancy, I too am guided by a mission in my life: to make the world better. To improve the quality of the thinking of as many people that I can reach with my limited resources. It has been my particular mission for over thirty-five years to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa. Introducing Africans to Hamilton’s scientific economic principles has been an important feature of that mission. With Nancy as a model, I hope in my brief mortal existence I can have the same uplifting impact on society that Nancy has exhibited throughout her life.

After all, our mortal existence should mean more than just simply seeking pleasure and satisfying our biological needs. We should all govern our mortal existence by what kind of indelible contributions we have made to the future of civilization after our mortal existence expires. Let the way Nancy Bradeen Spannaus conducted her life be an inspiration and exemplar for all of us to emulate. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have met Nancy during my lifetime.

Nancy Bradeen Spannaus, author and historian 1943-2026

February 4, 2026

Nancy Bradeen Spannaus of Lovettsville, VA,  author and public historian, died on January 16, 2026 at Inova Loudoun Hospital. Nancy had been fighting cancer over a span of eleven years, and was battling a rare and particularly virulent form of the disease for the past two years. 

Nancy had been studying U.S. history, with an emphasis on the country’s economic development in general, and Alexander Hamilton in particular, since the 1970s, and in 1977 she co-authored a book of writings on the Political Economy of the American Revolution.  In 2017, upon retirement from a career in journalism, she established the blog https://americansystemnow.com, which contains more than 600 articles on the history and principles of the American System of Economics. 

In 2019, she published the book Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics. In 2023 she published Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way. 

In early 2025, with an eye to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, she published a collection of essays from the blog in a volume entitled From Subject to Citizen: What Americans Need to Know about Their Revolution. 

In recent years, she was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Ketoctin Chapter), the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society, the Lincoln Group of D.C., the Loudoun 250 Committee, and the American Friends of Lafayette. 

Nancy spoke on Alexander Hamilton and related topics at many local events, including history groups and the public libraries. She was also a volunteer for the Western Loudoun Food Pantry (acting as its manager in recent years), and the Lovettsville Historical Society. She taught in Lifelong Learning programs, often as an Adjunct Professor, at Shepherd University, Long Island University, Johns Hopkins University, and Frederick Community College.

Nancy was born in Portland, Maine, of parents Donald and Mary Lou Towle Bradeen, in 1943, and spent her younger years in Washington, Pennsylvania and Cincinnati, Ohio. She was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College (B.A., 1965), and Columbia University School of Social Work (M.S., 1967).  As a journalist, she was for many years the editor-in-chief of several national publications affiliated with the Lyndon LaRouche organizations, and she also ran for statewide office in Virginia in the 1990s.

She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Edward; her second son Andrew, a journalist based in Milan, Italy; and grandson Christopher Ziboni Spannaus of Italy. She was predeceased by her first son Michael (1970-1990). She is also survived by four younger brothers and sisters: Robert Bradeen and wife Ellen, of Haughton, Louisiana; Judy Bradeen, of Lebanon, New Hampshire; David Bradeen and husband NJ, of Camden, Maine and Indian Wells, California; and Susan Bradeen Haimes and husband David, of Seneca Falls, New York.

In her own words:

In 2018, Nancy wrote a biographical essay for the DAR, which she adapted just this last November for a website on influential women. Here are a few excerpts, beginning where she was discussing her mother’s side of the family as “decidedly a matriarchy.”

My father represented a clear countervailing, and broadening influence. As a Classics professor and twice a fellow at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, he was a rigorous scholar and very demanding of me, his oldest child. He had an in-depth historical view (“Everything after the 5th Century B.C. was current events,” he said.) He never gave any indication that my gender should interfere with the highest level of intellectual achievement—and pushed me to go to a top woman’s college, Bryn Mawr, in order to get the best education possible. Bryn Mawr had a strong Classics tradition, including school songs in Classical Greek and a de facto patron goddess, Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom (and war). I majored in philosophy . . . .

My own concentration of study on the American Revolution, which began in the mid-1970s, did not focus on the role of women, but on the ideas which the leading Founders, such as Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, developed in order to create the new nation. And while these heroes of mine were by no means concentrated on advancing the role of women per se, their political ideas were equally applicable to liberating the minds of men and women.

For as long as I can remember, I always felt an obligation to act to improve society. By the time I finished my formal education, this concept had broadened considerably beyond just working in a local community, to encompassing the world as a whole. When I had my children in the early 1970s, my determination to play that larger role in the world, specifically through politics, became even stronger. I owed it to my children, as well as those of others, to create a world where they could thrive. My husband shared this view . . . .  

I have retired, but will actually never really retire. It is still my obligation to use what knowledge I have acquired to educate, and if possible, inspire, my fellow human beings to improve this world—indeed, to bring it out of crisis. My activities, including starting a blog and joining DAR, have been embarked on with this intent. That is my role as a privileged human being . . . .  

For Nancy, the history of the American Revolution was a living project.  She was passionate about the good the American Revolution had brought to the world, and she was determined to help people understand it so that the visions and ideas of Alexander Hamilton and the American founders could shape our future.  Nancy breathed life into the figures of the past in a way that forges a direction for now, and for the times to come.  To this end, she continued to write and think about more speaking events — right up through the very last weeks of her time on Earth.  

Read below my previous posts on Alexander Hamilton:

Hamilton versus Wall Street: Relevance to Ethiopia & Africa

Nations Must Study Alexander Hamilton’s Principles of Political Economy

Alexander Hamilton’s Credit System Is Necessary for Africa’s Development

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

Everyone Should Know The Truth About Slavery in America

Lawrence , , , , , , , ,
Engraving of slaves picking cotton on a Louisiana planation in the 19th century. (courtesy of istockphoto.com)

February 20, 2024

This post is my contributions to Black History Month in the U.S.

Nancy Spannaus has made an invaluable contribution to the history of the fight over slavery in the United States, with her new book; Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way. Thoroughly documented, Spannaus exposes the falsehood that America was founded on slavery, or that slavery is in the DNA of Americans. Not only are such untruths historically unfounded, but they are downright folly, and display gross ignorance of the history of the United States. Slavery was a disease, a cancer inside the United States, which sadly is still affecting our society today. However, it is not the basis of the more profound accomplishments of the United States, in its better days.

As anyone who understands real economics would know, it is physically impossible for slavery to begat the creation of the United States as an industrialized power. Slave labor, which dominated a whole section of the southern portion of the United States, is not a driver of economic growth, but rather retards development.

I concur with Spannaus, that if the economic principles of Alexander Hamilton had been fully implemented, the southern slave labor economies would have been driven out of existence. Southern United States, which I know well, still displays the backwardness inherent in its legacy from slavery, which President Lincoln intended to eradicate. Unfortunately, the assassination of President Lincoln, also killed his plans for full  reconstruction of the South.

Bluntly stated, the whole 1619 Project , which erroneously purports that the U.S. was founded on slavery, is a fraudulent attack on the United Staes of America. Our nation is imperfect. Its greatest flaw is an uneducated populace that has been dumb downed over the last half century to submit to popular opinion, rather than investigate the truth  on such critical issues as slavery. Spannaus, in her new book unmasks the actual fight for and against slavery in the U.S. And in so doing, has performed an invaluable service to U.S. and to universal history.

Another valuable benefit to this book is the rich history of the fight for and against the realization of the unique American System of Political Economy, which Spannaus traces from Alexander Hamilton to President Abraham Lincoln

Slavery Has Always Been A Battle

Spannaus boldly states on page one, that contrary to what many uninformed Americans believe, our American Revolution created the first antislavery movement in the world. Do our citizens even know that before the creation of the United States, the colony of Rhode Island banned slavery in 1652, and the colony of Georgia outlawed slavery in 1733? (p. 2) Or that as early as 1688, the Society of Friends in Germantown, Pennsylvania, issued the first petition against slavery? Astonishingly, five decades after 1619, there was only one British colonial territory, South Carolina, which was explicitly founded as a slave economy. (p. 39)

Massachusetts was a leading colony advocating the elimination of slavery. Sam Adams, a leader in the Revolutionary War, in 1766, chaired a town meeting on slavery, which instructed the state’s representatives: that for the total abolishing of slavery among us, you move for a law to prohibit the importation and purchasing of slaves for the future. (p. 63)

Pennsylvania was also a hotbed of the anti-slavery movement. Anthony Benezet, an immigrant, who became a leader and activist in Pennsylvania for the education of black children and the elimination of slavery,  published numerous tracts against slavery. But Benezet did more than write. In 1775 he established a first known organization dedicated to the abolition of slavery anywhere in the world.” (p. 77)

In 1775 , Pennsylvania quakers, under the guidance of Benezet, established the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Years later its second iteration became, the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, commonly called the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. (pp. 77-78)

Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation’s founding fathers, first secretary of treasury, and leader in the fight against slavery. (Courtesy of blogs.shu.edu)

Revolutionary figures John Jay and Alexander Hamilton formed the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, in 1785. The preamble to their association read in part:

The Benevolent Creator, and Father of all  Men; having given to them all equal right to life, liberty, and property, no sovereign power on earth can justly deprive them of either but in conformity to part impartial laws…(p. 134)

Yet slavery spread even with public sentiment against it. To outlaw enslavement of our fellow Americans required our bloody Civil War, at a cost of 750,000 lives. However, after almost 250 years since the founding of our nation, and almost 160 years since the ending of the Civil War, we are still engrossed in fighting the legacy of slavery. Why wasn’t slavery extinguished and how could that have been accomplished?

U.S. Constitution adopted in September 17, 1787, (courtesy of billpetro.medium.com)

Slavery Could Have Been Eliminated

In her book, Spannaus makes a unique contribution to the discussion of the elimination of slavery. She boldly asserts that had Alexander Hamilton’s economic principles been fully executed across the United States, slavery would have been extirpated from American society. While this idea may seem foreign to many, it is actually elementary. It requires people freeing  themselves from the mysterious belief that economic growth is determined by the “invisible hand, or “buy low and sell dear,” or British spawned “free trade.” Once one rejects this deliberate miseducation by our society, and comprehends the principles of physical economy, we understand the following: an uneducated, poorly paid, poorly fed, and over worked labor force is less productive and yields less profit to the economy. A backward slave labor system that squeezes out “profit” from the exploitation of backbreaking manual labor in growing sugar, cotton, and tobacco, cannot compete with the labor force of an industrialized economy.

Alexander Hamilton expressed this concept as early as 1774, two years before the revolution.

Were not the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe all the tedious train of calamities, inseparable from it. I might shew that it is fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might shew, that it relaxes the sinews of industry, clips the wings of commerce, and introduces misery and indigence in every shape. (p. 165)

Spannaus summarizes that Hamilton emphasized two concepts that are central to industrial progress: the productive powers of labor and the need to stimulate the creative powers of the human mind. Both are starkly antithetical to the feudal slave labor system. (p. 166)

Hamilton opposed slavery because it debased human beings, and he knew that slave based agriculture system would weaken the United States. The British not only ran the transatlantic slave trade but invested in the southern slave labor economy as a means of breaking apart our Republic, while making huge profits in the process.

Industrialization Required

Henry Charles Carey, chief economic adviser to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. (courtesy of en.wikipedia.org)

In his Report on Manufacturers,* Hamilton argues the necessity for the United States to become a manufacturing society, but also to exploit, if you will, the capital of the human mind. In the above cited Report, Hamilton writes that manufacturing, unlike slave-labor, serves: to cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise. (pp. 170-171)

As Spannaus underscores throughout her book, industrialization of the United States was the means to eliminate slavery before the Civil War. Having Failed to accomplish that, a comprehensive full-throated reconstruction effort for the defeated Southern slave-economy following the war was required. This is what the well-known followers of Hamilton, and proponents of the American System, such as President Lincoln and Henry Carey, understood.

Henry Carey was a towering intellectual force in the nineteenth century. He was an American System economist, advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, and authored the Slave Trade: Domestic and Foreign, and How It May be Extinguished, (1853). Carey wrote on the negative effects of slavery. Spannaus refers to Carey extensively throughout her book and devotes almost the entirety of chapter sixteen to his thoughts. Typifying the outlook of the advocates of the American System, Carey wrote in 1865:

Had our legislation been of the kind which was needed for giving effect to the Declaration of Independence, that great hill region of the South, one of the richest, if not absolutely the richest in the world, would long since have been filled with furnaces and factories, the labourers in which would have been free men, women, and children, white and black, and the several portions of the Union would have been linked together by hooks of steel that would have set at defiance every effort of the ‘wealthy capitalists’ of England for bringing about a separation. Such, however, and most unhappily, was not the course of our operation. (p. 224)

Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Giants in the fight against slavery. (Courtesy of history.com)

Constitution Not Pro-Slavery

Many poorly informed detractors of the U.S. Constitution denounce the framers by selecting a word, a phrase, or a sentence, which they allege  proves the United States is racist nation founded on support for slavery. This conclusion is usually reached without any serious intellectual investigation of the historical and factual context. It has now become popular to attack the Founding Fathers in obeisance to the latest politically correct dogma. The U.S. Constitution was written by mortal human beings with imperfections. However, this noble document, the Preamble in particular, articulated principles that transformed the world. It helped to ignite liberation movements against British colonialism across the globe, including in Africa.

The great American statesman, Frederick Douglas, who was born a slave on a plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, understood this well. Douglas became an informal advisor to President Lincoln despite some  disagreements. He distinguished himself by breaking  from the abolitionists because of their support for the dismemberment of the Union. Americans and non-Americans alike, would benefit from reading Douglas’ writings. In his remarks below, Douglas responds to the provision in the U.S. Constitution that set the date of 1808, for the banning of importation of slaves. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Douglas recognized the importance of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence and insisted that the United States deliver on its noble intention. Speaking in 1860, seven decades after the Constitution was ratified and a year before the outbreak if the Civil War, Douglas spoke on the constitutional banning of slavery:

American statesman, in providing for the abolition of the slave trade, thought they were providing for the abolition of the slavery. This view is quite consistent with the history of the times. All regarded slavery as an expiring and doomed system, designed to speedily disappear from the country. But, again, it should be remembered that this  very provision, if made to refer to the American slave trade at all, makes the Constitution anti-slavery rather than for slavery…Thirdly, it [Constitution] is anti-slavery, because it looked to the abolition of slavery rather than its perpetuity. Fourthly, it showed that the intentions of the framers of the Constitution were good not bad. (p. 157)

It will be well worth your time to read Spannaus’ new book.

Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way, by Nancy Spannaus. Defeating-Slavery-Hamiltons-American-System  

*See Chapters on Report on Manufacturers, Spannaus, Bradeen, Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics, iUniverse, 2019

Read my earlier post: Nations Must Study Alexander Hamilton’s Principles of Political Economy

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is also the creator of the blog:  lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

“To terminate the African slave trade, we need to raise the value of man in Africa.” American System Economist, Henry Carey

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A worker checks readings on an energy management system, South Africa. Photo credit: National Cleaner Production Centre South Africa (Courtesy of un.org)

February 24, 2023

I am publishing below, “Industrialization is the Antithesis of Slavery” a new article by my colleague, Nancy Spannaus, creator of the blog, americansystemnow.com, because of the importance of this topic. Unfortunately, many Americans and non-Americans alike, foolishly repeat the silly and false notion that the success of the United States in becoming a great industrial power laid on the foundation of slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth. The U.S. achievement in becoming an economic power was despite, and in opposition to slavery. A progressing economy requires trained, skilled, and educated workers to operate the tasks required by productive manufacturing industries. Slave labor, exploiting the animal-muscle power of human beings only works in labor intensive occupations performed for example, in sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations. Spannaus uses the writings of American System Economist, Henry Carey, a follower of Alexander Hamilton and advisor to President Lincoln, to elucidate the issue.

Slavery kept southern sections of the United States in backward economic conditions, that are still evident today. Slavery also contributed to a racist notion that “blacks” are inferior, affecting the U.S., such that we are still struggling with forms of racism centuries later.

To free all men and women, in Africa and in the U.S., we must exploit, if you will, the unique powers of the human creative mind. This can only be accomplished in a scientific-technologically advancing industrial economy, where every human being can be engaged in a productive profession and treated with dignity.

Read Spannaus’ article below:

Industrialization is the Antithesis of Slavery

Read my earlier posts:

In Celebration of Black History Month, Let Us All Emulate the Great Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglass: “Knowledge Unfits a Man to be a Slave”

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. He is also the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton

Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln: A Tragedy for the Human Race

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President Abraham Lincoln delivering his Second Inaugural address on March 4, 1865, one month before his death.

April 17, 2022

President Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated on April 15, 1865, was arguably the greatest U.S. President, but I would also suggest, perhaps the finest American. His tragic death changed the the, world not just the United States. My colleague, Nancy Spannaus, provides a fitting requiem for the fallen President. A Requiem for Abraham Lincoln

His temperament, his intellect, and his commitment to the U.S. Constitution, saved our precious Republic, which was less than eighty years old, and heading towards a Civil War, when he took office in 1861. President Lincoln’s unwavering resolve to defeat the opposing army of the Confederacy, demonstrated his superior military skills and strategic understanding that only the surrender by a defeated South, would the Union be preserved. His tragic death affected the world, not just the United States. If his reconstruction program had been fully implemented in his second term, the U.S. would be dramatically different today.

Much has been written and even taught that President Lincoln was not opposed to slavery, but only freed the slaves to win the Civil War. The remarks by the intellectual titan and fierce anti-slavery leader, Frederick Douglas, following the death of President Lincoln, quoted in Spannaus’ articles eloquently dispute this claim. Douglas was an ally of President Lincoln in the fight to eliminate slavery.

In his eulogy on June 1, 1865, at Cooper Union, NY, Douglas said:

 “But what was A. Lincoln to the colored people or they to him? As compared with the long line of his predecessors, many of whom ere merely the facile and service instruments of the slave power, Abraham Lincoln, while unsurpassed in his devotion, to the welfare of the white race, was also in a sense hitherto without example, emphatically the black man’s President: the first to show any respect for their rights as men.”

The vast majority of Americans are also unaware that President Lincoln adhered to the economic policies of Alexander Hamilton’s American System. Abraham Lincoln in his basic campaign stump speech, advocated for protectionism, a national bank, and internal improvements. As President, he initiated the building of the Transcontinental Railroad across the U.S., connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which became a model of transportation infrastructure for the rest of the world. To fund the U.S. economy during the war he created a new currency-greenbacks, bonds backed by the federal government. Lincoln’s economic advisor was Henry Carey, a student of Hamilton’s economic method.

Abraham Lincoln’s frequently delivered speech on Discoveries and Inventions, reflects his philosophical understanding of human economy, revealed in its opening sentences:  

“All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner.

The whole earth, and all within it, upon it, and round about it, including himself, in his physical, moral, and intellectual nature, and his susceptibilities, are the infinitely various “leads” from which, man, from the first, was to dig out his destiny.

In the beginning, the mine was unopened, and the miner stood naked, and knowledgeless, upon it.

Fishes, birds, beasts, and creeping things are not miners, but feeders and lodgers, merely. Beavers build houses; but they build them in nowise differently, or better now, than they did, five thousand years ago. Ants, and honey-bees, provide food for winter; but just in the same way they did, when Solomon referred the sluggard to them as patterns of prudence.

Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and Inventions.” (Emphasis added)

Read his entire speech: Abraham Lincoln on Discoveries and Inventions

Let the U.S. again return to the policies of Abraham Lincoln by providing true leadership in the world.

As viewers of my website know, this is my second post in recent days discussing former outstanding U.S. Presidents and their policies. Why has American culture not produced such leaders in the last six decades following the death of John Kennedy? This will be the subject of a future article.

Read my earlier post: Commemorating the Death of Franklin Roosevelt: Last Great American Statesman With A Grand Vision for Africa

A Requiem for Abraham Lincoln

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton.

Realize the Vision of Diop and Nkrumah: Industrialize and Energize the African Continent

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October 8, 2021

Watch my hour long presentation from October 3. I discussed that the future of our planet in this century will be dependent on the African continent with its projected population of 2.4 billion and 1 billion youth by the year 2050. Either we set in motion NOW policies to develop African nations and realize the potential of 1 billion young creative minds, or we fail to do so, which will lead to more misery, and instability. The whole world will suffer from insecurity on the the African continent.

Past African giants like Cheikh Anta Diop and President Kwame Nkrumah understood what was required to develop the nations of Africa: infrastructure, energy, industry, and science. Africa suffers from an deliberate policy of imposed economic under-development, which must be overcome, not only for the sake of Africa, but for the very future of our planet.

The United States has adopted an anti-development, geo-political ideology that opposes development in Africa. For example, why hasn’t the Biden administration praised Ethiopia for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that will generate 6,200 megawatts of electricity for the Horn of Africa? I am sure that Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy would have supported Ethiopia’s drive for development, if they were alive today.

All this and more, including quotes from Diop and Nkrumah, is presented by myself in this video, which I believe will stimulate further discussion on the future of Africa.

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton

In Celebration of Black History Month, Let Us All Emulate the Great Frederick Douglas

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Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglas (1818-1895)

February 15, 2021

There is no better way to celebrate Black History Month than to to absorb the ideas of Frederick Douglas. I recommend you read this latest article written my friend, American historian, Nancy Spannaus-see link below: Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglas. I also suggest you read his wonderful autobiography: Life and Times of Frederick Douglas. 

Frederick Douglas believed in the U.S. Constitution and demanded that Americans and their leaders live up to its noble principles. That is something we should all aspire to. Douglas wrote: “Men talk of the Negro problem. There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own Constitution.” Frederick Douglas did not advocate tearing down America, but rather, demanded that Americans live up to the principle embodied in the U.S. Constitution.

 

Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglass

 Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

My Thoughts On An Improved US-Africa Policy for President Biden

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January 26, 2021

I was asked to participate on inauguration day in an event sponsored by African Women for Biden/Harris 2020. As an American, who is knowledgeable about Africa, I was pleased to present my ideas for an improved US-Africa policy. Below is the content of my remarks..

January 20, 2021

Hello, this is Lawrence Freeman. I am happy to join you this afternoon in celebrating the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris.

I have been working in Africa for the last 30 years promoting development policies for the people of Africa; particularly transformative infrastructure projects. I teach classes in the Maryland area on African history. I am a  consultant, researcher, writer, and lecturer. I created my own website: LawrenceFreemanAfricaandtheworld.com to help spread my ideas.

I have traveled to Africa many times and have visited several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. From my work in Africa over many years I have a good understanding of the dynamics of the continent. This administration will bring change to Washington. My hope is that this change will include initiating a new policy for Africa. One that is in the interest of United States, and one the serves the interest of Africa and raises the standard of living of all Africans.

Africa today has close to 1.5 billion people. It is expected that in 30 years by 2050, Africa will have close to 2.5 billion. It will have 1 billion young people and have the largest labor force in the world. If we do not address the needs of Africa today, then we could be looking at a dangerous situation in the years to come, and one that will make African nations less stable and less secure. It is in the interest of the United States and the world to help secure a stable future for Africa. We need new innovative policies that address those concerns.

After 500 years of slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism, sub Saharan Africa especially, has been left without the basic infrastructure needed to develop its economies. African nations  have very limited, if any infrastructure. The kilometers of railroads and roads in Africa is minimal, although it is beginning to change. The most troubling deficit in infrastructure is the reality of a mere 100,000 to 130,000 megawatts of electricity for all of sub-Saharan Africa!  This is literally killing Africans. This lack of infrastructure has to be reversed. It is a matter of life and death.

In order for African nations to develop their full capacity, and  realize their rich potential, African nations require a massive investment in infrastructure, especially railroads, electricity, and roads.

African nations also suffer from small manufacturing sectors. Africa has the smallest manufacturing capacity of any continent in the world. And this has to change as well.

African nations need to develop a manufacturing sector. I have been advocating for many years that we have to apply the same economic approach for Africa  that we applied to build the United States from 13 agrarian based colonies into an industrial powerhouse. The U.S. accomplished this feat by implementing the American System of economics developed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, under the direction of President George Washington.

Hamilton understood two principles that were essential for  developing the United States that can be applied to Africa today. One, the government has the power to issue credit. African nations desperately need credit for development. Two, Hamilton understood that the U.S. would not be an economically sovereign nation if we had to buy all our manufacturing goods from abroad. He and his followers were strong advocates of building up a manufacturing based economy, which is exactly what Africa needs today.

Africa needs Investment in infrastructure across the continent including high speed railroads connecting major ports and cities, which is being proposed by the African Union. This will take massive amounts of credit. It cannot be done by the private sector alone. The United States should extend long-term low interest credit to African nations for development of infrastructure. The United States should also extend economic assistance to building up the manufacturing capacity in Africa which is quite minimal at this point.

It is in our interest to develop Africa not because we are competing with other nations, but because we want to assist in the development of the African continent. Robust African economies with growing populations will provide larger markets for American capital goods. This will also contribute to creating real security. Poverty is the underlying cause of most conflicts in Africa. The lack of food; lack of water; and lack of jobs generates conflict. Thus, by assisting Africa in developing its economies in these critical areas we will be creating the foundation for peace and security. Simply giving aid alone, which the United States is the leader, will not solve the problem. Providing counter terrorism training alone will not solve the problem. If people are desperate, if they are poor, if they are hungry, they can easily be  manipulated into conflict against their brothers and sisters.

I believe Africa can have a very bright future–the more people means the more creative minds. Africa will have the youngest population of any continent in the world. The U.S. should help Africa develop the capabilities to nurture these creative minds because creativity is the source of all wealth.

Presently China is active on the continent. I do not think this has to be a competition between the U.S. and China. The needs of Africa are so large that there are more than enough opportunities for investment by the United States, China, and other nations. Remember the profound words of Pope Paul VI, who in his 1967 encyclical letter Populorum Progressio, said: the new name for peace is development.

It is my hope that with this new administration and in a time of change and optimism we will usher in a new policy of development for Africa. I have written, taught, and lectured on the Hamiltonian economic system and I know this is an approach that will work. It has worked over hundreds of years. It was implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt, who used public, government issued credit, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to fund his great infrastructure projects that brought us out of the depression. FDR intended to green the deserts of Africa after the war, unfortunately, he died.

Let us apply those same Hamiltonian economic principles for the development of Africa today. Now is the right time for the United States to extend its moral and economic leadership across the ocean, and act on behalf of the common good, which is in the shared interests of all nations and all people.

 Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

A Hamiltonian Development Policy for Africa Is A Necessity

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In 1791, America’s first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, put forth his grand plan for industrializing the United States. In his “Report on the Subject of Manufacturers,” Hamilton rejected the then common assumption that America could prosper with an agricultural base, instead arguing that the new Republic should concentrate on developing industry. (courtesy of enterpriseai.news)

January 18, 2021

In memory of Dr. Martin Luther King (1929 to1968), a champion for the poor. 

On Sunday, January 10, 2021, the Rising Tides Foundation (risingtidefoundation.net) hosted a class by me entitled: A Hamiltonian Solution for Africa. The first video below is my two hour presentation. The second video is an hour of questions and answers. For those of you who have the time and the desire to learn, I believe you will find these videos beneficial.

Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary under President George Washington, prepared four economic reports establishing the American System of Political Economy in opposition to the Adam Smith-British free trade system. Hamilton understood that the U.S. would not become a sovereign economically independent nation without a robust manufacturing sector. This is true of African nations today, which have the lowest dollar amount of manufacture added value in the world. African nations are subjected to unfavorable terms of trade and weak currencies, because they are compelled to export their natural resources and import capital goods. Hamilton would not allow this to happen to the young U.S. following its independence from Great Britain.

My personal mission is to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by educating my African friends on the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton.

 “The intrinsic wealth of a nation is to be measured, not by the abundance of the precious metals, contained in it, but by the quantity of the production of its labor and industry.” Alexander Hamilton, Report on a National Bank, (December 13, 1790)

 

 

 

 Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

History Course: “Africa The Sleeping Giant” Amb. Arikana Chihombori Lectures Students On The Berlin Conference

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Former African Union Ambassador, Arikana Chihombori-Quao, speaking to Lawrence Freeman’s class at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Montgomery County Maryland on the Berlin Conference. December 5, 2019

December 7, 2019

At the fifth week of my African history course (outlined below), 80 students heard Amb Chihombori-Quao discuss the effects of the Berlin Conference on the people of Africa today. This provocative presentation lead to many questions.   

“Africa: The Sleeping Giant” 6 week-12 hour course syllabus by Lawrence Freeman

The instructor’s intention is to provide the class with broad overview of the development of the African continent over millennia and centuries, coupled with insights to understand the present. The instructor believes that it is impossible to know current events in Africa today, beyond the misleading media headlines, without a full knowledge of Africa’s unique and at times tragic history.

Week 1–“Introduction”: In this class we discuss the great diversity of the continent. This includes its size, climates, geographical characteristics, deserts, rivers, lakes, and historical facts regarding Africa’s many nations, its economic condition.

Week 2–“Man Is Not a Monkey”: This class traces mankind’s emergence to what we call modern man-homo sapien sapien-over millions of years by examining the effects of man’s powers of reason, that did not evolve from the apes, and mankind’s exodus from the African continent.  We will then discuss a few of the early civilizations in East and West Africa, concluding with the great Bantu internal migration that transformed the continent.

Week 3–“Early African Civilizations-Slavery”: In this we class we continue examining early civilizations in Africa, iron making, and population growth. We will then leap ahead to the “discovery” of Africa by Europe and roots of slavery.

Week 4–“Slavery to Colonialism”: In this class we examine the seamless transition from slavery to colonialism, which in total encompasses 500 years, leading to destruction of the cultural and physical evolution of the African people.

Week 5–“European Empires Carve Up Africa”: This class focuses on the hideous Berlin Conference that divided up Africa in accord with Europe’s geopolitical Imperialist view of Africa and its people.

Week 6–“Africa’s Post Independence”: We leap ahead to the liberation of Africa from colonialism circa 1960. We discuss current and changing conditions in African nations, especially as the West abandons the continent and China supports Africa’s economic growth by building and funding infrastructure projects across Africa.