SF Gate: Texas wants to rename slave trade as "Atlantic triangular trade"

[mod mom]

Texas wants to rename slave trade as "Atlantic triangular trade"

The Texas Board of Education's conservative members are going on the deep end. As the one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the country, the board wants to change and re-write the history books. Smaller states who have no textbook buying power would essentially have to read and study the new Texas version of history.

The changes are ideological and distort history, but conservative Board of Education argue they are correcting a long-standing liberal bias in education. Read the running history of this very interesting "culture war" here and if you want details, read the exact changes here.



One of the most controversial changes is to deny the slave trade. The Texas Board of Education wants to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade". What the he** is the "Atlantic triangular trade"? What do you call the millions of African-Americans whose ancestors came here as slaves? Descendants of triangulates?

Say what?

Capitalism can only be referred to as "free enterprise system", largely because of the negative connotations of the word "capitalism". Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with capitalism but they should consider teaching that unfettered greed can be bad for society.

The board also wants to diminish Thomas Jefferson's role in history because of his belief in the separation of church and state. Students also are required to learn that America's founding documents were influenced by various intellectual traditions, "especially biblical law," and principles laid down by Moses. From the tenor of the changes, the board wants to build the foundation for a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. It would be kinda like Iran, only it would be the right Christian kind. Social conservatives, creationists and religious fanatics who dominate the Texas State Board of Education want to redefine the Constitution as an explicitly Christian document and highlight the role of God in the establishment of the US.

-snip

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail?blogid=150&entry_id=63935#ixzz0obnuBerU

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Should have let them go when we had a chance.

[aquart]

2. The Triangle Trade: Molasses to Rum to Slaves.

Fully explained in a song from 1776, the musical.

Molasses to Rum Lyrics


Rutledge:
Molasses to rum to slaves, oh what a beautiful waltz
You dance with us, we dance with you
Molasses and rum and slaves

Who sails the ships out of Boston
Ladened with bibles and rum?
Who drinks a toast to the Ivory Coast?
Hail Africa, the slavers have come
New England with bibles and rum

And its off with the rum and the bibles
Take on the slaves, clink, clink
Hail and farewell to the smell
Of the African coast

Molasses to rum to slaves
'Tisn't morals, 'tis money that saves
Shall we dance to the sound of the profitable pound
In molasses and rum and slaves

Who sails the ships out of Guinea
Ladened with bibles and slaves?
'Tis Boston can coast to the West Indies coast
Jamaica, we brung what ye craves
Antigua, Barbados, we brung bibles and slaves!

Molasses to rum to slaves
Who sail the ships back to Boston
Ladened with gold, see it gleam
Whose fortunes are made in the triangle trade
Hail slavery, the New England dream!
Mr. Adams, I give you a toast:
Hail Boston! Hail Charleston!
Who stinketh the most?

[BootinUp]

3. This should eventually result in less

power for them to change text books as other states band together. At least that would be my hope. In the end this effort will fail miserably it just may take awhile.

[JBoy]

4. Did they also correct "The Alamo" back to its original name

Mission San Antonio de Valero?

You know, in the interests of accuracy...

[d_r]

5. I remember when I was a kid in Tenn.

it was described that way - slaves, sugar, rum.

Wait until they get to the part about how the civil war was fought because the large industries of the north forced the federal government to pass a law that put a tariff on a raw material that the south produced, to keep the south from selling it overseas to Europe in order to protect the northern industries and the ability to buy the raw material below fair market value.

(The northern industries were textile mills, and the southern "raw material" was cotton; it had nothing to do with slavery, it was all about states rights to produce and sell a raw material, that was being jeopardized by the greed of northern businessmen - who worked white immigrants like they were slaves, btw, according to this line).

[kiva]

6. I'm not sure why this author is unfamiliar with the term,

but it's the one used by historians to describe the the three-way trade between Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Here's a good illustration:



If the textbook doesn't explain the role of the slave trade within the triangle trade, then it is wrong - historically and morally. If it's being presented in this context, however, it's absolutely accurate.