Beginning ~ in 1712

"Gentlemen, I greet you here on the banks of the James River in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and twelve.  First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia for bringing me here.  I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves."

The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave ~ by Willie Lynch, 1712, history

Willie Lynch, a British slave owner in the West Indies, was invited to the colony of Virginia to teach his methods to slave owners there.  He delivered this speech on the bank of the James River in 1712.  The term "lynching" is derived from his last name.

This is a study of slave making.  The infamous Willie Lynch letter describes the rationale and the results of Anglo Saxon ideas and methods of insuring the master-slave relationship.  It gives insight into the brutal and inhumane psychology behind the African slave trade and shows the materialistic viewpoint of Southern plantation owners, who considered slavery a business and the victims of chattel slavery merely pawns in an economic game of debauchery, cross-breeding, inter-racial rape, and mental conditioning of a race they considered sub-human.  Equally important is the international nature of the European economic, political, and cultural climate that influenced the slave trade.  It was a mere century and a half from the most intensive phase of the Atlantic slave trade to the advent of European administration and dominance.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click this link for more book beginnings.