It is an article by a Heather Gray (family name Keillor) at www.visionesalternativas.com. She puts forward a hypothesis that the Revolutionary War was largely driven by the desire of those having an interest in retaining the Slave Trade, North and South. To me (I'm on the naive side, by the way) it has some plausibiility and thus throws into a cocked hat all those myriads of huzzas for George Washington, Freedom!. no taxes without representation, etc etc.

Just finished reading that and man, what an eye opener. I was already aware of the hypocrisy of so-called revolutionaries owning slaves at a time when Britain had banned the practice at home (1772) but this puts an entirely new spin on things. Perhaps some of the present hostility towards "black studies" as an academic discipline has less to do with attitudes towards affirmative action than to an uneasy sense of what might be revealed if the past were examined in close detail.

Another curious angle to this story is the creation of Liberia in 1821 as a sovereign African state specifically designed for the repatriation of American slaves. Kind of a miniature version of the USA for blacks. The irony was that having freed the slaves, much as they'd like to, they couldn't just load them on ships and send them back. They had to pitch Liberia as a great idea, which at the time it probably was, given the alternatives.

ebear