First American Jubilee

We are inclined to believe, perhaps want to believe, that in the minds of many enslaved young men like William Lee and other revolutionary war veterans of his color and hue watching and waiting, the first American Jubilee was expected and could have, should have but did not occur: when George Washington voluntarily relinquished his power to a Congress of Judeo-Christians convened in the great slave port city of Annapolis. But, congressional intent was not to join their reasoning to the old or new testament faiths they professed to believe in. As a functional result, a lot of folks of color, like Prince Hall and Richard Allen apparently began propagating beliefs in a "Living Christ" to implement God's laws. It surely was their rebellious spirit that made way for the coming of mindsets like Lincoln and Douglass who were born of women, not made by man's laws.

Organized religion has always mattered, dating back long before the vast slave based Roman Empire accepted beliefs in Jesus as the Christ among rebellious minded believers, many of whom were slaves. In fact, it should not be ignored that rebellious Jewish believers in Christ had been dispersed by the conquering Roman legions from Jerusalem in 70 A.D., a generation following crucifixion of Jesus around 30 A.D. Dispersed but many "born again" still rebellious spirited Jews spread the good news of a Living Christ in their beliefs far and wide into Africa and Asia beyond Jerusalem for at least two centuries. Places like Egypt, Ethiopia and Nubia had young men that Constantine needed in his legions to fight in Europe, whether they were or were not pagans evangelized by the generation minded Jews dispersed from Palestine generations before. Constantine reasoned to tolerate Jews and Christians.

Emperor Constantine was a highly praised and victorious soldier in the 4th millennium, like George Washington would later be in a vast geographic region affording new beginnings conceived in liberty as expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. But, unlike Constantine or any other conqueror known (excepting Hollywood characterizations) Washington relinquished power to men in robes and wigs for righteousness. Many men of color like Prince Hall and Richard Allen who had looked to him as a hoped for salvation from racial discrimination by church and state, and expected that he would remember them well as he towered over lesser men convened in his majestic presence: perhaps reluctantly not realizing that most politicians were opportunists beholding to the cultural dynamics that put them in the reaches of power.

Once of the first acts by the newly empowered Congress was to literally trash the Jeffersonian Declaration written 8 years earlier that "all men are created equal." Even more, they reasoned together that Jefferson was too idealistic about "happiness" and what mattered most was "life, liberty and pursuit of property" meaning as the English lawyer John Locke had written and meant it to rationalize the Anglo rebellion in 1688. With functional power in their hands men like James Madison reasoned that such ideals were not practical; and in reality men of color were incomplete man-hoods not far removed from the 15th to 18th century Roman Catholic two-thirds ideology that Africans lacked souls (about one-third of what matters). To most politicians, slaves were desired to remain as property, not free citizens. It was an 18th century lesson learned that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Men like Paul Cuffee (Kofi) of Akan Beliefs-Thoughts heritage along with others like Prince Hall saw it all. They saw greedy and ruthless men who not only were arrogant with power but actually wanted to expand the slave trade inherited from Great Britain. So, greedy in fact that by time of the ratification of the Constitution of the United States in 1787, American slave ships from Rhode Island and the other former colonies challenged Great Britain on the high seas of international slave trading. Some men like Paul Cuffee (Kofi) looked for salvation, a savior.

With their own eyes and souls laid bare, they had seen the United States Congress collectively representing 500,000 enslaved and free persons of color within a total population of 2,400,000 colonial residents in 1776: literally explode and expand it to millions more enslaved persons by beginning of the 19th century ante-bellum beliefs and lifestyles that would expand functional slavery via slave breeding laws to over four million souls by year 1860. Popes, priests, preachers and politicians anywhere in pursuit of property/wealth were seldom incorruptible in the pursuit of goodness most claimed to believe in, but distinguished such from its existence as a Living Christ dogma, theology or ideology. One might reasonably argue that men like Richard Allen disgusted with the powers of White priests and politicians was among the first voices in the 19th century rebellious theology of a "Living Christ" as the unseen, dependable, incorruptible, reliable champion for rebellious minded men and women who mattered more than property or potential property among "the least of us." For believers like Richard Allen who preached to men like William Lee: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word." And generations would believe in a Living Christ to generate men (like Lincoln) to free their families and friends from slavery and threat of enslavement, not the Congress.

Old Church History

Slaves were not freed by the new Congress in 1783 as many like Richard Allen and William Lee hoped and expected pursuant their bible readings and studies in places like Boston and Philadelphia. Many bible-reading freemen and slaves had been taught by preachers like Francis Asbury and believed that Judeo-Christians were bound by God to give liberty to everyone, not just White folks, in their power. They reasoned together that since God was omnipotent, his laws were sacred:

According to Leviticus, slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest. Leviticus 25:8-13 states:

"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession."

Washington's Resignation Letter in the Christmas week of 1783 was known by some men of color (about 5,000) who had volunteered and freely served in the revolutionary army of about 300,000 young men along with the uncounted thousands more who, like William Lee, were enslaved and impressed to service. Some of these men were literate enough to understand issues at hand in the American rebellion generated by lawyers and others of the upper class colonists citing the cause of liberty and freedom from British Empire rule.

The collective faith of about 5,000 young men, if it existed at all, was in the heroic person of George Washington; and their hopes were akin to that of the other veterans, White and Native American, in wanting to get paid for services rendered. Any love existing among young men with an average age of not more than thirty years was for their homes and families dependent upon them, not country as later described by writers who never served. For William Lee, his flesh and blood kinfolks at Mount Vernon and other slave plantations mattered that he keep them foremost in his mind, and he always did, even sacrificing his possible life as a free man married to Margaret Thomas in Philadelphia. His younger brother Frank was at Mount Vernon with a wife, Lucy, and several offspring.

Washington had brilliantly organized, trained, outmaneuvered and defeated the world's most mighty empire via thousands of small and large battles covering thousands of square miles. And after seven bloody years of fighting, at his feet lay the spoils of war, and he surrendered it all to a lot of lawyers like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. When the war was won and a peace treaty secured with Great Britain: the founding fathers of 1776 and the war years, left Philadelphia and Washington's unpaid army wanting and waiting for them to act. They acted by moving to personal safety in Annapolis Maryland wherein existed privately owned slave ships via which to sail away if the army came to collect it's delinquent pay. Washington, after allowing his senior officers to vent their frustrations to him counseled and convinced them to give Congress a chance to be holy; and then traveled to Annapolis to set minds at ease that he would not claim to be another king over them.

General Washington did something that had never been done before in Africa, Asia or Europe: a conquering hero relinquishing power to rule. No general of such might had ever do so, from time of the Greek and Roman Empires up through the British Revolution led by Oliver Cromwell who disbanded/disbarred a parliament of corrupt lawyers, and declared himself "England's Great Protector." The English Parliament first established and then abolished by Cromwell (image on right) was no more or less greedy and corrupted by traders and speculators than that assembled as the American Congress in 1783. But, George Washington quite unlike Cromwell, had no desire to replace the collective wills and ways of Congress minds like James Madison and James Monroe with his superior will-power and fire-power. When King George of England learned about this action by Washington, he allegedly marveled that if so, Washington would be the greatest man in history for having done so. George Washington was not an old man in 1783, too old to carry on nor sickly and feeble with wooden teeth later remembered most by teachers who were never taught about the most amazing contribution of men like him: or William Lee by his side.

William Lee saw and heard the slaves being unloaded, put in slave pens and eventually auctioned off to wholesale traders who purchased and moved them to inland slave markets like Alexandria where they cleaned, groomed, polished and presented for sale in the booming retail markets for field laborers and breeding stock. The economic engine for the sale and purchase of slaves spared no details as to market values of individual slaves by size, weight, sex and even ethnic origins ie obedient Krugaboh young male, about 16 years in age, from a fishing village off the Guinea Coast.

Unlike William Lee, Few of the war veterans like the Native American revolutionary war grandfather of Samuel Ceasar (Civil War veteran) image on right knew or cared much about the mindsets of politicians comprising the Congress convened in Annapolis, Maryland: because the victorious army demanded payment by government via Congress which had no money excepting that granted by the 13 founder state legislatures. In a way, the mostly lawyer and rich Congressmen who had pledged their lives, liberties and fortunes had moved from New York City and Philadelphia to Annapolis because George Washington and various veterans groups besieged them about being paid. It was the character and leadership of George Washington, and no one else, who was able to persuade the conquering soldiers, beginning with the senior officers like Harry Lee, that Congress and the State Legislatures, in their self-interests greed and need would soon act wisely as Judeo-Christians.

Men like Prince Hall, perceiving Washington as a fellow free-mason had faith that as a Master Mason, Washington would act to protect the interests of all free-masons, of all colors. The Congress instead during the next four years secretly debated and enacted a constitution in 1787 depriving men of color of what all men, including themselves, held most dear: their sense of manhood. It was decided in the name of law that men of color (including Native Americans), free and enslaved, would be counted as three-fifths of a person and subsequently classified as less than others.

One functional effect was that faith greatly diminished among men of color veterans of the Revolutionary War. Most, like William Lee had held great faith in George Washington, believing he had the ultimate power in their best interests. By time of the new constitution, that faith had diminished and by time of Washington's death in 1799, there probably was a faith-based transformation among the veterans: many of whom like Lee more fervently embraced Christ believing a Day of Jubilee was still to be had. One can hardly comprehend the magnitude of hero near-worship esteem George Washington had among young men of all classifications: Black, White, Native and even those who had not served in the revolution. William Lee saw and heard a great man, who was not his Christ.

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Copyright © 2010 Brady Enterprise Association, Inc.
Last modified: 12/29/16

Email: Editors, More Mary Matters bradyenterpriseassociation@gmail.com

with questions or comments about this web site.Copyright © 2010 Brady Enterprise Association, Inc.Last modified: 12/29/16

with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2010 Brady Enterprise Association, Inc.
Last modified: 12/29/16