In 1930 W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman published their famous book, 1066 and All T
hat, a work that can fairly be regarded as the start of the decades long project to teach the British, and especially the English, to feel shame rather than pride in their history. Marxist historian Raphael Samuel said the book “…punctured the more bombastic claims of drum-and-trumpet history.”. They used 1066, the date of the Norman conquest, as it is arguably the most well-known date in traditional English history, they understood how we like to be able to divide up our past into nice, neat sections. Now, nearly a century later, their heirs are still hard at work on both sides of the Pond.
We instinctively look for significant dates to help us navigate the wide and often murky waters of history. In England 1066 is indeed an important date, the arrival of the Normans changed a great deal, in a very short space of time. The year 927 is much less well known but still highly significant, being the date when Athelstan was crowned King of all England, uniting the country for the first time. The accession of James VI, King of Scots, as James I of England and Great Britain in 1603 is another big date, as is the unification of the English and Scottish parliaments in 1707.
Other changes are equally significant but less easy to pinpoint. The change from medieval to early modern times is one such. There was no helpful young woman in a spangly bikini walking on stage holding up a sign board saying, “You are now leaving the Middle Ages”. In England we usually date the change with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the accession of Henry VII and start of the Tudor dynasty. In France, the death (without a male heir) of the Duke of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy in 1477 led to the end of the brief but glittering story of the de facto independent Duchy of Burgundy (how things might have gone had he won or had a son is one of the great “what ifs” of European history). Although in both England and France many medieval elements remained after 1477/1485, these dates are significant milestones on the journey from the “Game of Thrones” style world of waring noble families to the development of a powerful centralised state.
Using this date seeking tendency the 1619 Project seeks to replace 1776 as the date of the beginning of US history with 1619, the arrival of the first slaves in North America. Their intentions are as obvious as they are duplicitous and they’re using the old Marxist trick of playing games with words. Looking in from the outside it seems to me that when it comes to starting dates 1776 is about as clear cut as they come. The United States of America starts with the Declaration of Independence, this is pretty self-evident. Of course, there was an America before that, and we very frequently use the words America and Americans as shorthand for the USA and her citizens, but there is no USA before 1776.
Even if we say American, rather than USA history, to choose the arrival of African slaves in the territories that would later become the USA as a new starting date seems arbitrary in the extreme. African slaves were being imported to central and southern America by the Spanish and Portuguese from the mid-1500s onwards and, of course, pretty much all the various nations of the pre-European Americas, north, central, and south, had slavery in one form or another. So, slavery was hardly an innovation in 1619.
It’s clear that 1619 has been chosen purely to strengthen the association of the institution of slavery with the history and culture of the USA. The people doing this do not wish the USA well. They seek to use this deeply shameful element of all our histories to deepen and broaden the feelings of guilt in one part of the citizenship of the USA and do the same with feelings of anger and resentment in another. Much the same is being done over here, the fact that slavery was almost universal in the 1600s and that in the 1800s the UK and USA played the leading roles in getting rid of it are underplayed or outright ignored. Meanwhile the American and British role in developing the slave trade is put under a very bright spotlight. I find it utterly baffling how many folk are taken in by such obvious propagandising and intellectual dishonesty. Anyone trying to convince you that 1619 is the true birthdate of the USA is either a Marxist, a fellow traveller, or a useful idiot.
I’m not saying that it’s not legitimate to look at American history before 1776. Working at Hampton Court Palace I met people from all over and my stock reply when any Anglosphere guest would say “wow, you have so much history here!” was, “No, WE have so much history here.”. Whether from the USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand the history of a place like Hampton Court, a major royal residence and seat of government from 1515 to 1737, is not just English and British history, but part of the history of the whole English-speaking world.
I was increasingly struck during my time at Hampton Court by how many American guests do appreciate that. They know the USA was born in 1776, but I noticed more and more were aware how the events that came before and led to that founding date were part of their history too.
The date 1619, and the arrival of slaves is significant, there’s no denying that. So is the accession of James as king of all Britain in 1603 and his backing of the establishment of Jamestown in 1607. If these dates are significant then so is 5th November 1605, when James survived the famous Gunpowder Plot (if he had died, and his kingdoms become little more than client states of Spain, then the development of North America would have been very different indeed). The voyages of Giovanni Caboto/John Cabot to North 
America, starting in 1497, are significant, and I understand a certain Mr Columbus did something similar further south in 1492. Socially, if not politically noteworthy is 1587, the birth of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas. 1759, the Year of Victories in the Seven Years War and the end of that war in 1763 mark the eclipse of French power in North America; and are therefore hugely important. The list goes on and on.
To try to reset the birth of the USA at the date of the first arrival of slaves in the north (ignoring those poor souls already held in slavery by Native Americans) is such a shameless and blatant attempt to use the power of dates and our loathing of slavery to turn the good folk of the USA against themselves and their history that it fair takes the breath away. Sadly, it is bearing fruit. Earlier this week I met up with an old friend whose career in costumed historical interpretation began at Colonial Williamsburg back in the 1980s. He is still in regular contact there and says that the whole tone has changed. Folk representing significant people spend so much time defending “themselves” from attacks by the visiting public on “their” slave ownership that they are unable to unpack the context and complexities of the times and show people how we got from there to here.
Make no mistake, the 1619 Project has a history itself, it is part of the ongoing cultural Marxist kulturkampf dating back to the 1920s and 30s. I know that my friends on BW.com will not be taken in by it, but feel free to use this piece to help convince others who might be hoodwinked.