APRIL 2024 MAGAZINE

Acclaimed professor of law and author Kermit Roosevelt III calls for a reexamination of America’s past and our myths in his provocative and illuminating recent book The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (University of Chicago Press).

There is an iconic photo of Owen DeLong, my dear friend Jane’s ex- late-husband, that encapsulated the era – Owen, in the fullness of his young adulthood, suspended in midair, part-way between a diving board and the water, with a long-stemmed rose in his teeth and no safety net. That was all of us  -  beautiful, indestructible, frozen in time, wild with anticipation of the next amazing adventure.

White Cargo, a meticulously researched narrative, proves slavery in America was much more than a matter of racism and was instead rooted in greed, corruption, power and economics. The existence of indentured servants in pre-colonial America has been recorded in historical annals. For a person to enter into a contract to be an indentured servant for a precise span of time to pay for one’s passage to America often appeared to be an earnest pursuit. What is not always apparent is the evidence of the untold numbers of men, women and children who were forcibly made slaves, albeit white slaves.