If not for enslaved people, there would have been no President Washington

[cyclonefence]

Because his plantation was sustained by free slave labor, George Washington was able to leave home to lead the Continental Army and serve as President. Otherwise, he'd have had to stay home, supervising his (paid) workers and running his farm.

Because his plantation was sustained by free slave labor, Thomas Jefferson was able to leave home to become a Founding Father, write the Declaration of Independence and serve as President. Otherwise, he'd have had to stay home, supervising his (paid) workers and running his farm.

Et cetera.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Slaves or not, there would have been a manager to handle the day-to-day activities.

They weren't poor. They could afford a manager.

[brush]

5. But they couldn't afford to pay a manager AND PAID WORKERS.

That was the whole point of slavery and why America became a rich country—centuries of stolen labor from enslaved people, not to mention stolen land from indigenous people.

Think of that, the foundation this nation is built upon.

[Aristus]

2. We would have found someone else.

Benedict Arnold was a field commander so brilliant, he made Washington look like a scrub. If we had given Arnold credit for all of his contributions to the Revolution, he wouldn't have abandoned it to the British.

[GulfCoast66]

4. He and Nathaniel Greene were the best officers we had.

I wish Greene was better know. His Southern strategy was the only brilliant example of generalship in that war. Well, Arnold up north as well.

Washington is considered the father of our country, warts and all. We demeaning him at our peril. Let’s get rid of the statues and memorials to the traitors to the country before we move on.

My opinion anyway.

[cyclonefence]

8. Yes, I'm sure non-slave holders would have stepped in

but the whole character of our country would not be the same. Jefferson, especially, had the leisure to explore the New World (he sent out Lewis and Clark, after all) and write many books about the fauna of Virginia, would not have written the Declaration of Independence.

I believe that our country right from the very beginning was built on the backs of enslaved people. We would not have become the economic powerhouse we became in the 19th century, making us the richest nation in the world without millions of people, working "for free," producing the cotton which fed the mills. All based on the unpaid labor of people who were treated as less than human.

What a debt we owe.

[brush]

10. So true. So many don't seem to get this. Or just don't want to...

acknowledge it and then make amends somehow.

[jmg257]

3. If he was paying workers he would have had to stay home?

Don't get it.

[brush]

6. Could he afford to pay workers is the real question?

It's easy to get rich if you don't have to pay employees.

But don't get me wrong. I in favor of getting rid of the monuments, and military namings of confederate traitors and virulent racists like Wilson after the Civil War.

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, et al, were not traitors.

[cyclonefence]

7. I think so

I suspect that he, like other farm owners, would have been more involved in making sure his crops were growing well, being harvested as they should have been--look at farmers who have to pay their help. For one thing, they have many fewer workers than a farmer with unpaid labor whom he actually "breeds" to produce more workers.

[brush]

9. Way easier to get rich if you don't have to pay workers...

and can breed them to get more free labor.

Slavery. What a concept.