Tea at Trianon: Enslaved in Bethlehem, PA

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Enslaved in Bethlehem, PA

Yes, there was slavery in the North. From WFMZ News:

Gordon had been looking into slavery in Northampton County. He was astonished the day he found a full register of men, women and children who were enslaved in the Lehigh Valley.
"I stumbled across it this past summer at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia," said Gordon. "I flipped a page, and there it was. For many years, it was thought to be lost." It came as a shock to many. When people think slavery, they think the South. But the register detailed the names of the enslaved who were owned by elites in Northampton County, specifically in Bethlehem.
"I do think it's a wakeup call that the north is just as much a place where people were enslaved as the South," Gordon said. Gordon wanted to spread the word. He presented his findings to residents of the Lehigh Valley at the Sigal Museum in Easton, giving everyone a first-hand look at history in their own backyard.
"This is very exciting for us. We really have a preliminary understanding of slavery and we see a register, this glimpse in time," said Megan van Ravenswaay, executive director of the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society.
"It makes these people alive again," said van Ravenswaay. The historians say this is only the beginning of the conversation. People can expect more stories and more exhibits as they learn more information. (Read more.)