History
America’s Sordid History of Paying Reparations to White Enslavers
The first Americans to receive reparations were white enslavers.
After the Revolutionary War, George Washington and a British dude named Sir Guy Carleton (I swear I’m not making this up, his parents obviously hated him) sent letters back and forth to negotiate some of the cloudier details of the Treaty of Paris.
At this point, the American Revolution was like an ongoing fight with your spouse — it was over, but it wasn’t over over. Heck, the Treaty of Paris wasn’t even signed until 1783, but that didn’t stop us from declaring ourselves a country waaaay back in 1776. Way to jump the gun, America.
Anywho, Washington wanted the British to get on their boats and evacuate the colonies, post haste. He was under pressure from the Continental Congress to pin Guy down to a move-out date. The British were leaving, but they were taking their own sweet time doing it, and they continued to encourage (read: supply arms to) Indigenous Americans, many of whom had fought for the British during the Revolutionary War.
Washington also wanted to make sure the United States got all of their ‘property’ back. In May of 1783, George and Guy sat down in Orangetown, New York for a conference between the two governments. Jonathan Trumbull Jr., the…
