In her "defense" Berry later clarified that as a "Black American" she has an issue with a line in "The Star-Spangled Banner," which she said "alludes to the catching and beating slaves."
Berry said:
"If you know your history, you know the full song of the national anthem, the third paragraph speaks to slaves in America, our blood being slain...all over the floor. It's disrespectful and it does not speak for Black Americans. It's obvious. There's no question."
Gwen, you should have listened more closely in your history class because the National anthem DOES NOT "allude to the catching and beating slaves."
The poem; "Defense of Fort M'Henry" which later formed the basis for the lyrics of the “The Star-Spangled Banner”, speaks about Black slaves who fled to join the British army and navy to gain their freedom and to fight against the American forces. It does NOT "allude to the catching and beating slaves."
What DOES SCREAM to be noted is that the offensive third stanza of the poem is NOT PART of today's National Anthem!!
The Background:
There is no single cause for the War of 1812 but several
related causes
In Europe, Britain, the naval power, and France, the land
power, were at war with each other. Each side was trying to cripple the other’s
economy with blockades and confiscation of trade goods. And the United States
was trying to remain neutral. Britain issued Orders-in-Council, treating as an
enemy any vessel that tried to enter a French port without first stopping at a
British port to pay a fee and get a license. The British felt this was
necessary in order to defeat Napoleon, but the Americans felt Britain was
insisting they should have no trade of their own and that she should control
all their foreign commerce; they felt their independence was at stake.
The United States retaliated with the Embargo Act, which
stopped all United States merchant vessels from sailing from United States
ports and forbade commerce with any foreign nation.
The Embargo adversely affected all regions of the United
States, resulting in a depression that all but paralyzed the economy of the
United States. Smuggling along the Canadian border flourished.
Impressment was the most volatile issue between the United
States and Britain. This was because it dealt with sovereignty. Impressment
involved the right to search commercial ships for deserters. Poor food, hard
work, and harsh discipline caused British sailors to desert by the thousands.
Most of them ended up in America. Britain never claimed the right to search
vessels of the United States Navy. She did claim the right to search private
vessels as she felt this involved no invasion of another nation's sovereignty.
Americans considered this to be an insult to their sovereignty.
The division of land after the Revolution did not leave
everyone satisfied. The loss of the Ohio River valley, housing vital fur trade
routes, displeased Canadian and British merchants. It also served home to a
large Indigenous population, a large part of which had supported the British
during the American Revolution and now argued for an autonomous Indigenous
state to be created south and west of Lake Erie.
The Americans felt that British support of the First Nations
was a threat to their expansion and their policy of forcing the conversion of
First Nations peoples to farmers, giving up their hunting lands for American
use.
The primary cause for the call to invade Canada was the
perceived support the British in Canada were giving the Natives of the
Northwest. The Americans did not miss that Canada was Britain's last foothold
on the continent either. As relations with Britain worsened, the call for
expansion both north and south increased in volume and frequency. The
exhaustion of the farm lands in the Old Northwest caused land-hungry farmers to
call for the conquest of Canada with its good lands.
All these issues resulted in the surfacing of a small yet
persuasive political faction known as the War Hawks, led by Henry Clay of
Kentucky, who was elected to Congress in 1810. The War Hawks demanded war with
Britain.
The Story
While onboard the British flagship Francis Scott Key
witnessed the 25-hour bombardment of Fort McHenry (And the rocket’s red glare!
/The bombs bursting in air!) by British ships of the Royal Navy in the
Chesapeake Bay. Inspired by the sight of the Stars and Stripes still flying the
next morning at Fort McHenry — Gave proof through the night/That our flag was
still there/Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave.
First Stanza:
O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we
hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous
fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
Third Stanza:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havock of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul foot-steps' pollution,
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov'd home, and the war's desolation,
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land.
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto — "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” was recognized for official use by the U.S. Navy in 1889, and by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301), which was signed by President Herbert Hoover.
About the author
Key inherited not only his family's Plantation "Terra Rubra," in Frederick County, Maryland, upon the death of his father he also became a slave holder.
According to historical records, Key purchased his first
slave in 1800 or 1801 and owned six slaves in 1820. He freed seven slaves in
the 1830s, one of whom continued to work for him for wages as his farm's
foreman, supervising several slaves.
Key also represented several slaves seeking their freedom, as well as several slave-owners seeking return of their runaway slaves. Key was one of the executors of John Randolph of Roanoke's will, which freed his 400 slaves, and Key fought to enforce the will for the next decade and to provide the freed slaves with land to support themselves.
Key is known to have publicly criticized slavery's cruelties, and a newspaper editorial stated that "he often volunteered to defend the downtrodden sons and daughters of Africa." The editor said that Key "convinced me that slavery was wrong—radically wrong".
There is a quote being falsely attributed to Key taken out of context from ambiguities in the 1937 biography of Key by Edward S. Delaplainem that is being used to defame Key as a "racist".
The truth is Key, who was a leader, fundraiser and was a founding member for the American Colonization Society organization, was in actuality describing the attitudes of Southern religious institutions in reply to an 1838 "questionnaire" that he wrote to Reverend Benjamin Tappan of Maine.
In his reply to Reverend Tappan, Key cities the attitude of
Southern religious institutions that asserted that; "formerly enslaved
blacks could not remain in the U.S. as paid laborers".
Key's personal thoughts, as a leader and fundraiser for the American Colonization Society organization, was not to send the men and women he freed to Africa upon their emancipation.
It was the attitude of the Southern religious institutions and most members of Southern Society who in many cases were wholly dependent on slave labor that free blacks are;
"a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community".
Prejudicial historians have argued that upper-class American
society, of which Key was a part, could never "envision a multiracial
society". These "historians" are writing from a viewpoint now blinded
by the passage of time and of norms in society at that particular period, no
matter how antiquated and despised they are now.
It is a HISTORICAL FACT that in the northern part of the newly founded United States -North of the "Mason Dixon Line", the majority of the populace was of "White Europeans". There had previously NOT been a number of "racially" different citizens since in the Northern US Colonies there was little need for field hands like on the large farming plantations of the South. Because of this there were very few if any "Black" slaves in most of the New England colonies.
By the beginnings of the 19th Century, the majority of free blacks born in the Northern colonies which became the United States.
The American Colonization Society of which Francis Scott Key was a leading member was not supported by most abolitionists or free blacks of the time since the members were predominantly slave owners. It was through the organization's work that eventually led to the creation of Liberia in 1847.
Abolitionists alleged that as District Attorney, Francis Scott Key suppressed abolitionists and did not support an immediate end to slavery. Yet these detractors failed to note that Key was also a leader of the American Colonization Society which endeavored to send freed slaves to lives of freedom in Africa. Key freed some of his slaves in the 1830s, paying one ex-slave as his farm foreman. He publicly criticized slavery and gave free legal representation to some slaves seeking freedom, but he also represented owners of runaway slaves.
By 1810, more than 15 percent of the U.S. population was enslaved. Some 6,000 African Americans fled to the British during the War of 1812, on the promise of freedom and were recruited into the Royal Navy or into the Colonial Marines, which was a mostly black unit. The Colonial Marines was part of the British forces that overran Washington, D.C., in 1814 and set fire to the White House.
From March of 1813 to September 1814, the British Navy occupied the Chesapeake Bay and its islands. On April 2, 1814, Admiral Alexander Cochrane proclaimed that any escaped slave who made it to British lines or a British vessel and was willing to enlist in the Royal Marines would be freed. Several thousand Maryland slaves risked capture from slave patrols to escape to the British. Seven hundred slaves enlisted in the British Marines and served with bravery at the Battles of Bladensburg and North Point.
The first three lines refer to the slaves who took advantage of the war to escape, but "their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution." There was "no refuge" for the "hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave."
For many when Key wrote these words, he was expressing his despisal for those former slaves, who had joined the British as part of their Colonial Marines, to be slaughtered and killed as they attempted to take Baltimore. Though Key never told anyone what he actually meant in this line it more than probably is correct.
What is shameful is that those 700 Black American men who escaped bondage and offered themselves to serve the British did so not only their own freedom, but the freedom of all who were enslaved in the "land of the free". These men were true heroes and should be honored. The pity is they had to fight for the British, not the Americans.
In light of today's values it is regretful that this highly controversial and problematic third stanza was included as part of the original full U.S. anthem. This fact tarnishes both the song and our nation. Yet, it SCREAMS to be noted that the controversial third stanza is omitted and NOT used in today's National Anthem.
In conclusion:
It should be noted that on Christmas Eve of 1814, the peace treaty was signed and sealed. The eleven articles stated that the U.S. and Britain would return to the status quo ante bellum, or the exact same state of affairs as before the war. There was no mention of impressment or the Orders-in-Council; the issues which had spurred the U.S. into declaring war. On paper, it was as if the war had never been fought.
What does stand out is that during the talks the United States requested the return of
“such slaves as may be in your control, belonging to any inhabitant or citizen
of the United States.” The British refused and by doing so tarnished both the
song and our nation.
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