Relevancy of the William Lynch Speech

2006-06-19T22:54:02-07:00

A movie I was watching last night made reference to the William Lynch Speech. The movie got me interested enough in it to look it up and read it.

The William Lynch Speech was suppose to have been given by William Lynch in 1712. The speech was about techniques of control. Specifically, techniques of controlling people; of controlling black African American slaves.

This speech has found relevancy and interest to those people of black African American descent. But I believe it to be relevant even to those of us without any African descent.

The risk of having ones liberty unequally and forcibly taken away is not restricted to any one race, color, culture or creed. This risk is shared by every person.

Much relevancy can be taken from this speech in analyzing and understanding events in our world today. In today's world, forced social engineering has become a euphemism slavery.

Much relevancy can also be taken from this speech in better learning from history. (Of particular relevancy to me are exerts from the history of the Scottish Gaelic people. Since, like many many Canadians, I have Scottish Gaelic descent [among other things].)

Historical examples include the outlawed history of the Scottish clearings and the history behind the Sgian Dhu.

The full text of the William Lynch Speech is contained below.

William Lynch Speech

I copied this text from Wikipedia's article on the William Lynch Speech. Although I believe Wikipedia got it from The Freeman Institute's article on the William Lynch Speech.

(Note, although some people will find some of the words in this speech to be offensive, I have choosen to leave it in it's original unedited form.)

The speech is as follows....

Gentlemen, I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with the niggers. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods of control of the niggers.

Ancient Rome would envy us if my program were implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish. I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of woods as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers you are here using the tree and the rope on occasion.

I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back. You are not only losing a valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed.

Gentlemen, you know what your problems are: I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling your Black slaves. I guarantee everyone of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 hundred years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it.

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves: and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them.

On top of my list is "Age", but it is there only because it starts with an "A": the second is "Color" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantation, attitude of owners, whether the slave live in the valley, on hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences. I shall give you an outline of action-but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust and envy is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration.

The Black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self re-fueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Don't forget you must pitch the old Black male vs. the young Black male, and the young Black male against the old Black male. You must use the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves. You must use the female vs. the male, and the male vs. the female. You must also have your white servants and overseers distrust all Blacks, but it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us.

Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. Thank you, gentlemen.

Criticism of the William Lynch Speech

I've seen criticism of the speech, saying that it is probably fiction. That William Lynch may have never gave such a speech.

But those people miss the point.

The important question isn't whether the speech is fictional or not. The important question is, does the speech contain truth‽ Can it give us insight and understanding‽ Can it give us a common language to communicate our thoughts‽. Can it give us a method of expressing critical thinking‽

These are the types of beneficial characterists shared by important and relevant fictional works such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.

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