William Lynch Speech

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The William (or Willie) Lynch Speech (or Letter) is a text of unknown origin which drew widespread attention when it circulated throughout the Internet during the 1990s. It purports to be an address given to an audience on the bank of the James River in Virginia in 1712 regarding control of slaves within the colony. The speaker, William Lynch is said to have been a slaveowner in the West Indies, summoned to Virginia in 1712; in part due to several slave revolts in the area prior to his visit, and his alleged reputation of being an authoritarian and strict slaveowner. No provenance for the speech has ever been supplied, and the text as given below contains numerous anachronisms ("self-refueling", for example, since the word 'refueling' dates only to the early twentieth century, or "fool proof", a word not attested until the early twentieth century). Its grammar is also thoroughly modern. In addition, the themes covered in the text do not appear to coincide with any of the known concerns of plantation owners in the early eighteenth century. Thus it appears the actual document is fraudulent and was forged in the late twentieth century. The purported deliverer of the speech is probably named for the later Virginia landowner William Lynch who authored the Lynch act and practiced lynching.

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Text

The text of William Lynch Speech reads:

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.^[1]

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William Lynch

According to an essay appearing in "Brother Man: The Odyssey of Black Men in America- An Anthology", Lynch was a British slave owner in the West Indies who came to the United States to tell American slave owners how to keep their slaves under control. Some attribute the terms "lynching" and "Lynch law" to Lynch's name.^[2] Reference sources, however, indicate that the etymological Captain William Lynch was born in 1742, thirty years after he supposedly delivered his speech.^[3] Still others attribute the origin of these words to Charles Lynch.

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Legacy

Believers in the authenticity of the William Lynch Speech see in it a critique of what they call "mental slavery" – defined as a psychological state of submissiveness rather than a physical bondage.

Lynch's alleged method used to cause hatred between the slaves was a deep division in regard to the skin tones of the slaves. "Light-skinned" blacks are believed to have fared better under the conditions of slavery given this doctrine; being allowed tasks requiring authority over other slaves, and were generally assigned to tasks within the house of the slave master himself. Conversely, the "dark-skinned" slaves were confined to the fields, performed back-breaking labor, and generally did not enjoy the privileges of the lighter-skinned slaves. This, it is contended, would have caused discontent among the slaves, thus executing Lynch's "divide and conquer" method of control. Thus, many present day divisions within the African American community could be traced from this idea. ^[4]

Many, however, view two imperative problems with this argument, one is that the concept of "light-skinned blacks" originates long after the alleged date of this speech (at the time, terms indicating racial mixture such as "mulatto" would have been used); the other is that it bears no resemblance to the known concerns of planters of the time. The division between "house" and "field" slaves is historically inaccurate, as slaves employed in the plantation household were a subset of non-predial slaves (others included craftsmen such as carpenters and masons) and were under closer white supervision than were the field slaves. It is worth noting that one of the most successful slave revolts in history, the Haitian Revolution, was led by a non-predial slave, Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Some people contend that since blacks were said to be under bondage for 300 years, the year 2012 will be of great significance for black people.

Louis Farrakhan, in his open letter regarding the Millions More Movement, cites Willie Lynch's alleged scheme as an obstacle to unity among African Americans.^[5]

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References

↑ The Freeman Institute, Wille Lynch Speech, June 25, 2005. Accessed October 19, 2005
↑ The Colby Institute, William Lynch, January 3, 2003. Accessed on October 23, 2005
↑ Stein, Jess, ed. "Lynch law." The Random House College Dictionary. 1988 ed. ISBN 0-394-43500-1
↑ The Colby Institute, William Lynch, January 3, 2003. Accessed on October 23, 2005
↑ Farrakhan, Louis. An appeal .... The Official Site for the Millions More Movement. Accessed on October 12, 2005.