Black legends

This is a year of centennials. The anti-American Left has struck first, by casting the first English colonies (they weren't "British" yet) as illegitimate - the "1619 Project", so called. Ben "Augustine" Domenech's flagship The Federalist has responded with several articles; of which, his personal Transom newsletter links to five. Instapundit has linked several more.

What is at stake here is nothing less than the right of Europeans to live in the United States; and, by extension, any part of the Western Hemisphere excepting maybe Greenland (the Inuits got there late too). This is why the pseudonymous "Adam Mill" mooted a "1519 Project".

For some, the whole question is pointless. Some say that "whites" don't even exist; that the whole concept is artificial. Others - I am thinking of the Patriot Front lately - just state because we live here. For them, there is no point arguing for the morality of white existence or white settlement; they're white, and they seek to secure the existence of their people and a future for white children. The 1519 Project is not for either. Both sides have made up their minds already.

The 1519 Project is to argue for "Western Civilisation" and its essential goodness. Race, to Domenech, doesn't matter; being pro-West is good enough (and if his cheques clear from their Malay bank-account).

[Disclosure: I would support a 1519 Project - because the antiAmericans are going to be doing such a project next, so if nothing else we need to anticipate it. Also because I enjoy a historical challenge.]

The 1519 Project runs up against the concurrent Anti-1619 Project somewhat. Anti-1619 Project says, yay West, we ended slavery. 1519 Project has to admit that the Conquistadors were in it in the first place because of slavery; Restall's When Montezuma Met Cortes documents Conquistador slavery of the natives, extensively. In fact New World slavery outstripped African slavery from 1500ish-1600ish; there was more "raw material" in the New World itself. Until there wasn't, and ship technology improved, so the Europeans (by then Spain was joined by others) went back to Africa.

"Mill"'s article demands a response, but it touches on many points, so I'll be running a series on this today.