tinydancer
Diamond Member
The British did not take the slaves. They offered the slaves their freedom in exchange for fighting on their side.The journalist Jon Schwarz, writing in The Intercept, argued yes, denouncing the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, as “a celebration of slavery.” How could black players, Mr. Schwarz asked, be expected to stand for a song whose rarely sung third stanza — which includes the lines “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” — “literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans”?
The Brits hired mercenaries and slaves that they took from American plantations to be soldiers in the American Revolution, and that is a fact.
Key's song celebrates the defeat of the slaves fighting for their freedom, as well as the defeat of mercenaries fighting for the British.
Another fact is that Francis Scott Key was a rabid believer in slavery. As District Attorney, he once tried to have a man hanged for distributing abolitionist pamphlets.
Tough shit. They were the enemy.