Britannist

Today's Sunday Times reports that (brief extract):

"The Queen is being urged to apologise for the slaughter of American Indians and the introduction of slavery when she visits Virginia this week as guest of honour to mark the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement in the New World at Jamestown. She will be landing in the middle of a row over political correctness after officials in Virginia banned the use of the word “celebration” for the anniversary."

There's more on this at:

:arrow:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1720014.ece

Besoeker

I think whoever is doing the urging should do their homework.
Who should she apologise to? And why particularly for African slaves?
As the article correctly points out, the first Africans landed (at Jamestown) in 1619 were indentured servants.
There were also white indentured servants. The white servants were on inventories and valued according to how long there was to run on their contract. So why not apologise to the descendents of those?

The Jamestown 20 or so were landed by an English captain - who had stolen them from a Spanish ship. Should the Spanish be apologising?

Lifetime slavery didn't come into legal existence until 1653. There was a legal wrangle about the duration one servant, John Casor, was in service. The case was won by Anthony Johnson who was then entitled to the lifetime service of Casor. Anthony Johnson was one of the twenty Negros landed at Jamestown. Should Johnson's descendents be doing the apologising? That would put a different complexion on the matter.

Paul Beck

I didn't know that The Queen had murdered American Indians. She clearly has some dark secrets.

Will the Americans be apologising to the Queen for all the "friendly-fire" incidents inflicted upon the British in Iraq I wonder?

And maybe the Americans have forgotten we apologised for slavery at the time by ending it, and forcing other countries to end it with British Naval blockades.