The Economist has been featuring a multi-chapter series, called America at 250.
Needless to say, the magazine "founded in 1843 to champion [American] ideals [such as] open markets, free societies and human progress" has turned left in the past few decades and you can recognize the (occasionally entertaining) sophomoric asides in its tongue-in-cheek "arch, authoritative, occasionally patronising review." However, a couple of items are quite informative, such as the weekly's report from 1861 on the outbreak of civil war at Fort Sumter or Amity Shlaes's piece on FDR — Franklin Roosevelt: Brilliant commander-in-chief, terrible chief executive.
Why anyone would want to leave Britain is beyond us. But in 1776 the 13 colonies declared their own version of Brexit, only with muskets. Out of this act of youthful defiance came a great liberal experiment. Ideas borrowed from the Enlightenment—natural rights, the rule of law, government by consent—became the scaffolding for a new country.
America would go on to fascinate, inspire and occasionally exasperate The Economist, founded in 1843 to champion many of those same ideals: open markets, free societies and human progress. To mark the republic’s 250th birthday, we offer not fireworks but something far more British—a review. An arch, authoritative, occasionally patronising review.Over seven chapters—one a month until July 4th—we’ll scroll through America’s triumphs and hypocrisies, booms and busts.
What is interesting is that one reader from Brazil brings up a 19th C figure who has been lost to history. Emiliano Mundrucu participated in a secessionist revolution in Brazil 200 years ago (just like Denmark's Southern provinces would attempt, 15 years later, and America's Southern states would attempt 35 years later, in the 1860s); after its failure, he was forced to emigrate to the United States, where he did not remain calm, far from it:
A historical precedent
Chapter 3 of your America at 250 series (March 28th) mentioned the saga of Homer Plessy, a black shoemaker from New Orleans who was arrested in 1892 for refusing to “retire to the coloured car” on a train. His case went to the Supreme Court; Plessy v Ferguson questioned whether racial-segregation laws at the time were constitutional (the court found that they were).
Sixty years earlier, in 1832, a little-known episode happened in Boston, when Emiliano Mundrucu, a Brazilian national, sued a boat captain for breach of contract for not allowing Mundrucu’s family to sit in a comfortable cabin because they were black, despite paying the highest fare. A jury in 1833 ordered the captain to pay $125 in damages to Mundrucu, but the decision was reversed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Some scholars consider it to be the first lawsuit challenging racial segregation in America.
Mundrucu was one of the military leaders of the 1824 secession movement in Brazil called Confederation of the Equator, a republican uprising aimed at forming a federation of provinces in the north-east. It was inspired by the American revolution. The movement was defeated and Mundrucu was sentenced to death, but he managed to escape and seek refuge in Boston.
Carlos Andrade
São Paulo
The BBC's Mariana Schreiber has more details: The black immigrant who challenged US segregation - nearly 190 years ago (the Portuguese version seems to be even longer…)
Related: The Economist book review of Separate: The Story of Plessy v Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation. By Steve Luxenberg. W.W. Norton; 624 pages; $35.00.
