How American Are You?
Take this simple quiz and discover where you land on the scale of Americanism.
On Sept. 29, 1683, more than two centuries before a criminal immigrant named Friedrich Trump arrived in America, Adam Ouldfield, his wife, Anne, and his 10-year-old son, John, arrived in the Pennsylvania colony from Taddington and Priestcliffe, England with nothing but a dream and a gift certificate for free land.
Through hard work and dedication, Ouldfield earned enough money to purchase a few people. Adam’s granddaughter, Mary “Polly” Ouldfield, inherited more than 1,000 acres in Georgetown, S.C., along with 73 enslaved people. At 16, she married 21-year-old English slave trader Robert Heriot, who earned more land patents by slaughtering natives in the Cherokee Wars, serving in the American Revolution and, of course, trafficking human beings. George Washington even came to visit him.
When they died, their oldest son, John Ouldfield Heriot, inherited more than 2,000 acres in Sumter, S.C. Their youngest boy, Robert Ouldfield Heriot, received more than 2,000 acres and 100 slaves in Georgetown. When John O. died, he willed all of his property—human and otherwise—to his wife and children…
Except Sally.
“To the first of my children who shall attain the age of twenty-one-years or marry, I give my Mulatto Woman Sally, who was born in May in the year eighteen hundred and two, now in the care of my Brother Robert Heriot in Georgetown, with a request that he or she will immediately emancipate her according to Law,” reads John O’s 1830 will. “Until one of my Children take my Mulatto Woman Sally agreeably to my intention as is expressed in my last Will and Testament, it is my wish that my Brother Robert Heriot in Georgetown should heretofore continue to hire her out to a person of Good Character as a House servant who is not to put her to any laborious employment, giving preference to the gentleman to whom she is now hired and who is the owner of her husband. And if from ill health or any other cause she may not be able to support herself, my executors are requested to provide support for her out of my estate.”
John O’s 18-year-old son, future Confederate Col. Robert Laroche Heriot, inherited everything. In 1840, his sisters sued, alleging that he was selling off the family fortune. The “account of sales of Negroes belonging to the estate of John O. Heriot listing Negroes by name, purchaser, and price,” shows that Robert sold Sally to his oldest sister. According to the 1850 census, Sally was still enslaved by her sibling. By 1870, Sally’s husband was dead, and she was living with her son, Wilson…
My great, great, great, great grandfather.
I am the descendant of human traffickers and the humans they trafficked. My ancestors fought for the Confederacy and the Union. But, as the progeny of American patriots and American traitors, racist cowards and civil rights heroes, there is still someone who outranks me on the scale of “Americanism.”
Any white person.
Although the average Black American’s U.S. lineage traces back further than people who bring green-bean casseroles to potlucks, that doesn’t necessarily make me an “American.” For instance, an Olympian criticizing the president in front of the world is downright is unpatriotic. But that’s totally different from Donald Trump sharing a racist photo of a president or when noted cunthropologist Megyn Kelly disparages an American citizen in front of a non-American journalist. According to Sage Steele, free speech is an American right…unless you speak Spanish, because that means you hate America.
If you’re confused, you’re not alone.
Fortunately, ContrabandCamp has developed a foolproof way to help you navigate this Caucasian cultural morass. Using the same scientific methods that gave us trickle-down economics, reverse racism and the great replacement theory, we created a simple test to measure Americanism.
