"These Deletions Are Not Mere Wording Changes"

"Ms. Hannah-Jones, caught in one lie, doubles down with new and even bigger lies. The Times journalist-celebrity not only denies her project's central argument. In self-contradictory fashion, she also says that the 'true founding' claim was just a bit of a rhetorical flourish. She told CNN that the 1619 Project was merely an effort to move the study of slavery to the forefront of American history."

Tom Mackaman and David North at the World Socialist Web Site declare victory over the The New York Times 1619 Project.

And they provide an update in October.

David Waldstreicher at Boston Review connects the controversy to disputes among historians.

"That One Sentence About the Role of Slavery in the Founding of the United States Has Ended Up at the Center of a Debate Over the Whole Project"

"Both sets of inaccuracies worried me, but the Revolutionary War statement made me especially anxious. Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past—histories that wrongly suggested racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S. history. I was concerned that critics would use the overstated claim to discredit the entire undertaking. So far, that's exactly what has happened."

Leslie M. Harris at Politico discusses her interaction with The New York Times and its 1619 Project.

"Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem"

"The point, once again, is to 'reframe American history' so that this appalling history stands at the very center of who we are as a country. Achieving that goal has required the Times to treat history in a highly sensationalistic, reductionistic, and tendentious way, with the cumulative result resembling agitprop more than responsible journalism or scholarship. Putting aside any pretense toward nuance or complexity, the paper has surrendered to the sensibility of left-wing political activists. The result is unpersuasive—and a sad comment on the state of our country's public life."

Damon Linker at The Week criticizes The New York Times' "1619 Project."

Zack Beauchamp at Vox criticizes the critics.

"20. and odd Negroes"

"'It's rather clear that Virginia did not have a set way of dealing with these folks, and it got worked out over time,' Scott says. 'They had indentured people in Virginia, and some people may have seen Africans just like they saw other indentured people. We know some people became free, so it looks like they were treated like every other indentured person.'
"Other scholars, including Linda Heywood and John Thornton of Boston University, insist that the Africans from the White Lion and the Treasurer were enslaved by the English as they had originally been by the Portuguese slave traders before they were taken by pirates.
"Whether indentured servants or slaves, Newby-Alexander says, 'Either way, they were unfree.'"

E. R. Shipp at USA Today discusses the four-hundredth anniversary of the first Africans arriving in colonial Virginia.

"In Conversation With Each Other"?

"Squanto and Pocahontas were raised in different regions possessing distinct cultural and historical traditions, languages and politics. The colonists who established the first permanent English settlements in America did not encounter some undifferentiated, unsophisticated, inarticulate Natives, but specific historic actors who must be viewed in the context of their own times, places, and individual life experiences. They were multi-lingual, politically and culturally aware, and they reacted in different ways, alternatively embracing and rejecting distinct elements of European tradition."

E. M. Rose at The Junto wonders if Squanto and Pocahontas met in London in 1616.

"Or Didn't They?"

"It all starts in 1612, when an educated, bilingual, actual Irish spy named Thomas Shelton translates part one of the 'Quixote'—to rapturous acclaim and sensational sales —as 'The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha.' About a year later, an aging William Shakespeare and his anointed protege, John Fletcher, co-write their third play together, 'The History of Cardenio.' That would be the same crazed, cuckolded Cardenio whom Don Quixote met in Chapter 23 of the novel, then helped reunite with his inamorata a hundred pages later.
"Yes, as the wittie Ring Lardner might have said, you could look it up. In 1613, almost surely without ever meeting in person, it was Shakespeare who helped usher Cervantes onto the British stage for the first time.
"Or so we think."

David Kipen in the Los Angeles Times wonders about connections between Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, who both died four hundred years ago this month.

Pilgrims' Progress

"According to the hypothesis, infected ship rats landed in the New World and excreted leptospira, infecting raccoons, mink, and muskrats whose urine further contaminated any standing fresh water. It is unclear why this particular infectious disease should afflict Native Americans and not subsequent European colonists. Prior exposure does not necessarily result in immunity because there are a number of different infectious strains."

Madeleine Johnson in Slate looks into why in New England "as many as nine out of 10 coastal Indians were killed in the epidemic between 1616 and 1619."