Allen, Ethan

NY — 10 May 1775.
Ticonderoga, NY — Built by the French 1755—59 as Fort Carillon, it was taken by the British in 1759 and renamed. During the war the fort went from British to American to British and to American again. Reconstruction began in 1908.
NY — 2—6 July 1777.

Racial prejudice worked to perpetuate American slavery, even if it was not essential to sustain the institution. Slavery, serfdom, and peonage had existed elsewhere without racial connotations. Indeed, bondage had been so historically ubiquitous one might well ask why, by the 1760’s, it had come to trouble so many white Americans so much. The answer lies in part — and this part help explain why people like Mason did not act more aggressively on their concerns — in the reservations many whites felt about living alongside members of a supposedly inferior race, whether slave or free. The problem was inherent in American slavery, and emancipation, by undermining white control, would only make it worse.

Jeff Broadwater
George Mason: Forgotten Founder (2006)