Editor,
I don’t expect you to print this letter and neither do the 10 people I had read it.
I spent over 1,200 hours since I retired almost 28 years ago reading original documents through the Library of Congress, reading thousands of books, and for 3 years guest lecturing until 7 years ago at communnity colleges in Colorado.
Replacing my United States flag today battered by a year’s elements and showing tatters. It reminded me of ISIS’ terrorist tactics destroying monuments and Middle East history being used by liberal terrorists here, applauded by short-sightedness of many politicians on both sides of the isle and many who don’t know history.

These groups’ goal is to remove anything to do with black slavery including removing Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington off Mount Rushmore. Twelve of our presidents owned slaves including Union General Grant.
Slavery was the norm in the world for thousands of years even by my Apache/Aztec people and all tribes. Since slavery, indenture servitude and killing Native peoples was legal under the Flag since its adoption June 14, 1777, will they demand the flag be removed from the public square? That is where this mess is headed.
Should statues and history of Buffalo Soldiers be destroyed because they were expert at killing Apache, Comanche and Sioux men, women and children? Should Ft. Laramie and all forts where campaigns were launched to kill American Indians be demolished or shut down as historical monuments? I guess they believe holding people in bondage and letting them live is worse than killing others. During the zenith of African slavery the U.S. had only 4 percent of all Black slaves.
Should New York City be shut down because the Dutch brought 11 Africans to New Amsterdam in 1636 and by 1703 42 percent of New York City households held slaves making it the second-highest proportion city in the colonies after Charleston, S.C.? Should New England banks that still exist today and owned/financed most American slave ships be shut down?
What to do about Black slave owners descendants, the 17 percent of 361,988 free Southern Negroes in the 1860 census who owned Black slaves? The country’s leading African American historian, the late Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records in New Orleans 3,000 Negroes owned slaves, 28 percent. 1.4 percent of all whites owned slaves, 4.8 percent 385,000 Southerners, 2 percent Northerners and Border States. Owners with 50+ were defined as magnates, 1 percent of all owners. Six Negroes in Louisiana alone owned 65 or more. Largest number, 152, Widow C. Richards, Sugar Plantation owner. Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter with 118 slaves, worth almost $49 million in today’s dollars, bankrupt after the war was elected Republican Louisiana State Treasurer. All of this never happened to us and one can’t succeed in life until that is understood.

Paul E. Puebla
Torrington