Willie lynch biography

The William Lynch speech , also known as the Willie Lynch letter , is an address purportedly delivered by a William Lynch or Willie Lynch to an audience on the bank of the James River in Virginia in regarding control of slaves within the colony. In recent years, it has been widely exposed as a hoax. The letter purports to be a verbatim account of a short speech given by a slave owner, in which he tells other slave masters that he has discovered the "secret" to controlling black slaves by setting them against one another.

The document has been in print since at least , but first gained widespread notice in the s, when it appeared on the Internet.

Willie lynch biography: The William Lynch speech, also known

Since then, it has often been promoted as an authentic account of slavery during the 18th century, though its inaccuracies and anachronisms have led historians to conclude that it is a hoax. The reputed author, William Lynch, identifies himself as the master of a "modest plantation" in the British West Indies who has been summoned to the Virginia Colony by local slaveowners to advise them on problems they have been having in managing their slaves.

He briefly notes that their current violent method of handling unruly slaves — lynching , though the term is not used — is inefficient and counterproductive. Instead, he suggests that they adopt his method, which consists of exploiting differences such as age and skin color in order to pit slaves against each other. This method, he assures his hosts, will "control the slaves for at least three hundred [ sic ] years.

The text of the speech has been published since at least , and is often published with the title "The Making of a Slave". It appeared on the Internet as early as , when a reference librarian at the University of Missouri—St. Louis posted the document on the library's Gopher server.