Let's check. Kenosha is Wisconsin.
Wisconsin was a free state:
Politics in early Wisconsin were defined by the greater national debate over slavery. A free state from its foundation, Wisconsin became a center of northern abolitionism. The debate became especially intense in 1854 after Joshua Glover, a runaway slave from Missouri, was captured in Racine. Glover was taken into custody under the Federal Fugitive Slave Law, but a mob of abolitionists stormed the prison where Glover was held and helped him escape to Canada. In a trial stemming from the incident, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately declared the Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional.[49] The Republican Party, founded on March 20, 1854, by anti-slavery expansion activists in Ripon, Wisconsin, grew to dominate state politics in the aftermath of these events.[50] During the Civil War, around 91,000 troops from Wisconsin fought for the Union.
Is there a connection to what Europeans live there? Yes.
At the time of European contact the area was inhabited by Algonquian and Siouan nations, and today is home to eleven federally recognized tribes.[14] Du ring the 19th and early 20th centuries many European settlers entered the state, most of whom emigrated from Germany[15] and Scandinavia.[16] Wisconsin remains a center of German American and Scandinavian American culture.[17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin
Why so?
In Sweden, there existed a type of slavery called thraldom. It concerned white people. It was abolished by the King Magnus Eriksson or Magnus IV back in 1335.
In 1335, Magnus outlawed Thralldom (slavery) for thralls "born by Christian parents" in Västergötland and Värend, being the last parts of Sweden where slavery had remained legal.[8] This put an end to Medieval Swedish slavery - though it was only applicable within the borders of Sweden, which left an opening - used long afterwards - for the 17th and 18th Century Swedish slave trade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_IV_of_Sweden#Outlawing_Thralldom_(Slavery)
Now, if one thing is sure about the Swedes that came to Wisconsin is, they did not participate in our very marginal role in the slave trade, which we ceased having a part in well before the Civil War.
Germans simply had no slave trade at all, so they were even less likely to support slavery in the Civil war.
If there have been white people getting angry at black people in Kenosha, it might be a question of people getting tired of being compared to slave-masters, when they didn't descend from them. When, unlike Lincoln before the Gettisburgh adress, they actually went to war to get black slavery ended, and sometimes died for it.
Denmark and Norway had no slavery either, and insofar as they had a kind of servitude, the Danes and Norwegians who came to Wisconsin were more concerned with escaping it than with imposing it on anyone. Notwithstanding the manners of Mrs Olesen in a televised version of Little House on the Prairie.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Doomsday Sunday
21.XI.2021
PS, next day:
During the early 19th century, movements against slavery became stronger, especially in Britain. Slave trade was outlawed in Britain in 1807, and in the United States in 1808, after which other countries started to follow suit. Sweden made the slave trade illegal as part of the Treaty of Stockholm with Britain in 1813, but allowed slavery until October 9, 1847.
So we were 18 years ahead of Lincoln ...
In Saint Bartholomew, the Swedish government bought the remaining slaves to give them freedom. According to Herman Lindqvist in Aftonbladet (8 October 2006), 523 slaves were bought free for 80 riksdaler per slave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_slave_trade#Abolition
So the remaining slaves in 1847 were 523. As said, our part of the slave trade was very marginal, and those who came to Wisconsin were not involved in it.
/HGL
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