If Statues Must Go, Should New York Name?

Will Democrats Re-name New York, Named After Slave Trader the Duke of York?

Let's get started by saying you can’t make this up.

Here’s the headline right here at Newsmax:

"NYC Council Mulls Removal of Artwork Honoring Founding Fathers."

Very recently reported on Reported on Newsmax's "National Report," with Shaun Kraisman and Emma Rechenberg, the story by reporter Charlie McCarthy writes:

"New York City lawmakers have proposed the removal of artwork honoring such people as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Christopher Columbus because of the historical figures' controversial pasts.

"The Democrat-led New York City Council's Cultural Affairs Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing Tuesday on a proposal to remove artworks 'that depict a person who owned enslaved persons or directly benefited economically from slavery, or who participated in systemic crimes against indigenous peoples or other crimes against humanity.'

"The bill would stipulate that if the Public Design Commission determines that a statue or monument honors a person who committed crimes against humanity but votes not to remove the artwork, the city would be required to install an ‘explanatory plaque about the misdeeds of the historical figure."

This isn't only highly compelling, it's downright dangerous. 

The obvious question upon learning of this, is: when will the New York City Council, not to mention other New York politicians, set about removing their own names?

Why?

Let’s hop in the time capsule and revisit the person for whom "New York" is itself named!

On a website named "State Symbols USA"we learn this:

What Does "New York" Mean?

"New York was named after the English Duke of York and Albany (and the brother of England's King Charles II) in 1664 when the region called New Amsterdam was taken from the Dutch. The state was a colony of  Great Britain until it became independent on July 4, 1776."

Move from there to the History channel’s site and we learn this about the Duke of York for whom "New York" is named:

"According to the Navigation Act of 1660, only English-owned ships could enter colonial ports. That same year, King Charles II granted a charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa.

"Led by the king’s younger brother James, the Duke of York (later King James II), this group had a monopoly on British trade with West Africa, including gold, silver and slaves.

"Thanks to England’s war with the Netherlands, the original company collapsed under mounting debts in 1667, reemerging in 1672 with a new royal charter and a new name: the Royal African Company (RAC).

"RAC ships sailed from Bristol, Liverpool and London to West Africa, operating from military forts based along some 5,000 miles of coastline from Cape Sallee (in present-day Morocco) to Cape of Good Hope (in what is now South Africa).

"From 1680 to 1686, the company transported an average of 5,000 slaves per year, most of which were shipped to colonies in the Caribbean and Virginia. . . "

In other words, the New York City Council, busy removing artworks "that depict a person who owned enslaved persons or directly benefited economically from slavery, or who participated in systemic crimes against indigenous peoples or other crimes against humanity" is itself named after one of the biggest slave traders in history - the Duke of York.

The very Duke of York who led a group that had “a monopoly on British trade with West Africa, including gold, silver and slaves."

The very Duke of York whose slave-trading company "transported an average of 5,000 slaves per year" with his "company’s initials branded on their chests."

So, some more than pertinent questions?

• Will the New York City Council demand that New York be renamed?
• Will they cease calling themselves "the New York City Council"?
• Will the State of New York change its name?
• Will every institution and Mom and Pop store in New York be made to change their name?
• Does this also mean no more New York Yankees? New York Mets? Or New York Knicks and New York Jets and New York Giants?

Stay tuned.

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House associate political director. He is a Pennsylvania-based contributing editor of The American Spectator. He writes at his own web site, TheJeffreyLord.com and is the author of "Swamp Wars; Donald Trump and the New American Populism vs. the Old Order." Read Jeffrey Lord Reports — More Here.