WHAT DOES IT SAY? NO, IT'S A FOX. YOU GOT TO ZOOM IN. PASS FOX, YOU GOT TO ZOOM IN. WE CAN'T SEE IT. WHAT? What does that say? >> A FEW YEARS AGO, Asiatic L put out a claim concerning something said in the United States Congress [music] in 1845. I didn't mean to overlook it. I just haven't heard it until now. >> Wait fox, what are you doing? Now that you're going into the Library of Congress, the website of Library Congress where you can go and search up yourself like I'm doing now and download this same article right here from the Congressional Records. WHAT DOES THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORDS SAY FOX? WHAT DOES IT SAY? NO, IT'S A FOX. YOU GOT TO ZOOM IN. PASS FOX, YOU GOT TO ZOOM IN. WE CAN'T see it. What? What does that say? WHAT DOES THAT SAY FOX? OH MY GOD. >> SO Asiatic L, join us because that question you asked is actually a pretty good question and we're going to answer it. But we're not starting with somebody's interpretation. We're going where it happened. We're going back to 1845. No windy city highways, no sprawling cities, no modern border checkpoints, no Buckee's [music] every time your gas gauge gets nervous. People travel by horse, by wagon, on foot and Washington is wrestling [music] with a question that will change the country. Texas. Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836. Mexico never accepted that independence. So now the United States is preparing to annex Texas [music] and there's another problem. Where exactly does Texas end? Texas claims the Rio Bravo or the Rio Grande as its boundary. Mexico disputes that claim. The Nueces River lies farther north and between them is a disputed territory [music] and this isn't empty land. Mexican and Tejano communities are here. Indigenous peoples are here. Anglo-American settlement is expanding. Slavery is expanding through Texas. Native peoples are facing removal, displacement and warfare. Different people, different histories. [music] And in Washington, they're arguing over where the boundaries should be. Inside the United States Capitol, Congressman Charles Jared Ingersoll is talking about exactly that. >> [music] >> And this is where our investigation begins. The Congressional Globe, >> [music] >> 28th Congress, second session. The document is real, and the words are real. So, let's read along. >> The stupendous deserts between the Nueces and the Bravo rivers are the natural boundaries between the Anglo-Saxon and the Mauretanian races. Wait, is this is this talking about the United States of America? The Congressional records in the United States of America talking about Mauretanian races and the natural boundaries between the Anglo-Saxon Mauretanian races? There ends the valley of the west where Mexico begins. Wait, Mexico? WAIT, I THOUGHT MOORS WERE ONLY in Africa. >> Now, let's take our time and read this together. The stupendous deserts between [music] the Nueces and the Bravo rivers are the natural boundaries between the Anglo-Saxon and the Mauretanian races. There ends the valley of the west. There Mexico begins. Well, there it is. Mauretanian races. No argument from me. He said it. But, we're going to do something dangerous. We're going to read the next sentence. Stick with me for this. Thence beyond the Bravo begin the Moorish people and their Indian associates to whom Mexico properly belongs. There it is again. Moorish people. And if we stop right there, we've got ourselves one hell of a screenshot. Except the sentence isn't finished. And unfortunately for cherry-picked history, sentences tend to do that. Look at the grammar. Moorish people and their Indian associates. Two groups, same sentence. And whatever Ingersoll means by Moor's people, he isn't using it as another name for an indigenous people in that sentence. He distinguishes the Moor's people from their Indian associates. That's not interpretation, that's grammar. And sometimes grammar is terribly inconvenient. So, why does Ingersoll call them Mauritanians? Because in 1845, Mauritanian wasn't passport stamp from the modern country of Mauritania. That country didn't exist yet. Ingersoll was using older racial language connecting Mauritanian with Moorish. And he tells us that himself. First, the Mauritanian races. Then, the Moorish people and their Indian associates. Same speaker, same argument. Apparently, geography wasn't part of Moorish science, I guess. The most supportable reading is that Moorish described Mexico's Spanish-derived population, while Indian associates identified its indigenous population [music] separately. That does not prove people from modern Mauritania were living in Mexico. It proves that an 1845 politician used 1845 racial terminology. But first, we should probably finish reading the source we already have. I guess reading wasn't part of Moorish science. And this is where we're going to attempt an extremely advanced historical research technique. We're going to continue [music] reading. Try not to get overwhelmed. Asiatic owl found the source. She showed the passage, but she stopped there. Ingersoll didn't. He now turns explicitly to slavery. And there, if anywhere in the providence of God, may slavery undergo some radical improvement. And he continues discussing slavery and annexation until he says, "Slavery cannot increase by the annexation of Texas, probably the contrary. And then comes this, "The African race may have a chance in Texas or neighboring Mexico of proving that it is not [music] inferior to the Caucasian." There, the African race. When Ingersoll gets to Africans, he doesn't call them Mauritanians, he doesn't call them [music] Moors, he calls them African, and he contrasts the African race with the Caucasian. Anglo-Saxon, Mauritanian, Moorish, Indian, African, Caucasian. Same argument, different terminology. Apparently, even in 1845, context came standard, and that's another piece of history worth remembering. African slavery had existed in colonial New Spain under Spanish rule, but independent [music] Mexico moved against slavery and formally abolished it before this debate. So, when we're talking about 1845, [music] we don't get to collapse colonial New Spain and independent Mexico into some historical moment. Meanwhile, [music] slavery was expanding through Texas and American annexation. That distinction matters. >> Wait, I THOUGHT MOORS WERE ONLY in Africa. >> Right, and that's where this gets [music] interesting. Beginning in 711, Muslim forces from North Africa entered the Iberian Peninsula. Among them were the North African Berbers or [music] Amazigh, alongside Arabs. Over the centuries, Moor and Moorish became historical terms associated with Muslim populations of North Africa and Iberia, but Moor was never one clean modern biological race. Its meaning changed depending on the century, the [music] writer, and the context. Muslim rule became part of Iberian history. Iberia gives us Spain. Spain crosses the Atlantic. [music] The Spanish Empire colonizes what becomes Mexico. And Texas itself had become part of that Spanish and then Mexican world. So, when an American politician in 1845 stands at the disputed Texas-Mexico boundary and says, "There Mexico begins." and describes people beyond the Rio Bravo as the Moorish people and their Indian associates, we have an obvious historical question to investigate. What did Americans writing at the time mean when they described Mexicans with language like that? Now, put Ingersoll's own words together. He says, "There Mexico begins." He describes the Moorish people and their Indian associates. Two groups. Then, when he explicitly discusses Africans, he calls them the African race and contrasts them with the Caucasian, Moorish, Indian, African, Caucasian. Those aren't terms we're adding to this argument. They're his terms. They're all in the same argument, and apparently context wasn't part of Moorish science, [music] either. The quotation is real. Charles Jared Ingersoll said it. That's never been the problem. The problem is what happens when a small piece of an argument is removed from everything surrounding it, and then presented as though that fragment tells us what the speaker meant. It does not. If the evidence had supported the claim, that's where we would have gone. It didn't. Finding one sentence that agrees with you doesn't make the rest of the document disappear. We don't get to change what happened because we don't like the reality we found. The job is to follow the evidence wherever it goes. But since we've already traveled through American history, we might as well make one more little stop. Welcome to Americana Theme Park. >> Time Frozen Until I Can Get Up Company Presents [music] >> We've been here 200 [singing] years and still [music] the army won't take bribes. High taxes have >> [music] >> me wearing tears, but we can bomb the world. >> The Americana Theme Park. [music] Take a walk through history and witness the making of a nation. >> First we take a couple of repressed pilgrims, enslaved blacks, throw in some Euro trash, shake thoroughly, and voila, a country. >> Our first step, Frontierland. >> The indigenous people's court is now in session. Judge Haywood Jablome presiding. >> Your honor, the white man has stolen our land. In return, he gives us Bingo. Who is Bingo, your honor, and what does he want from us? I have seen his name on the marquee at the Polish American Club, so he must be very big medicine. >> And you won't want to miss the thrill of Adventureland. For just $69,000, [music] you can take the whitewater shaft ride, follow your own special prosecutor through a confusing [music] maze of paperwork. Then cool down in the Ted Kennedy Water Park. >> Uh ladies and gentlemen, the uh ride is about to start. Please uh unhook your seatbelts and keep your head in my lap. Uh yeah, keep your hands in the car. >> Now that's family fun. >> Always buying, often lying to get reelected. >> [music] >> Double-talking, when there's walking, these guys have perfected. >> And in Fantasyland, you'll hear about a middle class tax cut and a balanced budget. Then visit the haunted White House and drop in on Ulysses S. Grant at a [music] state dinner. >> Let me tell you something. That Robert E. Lee was a Now, give me a beer. >> Watch Gerald Ford [music] greeting international leaders. And for the kids, [music] there's Liddy Land. >> Breakins were his work. Now he's a talk show jerk. >> G. Gordon gives advice on parenting. >> Hey kid, come here. Now behave or I'll break into your tree house. >> And no trip to the Americana theme park [music] would be complete without a visit to the Hall of Incompetence. Hear Mickey reading from the Packwood Diaries. >> And I bent her over the copier. Then Xeroxed her jugs on congressional letterhead. Oh boy. >> Clinton's [music] mastery of language. >> I have nothing else to say. We We did uh the >> [music] >> the the I I this this this the stories they're it's not true. >> And Dan Quayle as [music] Dumbo. >> The question is whether we're going to go forward to tomorrow or we're going to go past to the the the back. We don't want to go back to tomorrow. We want to move forward. And the future will be better tomorrow. >> Who are the guys who spend their time [music] screwing you and me? C O N G R E S S M E N Congressman. >> OUR TONGUES ARE FOUR. >> CONGRESSMAN. >> WE'RE PASSING FOUR. >> OH, HOW THEY LOVE to raise THE TAXES HIGH HIGH HIGH. C O N >> As in criminal. >> G R E [singing and music] >> Just add E D. >> S S M E [music and singing] N >> And on that note, if you enjoyed today's episode, hit like, share, subscribe, give it a hype, and leave a comment below. It helps the channel and I really enjoy what you have to say. And to our channel members, [music] thank you. Your support allows me to spend time finding original sources, reading historical documents, and putting these investigations together. Including the ones where the big breakthrough is discovering that a paragraph has more than one sentence. Seriously though, this research takes time, and your [music] support helps make it possible. I truly appreciate every one of you. Bonichi, thank you. If you're going to quote a Congressional Globe report, [music] at least read it all. Apparently, that instruction now needs to come separately. History isn't a choose-your-own-adventure book where you skip the uncomfortable pages and land on the ending you wanted. And finding an authentic quotation doesn't mean every conclusion you attach [music] to it becomes authentic, too. You still have to do the work. >> [music] >> Read what came before it. Read what came after it. And when the next sentence complicates your claim, congratulations, you've reached the [music] research part. That's where you investigate further. The cropping tool has done quite enough. You can be proud of your heritage and still ask hard questions about it. You can respect your ancestors without needing every historical document to tell you exactly what you wanted to hear. History includes slavery, displacement, racism, and people treating other human beings as though their lives mattered less. Those things happened. Making the story more comfortable doesn't undo them. Learning about them honestly gives us a chance to understand what happened and recognize the thinking behind it. And that requires being willing to find out you were wrong, me included. If I bring you a claim, you should expect the evidence. If I make a mistake, you should expect a correction. Having a microphone doesn't make anybody right. Neither does having a screenshot. Until next time, question the claim, check the source, read past the screenshot, and I'll see you soon.