Jul 1, 2016 · In 1814, Key was a slaveholding lawyer from an old Maryland plantation family, who thanks to a system of human bondage had grown rich and powerful.

Key owned slaves from 1800, during which time abolitionists ridiculed his words, claiming that America was more like the "Land of the Free and Home of the Oppressed". [ 5 ] .

Sep 6, 2018 · Key, an elite insider and author of the national anthem, helped a president down a dark path to defend slavery. Kaepernick, the outsider, is the former NFL quarterback banished from the realm for kneeling during the lofty victory song …

Jul 8, 2014 · Francis Scott Key helped shape the national debate over slavery. A slave owner from a large slave-owning family, Key was an early and ardent opponent of slave trafficking. By all accounts, Key treated his own slaves humanely, and freed several during his lifetime.

Francis Scott Key was an abolitionist for the entirety of his life. He believed slavery was an evil and a sin, writing in 1839, “I was born in Maryland, and have always lived in a slave State. No northern man began the world with more enthusiasm against slavery than I did.

He was a white-American slave owner, lawyer, author, and poet. Key was born to Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Captain John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra in what is now Carroll County, Maryland.

Sep 29, 2021 · Like his idol Thomas Jefferson, Key – the man who wrote about the “land of the free” – was a slaveholder who opposed slavery in principle. He even viewed himself as an anti-slavery reformer.

Sep 15, 2024 · He was a slave owner, yet he publicly supported the colonization movement, which sought to send freed African Americans to Africa. He was involved with the American Colonization Society, an organization founded to promote the migration of free blacks to Africa, particularly Liberia.

Jun 14, 2022 · He was a paradox: an enslaver who abhorred the slave trade, and a man who helped Black Marylanders sue for their freedom but couldn’t countenance a world with free Black citizens.

Francis Scott Key defended and participated in the institution of slavery, and his personal ownership of other human beings stands opposed to his definition of the United States as “the land of the free.”