Official Statement Quotes



The Chinese laborers were slaves by most definitions of the word as they had been brought to South Africa on a system of indentured servitude. Slavery was illegal so the term had all kinds of political and legal significance. His statement was a masterpiece of admitting that it was almost slavery but leaving some wiggle room so as not to have classified it as such. Some use this as an example of Churchill’s capacity for hypocrisy.


Lewis had the baby wrapped in an American flag for the ceremony. Many later rigid flag etiquette aficionados would find that use of the American flag highly inappropriate but at the time there were no such sensitivities. The Corps of Discovery were not respecting tradition; they were making it.