Maq-bull

The Defund the BBC Twitter feed is critical of a BBC News website piece by Aleem Maqbool headlined The British role in America's tainted past:

This piece from the BBC News’ North America Correspondent is factually incorrect - slaves arrived 100 years earlier in Spanish-occupied Florida - but why let facts get in the way of some hearty Brit bashing?

The piece quotes Professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander from Virginia's Norfolk State University saying, "Britain put its stamp on America from the beginning. It was Britain who brought the first unfree Africans to this country and helped to start slavery in America", which is indeed untrue. 

The Spanish brought enslaved Africans to Florida in 1565 and established St. Augustine, Florida as the first permanent settlement in what would become the continental United States to include enslaved Africans. 

It was 54 years later that the first British-brought African slaves arrived. 

Do BBC journalists not reality-check such claims?

Update: Dr Paul Stott has commented on this piece, writing:

This article could have mentioned Thomas Paine, his ideals and his influence. It could have mentioned the Lancashire cotton workers, and their opposition to slavery. But neither fits the BBC's poisonous agenda. 

He added a telling postscript too: 

To show how the BBC is changing, and how quickly it is eradicating more positive views of Britain and its history, this article by Paul Mason appeared on its site just 7 years ago: