Willie Lynch was supposedly a slave owner from the West Indies who was called to Virginia to give a speech on his methods to other slave owners. As the stories of Willie Lynch began to spread, historians began to question the validity of him being real because some of the language used in the written account of his speech did not match the time period in which this event supposedly took place. In his speech, Lynch used language “that was undoubtedly anachronisms” (Ampin). For example, he claimed that he had a fool proof method for controlling Black slaves; however, the words “fool proof” and “Black” with an uppercase “B” to refer to African Americans is of modern origin. Another inconsistency in the text was that the only known William Lynch who could have authorized a speech in Virginia in 1712 was born “thirty years after the alleged speech” (Ampin). This backs the claim that Willie Lynch is a false narrative because it is impossible that someone could authorize a document before they are born. Lynch’s claim that  his method would work throughout the south is also inconsistent with the time period of the speech because in 1712 there was “no region…in the U.S identified as the South”  (Ampin). The time of this speech dates to before the American Revolution, where all of the original thirteen colonies were slaveholding regions, meaning they were all in what became the North rather than the South. While the issues in the written account of Willie Lynch’s speech are real, the contradictions in the language and time leads many to believe that it was written during a more modern time period. The Willie Lynch letter is fictional.