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MarcusGarveyLives
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Posted: Sunday February 11th, 2007 18:14 |
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Sunday 11 February 2007
Ligali on Galaxy 'Pan African People's Show' with Bro Omowale: 10pm - 12pm
Discussing the Truth 2007 campaign (Part 2 - Rescheduled).
Listen to Galaxy Radio on 99.5 FM (London area) or http://www.afiwestation.com
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Sunday February 18th, 2007 12:16 |
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Deborah Summers and agencies
Thursday February 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Hain was at the centre of fresh controversy today after he appeared to apologise for the roles played by Northern Ireland and Wales in the slave trade.
The outspoken Northern Ireland and Wales secretary - and Labour deputy leadership hopeful - was criticised for his comments, made at an event on slavery in America, which appeared to go further than the "deep sorrow" Tony Blair recently expressed about Britain's involvement in the slave trade.
Mr Hain told the BBC: "I'm here on behalf of both Northern Ireland and Wales to say we have had a part to play in the slave trade.
"We acknowledge that. We take responsibility for it and we now are going to try and at least say that historical legacy must be recognised and we are sorry for it."
At the New York event, Mr Hain said: "Slavery was the most inhuman and barbaric trade in the history of the world. Wales played a part in the slave trade and it is important that we face up to that role.
"A great many Welshmen prospered from slavery and much of the wealth of Wales at that time was based on the trade.
"We can never undo what was done, but this historic legacy must be recognised. We must also recognise our responsibility to support modern day Africa to tackle its problems."
Mr Hain's comments puzzled historians in Northern Ireland, who insisted that there was no sympathy for slavery in Belfast.
It also provoked criticism from Sammy Wilson, the Democratic Unionist MP.
The East Antrim MP said: "I think a lot of people would love Peter Hain to apologise for the things he has done while he has been in charge of the Northern Ireland Office rather than for him to delve into the past and apologise for things we had no responsibility nor sympathy for.
"If you look at slavery, Belfast and the people of Belfast were at the cutting edge of enlightened attitudes and there was no association between Northern Ireland and the slave trade.
"Just because he is secretary of state for Northern Ireland, that does not mean he can apologise for things we are neither associated with nor had sympathy for.
"Maybe people in Wales will also feel concerned about this. I think his comments were a bit patronising."
In November last year Mr Blair wrote an article for the New Nation, the newspaper aimed at black Britons, in which he expressed deep sorrow for Britain's role in the slave trade and said that it had been "profoundly shameful".
But he stopped short of issuing the full apology some commentators had called for.
The Northern Ireland Office and the Wales Office both insisted that Mr Hain had also praised Belfast and Cardiff's stances against slavery and roles in its abolition in his New York speech.
But Mr Wilson said that Mr Hain's comments in the BBC interview appeared to suggest Northern Ireland was involved.
The New York event, organised by the Wales Office, was held to mark this year's bicentenary of the end of the slave trade in the UK.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/wales/story/0,,2013862,00.html
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Friday February 23rd, 2007 17:37 |
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The slave trade and matters arising
published: Sunday | January 28, 2007
The following article was submitted by the Public Theology Forum, a group of local ministers of religion from different denominations.
On March 25, 2007, Britain and the Commonwealth will mark the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Ahead of the official commemorations, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair has described chattel slavery as a "profoundly shameful occurrence".
"It is hard to believe that what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time," he said. Blair has both been praised and criticised for his comments. Some have noted that the British Prime Minister stopped short of a full apology and therefore avoided opening a Pandora's Box of litigations and claims. He has also skilfully avoided the question of reparations. He has failed to acknowledge that western economies enjoy the advantages they do because of the legacy of the deformed economic structure which created slavery.
Jamaica, which was one of the primary receiving countries for slaves during the slave trade, has commenced its commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Year-long events for all of 2007 have been planned by the committee under the chairmanship of Professor Verene Shepherd, established by former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson. The comments, made by the British Prime Minister do raise the issue of what the former slave colonies and descendants of former slave owners regard as the appropriate response to the fact of slavery. One has to acknowledge that the comments though inadequate, have served the purpose of bringing prominence to the anniversary. At least, Tony Blair, by his comments, have said more than many of us have.
His comments are therefore an important point of departure to raise some questions: Does our duty to the past obligate us to ensure that the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery is part of the curriculum in all our education institutions? Is reparation a legitimate demand, and if so, how should it be made? What are the abiding legacies of chattel slavery of the African people, and how should they be rooted out?
To begin with, it is important to remind ourselves of what happened in order to determine the matters arising:
Harsher conditions
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to engage in the slave trade from as early as the 14th century. They traded extensively with Africans, and also employed them on their plantations in Madeira and Sao Tome, and in Portugal. By the 16th century, the Portuguese had already been trading in slaves with the Spanish and were using them to work on their plantations in Brazil. They had found that the Africans were better to work under harsher conditions than the indigenous peoples and that they produced far more than their Indian counterparts.
The Caribbean seemed to possess boundless opportunities and Europeans travelled in droves to West Indies. Colonies such as Barbados and Chesapeake region, early settlements were started, first with white indentured labourers, whose owners were financed by the Dutch and later Africans, whose worth had been proven by the Portuguese. Both groups tended to work alongside each other in tobacco and cotton farms. In 1636, the English sanctioned the use of Africans on the holdings, and from the very beginning called Negroes and Indians 'heathen brutes'. The Africans were considered slaves from the very beginning and their status passed on to their children.
The arrival of sugar as the mainstay of the Caribbean economy in the mid-1600 signalled the nature of the treatment that would be meted out to Africans for the next two centuries. Indentured white labourers proved just as unreliable as the Indians, and Africans were considered a source of cheap and efficient labour that provided maximum returns on their investment. After working alongside indentured white labourers from the mid-17th century, until at least the 1690s - in the continental colonies - blacks began to form the mass of the enslaved labour force and, unlike their white counterparts, their contract was permanent.
Economy progressed
As the sugar economy progressed so did the demand for slaves. It is estimated that a total of 9.2 million Africans landed in the Americas during the 400 years of the Atlantic trade. Of that figure an estimated 42 per cent landed in the Caribbean, the main importers being Jamaica, Barbados and the Leeward Islands; 38 per cent went to Brazil.
Phillip Curtin estimates that quarter of a million Africans landed in the aforementioned islands between 1640 and 1700, and by the end of the 18th century had received 1,480,000, or 15 per cent of the total of slaves shipped to the region. It was estimated that one in every three newly-imported African died within three years of their arrival. Barry Higman estimates that the average working life of the adult slave was six years, after which he had to be retired to work in other menial posts. It was easier and cheaper to import new Africans into the West Indies than to keep them alive in the Caribbean.
Between 1698 and 1807, some 2,108 slaving voyages set out from Bristol, England - some completed their voyages successfully, others did not. In the early 18th century
a successful voyage reaped profits anywhere between 50 and 100 per cent. Losses could also be massive is a ship was lost at sea and untold numbers of the human cargo was lost at sea. On one ship, 939 Africans were purchased and 203 died before even setting foot on the ship and numerous others died on the voyage to the Americas. According to research, British ships carried approximately 2.8 million slaves to the Americas, however average losses was anywhere between 10 and 20 per cent (between 300,000 and 600,000). Africans died from dehydration, sickness, some committed suicide and others were murdered.
African population grew
As the slave trade progressed there were increasing numbers of slave revolts as the African population grew and outnumbered the Europeans. In the early 18th century, there were four black persons to one white individual in the West Indies. Assemblies increased legislation to reinforce their dominance over the enslaved. The movement of slaves were restricted and punishments for runaways were increased. Slavery in Jamaica was necessarily harsher since slaves outnumbered their European masters; brutal punishment was used to reinforce the dominance of the Europeans. In Jamaica, slaves that ran away more than once were fitted with an iron yoke that had three long hooks projecting from it to hinder future escapes. Slave rebellions in islands such as Jamaica were a big problem and the British militia stationed on the island, spent most of the 18th century fighting Maroons, which hindered expansion on the south western coast of the island.
On the English side many humanitarians lobbied parliament, held meetings and circulated petitions condemning the slave trade though many of them did not consider Africans their equals. Supporters of the slave trade argued that Britain's prosperity rested on slave produced goods and if they did not control the trade their European competitors would do so in their stead. The abolition of the slave trade was preceded by a ruling against the practice of slavery in England.
However after years of unsuccessful lobbying (after the suspension of lobbying because of Haitian Revolution and the Napoleonic wars) a new Prime Minister and cabinet was appointed in 1806, the abolition of the slave trade was again brought to the forefront. The Lords gave their assent and a bill was passed in 1807 for the Abolition of the Trade.
Based on the act, no nation was to participate in the trade of human cargo but the trade in human cargo did not stop and the British started to police the western coast of Africa capturing ships that traded in Africans and returning them to the continent.
What are the matters arising? It is important to acknowledge that there was a theological construct that legitimised slavery and the slave trade. It is important that there should be a theological construct and framework which underpins the rooting out of the legacy of slavery. Indeed Bartholomew de Las Casas, the so called protector of the Indians defended the importation of African slaves because Indians were converted to Roman Catholicism and it was thought that the Africans were simultaneously sturdier and the more brutish heathen.
Monstrous Wrong
It is inevitable to conclude that the slave trade and slavery as a whole were abolished because of the confluence of moral and economic forces. However its abolition did not and has not since taken into account the primary victims of this monstrous wrong. Further than that, an entire social and economic system has been built on two falsehoods. The first is the notion of white supremacy and entitlement. And the second is the notion that the African people in some way or other deserve the wrong done to them through the slave trade and chattel slavery either because of the complicity of Africans in the slave trade or because the "curse of Ham rests upon the people of darker hue.
It is undeniable that European wealth including the capital for the industrial revolution was the direct legacy of the chattel slavery and the exploitation of slave labour. The landed gentry are still represented in the House of Lords. Their opulence is inversely proportionate the economic and social deficit of the African people. Further more the twin evils of racism and the African self hate and self-doubt have been skilfully crafted and maintained over centuries. There can be no expression of sorrow or mea culpas that is credible that does not simultaneously renounce or repay the ill-gotten gains, and the enterprise of white supremacy and racism that have maintained and distributed like booty among a set of bandits.
The dysfunctional family structure of Africans in the Diaspora in the Caribbean, in Brazil, in the USA and in the United Kingdom is a legacy of slavery. The growth in the incidents of violence among people of African descent is the perpetuation of the inculcated self-hate.
Some of those who have responded to the words of the British PM have indicated that all that is necessary is an acknowledgement that this was wrong without taking responsibility for what went wrong. We take a different view.
A full and unconditional apology is necessary from those who perpetrated this monstrous crime and by their heirs and successor who enjoy the proceeds of the wealth from ill-gotten gain. We are not insisting on full and unconditional apology not as a condition for the forgiveness of those who were behind the slavery trade. If the descendants of former slave had not learnt how to forgive they would not have survived this long. However, the apology is necessary in order that the forgiveness that is on offer can be appropriated, the healing made complete and the chapter closed. This is a minimum requirement. The least that the dignity of the African people deserves is an acknowledgement that this happened, Britain was culpable and they hold them selves accountable to contribute in some small way to compensation for the victims of this monstrous crime, their heirs and successors.
Once again compensation is not being sought as a kind of jihad against the sons and daughters of former slave masters. It is necessary as the fruit of their repentance to show how completely they have repudiated the monstrosity of slavery and its ill-gotten gain.
There is no adequate figure that can fully compensate for the wrong done. What is intended is a mere token. For example there are transactional relationships that are still maintained between the sons and daughters of former slaves and the sons and daughters of their former slave owners. Those transaction need to be framed in the context of the moral and ecological debt owed to the people of African descent in the Diaspora. All kinds of matrix can be devised for the ways in which such compensation could be framed. Whatever is developed should include the financing of access to education at all levels for African people and to improve the quality of the educational institutions in communities where people of African descent predominate. It may also include a provision for capital formation to afford entrepreneurs greater and easier access to credit and to markets.
The conversation need to commence in the frame that a wrong has been done and 200 years is too long for nothing to have been done about it. It is an opportunity put the legacy of slavery to rest once and for all. This is not to perpetrate the sense of victim-hood among African people or to give legitimacy to the notion of the African who always needs the help of the white man. It is to challenge that legacy and to close that chapter once and for all. Without it chattel slavery and the slave trade that supported remain an open sore.
Historical research was done by Shani Roper who is an assistant curator at the Institute of Jamaica.
Members of the Public Theology Forum are Revs. Neville Callam, Byron Chambers, Ernle Gordon, Roderick Hewitt, Stotrell Lowe, Richmond Nelson, Garnet Roper, Ashley Smith, Burchell Taylor, Karl Johnson and Wayneford McFarlane.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070128/focus/focus5.html
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Tuesday March 6th, 2007 12:41 |
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UN Draft Resolution on the Bicentennial Commemoration of the Abolition of the Slave Trade
- Recalling that the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which operated between the fifteenth and late nineteenth centuries, involved the forced transportation of millions
of Africans as slaves, mostly from West Africa to the Americas, thereby enriching the imperial empires of the time
- Honouring the memory of those who died as a result of slavery, including through exposure to the horrors of the middle passage and in revolt against and resistance to enslavement
- Recognizing that the slave trade and slavery are among the worst violations of human rights in the history of humanity, bearing in mind particularly their scale and duration
- Deeply concerned that it has taken the international community almost two hundred years to acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and that they should always be deemed so
- Recalling that slavery and the slave trade were declared a crime against humanity by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa, from 31 August to 8 September 2001
- Acknowledging that the slave trade and the legacy of slavery are at the heart of situations of profound social and economic inequality, hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice, which continue to affect people of African descent today
- Recalling paragraphs 98 through 106 of the Durban Declaration and emphasizing, in particular, the importance of the “provision of effective remedies,
recourse, redress, and compensatory and other measures at the national, regional and international levels�, aimed at countering the continued impact of slavery and the slave trade
- Recognizing the knowledge gap that exists with regard to the consequences created by the slave trade and slavery, and with regard to the interactions, past and present, generated among the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, including the Caribbean
1. Decides to designate 25 March 2007 as the International Day for the Commemoration of the Two-hundredth Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade;
2. Urges Member States that have not already done so to develop educational programmes designed to educate and inculcate in future generations, including through school curricula, an understanding of the lessons, history and
consequences of slavery and the slave trade;
3. Decides to convene, on 25 March 2007, a special commemorative meeting of the General Assembly on the International Day for the Commemoration of the Two-hundredth Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade;
4. Requests the Secretary-General to establish a programme of outreach, with the involvement of Member States and civil society, including non-governmental organizations, to appropriately commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade;
5. Also requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-second session a special report on initiatives taken by States to implement
paragraphs 101 and 102 of the Durban Declaration aimed at countering the legacy of slavery and contributing to the restoration of the dignity of the victims of slavery and the slave trade.
Original Document:
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/file_download.php/c6569e5d9daf4363fb2ba379d1cf91fdA+61+L+28+E.pdf
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
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CistaC
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Posted: Tuesday March 6th, 2007 13:58 |
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The audios on this website will touch your very soul...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/memories/index_flash.html
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Friday March 9th, 2007 14:14 |
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The 1807 Act
http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_06.htm
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
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MarcusGarveyLives
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Posted: Saturday March 10th, 2007 09:55 |
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soulgrooveuk
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Posted: Saturday March 10th, 2007 16:08 |
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Another link for recordings of african people kidnapped and taken as slaves , into strange and foriegn lands
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/title.html
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ant
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Posted: Saturday March 10th, 2007 17:29 |
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Mezmerized wrote: **shakes head**
I don't think Jesus (Yeshua) could be held responsible for slavery. It is only the deliberate misinterpretation and misapplication of the scriptures that led people to believe what they were doing was being done because of God's will - in fact it had more to do with greed and a disrespect for human life, and it is high time that black people took their heads out of the sand and stopped blaiming Yeshua for slavery! We can all read now, and given that fact it is intellectual laziness, verging on plain ignorance for these type of views to be held in the black community. I wrote an essay about this on this site called White Lies, and I would like to know if you still think your last post was really based on any kind of factual evidence after you have read (if you would) my essay.
Peace to all,
Anthony.
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DarkCloud
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Posted: Saturday March 10th, 2007 23:50 |
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So, technically slavery was abolished at some point in the 1800's. How do they define colonialism and divvying up Africa and remaning for close to a century after this 'abolishment'?
Oh i see, they decided to stop transporting 'african slaves' but rather go and rule them on their land..
Like someone said, it is better to shut up than to insult the collective interest of Africans...
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ant
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Posted: Sunday March 11th, 2007 07:30 |
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As regards reparations, I think it will always be a case of too little too late anyway. The bulk of western "civilisation" is built off of the back of slavery, there is no way anyone can argue that the western nations would be what they are today if they did not benefit from slavery, they only stopped it because they had achieved what they wanted to, or when it was too late to undo the damage that was done. How can societies recover when families and communities are ripped apart like that? Can any sum of money really atone for what has been done?
Peace to all,
Anthony.
Last edited on Sunday March 11th, 2007 07:31 by ant
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Posted: Sunday March 18th, 2007 11:41 |
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The Curse of the Door of No Return
Molefi Kete Asante
The "Door of No Return", Elmina Castle, Ghana
Through you, and a thousand doors like you, doors of no return, millions of Africans passed. Captured, held here in bondage, men, women and children , few older than twenty, suffered in intolerable conditions..
In this place, women, 200 strong, would be kept here in this dungeon, sometimes for six months before a ship would come. Given two containers , one for easing themselves and one for food.. Many became so sick and weak that they eased themselves where they slept. On the floor of this dungeon the blood of menses combined with urine and feces to make this one hell-hole of evil.
You, the door of no return, was a silent witness to human brutality. You saw the faces of evil in those who whipped our backs as we passed through.You thought we would never return . You stood by as we slipped through your portals to the Americas. You made history and became history as we wept, as we cried, where is God! Where is God! With shackles and leg irons we left here uncertain about our destiny.
They called you the door of no return. We vowed as we left through this door, as we saw this beautiful land for the last time that our children would return.There are thing that you did not see: on the thousands of ships that took sixty days to find the Americas, we tasted agony often and gloried when someone died saying, gone she to her mother's country or gone he to his friends home.
You cannot see from this beautiful coast the cotton fields of Georgia or the sugar cane fields of Jamaica. You do not see the banana plantations of Costa Rica or Brazil. Listen! Listen to the silence of the dead! Listen to the presence of the living! Have we not returned! Are we not Africa's children? Is this not our ancestors' land? The disfiguring of our cultures, religions, and traditions brought pain and agony.. Left us broken and broken-hearted.
Tortured, beaten, lynched, raped, and worked to death in the Americas we have dreamed pre-enslavement dreams and walked the nights of this land with our memories, asking what evil befell us? Now who have you seen here? Have we not returned? Have I not brought here the pebbles from the beaches of the lands to which we were scattered? And you are no more the door of no return!
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
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rachie
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Posted: Sunday March 18th, 2007 23:01 |
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I came across this Youtube clip on slavery by the Archbishop of Canterbury and York some of you may find it interesting.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NBTErUDIcz8
I have been looking through the TV guides online to see if anything on to mark the 200th abolition of slavery.
Some TV listings
The Extraordinary Equiano
Monday, 7pm, BBC FOUR
On 25 March 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed. Discover who the anti-trafficking campaigners were and the trade's lasting impact.
This is repeated if you miss it check the BBC website for more info about the repeats.
Racism: A History
Wed 21 Mar, 21:00-22:00 BB4
1/3. First in a new series looking at how racism impacts on people's lives. This programme examines how ideas of racial difference have evolved in response to historical events. [AD,S]
This is also repeated several times through the week.
Rough crossing bbc 2 23rd 9pm
Docu-drama challenging many of the preconceived notions of the American Revolutionary War. As the united colonies fought for independence from Great Britain, enslaved African-Americans were battling against their masters to gain freedom. Featuring the stories of memorable characters such as Englishman John Clarkson, an advocate for the abolition of slavery, and two remarkable African men, Thomas Peters and David George, who joined Clarkson on an epic journey. With Stephen Campbell Moore. Part of the BBC Abolition Season
Heaven and Earth with Gloria Hunniford
Sun 25 Mar, 10:00 - 11:00
BBC One
Gloria Hunniford presents a special programme marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. Singer Natasha Bedingfield reports from India on modern day slavery.
Ms Dynamite: In Search of Nanny Maroon
 BBC Two Sun 25 Mar, 19:00 - 20:00
Since she was a child Niomi Daley (aka Ms Dynamite) has been fascinated by stories of Nanny of the Maroons - an extraordinary Jamaican woman who led a revolt by slaves against the British Army. [AD,S]
This World: Child Slavery
9:00pm - 10:30pm Monday 26th MARCH
BBC2
As part of a season on slavery, Rageh Omaar travels the world to examine the plight of slave children.
Here is the BBC website on the abolition of slavery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/abolition/
It is a shame that some channels appear to not be putting anything on about this.Last edited on Monday March 19th, 2007 00:25 by rachie
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Posted: Monday March 19th, 2007 22:12 |
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“Racism, not the rights of man, drove the horrors of the triangular slave trade.�
Tony Blair (New Nation, 27th November 2006)
Wasn't an apology but the political leader of the greatest slavers of all time, cleverly (and we should note, historically), made sure that on the 200th year since the creation of the 1807 act, the British state is not blaming Africans for something the British done to Africans.
They are fully aware that many Africans, who were made victim to the development of European nation states, states that owe their existence to the underdevelopment of Africa, will defend the now rich metropoles of power and their slimy agents; blaming their own race, for exploitation that was organized from afar.
“Racism, not the rights of man, drove the horrors of the triangular slave trade,
is Tony Blair openly saying that Africans were not the instigators of their own suffering, but for some Africans, this historic fact is lost and deemed secondary (even when a big white man of power says so). Secondary to the magnetic pull that defends individual modern day economic interest.
"I'd rather have a dollar, than worry about my people and what was done (and still done) to them!!", say the apologetic African chorus.
“History don’t pay my bills�, the African voices continue, while steering the youth in a direction dictated by politicians who having being forced to admit their crimes, honor their slave making ancestors with statues, anniversaries, Hollywood movies, and 21st century African victims (modern chattel) - Africans tied to 21st century acts of goverment. Acts, given life by institutions drunk on power and innocent blood.
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
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LadyDay
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Posted: Tuesday March 20th, 2007 22:57 |
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http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/slavery/?WT.srch=1&google=wilberforce&gclid=CImWhbi5hIsCFR4FEAodWwuYpQ
the national archives...contains some interesting resources
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Act as if it were impossible to fail!!!
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Wednesday March 21st, 2007 20:14 |
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London recognises Genocide, but the British state stays mute
Why I am saying sorry for London's role in this horror
The state failure to issue an apology for a crime as monstrous as the slave trade diminishes Britain in the eyes of the world
Ken Livingstone
Wednesday March 21, 2007
The Guardian
Next Sunday marks the bicentenary of the abolition of one of history's greatest crimes - the transatlantic slave trade. The British government must formally apologise for it. All attempts to evade this are weasel words. Delay demeans our country. Recalling the slave trade's dimensions will show why. Conservative estimates of the numbers transported are 10-15 million; others range up to 30 million. Deaths started immediately, as many as 5% in prisons before transportation and more than 10% during the voyage - the direct murder of some 2 million people.
Conditions imposed on survivors were unimaginable. Virginia made it lawful "to kill and destroy such negroes" who "absent themselves from ... service". Branding and rape were commonplace. A Jamaican planter, Thomas Thistlewood, in 1756 had a slave "well flogged and pickled, then made Hector sh*t in his mouth" for eating sugar cane. From 1707, punishment for rebellion included "nailing them to the ground" and "applying fire by degrees from the feet and hands, burning them gradually up to the head".
When in 1736 Antigua found there was to be a rebellion, five ringleaders were broken on the wheel, 77 burned to death, six hung in cages to die of thirst. For "lesser" crimes, castration or chopping off half the foot were used. A manual noted: "Terror must operate to keep them in subjection."
Barbarism's consequences were clear. More than 1.5 million slaves were taken to the British Caribbean islands in the 18th century, but by its end there were only 600,000. By 1820, more than 10 million Africans had been transported across the Atlantic and 2 million Europeans had moved. But the European population grew to 12 million while the black slave population shrank to 6 million.
If the murder of millions, and torture of millions more, is not "a crime against humanity", these words have no meaning. To justify murder and torture on an industrial scale, black people had to be declared inferior, or not human. As historian James Walvin noted, there was a "form of bondage which, from an early date, was highly racialised. By 1750, to be black in the Americas (and often in Europe) was to be enslaved." The 1774 History of Jamaica argued black slaves were a different species, able to work "in a very bungling and slovenly manner, perhaps not better than an orangutan".
Material being produced today to mark the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade makes it appear that white people liberated black - the assumption being they could not do it themselves. In reality, slaves rose against the trade from its inception. This broke it.
The first recorded slave revolt was in 1570. There were at least 250 shipboard rebellions. Jamaican slave society faced a serious revolt every decade, in addition to prolonged guerrilla war. In 1760, 30,000 Jamaican slaves revolted. The culmination, recorded in CLR James's magisterial The Black Jacobins, was the 1791 slave revolt in St Domingue. After abolition of the trade, slavery in British possessions was abolished following revolts in Barbados in 1816, Demerara in 1823, and Jamaica in 1831, in which 60,000 slaves participated. For this reason Unesco officially marks August 23, the anniversary of the St Domingue rebellion's outbreak, as slavery's official remembrance day.
No one denigrates William Wilberforce, but it was black resistance and economic development that destroyed slavery, not white philanthropy.
Slavery's reality is increasingly acknowledged outside Britain. One of the few things on which I agree with George Bush is his description of transatlantic slavery as "one of the greatest crimes of history". The Virginia general assembly last month expressed "profound regret" for its role, stating slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals". The French national assembly declared slavery a "crime against humanity". In 1999, Liverpool became the first major British slaving city to formally apologise. The Church of England Synod followed suit.
The British government's refusal of such an apology is squalid. Until recently, almost unbelievably, it refused even to recognise the slave trade as a crime against humanity, on the grounds that it was legal at the time. It helped block an EU apology for slavery.
Two arguments are brought forward against official apology - not only by the government but by David Cameron. First, an apology is unnecessary because this happened a long time ago. This would only apply if there had been a previously apology - there hasn't been. Slavery was the mass murder of millions of people. Germany apologised for the Holocaust. We must for the slave trade.
Second, that apologising is "national self-hate". This is nonsense. Love of one's country and its achievements is based on reality, not denying it. A Britain that contributed Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin to human civilisation need fear comparison with no one. A British state that refuses to apologise for a crime on such a gigantic scale as the slave trade merely lowers our country in the opinion of the world.
It is for that reason that I invite all representatives of London society to join me in following the example of Virginia, France, Liverpool and the Church of England, by formally apologising for London's role in this monstrous crime.
Ken Livingstone is the mayor of London
mayor@london.gov.uk
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gla/comment/0,,2038912,00.html
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Wednesday March 21st, 2007 20:31 |
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Should Blair Apologize?
Why such a hoo ha around if the political head of state should say sorry for Britain’s role in genocide?
Would there be similar debate if the German people had to repent for their nation's role in the killing of Jews? I guess that question has already been answered by popular moral opinion plus consistent reparations, paid annually.
So why when Africans, who were victims of one of the greatest crimes humanity has ever had to bear witness to, ask for their humanity to be recognized, do soo many, whether European or African, question such respect being paid to a race that were made slave via laws passed in Parliament?
Tony Blair, as the modern day leader of an Institution that murdered millions of our ancestors, for whatever reason has weakly addressed how British people dehumanised millions of Africans which set the stage for modern day racism that plagues the lives of Africans in Diaspora today.
This is not the normal political rhetoric of white people but the historic arguments of Africans who have consistently demanded that we be treated like human-beings and not chattel (property). As ever, they are stealing what we produce.
Africans, not fighting for anything better than 3rd class citizenry in lands of their birth, reflect the historic legacy of their Ancestors who lived under laws and European authority that said Africans could be killed for thinking or acting as though they had the same rights as white people. Their place was set by men of power and privilege, who’s thoughts then became empowered by statute. These animals were not common men but founding fathers of today’s modern nation states.
Such history would force right thinking Africans today to look at the role of Government and law and their implications to our lives. How European law and institutions impact on our ability to determine how we choose to live.
Africans have lost soo much because of the minds of white men who choose to brutalise a race, a continent of people. Them acknowledging this fact should not be cause for them to be praised or respected for their apparent movement away from their organised barbarity; their nations are still racist and violent to Africans as a function of their existence, grounded in history.
Africans, who have failed to understand that their future is with their own and not with a people who debate whether it was wrong to kill us using machinery (state sponsored industry), should now listen to the words of people who they have praised for their civility and whiteness, and know that the reasons for soo many developmental problems we faced in the past and also currently, are rooted in the decisions people like Tony Blair make behind closed doors with people who have always hated us.
Why should they say sorry to a people they have never seen, never treated as their equals? Since when has a Black life being equal to a white life in their eyes?
1807, 2007, what's the difference?
Institutional racism is the 21st century way of saying, “you are still a slave, my slave.�
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