Content Advisory: Trigger Advisory This article will touch on some issues that have been around for years and to not mention this topic from different positions and angles could be seen as being partial. This article will include source material.
As some individuals and groups attempt to "re-imagine" which is a horrible phrase. "Better document" may be a better phrase. Re-imagining the past simply to set a date for Juneteenth, as some sources are illustrating is the reason for this, is wrong. Slavery happened to whites and blacks, as it still does today in many parts of the world.
I happened to see an article this morning as I was doing research for this article how the "NAACP remembers the day that the first enslaved Africans arrived on American soil." There was a back link from an article by Byron Allen. First, the NAACP started on February 12, 1909, in New York, so slavery started hundreds of years prior to that.
October 12, 1492 Christopher Columbus:
Christopher Columbus likely transported the first Africans to the Americas in the late 1490s on his expeditions to Hispaniola. Hispaniola is now now part of the Dominican Republic. Their exact status, whether free or enslaved, remains disputed. But the timeline fits with what we know of the origins of the slave trade.
This is over 100 years difference between then and Jamestown.
August 20, 1619 Jamestown:
According to The grio : "Africans who had been taken from their homelands and taken to British North America, landed in Port Comfort, which is known today as Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia." this is alledgedly the landing of the first slaves in America, according to this website that seems closely tied to the NAACP.
1783 The Death Ship: The Zong
One of the major milestones that brought slavery, as we know it to an end was an insurance claim, believe it or not. Based on information in court filings and presented online by The History Channel, the general story is that the slave ship "The Zong" had a difficult start, directions issues and deaths onboard, the Captain named, Luke Collingwood left Africa in 1771 with 442 Slaves on board. After 7 months 62 slaves and many crew members died of various causes including illness that was rapidly racing through the ship, due to poor sanitation.
Collingwood was concerned about losing money on the shipment of slaves to the new world. The ship's insurance company did not cover slaves whom dies of illness. Slaves whom drowned were covered by insurance. Approximately 133 slaves were thrown overboard, according to the case. Testimony stated that he had to do so, to eliminate the spread of disease. It was legal to kill 133 slaves and collect the insurance because they were not seen as people. They were seen as livestock. This happened November 29, 1781.
"All the Blacks would have killed all the Whites, period. Just as a cargo of goods" - John Lee Solicitor General. (Pictured at left)
Solicitor General John Lee - Wicki
A Solicitor General is like an Attorney General. This trial was a big deal, because that was a lot of money and who was this boat captain to through all this money away? In most cases the captains were just the transportation, of someone else's valuables to the new world.
The story about this event was not ignored. The risk of the investment stopped being worth the risk, solely from a dollars and sense perspective. Two abolitionists by the names of Olaudah Equiano and Granville Sharp spread the word of this court case with the name of the ship censored out, to make the point that this tragedy could happen on any shipment.
1807, 24 years later:
Slavery was outlawed, in Britain and the United States. Did the fact that insurance companies not wanting to pay for fraud and loss have anything to do with it. That's unknown. - History Channel: https://www.history.com/news/american-slavery-before-jamestown-1619
An abolitionist is a person who favors the abolition of a practice or institution, especially capital punishment or (formerly) slavery. - Google Dictionary
Early 16th Century:
According to others there were no enslaved Africans before the Spanish occupation of Florida.
"In the region that would become the United States, there were no enslaved Africans before the Spanish occupation of Florida in the early 16th century, according to Linda Heywood and John Thornton. These are both professors at Boston University professors at Boston University and co-authors of Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660. So according to Haywood and Thornton, it was the Spaniards that brought the first slaves to America, between the 15 and 16 hundreds.
So, were there no WHITE Slaves?
1625: Well, there were. The Irish.
It really does not matter what social media fact checker USA Today says, especially when they are so amazingly biased. At the same time they do not support the truth of white slavery, calling it "not slavery" but indebtedness. At the same time they have advertising about Black Lives Matter all over the same page that displayed their biased talking points. It is kind of sad. Newspapers are failing, there are less advertising revenue, so what else can you sell, apparently the integrity of their newsroom.
"Strangely though, the history of Irish and ‘white’ slavery is by and large ignored in the American educational curriculum today. As Martin points out, “Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.” At the hands of the British, the Irish population plummeted due to the slave trade of the 17th century."
"Unfortunately, the Irish slaves are often remembered as indentured servants in American history classes. However, in most cases during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Irish were no more than “human cattle.” There were two main reasons for this treatment: Britain’s policy of decreasing the native Irish population for resettlement purposes and the cost of the African Slave Trade, which was far more expensive then the cost of Irish Slaves. Africans would sell for around 50 sterling while Irish were often no more than 5 sterling." Source:
Even "USA Today" “While the majority of Irish people who became indentured servants in the Colonies did so willingly (why they felt they had to so is, of course, another question), a not insignificant number were forcibly deported and sold into indentured servitude,” Liam Hogan, a librarian and historian known for his work dispelling the Irish slave myth, told Pacific Standard magazine in 2018 according to USA Today
Many indentured servants in the British colonies were working-class white immigrants from the British Isles, including thousands of Irish people. Indentured servants were often treated horribly by their masters, many dying before they were set free."
USA Today was trying to make the point that the "indentured servitude" the Irish went through is different then slavery, because slaves had no rights as individuals as the Irish could petition for relief and had done this to themselves.
Irish Slaves:
Additional Sources: https://www.facebook.com/No.Famine/posts/irish-slaves-factsthe-irish-slave-trade-began-when-james-ii-sold-30000-irish-pri/10151551959498022/
Additional Sources: http://www.aohflorida.org/the-irish-slave-trade/
National Freedom Day and Current Slavery
National Freedom Day commemorates the joint resolution, or agreement submitting the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery to the states, signed by President Lincoln on February 1, 1865. President Lincoln, abolished slavery, effectively crippling the economic structure of the South. The South needed the cheap labor to act as a economic engine.
According to an article by Christiana Villegas and Vicki Alger of the Federalist, the latest attempt to combat slavery and exploitation is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). The article goes on to say that many of the victims of domestic servitude and trafficking happen within the state they live, which makes it more difficult to track, and prosecute.
Slavery still happens today. "Under the TVPA, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services may issue Letters of Eligibility to child trafficking victims, which make them eligible to receive the same benefits and services as refugees. HHS has issued nearly 3,300 Eligibility Letters to children since 2001."
Slavery Today:
Forced marriage, drug use, first and second degree domestic violence, denial of signing divorce papers, can all be forms of control of one person over another, including filing of false charges and using the criminal justice system against women and children that are already victims, including but quite possibly, not paying child support, creating a financial hardship for a woman that may have limited choices for income because of the forced drug use.
Empowerment:
Our Politicians have reversed the empowerment that leaders within the communities have tried to build up for so many years. With the COVID-19 Illness as a backdrop, "non-essential businesses" have been closed, we have been told to stay home and work from home.
Now that the primaries are over, the politicians do not need our votes because they are already attempting to influence voting through voter fraud with the assistance of the Postal Service.
Small businesses will fail, criminal activity will climb, because families still have to support themselves, but many of the places of business will not return after the COVID-19 event that the World Health Organization failed us on. The W.H.O. admits within their materials that they had guidance to say no travel from the infected country, but allowed it. Discontinuing the HEROs Act boost to the Unemployment Insurance and forcing the States to add to the insurance themselves does not help families. For example: 1200 (300 a week x 4) isn't very helpful when rent is approx 860 a month. The politicians, Schumer, and Nancy Polosi have lost focus on the people they represent and are supposed to serve.
"The Hill Reported; Thomas Cooper, a mail carrier in Pendleton County, W.V., pled guilty to one count of “Attempt to Defraud the Residents of West Virginia of a Fair Election” and one count of “Injury to the Mail” after he was found to have altered absentee ballot requests using a black pen." https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/506869-postal-worker-pleads-guilty-to-election-fraud-after-changing
Comments