Chapter Three:

Black History

There must be a rescue and reconstruction of black humanity and freeing our history from alien hands. Not only to free it from denial, deformation and destruction academically but also socially. Black history begins with history itself: the struggle and record of humans in the process of humanising the world; shaping it in their own image and interest, giving it form and character, on the basis of human defence, development, and ultimate self realisation. This adds to the richness and beauty of human diversity and contributes to the overall effort of transform from control by nature, to by humanity. History reveals as human practice of self, social and world construction, it does not just happen but it is the work of unseen forces. It is a fundamental paradox that society that was built for freedom often becomes a context for suppression, exploitation and oppression. History reveals itself as the minor, and avenue for human struggle and progress through which we can look to discover and know ourselves and our possibilities. A corrective for racist self-indulgent myths and a source of models to emulate. A solution to our identity question. History is a measure of a peoples humanity. Europe has declared that the more history you have, the more human you are.

African Background:

The history of civilisation begins in Africa, but this is obscured by 3 factors; i- Africa being a continent in flux, contact and exchange with the world. Other nations and people are credited for Africans contribution, ii- African history is complicated by the predominance of oral history, and iii- The European conquest of Africa with the attempt to Europeanise all important achievements. Anthropology cites human origins beyond 2 million years in East Africa; L.S.B. Leaky discovered remains of "Homo Habilis; Zinjanthropus. Civilisations date back to 35,000 years in Ethiopia. Diodorus Siculus stated that Egyptian laws and customs are of Ethiopian origin. In 3200BC both upper and lower Egypt were unified by the king Aha Mena, marking the beginning of a dynastic era that lasted 3000 years, with 330 different pharaohs reigning. The first was the Ethiopian pharaoh Zoser, he founded the 3rd dynasty in 2980BC. With the building of the great pyramid at Giza by pharaoh Khufu. Imhotep; Pharaoh Zosers Prime Minister was an intellectual giant in architecture, political administration, astronomy, literature and medicine. During this period in Egypt, in Africa they had diagnosed, treated and catalogued over 200 different diseases. They conducted surgery and auscultation and charted the circulation of blood in the human being. During the ancient kingdom of Africa, the world was given the calendar, mathematics, astronomy, the alphabet, paper, pen and ink, geography, art, surgery and magnificent and monumental architecture.

Section i- African History:

Ghana emerged as a state in 300AD and reached its pinnacle at the end of 1240. In 773 Ghana was the home of the city of gold. In 1065 Tunka Menin was over an absolute monarch, with an army of over 200,000, around this time the Norman army that conquered England in 1066 was only 15,000. Ghana's population was several million, and the area was over 250,000 square miles. Mansa Musa; the emperor of Mali, reigned from 1312 to 1332. During his Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia in 1324 he took 60,000 persons with 80-100 camel loads of gold, which he gave out in Mecca, Medinah and Cairo, so much so that he depressed the price of gold in Egypt. After Mali's decline in 1494, Songhai began to rise. Sunni Ali Ber laid Songhai's foundation and came to the throne in 1464 an recaptured Timbuktu in 1468 from Mali. Muhammad Toure (Akisa) built the largest empire in the history of west and central Africa. 2000 x 1000 miles. He went to Mecca in 1495 taking 300,000 pieces of gold. He was appointed the Caliph of west Sudan, by the Sharif of Mecca in the Islamic world. He was also the founder of many schools and universities. Professor Ahmad Baba of the university of Sankore, Timbuktu was the author of 40 books on such diverse fields as Astronomy, Ethonography, Theology and Islamic Law.

The Moors pulled the Spaniards out of the bleak ages (500-1000AD). This began in 711 with Tarik the general, marking the beginning of Span's golden age; a never before duplicated expression of engineering, architecture and education. As late as 1802 Ibn-Al-Awam's writings on agriculture was translated and used in Spain. Moorish architecture passed through the Spanish to the Mexicans, and then to the white Americans. While 99% of Christian Europe was illiterate, the Moors made education universal. By 1492 with the fall of Granada, their reign ended. Other great African states and empires included Ethiopia; Kush, Nubia, Axum, Kenum. In West Africa (Ife); Oyo, Benin. Dahomey and Akan. In Central Africa; the Kongo, Cuba and Lunda, and in South East Africa there was Omani, Sultanate, Zimbabwe and the Zulu empire.

The Fall Of African Societies:

All societies, no matter how great, have had their rise as well as their fall. Africa's fall and conquest took over 400 years; from the mid 1400's to the 1800's. There was great African resistance to the Europeans invasion. Examples are Queen Nzinga of Angola against the Portuguese, Samory Toure of Western Sudan against the French. There was the Zulu Nations defeat of the British at Isandlwana 1896, Menelik's defeat of the Italians at Adua 1898. The Asantes long wars with the British, and the military victories of the Mahdi of Sudan also against the British.

Africa as one nation did not fall, but it fell as separate empires, states, nations and tribes. Europe used guns, long distance ships, and capitalism as a system of production. So by the 1800's Europe was able to conquer through the use of force, and dictate political developments in Africa, and force the abandonment of productive processes. Europe had an economic advancement that was linked to a technological advancement, and they were able to graft Africa into capitalism, disrupt African trade routes, reduce their economies to single products, force consumption of European goods, and continue their stranglehold. In addition to this Africa also had internal and external problems at the time of Europe's conquest and penetration. African societies found themselves culturally vulnerable to Europe's advancement because, apart from Islam, they lacked a unifying ideology. Vulnerability was increased by the communalistic character of the societies. The need to control and utilise nature often clashes with cultural values.

Egypt. Mali & The Olmecs:

If whites could reach America by accident, why could'nt Africans reach it by design and skill. Africans helped build the Olmec civilization, which marks the dawn of civilization for Mesoamerica. There are 11 colossal heads in South West Mexico carved out of Basalt, each standing 9 feet tall, weighing 15 tons with African features. Professor Ivan Van Sertima notices similar helmets used by Nubian Soldiers in the 25th Egyptian Dynasty between 800-700 BC. Africans also came to the western world long before Columbus from Mali. In 1310 Malian Emperor Abu Bakari II sent a fleet of 200 ships, and 200 supplies vessels into the Atlantic toward the U.S. Only one ship returned, unable to explain the fate of the others. In 1311 he led a fleet of 2000 ships to the U.S., he never returned. Professor Ivan Van Sertima also notes the similarities between the African and Mexican cotton plants, types of Bananas, jack bean, yams and tobacco as evidence of early African presence in the west. There are also linguistic similarities between Egyptian and Mexican words, such as "Ra" meaning sun, and Kuphi and Copal for sacred incense. Also skeletal evidence from Craniologist Andrzei Weircinski reveals Africanoid skulls among the skulls from Olmec B.C. sites.

Section ii- Egyptology:

The Greek writer Herodotus repeatedly referred to the Egyptians as being dark-skinned people with woolly hair. "They," he says, "have the same tint of skin which approaches that of the Ethiopians." The opinion of the ancient writers on the Egyptians is more or less summed up by French egyptologist Gaston Maspero (The Dawn of Civilization (1894), when he says, "By the almost unanimous testimony of ancient historians, they [the Egyptians] belong to an African race which first settled in Ethiopia on the Middle Nile: following the course of the river they gradually reached the sea." The German scholar, Eugen Georg, in his book The Adventure of Mankind (1931) p. 121, tells us about the ". . . world-wide dominance of Ethiopian representatives of the black race. They were supreme in Africa and Asia. In upper Egypt and India they erected mighty religious centres and mastered a perfect technique in the moulding of bronze--and they even infiltrated through Southern Europe for a thousand years."

The Senegalese Physicist and African Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop tells us in his book The African Origin of Civilization Myth or Reality (1974) that the Greek writer, Herodotus, may be mistaken, when he reports the customs of a people. "But one must grant that he was at least capable of recognizing the skin colour of the inhabitants of countries he visited." His descriptions of the Egyptians were the descriptions of a Black people. At this point the reader needs to be reminded of the fact that at the time of Herodotus's visit to Egypt and other parts of Africa (between 480 and 425 B.C.) Egypt's Golden Age was over. Egypt had suffered from several invasions, mainly the Kushite invasions, coming from within Africa, and starting in 751 B.C., and the Assyrians' invasions from Western Asia (called the Middle East), starting in 671 B.C. If Egypt, after years of invasions by other people and nations was a distinct Black African nation at the time of Herodotus, shouldn't we at least assume that it was more so before these invasions occurred  If Egypt is a dilemma in Western historiography, it is a created dilemma. The Western historians, in most cases, have rested the foundation of what is called "Western Civilization" on the false assumptions, or claim, that the ancient Egyptians were white people.

To do this they had to ignore great masterpieces on Egyptian history written by other white historians who did not support this point of view, such as Gerald Massey's great classic, Ancient Egypt, The Light of the World, (1907) and his other works, A Book of the Beginnings and The Natural Genesis. Other neglected works by white writers are Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, by A.H.L. Heeren (1833), and Ruins of Empires, by Count Volney (1787). In the first chapter of his book, Dr. Diop refers to the Southern African origins of the people later known as Egyptians. Here he is on sound ground with a lot of support coming from another group of neglected white writers. In his book Egypt, British scholar Sir E.A. Wallis Budge says: "The prehistoric native of Egypt, both in the old and in the new Stone Ages, was African and there is every reason for saying that the earliest settlers came from the South." He further states: "There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the historic Egyptians that suggests that the original home of their prehistoric ancestors was in a country in the neighbourhood of Uganda and Punt." (Some historians believe that the biblical land of Punt was in the area known on modern maps as Somalia.) European interest in "Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization" dates from the early part of the nineteenth century and is best reflected in a little known, though important, paper in German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius' Incomparable Survey of the Monumental Ruins in the Ethiopian Nile Valley in 1842-1844.

The records found by Lepsius tend to show how Ethiopia was once able to sustain an ancient population that was numerous and powerful enough not only to challenge but, on a number of occasions, to conquer completely the populous land of Egypt. Further, these records show that the antiquity of Ethiopian civilization had a direct link with civilization of ancient Egypt. Many of the leading antiquarians of the time, based largely on the strength of what the classical authors, particularly Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century B.C.) and Stephanus of Byzantium, had to say on the matter, were exponents of the view that the ancient Ethiopians, or at any rate, the Black people of remote antiquity were the earliest of all civilized peoples and that the first civilized inhabitants of ancient Egypt were members of what is refereed to as the Black race who entered the country as emigrants from Ethiopia.

A number of Europe's leading writers on the civilizations of remote antiquity have written brilliant defences of this point of view. Some of these writers are Brice, Count Volney, Fabre, d'Oliver, and Heeren. In spite of the fact that these writers defended this thesis with all the learning at their command and documented their defence, most of the present-day writers of African history continue to ignore their findings. In 1825, German backwardness in this respect came definitely to an end. In that year, Arnold Hermann Heeren (1760- 1842), Professor of History and Politics in the University of Gottengen and one of the ablest of the early exponents of the economic interpretation of history, published, in the fourth and revised edition of his great work Ideen Uber Die Politik, Den Verkehr Und Den Handel Der Vornehmsten Volker Der Alten Weld, a lengthy essay on the history, culture, and commerce of the ancient Ethiopians, which had profound influence on contemporary writers in the conclusion that it was among these ancient Black people of Africa and Asia that international trade was first developed.

He thinks that as a by- product of these international contacts there was an exchange of ideas and cultural practices that laid the foundations of the earliest civilizations of the ancient world. The French writer Count C. F. Volney, in his important work, The Ruins of Empires, extends this point of view by saying that the Egyptians were the first people to "attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life."

In referring to the basis of this achievement he states further that, "It was, then, on the borders of the Upper Nile, among a Black race of men, that was organized the complicated system of worship of the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labour of agriculture; and this first worship, characterized by their adoration under their own forms and national attributes, was a simple proceeding of the human mind." Over a generation ago African American historians such as Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Drusilla Dunjee Houston, Willis N. Huggins, J. A. Rogers, and Charles C. Seifort read the works of these radical writer historians and began to expand on their findings.

This tradition continued and is reflected in the works of present day Black historians such as John G. Jackson's Introduction to African Civilizations (1970), Yosef Ben-Jochannan's Black Man of the Nile (1972), Chancellor Williams's The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race From 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. (1971), and Van Sertima, Ivan. ed. Egypt Revisited. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (USA) & London (U.K.), 1999. Until the publication of James G. Spady's article, "Negritude, Pan-Benegritude and the Diopian Philosophy of African History," in A Current Bibliography on African Affairs, volume 5, number 1, January, 1972, and the recent interview by Harun Kofi Wangara, published in Black World magazine, February, 1974, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop was known to only a small group of Black writers and teachers in the United States. For over seven years his books were offered to American publishers with no show of interest.

Now two of his books will be published in the United States within one year. The Third World Press in Chicago is preparing to publish his book, The Cultural Unity of Negro Africa. All of his books were originally published by Presence Africaine, the Paris-based publication arm of the International Society of African Culture. Egyptology developed in concurrence with the development of the slave trade and the colonial system. It was during this period that Egypt was literally taken out of Africa, academically, and made an extension of Europe. In many ways Egypt is the key to ancient African history. African history is out of kilter until ancient Egypt is looked upon as a distinct African nation. The Nile River played a major role in the relationship to Egypt to the nations in Southeast Africa. During the early history of Africa, the Nile was a great cultural highway on which elements of civilization came into and out of inner Africa. In John D. Baldwin's book Pre-History Nations or Inquiries Concerning Some of the Great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity and Their Probable Relation to a Still Older (1869) he wrote "The old notion that Africa is chiefly a land of black savages arose from ignorance of the country, which could not be removed, but, on the contrary, was heightened by slave-trading communication.

They could not describe truthfully what came under their observation, but they sought to excuse their own frightful savagery by describing Africa as a land of Negroes in the darkest and most hopeless condition of debasement. When this had been repeated many times, they ventured to represent their kidnapping villains as missionary agencies, intent on transferring savages to Christian countries for their own good. "Turning to the major falsification of the history of mankind, as he puts it, Cheikh Anta Diop underlines that the time has come to bring justice to the Negro race, to give black people their due credit for leading the march, and blazing a trail for humanity to follow.

Section iii- Dr. Leonard Jeffries: Africa: Birthplace of Humanity

One of the oldest fossil finds of early man was made in Africa in 1960 by archaeologist L. S. B. Leakey. He named his find Zinjanthropus, meaning Eastern Man. It was found in Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania which is an archaeologist’s paradise. Many ancient fossils and stone tools have been found there over the years. There are five distinct layers of strata of the earth visible in the cliffs. The oldest was formed more than two million years ago. One day while climbing up the slopes Mrs. Leakey discovered two teeth embedded in the rock side of the gorge. After nineteen days of digging the Leakeys uncovered an almost complete skull and stone tools. The radiocarbon 14 method of determining the age of the fossil finds only allows the scientist to test an object that does not go back more than 50,000 years. Because Zinjanthropus was much older than 50,000 years another newer method to determine the age of a fossil find was used. 

This method was called Potassium Argon and allows the scientist to test as an object that goes back 2,000,000 years. Scientists at the University of California tested Zinjanthropus and believe that this early man was 1,750,000 years old. This unfolding saga of the human experience in Africa reveals and points to a series of startling discoveries in Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika and Kenya that scientifically supports the belief that early humanity originated in East Africa millions of years ago and then spread with his tools and early culture to Asia and Europe. In the Congo River Basin and Great Lakes of Central Africa archaeologists unearthed the remains of the Ishongo people who lived some 8,000 years ago and used a counting system inscribed on bone, the earliest record in the world of mathematical notation.

Section iv-Professor Ivan van Sertima (Early African Presence):

In the drier centres of the Olmec world - at Tlatilco, Cerro de las Mesas and Monte Alban - the Polish craniologist, Andrez Wiercinski, found indisputable evidence of an African presence. The many traits analyzed in these Olmec sites indicated individuals with Negroid traits predominating but with an admixture of other racial traits. This is what I have said. The work of A.Vargas Guadarrama is an important reinforcement of Wiercinski's study. He found that the skulls he examined at Tlatilco, which Wiercinski had classified as Negroid, were "radically different" from other skulls on the site, bearing indisputable similarities to skulls in West Africa and Egypt.

Pyramids: Enormous obelisks, calling for the same complex engineering skills of the pyramid age were built at Karnak as late as 1295 B.C. A pyramid was also built as Dashur circa 1700 B.C. Bart Jordan, the mathematical child prodigy, to whom Einstein granted special audience, established startling coincidences between Old World and New World pyramids. He agrees with me that "The overwhelming incidence of coincidence argues overwhelmingly against a mere coincidence."

Section v- John Henrick Clark -An Overview of Black History Ch.5. African Civilizations in Europe

The Caucasoid type of humanity is believed to have resulted from an original Afrocoid stock. Around 40,000 B.C., the Grimaldian Africoids inhabited Southwestern Eurasia (Russia). The Caucasoid type is said to have resulted from a phenomenon associated with Vitamin D metabolism. One of the most vital functions of the skin is the production of Vitamin D from the biochemical substance called 7-dehydrocholesterol, through interaction with the ultraviolet light of the sun. This is a critical process for Vitamin D, since it is the vitamin that is absolutely necessary for the proper mineralization of the bones.

In the ice-age environment, whitened skin out of an original Africoid stock was better adapted to Vitamin D production. The development of this new human stock was made possible by prolonged isolation from other human groups, leading to inbreeding within the albinoid group, which continually heightened the albinoid characteristics. Melanized skin (skin with dark pigmentation) in a tropical climate is necessary to protect the cells from the ultraviolet rays of the sun, and from the deadly effects of skin cancer.

“History is a clock people use to tell their historical culture and political time of the day. It's a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The history tells them where they have been, where they are and what they are. But most importantly history tells a people where they still must go and what they still must be…"
"The events which transpired five thousand years ago; Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years From now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event..."
 "Powerful people never educate powerless people in what they need, that they can use to take the power away from powerful people; it's too much to expect. If I was in power, I would not educate people in how to take my powers away. Every form of true education trains the student in self-reliance. African people need to stop shouting 'nationtime' until they are clear about the responsibilities of running a nation."

Section vi- Cheik Anta Diop; Anthropology:

Although the conclusions of these anthropological studies stop short of the full truth, they still speak unanimously of the existence of a Negro race from the most distant ages of prehistory down to the dynastic period. Miss Fawcett considers that the Negadah skulls form a sufficiently homogeneous collection to warrant the assumption of a Negadah race. In the total height of the skull, the auricular height, the length and breadth of the face, nasal length, cephalic index and facial index this race would seem to approximate to the negro; in nasal breadth, height of orbit, length of palate and nasal index it would seem closed to the Germanic peoples; accordingly the Pre-Dynastic Negadians are likely to have resembled the negroes in certain of their characteristics and the white race in others.

There are two variants of the black race: (a)straight-haired, represented in Asia by the Dravidians and in Africa by the Nubians and the Tubbou or Tedda, all three with jet-black skins; (b) the kinky- haired blacks of the Equatorial regions. Both types entered into the composition of the Egyptian population. In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin colour and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility.

Melanin (eumelanin), the chemical body responsible for skin pigmentation, is, broadly speaking, insoluble and is preserved for millions of years in the skins of fossil animals. The evaluation of melanin level by microscopic examination is a laboratory method which enables us to classify the ancient Egyptians unquestionably among the black races.

Section vii- Researching the African Presence in Asia: The Challenge Ahead of Us-By Chancellor James Williams

How do we explain such a large population of Blacks in Southern China--powerful enough to form a kingdom of their own Or the Black people of...the Malay Peninsula, Indo-China.  The heavy concentration of Africans in India...open still another interesting field for investigation.  Even the "Negroid" finds in early Europe appear not to be as challenging as the Black population centres in Asia.  Our concern is with great and dominant populations.  These are the Blacks who have so puzzled Western scholars that some theorize that Asia or Europe may be the homeland of Africans after all.  The African populations in Palestine, Arabia, and Mesopotamia are better known, although the centuries of Black rule over Palestine, South Arabia and in Mesopotamia should be studied and elaborated in more detail.

Section viii- Great African Land of Antiquity: (Kemmet) By Runoko Rashidi

Ancient Africa produced many dazzling civilizations and although it was Africa's Upper Nile Valley—the highly regarded Ethiopia ("land of the burnt-faced people"), that gave birth to the world's oldest monarchy of which we are informed (Ta-Seti), it is in pharaonic Kemmet (ancient Egypt), the greatest nation of antiquity and Ethiopia's most celebrated offspring, that the tremendous volume of historical inquiry has been made.  When we examine the Kemmetic civilization of Africa's Nile Valley, we examine perhaps the proudest and loftiest accomplishment in the whole of human annals. It should be stated early on that from the very beginning of the pre-dynastic period to the first Kemmetic Dynasty and through the mass of her dynastic period African people endowed with dark complexions, full lips, broad noses and tightly-curled hair were overwhelmingly dominant in both the general population and the royal families.

Section ix- J.A. Rodgers: Hitler & The Negro

Adolph Hitler inspired no doubt by the valorous conduct of the Negro in the last World War declares in Mein Kampf that Negroes are “half-apes.” This, however, is far from being the opinion of pre-Hitler Germany if one is to judge by the various monuments and pictures of Negroes in German museums and other public places. Foremost of these pictures and monuments are those of St. Maurice (or St. Mautritus) leading Catholic saint of Germany, who is invariably depicted in Germany as a Negro of the finest type. St. Maurice is the patron saint of the city of Cobourg and he appears in the city’s coat-of-arms. His picture, by Grunewald, hangs in the Alte-Pinokathek, Southern Germany’s largest museum. (At least I saw it there as late as 1934.) Another painting of St. Maurice by Hans Baldung is, if I remember rightly, in the Dresden Museum.

There is also a monument of him in armour in the Cathedral of Magdeburg. In almost every German art gallery are pictures by great artist of “The Adoration of Magi,” one of who is invariably depicted as a Negro. The most celebrated shrine in Germany is that of the Black Virgin in Alt-Oetting, Baravaria. There and there especially in Southern Germany and in what was once Austria are shrines of Black Madonnas.

The blackness of these, be it noted is not due to age as the lace and some of the other decorations of these statues are still nearly white. Only the face is black. On the most important bridge over the Spree at the south end of the Unter den Linden near the Berlin Cathedral in the very centre of the north side of the bridge is a monument no less than eight feet high of a Negro.

In the park of the royal palace at San Souci, Potsdam, favourite residence of the last Kaiser are several statutes of Negroes, who were the favourites of the Prussian rulers. In the state pictures of Kaiser Wilhelm I, between the years 1857 and 1870 appears a Negro as a German officer. “This Henri Noel an unmixed Negro brought by Rohls from Central Africa, whom Wilhelm I, adopted as his own son. I have given further details in “The 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro.” Hitler is a native of Austria and there, too, St. Maurice and the Black Virgin are highly revered. In the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna are the portraits of Angelo Soliman and his daughter and grandson, Baron Edward von Feuchtersleben.     Angelo Soliman was a Negro ex-slave who became a tutor of royalty, and the friend and companion of Joseph II, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. In the Vienna Museum is another piece of priceless Negro art: that of the Venus of Willendorf, oldest known representation of a human being executed by a Negro artist, about 10,000 or 15,000 B. C. 

Several other art treasures in which Negro figure could be cited. It is interesting to know what Hitler and his brown shirted reformers have done about these Negro monuments, and how they reconcile them with their statement that the Negro is a “half-ape,” and the Negro professional man a monstrosity. Perhaps these pictures and monuments have been removed or destroyed; only the coming peace will tell.

Section x- (About) Théophile Obenga

Théophile Obenga was born in Congo, Equatorial Africa. He was educated in Belgium, France, and the United States. He is considered as one of the foremost students and followers of the late Cheikh Anta Diop. In the preface to Obenga's most renowned book Africa in Antiquity, Diop introduced him as follows: "Obenga is a polyvalent scholar with a threefold training as a philosopher, historian and linguist and knowing Greek, Latin, French. English, Italian, and practicing Arabic and Syriac. More importantly, he is the first Black African of his generation able to read the pharaonic language in the texts: he holds a degree in Egyptology and is a member of the Societe Francaise d'Egyptologie". During the, UNESCO Colloquium on "The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of Meroitic Writing" held in Cairo (January 28- February 3. 1974). Diop and Obenga's brilliant and eloquent demonstration on the African essence of Black pharaonic Egypt's culture and civilization was a major landmark in African studies and sanctioned the death of cultural imperialism's long lasting attempt to whiten ancient Egypt. Under Marien NGouabi's government in the Congo, Obenga was Director of the Ecole Normale Superieure where he created an outstanding method for teaching African historiography and later became Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is presently Director General of the International Center for Bantu Studies, the only high-tech African-oriented database and cultural center of its kind focusing on the Egypto- Bantu world and head-quartered in Libreville, Gabon. Obenga is the author of a massive scientific production partly published by Presence Africaine and including, in particular, Precolonial Central Africa, Zaire: Traditional Civilizations and Modern Culture. Stele for the Future (poetry), For A New History, Traditional Literature of the Mbochi, and The Bantu: Languages, Peoples and Civilizations.

Slavery

It is clear from all historical evidence that the European slave trade and its accompanying violence, destruction, and enslavement was one of the most catastrophic events in the history of humankind. Hundreds of millions of African lives were lost in the middle passage (between Africa and the Western World) during this most cruel period.

Section xi- Misconceptions About Slavery:

i- It was not a "trade:"

The process of slavery under white Europeans was undergone through warfare, trickery, banditry, and kidnapping."

ii- The Arab involvement:

At its height in the 18th and 19th century slavery was still tied to and controlled by Europeans. The Africans captured by Arabs were sent to European run plantations. In most cases Arabs were the "middle-men." Even though Arabs had slaves before Europeans. Arab slavery for the most part was domestic and escapable.

iii- The African Involvement:

Africans themselves also had slaves before the coming and demands of the Europeans, but other factors must be considered;

a) African slavery was servitude, and usually occurred though conquest, capture in war, or punishment for a crime,

b) It was European demand, which forced Africans into a system whose implications few Africans knew about.

c) The knowledge of local African politics to foment division to get captives was manipulated.

d) Weapons were supplied to kings and local leaders to raid enemy villages, captives where exchanged for guns.

e) Their was the launching and hiring or raiding parties, and captives were demanded for guns from a king who needed them to counter an armed rival king.

f) African labourers were also obtained under false pretences and then enslaved afterwards.

g) Finally there were transactions beginning with one kind of commerce and then slaves were demanded at a point which failure to comply would destroy a merchants business.

iv- African Resistance:

Africans generally resisted the slave trade. Resistance marked the whole endeavor from initial raid to sale abroad. Queen Nzinga of the Angolan state of Matamba fought for 30 years against the Portuguese. The political leader of the Baga people; of present day Guinea; Tomba in about 1720 tried to build an alliance against the slave trade. King Nzenga Meremba of the Congo also resisted the Portuguese. Even King Agaja Trudo of Dahomey sent armies to capture and destroy slave trading centres on the coast in 1724. Many of these kings however lacked local and international power to change the situation, and thus were forced into a system imposed from outside, and the tragedy and loss were incalculable. The was resistance by Africans to slavery on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Resistance involved;

i- denying support to the established order,

ii- denying, diminishing or eliminating its hold,

iii- forcing changes in its structure and

iv- escaping control of its jurisdiction.

There were 5 basic forms of resistance;

1) Cultural, (cultural retention and synthesis, creativity, and maintenance and development of family against all odds).

2) Day-to-day, (the daily refusal and challenge with which Africans confronted the slave system, including sabotage).

3) Abolitionism, (all efforts dedicated to abolishing slavery conducted by both free Africans, and formerly enslaved Africans).

4) Emigrationism, (the push to emigrate back to Africa or go elsewhere where Africans could be free and self-determining), and

5) Armed struggle (over 250 revolts are recorded in the U.S. alone as well as several others in the Caribbean).

Section xii- Impact of the Slave Trade

i- The depopulation through murder, societal disruption and destruction, and forced transfer of populations, especially in Angola and other parts of West Africa. Estimates run as high as 50 to 100 million persons lost to Africa.

ii- The slave trade caused the loss of youth and skilled personnel, thus affecting the scientific, technological and cultural progress of Africa.

iii- The slave trade affected economic activity, African economies were grafted on and subordinated to the slave trade, leaving other branches of the economic activity under-attended or unattended.

iv- It created war raids and other violence, and then destruction of life and material achievements as well as conditions of uncertainty and insecurity which accompanied.

v- The European slave trade led directly to the underdevelopment of Africa and over-development of Europe. This oppression, exploitation and appropriation of the vast human and material resources of Africa for their use in the West, unavoidably led to an interruption and deformation of Africa's development.

Slavery: Basis & System:

Slavery in the west had its basis in three major sets of factors;

i-Its Profitability,

ii- Its practicality and

iii- Its justifiability in European racist thought.

Dr. Eric Williams in "Capitalism & Slavery" showed the contribution of the system and trade to the capital accumulation and economic development by England. Some of these areas were:

1) Shipbuilding,

2) The rise of seaport towns and connected manufacturing centres,

3) Banking and insurance houses like Barclay's and Lloyds,

4) The textile industry,

5) Sugar refineries, and

6) Metal industries. This was true for other European countries as well.

The U.S.A. profited from the slave trade  and slavery both as a colony and as a free interdependent part of the world capitalist system.

The slave was profitable on three basic levels:

1) As a commodity to be sold;

2) as an object to be rented and

3) as a producer of cash products such as cotton, sugar, tobacco and rice. Slavery also had its basis in the practicality of the process. Forced labour was first tried on the Indian, then on indentured whites. But several factors made the enslavement of these groups unattractive and the enslavement of Africans more practical.

i- Africa's closeness to the Caribbean where plantations were set up early and Africans were made manageable, and then re-exported.

ii- Africans already had experience in large scale agriculture,

iii- Africans had relative immunity to European diseases due to long term contact, whereas the Indians did not and were decimated at first by this.

iv- Africans had low escape possibilities as opposed to Indians and whites due to unfamiliarity with the land, high school visibility and lack of a nearby home base.

v- There were no major political repercussions for the enslavement of Africans, unlike the Indians who had people to retaliate and the whites whose enslavement would challenge the tenets of Christianity and the age of enlightenment.

vi- European racist thought; although economics was a major consideration, slavery also rested in racism as an ideology. This became a justification and encouragement for African enslavement.

The System of Slavery

Slavery as a system can be defined by i- the extent of its brutality, ii- Its cultural genocide, iii- its machinery of control. The brutality of slavery expressed itself on the physical, psychological and sexual level. It included violence in various forms- whippings, mutilations, torture, murder, overwhelming cruelty, overworking and deprivation of food, clothing and shelter. Psychological brutality included daily humiliation, denial and deformation of African history and humanity. The slave was reduced to an object of labour. Sexual brutality and blatant rape were imposed upon the women, men and children. Each was subjected to sexual lust and exploitation. Breeding along with rape became two principal forms of sexual abuse and brutality. Another major aspect of slavery was its cultural genocide against Africans; the wholesale, intentional destruction of a people's culture and cultural identity, and their capacity to produce, reproduce and expand themselves.

It includes the destruction of

1) political identities and ethnic units and identities,

2) families; and

3) cultural leaders. These were all units of the preservation and transmission of African culture.

4) Slavery can be defined and discussed in terms of its machinery of control. This machinery of control was one of the most brutal and extensive in the history of slavery.

There were 5 basic mechanisms of control:

i- Laws,

ii- Coercive bodies,

iii- The church,

iv- Political divisive strategies and

v- Plantation punishments.

The slave laws were directed toward defining Africans as property and depriving them of any legal or human right or personality.

Section xiii- 12 Selected Slave Narratives:-

1- John Barbot"PREPOSSESSED OF THE OPINION...THAT EUROPEANS ARE FOND OF THEIR FLESH"

John Barbot, an agent for the French Royal African Company, made at least two voyages to the West Coast of Africa, in 1678 and 1682. Those sold by the Blacks are for the most part prisoners of war, taken either in fight, or pursuit, or in the incursions they make into their enemies territories; others stolen away by their own countrymen; and some there are, who will sell their own children, kindred, or neighbours. The trade of slaves is in a more peculiar manner the business of kings, rich men, and prime merchants, exclusive of the inferior sort of Blacks. These slaves are severely and barbarously treated by their masters, who subsist them poorly, and beat them inhumanly, as may be seen by the scabs and wounds on the bodies of many of them when sold to us. They scarce allow them the least rag to cover their nakedness, which they also take off from them when sold to Europeans; and they always go bare- headed. The wives and children of slaves, are also slaves to the master under whom they are married; and when dead, they never bury them, but cast out the bodies into some by place, to be devoured by birds, or beasts of prey. This barbarous usage of those unfortunate wretches, makes it appear,  that the fate of such as are bought and transported from the coast to  America, or other parts of the world, by Europeans, is less deplorable,  than that of those who end their days in their native country; for aboard  ships all possible care is taken to preserve and subsist them for the  interest of the owners, and when sold in America, the same motive ought to  prevail with their masters to use them well, that they may live the longer,  and do them more service.  Not to mention the inestimable advantage they may reap, of becoming Christians, and saving their souls, if they make a true use of their condition..

2-Ayuba Suleiman Diallo"HE WAS NO COMMON SLAVE"

Any West African, regardless of status, might be enslaved.  Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, who was born around 1701 to a family of Muslim clerics, was a well educated merchant in the Senegambian region of West Africa, which had supplied Europe with beeswax, gold, gum, ivory, and small numbers of slaves since the fifteenth century. On the 27th of February 1730, they carried them to Captain Pike at Gambia, who purchased them; and on the first of March they were put on board.  Soon after Job found means to acquaint Captain Pike that he was the same person that came to trade with him a few days before, and after what manner he had been taken.  Upon this Captain Pike gave him leave to redeem himself and his man; and Job sent to an acquaintance of his father's, near Gambia, who promised to send to Job's father, to inform him of what had happened, that he might take some course to have him set at liberty.

3-Olaudah Equiano "THEY...CARRY OFF AS MANY AS THEY CAN SEIZE"

Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo from Nigeria, was just 11 years old when he was kidnapped into slavery.  He was held captive in West Africa for seven months and then sold to British slavers, who shipped him to Barbados and then took him to Virginia.  After serving a British naval officer, he was sold to a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who allowed him to purchase his freedom in 1766.  In later life, he played an active role in the movement to abolish the slave trade.

4- Venture Smith "I THEN HAD A ROPE PUT ABOUT MY NECK"

Kidnapped at the age of six, Venture Smith was sold to the steward on a slave ship and brought to Connecticut.  At the age of 31, after several changes of ownership, he purchased his freedom with money that he earned by hiring out his labour and "cleaning musk- rats and minks, raising potatoes  and carrots, and by fishing in the night, and at odd spells."  In order to purchase his wife and sons, he fished, sailed on a whaler, ferried wood from Long Island to Rhode Island, and raised watermelons.

5-James Barbot, Jr. "PREMEDITATED A REVOLT"

James Barbot, Jr., a sailor aboard the English slaver Don Carlos, describes a slave uprising that took place aboard the vessel. Thus arm'd, they fell in crouds and parcels on our men, upon the deck unawares, and stabb'd one of the stoutest of us all, who receiv'd fourteen or fifteen wounds of their knives, and so expir'd.  Next they assaulted our boatswain, and cut one of  his legs so round the bone, that he could not move, the nerves being cut  through; others cut our cook's throat to the pipe, and others wounded three  of the sailors, and threw one of them over- board in that condition, from  the fore- castle into the sea; who, however, by good providence, got hold of  the bowline of the fore- sail, and sav'd himself...we stood in arms, firing  on the revolted slaves, of whom we kill'd some, and wounded many: which so  terrif'd the rest, that they gave way, dispersing themselves some one way and some another between decks, and under the fore- castle; and many of the  most mutinous, leapt over board, and drowned themselves in the ocean with  much resolution, shewing no manner of concern for life. Thus we lost  twenty seven or twenty eight slaves, either kill'd by us, or drown'd; and having mastered them, caused all to go betwixt decks, giving them good  words.

The next day we had them all again upon deck, where they unanimously declar'd, the Menbombe slaves had been the contrivers of the mutiny, and for an example we caused about thirty of the ringleaders to be very severely whipt by all our men that were capable of doing that office.... I have observ'd, that the great mortality, which so often happens in slave- ships, proceeds as well from taking in too many, as from want of knowing how to manage them aboard... As to the management of our slaves aboard, we lodge the two sexes apart, by means of a strong partition at the main mast; the forepart is for men, the other behind the mast for the women. 

If it be in large ships carrying five or six hundred slaves, the deck in such ships ought to be at least five and a half or six foot high, which is very requisite for driving a continual trade of slaves: for the greater height it has, the more airy and convenient it is for such a considerable number of human creatures; and consequently far the more healthy for them, and fitter to look after them.   We build a sort of half- decks along the sides with deals and spars provided for that purpose in Europe, that half- deck extending no father than the sides of our scuttles and so the slaves lie in two rows, one above the other, and as close together as they can be crowded...

6- Olaudah Equiano"A MULTITUDE OF BLACK PEOPLE...CHAINED TOGETHER" Slave ship conditions.

Olaudah Equiano vividly recounts the shock and isolation that he felt during the Middle Passage to Barbados and his fear that the European slavers would eat him. Their complexions, differing so much from ours, their long hair and the language they spoke, which was different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief.  Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that if ten thousand worlds had been my own,  I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition  with that of the meanest slave of my own country.

With the loathesomeness of the stench and the crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything.  I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me. Soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables and on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands and laid me across the windlass and tied my feet while the other flogged me severely.  I had never experienced anything of this kind before.  If I could have gotten over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not. The crew used to watch very closely those of us who were not chained down to  the decks, lest we should leap into the water.  I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and  hourly whipped for not eating. One white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on  deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast that he  died in consequence of it, and they tossed him over the side as they would  have done a brute.  This made me fear these people the more, and I expected  nothing less than to be treated in the same manner.I asked them if these people had no country, but lived in this hollow place. They told me they did not but came from a distant land.

The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time...some of us  had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air.  But now that the  whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely  pestilential. 

The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added to the number of the ship, which was so crowded that each had  scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations so that the air became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died-thus falling victims of the  improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched  situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, which now became insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs [toilets] into  which the children often fell and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of  the women and the groans of the dying rendered the whole a scene of horror  almost inconceivable.

Every circumstance I met  with, served only to render my state more painful and heightened my  apprehensions and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites. One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time),  preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the  nettings and jumped into the sea.  Immediately another quite dejected  fellow, who on account of his illness was suffered to be out of irons, followed their example.  I believe many more would very soon have done the  same if they had not been prevented by the ship's crew, who were instantly  alarmed.

7-Alexander Falconbridge "THE MEN NEGROES...ARE...FASTENED TOGETHER...BY HANDCUFFS"

Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon aboard slave ships and later the governor  of a British colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone, offers a vivid  account of Middle Passage. In a voyage I once made, our stock of merchandise was exhausted in the purchase  of about 380 Negroes, which was expected to have procured 500. The unhappy wretches thus disposed of are bought by the black traders  at fairs, which are held for that purpose, at the distance of upwards of  two hundred miles from the sea coast. From forty to two  hundred Negroes are generally purchased at a time by the black traders. Women sometimes form a part  of them, who happen to be so far advanced in their pregnancy. When the Negroes, whom the black traders have to dispose of, are shown  to the European purchasers, they first examine them relative to their age.  If they are lame or weak in the joints or distorted in the back or of a slender make or narrow in the chest; in short, if they  have been ill or are afflicted in any manner they render them incapable  of much labour.

The men Negroes, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately fastened together, two and two, by handcuffs on their wrists and by irons riveted on their legs.  They are then sent down between the decks and  placed in an apartment partitioned off for that purpose.  The women also  are placed in a separate apartment between the decks, but without being  ironed. In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a conical form, nearly two feet in diameter at the bottom and only one foot  at the top and in depth of about twenty- eight inches, to which, when  necessary, the Negroes have recourse.  It often happens that those who are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavouring to get to them, tumble over their companions, in consequence of their being shackled.   These accidents, although unavoidable, are productive of continual quarrels in which some of them are always bruised.  The tubs being too small for the purpose intended and their being emptied but once every day do not infrequently increase the nuisance arising from these circumstances. About eight o'clock in the morning the Negroes are generally brought  upon deck.  Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to a  ring- bolt fixed in the deck, is run through the rings of the shackles of  the men and then locked to another ring- bolt fixed also in the deck. By  this means fifty or sixty and sometimes more are fastened to one chain in order to prevent them from rising or endeavouring to escape. Exercise being deemed necessary for the preservation of their health  they are sometimes obliged to dance when the weather will permit their  coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly or do not move with  agility, they are flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a  cat- o'- nine- tails in his hands for the purpose. Their music, upon these occasions, consists of a drum, sometimes with only one head; and when that  is worn out they make use of the bottom of one of the tubs before  described.  The poor wretches are frequently compelled to sing also; but  when they do so, their songs are generally, as may naturally be expected,  melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native country. On board some ships the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure.  And some of  them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much to  heart as to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are  permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure and sometimes  are guilty of such excesses as disgrace human nature.... The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the passage are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived.  They are far more violently affected by seasickness than Europeans.  It frequently terminates  in death, especially among the women.  But the exclusion of fresh air is  among the most intolerable. 

Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port holes  to be shut and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the Negroes ensued.  While they were in this situation, I frequently went down  among them till at length their room became so extremely hot as to be only  bearable for a very short time.  But the excessive heat was not the only  thing that rendered their situation intolerable.  The deck, that is the  floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had  proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a  slaughter- house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to  picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting.  Numbers of the slaves  having fainted, they were carried upon deck where several of them died and  the rest with great difficulty were restored. Insurrections are frequently  the consequence; which are seldom expressed without much bloodshed.

8-Olaudah Equiano "DREAD AND TREMBLING"

Olaudah Equiano offers a first-hand account of his arrival in the West Indies in 1756. On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum),  buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make a  choice of that parcel they like best.  The noise and clamour with which this  is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers,  serve not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans...In  this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of  them never to see each other again.  I remember in the vessel in which I  was brought over...there were several brothers who, in the sale, were sold  in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion, to see and hear  their cries in parting.

9 Alexander Falconbridge:- "VARIOUS DECEPTIONS ARE USED IN THE DISPOSAL OF SICK SLAVES"

Alexander Falconbridge describes the reaction of enslaved Africans to their sale. When the ships arrive in the West Indies (the chief mart for this inhuman merchandize), the slaves are disposed by different methods.  Sometimes by what is termed a scramble, and a day is soon fixed for that purpose.  

Previously the sick or refuse slaves, of which there are frequently many,  are usually conveyed on shore and sold at a tavern, by vendue or public  auction.  These in general are purchased...upon speculation, at so low a  price as five or six dollars a head.  I was informed by a mulatto woman  that she purchased a sick slave at Grenada, upon speculation, for the small  sum of one dollar, as the poor wretch was apparently dying of the flux. 

Sometimes the  captains march their slaves through the town at which they intend to  dispose of them, and then place them in rows where they are examined and  purchased. Being some years ago, at one of the islands in the West Indies, I was  witness to a sale by scramble, where about 250 Negroes were sold.  Upon  this occasion all the Negroes scrambled for bear an equal price; which is  agreed upon between the captains and the purchasers before the sale begins.   On a day appointed, the Negroes were landed and placed together in a large  yard belonging to the merchants to whom the ship was consigned.  As soon as  the hour agreed on arrived, the doors of the yard were suddenly thrown open  and in rushed a considerable number of purchasers, with all the ferocity of  brutes.  Some instantly seized such of the Negroes as they could  conveniently lay hold of with their hands. The poor astonished  Negroes were so terrified by these proceedings, that several of them, through fear climbed over the walls of the courtyard and ran wild about the  town, but were soon hunted down and retaken.... Various deceptions are used in the disposal of sick slaves and many of these must excite in every humane mind the liveliest sensations of horror.   I have been well informed that a Liverpool captain boasted of his having cheated some Jews by the following stratagem.  A lot of slaves afflicted with the flux, being about to be landed for sale, he directed the ship's  surgeons to stop the anus of each of them with oakum. 

Thus prepared they were landed and taken to the accustomed place of sale, where, being unable  to stand but for a very short time, they were usually permitted to sit.   The buyers, when they examined them, oblige them to stand up in order to  see if there be any discharge; and when they do not perceive this  appearance they consider it as a symptom of recovery.  In the present instance, such an appearance being prevented, the bargain was struck and  the slaves were accordingly sold. But it was not long before discovery ensued.  The excruciating pain which the prevention of a discharge of such  an acrimonious nature occasioned, not being able to be borne by the poor  wretches, the temporary obstruction was removed and the deluded purchasers  were speedily convinced of the imposition.

10- Solomon Northrup "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REST"

Solomon Northrup was a free black who was kidnapped in New York and sold into slavery for twelve years. He was finally returned to freedom through  the efforts of New York's governor. No matter  how fatigued and weary he may be- no matter how much he longs for sleep and  rest-a slave never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but  with fear.  If it falls short in weight-if he has not performed the full  task appointed him, he knows that he must suffer.

After weighing, follow the whippings; and then  the baskets are carried to the cotton house, and their contents stored away  like hay, all hands being sent in to tramp it down. It is an offence invariably followed by a flogging, to be found at the quarters after daybreak.  Then the fears and labours of another day begin; and until its close there is no such thing as rest...In the month of January, generally, the fourth and last picking is completed.  Then commences the harvesting of corn....Ploughing, planting, picking cotton, gathering the corn, and pulling and burning stalks, occupies the whole of the four seasons of the year. Drawing and cutting wood, pressing cotton fattening and killing hogs are but incidental labours.

11-Charles Ball "THE GENERAL FEATURES OF SLAVERY ARE THE SAME EVERYWHERE"  

For forty years, Charles Ball toiled as a slave in Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia, and, according to his autobiography, managed to escape twice.  I am convinced,  that in nine cases in ten, the hardships and suffering of the coloured population of lower Virginia, are attributable to the poverty and distress  of its owners.  In many instances, an estate scarcely yields enough to feed and clothe the slaves in a comfortable manner, without allowing any thing for the support of the master and family; but it is obvious, that the family must first be supported, and the slaves must be content with the surplus- and this, on a poor, old, worn out tobacco plantation, is often very small, and wholly inadequate to the comfortable sustenance of the hands, and they are called.  There, in many places, nothing is allowed to the poor Negro, but his peck of corn per week, without the sauce of a salt  herring, or even a little salt itself. The general features of slavery are the same every where; but the utmost rigour of the system, is only to be met with, on the cotton plantations of Carolina and Georgia.

The men are seldom  flogged much, unless they are very lazy or negligent, and the women are  allowed to remain in the house, in the very cold, snowy, or rainy  weather....  In Maryland I never knew a mistress or a young mistress, who would not listen to the complaints of the slaves.  It is true, we were always obliged  to approach the door of the mansion, with our hats in our hands, and the  most subdued and beseeching language in our mouths. Flogging-though often severe and excruciating in Maryland, is not  practiced with the order, regularity and system, to which it is often  reduced in the South. 

On the Potomac, if a slave gives offence, he is  generally chastised on the spot, in the field where he is at work, as the  overseer always carried a whip- sometimes a twisted cow- hide, sometimes a  kind of horse- whip, and very often a simple hickory switch or gad, cut in  the adjoining woods. For stealing meat, or other provisions, or for any of  the higher offences, the slaves are stripped, tied up by the hands- sometimes by the thumbs- and whipped at the quarter.

12- JAMES MARTIN"THE SLAVES ARE PUT IN STALLS LIKE...CATTLE"

James Martin, born on a Virginia plantation in 1847, was 90 years old when  he was interviewed by the Works Progress Administration in 1937.  After the  Civil War he moved to Texas, where he served in the 9th U.S. Cavalry and  later worked as a cowboy. Here, he describes a slave auction. The slaves are put in stalls like the pens they use for cattle- a man  and his wife with a child on each arm.  And there's a curtain, sometimes just a sheet over the front of the stall, so the bidders can't see the  "stock" too soon. 

The overseer's standin' just outside with a big  black snake whip and a pepperbox pistol in his belt.  Across the square a  little piece, there's a big platform with steps leadin' to it. Then, they pulls up the curtain, and the bidders is crowdin' around. Them in back can't see, sot he overseer drives the slaves out to the  platform, and he tells the ages of the slaves and what they can do. They  have white gloves there, and one of the bidders takes a pair of globes and  rubs his fingers over a man's teeth, and he says to the overseer, "You call this buck twenty years old  Why there's cut worms in his teeth.  He's forty  years old, if he's a day."  So they knock this buck down for a thousand  dollars. They calls the men "bucks" and the women "wenches." When the slaves is on the platform- what they calls the "block"- the overseer yells, "Tom or Jason, show the bidders how you walk."  Then, the slave steps across the platform, and the biddin' starts.

At these slave auctions, the overseer yells, "Say, you bucks and  wenches, get in your hole. Come out here."  Then, he makes 'em hop, he  makes 'em trot, he makes 'em jump.  "How much," he yells, "for this buck  A  thousand Eleven hundred Twelve hundred dollars. Then the bidders makes  offers accordin' to size and build.

Sources: George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, Conn., 1972), Texas Narr., Vol.5, 62-  65.  The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African (London, 1789). Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (London, 1788). Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains; or, the Life of an American Slave (New York, 1858).

Section xiv- Slavery & The Catholic Church In Trinidad:

R. Greenwood & S. Hamer in “Slavery & The Catholic Church” documented that at first Africans were not allowed to be Christians. The Catholic church in Trinidad had “laws of Burgos” and “New Laws” where it was forbidden for Indians to be slaves, but it was acceptable for Africans. Priests such as Bartholemew De Las Casas, Cardinal Jiminez, and Cardinal Montesinos stood up against the mistreatment of Indians, while Africans in the same society were still being brutalised under the dehumanising process of chattel servitude. By 1650 just about all of the Arawaks in the West Indies had been killed and the church was faced with the problem of making slavery compatible with Christianity. “The French Code Noir” of 1685 dictated that slaves had to be made Christians, and that only Roman Catholics could own slaves, and so baptism became a token gesture. The Spanish Slave Code; “Las Siete Partidas” required a master to baptise his slaves and instruct them in catechism.

The Anglicans deported those who were in disagreement to their slave policies, such as the Quakers. In 1641 Captain Phillip Bell; Governor of Barbados established the church of England in Barbados, dissidents were punished. A series of acts passed between 1661 and 1665 forced non-conformists back into the church. Religious Toleration was passed in 1689, but persecution later returned. Non-conformist churches were regarded with suspicion by the ruling class British.

In most islands slaves were forbidden to learn how to read or write. By law slaves were not allowed to get married, the men were branded and the women were raped. The death penalty was awarded for the most minor offences, such as; stealing any sum over a shilling, running away, striking a white man or plotting a revolt. Punishments included being hung, drawn and quartered, burnings, and being broken into pieces. Mutilation was considered contrary to Christian laws but nonetheless was permitted during slavery. Mutilation punishments included cutting off one hand or one foot, to death for running away for one month to a year respectively. For failing to step aside when a white man was passing on the street; 50 lashes was for a first offence, 100 for a second, and 150 for a third. For being absent from work one day the slave was branded on one shoulder and had one ear cut off, for being absent two days in the month, a buttock would be cut off and the other shoulder would be branded, and the death penalty would be given for being absent three days in one month.

Section xv- The History of Slave Revolts In Jamaica

It is well documented that the most rebellious Black captives who passed through Jamaica's bustling re- exportation centre were left on the island, the majority being from Africa's Gold Coast. The country's history of slave revolts is consistent with this fact, the pre-emancipation period of British colonial occupation being marked by successive uprisings. The populations of the small Maroon communities of runaway slaves, carved out after the British drove the Spanish from the island in 1655, increased sharply after major slave uprisings broke out against the new colonial regime in 1673 and 1685. "The survival of the Maroon communities depended on the mode of social organization of the villages," explains Campbell. "In order for the Maroons to survive they had to organize a system of production and exchange, superior to the plantation levels of cooperation, reminiscent of African communalism where they divided the tasks as they hunted, fished, and gathered wild fruits. Their scouts carried out intelligence activities on the white plantations to learn the military movements of the white people's army; they never confronted the whites on the plains and blew the Abeng horn to forewarn their villages of the impending attacks. “One of the most famous Maroon leaders was Nanny, a fierce Ashanti warrior woman, whose army of former slaves successfully used guerrilla tactics against the British on countless occasions to defend their territory in the eastern mountains. The major Maroon War of 1729 to1739 was fought under the leadership of Cudjoe, who was also descended from the Ashantis of Africa's Gold Coast. His guerrilla army fought the British to a standstill, and in the end they begged him to sign a treaty recognizing all Maroons as free people. The victors also won autonomy over their territories on both sides of the island, but in return for a promise of no taxation, Cudjoe agreed to refuse asylum to new runaway slaves.

Numerous slave revolts erupted after Cudjoe decimated the British Army, including another Maroon War in 1795, decades after the colonialists’ instigated Nanny's death. Sam Sharpe, a slave and Baptist deacon, led the biggest. Campbell describes the brilliant tactics that Sharpe executed in the Christmas Rebellion of 1831:"Local commanders, who had previously taken on the guise of deacons, proceeded to march from plantation to plantation freeing the slaves and burning to the ground the homes of the most vicious planters. The drum, conch shells and the blowing of horns called other slaves to the ranks, so that before the night was out, 20,000 supposedly docile slaves were precipitating the death-blow to slavery in the British domains.

"As usual, capital was called upon to defend its own interests," Campbell continues, "and one of the most feared overseers, Grignon, assumed the rank of Colonel to command the Western Interior Regiment to defend the estates. But the determination of those who stood up for their rights was such that Grignon soon had to retreat to the sea, along with those whites who had already been put out to sea in the Montego Bay Harbour. This retreat left the countryside to the slaves, who pushed from Montego Bay to Savanna la Mar, freeing slaves and blowing the horns of freedom." Two weeks later--only after they were tricked into thinking that slavery had been abolished with an amnesty--did the slaves lay down their arms. Thousands were slaughtered and many others brutally whipped in the bloody reprisals that followed. Facing death, Sharpe was pressed to express regret for his actions. "I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery," he responded defiantly. Quoted in Campbell) Although Jamaica's most powerful slave rebellion was crushed through trickery, the struggle for emancipation elevated the issue of abolition, and the British Parliament was forced to formally end chattel slavery in its colonial possessions effective Aug. 1, 1834. Paul Bogle: )Bogle was a peasant farmer and deacon of the Native Baptist Church from the district of Stony Gut, in St. Thomas Jamaica.

He was a close political ally of George William Gorden, a coloured politician and champion of the black cause. As political and racial consciousness developed among black voters, they began electing candidates who were sympathetic to their cause to the House of Assembly. But blacks lacked the direct political representation in the House of Assembly necessary to influence legislation concerning their interest. Therefore, racial discrimination, exploitation, and social injustice continued. Access to land continued to be severely restricted, and appeals for redress from the authorities were denied.

The situation came to a head in October 1865, with the Morant Bay Rebellion, led by Bogle. In this revolt, about 500 black men and women from Stony Gut marched to the town of Morant Bay, the parish capital, on October 11. There they confronted the authorities and demanded social justice following an altercation over a court case a few days earlier and an attempt by the authorities to arrest Bogle. Rioting broke out and continued for several days. The government reacted with maximum force, declaring martial law. The combined forces of the British military, Jamaican militiamen, and the maroons executed nearly 500 individuals, including Bogle, Clarke, and Gordon. Countless others were shot at random, more than 600 were whipped, and an entire black village and individual houses were razed to the ground, leaving thousands homeless. Public outcry in Britain against the white reprisals and the brutal repression of the rebellion prompted the British government to order a formal inquiry into the causes of the rebellion and the measures used in its suppression. Britain then abolished the representative system of government and introduced the crown colony government a system of imperial trusteeship) in 1866. This system increased the power of the British-appointed governor. The old Legislative Council and House of Assembly were replaced by a single Legislative council, whose members were appointed by the British crown.

Section xvi- Harriet Tubman

"I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves."
"I started with this idea in my head, "there's two things I've got a right to....death or liberty ."
"I grew up like a neglected weed, ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Now that I've been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is."
"I never ran my train off the track. And I never lost a passenger"
"The Lord who told me to take care of my people meant me to do it just as long as I live, and so I did what he told me."

Frederick Douglass

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blow, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant."
"African-Americans have not yet learn that no other people have continued worshipping another's God, especially their slave master's god or gods and freed themselves from cultural and physical genocide. Why should Africans and African-Americans be the only exception to this historic reality."

Section xvii- Jewish Involvement In Black Slavery:

The Nation of Islam Historical Research Department in 1991 produced the book “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews” which exclusively quoted Jewish scholars and historians on their own involvement in the slave trade. A denunciation of this book is a denunciation of the very Jewish archivists that have made the information in the first place.

Throughout history Jews have faced charges of Economic Exploitation of non-Jewish communities internationally. No other group of people have placed blanket expulsion and have been recognised throughout the world for their sharp practices in dealing with money. Jewish historical records show that Jewish pilgrim fathers used kidnapped black Africans disproportionately and participated in every aspect of the international slave trade.

Solomon Grazel in “A History of the Jew” on p.312 “Jews were among the most important slave traders.” Lady Magnus in ”Outlines of Jewish History” on p.107 wrote “Principal purchasers of slaves were found among Jews.” Henry L. Feingold in “Zion In America” p.42-43 said “Jews who were found in the heart of commerce could not have failed to contribute a proportionate share to the slave trade.” Encyclopaedia Judaica Vol.14, pp.1660-64 says; “The Jewish trafficking of non-Jewish slaves incited moral indignation of Europes gentile community.” This along with economic exploitation, usury, and monopolising brought about the expulsion of Jews by European Governments (Economic History of Jews p.271-2).

Richard Siegal & Carl Rheins, in “The Jewish Almanac” p.127-129 the expulsion list is giving of the countries and the years that the Jews were banished;

France 1182                Austria 1420               Spain 1492                  Hamburg 1649

England 1290              Cologne 1424              Italy 1492                    Vienna 1669

Hungary 1360             Netherlands 1444        Portugal 1496              Moscow 1891

Belgium 1370

Over the next centuries Jewish development moved into the western hemisphere of open and ungoverned territory and docile and vulnerable native populations.

The history that the old "Black-Jewish Coalition" clumsily avoids is the entire three century history of Jewish presence in South America and the Caribbean. But other highly acclaimed Jewish scholars have not been so blind:

• Lee M. Friedman, a one-time president of the American Jewish Historical Society, wrote that in Brazil, where most of the Africans actually went, "the bulk of the slave trade was in the hands of Jewish settlers."
• Marcus Arkin wrote that the Jews of Surinam used "many thousands" of Black slaves.

• Herbert I. Bloom wrote that "the slave trade was one of the most important Jewish activities here (in Surinam) as elsewhere in the colonies." He even published a 1707 list of Jewish buyers by name with the number of Black humans they purchased.

• Cecil Roth, writer of 30 books and hundreds of articles on Jewish history, wrote that the slave revolts in parts of South America "were largely directed against [Jews] as being the greatest slave-holders of the region."

• "I gather," wrote Jewish scholar Wilfred Samuels, "that the Jews [of Barbados] made a good deal of their money by purchasing and hiring out negroes..."

• According to the Jewish historians, all Barbadian Jews owned slaves - even the rabbi had "the enjoyment of his own two negro attendants."

• In Curaçao which was a major slave trading depot, Isaac and Susan Emmanuel report that "the shipping business was mainly a Jewish enterprise."

• Says yet another Jewish writer of the Jews of Curaçao, "Almost every Jew bought from one to nine slaves for his personal use or for eventual resale."

• Seymour B. Liebman in his New World Jewry, made it clear that "[t]he ships were not only owned by Jews, but were manned by Jewish crews and sailed under the command of Jewish captains."

• Moshe Kahan stated bluntly that in 1653-1658, " Jewish-Marrano merchants were in control of the Spanish and Portuguese trade, were almost in control of the Levantine trade...were interested in the Dutch East and West Indian companies, were heavily involved in shipping; and, most important, had at their disposal large amounts of capital."

• In Brazil, where most of our kidnapped ancestors were sent, Jewish scholar Arnold Wiznitzer is most explicit about Jewish involvement:

"Besides their important position in the sugar industry and in tax farming, they dominated the slave trade. From 1636 to 1645 a total of 23,163 Negro slaves arrived from Africa and were sold for 6,714,423 florins. The West India Company, which monopolized imports of slaves from Africa, sold slaves at public auctions against cash payment. It happened that cash was mostly in the hands of Jews.

The buyers who appeared at the auctions were almost always Jews, and because of this lack of competitors they could buy slaves at low prices. On the other hand, there also was no competition in the selling of the slaves to the plantation owners and other buyers, and most of them purchased on credit payable at the next harvest in sugar. Profits up to 300 percent of the purchase value were often realized with high interest rates....If it happened that the date of such an auction fell on a Jewish holiday the auction had to be postponed. This occurred on Friday, October 21, 1644."

Section xviii- Farrakhan Is Questioned by NBC on the “Black-Jewish Relationship

Minister Louis Farrakhan: German Jews financed Hitler right here in America--Loeb and Kuhn and Jacob Schiff. International bankers financed Hitler, and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust. Why don't you tell that one  Little Jews dying while big Jews made money. Little Jews being turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it. Jews playing violin. Jews playing music while other Jews (were) marching into the gas chambers. (End of videotape)

Tim Russert: Now, if you were a Jewish American watching that, your reference to "what you call the Holocaust," suggesting whether there was a Holocaust, and the whole reference to big Jews and little Jews and the emphasis you use, why wouldn't you say that's anti-Semitic  

MLF: The question is: Is it truth  If it is truth, then it is not anti-Semitic, it is truth. My problem with the Jewish community is that most of the Jewish people feel that if you criticize any act of Jews, that is anti-Semitic. If I criticize Arabs, if I criticize the government of the United States, if I criticize white people or my own Black people, I'm not considered anti-Black, anti-Arab. Why should anybody who criticizes Jewish behaviour that ill affects Black people and their pursuit of happiness be considered anti-Semitic.

Last week Orthodox Jews made the statement that reform and conservative Jews are off the page of Judaism. I saw it not in the New York Times, but I saw it in the Chicago papers, just a little writing. But nobody called them anti-Semitic.

But if I said that reformed Jews or conservative Jews are those that do not follow the laws, commandments and statutes given by God to the prophets of Israel are not really Jews, then I'm considered anti-! Semitic. I am not anti-Semitic. I do not hate Jewish people. I hate actions of any people, including my own, that are evil and are obstructive to justice, freedom and equity. Jews perished in Germany while the Pope Pius XII looked the other way and the government of America looked the other way. Now there is reconciliation between Jews and Catholics and the government of the United States.

TR: Would you be willing to retract or apologize for some of the things you've said

MLF: If, in any dialogue, I can be shown to be in error, I would most surely apologize. But you cannot put me off in a corner and not dialogue with me and then say to me, "Brother Minister words that are hateful." If I can defend every word that I speak, and every word that I speak is truth, then I have nothing to apologize for. But if, in a dialogue, you can show me where I am in error, I am not a proud man. I will humble myself and go before the world and apologize. But now the burden is, will you show me where I am wrong

TR: "The Jews' awesome control over American society and government, all presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, 1932, are controlled by Jews." Do you believe that?

MLF: I believe that, for the small numbers of Jewish people in the United States, they exercise a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government. Right now there is a tremendous problem in the Middle East, a very grave problem. I do not think that President Clinton is handling his role in the most responsible manner. As you know, East Jerusalem was under Palestinian control until the year 1967. After the Six-Day War, it was annexed by Israel.

Section xix- Professor Tony Martin (The Jewish Onslaught)

The question of the Africanness of ancient Egypt and African influences on early Greek civilization are precisely the areas that have exercised Jews most in their assault on Afrocentrism. The Jewish onslaught has draped itself in the swaddling garments of European civilization and white supremacy. There is hardly a European country that has not expelled Jews, from the Romans to the Russians, to the Spaniards and the Germans, it is to Europeans that one must look for the genocide pogroms, inquisitions and holocausts that punctuate the Jewish historical evidence.

Section xx- Black Jews: By Sherri M. Owens 

Not all black families will be taking their kids to Easter egg hunts and singing hearty choruses of "He Arose" with the church congregation this spiritual season. Some families this time of year are eating unleavened bread and commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.     About 100,000 blacks in the United States practice Judaism, estimates Rudolph Windsor, founder of the Temple Anshey Hatorah, a congregation of black Jews near Atlanta. More black Jews can be found in northern states than in the South, he says, because the stronghold of slavery in the South squelched almost all non-Christian religions.     The most recent National Jewish Population Survey, conducted by the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF) in New York City, confirmed Windsor's estimate. It showed that 2.4 percent of an estimated 5.5 million self-identified Jews in the United States are black. That's 132,000 Black Jews in America.     The figure may be exaggerated somewhat, say the pollsters, if Iranian, Latino and Yemenite Jews listed themselves as black absent other options. Still, counting Latino and black Jews together, 6 to 7 percent of the total Jewish population in the United States is non-white. 

Section xxi- Great Black Inventions:

Between the periods 1860-1890 Black people were among some of the hundreds of thousands registering patents for new inventions in the period of industrialisation. It is estimated that by 1913 there were up to 1000 inventions by 190 black inventors. Before the civil war in America Black Inventors were hardly recognised due to the fact that enslaved Africans could not patent their Inventions. In fact in 1858 the Attorney General ruled that since a slave was not a citizen and a patent was a contract between the government and a citizen inventor, a slave could not make a contract with the government or assign the invention to his slaveholder.

Nevertheless, reports are numerous of enslaved Africans inventing useful devices, below are some examples:-

Louis Latimer- 1890—Invented the First Electric lamp with a carbon filament and the first book on the electric lighting system.

Granville T. Woods 1884-Improved steam boiler furnace, 1885-An apparatus for the transmission of the telephone, 1901-An Electric Railway, 1904-1905—An electro mechanical brake and apparatus

Garret Morgan in 1914 invented the Smoke Inhalator, 1921—A Belt Fastener for sewing machines and in 1923—The Automatic Traffic Light

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams in 1893 performed the first successful heart operation. Medical Record, March 27, 1897. The patient was James Cornish.

Henry Blair- 1834-Seed Planter and1836-Corn Harvester

Norbert Rillieux 1846-multiple effect Vacuum evaporator process for

refining sugar

Elijah Mc Coy- 1872-Automotive lubricator for use on automobile engines

John Parker- 1884— A screw for tobacco presses

William Purvis- 1884—Over a dozen inventions in machinery for making paper bags.

J Winters- 1878— The Fire Escape Ladder.

A..Miles- 1887—An Elevator

Jan Metzeliger- 1891—The shoe Lasting Machine

John Standard- 1891— A Refrigerator

J.A. Burr- 1899—A Lawn Mower

G. Grant- 1899—The Golf Tee

Frederick Jones- invented the air conditioner in 1949, and the Thermostat control unit in 1960

G. Sampson-  1892- the clothes dryer

R. Flemming Jr.- 1886; The Guitar

Paul R. Williams: a renowned architect born in 1894 designed many buildings and homes in California and also the memorial at Pearl Harbour.

Dr. Mae C. Jemison born 1959, was the first black woman to be selected to be an astronaut.

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson in 1973 became the first black woman to earn a doctorate in physics.

George Washington Carver derived over 300 synthetic products from peanuts, over 100 from the sweet potato and over 75 from the pecan. Also adhesives, axle grease, Bleach, Facial cream, Dyes, Ink, Linoleum, Metal polish, Rubbing oils, Soil conditioners, Shampoo, Shoe polish, Shaving cream, Wood stain, Wood filler, Buttermilk, Cheese Flour, Instant Coffee, Mayonnaise, Meat Tenderizer Worchester sauce, and dehydrated foods. He never patented any of his discoveries, and refused to profit from them and instead donated them all to charity.

Section xxii- J.A. Rogers: From “100 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE NEGRO WITH COMPLETE , written in the 1940's and published in 1957.

The word, "coffee," comes from Caffa, Ethiopia, where it was first used and where it still grows wild.

-: George Washington sent a 'Negro' slave to Barbados to be exchanged for a hogshead of molasses, a cask of rum and 'other good old spirits,' in 1776.

-: Beethoven, the world's 'greatest' musician, was without a doubt a dark 'mulatto.' He was called "The Black Spaniard." His teacher, the immortal Joseph Haydn, who wrote the music for the former Austrian National Anthem, was 'coloured,' too.

-: The Ganges, the sacred river of India, is named after an Ethiopian king of that name who conquered Asia as far as this river. The use of the terms 'Negro,' Coloured' and 'Mulatto' were commonly used at the time of this work's writing.

-: (As of 1930) the white population of New York (was) a third more illiterate than the 'Negro' one. In New York there (were) 375,999 illiterates in a white population of 10,513,933 or 3.6%. 'Negro' illiterates (were) 8,604 in a population of 347,381 or 2.5 % (1930 Census, Vol. II, p. 1229).

-: In the United States Army Intelligence tests during World War I, the 'Negroes' of Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois and Ohio led the whites of Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas and Georgia by from one to seven percent. : See American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 33, p.256 (Sept.,1927).

-: Estevanico, a 'Negro' from Morocco, was one of a party of four to cross the North American continent in 1536 for the first time. The journey took nine years. In 1539 he headed an expedition that discovered Arizona and new Mexico.

Estevanico's travels served to open up the Southwest and the States west of Florida, as far as the Pacific. : J.K. Hosmer says of the first journey made across the American continent by civilized men, " Of these, three were Spaniards, and the fourth, a person upon whom it is worth while to dwell for a moment. He was a Negro, the first of his race to reach the valley, contemporary with the earliest Europeans." Of Estevanico's expedition to Arizona and New Mexico, he says, "Fray Marcos sent the Negro forward as better fitted than anyone to prepare the way." (A Short History of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 25-27, Boston, 1901.)

For the account of the actual journey, see: Narrative of Nunez Cabeca de Vaca, N.Y. 1922. Also, J.E. Bolton: Chronicles of America, Vol. 23.

-: Imhotep of Ancient Egypt, was the real Father of Medicine. He lived about 2300 b.c. Greece and Rome had their knowledge of medicine from him. In Rome he was worshipped as the Prince of Peace in the form of a black man. His Ethiopian portraits show him a 'Negro.' Imhotep was also Prime Minister to King Zoser as well as the foremost architect of his time. The saying, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die," has been traced to him. Hippocrates, the so- called "Father of Medicine," lived 2,000 years after Imhotep. : Gerald Massey says of Imhotep, "The child-Christ remained a starrily bejewelled blackamoor as the typical healer in Rome. Jesus the divine healer, does not retain the black complexion of Iu-em-hotep (Imhotep) in the canonical Gospels, but he does in the Church of Rome when represented as a little black bambino." The statuettes of Imhotep in the Cairo Museum show his Negroid features. They are reproduced in G. Daressy's, Catalogue General des Antiquities Egyptiennes du Musee du Caire, Plate IV, 38,045 to 38,050, and Plate V. COMMENT: Speaking of Christ having been black, it was surprising to me how many white Spaniards in the Barcelona area of Spain INSIST that Christ was black.

In Montsarrat, a monestary just outside of Barcelona, the Madonna and Christ child are depicted as 'coal' black. (BLC).

-: White American slave-holders used to induce white women to marry 'Negro' slaves in order to hold the women slaves for life. : In Sept. 1664, Maryland passed a law that any white woman who married a 'Negro' should serve the master of such slave "for life." Slave-holders took advantage of this law to induce the white women, some of whom were recent arrivals, to marry the "Negroes." MacCormac says, "Instead of preventing such marriages this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their (white) servants into slaves." In 1681, the Legislature was forced to issue the following law: "Divers freeborn English or white women sometimes by the instigation, procurement, and connivance of their master.... and always to the satisfaction of their lascivious and lustful desires....do intermarry with 'Negroes' and other slaves, be it enacted that if any master....having any freeborn English or white woman servant in their possession or property, shall by any instigation, procurement, knowledge, permission or contrivance," cause her to marry a slave she should be free at once and the master should pay a fine of "10,000 lbs. of tobacco." (Archives of Maryland, Vol. I, pp. 433-34; and Vol. III, pp. 203-04, also Johns Hopkins University Studies in Hist. & Pol. Science, No. 3 & 4.) What is true of Maryland was true of other states. 

-: Eugene Chen, one of the most dynamic political figures of the present century, and Minister of Foreign Affairs for China in 1927, was born of Chinese-'Negro' parentage in Trinidad, West Indies, in 1878. He was also secretary to Dr. Sun Yat Sen, first president of China. Vincent Sheean says in part of Eugene Chen, "The Foreign Minister was a remarkable man.... Physically and in some ways of speech, Mr. Chen reminded me of the French politician, Malvy; his complacency was like that of Austen Chamberlain; his delight in his own language and the care that he took to see that it was written down in its baroque magnificence suggested Mussolini. He was theatrical as Briand without any of the old fox's charm; he was (as) ingratiating as Streseman, as bitter as Poincare. In short Mr. Chen was a politician.... Mr. Chen had been born a British subject at Trinidad, West Indies. His name as a British subject was not Chen. He was of mixed race, part Chinese, part 'Negro'.... He had chosen his wife from the 'Negro' race, and in his four charming children the Chinese strain seemed almost to have vanished."

Personal History, pp. 205-07, N. Y., 1935. John Gunther, "Inside Asia," pp. 259-60, 264,269, New York, 1939. Chen's real name was Akam.

-:  General Dodds General A. Dodds, a Senegalese, was France's best known soldier, prior to the First World War. In 1901, as the senior general he commanded for a brief time the Allied Army - white Americans, Germans, British, French, and Japanese - against the Boxers in China. The Germans, unable to tolerate that, hurriedly sent out a field-marshal. : General A.A. Dodds, conqueror of Dahomey, and France's greatest colonial soldier, was born in St. Louis, Senegal, West Africa, of 'mulatto' parentage on both sides of his family. In color he was very dark. The New York Tribune, April 17, 1910, said that he was so popular that he could easily have seized the power in France as "the entire nation irrespective of party or politics turned out to welcome him and to such an extent did he become an object of popular enthusiasm that there is no doubt that he might easily have established himself in the role of military dictator had it not been for his loyalty to the republic," yet it adds, he "would not have been permitted to drink at the same bar with a white man.”

 -: In 1787 while a party of 351 freed 'Negroes' was aboard ship at Portsmouth England, enroute to Sierra Leone, West Africa, the authorities brought on board sixty-two white women, prostitutes and others, whom they wished to get rid of, and married them to as many men, and sent them off to be the future mothers of the colony.

Utting says: "They sailed in 1787 from Portsmouth with 60 white women whom the Government wished to exile; the latter were made drunk, carried on board, and married to the 'Negroes' without their consent being asked." (F.A.J. Utting: Sierra Leone, p. 81, London, 1931). Mrs. A. M. Falconbridge, who talked with these women in Sierra Leone says that they "were mostly of that description of persons who walk the streets of London and support themselves by the earning of prostitution; that men were employed to collect and conduct them to Wapping where they were intoxicated with liquor, then inveigled on board ship and married to Black men whom they had never seen before." (Voyages to Sierra Leone in 1791-2-3, pp. 64-66).

-: Psalms that read like those of the Bible were written by a Pharaoh, Amenophis IV, better known as "Akhenaton, the Heretic King," 1300 B.C.or more than 400 years before David was born. Akhenaton, who was the father of Tut-Ankh-Amen, was extremely 'Negro' in type. He is called "the most remarkable of the Pharaohs." : For a comparison of one of the Psalms of Akhenaton with the 104th Psalm in the Bible see Arthur Weigall: LIFE AND TIMES OF AKHENATON, pp. 134-136. New York, 1923. Also J.H. Breasted HISTORY OF EGYPT, p. 373. New York, 1926.

-: On November 15, 218 B.C., Hannibal, a full-blooded 'Negro,' marching through conquered territory in Spain and France, performed the astounding feat of crossing the Alps.

With only 26,000 of his original force of 82,000 men remaining, he defeated Rome, the mightiest military power of that age, who had a million men, in every battle for the next fifteen years. Hannibal is the father of military strategy. His tactics are still taught in the leading military academies of the United States, Enland, France, Germany and other lands. : Hannibal is usually depicted as a white man, but his coins in the British Museum and the Museo Kercheriano, Rome, show him to have been an African of purest type with rings in his ears.

Col. Hennebert, perhaps the leading authority on Hannibal, declares that none of the several differing portraits now exhibited as Hannibal is he, "We do not possess any authentic portrait of Hannibal," he says. (Histoire d'Annibal, Vol. I, p. 495, Paris, 1870). These coins were struck by Hannibal while he was in Italy. In the absence of other information the most logical argument is that they bore his own effigy, the more so, as the several kinds of them bear the same likeness. Above all, let us remember that he was an African.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson in “Miseducation of the Negro” p.18

“From the teaching of science the Negro was eliminated. The beginnings of science in various parts of the Orient were mentioned, but the Africans early advancement in this field was omitted . Students were not told that ancient Africans of the interior knew sufficient science to concoct poisons for arrowheads, to mix durable colours for paintings, to extract metals from nature and refine them in the industrial arts. Very little was said about the chemistry in the method of Egyptian embalming which was the product of Northern Africa.”