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DEPARTMENTS
AFROCENTRICITY
Thinking About Slavery
@Joyce E. Clayton
One of the most effective devices of White propaganda is the unqualified statement that "we sold each other into slavery". Even today, this notion motivates a wedge between people of African-descent on the Continent and in the Diaspora. It provokes us to distrust one another, particularly where the Negroe's trusting of our Continental brethern is concerned, particularly because of the breakdown in trust that began with US slavery. In order to grasp the magnitude of this, one must understand that at the time our ancestors were brought to these shores, they were foreign aliens, unable to understand, speak, write and read any of the languages here. Thus, the devil's work of placing our people in a total state of confusion was plain and simple.
It is interesting that even though one of the most documented periods in World History is that from the beginning of the TransAtlantic African Slave Trade during the 1500s to the demarcation of Africa into colonies during the late 1800s, little documentation can be found to substantiate the claim that independent African slave raiding/trading took place. African Studies Consultant, Oscar L. Beards writes in his May 24, 1999 commentary "Did We Sell Each Other Into Slavery?" that,
"By independent is meant that there were no credible threats, intoxicants or use of force by Whites to force or deceive the African into slave raiding or slave trading, and that the raider himself was not enslaved to Whites at the time of slave raiding or 'trading'. Trade implies human-to-human mutuality without force. This was certainly not the general scenario for the TransAtlantic so-called Trade in African slaves. Indeed, it was the Portuguese who initiated the European phase of slave raiding in Africa by attacking a sleeping village in 1444 and carting away the survivors to work for free in Europe."
The fact of the matter is that throughout history, Whites have been known to raid by force in order to take over. The Motherland takes no exception to this. The first act against Africa by Whites was an unilateral act of war. African Kings and/or Queens were nonexistent in European countries and in the US at the time ships set sail for Africa to capture slaves for profit. The African slave trade was a demand-driven market out of Europe and America; not a supply-driven market out of Africa. In other words, our African ancestors on the Continent did not seek to sell captives to Whites. Capture took place in various ways, all of which lacked mutuality in the original act. What is well documented, but not well-known is the fact of African resistence to European Imperialism and Colonialism. What Whites did then is pretty much what they continue to do today ala Foreign Policy. During the time of sociopolitical transistion when African nations were at war with each other, Whites arbitrarily chose a side to win and supplied them with the superior war instrument known as the gun. The armored side as the victor rounded up captives of war and sold them to the Euros for more guns, and in turn, the captives were used by Euros to assist in raiding groups of their own people against whom they held pre-existing grudges. The notion that these war captives who were sold by the victorious African nations to the Europeans were in pursuit of revenge when the time came for them to do the Europeans' bidding is far from complex. Likewise, understanding the rationale of both sides is not only simplistic, it is a matter of the most basic logic.
In the final analysis, hypothetically, even if our African ancestors did conscientiously and maliciously sell their own flesh and blood fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and cousins into slavery, this fact would do nothing in the way of exonnerating the White man for the foremost role he played in the act. And it is on that ground-floor level of us being expected to overlook the gross extreme to which the White man went in playing out his role which I find most insulting to our natural intelligence. My thinking is that if I sell you a pair of shoes and you strike a match to them to destroy them, their destruction is solely your responsibility. I wouldn't even be an accomplice to your action, particularly due to my lack of foreknowledge of your intentions. Perhaps I can be brow-beaten for having sold you the shoes, but most definitely only to a certain extent. Their destruction was at your hands, thus is on you.
Likewise, the Negro's outlook on who-played-what-role in the enslavement of our African ancestors should be taken on reasonably. Similar to the criminal justice practiced by American society, whereby malice and aforethought are crucial and incriminating elements to determine guilt in the commission of the worst crimes, the purposes and intentions of the key activists in the TransAtlantic Slave Trade must be closely examined to accurately determine the culprit ultimately responsible for its outcome. The only way we can take this to task is to know the history and dismiss the propaganda.Read the complete text of "Did We Sell Each Other Into Slavery?", A Commentary by Oscar L. Beard, Consultant in African Studies, 24 May 1999:
Our people have turned their backs on our heritage primarily because of the stigma of slavery. Many of us attempt to disconnect ourselves from the Africa within us by adhering to whatever part is anything but Africa. It's as though the losers were the enslaved, while the winners were those who took drastic measures to place them in captivity, which would be the rationale to identify with those who survived as the fittest. Where that rationale falls short of logic is failing to recognize that while the perpetrators of slavery hailed as those who were the fittest, as do their descendants, what they accomplished through their acts speaks nothing of true strength, as their inability to endure what our ancestors endured is certain beyond doubt. The injustices our people have faced can't be forgotten, denied or failed to be taught. That's true. And perhaps there's great importance in emphasizing our ongoing struggle towards righting the wrongs inflicted against us. But first and foremost, our children need to know that we are a people of survival against terrible odds, a people who in general have in fact overcome much and experienced overall betterment. Our children need to grow up knowing that things do change. Circumstances change. Situations change. People change. But, changes only come about when we play an active role in our own lives to effect those changes. The first step in bringing about desirable changes is to change the way we think.
Salute! Isaiah Montgomery
Founder of Mound Bayou, Mississippi
@Joyce E. Clayton
Isaiah Montgomery used the promotional skills he learned during his many years as a merchant and first attempted to sell parcels of land to his family members and friends from the Davis Bend area. Quite the saavy businessman, he realized that this was his natural constituency. During the summer of 1887, he persuaded several men to inspect the proposed townsite, and while they disliked the wilderness location, Isaiah, who was also an excellent orator, made an impromptu speech to appeal to their racial pride and belief in self-help:
"Why stagger at the difficulties confronting you? Have you not for centuries burned the miasma and hewn down forest like these at the behest of a master? Can you not do it for yourselves and your children unto successive generations, that they may worship and develop under their own vine and fig tree?"
His peroration was so effective that he convinced the men to stay and further investigate the numerous opportunities offered by this locale. Eventually, he sold Mound Bayou property to fourteen members of the inspection party.
Two of the purchasers were Isaiah's cousins, Joshua P.T. Montgomery and Benjamin Green. They possessed skills and experience that aided substantially in the development of Mound Bayou. Joshua was born a slave in 1854 and had learned to read and write from his master's children. As a teenager he moved to Davis Bend and later studied law under J.J. Whitney, a Bolivar County lawyer and former Confederate army captain. Joshua practiced law, mechanical and civil engineering, and land surveying. Green, Isaiah's maternal cousin, also lived his early years as a slave. After his father died when Green was 13, he lived and worked with Isaiah's family until he was 26 years-old. During that time, he acquired promotional and managerial skills and held several positions, including Manager with Montgomery and Sons General Store.
Joshua, Benjamin, Isaiah, and 12 other members of the original inspection party left their families in the fall of 1887 and returned to the proposed site of Mound Bayou. Under Joshua's and Isaiah's guidance, they surveyed the colony land, designating a 40-acre townsite and 40-acre plots, the minimum amount Isaiah intended to sell as farmland to Mound Bayou settlers. They prepared for the arrival of their families by selecting farmsites and town lots. They cleared small areas for gardens and crafted small log cabins. Isaiah's wife, Martha, and his cousin, Benjamin, jointly bought two town lots and 840 acres of land that adjoined three sides of the townsite. One woman, Delia Wilbert, joined her husband at the colony in 1887. Most of the other families did not arrive until February 8, 1888. At least 15 more blacks bought land in the colony later that winter.
At the onset of the colonization process, Isaiah and Benjamin formed a legal partnership to open a sawmill. This venture earned them profits for several years while also helping provide income for other settlers. As they cleared their lands, farmers used Montgomery's and Green's service to turn their wood into building timber, railroad crossties, stove bolts, spoke timber, and other products they could sell to the railroad and other buyers. These sales also produced money for the settlers' required down payments on their lands and helped Isaiah in his efforts to renegotiate contracts with the railroad for colonists who had fallen behind in payments.
The partners got a head start in launching other money-making ventures through Isaiah's relationship with the railroad. The first three businesses in Mound Bayou belonged to the Isaiah and the Green families. In addition to the sawmill, they owned the general store, which Benjamin founded in 1888, and the country emporium, which Isaiah and his wife opened in 1889. Benjamin situated his home and store in Green's Square, the more northerly of the two townsite blocks that belonged to the families. Isaiah named the other block, where he built his own home, Montgomery Square.
Our Trivia The African American's right to vote was given by the 15th Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld the Voting Rights Act (VRA) as constitutional in the South Carolina v. Katzenbach case. Read more about it.
Question:
What is the origin of the term "cracker"?Answer:
The term "cracker" originated during the Reconstruction Era in referenced to Southern men. Now, in Ebonics lingo it refers to White bigots, from whip-cracker or slavedriver.The Cajuns are descendents of French Canadians deported from Nova Scotia to Louisiana by the British in 1755. They have a distinctive accent and a separate language which is a combination of archaic French forms and English, Spanish, German, Indian and Negro idioms.
August 15, 1962 Congress appropriated over half a million dollars for the recolonization of freed Negroes back to Africa. Thousands had already been shipped back at the time of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
