Fantasy

African American History, African American literature, American legal system, American politics, ancestors, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, Slave economy, slavery, Uncategorized

If I am not who you say I am then you are not who you think you are. Whenever observance for July 4th approaches, historical reflection is appropriate. This year, 2015, has been a time when chickens came home to roost. The racism and prejudice fostered in this nation for centuries have triggered events that we Americans are confronting and hopefully have the will to change. Recently, on the suggestion Read More

Slave Power: A Nation by Any Means

African American History, American legal system, American politics, Slave economy, slavery

“On all matters affecting slaves, concessions to the South was the price to be paid if there was to be any union at all.” Negro President by Gary Wills, Houghton Mifflin Company (2003) The power of slavery shaped how this nation operated from its inception. Founding fathers of the United States of America by negotiating a compromise in the Constitutional Convention that each slave would count as 3/5 of a Read More

Myths of Creation

African American History, African Diaspora, American legal system, American politics, ancestors, descendants of slaves, ethnic studies, Native Americans, Slave economy, slave ports, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

In the British Virginia Colony during the summer of 1619, two events took place within weeks of each other that would shape the United States of America in profoundly contradictory ways.  One event was the initial legislative assembly of Englishmen meeting in Jamestowne from July 30 to August 4. The other event was the arrival at Point Comfort of a Dutch slaver during the third week in August, when according Read More

A History Ignored

African Diaspora, Afro-Caribbeans, ancestors, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, Slave economy, slave ports, transatlantic slave trade

On St. Croix in the U.S Virgin Islands, both residents and visitors daily enjoy a visual paradise and few are aware of the history and people who created this beauty. From the Cay in the Christiansted Harbor, the view of Fort Christiansvaern, with its manicured lawns, lush green hills in the background and the crystal blue waters of the bay in the foreground produces a striking image in the perfect Read More

One in Every Home: The African American Presence, a Measure of Success

African American History, African Diaspora, Slave economy, slavery

The pervasiveness of Africans and their enslavement in the Americas is not yet realized. We can present statistics such as seventy-seven percent of the immigrants to the “New World” were African until the 1820’s when European immigration began to be strongly encouraged but that still remains an abstraction. The reality of America does not conform to the myth of a majority European-predominant presence. The United States of American was not Read More

Source Documents for Blog Visitors, February 2012

African American History, African American music, African Diaspora, African ethnic groups, Afro-Latinos, burial ceremonies, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, enslaved women, ethnic studies, Mexican Americans, oral history, Slave economy, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

This project is committed to getting out information to those who are interested. We pledged to provide readers quarterly with materials that we base the posts upon, so here are the second quarter’s materials as promised by category with annotation. Articles: African Burial Ground Project: paradigm for cooperation? by Michael Blakey (Museum International, UNESCO, 2010). Professor Blakey is on our project’s advisory board and worked continuously on the Manhattan African Burial Ground Project. Read More

Credit and Debt: A World of Trouble?

Native Americans, Slave economy, slavery

Although this blog writer is not a trained economist, patterns can be discerned. Debt, credit, and product are the means to power and control for a select group of people in the world. The history and development of the Western Hemisphere easily illustrates this. Most modern societies are built upon credit: the good kind known as investment and the bad kind known as debt. During the initial expansion of the Read More

The Warp and Weft: Why Are We So Black and Blue?

African Diaspora, Slave economy, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

Numbers transformed into a human context is the skill of the social scientist: the anthropologist, psychologist, sociologist, historian and economist. But from the artisan, we might use a metaphor from weaving in arguing that much of the wealth of the Western Hemisphere and Europe was built on the warp of African slavery. A double entendre if ever there was one; this warp laid the foundation for creating a detailed and Read More

How Sweet It Is

African Diaspora, Slave economy, transatlantic slave trade

A few months ago, a television ad in promoting its product challenged the notion that high fructose was a bad thing. In our culture the origin of sweetening and our conditioning to it has its roots in transatlantic slavery. This is no stretch. If one crop could be targeted as providing the major impetus for the transatlantic slave trade it would be sugar. The demand for “free” labor under the Read More

Human Wastage: The Price of Doing Business

African American History, African Diaspora, Middle Passage, Slave economy, slave ports, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

In researching this project, I have started reading The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker (2008). He argues that the African transatlantic slave trade was the first rung in the ladder of global capitalism, or what we know now as a global economy that all governments, many businesses and people are attempting to understand, modify or control. One sentence in the introduction struck a chord because it directly relates to Read More