The topic of Black people in the Americas is very interesting, it's one of the early "plot holes" that got me questioning history.
I personally do not subscribe to those 'Moorish superiority' theories, they often resemble Black victimization rather than sensible research.
Nonetheless, the Black man was conquered and traded, and his conquerors had the motive to misplace or conceal his origins.
I see that the thread is already an argument about approach and not a discussion. I'll just try to go past.
I find it quite difficult to comment directly about the book. Instead I'll just share what I generally have about this topic.
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The way I understand it, The Americas featured natives of both the White, Black and Asiatic race. You can find the same variety across the axis of South India to Russia, so I don't find it too farfetched to imagine.
We perceive the natives as the "Red" peoples, but the old photography shows a greater variety. Some tribes appear to be essentially black, but aren't labeled so by the rulers.
The narrative generally admits to the existence of
'Black Indians', but always attributes them to African/Indigenous racial mixing.
Obviously, the Blacks in America today are the result of continuous mixing with other groups, in particular more than a million of Africans who migrated to the USA, integrated and became indistinguishable from other Black Americans.
The main problem starts with the
"Trans Atlantic Slave Trade" which I deem impossible in the scale it is claimed to be. It did happen, it seems, but differently.
The racial hierarchy was clearly defined and imposed in America quite early, before slaves were brought from abroad. Africans seem to start coming en masse by the early 19th century only, with the massive need for working hands, and most importantly, the advent of steam shipping. We can't be expected to believe that millions of slaves were brought on renaissance-age sail ships, in which half of them allegedly died mid-journey. It's not financially viable. Slaves were bought from African chiefs who were paid well, and upon arrival were treated as valuable merchandise which must be well kept. (not disregarding the obvious abuse)
The concentration of African slaves seems to have focused in the Caribbean and not the mainland. It was easier to build slave colonies on islands such as Jamaica, where they'd be cut off from the world. And here's another flaw:
It is claimed that all Blacks in America went through such forced integration, christianization and brainwash, that they had forgotten 99.9% of their original African customs, language and culture.
While the amnesia truly applies in the mainland, the Blacks of Jamaica and other islands seem to have a better connection to their roots, and their local dialects even contain African words. You can clearly see how Black Caribbeans more easily connect with the African world, while the Afro-Americans feel very alienated from it, despite many attempts to reconnect.
Could it be because they're actually African descendants, while the Black mainlanders are (mostly) native to America?
And here comes the odd case of
The American Colonization Society, known as what gave grounds to the creation of Liberia in Africa.
Wiki:
".. was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of freeborn blacks and emancipated slaves to the continent of Africa. ...
.. to address the prevailing view that free people of color could not integrate into U.S. society; their population had grown steadily following the American Revolutionary War, from 60,000 in 1790 to 300,000 by 1830."
(quite 'late' for such a great jump, isn't it?)
"The African-American community and the abolitionist movement overwhelmingly opposed the project. In most cases, African Americans' families had lived in the United States for generations, and their prevailing sentiment was that they were no more African than white Americans were European."
May I remind, that we're some five decades prior to the emancipation.
"Between 1821 and 1847, only a few thousand African Americans, out of millions, emigrated to what would become Liberia. By 1833, the Society had transported 2,769 individuals out of the U.S., while the increase in Black population in the U.S. during those same years was about 500,000.
According to Zephaniah Kingsley, the cost of transporting the Black population of the United States to Africa would exceed the annual revenues of the country.[9]: 73 Mortality was the highest since accurate record-keeping began: close to half the arrivals in Liberia died from tropical diseases, especially malaria; during the early years, 22% of immigrants died within one year.[9]: 55 n. 24 Moreover, the provisioning and transportation of requisite tools and supplies proved very expensive.[10]
Interesting. I wouldn't compare the shipping conditions of a freed black man to that of a slave, but I don't suppose they were too far off.
Nevertheless, the transport operation was deemed financially disastrous. That points a big finger at the economic viability of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the other direction (in which you also have to account for payment to the African slave-masters, and the lower quality of the ships in the preceding centuries).
The colony of Liberia later became independent, led by Afro-Americans who ruled over a sizable indigenous African population.
"Reflecting the system of segregation in the United States, the Americo-Liberians created a cultural and racial caste system, with themselves at the top and indigenous Liberians at the bottom. They believed in a form of "racial equality," which meant that all residents of Liberia had the potential to become "civilized" through western-style education and conversion to Christianity.[33"
Interesting. It's as if those guys were not African to begin with.. I'm not condemning them or anything, it was the way of the world at the time.
My conclusion is that the slave trade did happen but in a much smaller scale than claimed, and the African slaves were simply placed together with the Black Americans, where they were made to integrate and mix.
It is even apparent through simple observation, that the Black Americans do not share the exact appearance of Africans, especially not that of West Africans, which they're claimed to originate from. There are, however, some that do appear African, but they're few.
From the eyes of a white person, especially centuries ago, it might not matter, but it is equivalent to thinking an Inuit is the same as a Tibetan. Do the Blacks of America and Africa share a common origin? Probably, but I don't think it was done through artificial slave trade.
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The Case of the Black Seminoles
"The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles are Native American-Africans[1] associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped slaves, who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida. Many have Seminole lineage, but due to the stigma of having very dark or brown skin and kinky hair,[2] they all have been categorized as slaves or freedmen."
The story goes that these African slaves had escaped their plantations in Georgia in late 17th century, and made their home in Florida, where they allied with local Creek tribes (red-indian), also called Seminoles ("maroons").
The Blacks remained segregated from the Creeks, yet 'adopted' all of their culture, customs, clothing, knowledge of the land and even language. At the same time, the 'red' Seminoles owned Black slaves, but somehow, it didn't deter them from lovingly embracing the tribe of Blacks who just came to their lands, armed with stolen rifles.
How did the groups communicate? Those Creeks did not speak English at the time.
The fresh-out-of-Africa escapees must've been completely alien to them. The logic says they would've killed them on sight.
The story goes and says these "Black" and "Red" tribes allied and fought together against the American settlers in the
Seminole Wars, with the Blacks becoming virtually no different than the natives other than skin color.
Ah, but there is one other difference!
In the 1970's, linguistic researchers found that the Black Seminoles speak an English Creole language that has no less than 15(!!!) African words!
They had in fact found that the language is highly similar to the language of Sierra Leon in Africa, which also speaks English Creole.
Here lies the proof, Black Seminoles are Africans!
But unfortunately, when I looked at Sierra Leone Creole, I found that quite surprisingly, it is itself derived from Creole spoken by Black American migrants(!) and not from a native West African language.
It's hard to tell whether this was an intentional move to conceal the Black Seminole origin, or that the researchers were too programmed to even fathom that Black Seminoles could be indigenous to America.
This community was rather small, and completely free to pursuit its own culture for centuries. They lived on their own territory, developed their own Christianity, and were not subject to long-term indoctrination. Why would they embrace a culture and language foreign to them and abandon their roots?
If there is in fact anything African about the Seminoles, I'm more convinced it is due to a past Africa-America connection, and not due to slave trade.
In contrast to the Seminoles, we can observe the Black
Maroons of Suriname, who have a somewhat similar story. They escaped the sugar plantations of Suriname and Guiana, and resorted to live in the rain-forests. In this case, they seem to be totally African: their language is a true Creole of West African and English/Dutch, and their culture resembles that of West Africa even to this day. They developed a separate identity and aren't regarded as "Indians".
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I posted this
reply almost 2 years ago, in a civil war thread, where I presented this 1858 dated photo:
In summary, so not to repeat the post, it clearly indicates that there are other slaves in existence, who aren't black.
We know for example that at least half of Europeans came to America through
indentured servitude, a system which is not far off from slavery. Indentured servants who escaped were also chased and returned.
It is no doubt that Blacks suffered harsher treatment, but this is no suffering competition. The point is, it could be that the modern narrative focuses on black slavery not only to dismantle their heritage, but also to shift the eyes from slavery of other peoples.
Devil's Island in French Guiana (South America), for example, was a penal colony which operated for 100 years (1852-1952), in which more than 80,000 Frenchmen were sent to (mostly) die in intense labor, away from the prison regulations of France.
The
White-Slave Traffic Act, also known as the Mann Act, was adopted as a federal USA law in 1910.
Despite the surprising name,
"Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking, particularly where trafficking was for the purposes of prostitution"
"... the act made it a felony to engage in interstate or foreign commerce transport of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose"
(Wiki)
I can't be the only one who finds it strange, that an anti-prostitution law, in protection of women (of all color) is named 'White Slave'.
Why would they name it that way? Wiki explains:
"This term referred to women kidnapped for the purposes of prostitution and derives from Charles Sumner's 1847 description of the Barbary slave trade.[3]"
I took the courtesy of going over the said paper
(White Slavery In The Barbary States.)
In which I can absolutely assure you, and as is obvious from its title, women are not the topic, or are even discussed in it.
Was the White-Slave Traffic Act originally written in a different way, but was later edited to conceal something?
It is possible that the Act addressed the rights of White people, and the section about prostitution was also originally in it, only that the other part was removed. It's also quite strange, that you'd need such a law, when slavery was supposedly abolished some 50 years prior.
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To clarify, I'm no expert on Africans or Blacks in general, these are my observations and I'm prepared to be totally wrong about all of them
I know I slightly derailed the thread but it didn't seem to produce discussion, and it'd be a waste to drop this topic - I don't think it is just a "black people" topic because there's a larger picture.
