Dutch West India Company

Dutch West India Company trading and colonizing company, chartered by the States-General of the Dutch republic in 1621 and organized in 1623. Through its agency New Netherland was founded. The phenomenal success of the Dutch East India Company was an influential factor in its establishment. The United New Netherland Company, which had been trading around the mouth of the Hudson River for several years, was absorbed into the new company. By the terms of the charter no citizen of the Netherlands could trade with any point on the African coast between the Tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope or on the American coast between Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan without the company's permission. 

The company was responsible to the States-General in larger matters, such as declaring war, but otherwise had almost complete administrative and judicial power in its territory. The company was initially interested taking Brazil from the Portuguese. After 30 years of warfare, however, Brazil was lost. By that time the company had built Fort Orange (1624) on the site of Albany, N.Y., Fort Nassau (1624) on the Delaware River, Fort Good Hope on the site of Hartford on the Connecticut River, and finally Fort Amsterdam (1626), on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, which was the nucleus of the settlement called New Amsterdam, now New York City. England could not then afford to antagonize the Dutch because of wars with France and Spain and so permitted the Dutch settlement to be made on lands that England claimed. New Netherland remained under the control of the company until the English finally conquered it in 1664 (see New York , state). The company's unsound financial condition led to its reorganization under a new charter in 1674. Thereafter it engaged primarily in the African slave trade, though it still possessed colonies in Guiana. In 1791 its charter expired and was not renewed. [source: "Dutch West India Company." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 14 May. 2012 .]

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture - Douglas Blackmon

In his book 'Slavery By Another Name,' author Douglas Blackmon highlights a system of de facto slavery that lasted in the United States long after abolition--in some cases, well into the 1940s. In Alabama alone, an estimated 200,000 blacks were forced to work as servants or in coal mines and lumber yards. Tens of thousands of African-American men were routinely arrested on trivial charges and misdemeanors, fined outrageously and then ‘sold’ to corporations to work off their fines. In the early 1930s (the Daily Beast)

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Pulitzer Prize winner Douglas Blackmon explored the impact that Vanderbilt students can have on society when he delivered the 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture Tuesday evening.

Blackmon introduced himself to the crowd inside Vanderbilt University Law School's Flynn Auditorium with light remarks before delving into his talk. Initially speaking on the similarities between Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Blackmon led the audience to consider what he described as "the terrific dilemma of the past" - the nation's history of problematic race relations.

While Blackmon reviewed some of the highlights of his book, he also commented on the potential he saw in Vanderbilt students.

“Today, talking to students on campus from the (Black Student Alliance) and other student organizations, reminded me of the young, earnest, hungry minds that exist," he said. "Only though this can we learn the lessons of the past and remember what to take with us and leave behind.” (source: Inside Vandy)

2010 Vanderbilt University Law School Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture - Douglas Blackmon

Alabama Town Blocks Slavery Documentary Filming

Variety reported on Jun. 4, 2011, "Town blocks 'Slavery' doc: Filmmaker Pollard disputes order," by Addie Morfoot:

Veteran documentary editor, producer and director Sam Pollard has seen a lot during his 30 years in the business, but what happened in Centreville, Ala., in March, while filming his latest doc, "Slavery by Another Name" for PBS, caught him by surprise.

Based on the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Wall Street Journal writer Douglas Blackmon, which challenges the belief that slavery ended with 1863's Emancipation Proclamation, the doc recounts how in the years following the Civil War, new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, trapping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in a brutal system that lasted until the onset of World War II.

But Centreville mayor Tom Bamberg blocked Pollard's crew from filming in a local park.

During their seven-day Alabama shoot in late March, the crew filmed in various locations in and around Centreville, but when it came time to shoot a reenactment scene in the town's Cahaba Park, they were told that the park's pavilions were rented out and the grounds were unavailable.

Blackmon then contacted Bamberg via email asking for specific rental times and for permission to shoot in areas of the park away from the pavilions.

Bamberg's emailed response was: "I do object to this being filmed in our park. I also object to it being filmed in our city. We are a quiet, small town, and I don't want this to cause controversy."

Pollard, who has worked on numerous race-related docs, including Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" and "4 Little Girls," as well as HBO's feature length documentary, "By the People: The Election of Barack Obama," says he was startled by Bamberg's words.

"I've worked on a lot of documentaries, and sometimes you run into people who don't want to be interviewed," Pollard says. "But this was the first time a community, led by the mayor, said that we were not welcome. It was surprising, because this is 2011, but I guess (Bamberg) felt that we were going to open up a can of worms that he didn't want opened."While Blackmon contends that the city's decision to bar the crew to film from Cahaba Park was illegal and a violation of First Amendment rights, Centreville city attorney Mike Hobson maintains that Bamberg's initial explanation and not the mayor's subsequent email was the real reason behind the park's off-limits status.

While Hobson denies that Pollard was banned from filming in the park, he did add that "they wanted to film with actors dressed in old-time prison garb, and he wanted to depict those actors as being slaves who were tied to a stake driven into the ground. He wanted to do that in a public park on a weekend when other people were using the park for recreational purposes. We didn't think that that was appropriate, and we felt like that would cause controversy. So, yes, the mayor had a problem with that."

Hobson then explained that the crew needed a license, which Blackmon contests.

The specific scene, which Pollard says was a reenactment on a farm using a historic structure in the backdrop, was subsequently shot at another location.

"This is the first time in the 10 years since I started researching and writing the book that the door was so overtly slammed in my face," Blackmon says.

The doc, being produced by Twin Cities Public Television, with an estimated budget of $1.5 million, received funding through grants provided by orgs including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

"Slavery by Another Name" is scheduled to air on PBS in 2012. (source: Variety)

Slavery by Another Name: The Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

The Untold Story: Slavery In The 20th Century

Hundreds of thousands of African Americans were held in slavery well into the 20th Century. The untold history in America. Antoinette Harrell-genealogist/researcher and Dr. Ron Walters- Director of the African American Leadership Institute reveals their ground breaking research on slavery in the 20th Century Slavery. Listen to Mae Louise Miller a former 20th Century Slave share with the public her life experience as a slave in Mississippi.



Slavery in the 20th Century Part-2


Slavery in the 20th Century Part-3