Slave Ship Jesus

Slave Ship Jesus Coat of Arms

Slavery is a stain on the history of the British Empire. The Anglo-Saxons kept slaves, but although serfdom survived for many years, slavery had all but gone from England by the 12th century. Certainly the earliest colonies, the West Indies and Virginia could not have survived without slaves.

The British were not the first Europeans in the slave trade. The Portuguese had established themselves as traders a century earlier.

Our story, here in the sixteenth century, centres on three voyages of John Hawkins. Hawkins was the first established English slave trader. Between 1562 and 1567 he made such profits so lucrative that he was supported by the Queen who showed her investment by donating two of her own ships, the Jesus of Lubeck and the Minion.

The pattern was consistent. Hawkins sailed for the west coast of Africa and, sometimes with the help of other African natives, kidnapped villagers. He would then cross the Atlantic and sell his cargo, or those who survived the voyage, to the Spanish. The slave trade was better business than plantations.

Sir John Hawkins

For Hawkins, the trade ended in 1567 when his fleet, which included a ship commanded by Francis Drake, took shelter from a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish were also there. In the chaos and fight that followed, many of his men were killed. The Queen's Jesus of Lubeck was lost. Hawkins escaped in one ship and Drake in another. He'd lost 325 men on that voyage but it still showed a financial profit.

That skirmish between the Spanish and English ships was partly a turning point in the naval confrontation between the two nations; it continued for two decades and was only partially settled by the 1588 English Channel battle with the Spanish Armada. However, slavery continued after Hawkins and, although banned in England in 1772, it continued in the colonies until the 19th century. (source: BBC)

Slave Ship Jesus of Lubeck

JESUS OF LUBECK

The Jesus Of Lubeck was a German-built carrack of 700 tons displacement built around 1544 as a Hanseatic trading ship, before being bought by Henry VIII of England and converted to a warship. In 1564 she was leased as an armed slave-ship to Captain John Hawkins who used her until she was sunk during an engagement with the Spanish at San Juan de Ulloa in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Jesus Of Lubeck had four masts, the fore and main masts were square-rigged, the mizzens lateen rigged, carried a crew of 300 and was armed with 26 guns. (source: probertencyclopaedia.com

"The Floating Dungeon: A History of the Slave Ship"

The Slave Ship: A Human History

The missing link in the chain of American slavery

For more than three centuries slave ships carried millions of people from the coasts of Africa across the Atlantic to the New World. Much is known of the slave trade and the American plantation complex, but little of the ships that made it all possible. In The Slave Ship, award-winning historian Marcus Rediker draws on thirty years of research in maritime archives to create an unprecedented history of these vessels and the human drama acted out on their rolling decks. He reconstructs in chilling detail the lives, deaths, and terrors of captains, sailors, and the enslaved aboard a “floating dungeon” trailed by sharks. From the young African kidnapped from his village and sold to the slaver by a neighboring tribe; to the would-be priest who takes a job as a sailor on a slave ship only to be horrified by the evil he sees; to the captain who relishes having “a hell of my own,” Rediker illuminates the lives of people who were thought to have left no trace.

This is a tale of tragedy and terror, but also an epic of resilience, survival, and the creation of something entirely new, something that could only be called African-American. Marcus Rediker restores the slave ship to its rightful place alongside the plantation as a formative institution of slavery, as a place where a profound and still haunting history of race, class, and modern capitalism was made.

Watch video of Marcus Rediker, professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, speaking on "The Floating Dungeon: A History of the Slave Ship" at the Vanderbilt Law School March 10, 2009.

Internal Slave Trade, U.S., ca. 1830

Source
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-89701

Comments
An engraving, captioned "United States Slave Trade. 1830" which shows slaves in shackles, whites holding whips; capital dome in Washington, D.C. is in background. The Library of Congress notes for this illustration indicate it was an abolitionist print, "possibly engraved in 1830; more details on its origin are also given in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.

Slave Coffle, Virginia, 1839

Slave Coffle, Virginia, 1839

Source

James Buckingham, The Slave States of America (London, 1842), vol. 2, facing p. 553. (Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library)

Comments

Caption, "Gang of Slaves journeying to be sold in a Southern Market"; illustrates the domestic slave trade in the U.S. James Buckingham viewed this scene in September, 1839, a few miles from Fredericksburg. "It was in a valley ," he wrote, "that we met a gang of slaves, including men, women, and children, the men chained together in pairs, and the women carrying the children and bundles on their march to the south.

The gang was under several white drivers, who rode near them on horseback, with large whips, while the slaves marched on foot beside them; and there was one driver behind, to bring up the rear . . . . They were chained together for precaution, rather than punishment; because when accompanied by one or two white men . . . they might be tempted to rise against them in any solitary part of the road, or, at the very least, escape from them if they could. . . " (pp. 552-553). Secondary sources which reproduce this image sometimes, without citing the original source, caption this "crossing the Rapidan" river, but the author does not identify the body of water shown in the illustration; moreover, given the route that he describes having taken, it is unlikely it was the Rapidan

Slave Coffle, Near Paris, Kentucky, 1850s

Slave Coffle, Near Paris, Kentucky, 1850s

Source
Anon., The Suppressed Book About Slavery! Prepared for Publication in 1857 (New York, 1864), facing p. 49. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-30798)

Comments
Caption, "The Coffle Gang"; led by white on horseback and black musicians at the front. An eye-witness account of the scene depicted in this illustration is given on pp. 164-65 of this abolitionist book; the scene described is of "about forty men, all chained together. . . . Behind them were about thirty women, in double rank, the couples tied hand to hand...."

Slave Coffle, Washington, D.C., ca. 1819

Slave Coffle, Washington, D.C., ca. 1819

Wood engraving, captioned "A Slave-Coffle passing the Capital" and depicting slaves wearing handcuffs and shackles passing the U.S. Capital, meant to depict a scene ca. 1819.

This image was intended to illustrate part of a debate in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1819, concerning the admission of Missouri to the Union. The representative from New York, James Tallmadge, Jr., proposed that as a condition of admission slavery not be permitted in Missouri "except of those already held as slaves."

While the debate was going on, Tallmadge pointed out that the South wanted Missouri to be a slave state and that a "striking illustration of what the South" wanted was to be viewed at that moment in front of the Capital. Apparently, as the debate was in progress "a trafficker in human flesh . . . has passed the door of your Capital . . . driving before him about fifteen of these wretched victims of his power. The males . . . were handcuffed and chained to each other, while the females and children were marched in their rear, under the guidance of the driver's whip" (p. 265).

Jamestown from a Dutch Man-of-War, 1619

Landing of Negroes at Jamestown from a Dutch Man-of-War, 1619

Power of Propaganda

Gator Bait Themes

 

 

Abolition of Slave Trade

MSNBC's Doll Test

This panel met at Howard University to discuss the black doll - white doll test. For those who are unfamiliar, the famous doll test was a survey taken years ago, where black school age children where asked positive and negative questions about black and white dolls. To sum things up, the kids overwhelmingly preferred the white dolls. The test was run again recently with the same results.

Panelist joining Brian Williams included: radio host Tom Joyner, author Michael Eric Dyson, entrepreneur Malaak Compton-Rock, screenwriter Kriss Turner, writer Kevin Powell, and columnist Mike Barnicle. Tim Wise, the Director of the Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE) and Rev. Buster Soaries.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

MSNBC's panel needs improvement. In that, it is understandable that MSNBC's intended to get a well rounded diverse panel to discuss race, but they missed the mark. Chris Rock's wife is not a scholar. Although she's seems to be quite active with charity work, but she needed to be a black female counterbalance to Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. There are some great black female scholars like Dr. bell hooks, Dr. Alice Walker, Dr. Toni Morrison, and Dr. Francis Cress that have written, researched, published, and presented scholarly works on black female images and popular culture.

Mike Barnacle and Brian Williams should have been required to read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, before they even opened their mouths. None of the panelists have any idea how painful it is to be black, female, dark and ugly. Chris Rock's wife is too beautiful to know how painful it is to be considered ugly by society.

One more criticism on this panel. Who the hell invited the police! I guess if we're gonna talk about black folks then we need to call the cops. WTF! While I can deal with Chris Rock's wife, and Micheal Eric Dyson......the cops are just too much. It just subliminally reinforces the criminal stereotype of blackness. Negrophobia propaganda rears it's evil head once again.

Lastly, why the heck is Mike Barnacle on the panel? If MSNBC must give a white male voice, there are some excellent scholars on the subject like Eric Foner, David Bryon Davis, David Blight, et al.

If MSNBC is going to teach, then there are some great professors that do this for a living they should cast their nets a little wider for panel discussions.

Costco's Lil' Monkey Doll

Costco Wholesale Corp. on Thursday apologized to any of its customers who may have been offended by a doll the company pulled from its stores after a complaint about possible racist connotations.

The doll wore a headband that said "Lil' Monkey" and was cuddling with a stuffed monkey. The "Cuddle with Me, Doll with Plush Monkey" doll came in Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic representations.

But shortly after the toys were put up for sale in late July, Costco received a complaint from a customer in North Carolina concerning the version of the doll that showed an African-American baby with the monkey.

Costco immediately pulled the doll from its shelves and discontinued the product. The Issaquah, Wash.-based retailer said the doll was carried only in its Northeast and Southeast regions and the company's Web site and was only for sale for a matter of days before it was pulled.

A number of reports and Web sites have criticized the retailer for carrying the product, and Costco said it apologizes.

Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Doll Study

Segregation Ruled Unequal, and Therefore Unconstitutional

Kenneth B. Clark & Mamie Phipps Clark

Psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark Ph.d demonstrated that segregation harmed Black children's self-images. Their testimony before the Supreme Court contributed to the landmark Supreme Court case that desegregated American public schools: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS

Findings

In their groundbreaking studies, Kenneth and Mamie Clark investigated black children's racial identification and preference. Using drawings and dolls of black and white children, these researchers asked Black preschool and elementary school children to indicate which drawing or doll they preferred and which drawing or doll looked most like them. They also asked children to color line drawings of children with the color that most closely matched their own skin color. The Clarks found that Black children often preferred the white doll and drawing, and frequently colored the line drawing of the child a shade lighter than their own skin. Samples of the children's responses illustrated that they viewed white as good and pretty, but black as bad and ugly.

Clark and Clark concluded that many Black children at the time (1939-1950) "indicate a clear-cut preference for white and some of them evidence emotional conflict when requested to indicate a color preference. It is clear that the Negro child, by the age of five is aware of the fact that to be colored in contemporary American society is a mark of inferior status. A child accepts as early as six, seven or eight the negative stereotypes about his own group."

Significance

Until 1954, public schools were racially segregated, meaning that Black and White children could be forced to attend different schools. A Supreme Court ruling from 1892, Plessy v. Ferguson, legitimized these children's "separate, but equal" educations. With the help of Clark and Clark's research findings, that illustrated the effect of prejudice and discrimination on personality development, the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education were able to show that segregated schools were inherently unequal, and therefore unconstitutional.

Clark and Clark's research prompted several future studies about racial identification and preference among minority children.

Practical Application

The impact of their research is evident in the court's unanimous decision, as written by Chief Justice Earl Warren: "Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has the tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system." In short, segregation failed to provide Black and White children equal protection under the law — a protection guaranteed by the 14th amendment. Segregation was therefore deemed unconstitutional. Chief Justice Warren noted Kenneth Clark as one of the "modern authorities" on which the decision was based. This acknowledgment was significant because it was the first time that psychological research was cited in a Supreme Court decision and because social science data was seen as paramount in the Court's decision.

source: American Psychological Association, May 28, 2003, Revised July 2007

Doll Cultural Study

Black doll White doll



The Barbie Doll Test



White Doll, Black Doll. Which one is the nice doll?

Zora Neale Hurston: TURPENTINE CAMPS

TURPENTINE
by Zora Neale Hurston

Well, I put on my shoes and I started. Going up some roads and down some others to see what Negroes do for a living. Going down one road I smelt hot rosin and looked and saw a “gum patch.” That’s a turpentine still to the outsider, but gum path (sic) to those who work them.

It was not long before I was up i (sic) the foreman’s face talking and asking to be talked-to. He was a sort of pencil-shaped brown-stained man in his forties and his name was John McFarlin. He got to telling and I got to listening until the first thing I knew I was spending the night at his house so I could “Ride the Wood” with him next morning and see for myself instead of asking him so many questions. So that left me free to ask about songs go (sic) the turpentine woods.

“No, Ma’am. they don’t make up many songs. The boys used to be pretty ad (sic) about making up songs but they don’t do that now.”

“If you don’t make up songs while you are working, don’t you all make some up round the jook?”

“Mo (sic), ”mam, its (sic) like I told you. Taint like saw-mills and such like that. Turpentine woods is kind of lonesome.”

Foreman McFarlin had me up before five o’ clock next morning. He had to wake up his camp and he always started out about 5:30 so that he had every man on the job by 6.

Turpentine Dipper

Every man took his tools, went to his task-whatever he was doing when he knocked off at 5:30 the afternoon before, he got right on it in the morning. The foreman had 18 men under him and he saw everyone in his place.

He had 5 chippers, 7 pullers and 5 dippers and a wood-chopper. All the men off to work, John McFarlin straddled his horse, got one for me and we began riding the wood. Talking about knowing his business!

Turpentine Chipper

The foreman can ride a “drift” and with a glance tell if every “face” on every tree has been chipped. First he rode a drift of virgin boxes. That is when a tree is first worked, it is a virgin box for three years. That is the finest rosin. The five men were chipping away. The chipper is the man who makes those little slanting cuts on pine trees so that the gum exudes, and drains down into the box. He has a very sharp cutting tool that heavily weighted in the handle and cunningly balanced so that he chips at a stroke. The company pays a cent a tree. We stopped and watched Lester Keller chip because he is hard to beat anywhere in the world. He often chips 700 or more trees a week.

A puller is a specialized chipper. He chips the trees when they have been worked too high for the chipper. He does this with a chipping axe with a long handle knows (sic) as a puller. The foreman explained that the tree are chipped three years and pulled three years then it is abandoned. Leroy Heath is the champ puller.

He inspected a drift that was being dipped. The men who dip take the cup off the tree, scrape out the gum with the dipping iron and put it back in place and pass on to the next face. The dippers are paid $.85 a barrel for gum and 10 barrels a week is good dipping. Dan Walker is the champ. He can dip two barrels a day.

The wood-chopper cuts wood for the still. Wood is used to fire the furnace instead of coal because the company owns millions of cords of wood for burning in trees that have been worked out.

McFarlin explained that thee(sic) is no chipping and dipping from November to March. In November they stop working the trees, scrape the faces, how(sic) and rake around the trees as a caution against fire.

The foreman gets $12.50 a week, the foreman’s house, all the firewood he wants and all the gardening space he wants. He said shyly that he would raise(sic) in wages, but feels that he will not get it. He wants to know if the Government is sending people around to make folk pay better wages. He hopes so.

Visit to Aycock & Lindsey, Turpentine Camp, Cross City, Florida

CROSS CITY: TURPENTINE CAMP

ZORA HURSTON, August 1939

Zora Neale Hurston worked for the WPA, collecting folklife and folklore from Floridians throughout the state. She is pictured here collecting music from French and Brown.

Photograph was part of a 1985 traveling exhibit called "Pursuits and Pastimes". Reproducted from the collection of the Library of Congress. Forms part of series S1606, Florida Folklife Archive, Photographs and Slides of Folk Arts, Artisans, and Performers.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow Part 1

The PBS premiere episode begins with the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, periods that held so much promise for free black men and women. But as the North gradually withdrew its support for black aspirations for land, civil and political rights, and legal due process, Southern whites succeeded in passing laws that segregated and disfranchised African Americans, laws that were reinforced with violence and terror tactics. By 1876, Reconstruction was over.

"Promises Betrayed" recounts black response by documenting the work of such leaders as activist/separatist Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, as well as the emergence of Booker T. Washington as a national figure.

'What we are in justice entitled to': A 1865 letter from a freedman

'What we are in justice entitled to':
A 1865 letter from a freedman

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir:

I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, "The colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free- papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly -- and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good- looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

P.S. -- Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Booker T. Washington Speech: Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are

Booker T. Washington

"Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are"

Booker T. Washington’s 'Atlanta Compromise Speech'

Booker T. Washington: Mr. President and gentlemen of the Board of Directors and citizens. One third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I must convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, and Secretaries and masses of my race, when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized, than by the managers of this magnificent exposition at every stage of its progress.

It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom. Not only this, but the opportunities here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress.Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of the bottom, that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill, that the political convention of some teaching had more attraction than starting a dairy farm or a stockyard.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: “Water, water. We die of thirst.” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time, the signal, “Water, send us water!” went up from the distressed vessel. And was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A third and fourth signal for water was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.

To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of preservating friendly relations with the southern white man who is their next door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I have said to my own race: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fireside. Cast down your bucket among these people who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, just to make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South.

The African in the US: The Booker T. Washington Era - Dr. John Henrik Clarke - Part 5 AHN - John, Henrik, Clarke, Booker, Washington, African, History, Black, Egypt, Kemet, WEB, DuB
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DuBois Congratulates Booker T. Washington

Although W. E. B. DuBois would later publish his pointed challenge to Booker T. Washington's educational and political philosophy in his celebrated work, Souls of Black Folk (1903), at the time of Washington's Atlanta speech, DuBois wrote this letter to express his congratulations.

W. E. B. DuBois to Booker T. Washington, September 24, 1895. Autograph letter.

My dear Mr. Washington,

Let me heartily congratulate you upon your phenomenal success at Atlanta—it was a word fitly spoken..

Sincerely Yours,

W.E.. B. Du Bois

Wilberforce, 24 Sept., '95

The Ballad of Booker T.

Langston Hughes

The Ballad of Booker T.
by Langston Hughes

Booker T.
Was a practical man.
He said, Till the soil
And learn from the land.

Let down your bucket
Where you are.
Your fate is here
And not afar.

To help yourself
And your fellow man,
Train your head,
Your heart, and your hand.

For smartness alone's
Surely not meet-
If you haven't at the same time
Got something to eat.

Thus at Tuskegee
He built a school
With book-learning there
And the workman's tool.

He started out
In a simple way
For yesterday
Was not today.

Sometimes he had
Compromise in his talk
For a man must crawl
Before he can walk

And in Alabama in '85
A joker was lucky
To be alive.

But Booker T.
Was nobody's fool:
You may carve a dream
With an humble tool.

The tallest tower
Can tumble down
If it be not rooted
In solid ground.

So, being a far-seeing
Practical man,
He said, Train your head,
Your heart, and your hand.

Your fate is here
And not afar,
So let down your bucket
Where you are.

-- Langston Hughes (1941)