Harper's Weekly "A Christmas Gift to Ole Marster and Missus"

Harper's Weekly "A Christmas Gift to Ole Marster and Missus"

"I Want You, My Honey, For My Christmas!"

1898 Leslie's Weekly hand colored sepia tone titled, "I Want You, My Honey, For My Christmas!" Scene shows a young man climbing a fence to catch his Christmas bird.

1881 "Done Brown, Sho's Yo' B'on!" This hand colored colored engraving shows an African American woman serving a turkey. This genuine antique print is from the November, 1881 edition of Harper's Weekly.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Christmas

My term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day, 1833. The days between Christmas and New Year's day are allowed as holidays; and, accordingly, we were not required to perform any labor, more than to feed and take care of the stock. This time we regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters; and we therefore used or abused it nearly as we pleased. Those of us who had families at a distance, were generally allowed to spend the whole six days in their society. This time, however, was spent in various ways. The staid, sober, thinking and industrious ones of our number would employ themselves in making corn-brooms, mats, horse-collars, and baskets; and another class of us would spend the time in hunting opossums, hares, and coons. But by far the larger part engaged in such sports and merriments as playing ball, wrestling, running foot-races, fiddling, dancing, and drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was by far the most agreeable to the feelings of our masters. A slave who would work during the holidays was considered by our masters as scarcely deserving them. He was regarded as one who rejected the favor of his master. It was deemed a disgrace not to get drunk at Christmas; and he was regarded as lazy indeed, who had not provided himself with the necessary means, during the year, to get whisky enough to last him through Christmas.

From what I know of the effect of these holidays upon the slave, I believe them to be among the most effective means in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection. Were the slaveholders at once to abandon this practice, I have not the slightest doubt it would lead to an immediate insurrection among the slaves. These holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would be forced up to the wildest desperation; and woe betide the slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most appalling earthquake.

The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders; but I undertake to say, it is the result of selfishness, and one of the grossest frauds committed upon the down-trodden slave. They do not give the slaves this time because they would not like to have their work during its continuance, but because they know it would be unsafe to deprive them of it. This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whisky without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,--feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.

I have said that this mode of treatment is a part of the whole system of fraud and inhumanity of slavery. It is so. The mode here adopted to disgust the slave with freedom, by allowing him to see only the abuse of it, is carried out in other things. For instance, a slave loves molasses; he steals some. His master, in many cases, goes off to town, and buys a large quantity; he returns, takes his whip, and commands the slave to eat the molasses, until the poor fellow is made sick at the very mention of it. The same mode is sometimes adopted to make the slaves refrain from asking for more food than their regular allowance. A slave runs through his allowance, and applies for more. His master is enraged at him; but, not willing to send him off without food, gives him more than is necessary, and compels him to eat it within a given time. Then, if he complains that he cannot eat it, he is said to be satisfied neither full nor fasting, and is whipped for being hard to please! I have an abundance of such illustrations of the same principle, drawn from my own observation, but think the cases I have cited sufficient. The practice is a very common one.

On the first of January, 1834, I left Mr. Covey, and went to live with Mr. William Freeland, who lived about three miles from St. Michael's. I soon found Mr. Freeland a very different man from Mr. Covey. Though not rich, he was what would be called an educated southern gentleman. Mr. Covey, as I have shown, was a well-trained negro-breaker and slave-driver. The former (slaveholder though he was) seemed to possess some regard for honor, some reverence for justice, and some respect for humanity. The latter seemed totally insensible to all such sentiments. Mr. Freeland had many of the faults peculiar to slaveholders, such as being very passionate and fretful; but I must do him the justice to say, that he was exceedingly free from those degrading vices to which Mr. Covey was constantly addicted. The one was open and frank, and we always knew where to find him. The other was a most artful deceiver, and could be understood only by such as were skilful enough to detect his cunningly-devised frauds. Another advantage I gained in my new master was, he made no pretensions to, or profession of, religion; and this, in my opinion, was truly a great advantage. I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,--a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,--a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,--and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists. Very near Mr. Freeland lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden, and in the same neighborhood lived the Rev. Rigby Hopkins. These were members and ministers in the Reformed Methodist Church. Mr. Weeden owned, among others, a woman slave, whose name I have forgotten. This woman's back, for weeks, was kept literally raw, made so by the lash of this merciless, ~religious~ wretch. He used to hire hands. His maxim was, Behave well or behave ill, it is the duty of a master occasionally to whip a slave, to remind him of his master's authority. Such was his theory, and such his practice. (source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; Chapter X)

University of Alabama’s Slavery Apology

Alabama Governor George Wallace

Inscription. Buried near this plaque are Jack Rudolph and William “Boysey” Brown, two slaves owned by University of Alabama faculty, and William J. Crawford, a University student who died in 1844.

Rudolph was born in Africa about 1791 and died May 5, 1846, from “Bilious Pneumonia.” Brown was born April 10, 1838, and died November 22, 1844, from “Whooping Cough.”

Jack Rudolph and Boysey Brown were among the slaves owned by the University of Alabama and by faculty. Their burials were honored and recognized by the University of Alabama on April 15, 2004. The Faculty Senate apologized for their predecessors’ role in the institution of slavery on April 20, 2004. This plaque honors those whose labor and legacy of perseverance helped to build the University of Alabama Community since its founding.

According to the Alabama Law Review, "Professor Wants UA Apology for Slavery: Alfred Brophy will present proposal for university to consider reparations to slave descendants," on 16 March 2004, by Jeff Amy: A University of Alabama law professor wants the school to apologize for its pre-Civil War ownership and use of slaves, and to consider a commission to study the history of slave use at the school and the possibility of reparations to slave descendants.

Alfred Brophy, who studies the legal history of slavery, plans to present his proposal at today's Faculty Senate meeting. The faculty body isn't scheduled to vote on Brophy's resolution until April.

Brophy, who is white, said Monday that he has discovered numerous links between slavery and the Tuscaloosa school, established in 1831. The school owned a handful of slaves for much of its early existence, and rented others, according to Brophy's research. Professors, students and at least two university presidents owned slaves, he said.

Slaves cleaned buildings, planted trees, served students and aided professors, according to records Brophy has found. Though the professor hasn't found any direct evidence yet, he believes slaves helped build at least some of the seven surviving buildings that escaped destruction by Union troops in 1865.

But Brophy believes what UA really needs to atone for is the intellectual defense of slavery made by many of its leaders. Brophy points particularly to two university presidents and a Mobilian who founded the forerunner of the university's medical school. All three were prominent public defenders of slavery and the idea that blacks were naturally inferior. All three have buildings on the Tuscaloosa campus named for them.

So far, the resolution has caused little stir on the 20,000-student campus. Cathy Andreen, a university spokeswoman, declined comment on behalf of administrators.

"At this point, we're not ready to comment on it, because we haven't seen it," Andreen said.

Robert Turner, a senior from Tuskegee, said he had heard about some of Brophy's work, and said he hoped university leaders would support further inquiry.

"It should be something we look into, discovering the role the university played," Turner said.

Turner, who is black, is the outgoing executive chief of staff for Alabama's Student Government Association.

Vivian Malone attends class in 1963 after her admission to the University of Alabama despite Gov. George Wallace's "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door."

Success in race relations:

The University of Alabama, though famous for George Wallace's 1963 attempt to prevent integration, known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door," is in some ways a success in today's race relations. The school's student body is more than 13 percent black, a higher share than Auburn University or some other Southeastern Conference schools.

Even if the Faculty Senate adopts Brophy's proposal, UA President Robert Witt or University of Alabama System trustees would have to take a similar position for the faculty action to mean anything. For example, student and faculty resolutions last fall calling for the university to condemn discrimination against gays and lesbians have so far garnered little public recognition from top UA leaders.

Among campus structures that survived the Union Army destruction are outbuildings of the 1841 President's Mansion that have been identified in the past as slave quarters. Today, they appear on university maps under names like "President's storage."

At least six buildings on the campus are named for people who owned slaves or advocated slavery, according to Brophy. He notes that Basil Manly, university president from 1837 to 1855 and Landon Garland, president from 1855 to 1865, both owned large numbers of slaves who worked the presidents' personal plantations. Manly and Garland encouraged their students to believe that slavery was part of the natural order ordained by God, according to their surviving papers and other accounts.

Brophy also points to Josiah Nott, a physician in Mobile who founded the forerunner of the University of Alabama Medical School in 1858. Nott wrote and lectured about claims that blacks were genetically inferior, based partly on skull measurements he made in his medical practice. Slavery suited black people, Nott said, because the race could never hope to achieve the level of accomplishment and civilization that whites had reached.

Vivian Malone and James Hood. Vivian Malone became the first African-American to graduate from the university.

The question of whether universities profited from slavery, and what they should do to make up for it, has been a prominent subplot in a larger national debate about reparations in the last 15 years. Up until now, most attention has focused on Ivy League universities -- Brown, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.

Most recently, Ruth Simmons, the first black president of Rhode Island's Brown, appointed a committee to examine the school's ties to slavery, teach students about that history, and consider whether Brown should do something to compensate for that past.

Some black leaders have called for economic payments -- typically called reparations -- as a way for the nation to erase some of the damage caused by slavery, and share the economic gains that slave owners enjoyed. They point to reparations paid to citizens of Japanese descent whom the American government imprisoned during World War II. They also note payments by Germany and German companies to Holocaust victims.

But opponents say that idea is logistically difficult at best, and an ideological travesty at worst. Those against reparations say its unfair to tax people for the sins of previous generations. A federal judge in Chicago recently dismissed a lawsuit seeking reparations, in part because there are no slave owners or slaves still alive.

A 2002 Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll found the state's citizens racially polarized over the question of reparations. While 67 percent of black respondents favored the federal government making cash payments to slave descendants, only 5 percent of white respondents agreed. Pollsters said some white people became so upset that they had trouble finishing telephone interviews for the poll.

Vivian Malone and James Hood register for classes at the University of Alabama despite Alabama Gov. George Wallace's "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" protesting racial integration of the institution.

Favors reparations:

For his part, Brophy has favored reparations. As a law professor in Oklahoma, he counseled black residents of Tulsa in their efforts to gain compensation for a 1921 race riot that left numerous blocks of a black business district in ruins and may have killed 300 people.

He thinks it might be possible to track down descendants of slaves owned by the university and its early professors, to offer them scholarships or some sort of symbolic payment. He acknowledged, however, that such an effort would provoke widespread opposition.

"I'm not going to fall on a sword for reparations," Brophy said.

He said other measures, such as an open debate about UA's slave past, headstones for unmarked slave graves, a university apology, and maybe a museum in one of the former slave quarters, would all be healthy for the school

"It's not like we don't have the buildings built with slave labor," Brophy said. "Having benefited from that labor, this institution has a moral duty to make amends." (source: Alabama Law Review)

Nazi Brazilian Slaves of the Haciendas

The UK Daily Mail reported on 27 June 2009: "Nazi slaves of the haciendas: Hitler fanatics forced orphans to build new Fatherland in Amazon," by Allan Hall, 27 June 2009: Bricks marked with swastikas on a crumbling building in Brazil have helped historians trace an astonishing plan by Adolf Hitler for a Nazi empire in South America.

They have also found some of the young men who were kept as slaves by German settlers and local Nazi supporters.

They were known as ‘ Nummernmenschen’ – the number people – as the dehumanisation practised in the concentration camps was exported.

It had long been known that fleeing Nazis moved into remote regions of South America after the war. But the story of the slaves began years earlier.

From 1933 onwards men and boys, often from orphanages, were taken to vast farms like the hacienda Cruzeiro Do Sul 150 miles west of Sao Paulo.

It was there that pig farmer Jose Maciel found the swastika bricks after buying the land. In one of the buildings, preserved in a metal cyclinder, were documents and photos showing cattle branded with swastikas and a Nazi flag flying.

Now the last three surviving slaves have been back to see the bricks they made by hand – and point out the shallow graves where many of their friends were buried after dying through neglect and maltreatment.

AloÌsio Silva, 85, was number 23. ‘Cattle and horses had more of a family tree than I,’ he said. ‘I was a slave and a boy without a name.’

Mr Silva was nine when he was taken from an orphanage by rich landowner Oct·vio Rocha Miranda, a fanatical supporter of Hitler.

‘The great landowners saw ideal workers in us parentless boys,’ he said. ‘We were lied to, told that we would ride around on horses, that the work wasn’t hard.

‘But we were put to backbreaking toil and paid with coins that could be spent only on the farm. It wasn’t until I was 16 that I got my first shoes.

‘I was tortured, made to kneel on hard grains of corn for hours on end, beaten. Two large dogs guarded our barracks.’

The slave boys were employed until the mid-1940s when the authorities clamped down.

Some 2,000 German settlers moved to Brazil after SS officers posed as naturalists to scout it out, calling the area ‘ripe for exploitation.’

There were similar-migrations to Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.

Now the surviving Brazilian slaves are seeking reparations from the government which allowed their ordeal.

Mr Silva said: ‘I want compensation, I want an apology. But above all, I want to find out who my mother was and put some flowers on her grave.’ (source: UK Daily Mail)

Dutch Magazine Labels Rihanna as the "Ultimate Nigggabitch"

Robyn Rihanna Fenty

Rihanna is furious with Jackie. The Dutch glossy magazine called the world-famous singer a "nigga bitch". In a tweet Rihanna accused the magazine of racism. Jackie has issued its apologies for the "bad joke".

The offending item is headed The Nigga Bitch. The piece is meant as fashion advice for girls who want to dress like Rihanna: a good girl gone bad with a ghetto ass - in short, the ultimate nigga bitch. (source: http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/rihanna-furious-being-called-a-nigga-bitch)

Parlourmagazine.com translated the entire text of the Jackie magaine article which said,

"She has street cred, she has a ghetto ass and she has a golden throat. Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate niggabitch and displays that gladly, and for her that means: what's on can come off. If that means she'll be on stage half naked, then so be it. But Dutch winters aren't like Jamaican ones, so pick a clothing style in which your daughter can resist minus ten. No to the big sunglasses and the pornheels, and yes to the tiger print, pink shizzle and everything that glitters. Now let's hope she won't beat anybody up at daycare."

Ayana Byrd of the Daily Beast writes, "Racist Dutch Magazine Insults Rihanna and All Black Women Lose Out," on 22 December 2011: A Dutch magazine used a combination of two of the nastiest words you can call any black woman to describe Rihanna. She fired back, and the editor’s out of a job—but we’re out of a lot more, Ayana Byrd says.

Black women have had to endure a lot in the name of popular entertainment. We’ve been martyred mammies, oversexed nearly naked whores, wisecracking know-it-alls, and lazy welfare mothers in disproportionately higher numbers than even the most Republican-tainted report has ever claimed we were in real life. And for the most part, we could complain but not expect any change to come from the media powers-that-be, the ones making a lot of money off representations that kept us as caretakers or hypersexual stereotypes that sprung out of slavery. Things took a minor step in the right direction this week when an Internet-led, quick fire grassroots protest showed that black women—young, old, famous, and anonymous—were not going to be OK being casually cast as “niggabitches.”

What exactly is a niggabitch? Aside from being a combo of two of the vilest words you can call any black woman, it is the headline of a fashion story just published by the Dutch magazine Jackie. In an article on how to dress like “De Niggabitch” Rihanna, the story, translated by Parlour magazine, says, “She has street cred, she has a ghetto a-- and she has a golden throat. Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate niggabitch and displays that gladly, and for her that means: what’s on can come off. If that means she’ll be on stage half naked, then so be it.”

Let’s repeat what a niggabitch is, to underline why Rihanna went so on-the-record ballistic without any filter from a publicist: it is the vilest combination of words that you can call a black woman. It is not, as Hoeke claimed, “slang” pulled from American hip-hop vernacular and wittily included in her magazine. Even in an art form that at times seems to relish its misogyny, rappers do not call black women this. In a musical genre that often seems to have no lines to cross, here is one. We are only familiar with the word because we are familiar with the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, slavery, and plantation rape. It is from this slice of American culture that Jackie magazine borrowed its slang.

Not surprisingly, Hoeke’s explanation and half-hearted apology didn’t soothe anyone, and within a day of Parlour’s article, Hoeke was left with little recourse but to step down over what she still insisted was a misunderstanding.

However, she’s not that sorry—she’s just out of a job. But black women are out of a lot more, namely the chance to believe that we’re seen as equals and deserving of more respect than a niggabitch could ever expect. (source: Daily Beast)

"I hope you can read English," Rihanna tweeted to Jackie editor-in-chief Eva Hoeke addressing the article, "because your magazine is a poor representation of the evolution of human rights! I find you disrespectful, and rather desperate!! You ran out of legit, civilized information to print! There are 1000's of Dutch girls who would love to be recognized for their contributions to your country, you could have given them an article. Instead, u paid to print one degrading an entire race! That's your contribution to this world! To encourage segregation, to mislead the future leaders to act in the past! You put two words together, with the intent of abasement, that made no sense..."NIGGA BITCH"?!....Well with all respect, on behalf of my race, here are my two words for you...FUCK YOU!!!" (source: The Montreal Gazette)

US Slave Note: Thank you for publishing your negrophobic propaganda this holiday season. This site usually features tattered unvarnished images of the degradation of human enslavement and subjugation. It is highly unusual to display images of beautiful black women and stay historically relevant. For your callously tin-ear on American pop culture and your insensitivity to the race and gender epithets, I'd like to say thank you for giving me a reason to post these gorgeous images of Rihanna. Merry Christmas from the US Slave blog!

In the Workhouse Christmas Day 1879

Whitechapel Workhouse, Christmas 1874.

In the Workhouse Christmas Day by George R. Sims 1879

 It is Christmas Day in the Workhouse,
And the cold bare walls are bright
With garlands of green and holly,
And the place is a pleasant sight:
For with clear-washed hands and faces
 In a long and hungry line
The paupers sit at the tables,
For this is the hour they dine.

And the guardians and their ladies,
Although the wind is east,
Have come in their furs and wrappers,
To watch their charges feast:
To smile and be condescending,
Put puddings on pauper plates,
To be hosts at the workhouse banquet
They’ve paid for – with the rates.

Oh, the paupers are meek and lowly
With their 'Thank'ee kindly, mum's';
So long as they fill their stomachs
What matters it whence it comes?
But one of the old men mutters,
And pushes his plate aside:
'Great God!' he cries; 'but it chokes me!
For this is the day she died.'

The inmates of the workhouse in June 1911 celebrating the coronation of King George V.

The guardians gazed in horror
The master's face went white;
'Did a pauper refuse his pudding?'
'Could their ears believe aright?'
Then the ladies clutched their husbands,
Thinking the man might die
Struck by a bolt, or something,
By the outraged One on high.

But the pauper sat for a moment,
Then rose 'mid a silence grim,
For the others has ceased to chatter,
And trembled every limb.
He looked at the guardian's ladies,
Then. eyeing their lords, he said,
'I eat not the food of villains
Whose hands are foul and red:

'Whose victims cry for vengeance
From their dank, unhallowed graves.'
'He's drunk!' said the workhouse master.
'Or else he's mad, and raves.'
'Not drunk or mad,' cried the pauper,
'But only a hunted beast,
Who, torn by the hounds and mangled,
Declines the vulture's feast.

I care not a curse for the guardians,
And I won't be dragged away.
Just let me have the fit out,
It's only Christmas Day
That the black past comes to goad me,
And prey my burning brain;
I'll tell you the rest in a whisper, -
I swear I won't shout again.

'Keep your hands off me, curse you!
Hear me right out to the end.
You come here to see how the paupers
The season of Christmas spend.
You come here to watch us feeding,
As they watch the captured beast.
Hear why a penniless pauper
Spits on your paltry feast.

'Do you think I will take your bounty,
And let you smile and think
You're doing a noble action
With the parish's meat and drink?
Where is my wife, you traitors -
The poor old wife you slew?
Yes, by the God above us
My Nance was killed by you!

Hastings workhouse Christmas party, date unknown. (© Peter Higginbotham.)

'Last winter my wife lay dying,
Starved in a filthy den;
I had never been to the parish, -
I came to the parish then.
I swallowed my pride in coming,
For, ere the ruin came,
I held up my head as a trader,
And I bore a spotless name.

'I came to the parish, craving
Bread for a starving wife,
Bread for a woman who'd loved me
Through fifty years of my life;
And what do you think they told me,
Mocking my awful grief?
That "the House" was open to us,
But they wouldn't give "out relief".

I slunk to the filthy alley -
'Twas a cold, raw Christmas eve -
And the bakers' shops were open
Tempting a man to thieve;
But I clenched my fists together
Holding my head awry,
So I came home empty-handed,
And mournfully told her why.

Christmas decorations in the dining hall of the Union workhouse at Caistor, Lincolnshire. A banner on the wall reads Peace On Earth Good Will To Men.

Then I told her "the House" was open;
She had heard of the ways of that,
For her bloodless cheeks went crimson,
And up in her rags she sat,
Crying, "Bide the Christmas here, John,
We've never had one apart;
I think I can bear the hunger, -
The other would break my heart."

'All through that ever I watched her,
Holding her hand in mine,
Praying the Lord, and weeping
Till my lips were salt as brine.
I asked her once if she hungered
And as she answered "No,"
The moon shone in at the wondow
Set in a wreath of snow

'Then the room was bathed in glory,
And I saw in my darling's eyes
The far-away look of wonder
That comes when the spirit flies;
And her lips were parched and parted,
And her reason came and went,
For she raved of her home in Devon,
Where her happiest days were spent.

Workhouse Dining Hall

'And the accents, long forgotten,
Came back to the tongue once more,
For she talked like the country lassie
I woo'd by the Devon shore.
Then she rose to her feet and trembled,
And fell on the rags and moaned,
And, "Give me a crust - I'm famished -
For the love of God!" she groaned.

I rushed from the room like a madman,
And flew to the workhouse gate,
Crying "Food for a dying woman!"
And came the answer, "Too late."
They drove me away with curses;
Then I fought with a dog in the street,
And tore from the mongrel's clutches
A crust he was trying to eat.

'Back, through the filthy by-lanes!
Back, through the trampled slush!
Up to the crazy garret,
Wrapped in an awful hush.
My heart sank down at the threshold,
And I paused with a sudden thrill,
For there in the silv'ry moonlight
My Nancy lay, cold and still.

'Up to the blackened ceiling
The sunken eyes were cast -
I knew on those lips all bloodless
My name had been the last;
She'd called for her absent husband -
O God! had I but known! -
Had called in vain and in anguish
Had died in that den - alone.


'Yes, there in a land of plenty
Lay a loving woman dead,
Cruelly starved and murdered
For a loaf of parish bread.
At yonder gate, last Christmas
I craved for a human life.
You, who would feast us paupers,
What of my murdered wife!

'There, get ye gone to your dinners;
Don't mind me in the least;
Think of your happy paupers
Eating your Christmas feast;
And when you recount their blessings
In your smug parochial way,
Say what you did for me, too,
Only last Christmas Day.'

The Children Who Built Victorian Britain

The Children Who Built Victorian Britain Part 1

The Nicholas Brothers Tap Dancing

The Nicholas brothers. Excerpt from the film Stormy Weather.

Charles Dickens: The Feral Pigs of New York City

From Charles Dickens Notes on America, Chapter 6: Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.

Once more in Broadway! Here are the same ladies in bright colours, walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light blue parasol which passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty times while we were sitting there. We are going to cross here. Take care of the pigs. Two portly sows are trotting up behind this carriage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have just now turned the corner.

Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself. He has only one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course of his city rambles. But he gets on very well without it; and leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat answering to that of our club-men at home. He leaves his lodgings every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like the mysterious master of Gil Blas.

He is a free-and-easy, careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows by sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up the news and small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks and offal, and bearing no tails but his own: which is a very short one, for his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have left him hardly enough to swear by.

He is in every respect a republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if he prefer it. He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless by the dogs before mentioned. Sometimes, indeed, you may see his small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase garnishes a butcher’s door-post, but he grunts out ‘Such is life: all flesh is pork!’ buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles down the gutter: comforting himself with the reflection that there is one snout the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any rate.

They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are; having, for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old horsehair trunks: spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would recognise it for a pig’s likeness. They are never attended upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in consequence.

Every pig knows where he lives, much better than anybody could tell him. At this hour, just as evening is closing in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their way to the last. Occasionally, some youth among them who has over-eaten himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly homeward, like a prodigal son: but this is a rare case: perfect self-possession and self-reliance, and immovable composure, being their foremost attributes.

The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is reminded of Oxford Street, or Piccadilly. Here and there a flight of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins being a game of mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an act forbidding Nine-Pins.

At other downward flights of steps, are other lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars — pleasant retreats, say I: not only by reason of their wonderful cookery of oysters, pretty nigh as large as cheese-plates (or for thy dear sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but because of all kinds of caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not by two hundreds. (source: Charles Dickens Notes on America, Chapter 6)

Pigs on Broadway, by Charles Dickens

Pocahontas in England

The continuing legacy of John White’s seventeenth century watercolors is discussed by the descendants of the peoples he encountered. Shot during the visit of a delegation of Virginian Indian chiefs to Britain in 2006, it shows their impressions about these ancient images in the British Museum’s department of Prints and Drawings. The film follows the chiefs during their tribute to their ancestor Pocahontas buried in Gravesend, England and shows them dancing in celebration of the founding of the first British colony in North America. This contemporary commentary to the first visual documents of Native American peoples by European artists was produced to accompany the exhibition 'A New World' (London, British Museum, 15 March – 17 June 2007).

On the Traces of Pocahontas

On the Traces of Pocahontas from Simolab-Creative AV on Vimeo.

Written Out of History: American Indian Enslavement

Written Out of History blends historical facts with accounts of the forgotten legacy of Native American slavery told by indigenous scholars and anthropologists.

Originally shot on location in North America, Europe, and the Caribbean, this artistic documentary reconstructs for the first time on camera the events that led to the erasure of indigenous forced labour from the annals of history.

Written out of History

Written out of History from Simolab-Creative AV on Vimeo.

Irish Dancing vs. Tap Dancing

The 25 December 1995 Los Angeles Times article, "Retracing Steps of Tap's History," by Carl B. Pearlston, Jr. reports: Laurie Winer's review of the New York tap dancing musical "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk" (Calendar, Nov. 25) states that "the show's thesis is that tap was born when American slaves were forbidden their tribal drums." That simplistic thesis ignores the actual tap dance antecedents of Irish and Scottish solo step dancing and English clog dancing, which, blended with African dance movements, gave rise to indigenous American tap dancing.

Irish step dancing in the 1700s, as today, used intricate leg movement and fast footwork in jigs and reels. Tapping was done with toes and heels of hard shoes; arms and upper body were kept motionless to concentrate attention on the feet.

In clog dancing, wooden-soled shoes (clogs) were worn to accentuate the rhythm of the feet; this was common throughout Europe, Ireland and northern England. There, the Lancashire Clog was a favored folk dance by the mid-1700s; like Irish step dances, upper-body movement was minimized.

By the early 1800s, as dance tempos increased, wooden soles were replaced by flexible leather, with English copper pennies nailed to the heels to emphasize sound.

African tribal dances of the time utilized the whole body, not just the feet. Dance steps were done almost completely flat-footed, with little delineation of heel and toe movement; shoeless feet on bare earth made little sound.

Dancers concentrated on vivid body movements involving head, shoulders, arms and hips along with constant improvisation, using gliding, dragging and shuffling steps. Skill was measured by the dancer's agility in bending, crouching and flexing the entire body, not in the performance of certain steps.

The 1739 slave insurrection in Stono, Va.--triggered when African slaves drum-beat a message of revolt to alert slaves at neighboring plantations--led to passage of the 1740 Slave Act, forbidding slaves from "beating drums, blowing horns or the like." To substitute for musical instruments, hand claps and foot beats were used, creating a music form where dancers made their own rhythms and sounds.

These new rhythms were subsequently applied derisively to European dances on plantations, frequently for the amusement of white owners. For example, the Cakewalk, where a cake prize was given to the slave who performed the fanciest walk before a white audience, was a parody of the minuet grand march at whites' fancy parties. Slaves also copied techniques of Irish jig dancers visiting the plantations.

In Louisville, Ky., in 1828, a white dancer calling himself "Jumping Jim Crow" did a parody-in-blackface of this new slave dancing. The minstrel show was born; whites parodied blacks parodying whites. In 1844, a free-born black dancer, "Juba, King of All Dancers," fused European steps with African rhythms before white audiences in public competitions with an Irish jig dancer; he was the major black minstrel-era dancer in America and Europe.

Buck dancing was the earliest combination of basic shuffle and tap steps, performed to syncopated rhythms, in which the accent is placed on the down or off beat--a style derived from African tribal music. There were two distinct dance techniques by late 19th century, buck-and-wing and soft-shoe. The former was active, fast and danced in wooden or hard leather-soled shoes. Soft-shoe was relaxed and smooth. It developed from dances like the German-Irish waltz clog, fusing German immigrant folk dancing with Irish jigs, and from slow-tempoed shuffles like the "Essence of Old Virginia."

Synchronized tap dancing was introduced by the Floradora Girls in 1900, and the term "tap and step dancing" was introduced in a 1902 minstrel show. Metal cleats were now worn on heels and toes of leather shoes. As vaudeville supplanted minstrel shows, tap dancing developed with great vigor in two different paths, one white and one black. One led from George M. Cohan to Fred Astaire. The other produced the great Bill Robinson--"Bojangles"--a contraction for bone jangler or a musician who beats time by clapping together a pair of bones. He was the first black dancer to headline his own show on Broadway in 1930; he made 14 films.

Tap dance did not develop in linear progression from a single ethnic source; it is a uniquely American creation resulting from a blending of cultures, of Old World traditions and New World imagination, and drew equally from Europeans and Africans to make a new dance form. (source: Los Angeles Times)