"I was on a road trip and stopped at the Booker T. Washington National
Monument in Virginia.
While reading one of the information posts, one sentence resonated with me in such a way that I walked away with a new understanding of what slavery in the United States was like.
Addressing the slave trade, it read along the lines of, "While physical punishment was certainly a factor that kept slaves working to produce high-quality crops, an even larger factor was the possibility of family members being sold away if crops did not yield enough money for the plantation owners. Slaves worked to keep their families together."
That really just portrays the horror of slavery in a way that no textbook has ever been able to for me."
***
" I remember being a kid and watching the original Roots mini-series with my family.
There is a scene where Kizzy is sold by her "master" and is dragged away from her Mom and Dad (Belle and Kunta Kinte/Toby).
I cried because I was scared that someone was going to take me away from my Mom and Dad.
I still can see that scene in my head and it breaks my heart."
***
" I am Black, female age 53.
My family moved from Alabama in 1963 to California while my mom was pregnant with me.
She hoped for better.
In elementary school when we would be placed in pairs to complete projects children routinely gave the excuse, "I'm not allowed to play with Black kids" and the teachers would just let that slide.
Until 3rd grade with Ms. Houston.
She paired me with Rex and he tried that line and she flew into a rage.
It was beautiful.
She said she wouldn't stand for such bigoted behavior.
Days later, when she had calmed down she asked us, "Does anyone know what the word 'prejudice' means"?
She called on me and I slowly lowered my hand.
Sadly I stared into my lap and said, tearfully, "It means you hate Black people".
She laughed and explained.
She took me under her wing a little.
She helped me to see how smart I was and how enjoyable learning was.
She saved my life.
I owe that woman the greatest debt.
That was in the early '70's in Fullerton, California.
She could be as young as 68 now.
If anyone thinks they know her, please pass on my thanks.
She made me a better, happier person and a better mother."
***
" I grew up in Canada and we were never taught that we had slaves.
When I was in school we were only told about how we were part of the underground Railroad.
I still meet so many Canadians who have no idea that we were a slave owning nation.
I'm 33.
I graduated in 2000 and there was NOT EVEN A MENTION of this."
***
" Uncle Tom's Cabin was written in 1852 and slavery was abolished in Canada in 1834.
Apparently there were an estimated fewer than 50 slaves in British North America at the time, but around 800,000 in total were freed by the Imperial Act."
***
Only .00625% of the British Empire's slaves is pretty remarkable, though, considering.
The US had nearly 4,000,000 slaves when our civil war broke out.
Compared to your 50.
That blows my mind.
Almost all of our agrarian economy ran on slave labor, dude.
You guys had enough to fully staff, like, two really nice mansions."
***
"The
British Empire abolished slavery in 1834, but Upper Canada did away
with it in 1793.
If you're in Toronto and you celebrate Simcoe Day, it was John Graves Simcoe who made that declaration.
Slavery in Canada was a very different beast to that in the US South: We didn't have the labour-intensive crops that required huge slave populations to farm them. Consequently there were only ever small numbers of slaves in Canada.
If you're in Toronto and you celebrate Simcoe Day, it was John Graves Simcoe who made that declaration.
Slavery in Canada was a very different beast to that in the US South: We didn't have the labour-intensive crops that required huge slave populations to farm them. Consequently there were only ever small numbers of slaves in Canada.
The
British Empire abolished slavery in 1834, but Upper Canada did away
with it in 1793.
If you're in Toronto and you celebrate Simcoe Day, it was John Graves Simcoe who made that declaration.
Slavery in Canada was a very different beast to that in the US South:
We didn't have the labour-intensive crops that required huge slave populations to farm them.
Consequently there were only ever small numbers of slaves in Canada."
***
If you're in Toronto and you celebrate Simcoe Day, it was John Graves Simcoe who made that declaration.
Slavery in Canada was a very different beast to that in the US South:
We didn't have the labour-intensive crops that required huge slave populations to farm them.
Consequently there were only ever small numbers of slaves in Canada."
***
"In
1834, Canada wouldn't've been a country yet. So we were just a colony
of Britian, so if Britian said no more slaves, we'd say no slaves.
So technically as our own country we never had slaves. But I never really thought that Canada had slaves."
***
"Yes, slavery was legal everywhere in the British Empire except Britain.
But if it makes you feel better, Britain was the leading nation in the abolition movement.
In 1808 they prohibited the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and used the Royal Navy to force other nations to do the same, and in 1833 they became the first major nation to abolish slavery altogether."
***
"It's funny how much whitewash even pretty open countries with good education have when it comes to history.
This is not related to slaves, but here in Finland, teachers hardly told you about the concentration camps we had in WWII and very few people actually even know about them.
While the Karelians with Finnish heritage were greeted with open arms, Russians were put in camps."
***
"There were also displaced persons camps after the war, having to do with the Soviets and people ending up in Germany as the only place not under Soviet rule.
Where they were slave labor. My mother was born in one such camp in Germany."
***
"It isn't easy for the victims and their relatives either.
Holocaust survivors in Israel remained silent for many years.
Many didn't want to strain their relatives with the horrors they've seen.
They also didn't want any questions about why they didn't defend themselves or something similar.
Only when the Adolf Eichmann trial happened in Israel many people in both Israel and Germany opened up and talked about the past.
Another example:
The history of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It's very difficult to deal with this.
Many cambodians were both perpetrator and victim.
Victims who were forced to do criminal acts to keep their families and themselves alive. Or perpetrators who later became victims.
Almost every country has dark spots in its history. Dealing with them are huge challenges for a society.
Some countries try to rewrite their history.
Others try to hide it.
Others forget about it."
***
So technically as our own country we never had slaves. But I never really thought that Canada had slaves."
***
"Yes, slavery was legal everywhere in the British Empire except Britain.
But if it makes you feel better, Britain was the leading nation in the abolition movement.
In 1808 they prohibited the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and used the Royal Navy to force other nations to do the same, and in 1833 they became the first major nation to abolish slavery altogether."
***
"It's funny how much whitewash even pretty open countries with good education have when it comes to history.
This is not related to slaves, but here in Finland, teachers hardly told you about the concentration camps we had in WWII and very few people actually even know about them.
While the Karelians with Finnish heritage were greeted with open arms, Russians were put in camps."
***
"There were also displaced persons camps after the war, having to do with the Soviets and people ending up in Germany as the only place not under Soviet rule.
Where they were slave labor. My mother was born in one such camp in Germany."
***
"It isn't easy for the victims and their relatives either.
Holocaust survivors in Israel remained silent for many years.
Many didn't want to strain their relatives with the horrors they've seen.
They also didn't want any questions about why they didn't defend themselves or something similar.
Only when the Adolf Eichmann trial happened in Israel many people in both Israel and Germany opened up and talked about the past.
Another example:
The history of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It's very difficult to deal with this.
Many cambodians were both perpetrator and victim.
Victims who were forced to do criminal acts to keep their families and themselves alive. Or perpetrators who later became victims.
Almost every country has dark spots in its history. Dealing with them are huge challenges for a society.
Some countries try to rewrite their history.
Others try to hide it.
Others forget about it."
***
It
is easy to cast aspersions on the South when it comes to Civil Rights,
but the north really wasn't much better.
Some cities like Chicago were even called worse than the south by leaders like Dr. King.
After a protest in August of 1966 in Chicago King told a reporter:
"I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hateful as I've seen here in Chicago".
http://inthesetimes.com/article/4124/jim_crow_in_the_north
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mlk-chicago-20160118-story.html
***
Some cities like Chicago were even called worse than the south by leaders like Dr. King.
After a protest in August of 1966 in Chicago King told a reporter:
"I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hateful as I've seen here in Chicago".
http://inthesetimes.com/article/4124/jim_crow_in_the_north
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mlk-chicago-20160118-story.html
***
I
could never imagine the pain and suffering slaves went through.
I have been unbelievably lucky in my life, and it's weird to think that just over 50 years ago, it was improbable, if not impossible, for someone to reach the levels I can, just because of the color of their skin, and just 200 years back and they were owned.
It's a disgusting part of our history in America, and I'm glad to live in a time where it's at least more equal in the opportunities people receive.
EDIT: I'm terrible at estimation and math, around 150 years at the earliest for slavery.
***
I have been unbelievably lucky in my life, and it's weird to think that just over 50 years ago, it was improbable, if not impossible, for someone to reach the levels I can, just because of the color of their skin, and just 200 years back and they were owned.
It's a disgusting part of our history in America, and I'm glad to live in a time where it's at least more equal in the opportunities people receive.
EDIT: I'm terrible at estimation and math, around 150 years at the earliest for slavery.
***
Believe it or not, slavery in the U.S was not nearly as brutal as it was in Brazil.
Brazil received 10x the amount of slaves the US did, but because colonization in Brazil had the only intend of generating wealth for Portugal, slave owners were incredible cruel and harsh.
Also, for the first few decades (maybe centuries?) virtually only male slaves were brought to Brazil.
Europeans had no intention of developing the land, they wanted to get rich and get out.
As you can imagine, they would to brutal things to these slaves for any stupid reason.
There is a famous story in Northern Brazil (State of Bahia).
An European writer was visiting Brazil and received an invitation to spend the evening in the sugarcane plantation of a famous slave owner.
When he arrived, he saw a young female slave with her breast exposed and made a comment about "The beautiful breast of that female negro" to the slave owner during dinner.
When he was leaving the property, he received a platter containing the slave's breasts.
The slave owner had them cut and given to the visitor as a gift.
EDIT:
Here is a source. I highly recommend this documentary for anyone wanting to learn about slavery in Brazil.
There is a wikipedia page on the guy who did this, his name was Alexandre Gomes de Argolo Ferrão and he was the Baron of Cajaíba.
A picture of estate today.
***
"... Imagine the worst things you can think of about other people.
The worst possible things you can conceive of them being able to do to another person.
Slavery was worse.
Much, much worse.
You can't put that in a textbook.
Not what really happened. People would burn it."
***
The last literal American former slave died in 1979.
Most black people's grandparents grew up in the de facto slavery of the reconstruction era.
The wound of slavery hasn't even formed a scab yet.
The disconnect (no offense) white people tend to have from this is facepalm inducing.
This (blank) didn't happen to our ancestors, it happened to our ancestors and people we've literally laid eyes on.
***
Brazil received 10x the amount of slaves the US did, but because colonization in Brazil had the only intend of generating wealth for Portugal, slave owners were incredible cruel and harsh.
Also, for the first few decades (maybe centuries?) virtually only male slaves were brought to Brazil.
Europeans had no intention of developing the land, they wanted to get rich and get out.
As you can imagine, they would to brutal things to these slaves for any stupid reason.
There is a famous story in Northern Brazil (State of Bahia).
An European writer was visiting Brazil and received an invitation to spend the evening in the sugarcane plantation of a famous slave owner.
When he arrived, he saw a young female slave with her breast exposed and made a comment about "The beautiful breast of that female negro" to the slave owner during dinner.
When he was leaving the property, he received a platter containing the slave's breasts.
The slave owner had them cut and given to the visitor as a gift.
EDIT:
Here is a source. I highly recommend this documentary for anyone wanting to learn about slavery in Brazil.
There is a wikipedia page on the guy who did this, his name was Alexandre Gomes de Argolo Ferrão and he was the Baron of Cajaíba.
A picture of estate today.
***
"... Imagine the worst things you can think of about other people.
The worst possible things you can conceive of them being able to do to another person.
Slavery was worse.
Much, much worse.
You can't put that in a textbook.
Not what really happened. People would burn it."
***
The last literal American former slave died in 1979.
Most black people's grandparents grew up in the de facto slavery of the reconstruction era.
The wound of slavery hasn't even formed a scab yet.
The disconnect (no offense) white people tend to have from this is facepalm inducing.
This (blank) didn't happen to our ancestors, it happened to our ancestors and people we've literally laid eyes on.
***
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