Why do some people still feel like white people owe black people for something white peoples ancestors did to black peoples ancestors 200-300 years ago? All American slave owners and slaves are dead. Does anyone else think that, that is racist?

I say work on today's problems and inequities, which still exist on all people's sides. That is hundreds of more times important than an apology for something that happened so long ago.

If there are individuals who have been slaves and individuals who have owned slaves alive today, yes, an apology, and restitutions, are in order. If not, work on, lobby for, etc. correction of TODAY'S problems... put the focus of all this attention somewhere it will do good.

Vlax Rromani Gypsies were enslaved in Romania for 500 years, ending in the 1850's to 1860's. If one of us of Vlax ancestry were to ask for reparations over there, the laughter would be heard a few countries over. I suspect that someone with good enough hearing would hear the laughter in America.

As far as "is the pressing for apology for black slavery racist?" I say no. However, it is time and effort wasted.

OK, so my great grandfather owned your great great grandfather. So what? It ended 149 years ago. Why does that give you a right to special consideration that I don't get? But the fact is that you get preferment and I don't. Affirmative action is quite enough insult and punishment for things I DIDN'T do, thank you very much. My great great great grandfather came to Georgia as a slave from a debtors' prison. Who is going to pay ME for THAT?
.
White Americans did not invent slavery. It was a world-wide institution from at least 1,800 BC. They didn't import it to this continent either. Red Indians had been capturing Indians from other tribes and enslaving them for thousands of years before the Spanish came. Granted that white European immigrants brought slaves with them. But those were white European slaves. Until the mid-18th century, white slaves outnumbered black ones. And red slaves owned by red masters outnumbered both combined. After that time, many Indians owned red, white, and black slaves.
Do the Indians owe the blacks of today? No one has suggested that. Not many, but a sizeable number of free blacks owned both black and white slaves (probably red ones too, but I don't know that).
.
Ergo, the whole idea of reparations or even apologies is nothing more than anti-white racism.

I don't owe anybody for jack sh*t. I treat everybody exactly the same, unless they give me a reason to ignore them. I am responsible for my actions, and those of my children until they are adults. All this baloney about still being enslaved is just that - baloney. If someone is being treated unfairly, then BY ALL MEANS, let's take it on a case-by-case basis and stop it immediately! I hate it when people are taken advantage of! Otherwise, sit down, shut up, and take your place in society. Intimidation tactics do not work with me. Frankly, people are getting sick of the ATTITUDE. +5

Owe? No. That is the past -- the way past. Sadly there are minority leaders working very hard to "keep the hate alive."

No. I don't think it's that clear-cut. If my grandfather stole something from your grandfather, and my grandfather got rich off of it, and then you watch me going off to Harvard while you're going to community college, you might feel resentment over that regardless of either of our races.

When American Indian tribes sue to recover land that was stolen through violations of treaties, is that racist? Since the original theft was based on race, you can't dismiss the grievances simply because they have a racial component.

The difficulty is figuring out what to do about it.
Because you're absolutely right in pointing out that the slave owners and the slaves are all dead.

What do I, as a white Southerner, owe to black people? There must be something. Three quarters of my ancestors came here from England and Scotland in the early 1600's, settled in the South, owned slaves for the next 260 years, and made a lot of money. (And I did get to go to college at Harvard.)

Most of the other quarter came from Germany after the Civil War. Do I get discount off from whatever I owe? And the rest of the family is Cherokee -- how does that figure into the accounting?

At this point, there's no way to unscramble the omelet (although theoretically I guess I could sue myself).

Which leaves us with what all of us owe to each of us, anyway -- equal opportunity and fairness. Not out of any sense of guilt, but because that's the kind of country I think we want to be.

I do believe that white people have an obligation, though, not to forget history and to get our facts straight.

So, it's not 200 to 300 years ago, as you state in your question. Slavery started in what is now the U.S. 444 years ago (with the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida). It ended 144 years ago, and was replaced with a system of governmentally-enforced segregation and discrimination that we didn't even start to get serious about undoing until 45 years ago.

The history is not as distant as you think. You can attempt to dismiss the grievances by pretending they ended 200-300 years ago, but there are lots of people alive today who grew up with Whites Only signs attached to all the good stuff.

Well... I do think that it is rediculous to keep apologising for what has been done. In 2006 Blair officially apologised and expressed sorrow for Britain's part in the slave trade. I thought that was absolutely rediculous. What does he, or we, have to be sorry for? We were no part of it, so us as individuals don't have anything to be sorry for, or owe people for...

However, I don't think it is racist. If an ethnic group or a race has been wronged in the past by a state, and that group still is in a disadvanged position compared to the rest of the population as a result of that wrong (in this case slavery) then I believe the group as a whole is entitled so some kind of reparations. *If* those (and that is a big if) African Americans descended from slaves are disadvantaged as a direct or indirect consequence of slavery and the discrimination connected to it, then perhaps they do deserve some kind of reperations or 'special treatment'. This should be done to correct the affects of the wrong that led to them being disadvantaged with the aim of bringing them up to the economic/social position they possibly would have been in had that inital wrong not taken place. You see this happening sometimes with regards to Native Americans, Inuits and African Americans in states that directly hurt and wronged those groups.

Attempting to measure that across a huge geographical area though is a minefield and it is completely impossible to measure due to the speculation involved.

Its probably due to the magnitude of the crime that was committed. Never in the history of the world has one group been displaced & subjected to horrors on the scale of black Africans during slavery.
I don’t mind the head of a people apologising collectively for the actions of it's forefathers. I think most people would agree that the German people owe an apology to the Jews, the Serbians an apology to... pretty much everyone in the Balkans etc. So why not to the ancestors of slaves.
Bottom line is, no I don’t think its racist for black people to want a collective apology that recognises the injustice committed against their ancestors. The key is collective tho.

it does annoy me but i suppose its one of those things that will never change.
it doesnt really matter though because at the end of the day, people are gonna hate people whether they are black, white or purple! theyre just excuses for hate i think.

I think that anyway that believes that anyone owes anyone anything has not be paying attention as to how this world works regardless if the some you refer to are black, white or any other color. I think that when the some you point to and then reference races may be getting very close to being racist if not blatent than by inferance. Some of every race are misguided on their judgement and values - I for one could not give you the percentages. You asked +5

Some few folks have an overdeveloped sense of guilt.

And no fewer folks are perfectly willing to take advantage of it.

As long as You don't treat Them as
They still were, don't.

I don't feel responsible for my own
parents, so it's funny to feel
responsible for something so far away.

It's politics.

Has anyone included anywhere in the equation that in many instances black people themselves aided in entrapping other blacks to be slaves?

Take your place? excuse me, first you must define your status.

As a citizen in a country going through the same thing I have to, in all honesty, say that the idea of apologising for something I had no part in, is utterly ridiculous. I personally feel that it is just used as an excuse for power grabbing and self enriching. Incompetance is rewarded under the disguise of empowering the previously disabled. Oh please, give me a break.

Lisa McClelland got a raw deal. She was attacked as a racist, by racists. I feel for her.

A decade or so ago I was teaching in a high school in Texas. One student club was called BASH -- Black American Studies in History. Another was a Latino club whose name I don't remember. Several of my debate students attempted to form a white club, to be called CASH -- Caucasian American Studies in History.
They asked me to sponsor the club. I went to the principal to ask permission.
It was denied, of course.

They attempted to track down the "instigators," but no one seemed to remember any names.
I was fired.

Thats the same thing we have here in Canada but with our native population. I am always bringing up that point. I just dont think its fair that I have to personaly pay back for things that I have not done to ppl who have not been wronged just because of something that happened way in the past.

Well i think they should let it go for sure. Not forget it, just stop going on about it.

Share your answer...

I think you're right. I am an ancestor of someone that once helped George Washington out.... but through my reaserch, I found that we actually helped the slaves get away via underground tunnels...wich still exist to this day. George Washington was a slave owner himself....and he was a President of the United States.

I didn't agree with it then, and I sure don't now, either...All this racist stuff, plus $$$ etc... doesn't anyone realize we're all on a planet in outer space? Good greif. But I agree with you...and I think you're right on the dime.

I think at this stage it is racist to 'blame whitey' for one's situation in life in the USA. There is equal opportunity for everyone to suceed - access to education and work.
There is not, however, a guarentee that you will be universally popular, respected or a@@-kissed which is my impression that these 'Slave Reparations' activists demand.

As a person of Irish descent should I too be whining and screaming that I want reparations for six hundred years of slavery by the British??? I think not - Freedom to me means having the liberty to make MY OWN fortunes in life and not depending/demanding on even more handouts than are currently availible to 'minorities'

I read where they asked an American Indian what did they call America before the new settlers arrived in droves...The American Indian replied..."We called it ours".

James Brown in a song said...I don't want nobody giving me nothing just open up the door and I'll get it myself...

Some people? You mean some black people or some white people. Some black people may have this feeling simply because it is an easy way to get something for free. Some white people may have this feeling because they are deathly afraid of the label racist. Yes slavery is against the law in this country now, but we still have some very extreme acts of racism.

My ancestors were raped and murdered by the English for centuries. I dont want an apolagy. We fought them and i'm proud of who we are. If the queen herself came up to me and begged for my forgivness i'd just say "who the fuck cares?" and walk off.

If i can forgive, so can any blacks who still hold a grudge.

I don't think they think white people "owe" them anything, other than perhaps equal opportunities and a lack of racism. Nevertheless, they don't get much of either, apparently.

This is the new millenium and that question has gone the way of the dial telephone by now. No one cares about that dead horse being beaten anymore around here in Amerika. We love black people now and have been successful into turning them into whitey for quite sometime. Now we can all ban together here and focus on hating other people together as a family. Now it's time to hate the Middle Eastern people and the Muslims, where have you been?

The matter of reparations is complicated by the realities of ancestry.

Some people are descendants of both slaves and slave-owners.

Some people of all races are descendants of post-slavery immigrants.

Native Americans weren't enslaved, they were just wiped out and their land taken from them.

Given the above, how do you come up with a fair formula to determine who owes what to whom?

(I just FULLY answered the question. You may not want to LEARN because its long but the information is there. All I ask if you do take the time to become not EDUCATED (cuz thats the problem) but knowledgeable... you share what you know because only then will people stop focusing on the propaganda that hides the real issues the WORLD has it a certain group of people who still has this unbreakable "pack")

See that is the NUMBER 1 MYTH... Its not so much about SLAVERY. American slavery was different because it was indenture servitude. What does that mean in plain English? Think child labor or sweat factories - hence the CORPORATION/GLOBALIZATION. Prior to slavery even existing in what is now called the Americas. There were native people. There were "black" AKA the MOORS who already lived amongst the natives. Not all blacks were slaves and not all black people were poor! The biggest lie in America is the history of America and if you know anything about marketing, in 2050 there will me more "blacks" aka Moors. Than people of European decent. This is why the 2010 census clearly tells Hispanic and Latinos YOU ARE NOT A RACE because the country is left with the same problem that occurred after the end of a business relationship with Great Britain and the Papacy ( or at least that type of business). In the 1700 law makers held a congressional meeting where they discovered that they could not the population of moors in the Americas were steadily increasing. This is why segregation was introduced. These Europeans did not come from what country over to new lands to be out numbered and than overthrown by a bunch of people that they mistreated. The natives, Mexicans, blacks and even some whites lived amongst each other.

Now to answer you question, why do MOST people ( the ones who don't are ignorant to world history and the birth of capitalism) feel like "white people" aka the Caucasians from who migrated Caucasus mountains (same folks Hitler hated) can be divide into three:

1. You stole land from the natives intergated with a large about of moors/negros/and African slaves ( This has been proven. There are GOVERNMENTAL records to prove it)

2. You created "sweat shops" and forced people to work for you. You violated HUMAN RIGHTS not CIVIL because they were not CITIZENS but property.

3. Africans were the #1 contributed in the success of making America what it was today. But since being BLACK is not a real thing as being WHITE isn't ( you have to be Irish, Italian, etc...) even if the government wanted to give so called reparations how could they? The "blacks" have no identity, no nation, no place to recieve the funds. Think about what happened with the "Jews" after WW2. The UNITED STATES GOV gave them reparations and LAND, the state of Israel in 1948!!!

So.. now if you are a black person, even if you got over it... you are not going to be so happy about having you identity raped from you. Until most blacks are taught real history and learn that we were Moors. That the same people who came to us to learn, became foes. There is going to be that feeling of an unpaid debt.

It is not about slavery. Slavery was merely BIG BUSINESS. Notice we are having a recession because NO ONE BUYS AMERICAN PRODUCTS. We have no exports. We have no "cotton." Get it? Got it? Hope so.

So, it isn't RACIST to feel like a group of people owes another group. The fact of the matter is. At that point in time the government was only "white people." Shoot, up until 2009- it still was..until we got a MOOR in office, Obama.

Understand the use of words, for they are the motives and thoughts behind the individual using them.

Race simply means tribe, lineage. Therefore, technically no one can be a "racist" but plenty can me a supremacist.

This answer is coming from a person who is supposed BLACK. But yet, I can pass for damn near any "race" in the world other than "white" cuz I am a MOOR.

Nothing, I said is opinion. Everything is be proven with UNITED STATES records.


My educational background I've attended all of the top ivy leagues- just for the hell of it because I know my history, who I am and I how to play this dumb game.

My family- it was not until after slavery, that the US census started listing my ancestors as black/ negro. Prior to the end of slavery they were "Mulatto" which is Moor, Moreno, Mauro...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors






L. Africa (terra) "African land," fem. of Africus, from Afer "an African." Originally only in ref. to the region around Tunesia, it gradually was extended to the whole continent.

Derivation from Arabic afar "dust, earth" is tempting, but the early date seems to argue against it. Africanas "Africans" was in O.E.


So how why can I still not be an American? Why I gotta be from Afar if I was birth in this great country?
When we were Negros or Blacks at least we could trace our roots back. But now all I'm told is that I'm from a place that is FAR from America? GTF outta here!


African-American
isolated instances from at least 1863 (Afro-American is attested in 1853, in freemen's publications in Canada), but the modern use is a re-invention first attested 1969 (in reference to the African-American Teachers Association) which became the preferred term in some circles for "U.S. black" (n. or adj.) by the late 1980s. Mencken, 1921, reports Aframerican "is now very commonly used in the Negro press."


Tunisia is in Northern Africa:

Tunisia (pronounced /tuːˈniʒə/ too-NEE-zhə (US) or /tjuːˈnɪzɪə/ tyoo-NI-zeer (UK); Arabic: تونس Tūnis), officially the Tunisian Republic (الجمهورية التونسية al-Jumhūriyya at-Tūnisiyya), is the northernmost country in Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just over 10.3 million. Its name is derived from the capital Tunis located in the north-east.

Tunisia is the smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas mountain range. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 km of coastline. Both played a prominent role in ancient times, first with the famous Phoenician city of Carthage, then as the Africa Province which was known as the "bread basket" of the Roman Empire. Later, Tunisia was occupied by Vandals during the 5th century AD, Byzantines in the 6th century, and Arabs in the 8th century. Under the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia was known as "Regency of Tunis". It passed under French protectorate in 1881. After obtaining independence in 1956, the country took the official name of the "Kingdom of Tunisia" at the end of the reign of Lamine Bey and the Husainid Dynasty. With the proclamation of the Tunisian republic in July 25, 1957, the nationalist leader Habib Bourguiba became its first president and led the modernization of the country.

n the Spanish language, the term for Moors is moro; in Portuguese the word is mouro. There seems to have been some confusion about the relationship of the word moro/mouro to the word moreno (which means brown), both from Greek maúros, i.e. black. However, the two words have different etymological roots.[4][5]

Speakers of European languages have historically designated a number of ethnic groups "Moors". In modern Iberia, the term continues to be associated with those of Moroccan ethnicity living in Europe. Some consider it pejorative and racist. Moor is sometimes used in a wider context to describe any person from North Africa. The Spanish use the term and think of it as neutral in local sayings such as "no hay moros en la costa"[citation needed] (literally, "There are no Moors on the coast", meaning "the coast is clear").

Etymology

In Latin, the word maurus (plural mauri) means coming from Mauretania, a Roman province on the north western fringe of Africa. In the Medieval Romance languages (such as Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian), the root appeared in such forms as mouro, moro, moir, and mor. Derivatives are found in today's versions of the languages. Through nominalization, the root has always referred to various things. Moreno, from the Latin root, can mean "tanned" in Spain and Portugal. In Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries, as in Portuguese speaking Brazil, it can mean "black person" or a "mulatto"[citation needed]. Also in Spanish, morapio is a humorous name for "wine", specially that which has not been "baptized" or mixed with water, i.e., pure unadulterated wine. By extension, Moor was also used to refer generally to dark skinned persons as far back as the time of William Shakespeare, such as in his play Othello the Moor.

In Spanish usage, moro ("Moor") came to have an even broader usage, applied to moros of Mindanao in the Philippines, and the moriscos of Granada. Moro is also used to describe all things dark, as in "Moor", "moreno", etc.. According to some, it is the basis of such European surnames as Moore,[citation needed] Mauro, Moura, and so on.[citation needed] The Milanese Duke Ludovico Il Moro was so-called because of his dark complexion.

"Mouro" may also refer to an enchanted moura, in Portugal and Spain, the word deriving from a Celtic root *MRVOS, (Gaulish: marvos), meaning dead or supernatural being,[7] who comb their long blond hair with a golden comb.[8][9] From this celtic root the name moor is also given to unbaptised children meaning not Christian.[10][11] In Basque, Mairu means moor[12] and also refers to a mythical people. In Northern Portugal, moura also means "stone"
History
Overview
Eastern Hemisphere in 476 CE, showing the Moorish kingdoms after the fall of Rome.

Although the Moors came to be associated with Muslims, the name Moor pre-dates Islam. It derives from the small Numidian Kingdom of Maure of the 3rd century BCE in what is now northern central and western part of Algeria and a part of northern Morocco.[13] The name came to be applied to people of the entire region. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks," wrote Strabo, "and Mauri by the Romans."[14] During that age, the Maure or Moors were trading partners of Carthage, the independent city state founded by Phoenicians. During the second Punic war between Carthage and Rome, two Moorish Numidian (Algeria/ Mali- ROMAN AFRICA) kings took different sides, Syphax ( First King of Numidian) with Carthage, Masinissa with the Romans, decisively so at Zama. Thereafter, the Moors entered into treaties with Rome. Under King Jugurtha collateral violence against merchants brought war. Juba, a later king, was a friend of Rome. Eventually, the region was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the provinces of Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana; the area around Carthage already being the province of Africa. Roman rule was beneficial and effective enough so that these provinces became fully integrated into the empire.

During the Christian era, two prominent Berber churchmen were Tertullian and St. Augustine. After the fall of Rome, the Germanic kingdom of the Vandals ruled much of the area. A century later they were displaced by Byzantine incursions.[citation needed]

Neither Vandal nor Byzantine exercised an effective rule, the interior being under Moorish Berber control.[15] For over 50 years, the Berbers resisted Arab armies from the east. Especially memorable was that led by Kahina the Berber prophetess of the Awras, during 690–701. Yet by the 92nd lunar year after the Hijra, the Arab Muslims had prevailed across North Africa.[16


MOORS in America before Slave Trade of "America"


Blacks owned about one million square miles of land in the Louisiana Territories and the South Eastern/Florida region, as well as California. In all these areas of the U.S., there were Black African-American nations before Columbus, who were targeted for enslavement due to the Papal Edict that gave the Christian nations of Europe the go-ahead to make slaves of all descendants of Ham found in the newly discovered lands This fact cannot be denied. The essay on Black Civilizations of Ancient America, published as the great book; Susu Economics the History of Pan-African Trade, Commerce, Money and Wealth, tells a reality of this.

(my family always have!)

Many Blacks living today are descended from the pre-Columbian Black nations and it is time that issue is
included in the reparation discussion. They should locate who are the descendants of these pre-Columbian African nations in the U.S. (perhaps the entire mixed African-American population, since most of these Black tribes were enslaved and shipped to plantations and mixed with Blacks from Africa).

( US Census clearly shows that my family did not become "black/negros" until AFTER slavery.)

(http://muhammadfarms.com/PreColumbian.htm)

Africans in America
Africans in America Home Page. America's journey through slavery is presented in four parts. For each era, you'll find a historical Narrative, ...
www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html -

The Negro Mind Reaches Out (excerpts)

W.E.B. DuBois

http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1114.htm

My ship seeks Africa. Ten days we crept across the Atlantic; five days we sail to the Canaries. And then turning we sought the curve of that mighty and fateful shoulder of gigantic Africa. Slowly, slowly we creep down the coast in a little German cargo boat. Yonder behind the horizon is Cape Bojador whence in 1441 came the brown Moors and black Moors who through the slave trade built America and modern commerce and let loose the furies of the world. Another day afar we glide past Dakar, city and center of French Senegal. Thereupon we fall down, down to the burning equator past the Guinea and Gambia, to where the Lion mountain glares, toward the vast gulf whose sides are lined with Silver and Gold and Ivory and now we stand before Liberia; Liberia that is a little thing set upon a Hill;—thirty or forty thousand square miles and two million folk; but it represents to me the world. Here political power has tried to resist the power of modern capital. It has not yet succeeded, but its partial failure is not because the republic is black, but because the world has failed in this same battle; because organized industry owns and rules England, France, Germany, America and Heaven. And can Liberia escape the power that rules the world? I do not know; but I do know unless the world escapes, the world as well as Liberia will die; and if Liberia lives it will be because the World is reborn as in that vision splendid of 1918.


The African Heritage

(http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2005/2/05.02.05.x.html)

The associations between Africans and Hispanic Americans are key to the Hispanic / Latino identity.

Black Americans were brought to the Latin American and Caribbean regions as slaves to the colonies, where they contributed to the cultural and genetic heritage of Hispanic America. As a fact, African immigration to the Americas could have started before the arrival of Europeans: before the transatlantic slave trade began, African societies captured, sold and used slaves. This slave trade increased after the Portuguese explorers reached Cape Verde and the mouth of the Senegal River in 1444-1445. The Portuguese began to trade with the Africans in exchange for pepper, gold, ivory and slaves.

Blacks traveled with Christopher Columbus on his first voyage in 1492, such as the navigator Pedro Alonso Ni�o and the black colonists who helped Nicol�s de Ovando form the first Spanish settlement on Hispaniola in 1502. The earliest Spanish and Portuguese explorers brought to the Americas their slaves (black Africans) who were born or lived in the Iberian Peninsula. The traffic of slaves was light at first; they would send them to Europe to work as domestic servants, or as laborers, especially in the mines (depending on the geographical area they would be sent to).

These slaves �called ladinos (word derived from the Latin term for "learned" and still a strong identity in Guatemala) were heavily Europeanized: they shared their masters' language, religion and culture. They were the first Africans to go to the Americas. The bezels (a highly offensive word which referred to the muzzles used on dogs or horses) on the other hand, were the slaves sent to the Americas directly, and therefore, they were unfamiliar with the diverse European language or culture.

After the discovery of gold on the mainland, free Spaniards were reluctant to do manual labor or to remain settled in certain areas. The demand of slaves was enormous since only the slave labor could assure the economic viability of the colonies. By 1518, King Charles I of Spain sanctioned the direct transport of slaves from Africa to the American colonies because the slave trade was controlled by the Crown.



Moorish/ Black
http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/arming/keynote.htm

For me this brought to mind a new University of Toronto dissertation, by Debra G. Blumenthal, on "Muslim, Eastern, and Black African Slaves in Fifteenth-Century Valencia." Unlike the Moorish slaves, the black Africans could not be redeemed or assimilated into Valencian society. This natal alienation and social death, to use Orlando Patterson's terms, made the blacks ideal bodyguards for their honor-obsessed masters. According to Ms. Blumenthal, "contemporary testimony reveals that fifteenth-century Valencians could not conceive of anyone more 'base' or 'vile' than a black male slave." Therefore, in order to degrade their white enemies, white masters would order their black armed bodyguards to ridicule, assault, and batter their rivals or foes. Black slaves were also used to commit various crimes for their masters. [1]




The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915], at sacred-texts.com

p. 27
IV THE NIGER AND ISLAM

The Arabian expression "Bilad es Sudan" (Land of the Blacks) was applied to the whole region south of the Sahara, from the Atlantic to the Nile. It is a territory some thirty-five hundred miles by six hundred miles, containing two million square miles, and has to-day a population of perhaps eighty million. It is thus two-thirds the size of the United States and quite as thickly settled. In the western Sudan the Niger plays the same role as the Nile in the east. In this chapter we follow the history of the Niger.

The history of this part of Africa was probably something as follows: primitive man, entering Africa from Arabia, found the Great Lakes, spread in the Nile valley, and wandered westward to the Niger. Herodotus tells of certain youths who penetrated the desert to the Niger and found there a city of black dwarfs. Succeeding migrations of Negroes and Negroids pushed the dwarfs gradually into the inhospitable forests and occupied the Sudan, pushing on to the Atlantic. Here the newcomers, curling northward, met the Mediterranean race coming down across the western desert, while to the southward the Negro came to the Gulf of Guinea and the thick forests of the Congo valley. Indigenous civilizations arose on the west coast in Yoruba and Benin, and contact of these with the Mediterranean race in the desert, and with Egyptian and Arab from the east, gave rise to centers of Negro culture in the Sudan at Ghana and Melle and in Songhay, Nupe, the Hausa states, and Bornu.

The history of the Sudan thus leads us back again to Ethiopia, that strange and ancient center of world civilization whose inhabitants in the ancient world were considered to be the most pious and the oldest of men. From this center the black originators of African culture, and to a large degree of world culture, wandered not simply down the Nile, but also westward. These Negroes developed the

p. 28

original substratum of culture which later influences modified but never displaced.

We know that Egyptian Pharaohs in several cases ventured into the western Sudan and that Egyptian influences are distinctly traceable, Greek and Byzantine culture and Phœnician and Carthaginian trade also penetrated, while Islam finally made this whole land her own. Behind all these influences, however, stood from the first an indigenous Negro culture. The stone figures of Sherbro, the megaliths of Gambia, the art and industry of the west coast are all too deep and original evidences of civilization to be merely importations from abroad.

Nor was the Sudan the inert recipient of foreign influence when it came. According to credible legend, the "Great King" at Byzantium imported glass, tin, silver, bronze, cut stones, and other treasure from the Sudan. Embassies were sent and states like Nupe recognized the suzerainty of the Byzantine emperor. The people of Nupe especially were filled with pride when the Byzantine people learned certain kinds of work in bronze and glass from them, and this intercourse was only interrupted by the Mohammedan conquest.

To this ancient culture, modified somewhat by Byzantine and Christian influences, came Islam. It approached from the northwest, coming stealthily and slowly and being banded on particularly by the Mandingo Negroes. About 1000-1200 A.D. the situation was this: Ghana was on the edge of the desert in the north, Mandingoland between the Niger and the Senegal in the south and the western Sahara, Djolof was in the west on the Senegal, and the Songhay on the Niger in the center. The Mohammedans came chiefly as traders and found a trade already established. Here and there in the great cities were districts set aside for these new merchants, and the Mohammedans gave frequent evidence of their respect for these black nations.

Islam did not found new states, but modified and united Negro states already ancient; it did not initiate new commerce, but developed a widespread trade already established. It is, as Frobenius says, "easily proved from chronicles written in Arabic that Islam was only effective in fact as a fertilizer and stimulant. The essential point is the resuscitative and invigorative concentration of Negro power in the service of a new era and a Moslem propaganda, as well as the reaction thereby produced." 1

p. 29

Early in the eighth century Islam had conquered North Africa and converted the Berbers. Aided by black soldiers, the Moslems crossed into Spain; in the following century Berber and Arab armies crossed the west end of the Sahara and came to Negroland. Later in the eleventh century Arabs penetrated the Sudan and Central Africa from the east, filtering through the Negro tribes of Darfur, Kanem, and neighboring regions. The Arabs were too nearly akin to Negroes to draw an absolute color line. Antar, one of the great pre-Islamic poets of Arabia, was the son of a black woman, and one of the great poets at the court of Haroun al Raschid was black. In the twelfth century a learned Negro poet resided at Seville, and Sidjilmessa, the last town in Lower Morocco toward the desert, was founded in 757 by a Negro who ruled over the Berber inhabitants. Indeed, many towns in the Sudan and the desert were thus ruled, and felt no incongruity in this arrangement. They say, to be sure, that the Moors destroyed Audhoghast because it paid tribute to the black town of Ghana, but this was because the town was heathen and not because it was black. On the other hand, there is a story that a Berber king overthrew one of the cities of the Sudan and all the black women committed suicide, being too proud to allow themselves to fall into the hands of white men.

In the west the Moslems first came into touch with the Negro kingdom of Ghana. Here large quantities of gold were gathered in early days, and we have names of seventy-four rulers before 300 A.D. running through twenty-one generations. This would take us back approximately a thousand years to 700 B.C., or about the time that Pharaoh Necho of Egypt sent out the Phœnician expedition which circumnavigated Africa, and possibly before the time when Hanno, the Carthaginian, explored the west coast of Africa.

By the middle of the eleventh century Ghana was the principal kingdom in the western Sudan. Already the town had a native and a Mussulman quarter, and was built of wood and stone with surrounding gardens. The king had an army of two hundred thousand and the wealth of the country was great. A century later the king had become Mohammedan in faith and had a palace with sculptures and glass windows. The great reason for this development was the desert trade. Gold, skins, ivory, kola nuts, gums, honey, wheat, and cotton were exported, and the whole Mediterranean coast traded in the Sudan. Other and lesser black kingdoms like Tekrou, Silla, and Masina surrounded Ghana.

p. 30

In the early part of the thirteenth century the prestige of Ghana began to fall before the rising Mandingan kingdom to the west. Melle, as it was called, was founded in 1235 and formed an open door for Moslem and Moorish traders. The new kingdom, helped by its expanding trade, began to grow, and Islam slowly surrounded the older Negro culture west, north, and east. However, a great mass of the older heathen culture, pushing itself upward from the Guinea coast, stood firmly against Islam down to the nineteenth century.

Steadily Mohammedanism triumphed in the growing states which almost encircled the protagonists of ancient Atlantic culture. Mandingan Melle eventually supplanted Ghana in prestige and power after Ghana had been overthrown by the heathen Su Su from the south.

The territory of Melle lay southeast of Ghana and some five hundred miles north of the Gulf of Guinea. Its kings were known by the title of Mansa, and from the middle of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth the Mellestine, as its dominion was called, was the leading power in the land of the blacks. Its greatest king, Mari Jalak (Mansa Musa), made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, with a caravan of sixty thousand persons, including twelve thousand young slaves gowned in figured cotton and Persian silk. He took eighty camel loads of gold dust (worth about five million dollars) to defray his expenses, and greatly impressed the people of the East with his magnificence.

On his return he found that Timbuktu had been sacked by the Mossi, but he rebuilt the town and filled the new mosque with learned blacks from the University of Fez. Mansa Musa reigned twenty-five years and "was distinguished by his ability and by the holiness of his life. The justice of his administration was such that the memory of it still lives." 1 The Mellestine preserved its preëminence until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the rod of Sudanese empire passed to Songhay, the largest and most famous of the black empires.

The known history of Songhay covers a thousand years and three dynasties and centers in the great bend of the Niger. There were thirty kings of the First Dynasty, reigning from 700 to 1335. During the reign of one of these the Songhay kingdom became the vassal kingdom of Melle, then at the height of its glory. In addition to this the Mossi crossed the valley, plundered Timbuktu in 1339, and

p. 31

separated Jenne, the original seat of the Songhay, from the main empire. The sixteenth king was converted to Mohammedanism in 1009, and after that all the Songhay princes were Mohammedans. Mansa Musa took two young Songhay princes to the court of Melle to be educated in 1326. These boys when grown ran away and founded a new dynasty in Songhay, that of the Sonnis, in 1355. Seventeen of these kings reigned, the last and greatest being Sonni Ali, who ascended the throne in 1464. Melle was at this time declining, other cities like Jenne, with its seven thousand villages, were rising, and the Tuaregs (Berbers with Negro blood) had captured Timbuktu.

Sonni Ali was a soldier and began his career with the conquest of Timbuktu in 1469. He also succeeded in capturing Jenne and attacked the Mossi and other enemies on all sides. Finally he concentrated his forces for the destruction of Melle and subdued nearly the whole empire on the west bend of the Niger. In summing up Sonni Ali's military career the chronicle says of him, "He surpassed all his predecessors in the numbers and valor of his soldiery. His conquests were many and his renown extended from the rising to the setting of the sun. If it is the will of God, he will be long spoken of." 1

Sonni Ali was a Songhay Negro whose father was a Berber. He was succeeded by a full-blooded black, Mohammed Abou Bekr, who had been his prime minister. Mohammed was bailed as "Askia" (usurper) and is best known as Mohammed Askia. He was strictly orthodox where Ali was rather a scoffer, and an organizer where Ali was a warrior. On his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1495 there was nothing of the barbaric splendor of Mansa Musa, but a brilliant group of scholars and holy men with a small escort of fifteen hundred soldiers and nine hundred thousand dollars in gold. He stopped and consulted with scholars and politicians and studied matters of taxation, weights and measures, trade, religious tolerance, and manners. In Cairo, where he was invested by the reigning caliph of Egypt, he may have heard of the struggle of Europe for the trade of the Indies, and perhaps of the parceling of the new world between Portugal and Spain. He returned to the Sudan in 1497, instituted a standing army of slaves, undertook a holy war against the indomitable Mossi, and finally marched against the Hausa. He subdued these cities and even imposed the rule of black men on the Berber town of Agades,

p. 32

a rich city of merchants and artificers with stately mansions. In fine Askia, during his reign, conquered and consolidated an empire two thousand miles long by one thousand wide at its greatest diameters; a territory as large as all Europe. The territory was divided into four vice royalties, and the system of Melle, with its semi-independent native dynasties, was carried out. His empire extended from the Atlantic to Lake Chad and from the salt mines of Tegazza and the town of Augila in the north to the 10th degree of north latitude toward the south.

It was a six months' journey across the empire and, it is said, "he was obeyed with as much docility on the farthest limits of the empire as he was in his own palace, and there reigned everywhere great plenty and absolute peace." 1 The University of Sankore became a center of learning in correspondence with Egypt and North Africa and had a swarm of black Sudanese students. Law, literature, grammar, geography and surgery were studied. Askia the Great reigned thirty-six years and his dynasty continued on the throne until after the Moorish conquest in 1591.

Meanwhile, to the eastward, two powerful states appeared. They never disputed the military supremacy of Songhay, but their industrial development was marvelous. The Hausa states were formed by seven original cities, of which Kano was the oldest and Katsena the most famous. Their greatest leaders, Mohammed Rimpa and Ahmadu Kesoke, arose in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The land was subject to the Songhay, but the cities became industrious centers of smelting, weaving, and dyeing. Katsena especially, in the middle of the sixteenth century, is described as a place thirteen or fourteen miles in circumference, divided into quarters for strangers, for visitors from various other states, and for the different trades and industries, as saddlers, shoemakers, dyers, etc.

Beyond the Hausa states and bordering on Lake Chad was Bornu. The people of Bornu had a large infiltration of Berber blood, but were predominantly Negro. Berber mulattoes had been kings in early days, but they were soon replaced by black men. Under the early kings, who can be traced back to the third century, these people had ruled nearly all the territory between the Nile and Lake Chad. The country was known as Kanem, and the pagan dynasty of Dugu reigned there from the middle of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century. Mohammedanism was introduced from Egypt

p. 33

at the end of the eleventh century, and under the Mohammedan kings Kanem became one of the first powers of the Sudan. By the end of the twelfth century the armies of Kanem were very powerful and its rulers were known as "Kings of Kanem and Lords of Bornu." In the thirteenth century the kings even dared to invade the southern country down toward the valley of the Congo.

Meantime great things were happening in the world beyond the desert, the ocean, and the Nile. Arabian Mohammedanism had succumbed to the wild fanaticism of the Seljukian Turks. These new conquerors were not only firmly planted at the gates of Vienna, but had swept the shores of the Mediterranean and sent all Europe scouring the seas for their lost trade connections with the riches of India. Religious zeal, fear of conquest, and commercial greed inflamed Europe against the Mohammedan and led to the discovery of a new world, the riches of which poured first on Spain. Oppression of the Moors followed, and in 1502 they were driven back into Africa, despoiled and humbled. Here the Spaniards followed and harassed them and here the Turks, fighting the Christians, captured the Mediterranean ports and cut the Moors off permanently from Europe. In the slow years that followed, huddled in Northwest Africa, they became a decadent people and finally cast their eyes toward Negroland.

The Moors in Morocco had come to look upon the Sudan as a gold mine, and knew that the Sudan was especially dependent upon salt. In 1545 Morocco claimed the principal salt mines at Tegazza, but the reigning Askia refused to recognize the claim.

When the Sultan Elmansour came to the throne of Morocco, he increased the efficiency of his army by supplying it with fire arms and cannon. Elmansour determined to attack the Sudan and sent four hundred men under Pasha Djouder, who left Morocco in 1590. The Songhay, with their bows and arrows, were helpless against powder and shot, and they were defeated at Tenkadibou April 12, 1591, Askia Ishak, the king, offered terms, and Djouder Pasha referred them to Morocco. The sultan, angry with his general's delay, deposed him and sent another, who crushed and treacherously murdered the king and set up a puppet. Thereafter there were two Askias, one under the Moors at Timbuktu and one who maintained himself in the Hausa states, which the Moors could not subdue. Anarchy reigned in Songhay. The Moors tried to put down disorder with a high hand, drove out and murdered the distinguished men of

p. 34

[paragraph continues] Timbuktu, and as a result let loose a riot of robbery and decadence throughout the Sudan. Pasha now succeeded Pasha with revolt and misrule until in 1612 the soldiers elected their own Pasha and deliberately shut themselves up in the Sudan by cutting off approach from the north.

Hausaland and Bornu were still open to Turkish and Mohammedan influence from the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the slave trade from the south, but the face of the finest Negro civilization the modern world had ever produced was veiled from Europe and given to the defilement of wild Moorish soldiers. In 1623 it is written "excesses of every kind are now committed unchecked by the soldiery," and "the country is profoundly convulsed and oppressed." 1 The Tuaregs marched down from the desert and deprived the Moors of many of the principal towns. The rest of the empire of the Songhay was by the end of the eighteenth century divided among separate Moorish chiefs, who bought supplies from the Negro peasantry and were "at once the vainest, proudest, and perhaps the most bigoted, ferocious, and intolerant of all the nations of the south." 2 They lived a nomadic life, plundering the Negroes. To such depths did the mighty Songhay fall.

As the Songhay declined a new power arose in the nineteenth century, the Fula. The Fula, who vary in race from Berber mulattoes to full-blooded Negroes, may be the result of a westward migration of some people like the "Leukoæthiopi" of Pliny, or they may have arisen from the migration of Berber mulattoes in the western oases, driven south by Romans and Arabs.

These wandering herdsmen lived on the Senegal River and the ocean in very early times and were not heard of until the nineteenth century. By this time they had changed to a Negro or dark mulatto people and lived scattered in small communities between the Atlantic and Darfur. They were without political union or national sentiment, but were all Mohammedans. Then came a sudden change, and led by a religious fanatic, these despised and persecuted people became masters of the central Sudan. They were the ones who at last broke down that great wedge of resisting Atlantic culture, after it had been undermined and disintegrated by the American slave trade.

Thus Islam finally triumphed in the Sudan and the ancient culture

p. 35

combined with the new. In the Sudan to-day one may find evidences of the union of two classes of people. The representatives of the older civilization dwell as peasants in small communities, carrying on industries and speaking a large number of different languages. With them or above them is the ruling Mohammedan caste, speaking four main languages: Mandingo, Hausa, Fula, and Arabic. These latter form the state builders. Negro blood predominates among both classes, but naturally there is more Berber blood among the Mohammedan invaders.

Europe during the middle ages had some knowledge of these movements in the Sudan and Africa. Melle and Songhay appear on medieval maps. In literature we have many allusions: the mulatto king, Feirifis, was one of Wolfram von Eschenbach's heroes; Prester John furnished endless lore; Othello, the warrior, and the black king represented by medieval art as among the three wise men, and the various black Virgin Marys' all show legendary knowledge of what African civilization was at that time doing.

It is a curious commentary on modern prejudice that most of this splendid history of civilization and uplift is unknown to-day, and men confidently assert that Negroes have no history.
Footnotes

28:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, II, 359-360.

30:1 Ibn Khaldun, quoted in Lugard, p. 128.

31:1 Quoted in Lugard, p. 180.

32:1 Es-Sa’di, quoted by Lugard, p. 199.

34:1 Lugard, p. 373.

34:2 Mungo Park, quoted in Lugard, p. 374.

The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order(1934) by Horace Mann Bond

http://www.bandung2.co.uk/Books/Files/Education/The%20Education%20Of%20The%20Negro%20Prior%20To%201861%20A%20History%20of%20the%20Education%20of%20the%20Colored%20People%20of%20the%20United%20States%20from%20the%20Beginning%20of%20Slavery%20to%20the%20Civil%20War.pdf

The Mis-Education of the Negro

by CG Woodson
www.jpanafrican.com/ebooks/3.4eBookThe%20Mis-Education.pdf


Indigenous peoples of the Americas


According to the New World migration model, a migration of humans from Eurasia to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge which connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The most recent point at which this migration could have taken place is c. 12,000 years ago, with the earliest period remaining a matter of some unresolved contention.[3][4] These early Paleo-Indians soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.[4] According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation accounts


If this, the Bering Strait theory is "true" than it will only make sense to say that "these people" were Moors.


he One Drop Rule:

- defining mixed-blood Indians in colonial Virginia and the Carolinas



Augusta County, VA (Orders 1773-1779)

19 AUG 1777….Nat, an Indian boy in the custody of Mary Greenlee who detains him as a slave complains that he is held in unlawful slavery. Commission to take depositions in Carolina or elsewhere.

17 SEP 1777….On the complaint of Nat an Indian or Mustee Boy who says he is to be set free from service of Mary Greenlee…nothing appeared to this Court but a bill of sale for ten pounds from one Sherwood Harris of Granville County, NC that through several assignments was made over to James Greenlee deceased, late husband to the said Mary….said Mulattoe or Indian Boy is a free man and no slave.

( Nat was most likely half-Indian, so therefore Mulatto or Mustee could be used interchangeably, use of these terms were influenced by the status of his servitude)



Charles City County, VA (Orders 1687-95)

DEC 1690….Thomas Mayo an Indian belonging to Jno. Evans is adjudged 14 years old.



Chesterfield County, VA (Orders 1767-71)

6 APR 1770…On motion of Sibbell, an Indian woman held in slavery by Joseph Ashbrooke, have leave to prosecute for her freedom in forma pauperis.

- Sibbell an Indian wench V. Joseph Ashbrooke, for pltf. To take deposition of Elizabeth Blankenship and Thomas Womack.

- Sybill a Mulatto V. Joseph Ashbrooke – dismissed.

(Sibell was most likely less than full blooded Indian…she was described as Indian up to the point it was determined that she was legally a slave, then she was described as mulatto…use of the term is influenced by the status of her servitude)

Dinwiddie County, VA

18 AUG 1794...registered free papers of “Nancy Coleman a dark brown, well made mulatto woman..freed by judgement of the Gen’l Court of John Hrdaway being a descendant of an Indian.”

10 FEB 1798…registered free papers of “Daniel Coleman a dark brown free Negro, or Indian…formerly held as a slave by Joseph Hardaway but obtained his freedom by a judgment of the Gen’l Court.”

14 AUG 1800…registered free papers of “Hagar Jumper a dark brown Mulatto or Indian woman short bushy hair, obtained her freedom from Stephen Dance as being a descendant of an Indian.”

27 MAY 1805…registered free papers of “Betty Coleman a dark brown Negro woman…formerly held as a slave by John Hardaway…liberated by judgment of the Gen’l Court as descended of an Indian.”







Goochland County, VA

7 MAR 1756…Elizabeth, daughter of Ruth Matthews, a free mulattoe, baptized by the Rev. William Douglas of St. James Northam Parish.

26 SEP 1757….Cumberland County Court to bind out the children of Ruth Matthews, an Indian woman, to William Fleming.

(Ruth is described as ‘a free mulatto’ at one time, ‘an Indian’ at another.)

Henrico County, VA

5 MAY 1712…..Thomas Chamberlayne brings before this Court his servant Mulatto man Robin and informed the Court that he hath several times run away. Ordered to serve one year from (release date).

- Robin Indian (filed) against Major Chamberlayne…next Court.

FEB 1712….Robin Indian ordered free from Thomas Chamberlayne’s service at end of year’s service.

MARCH 1713….Thomas Chamberlayne against his servant Robin Mulatto hath unlawfully absented himself for 16 weeks.

(Robin is described as Mulatto until he is determined to be illegally held as a slave, then he is described as Indian…use of the term is influenced by his servitude…his former master tactfully uses the term Mulatto to influence the Court to return him to slavery)

APR 1722…Peg an Indian woman servant belonging to Richard Ligon appeared…be adjudged free..he be summoned.

JUN 1722…Peg a Mulatto servant born in this County whose mother was an Indian intitled to freedom at the age of thirty years, having petitioned for her freedom against her master Richard Ligon.

(Mulatto is used here to describe an Indian half-blood)

JAN 1737….petition of Tom a Mulatto or Mustee setting forth that he is the grandson of a white free woman and hast a just right to freedom but that his master Alexander Trent contrary to law or equity detains him in slavery.

(the terms Mulatto and Mustee are used here interchangeably)

JUL 1739…On the petition of Indian Jamey alias James Musttie is exempted from paying County Levyes.

NOV 1740…petition of Thomas Baugh it is ordered that the Church Wardens of Dale Parish do bind out Joe a Mulatto the son of Nan an Indian woman according to law.

(Mulatto is used here to describe an Indian half-blood)

18 NOV 1747….will of Richard Randolph…to my son John the third part of my slaves, he taking my two Negroes, Indian John and Essex as a part of his third which two Negroes I propose he should have.

(an Indian is described here as a ‘Negro’…the term is influenced by his servitude)

2 DEC 1754….Church wardens of Henrico Parish do bind out Ezekiel Scott and Sarah Scott, children of John Scott, Tommy son of Indian Nan, Henry Cockran son of John Cockran, and Isham Roughton an Indian according to Law.

5 MAR 1759….Ordered that the Church Wardens of Henrico Parish bind out Ben Scott and Roger an Indian Boy according to Law.





Lunenburg County, VA (Orders 1748-52)

JUL 1749…..Dublin an Indian of the Tugyebugg Nation came into Court and petitioned for her freedom, she being held in slavery.

Louisa County, VA

10 APR 1764…will of Patrick Belches…”to my wife Judy Belches all my land in Louisa..also the following Negroes to wit Indian Ben and wife Beck Kinney and their son Thom.”

1798…..Kinney family released from slavery based on testimony on William Denton that they descended from an Indian woman named Joan Kenny who was an elderly woman in 1729 and she came from the Indian town on Pamunkey.

(Indian Ben and Beck Kinney described as “Negroes’, later released based on being Indians...the term is based on their servitude)

Northumberland County, VA

OCT 1713…trial for examining George an Indian Mulatto criminal…inhabitant of Wiccomocoe Indian Town..for murdering Allen Dorrett…confesses he struck him with a stake…John Veazey carried him into the house of Indian John.

(use of the term Mulatto here to describe an Indian half-blood)



Stafford County, VA

Will Book Liber M, 1729-48….will of George Crosby…I bequeth unto George Crosby junior the son of my son George, one Indian mulatto woman Frank & her increase as also one Indian mulatto boy Jno Cooper.

(use of the term Mulatto here to describe an Indian half-blood)

Surry County, VA

2 JUL 1659…I Kinge of the Waineoaks doe firmely bargaine and make sale unto Elith Short her heires a boy of my Nacon named Weetoppin…until the full term of his life in consideration (of) a younge horse foale aged one yeare.

(not only did Indians sell their war captives into slavery, but they even sold their own)

20 MAR 1712….will of Francis Maybury…to wife Elizabeth, one Indian man named Robin and one Indian boy Jack and a mulatto girl.

20 AUG 1712…inventory of estate of Francis Maybury….two Indian slaves and one Indian Mulatto.

(girl first described as a mulatto later described as an Indian mulatto)











1741-1745…..Robin a Negro Man now in possession of Thomas Cocke, Gent., petitioning for leave to sue for his freedom.

- Robin, an Indian Plt. Against Thomas Cocke Genbt. Deft. In Trespass Assault and false imprisonment…We find that James Jones late of Prince George County in the year of our Lord 1693 was in the possession of an Indian girl named Sarah as a slave and that we did find the said girl in the year aforesaid was 4 years old. We find that the parents and Native Country of the sd. girl were Heathens and Idolators. We find that the aforesaid girl did live and die in the service of the aforesaid James Jones as a slave. We find that the Plt. Robin is the issue of the aforesaid Indian Sarah.

(Robin is described as a Negro until he proves his Indian descent, then he is described as Indian…use of the term is influenced by his servitude)

Sussex County, VA

1818…..”James Hix, a free man of color, brown complexion 34 years old, born free of Indian mother per certificate from Sussex County.”

(non-white persons are held under suspicion of servitude, and thus Negro ancestry, until proven otherwise)



Westmoreland County, VA

29 JAN 1700…..James Loggin, an Indian Mulatto, bound to Henry Wharton until the age of 21 by the Court.

(use of the term Mulatto here to describe an Indian half-blood)

Coastal North Carolina

“In 1761, The Rev. Alex Stewart baptized 7 Indians and mixed-blood children of the Attamusket, Hatteras, and Roanoke tribes and 2 years later he baptized 21 more.” – Swanton

North Carolina

1857…..a William Chavers (Chavis) was arrested and charged as a “free person of color” with carrying a shotgun, a violation on NC state law. He was convicted, but promptly appealed, claiming that the law restricted free Negroes not persons of color. The appeals court reversed the lower Court finding that, “Free persons of color may be, then, for all we can see, persons colored by Indian blood, or persons descended from Negro ancestors beyond the fourth degree.”

(desire of legal system to lump all non-whites into one category still exists in mid-1800’s)

1871……The North Carolina Joint Senate and House Committee interviewed Robeson County Judge Giles Leitch about the “free persons of color” residing within his county:

Senate: Half of the colored population?

Leitch: Yes sir; half of the colored population of Robeson County were never slaves at all…

Senate: What are they; are they Negroes?

Leitch: Well sir, I desire to tell you the truth as near as I can; but I do not know what they are; I

think they are a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and Indian….

Senate: You think they are mixed Negroes and Indians?

Leitch: I do not think that in that class of population there is much Negro blood at all: of that

half of the colored population that I have attempted to decribe all have always been

free…They are called ‘Mulattoes’ that is the name they are known by, as

contradistinguished from Negroes…I think they are of Indian origin.

Senate: I understand you to say that these seven or eight hundred persons that you designate

as mulattoes are not Negroes but are a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, white

blood and Indian blood; you think they are not generally Negroes?

Leitch: I do not think the Negro blood predominates.

Senate: the word ‘mulatto’ means a cross between the white and the Negro?

Leitch: Yes sir.

Senate: You do not mean the word to be understood in that sense when applied to these people?

Leitch: I really do not know how to describe those people.



(Even person not considered to bear Negro ancestry could be called Mulattoes as late as the 1870’s….the term ‘Portuguese’ used here to infer Spanish and Indian ancestry….’Portuguese’ also used by persons of North Carolina origin residing in South Carolina, Tennessee, etc. to describe mixed Indian-white persons from the NC?VA border area during this same time period.)

Virginia Gazette

17 APR 1752…Run away from the subscriber, living in Hanover County, about the middle of March last, a young Indian fellow, named Ned, about 20 years of age, pretends to pass as a freeman.

(Ned’s identity as Indian influenced by his servitude)

14 APR 1768….Isaac an Indian Slave aged about 40 years, run away from my plantation on George’s Creek in Buckingham. He was born and lived many years on the Brook of Chickahominy, and has some connexions in Goochland, where he may probably be at present. He wore long curled hair before his elopement, but his countenance and disposition are altogether Indian.

2 AUG 1770…..Committed to the prison of York, a Negro Boy, who says he is free and was born in the Indian Town on Pamunkee River.

(York ’s identity as Indian influenced by his servitude)

23 NOV 1770….Prince George County…Runaway from the subscriber on Monday the 19th, a negro fellow named Frank…of a yellow complexion..He has a wife among the Indians, at Indian Town on Pamunkey River.

24 SEP 1772….committed to the public jail, from James City prison, a runaway woman named Molly, she belongs to Charles Budd of Charles City County…about 40 years old, has a prominent nose and by her complexion would pass for one of the Indian Race.

26 NOV 1772…Runaway from the subscriber in Cumberland a Mulatto Man named Jim who is a slave but pretends to have a right to his freedom. His father was an Indian of the name of Cheshire, and very likely will call himself James Cheshire, or Chink. He is a short well set fellow, about twenty seven years of age, with long black hair resembling an Indians.

(Use of Mulatto to describe Indian half-blood….use of term influenced by his servitude)

3 DEC 1772…Committed to the jail of Surry County, a Negro Man who says his name is Tom, and that he belongs to Benjamin Clements of Sussex…appears to be of the Indian Breed.

(person of obvious Indian ancestry described as a Negro)

13 JUL 1773….Runaway from the subscriber a Mulatto Slave named David…says he is of the Indian Breed, and went down to the General Court, as I imagine to sue for his freedom, but has never returned.

(David’s identity as Indian influenced by his servitude)

11 NOV 1773…Run away from the subscriber, last month, a Negro Man of the name Tom…of a yellowish complexion, much the appearance of an Indian…His hair is a different kind from that of a Negro’s, rather more of an Indian’s, but partaking of both.

(person of obvious Indian ancestry described as a Negro)

11 MAR 1775….Run away from the subscriber…a very bright Mulatto Man named Stephen…his wife Phebe went away with him, a remarkable white Indian woman.

6 JAN 1776…Run way from the subcriber..Harry, Virginia Born, 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, 30 years of age, a dark Mulatto, with long bushy hair, he is of the Indian Breed.

(person of obvious Indian ancestry described as Mulatto)

2 DEC 1775…Bute County, NC…Run away from William Tabb, a slave named Charles, of the Indian Breed, about 23 years of age, with straight black hair, light complexion, raised in George County, VA.

South Carolina

1731…Special meeting of the South Carolina House of Commons after a member had announced that “Free colored men with their white wives have immigrated from Virginia with the intention of settling on the Santee River.”, report of Governor Robert Johnson: “I have had them before me in council and upon examination find that they are not Negroes nor slaves but free people, that the father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his father was also free…”

1753….. Will of Alexander Wood, of St. James Goose Creek Parish, Planter, to his half-breed Indian Slaves named Dukey Cox and George Cox, born of his Indian slave named Jenny, and Minerva Watkins, born of his Indian Slave named Moll, manumission upon his death

1794….Issac Linagear, Isaac Mitchell, Joanthan Price, Spencer Bolton, William N. Swett, and 29 other “free persons of color seek to repeal the Act for imposing a poll tax on all Free negroes, Mustees, and Mulattoes. They wish to support the government, but the poll tax caused great hardship among free women of color, especially widows with large families. Tax collectors hunted them down and extorted payments.”

(desire of legal system to lump all non-whites into one category)

25 JUL 1795…A South Carolinian advertised in the North Carolina Central and Fayetteville Gazette….”$10 Reward to deliver to the subscriber in Georgetown, a Mustie servant woman named Nancy Oxendine, she is a stout wench, of a light complexion about 30 years old. It is supposed she has been travels away by her brother and sister, the latter lives in Fayetteville.”





Tennessee 1832….Madison County….”free man of color, Richard Matthews, seeks permission to marry a white woman. Matthews says he is of the Portuguese blood.”

(see Goochland County, VA for the Matthews family.) 1843…..McMinn County…George Sherman arrived in the state in 1839 and now asks permission to remain. “A certificate signed by a notary public in New York states that he is of Mulatto complexion with wooly hair and is an Indian, one of the Narragansett tribe.”

(an Indian described as having a Mulatto complexion)

1853 to 58 Claiborne County….suit pressed by school teacher Elijoh Goins, who alleged that his daughter’s husband “spoke false, malicious, scandalous and defamatory words saying the plaintiff was a mulatto, meaning a person of mixed blood one degree removed from a full blood Negro as reason of which several grievances the plaintiff hath been greatly damaged and subjected to the suspicion disgrace and insult to a family of a person of mixed blood.”



Legal Systems:

26 NOV 1722…residents of Northampton County, VA, petitioned the Court complaining “That a great number of Free Negroes Inhabiting within this County are great Grievances most particularly because the Negro Women pay no Taxes.” Virginina passed a law in May 1723 “That all free negros, mulattos, or Indians except tributary Indians to this government male and female, above the age of sixteen, and all wives of such Negroes, mulattos, or Indians shall be accounted tithables.”

1738…North Carolina “AN ACT to Prevent the concealment of the Tithables in the Several Countys within this Province” defines tithables as “every white Person Male of the age sixteen Years and upwards all Negroes Mulattoes Mustees Male or female and all Persons of Mixt Blood to the fourth Generation Male and Female of the Age of Twelve years and upwards.”

1749….North Carolina tithable law is amended to include “all White Persons intermarrying with any Negro, mulatto, or mustee, or other Person of Mixt Blood.”

(desire of legal system to lump all non-whites into one category)

1802….In the North Carolina case Gobu v. Gobu, the judge stated “I acquiesce in the rule laid down by the defendant’s counsel, with respect to the presumption of every black person being a slave. It is so, because Negroes originally brought to this country were slaves, and their descendants must continue slaves until manumitted by proper authority. If therefore a person of that description claims his freedom, he must establish his right to it by such evidence as will destroy the force of the presumption arising from his color.”

(all dark skinned persons are presumed to be descended from Negroes)

Copyright ©2005 Steven Pony Hill, all rights reserved.


We all were not slaves. So why do you tell us we were when we can read that we were not?
http://books.google.com/books?id=gin2vtJzcNsC&pg=PA687&lpg=PA687&dq=1800+mulattoes+south+carolina&source=bl&ots=2vVa2jzfKr&sig=O8wYYEaUFs9CV95jTUZeUXUJfLQ&hl=en&ei=C3y4S73EJcSAlAeozICYCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=1800%20mulattoes%20south%20carolina&f=false



About Free Blacks and Mulattos in South Carolina 1850 Census

From a genealogical standpoint, the 1850 federal census was a watershed event because it marked the first U.S. census to record the full name and a significant amount of demographic data on each person in a given household, whether family member or not. In a work that will have significance for social historians as well as genealogists, Margaret Motes has combed through a microfilm copy of the 1850 census manuscript for the state of South Carolina in order to unearth every reference to a free black or mulatto that can be found there. The end result of her efforts is the new book, Free Blacks and Mulattos in South Carolina 1850 Census, an alphabetically arranged listing of 8,160 free blacks and mulattos between the ages of one month and 112 years of age.

The data for free persons of color in South Carolina in 1850, which spans twenty-nine different counties, records the following for each individual named in the census: name, age, sex, occupation, color, place of birth, household and dwelling number, and county. Also noted are persons in the household of another family member; in the household of someone else; listed at hotels (servants); or in a household headed by a white person. While the majority of persons tabulated were born in South Carolina, other free blacks were born in Africa, St. Domingo, Cuba, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and New York. Similarly, while most South Carolina free blacks were employed as farmers, carpenters, laborers, planters, tailors and shoemakers in 1850, a number of others had found work as barbers, blacksmiths, brick masons, engineers, locksmiths, mechanics, painters, pilots, saddlers, wagon makers, washwomen, and numerous other occupations. This new publication, which boasts of indexes to names, places and occupations, is bound to inform and intrigue genealogists and historians alike as they discover what it meant to be free and African-American only a few years before the Civil War.

Source Information
Ancestry.com. Free Blacks and Mulattos in South Carolina 1850 Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.
Original data: Motes, Margaret Peckham. Free Blacks and Mulattos in South Carolina 1850 Census. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002.

http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=49161

Support my argument of POST- SLAVERY tension:

"Along these lines, I've been (trying to finish) reading a book called "The New People" by Joel Williamson. His study also shows that the pre-war South was very different from the post-war South and that the upper south (NC, VA) was different again from other southern states, LA and SC in particular. He makes it appear as if whites and mulattoes intermingled and intermarried freely. It appears that a lot of the overt racial hatred towards blacks & mulattoes occurred post-slavery and took hold in the 20th century."

http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/mulatto.html

Everyone didn't get RAPED ( although my heart goes out to those who did. My grandfather always said HE WAS NOT BLACKED and they changed our family name in the army!)

Whites and free colored people continued to intermarry right up to the time of the Civil War. These people were never slaves, or their servitude was so remote in the past, and their mixture was from wedlock. They are different from the manumitted mulattos, as I call them, and their descendants (Julian Bond, Thurgood Marshall, and Andy Young, for example); these were descended from masters and overseers.

Books:

White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Paperback)

Winthrop D. Jordan (Author)
"WHEN THE ATLANTIC NATIONS OF EUROPE BEGAN EXPANDING overseas in the sixteenth century, Portugal led the way in Africa and to the east while Spain..."
Key Phrases: religious equalitarianism, antislavery pronouncements, outright enslavement, South Carolina, New York, United States

CIA- https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2075.html


La esclavitud en Huelva y Palos (1570-1587). Julio Izquierdo Labrado:

http://www.mgar.net/var/esclavos3.htm

I'm not going to translate. Read it as many times as you need to. You too can read spanish. Its quite easy. English is the "devils " tongue, it understand steals from other cultures. That's why the "romance languages" aka Roman languages shadowed ancient Greek and Latin. Those languages came from "Afro-Asian" not Eurasia.

Most of English is Arabic! THE IMPACT OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ON ENGLISH

AND THE OTHER EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

http://www.syriatoday.ca/salloum-arab-lan.htm


Titus Burckhardt in his book The Moorish Culture in Spain states:

“Languages tend to become poorer, not richer, with time, and the original character of the Arabic language, unworn by time, reveals itself in its very wealth of words and immense range of expressions. It can describe one object with different words and from different aspects, and possesses words in which different, allied concepts are condensed, without ever being illogical. This equivocal aspect of Arabic in the most positive sense of the word, is without doubt what makes it so appropriate as a holy tongue. ...According to Ibn Khaldun, Arabic is a perfect language because it can not only be declined and conjugated, but because the “what” and the “how” can be derived from an action - in other words, nouns and adjectives can be derived from the verbs. However, this is possible only because in Arabic, the “doing” verbs are far more comprehensive than, say, in English. Much of what we tend to express by using an adjective in conjunction with the verb “to be”, such as “to be beautiful”, “to be inside”, “to be outside”, is expressed in a single verb in Arabic.”


We find Arabic words or Arabic transmitted words in all facets of European life. In English:

In architecture we have: alcove (al-qubbah), ogive (al-jubb) and baroque (burqah);

In the abode of animals and birds: albatross (al-qadus), camel (jamal), gazelle (ghazal), giraffe (zarafah), jerboa (yarbu), monkey (maymum), nacre (naqqarah), popinjay (babbaghgha’), and tuna (tun);

In the clothing and fabric trade: caftan (quftan), camlet (khamlah), chiffon (shaff), cotton (qutn), fustian (Fustat), gauze (Ghazzah), jupe (jubbah), macrame (miqramah), mohair (mukhayyar), muslin (musil), sandal (sandal), sash (shash), satin (zaytuni), tabby (>attaabi=) and taffeta (tafata;

In the field of chemicals, colors and minerals: alkali (al-gili), amalgam (al-jama), antimony (al-uthmud), arsenic (al-zirnikh), azure (lazaward), bismuth (uthmud), borax (bawraq), camphor (kafur), cinnabar (zinjafr), carmine (girmizi), crimson (qirmiz), elixir (al-iksir), gypsum (jibs), kale (qili), lacquer (lakk), musk (misk), myrrh (murr), natron (natrun) realgar (rahj al-ghar), scarlet (siqillat), soda (suda), talc (talq) and zircon (zarqun);

In the area of food and drink: alcohol (al-kuhl); apricot (l-barquq), artichoke, (al-khurshuf), arrack (caraq), banana (banan), candy (qand), cane (qand), caramel (qanah), caraway (karawya), carob (kharrub), coffee and cafe (qahwah), cumin (kammun), jasmine (yasmin), julep ( julab), kabab or kabob (kabab), lemon, lemonade and lime (laymun), mocha (mukha), orange (naranj), saffron (za faran), salep (tha lab), sesame (simsim), sherbet (sharbah), sherry (Sherish - the Arab name of the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia), spinach(isbanakh), sugar (sukkar - borrowed by nearly every language of Europe from Arabic), sumach (summaq), syrup, (sharab), tangerine (tanjah) and tarragon (tarkhun);

In the sphere of geography and navigation: admiral (Amir al-bahr), alhambra (al-hamra), canal (qanah), Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq), monsoon (mawsim), safari (safarah), sahara (Sahara), saracen (sharqiyin ), Trafalgar (Taraf al-ghar), typhoon (tufan), xebec shabbak) and Zanzibar (Zanjibar);

In the home and daily life: adobe (al-tab), cable (habl), calabash (khirbiz), carafe (gharafa), carboy (qirbah), divan (diwan), genius (jinn), hazard

(al-zahr), jar (jarrah), kismet (gismah), massage (massa=, mattress (matrah), mulatto (muwallad), nabob and Nob Hill (na=ib), ottoman (uthman) and sofa (suffah);

In the land of music and song: fret (fard), guitar (qitar), hocket (iqaat), lute (ud ), tabor and tambour (tanbur), timbal (tabl) and troubadour (tarab al-dar);

In the theatre of the macabre (magbarah): assassin (hashashin), ghoul (ghul), mafia (mu afi), mumy (mumiya=) and massacre (maslakh);

In the realm of personal adornment: amber (anbar), attar (atr), cameo (chumaban), civit (zabad), henna (hinna=), lapis lazuli (lazaward), mask and mascara (maskharah), sequin (sikkah) and talisman (tilasm);

In the world of plants: alfalfa (al-fisfisah), anil (al-nil), apricot (al-barquq), carob (kharrub), crocus (kurkurn), hashish (hashish), lemon and lime (laymun), jasmine (yasmin), lilac (laylak), orange (naranj), safflower (asfar) and tamarind (tamr hindi);

In the technical confines of science and mathematics: almanac (al-manakh), alchemy (al-kimiya=), alembic (al-inbig), algebra (al-jabr), algorism (al-khuwarizmi), average (awar), calibre (qalib), carat (qirat), chemistry (al-kimiya=) and both cipher and zero (sifr);

In the domain of the heavens: auge (awj), azimuth (al-samt) ,nadir (nazir), zenith (samt al-ra=s) and the stars: Aldebaran (al-dabaran), Achernar (akhir al-nabr), Algol (al-ghul), Alphard (al-fard), Altair (al-ta=ir), Betelgeuse (bayt al-jawza=), Deneb (dhanab), Fomalbaut (fam al-hat), Menkar (minkhar), Merak (marikh al-dubb), Mizar (mi=zar), Rigel (rijl) and Vega (al-nisr al-waqi=);

In the arena of sports: racket (rah) and tennis (tinnis); and

In trade and commerce: arsenal (dar al-sinaah), bazaar (bazar), cafe (qahwah), cheque (sakk), dragoman (turjuman), magazine (makhzan), ream (rizmah), tare (tarhah), traffic (tafriq) and tariff (tarifah).





"Why White People Are Called 'Caucasian,'"
In the association of whiteness with "Caucasian," Russia and the Russian borderlands take the place of the tropical regions of Africa, the Caribbean islands ...
www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf

White people of today do not owe us nothing; if you have not got your 40 acres and mule by now, you are not gonna get it. People period need to realize once you turn 18 years old no one owes you nothing; you owe yourself. Those black people who think that white people owe them something are sore losers who have not taken accountability for their own actions.