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Category Archives: Slavery

American Tragedies

09 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in American Civil War, Slavery, United States

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Charlottesville, freedom, Heather D. Heyer, Robert E. Lee, Slavery and Racism, Stephen Paddock, the American Civil War, The Ku Klux Klan, the National Rifle Association, the Permit

tdy_maya_170812.today-vid-canonical-featured-desktop

Robert E. Lee (Photo credit: Today.com)

Ironically, as a Presidential hopeful, Donald J. Trump was endorsed by the National Rifle Association of America. He was also endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group who participated in the Charlottesville events. By accepting such endorsements, President Trump may have emboldened the killers. Stephen Paddock (9 April 1953 – 1st October 2017) was shooting from the 32nd floor of a hotel, which allowed him to kill or wound many people and complicated the work of the police. Fifty-eight (58) concertgoers are dead and some five hundred were wounded. Mr. Paddock had booked a room at the Mandalay Bay. So far, authorities are at a loss in determining a motive. Stephen Paddock is “unknowable.”

I wish to offer my condolences to the family and friends of the victims of both tragedies. The Last Vegas shooting was by far the bloodier, but although the Charlottesville events did not lead to numerous deaths, they were the more meaningful tragedy.

www.cnn.com/2017/10/06/us/unknowable-stephen-paddock-and-the-mystery-motive/index.html

Charlottesville and the American Civil War

http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war

The Charlottesville tragedy is particularly significant because it is rooted in the American Civil War, the worst of American tragedies. Less than a hundred years after Americans fought the American Revolution, secession was unthinkable. Robert E. Lee attended West Point and served in the United States army.

Yet, on “18 April, he [Lee] was offered by presidential advisor Francis P. Blair, a role as major general to command the defense of Washington.  He replied:

Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state? 

(See Robert E. Lee, Wikipedia.)

The Civil War (1861-1865) opposed the Union, the North, and the Confederates, or the South. When Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Presidency of the United States, in November 1860, slave states, the South, stood to lose “their way of life, based on slavery.”

Times had changed.

http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war

First, the slave trade was abolished in 1807 by an act of the British Parliament (see The Slave Trade Act of 1807, Wikipedia). Second, in 1833, slavery itself was abolished (see The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, Wikipedia). What had been considered morally acceptable when the slave trade began in the 16th century had become unacceptable. For centuries, captured Africans were packed like sardines in slave ships, the penultimate of which was the Wanderer. It sailed to Jekyll Island, Georgia delivering some 400 slaves.

USS_Wanderer_(1857) (1)

Wanderer in U.S. Navy service during the American Civil War (1861–1865), after her days in the slave trade were over. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Besides, the economy of the South was an agricultural economy. The South was rich, but unlike the Union, its economy demanded the cheap labour that had long been provided by slaves. As for the North, the Union, its economy was developing into an industrial economy. Furthermore, the 1840 a World Anti-Slavery Convention was held in Exeter Hall, a Masonic Hall. Exeter Hall is a synonym for the Anti-Slavery Society. Freemasons played a significant role in the abolition of slavery.  (See World Anti-Slavery Convention, Wikipedia.) To sum up, the South was doomed, but didn’t act.

771px-the_anti-slavery_society_convention_1840_by_benjamin_robert_haydon

The 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention, by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1841, London, England (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yet, to some extent, the South was a victim of history. Slavery had not been looked upon as a wrong when the Atlantic Slave Trade began, in the 16th century. Slaves were brought to the Americas, packed like sardines aboard slave ships. They were then purchased by plantation owners who probably believed the blacks were not human beings, at least not altogether. The impact of the Age of Enlightenment on the morally acceptable was enormous and it put slavery where it belonged, in the wrong. However, vested interests and an ingrained state of mind, not altogether American, stood in the way of abolition. Abraham Lincoln himself feared for the South’s economy.

For instance, Lincoln asked Giuseppe Garibaldi to lead an army, but Lincoln knew about an agricultural crisis.

“Garibaldi was ready to accept Lincoln’s 1862 offer but on one condition, said Mr Petacco: that the war’s objective be declared as the abolition of slavery. But at that stage Lincoln was unwilling to make such a statement lest he worsen an agricultural crisis.” (The Guardian, UK)

http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm

It remains that a right, slavery, had become a wrong and that it could not be made a right again. It violated the United States’ very own Declaration of Independence, whose main author was Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But a black could not be transformed into a white. Once they were freed, former slaves were targeted by white supremacists. They became the victims of such groups as the Ku Klux Klan. After the Union won the war, Robert E. Lee himself could not see the blacks as equals. He thought the blacks should not be given the right to vote, which remained the case until the 1960s.

Slavery and Racism: the colour black

At this point, the necessity arises to distinguish between slavery and racism. One can assume that slavery is as old as the world and that slaves have not always been members of the black race. Arabs have enslaved white women. However, the blacks have long been held in contempt. In two former posts, I noted that Senator John C. Calhoun (18 March 1782 – 31 March 1850) did not favour the annexation of Texas by the “Union” because some Mexicans were métis (see Manifest Destiny, Wikipedia).

“We have never dreamt [sic] of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race.”

North-African philosopher Ibn Khaldūn (27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406) did not consider the black race as equal to the white race. He saw them as “dumb animals” and, therefore, candidates for slavery.

“Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.” (See Racism, Wikipedia.)

Historically, the blacks have been considered the inferior race, “dumb animals,” and “submissive to slavery.” Had the whites and the blacks been put on an equal footing, there would not have been an Atlantic Slave Trade and plantation owners would not have grown very wealthy by making slaves do the work. French Count Arthur de Gobineau (14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882), a friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, also considered the black race as inferior to the white race. Gobineau is the author of An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, published in 1853. (See Related Articles #2)

The Abolition of Slavery

The Union won the war and slavery was abolished. By 1865, United States President Abraham Lincoln had already emancipated 3 million slaves. On the 1st of January 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order. On the 1st of January 1863. (See Emancipation Proclamation, Wikipedia.) However, slavery was not ended officially until the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Senate, on 8 April 1864, and by the House of Representatives, on 31 January 1865. A total of four million slaves were freed and Abraham Lincoln paid the ultimate price. He was assassinated on 15 April 1865, six days after Robert E. Lee “surrendered his entire army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.” (See Robert E. Lee, Wikipedia)

But it had been a very bloody war:

Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in all other wars combined.

 

General_Robert_E._Lee_surrenders_at_Appomattox_Court_House_1865

A print showing Union Army General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant accepting Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee‘s surrender on April 9th, 1865. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Civil War left profound traces. It ended slavery, but racism grew and it intensified the discussion about the nature of the American federalism. After the Civil War, “power shifted away from the states and towards the national government.” (See Federalism in the United States, Wikipedia.) Several Americans fear their government.

Labour unions remembered Lincoln, which is also significant.

1912_Lawrence_Textile_Strike_2

Flyer distributed in Lawrence, Massachusetts, September 1912. The Lawrence textile strike was a strike of immigrant workers.

The Permit

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-heather-heyer-profile/index.html

President Trump was criticized for stating that there was violence on “both sides:” a hate group, who protested “legally,” and counter protesters. There was indeed a mêlée, but a permit to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee (19 January 1807 – 12 October 1870) cannot justify the killing of Heather D. Heyer. Besides, there is violence and there is violence.

In other words, a hate crime was perpetrated in Charlottesville. Although the neo-Nazi group had a permit, twenty-year-old James Alex Fields drove a motor vehicle into a group of counter protesters killing 32-year-old Heather D. Heyer, a paralegal from Charlottesville, and wounding 19 other counter protesters. James Alex Fields killed, which is a crime.

May you rest in peace, Heather Heyer.

Conclusion

No permit can justify murder. The President of the United States therefore blundered by suggesting that a permit lessened James Alex Fields’ guilt. Words such as “permit” and “legally” were uttered by white nationalists to excuse their crime. One wonders whether a hate group should be provided with a permit to protest. In Charlottesville, a permit could and did invite disorder including murder. Freedom is not a free-for-all. Freedom and a free-for-all are poles apart.

It may be judicious for the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.) to reëxamine its position regarding the Charlottesville events. Everything has its limits including liberty. Liberty cannot be put into the service of criminal conduct. The Charlottesville events border on Thomas Hobbes‘ view of man “in a state of nature:”

“in a state of nature each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a ‘war of all against all’ (bellum omnium contra omnes).” (See Related Articles #9)

As for the Las Vegas shooting, there is a sense in which Stephen Paddock also acted “legally.” In the United States, civilians are permitted to carry firearms. What could Stephen Paddock do with his collection of firearms? I suspect that when a President such as Donald J. Trump is in office, a person who has a collection of firearms may shoot and kill. It would be in the best interest of a Presidential hopeful to refuse an endorsement from the National Rifle Association and the Ku Klux Klan a fortiori. Deaths by gun are far too numerous and too many victims are blacks. The right to bear arms makes it difficult for a police officer to know whether he or she is addressing a person bearing arms. Not that police brutality is acceptable, but that in the United States police officers are caught between a rock and a hard place. It’s “a war of all against all.”

RELATED ARTICLES

  1. Walter Crane: from Slavery to Wage-Slavery (21 December 2015)
  2. Comments on Racism (2 February 2015)
  3. Freemasonry & Abolitionism  (31 January 2014)
  4. Ignatius Sancho & Laurence Sterne: a Letter (14 December 2013)
  5. The Abolition of Slavery (15 November 2013)
  6. From Manifest Destiny to Exceptionalism (10 November 2013)
  7. “Sorry Chancellor Merkel” (30 October 2013)
  8. The Noble Savage: Lahontan’s Adario (21 October 2012)
  9. The Social Contract: Hobbes, Locke & Rousseau (13 October 2012)←
 

Love to everyone ♥

 
Amazing Grace
 
14xp-heather-master315

Heather D. Heyer (Photo credit: CNN)

Micheline Walker
8 October 2017
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Turning the other cheek

06 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Slavery, Terrorism, The Middle East

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

"Turn the other cheek", Isis, Jesus, rights, Russia, Turkey

head-of-st-james-the-less

Head of St James the Less by Leonardo da Vinci (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Retaliation

Once again, we are witnesses to retaliation.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/03/world/russia-turkey-syria-warplane-tensions/index.html

Turkey has shot down a Russian fighter jet so Russian President Vladimir Putin, not a choirboy, is therefore saying that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will regret “for a long time” downing the Russian fighter plane. It was flying in Turkey’s airspace.

Having a “right” to…

Erdoğan will not apologize. He had a “right” to shoot down this Russian fighter jet because it was flying in Turkey’s airspace.

According to this logic, if a child, a brother, (1) has hurt his sister (2) the day before, the sister (2) has the right to hurt her brother (1) the following day. I believe that if a responsible parent sees his or her children fighting, the sister (2) will not be allowed to hurt her brother (1) and that both will be told they are acting irresponsibly. If the sister (2) has hurt her brother, both might be sent to their respective rooms to “think.”

No one has the “right” to hurt another person willfully. As for revenge, it is immature behaviour. One apologizes and, if losses were incurred, reasonable compensation may be necessary.

But it could be that I am reading a different page, or a different book.

With respect to pilots, prudence was advisable. It is safer for pilots not to enter another country’s airspace if doing so is a violation or if there is enmity between their nation and the one whose airspace they have foolishly penetrated. There were two pilots. One man died, but the other was rescued. However, none of this was appropriate.

Leonardo_da_Vinci_helicopter_and_lifting_wing

Flying Machines Leonardo

How can anyone expect Isis to end the atrocities perpetrated against the people of Paris and against inhabitants of the Middle East, if Russian President Vladimir Putin allows Russian pilots to fly in Turkey’s airspace and President Erdoğan orders the Turkish military to shoot the plane down?

Therefore, the leaders themselves are showing Isis that it is acceptable to retaliate every time a drone attack occurs. In other words, They are showing Isis that if Syria is bombed, it should dig in its heels by attacking countries outside Syria, not to mention Syrians themselves who may fall into the hands of terrorists.

More heads will fall, more people will be burned alive or locked into cages that will be lowered into water. Isis will also capture women and turn them into sex slaves, not to mention other ignominies.

Worst of all, Syrians will continue to pour out of their country.

study-of-a-figure-for-the-battle-of-anghiari.jpg!Blog

Study of a figure from the Battle of Anghieri, Leonardo (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

The West has long meddled in the affairs of the Middle East. What comes to mind immediately are George W Bush’s wars, the 2000s. But, let us not forget the Crusades nor colonialism.

In fact, let us not forget that harm done to Islam by the West cannot justify Isis’ barbaric behaviour?  It’s retaliation gone astray and untargeted. Yet, can strikes be targeted and just who should strike?

Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew who lived in occupied Palestine, did not leave a manuscript. However, he is reported to have said: “Turn the other cheek.” It was a metaphor and cannot be read or interpreted literally. Yet, in the context of current events, it makes sense. Or could it be that I am once again reading a different page and, perhaps, the wrong book?

My kindest regards to everyone. ♥

800px-Bloch-SermonOnTheMount

The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Johann Sebastian Bach

Nathalie Stutzmann, contralto
La Pasión según San Mateo BWV 244, “Erbame dich”
Orfeo 55

head-of-st-james-the-less

Head of St James the Less by Leonardo da Vinci (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

© Micheline Walker
6 December 2015
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Isis: a Nightmare

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Religion, Russia, Slavery, Terrorism

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

drugs, Rape, Religion, Russia, Slavery, traite des Blanches

an-arab-and-his-dog

An Arab and his Dogs by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

My lost post resurfaced. I added missing links to the published post, but did not change its contents. However, one of my links led to more information. It seems Isis is offending Russia. It appears a Russian has been beheaded.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/middleeast/isis-russian-beheading-claim/?iid=ob_lockedrail_topeditorial&iref=obinsite

It also appears Isis is targeting a religious group.

Assad was interviewed and claims not to have failed his people, but further radicalization of Islam is taking place.

The following images are very perturbing

purchase-of-a-slave.jpg!Blog

Purchase of a Slave by Jean-Léon Gérôme  (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

3571317234

Slave Market by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1866

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/iphone-article/.premium-1.609449

 

Une_nouvelle_arrivée_by_Giulio_Rosati_3

The Newly-arrived Slave at the Harem by Giulio Rosati (Photo credit: FR Wikipedia)

Wikipedia has an entry entitled Traite des Blanches (trading white women).

The trading of white women is something French and French Canadian women have known about. But I have never heard anyone speak about the capture and enslavement of white women outside Quebec or France.

9/11

It is quite true that the wars of the 2000s triggered many of the acts of terrorism we are witnessing. But the attacks of 9/11 were acts of terrorism perpetrated against the United States. It was retaliation. So there is more to that story.

King regards to everyone. ♥

Jean-Léon_Gérôme_-_On_the_Desert_-_Walters_3734

On the Desert by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Photo credit: The Walters Art Museum)

© Micheline Walker
3 November 2015
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Ignatius Sancho & Laurence Sterne: a Letter

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Black history, Slavery

≈ Comments Off on Ignatius Sancho & Laurence Sterne: a Letter

Tags

2nd Duke of Montagu, A Theory of Music, Abolitionism, Britain, Freemasons, Ignatius Sancho, Laurence Sterne, Letters, Quakers, the Age of Enlightenment

 
Ignarius Sancho
Ignatius Sancho (Google images)
Slave hanging from his ribs, by William Blake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Slave hanging from his ribs, by William Blake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729 – 14 December 1780), a Black slave, lived in Britain at the height of the debate on antislavery and he left a testimonial, letters mainly, of the struggle to end an ignominy. Sancho was a man of colour, but antislavery motivated many members of the White race to gather and attempt to eradicate the subjugation of coloured human beings. Colour is skin-deep. Many abolitionists were Quakers, which is the case with French-American Anthony Benezet (Antoine Bénézet) and his followers. But the person who helped Sancho, John Montagu, the 2nd Duke of Montagu KG, KB, PC (1690 – 5 July 1749), was a Freemason.

Inequality

Because it deals with inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1754) could be a key document on the topic of abolitionism, except that Rousseau is one of the thinkers who introduced the idea of the Noble Savage.[i] Therefore, having mentioned the Discourse on Inequality, we are crossing the English Channel from France to England, where the antislavery debate was at a climax and would attract American abolitionists, one of whom was the above-mentioned French-born American Anthony Benezet (31 January 1713 – 3 May 1784). (See The Abolition of Slavery.)

Ignatius Sancho, by Thomas Gainsborough, National Gallery of Canada

Ignatius Sancho, by Thomas Gainsborough, National Gallery of Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas Gainsborough, FRSA (christened 14 May 1727 – 2 August 1788)

Ignatius Sancho and Laurence Sterne

Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729 – 14 December 1780) was a Black slave who wrote a letter to Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) which, upon publication and concurrent publication of the Reverend Sterne’s answer to Sancho’s letter, made Ignatius Sancho famous. Laurence Sterne, an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican clergyman, is best known as the author of Tristram Shandy, or A Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1761-1767) and A Sentimental Journey to France and Italy (1668).[ii]

Because the publication of Tristram Shandy had been a huge success, our Black British abolitionist Ignatius Sancho wrote to Sterne urging the writer to put his eloquence into the service of abolitionism:

That subject, handled in your striking manner, would ease the yoke (perhaps) of many – but if only one – Gracious God! – what a feast to a benevolent heart!

Laurence Sterne received Sancho’s letter in July 1766, two years before his death. There was little the Reverend Sterne could do at this point in his life. In 1765, Sterne had travelled, in vain, to France and Italy, in search of a climate that would relieve the symptoms of tuberculosis. He died in 1768, two years after receiving and answering Sancho’s letter, but his response to Sancho has survived the test of time and constitutes a witty and powerful statement against slavery. It ridiculed slavery.

“There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events (as well as in the great ones) of this world: for I had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter of recommendation in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came to me—but why her brethren?—or your’s, Sancho! any more than mine? It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St. James’s, to the sootiest complexion in Africa: at which tint of these, is it, that the ties of blood are to cease? and how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, ’ere mercy is to vanish with them?—but ’tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavor to make ’em so.”

Laurence Sterne, by Louis de Carmontelle, c. 1762 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Laurence Sterne, by Louis de Carmontelle, 1762 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Louis de Carmontelle (15 August 1717 – 26 December 1806)

Ignatius Sancho

Birth on a slave ship

Black British abolitionist Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729 – 14 December 1780) was born on the slave ship taking his parents to New Granada, a Spanish colony. Sancho’s mother died when Sancho was in infancy. After Sancho’s mother’s death, his father committed suicide rather than live as a slave. Slaves belonged to their owners. Some owners were good, but too many were brutes. The owner of the slave hanging from his ribs, portrayed by William Blake (above), was a brute and nothing could stop him. He owned the man he was killing mercilessly. Owning a human being can lead to horrific abuse.

The 1730s and 40s

At the age of two, Sancho was sent to England where he worked for three maiden sisters in Greenwich until the 1750s. However, John Montagu, the 2nd Duke of Montagu KG, KB, PC (1690 – 5 July 1749), a Freemason, took an interest in Ignatius, who was a very intelligent child whose personality and manners were truly endearing. John Montagu therefore funded what little formal education Sancho received. The Montagus always helped Sancho.

The 50s and 60s

During the 50s, Sancho spent two happy years working as butler to Mary Montagu (née Churchill). During those two years, he studied music. He would later publish a theory of music and compose. In the 60s, he married a West Indian woman, Ann Osborne. The couple had six children. During that same period he also became a valet to George Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu, the son-in-law of his former patron and a man of refinement. When he started to work for George Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu, Thomas Gainsborough made a portrait of Sancho.

The Late 1760s and the 70s

In 1774, with help from the Duke of Montagu and using the remains of an inheritance and the annuity he was receiving from Mary Montagu, Sancho, then suffering from ill-health and gout, opened a green grocery shop offering merchandise such as tobacco, sugar and tea, at 19 Charles Street in London’s Mayfair, Westminster.

It is during this period of his life that Sancho published his Theory of Music and songs. It is also during this period that he became a voter. “As a financially independent male householder living in Westminster, Sancho qualified to vote in the parliamentary elections of 1774 and 1780.” (See Ignatius Sancho, Wikipedia.) During the 1700s, Sancho also contributed letters in newspapers, under his own name and under the pseudonym “Africanus.”

images

Ignatius Sancho: A Summary

Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729 – 14 December 1780) was

  • a Black slave born on a slave ship;
  • a composer: he published a Theory of Music and composed songs;
  • a playwright: he wrote two plays and was an acquaintance of famed actor David Garrick;
  • an actor;
  • a writer, letters (to Sterne, and to newspapers), plays and a two-volume collection of letters published after his death;
  • a businessman;
  • the first black person of African origin known to have voted in Britain;
  • the first African to be given an obituary in the British press (see above).

Conclusion

According to Wikipedia, Sancho “was unusually blunt in [h]is response to a letter from Jack Wingrave, John Wingrave’s son. Jack wrote about his “negative reaction to people of colour based on his own experience in India during the 1770s.” (See Ignatius Sancho, Wikipedia.) John Wingrave, Jack’s father and Sancho’s friend, was a London bookbinder and bookseller.

“I am sorry to observe that the practice of your country (which as a resident I love – and for its freedom – and for the many blessings I enjoy in it – shall ever have my warmest wishes, prayers and blessings); I say it is with reluctance, that I must observe your country’s conduct has been uniformly wicked in the East – West-Indies – and even on the coast of Guinea. The grand object of English navigators – indeed of all Christian navigators – is money – money – money – for which I do not pretend to blame them – Commerce was meant by the goodness of the Deity to diffuse the various goods of the earth into every part—to unite mankind in the blessed chains of brotherly love – society – and mutual dependence: the enlightened Christian should diffuse the riches of the Gospel of peace – with the commodities of his respective land – Commerce attended with strict honesty – and with Religion for its companion – would be a blessing to every shore it touched at. In Africa, the poor wretched natives blessed with the most fertile and luxuriant soil- are rendered so much the more miserable for what Providence meant as a blessing: the Christians’ abominable traffic for slaves and the horrid cruelty and treachery of the petty Kings encouraged by their Christian customers who carry them strong liquors to enflame their national madness – and powder – and bad fire-arms – to furnish them with the hellish means of killing and kidnapping.” (See Sancho’s View on Empire and Slavery.)

The above letter may be “blunt,” but could it be otherwise? Ignatius Sancho was fighting an evil, perhaps the very worst evil human beings have inflicted on themselves, an evil motivated by greed.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Circular 3591 and Why Dec 12th Is Special in the Fight Against Slavery (kennethdprice.com)
  • The Abolition of Slavery (michelinewalker.com)
  • The Noble Savage: Lahontan’s Adario (michelinewalker.com)

Sources

  • Sancho’s letters can be read online at Documenting the American South (scroll down)
  • Sancho’s View on Empire and Slavery (letter to Jack Wingrave)
  • Tristram Shandy is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #1079]
  • Quakers
  • Freemasonry
  • One Hundred Greatest Black Britons

[i] “noble savage”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416988/noble-savage>.

[ii] “Laurence Sterne.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/565796/Laurence-Sterne>.
  

Ignatius Sancho 

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UK Stamp
© Micheline Walker
14 December 2013
WordPress 
 
Ignatius Sancho died today, 14 December, in 1780.
 

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The Abolition of Slavery

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Black history, Slavery

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

1840 Anti-Slavery Convention, Abraham Lincoln, Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, American Civil War, Antoine Bénézet, British Abolitionists, Emancipation Proclamation 1863 US, Quakers, Slave Trade Act of 1807, Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 (England), Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce

The 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention, London, England
The 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention, by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1841, London, England (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Abolitionism

Exeter Hall
 
Exeter Hall (1840 Anti-Slavery Convention)
(Caption and photo credit: Wikipedia) 

“Thomas Clarkson[i] (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846), was an English abolitionist. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed on 22 May 1787, and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves. In 1840, he was the key speaker at the Anti-Slavery Society (today known as Anti-Slavery International) conference in London, which campaigned to end slavery in other countries.”

The Abolition of Slave Trade (Britain 1807)

 
Thomas Clarkson (Britain)
William Wilberforce (Britain)
Anthony Benezet (US)
British Abolitionists (list)
 

The Slave Trade Act of 1807 did not abolish slavery, but it paved the way for the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire, the Empire on which the sun never se[t]. It helped foster awareness of the ignominy of owning another human being, which was soon recognized. Previously, slavery had seemed a “right” and, in the case of the Americas, several members of Africa’s Black population participated in the very lucrative slave trade. (See Slavery and Atlantic Slave Trade, Wikipedia.)

The Slave Trade Act of 1807 (Britain)

THOMAS CLARKSON AND WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

Other than Thomas Clarkson (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846), prominent abolitionists included Britain’s William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833), Granville Sharp (10 November 1735 – 6 July 1813), African Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780). As indicated in Wikipedia, Wilberforce “headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.” (See William Wilberforce, Wikipedia.)

The Abolition of Slave Trade of (America 1807)

Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage
Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2nd March), (America)

ANTHONY BENEZET (AMERICA)

Among American abolitionists was French-born American educator Anthony Benezet, or Antoine Bénézet (31 January 1713 – 3 May 1784). Bénézet’s Calvinist Protestant[ii] family had been persecuted as a result of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

However, when he moved to America and settled in Philadelphia, Benezet joined the Religious Society of Friends.[iii] In other words, he became a Quaker. Benezet is the founder the first anti-slavery society of the world’s history, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage and his legacy. Seventeen of the 24 members of the Society were Quakers. Slave trade was abolished in America shortly thereafter, on March 2, 1807. (See the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves of 1807.)

The Abolition of Slavery

Britain (1833)
France (1848)
America (1865)

The culmination of the work of British abolitionists, Thomas Clarkson, a Quaker, and others, eventually led to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, in Britain. Certain areas of the British Empire did not free their slaves in 1833, but the motivation to free slaves, a motivation rooted in the Age of Enlightenment, the 18th century, was growing into a moral imperative.

The French Revolution did away with slavery, but it resurfaced and was not eradicated in France until 1848.

The American Civil War and the Abolition of Slavery

the Civil War: 12 April 1861 – 10 May 1865
the Confederacy: eleven Slave States 
the Union: 20 Free States
Onset: The Battle of Fort Sumter, 12-14 April 1861 (a Confederate victory)
End: Union victory
Emancipation Proclamation: 1st January 1863 (eleven Slave States)
Thirteenth Amendment: 18 December 1865 (the United States)
 

However, in America, slavery was not abolished until 1865, under the terms of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US constitution, effective beginning on 18 December 1865. In 1863, when seven states seceded and four more would later join these Slave States. In 1861, they constituted the self-proclaimed Confederacy. Secession from the Union was illegal.

The Civil War began in 1861 when the Confederate States attacked Fort Sumter (12-14 April 1861). It was a Confederate victory. Consequently, four more states joined the Confederacy, now comprising a total of 11 Slave States.

On 1st January 1863, President Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865; by gun) issued an Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in the 11 Slave States. It was an Executive Order, a direct order from the President of the United States.

Conclusion

To a large extent, those who opposed the abolition of slavery stood to lose free labor and, in many cases, faced poverty and destitution. It could well be that in the United States opposition to taxation is rooted in a form “exceptionalism” or, perhaps, in a form of reversed entitlement. Many extremist Republicans live in former Slave States and many are as wealthy as their ancestors were in the days of slavery. However, given the loss of nearly free labor, they perhaps wonder why they should pay taxes, thereby contributing to the implementation of social programs that protect everyone, but which they, personally, do not need. They are rich and they can therefore look after themselves. In fact, it is possible for such individuals to view taxes as a form of enslavement.

However, it is also entirely possible for people who benefit from social programs to feel they are entitled to the services provided by the government. That is the prevailing definition of entitlement. They may therefore oppose cuts. In fact, the Quebec students who opposed a slight raise in tuition fee ended up asking the Quebec government to provide them with a free education. In their opinion, they were entitled to a free education. Therefore, when their tuition fees were raised by a very small amount, many felt they had been betrayed by the system.

_________________________ 
[i] Clarkson’s An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African, Translated from a Latin Dissertation which was honoured with the First Prize in the University of Cambridge, in the year 1785, with Additions, is a Gutenberg Project [EBook #10611] 
[ii] French Calvinist Protestants were called Huguenots.
[iii] Many abolitionists were Quakers.
 
Lincoln: Film Trailer 
Abraham_Lincoln_November_1863© Micheline Walker
15 November 2013
WordPress
 
 
 
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

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