A Short History of America 1619 to Now – Slavery and Beyond. A compressed version of the key points we should all be aware of. by Matthew Hill

What do we need to know, in order to process US, UK and European history, and therefore, understand systemic and continuing inequity and prejudice?

#slavery #racism #history

These pieces represent a short and compressed access point for the reader to get an overview of the UK, US and European contribution to Slavery.

Part 1 - The Long Read - Slavery – An essential overview - Where did it come from? What was it for? And. Is it still with us today? 

A lot has been broadcast and published after the 2 events of 25th May 2020 in the US. First, we witnessed Amy Cooper’s knowledge and use of the black racial monolith stereotype to both work herself up into an agitated state and then deploy her asymmetrical power, as a middle-class white woman, against a black man out birdwatching. This was a moment when the conscious and casual use and abuse of racial inequity became plain to see for viewers around the world via the viral video (links at the end). This was a truly shocking example of the cynical and everyday use of US history being deployed by a dominant group member to consciously threaten negative consequences to a person of colour.

And,

Police Officer, Derek Chauvin’s nonchalant use of a learnt suppressive technique for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and all that has followed. 

It was the lack of drama in the moment and how normal this was for him and his colleagues that moved the world. The video stirred many to protest and started a chapter of discourse at a new level of detail, as doubt about whether systemic and everyday racism still existed in 2020, falls away. 

The 25th of May 2020 represented the logical endpoint from the widespread, cruel and conscious “business practices” of Slavery, that started so many years ago. And, when you read these pieces, most of you will begin to see, just how predictable these incident were – State policies, brutal history, as well as the current, implied, community-police contract – Showing us that this behaviour is the norm in some forces and sections of the population. It has been allowed and tolerated, and even encouraged, to maintain the powerful in their positions of authority. 

On this day, we saw the tears of a white woman and the unemotional violence of the state, that normally goes unremarked and unpunished, being noted, reacted to and helping all to see.

Warning – Whilst I have attempted to navigate a reasonable path through history, this story gets pretty ugly in many places and you will find some hidden and buried chapters of US, UK and European history hard to take, hard to believe and difficult to live with.

These practices, sanctioned by Government and State, with their cruel inventions and consequences DID happen. They now form the foundations of modern-day prejudice and the on-going discrimination experienced by a vast number of people of colour.

Audience

This piece is an attempt to assist in getting middle ground, thinking folk of European decent, up to speed on the main parts of US, UK and Europe history, that have underpinned systemic racism as it exists today.

Agreement; To get anything valuable out of this, it’s probably best to temporarily suppress your defences, the urge to push back, and, to control your negative emotions until you have finished the pieces. 

There is nothing in this article that did not happen and there are plenty of worse examples that are not included here.

So, just let some of our crazy world history wash over you, in order that you can get to the other side, and, see what happened then and why events like those on, 25th May 2020, are happening repeatedly in the modern era.

History

Whilst slavery has been around for 1,000s of years and very very few people were free in the sense white people understand it today, the phenomenon of humans as property took on a whole new level of evil efficiency and global reach, generating massive associated profits, in the 17th Century. A significant number of institutions such as banks, manufacturing industries, municipal town councils, trading families and their estates, prospered then and still exist today in Europe and the US. Many advantaged people, families, companies and countries stand on the sordid foundations of trafficking and Slavery.

UK – British Colonies, Finance, Ships and Trans - Atlantic Slavery

Lest we forget, the US was a British Colony in 1619, when the first slave ships arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, on the West coast of America, to deliver African prisoners, sold to the British by slave trading African nobles, who had, in turn, captured them as a bi-product of territorial battles in Africa. 

The selling on of prisoners of war and slaves has a long history in the Middle East and Africa, and, in Europe too. We think of slaves as black because of the Trans-Atlantic trafficking of African labour – This chapter became the representative norm due to new levels of intensity, deliberation and collusion by most European nations that turned a widespread global practice into an unprecedented wealth generating machine. 

If we go further back, the Vikings and Moghuls enslaved the Slavic people of Central and Eastern Europe (hence the name Slave.) The Pharaohs enslaved the Jews, and the Romans controlled or drove out the Celts, pushing them beyond the borders of the Roman Empire, hence, “barbarians” living beyond Hadrian’s wall in Scotland.

Humans Enslaving Humans? – Before we explore more history – A philosophical question for, you, the reader – How could one group of humans be so cruel and murderous to another set of humans?

Conditions Necessary For Slavery.

Before the war of Trans-Atlantic Slavery and the subsequent war of African-American oppression in the US, the human beings of civilised Europe had to “de-humanise” the humans of Africa, in order for this new experiment and brutal industry to be designed, set up, and, accepted by the masses and for it to produce profits. 

And, they did a pretty thorough job.

The de-humanising of African people did not come from some small group of right-wing extremists. It come from some of the greatest minds in Europe, the richest and most sophisticated institutions of the day, and, was widely and deeply accepted as a truth by most of the population of Europe in the 17th Century.

Religion – Even after the reformation of the Catholic church in the 16th Century, most European people where controlled by their faith in God and his human representatives on Earth – Preachers in Church. 

They listened to what their local religious community leaders said and believed them. These religious men preached of the superior value of the white soul, and, to keep the church in business, they promised a damned future and afterlife for all heathens and savages - Those that lived in adjacent lands and were not converted to the Christian faith. 

Even in my lifetime, the concept of missionaries being sent out to remote lands to convert the “primitive” people of foreign countries was seen as an acceptable and normal practice, and, was not unduly questioned by European citizens. 

When you are 5 or 7 years of age, the adult preaching to you in church is assumed to be telling the truth. So, plenty of the first 1,000 “Othering” statements, came directly from the pulpit.

Looking back through our modern eyes, the PR campaign run by the church was pretty blatant – E.g. Jesus is portrayed as a blond white European man (unlikely) and Judas as a black man – A deliberate contrast to support the idea of white European superiority and the lesser status of all other peoples. 

In my church services from childhood, I heard many quotes from the bible but not once did a representative of the church say that the English version of the Holy book was a translation or explain the origins of the Christian religion in honest geographical, historical or ethnic terms.

Philosophy

The racist reduction of black populations to something less, in order to justify capturing them, trading them, exploiting them, and then, using them as tradable muscle and property, stemmed from the output of some of the greatest thinkers – Later, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Immanual Kant both had theories of social rank that, put white at the top, red second, yellow third and black last. When the greatest minds are saying this, and, you hear the same every Sunday too, everyday racism becomes, not a sin, but the open, accepted and practiced norm.

Its legacy exists in the unashamed and overt racism of the far-right ideologues today. They are not an exception to the past. They are a continuation of the past.

Science

Before the research and writings of Charles Darwin in the 19th Century, the pseudo-science of the day linked African people to primates as a deliberate distancing policy – This fake anthropology has to rank as one of the most blatant examples of “Othering” in all of history.

All sorts of physical and behavioural examples were utilised to reduce black, non-European peoples to less, animalistic and dangerous.

Racism.

It we take the US academic, Ibram X Kendi’s, definition of racism in action as our base – He speaks of Institutions implementing racist policy – Not out of hate and fear but in the name of self-interest. These exploitative practices lead to deliberate inequity. This inequity must be normalised, rationalised and justified by the contortions, misdirection and brainwashing with racist education, religious instruction, pseudo-science, complex political narrative and the biased stories found in the entertainment vehicles pumped out to the masses. And, in the active covering up and ridiculing of anybody who questions either racial inequity or points out the oppression and bias inherent in the policies themselves.

Unconscious Bias and Racism.

There are many corporate training courses that talk of unconscious bias originating from the brain’s animal part, promoting an autonomic and rapid response to difference (sometimes referred to as the Amygdala hijack) and this accounting for our almost instantaneous negative reaction to “Others”, difference and those with non – dominant characteristics, i.e. teaching us that this is a natural and constant phenomenon. 

The message is - We are all prejudiced and must simply be mindful of this and adapt our processes to balance out the problem. We must step around our bias to become inclusive, aware and allow equity and justice back into commerce, community, government and entertainment.

But there is so much more going on. On top of our animal brain’s sometime unhelpful contribution, we have tribes, countries, collectives of countries and groups of interests that have, to put it crudely, business plans based on perpetuating the oppression of the “Other”, with the conscious expectation of financial reward. 

Marketing

In order to “sell” the concept of Slavery to investors, various beliefs must be placed in the population, in order that they don’t question the risks, look away from the human cost, and, become addicted to both the income that accrues from the cruelty, the pleasure that accrues from the product (cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice and rum), and, for them to relish their “freedom” too.

The Brochure

The narrative of the savage, the untamed and violent, the sexually threatening was born, amplified and broadcast wholesale by preachers, publishers, philosophers, pseudo-scientists, politicians, The Royal Navy, bankers, ship builders, farmers, retailers, investment advisors, teachers, and, community leaders.

The Western film is a related though later example, that illustrates the point without ambiguity – Portraying the European settlers travelling West in their wagon trains as white saviours, protecting innocent white European people (themselves escaping persecution) by wiping out as many Native Americans as they saw on their journey. And the Native Americans? – Do you remember their entrance in many films? – As soon as they laid eyes upon a settler’s wagon train, they would move, at great speed, to rape, murder and scalp the white folk. Scary stuff. Lacking balance or the empathic telling of the other side of the story, these Westerns were a feel-good propaganda coup that salved the conscience of the people and justified the other US genocide – Of a people at one with land, flora and fauna, living sustainably and getting on with life in the absence of consumerism and profit.

Slavery was War.

We think of the dark satanic cotton mills of Lancashire or Yorkshire (in the North of Britain) with their long hours, dangerous working conditions and ill treatment of working-class folk, including children.

This was nothing compared to the conditions of Slavery.

2 million people who passed through the many African, “Gates of no return”, did not even make it to the Caribbean or the Americas. Disease took many and their bodies were dumped, without ceremony, overboard.

The survivors were traded in markets in the Caribbean or on the West Coast of America.

Conditions

Slavery was for life. Slaves had no rights. Hours were long, conditions were appalling, and escape or disobedience was punished with whippings, mutilation, imprisonment or execution.

Wealth

There is a contradiction at this point.

Some official propaganda at the time and afterwards, said that the North of the US was industrialised and their wealth, therefore, did not have to come from slavery – This was not true. The North paid people, often of European decent, to produce impressive quantities of food from the land. Prosperity without Slavery was perfectly possible.

The South though, produced cash crops of greater export value and this became a part of the Slave Shipping Triangle or the Middle Passage.

The first shipping leg brought slaves from Africa to the US / Caribbean, where they were sold. The empty ships then carried cash crops from the South and headed for the UK and European Continent, where the appetite for these exotic products lead Europeans to pay premium prices and enable investors to realise extraordinary profits from sunshine and human misery.

The last leg. This saw ships sailing from Britain and the Continent to Africa, the vessels filled with worked metal goods, arms, trinkets, mirrors, glass, etc. for the “friendly” tribal Kings in Africa, who were supplying captured prisoners for the slave trade. And, so this immoral, profitable and largescale, triangular commercial venture was complete.

British Involvement.

The British Navy underwrote the free passage of British slave ships in the Atlantic, allowing the business to flourish under the active protection of the most feared naval force in the world, under the direct control of the Britain Government and operating in the name of the British Monarchy.

Banks financed the building of ships and the purchasing of exotic crops in the Americas. Members of the general public invested in shares to bolster trading companies and trading infrastructure, buildings, staff and communications. Many UK institutions and towns experienced unprecedented periods of growth and prosperity, profiting directly from the Slave trade.

Everybody was in on the game.

Shares were sold and pensions underpinned by slavery derived earnings. In such a way, many everyday people in Britain were “in on the game” and complicit, whilst minimising their exposure to the horrors of local conditions, such as the vast attrition rate across the Atlantic or the automatic enslavement of children, born to the enslaved.

Spanish, German, French, Belgian, Dutch involvement

This was a European experiment, copying the successful economic blueprint of the Spanish Conquistadors in South America – The Spanish had enslaved the locals and put them to work, mining gold. The gold was shipped back by the tonne to greatly expand the influence of Spain in Europe, and, the rest of the world. All this was originally sanctioned, blessed and financed by the Spanish Monarchy.

In the US, there was no gold to be mined, but the model of chattel slaves and indentured servants was copied by European pioneers and adapted to grow and work the cash crops that would thrive in the South but required hard work and man muscle power in farming conditions no European could endure for long.

The beginning of the end of OFFICIAL slavery

UK, Europe and the US.

Towns were built, families became dynasties, universities emerged, armies were formed, and, white free populations, expanded and prospered.

But at an enormous cost. It is estimated that between 9 and 12.5 million slaves started out from Africa. 

Some religious leaders began to challenge their own faith’s support of Slavery. Social reformers challenged the morality of the practice of Slavery. But many citizens and concerned interests resisted any move towards abolition, reform, or, the payment of reparations to the enslaved.

1833

When Britain finally outlawed Slavery, after other events such as the Haitian Slave Revolt (1791 to 1804), compensation was paid out. No, not to the enslaved but to the plantation owners by way of compensation from their loss of income. This payment schedule was so onerous that it took until 2015 to compete!

1863

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln went public with the Emancipation Proclamation, giving a 100 days’ notice for all Southern Slaves to be freed by Slave holders and declaring that on, 1st January 1863, all Slaves would be declared, “thenceforward and forever free.” 

1865

The US Civil War, fought over the right to keep slaves, between the Confederacy of 13 Secession states in the South, represented by Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, representing the Unionist of the North, in the Appomattox Court House, in Virginia, on 9th April 1865, ending the war. (at a cost of 600,000 US dead. 38,000 were black.)

Juneteenth - 19th June 1865, 

Unionist General, Gordon Granger, in Galveston, Texas, announced the end of official Slavery – This became known as Freedom Day, Liberation Day, or, Emancipation Day. The freed Slaves often referred to this time as, “the Break”.

Conclusion

Are you still with us? The aim of this first article is to fill in the missing bits from most people’s knowledge. In Part II, we provide more gap filling, on what happed to continue the oppression of freed slaves and subsequent generations of African Americans, after OFFICIAL Slavery was outlawed. 

If you felt this article helped in your understanding of the history of Slavery and what followed, please like and share on social media.

End of Part 1