STEPPING STONES 06/18/17 By MESI VILLAGE Ultra Contemporary Luxury Apartments "You won't believe you're home"
Volume 3, Issue 25, June 18, 2017
In this issue...
Public Service Announcements
Quote Of The Week: Dr. Amos Nelson Wilson
Book Of The Month: “The Business Planning Guide, Ninth Edition”
By David H. Bangs, Jr.
It’s YOUR Health: Psychological Trauma
Historical Fact Of The Week: History Of African Americans Part I
Editorial Commentary: Coming!
Public Service Announcements
- The rechartering for The Head Cornerstone Corporation in the State Of Delaware as well as all updated business licenses and associated issues are forth coming pending litigation. Thank you.
- Visit WWW.Ready.gov at your earliest convenience so that you may be informed of basic protective measures before, during, and after disasters/emergencies, learn disaster prepared activities, training, plans, and what shelters are in or near your community, develop an emergency plan for yourself and your family in the event of an actual disaster/emergency, build an disaster/emergency supply kit including a basic emergency medical/trauma bag in case of an event, and GET INVOLVED!
- Get your CPR (Cardio-Pulomonary Resuscitation) and Basic First Aid/First Responder/Basic Life Support including child birth and Emergency Pediatric Care training today. Check with the American Heart Association at WWW.Heart.org for locations. It may just save a life.
- It’s a lot of fun and excitement, it’s healthy, it’s a great family activity, and it’s very practical. Find a course in self-defense for you and your loved ones and learn to protect yourselves. You just never know.
- We have the constitutional right to BEAR ARMS and many states have the CCW (Conceal Carry Weapon) License for when you and your loved ones are outside of your home environment. Search the web for free information concerning the Conceal Carry Laws as well as other valuable information. Get the CCW License today (where applicable) for you and your family members of age and LEARN HOW TO SHOOT. You’ll feel better that you did.
- WATER; it’s very essential for normal body functions and not only carries nutrients to your cells, but flushes out the toxins in are bodies that lead to diseases such as cancers, diabetes, and heart diseases. According to the Mayo Clinic and the Institute of Health, water consumption varies for each person depending on many factors associated with life styles, such as current health, activities, and where you live. Be informed about what your daily intake should be and “drink up”. It will make YOUR world a better place.
Public Service Announcements
are brought to you by
COMMUNITY INTERNATIONAL
Within our African American communities, there is a DISEASE; drug gangs as well as other organized criminal organizations. Before and after any conversation and until we remove the disease…
“…we will continue to SUFFER from exceptionally HIGH crime rates (burglaries, extortion, racketeering, money laundering, prostitution/teen prostitution, illegal weapons, auto thefts, etc.), INCREASED violent crimes (murders, assaults, rapes, kidnappings, robberies, gang rapes, child molestations, child endangerment/abuse, etc.), DECREASED land values, decreased BUSINESS INVESTMENTS AND DEVELOPMENT, DECREASED employment opportunities in affected areas, and a “WAR ZONE” environment in which our CHILDREN and elders are FORCED to survive in. A RECLASSIFICATION of these crimes and ALL involved in their OFFENSES to include all persons assisting in any CAPACITY as terrorists will, also, REMOVE many, but NOT all, of the OBSTRUCTIONS for our children as they LEARN, play, and grow during their crucial DEVELOPMENTAL YEARS by significantly REDUCING the VIOLENT CRIMES, eliminating FORCED gang membership, SIGNIFICANTLY reducing teen pregnancy, TEEN drug use, teen dropout rates, SCHOOL ABSENTEISM, illiteracy rates, TEEN SUICIDE RATES, as well as the eradicating of the PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA as well as mental anguish that is PRODUCED by the “war zone” environment. The BY-PRODUCTS of this campaign include, but are not limited to significant REDUCTION in Medical budget expenditures CAUSED by drug related medical and traumatic CONDITIONS (DRUG OVERDOSES, HOMICIDES, SUICIDES, DRUG INFLUENCED/RELATED AUTO ACCIDENTS, DRUG INDUCED PSYCHOLOGICAL PATIENTS, BABIES BORN WITH DRUG ADDICTIONS, THE SPREAD OF SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES, BABIES BORN WITH SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES, TRAUMA RELATED TO DRUGS/GANGS AND VIOLENT CRIME, ETC.).”
(Excerpt from Quote Of The Week 01/01/12)
And our babies will continue to be oppressed until death and all day before they can live. This is not LOVE. This is HATE. Please, STOP!
Brought to you
By
The “From the dirt…” Community Redevelopment Project
A program of
COMMUNITY INTERNATIONAL
Tending The Garden; Plucking Poverty By The Roots
By Akil A. Bomani
The most severe form of poverty is ignorance; lack of knowledge or factual, true, and always objective information (as opposed to misinformation or ill knowledge). Only when we breathe, speak, and teach true knowledge to ourselves, each other, and especially to our youth will we begin the work of eradicating the overwhelming abundance of poverty from our minds, our bodies, and most importantly, our spirits; and thus, the world. This alone will heal all plagues, address every societal need, and end suffering the world over and forever. And what is knowledge without wisdom? Just look around you at our world today. Lack of wisdom is the second most severe form of poverty afflicting “Man”. Without wisdom, knowledge is just a loaded gun or an explosive device in the wrong hands. It is the obvious cure for the disease. And then, what will we do with ourselves?
Pedophiliac: The Grip Of Reality Reveals The One And Only Solution
By Akil A. Bomani
Pedophiliac, Child molester, Child predator, Child sex slaver/trafficker, … In summarizing this…“issue”, what a complete contradiction of nature and even evolution; an abomination. And what an example to the youth of the world we have set in not only not putting an end to such atrocity everywhere it exists, but have allowed it to now be an accepted part of popular culture in some of our societies, continue in others as “tradition”, or incidents and perpetrators have become so common place that one can see them “coming out of the closet”. The damage they inflict on their victims, their victims’ family, friends, school mates, care providers, emergency response personnel, etc. go far beyond bad dreams. Our current problem is this; the DISEASE is spiritual and mental which leads to the actual physical act and crime and THERE IS NO CURE. And so, there is but ONE solution. No matter where you are, no matter your socio-politico, cultural, and/or economic back ground, only those with no reasoning will disagree. And so, no matter where you are…no matter what country, city, township, or village, ethnic group, cultural orientation, or other group, support the enacting and, most importantly, enforcement of internationally standardized laws that reflect and directly address this most serious matter. Until there is a cure, our children are not safe. Seek to initiate the passing of laws that PERMANENTLY remove offenders from society by penalties of either LIFE OF IMPRISONMENT/MENTAL INSTITUTION with NO CHANCE OF PAROLE or RELEASE until a cure is discovered or DEATH BY SOME LETHAL MECHANISM for all perpetrators of this most heinous assault on our youth. We must, also, in a formal setting, teach our youth from the early developmental stages “sex education”, the very best parenting practices among other essential “life skills”, and the need, how, and why to report offenders to assist with their protection and bringing perpetrators to justice. And we must, in a formal setting, teach current parents, educators, as well as all other care providers how to recognize a problem when they encounter it. Please, join this War on Pedophiliacs as we seek all progressive methods to “end this right now”. Why? Pedophiliacs CAN’T help themselves and the next child could be yours. Or how else will our children ever respect us again?
Brought to you by
THE BOMANI GROUP
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“When Afrikans in the Americas and the world-over choose to critically examine the “received” ideas and biased perceptions of “reality” imposed on them by Europeans and choose to know reality for what it is – to create themselves through gaining a thorough knowledge of self, knowledge of the world, and through studying and acquiring power – they will then have attained the keys to their own liberation.”
Dr. Amos N. Wilson
1941 - 1995
“Blueprint For Black Power: A Moral, Political and Economic Imperative for the -Twenty-First Century”
Born and raised on the Southside of the music city of Memphis, Tenn., the artist simply called, “George", is Stone Records' smooth jazz male vocalist, songwriter, and producer. This new comer with the rich voice texture and soulful crooning will soon earn his place among male balladeers within the music industry with his soothing and melodic vocal interpretations. A multitalented and very versatile vocalist, songwriter, and producer, but very humble spirit, "George", is destined to become a contributor to the long musical legacy of Memphis with his brand of music.
Though influenced by a wide variety of world class vocalists, songwriters, and producers, George is all original in his presentations of what music is; smooth, soulful, sultry, sexy crooning, and melodically interpretive balladry…
"Volume I George", will be an invitation for the listener into a relaxing mood, regardless of your day, with a jazz so smooth, it’s therapeutic. Just listen…There is not a song without a message as "George" enters the industry with "…music for the soul" as his purpose. This is poetry. The look, the voice, his music, the vibe…feel it.
Have a taste at
Reverbnation.com/Georgethesmoothandsexycrooner
and pick up the debut single,
“I Want To Know”
from
“Volume I George”
when it drops
AUGUST 10th!
“Taste my funk (smile).”
George
Follow George on Twitter:
George
@George_StoneRec
"Strictly business for serious business minds…".
BOOK Of THE MONTH
“The Business Planning Guide, Ninth Edition” By David H. Bangs, Jr.
ISBN-13: 978-0793154098
ISBN-10: 079315409X
Mary & Modine's Music Shop (BMI)
Whether it’s Soul Contemporary Gospel, Smooth Jazz, Love Ballads, Commercial Jingles, Sound Tracks…
“…we’ve got that song you were looking for”
IT’S YOUR HEALTH
Psychological trauma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the mind that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event. Trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one's ability to cope, or integrate the emotions involved with that experience. A traumatic event involves one's experience, or repeating events of being overwhelmed that can be precipitated in weeks, years, or even decades as the person struggles to cope with the immediate circumstances, eventually leading to serious, long-term negative consequences.
However, trauma differs between individuals, according to their subjective experiences. People will react to similar events differently. In other words, not all people who experience a potentially traumatic event will actually become psychologically traumatized. This discrepancy in risk rate can be attributed to protective factors some individuals may have that enable them to cope with trauma. Some examples are mild exposure to stress early in life, resilience characteristics, and active seeking of help.
Definition
DSM-IV-TR defines trauma as direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury; threat to one's physical integrity, witnessing an event that involves the above experience, learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death, or injury experienced by a family member or close associate. Memories associated with trauma are implicit, pre-verbal and cannot be recalled, but can be triggered by stimuli from the in vivo environment. The person's response to aversive details of traumatic event involve intense fear, helplessness or horror. In children it is manifested as disorganized or agitative behaviors.
Trauma can be caused by a wide variety of events, but there are a few common aspects. There is frequently a violation of the person's familiar ideas about the world and their human rights, putting the person in a state of extreme confusion and insecurity. This is also seen when institutions that are depended upon for survival, violate, humiliate, betray, or cause major losses or separations.
Psychologically traumatic experiences often involve physical trauma that threatens one's survival and sense of security. Typical causes and dangers of psychological trauma include harassment, embarrassment, abandonment, abusive relationships, rejection, co-dependence, physical assault, sexual abuse, partner battery, employment discrimination, police brutality, judicial corruption and misconduct, bullying, paternalism, domestic violence, indoctrination, being the victim of an alcoholic parent, the threat or the witnessing of violence (particularly in childhood), life-threatening medical conditions, and medication-induced trauma. Catastrophic natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, large scale transportation accidents, house or domestic fire, motor vehicle accident, mass interpersonal violence like war, terrorist attacks or other mass tortures like sex trafficking, being taken as a hostage or kidnapped can also cause psychological trauma. Long-term exposure to situations such as extreme poverty or milder forms of abuse, such as verbal abuse, exist independently of physical trauma but still generate psychological trauma.
Some theories suggest childhood trauma can increase one's risk for mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and substance abuse. Childhood adversity is associated with neuroticism during adulthood. Parts of the brain in a growing child are developing in a sequential and hierarchical order, from least complex to most complex. The brain's neurons are designed to change in response to the constant external signals and stimulation, receiving and storing new information. This allows the brain to continually respond to its surroundings and promote survival. Our five main sensory signals contribute to the developing brain structure and its function. Infants and children begin to create internal representations of their external environment, and in particular, key attachment relationships, shortly after birth. Violent and victimized attachment figures impact infants' and young children's internal representations. The more frequent a specific pattern of brain neurons is activated, the more permanent the internal representation associated with the pattern becomes. This causes sensitization in the brain towards the specific neural network. Because of this sensitization, the neural pattern can be activated by decreasingly less external stimuli. Childhood abuse tends to have the most complications with long-term effects out of all forms of trauma because it occurs during the most sensitive and critical stages of psychological development. It could also lead to violent behavior, possibly as extreme as serial murder. For example, Hickey's Trauma-Control Model suggests that "childhood trauma for serial murderers may serve as a triggering mechanism resulting in an individual's inability to cope with the stress of certain events."
Often psychodynamic aspects of trauma are overlooked even by health professionals:
"If clinicians fail to look through a trauma lens and to conceptualize client problems as related possibly to current or past trauma, they may fail to see that trauma victims, young and old, organize much of their lives around repetitive patterns of reliving and warding off traumatic memories, reminders, and affects."
Symptoms
People who go through these types of extremely traumatic experiences often have certain symptoms and problems afterward. The severity of these symptoms depends on the person, the type of trauma involved, and the emotional support they receive from others. Reactions to and symptoms of trauma can be wide and varied, and differ in severity from person to person. A traumatized individual may experience one or several of them.
After a traumatic experience, a person may re-experience the trauma mentally and physically, hence avoiding trauma reminders, also called triggers, as this can be uncomfortable and even painful. They may turn to psychoactive substances including alcohol to try to escape the feelings. Re-experiencing symptoms are a sign that the body and mind are actively struggling to cope with the traumatic experience.
Triggers and cues act as reminders of the trauma, and can cause anxiety and other associated emotions. Often the person can be completely unaware of what these triggers are. In many cases this may lead a person suffering from traumatic disorders to engage in disruptive or self-destructive coping mechanisms, often without being fully aware of the nature or causes of their own actions. Panic attacks are an example of a psychosomatic response to such emotional triggers.
Consequently, intense feelings of anger may frequently surface, sometimes in inappropriate or unexpected situations, as danger may always seem to be present, as much as it is actually present and experienced from past events. Upsetting memories such as images, thoughts, or flashbacks may haunt the person, and nightmares may be frequent. Insomnia may occur as lurking fears and insecurity keep the person vigilant and on the lookout for danger, both day and night. Trauma doesn't only cause changes in one's daily functions but could also lead to morphological changes. Such epigenetic changes can be passed on to the next generations, thus making genetics as one of the components of the causes of psychological trauma. However, some people are born with or later develop protective factors such as genetics and sex that help lower their risk of psychological trauma.
The person may not remember what actually happened, while emotions experienced during the trauma may be re-experienced without the person understanding why (see Repressed memory). This can lead to the traumatic events being constantly experienced as if they were happening in the present, preventing the subject from gaining perspective on the experience. This can produce a pattern of prolonged periods of acute arousal punctuated by periods of physical and mental exhaustion. This can lead to mental health disorders like acute stress and anxiety disorder, traumatic grief, undifferentiated somatoform disorder, conversion disorders, brief psychotic disorder, borderline personality disorder, adjustment disorder...etc.
In time, emotional exhaustion may set in, leading to distraction, and clear thinking may be difficult or impossible. Emotional detachment, as well as dissociation or "numbing out", can frequently occur. Dissociating from the painful emotion includes numbing all emotion, and the person may seem emotionally flat, preoccupied, distant, or cold. Dissociation includes depersonalization disorder, dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder, etc.
Some traumatized people may feel permanently damaged when trauma symptoms do not go away and they do not believe their situation will improve. This can lead to feelings of despair, transient paranoid ideation, loss of self-esteem, profound emptiness, suicidality, and frequently depression. If important aspects of the person's self and world understanding have been violated, the person may call their own identity into question. Often despite their best efforts, traumatized parents may have difficulty assisting their child with emotion regulation, attribution of meaning, and containment of post-traumatic fear in the wake of the child's traumatization, leading to adverse consequences for the child. In such instances, it is in the interest of the parent(s) and child for the parent(s) to seek consultation as well as to have their child receive appropriate mental health services.
(For full copy of Stepping Stones, email [email protected])
HISTORICAL FACT OF THE WEEK
AFRICAN AMERICANS
“A People Of The Many Descendants Of Afrika”
Part I
Most African Americans are the descendants of captive Africans held in the United States from 1526 to 1865 and in some cases, several years after the signing of the Emancipation proclamation. African descendants from continental Africa, the Caribbean, South and Central America whose ancestors immigrated, or who immigrated to the U.S., also traditionally have been considered African American, as they share a common history of predominantly West African or Central African roots, the horrific Middle Passage of the Diaspora or Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, approximately 340 years of chattel slavery under bitterly brutal conditions including murder, torture, rape, and another 150 years of federally, state, and locally institutionalized political, economic, and social disenfranchisement, constant and violent terrorism by well known and organized ethnic based hate groups and lynch mobs, lengthy history of denial and deliberate mis-education, a perverting of history, a perverting of religions, forced participation in Jim Crow Era Laws, racial discrimination in every facet of life and in most cases every waking moment of the entire lives of many, many victims, common place and brutal beatings, murder, rape, extortion, mutilations, robbery, sodomy, kidnappings, false imprisonment, etc. by federal, state, and local law enforcement and public officials, a lengthy history of injustice from the federal, state, and local justice systems, political assassinations, constant infiltration and disruption of organized African American human and civil rights, political, and community activists groups, attempted genocide, infanticide, attempted clandestine mass sterilization, constant clandestine medical/psychological/sociopolitical experimentations, a lengthy history of constant threat, harassment, and duress from common place and overt violent acts of racism, mass murder, ongoing bio-terrorist attacks, ongoing “quiet” or silent wars, ongoing covert racism in specialized industries, etc., etc., etc., and still in a constant state of daily hostility and mental anguish while living in a situation ally prone overtly racist American society on this day while an African American President sits in the White House and the distorted history is evidence of the ongoing well seated ignorance and unrepentant evil that dwells here, for the sixth time in “true” American history.
It is these peoples, who in the past were referred to and identified collectively as the Colored, Mullatoes, Creole peoples, Negro, Black, and Afro-American and who now generally consider themselves African Americans. Their history is very, very rich with ingenuity, innovation, intelligence, courage, faith, perseverance, tolerance, unrelenting and most raw will, constant and multiple struggles and triumph after triumph under the most adverse conditions for the lengthiest time period ever forced upon human beings throughout the history of all of “man”. Their history should be celebrated by all and for all time for it is the very essence of resiliency and the definition of an unbreakable spirit.
Others who sometimes are referred to as African Americans, and who may self-identify as such in US government censuses, include relatively recent African immigrants from many areas of Africa, throughout Europe, the Caribbean Islands, Central and South America, across the Canadas, and elsewhere who self-identify as being of African descent.
The majority of African Americans descended from slaves, most of whom were sold into slavery as prisoners of war by African states or kidnapped by the slave traders, in order of scale: the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the European Americans. Slavery within Africa had already existed prior and after the arrival of the Europeans in various forms. Slavery was practiced in some parts of Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade though in the form of servitude in most cases and mamluks (slave armies) through the spread of Islam across the continent of Africa rather than what it had become through European exploitation to the Americas. With the exception of a few kingdoms, never before was it so brutal; so inhumane; so evil. The existing market for slaves in Africa was exploited and expanded by European powers in search of free labor for New World plantations. The “New World” is a phrase, coined by Amerigo Vespucci in the 16th century soon after the discovery of the Americas and is meant to include the lands of North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean Islands. The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa, although it was the largest in volume and intensity. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique:
"The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth). ... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean."
According to John K. Thornton, Europeans usually bought enslaved people who were captured in endemic warfare between African states. There were also Africans who had made a business out of capturing Africans from neighboring ethnic groups or war captives and selling them. Thornton says that Europeans provided a very large new market for an already existing trade. And while an African held in slavery in his own region of Africa might escape, a person shipped away was sure never to return. People living around the Niger River were transported from these markets to the coast and sold at European trading ports in exchange for muskets (matchlock between 1540–1606 but flintlock from then on) and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.
The Portuguese initially fostered a good relationship with the Kingdom of Kongo. Civil War within Kongo would lead to many of its subjects ending up as enslaved people in Portuguese and other European vessels.
Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonizers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside of their native continent. Off of the coast of Africa, European migrants, under the directions of the Kingdom of Castile, invaded and colonized the Canary Islands during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the guanches, to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean.
As historian John Thornton remarked,
"the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities."
Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, European, and at the time primarily Portuguese traders then began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean. Although initially successful in this venture, "it was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the west African coasts and river systems.
By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling the Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa... without engaging in hostilities." "[P]eaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence; for instance Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the Bissagos Islands in 1535, which was followed in 1571 when Portugal, supported by the Kingdom of Kongo, was able to capture the south-western region of Angola in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition to force the Portuguese out in 1591, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it would continue to occupy until the 20th century. Despite these incidences of occasional violence between African and European forces however, many African states were able to ensure that any trade went on in their own terms, imposing custom duties on foreign ships, and in one case that occurred in 1525, the Kongolese king, Afonso I, seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast.
Historians have widely debated the nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. Walter Rodney (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to the 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time. These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987). This idea of an unequal relationship was however contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period] was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe."
However, it was not just along the west African coast, but also in the Americas that Europeans began searching for commercial viability. European Christendom first became aware of the existence of the Americas after a lost expedition led by Christopher Columbus in 1492 wandered onto its shores. As in Africa however, the indigenous peoples widely resisted European incursions into their territory during the first few centuries of contact, being somewhat effective in doing so. In the Caribbean, Spanish settlers were only able to secure control over the larger islands by allying themselves with certain Native American tribal groups in their conflicts with neighboring societies. Groups such as the Kulinago of the Lesser Antilles and the Carib and Arawak people of (what is now) Venezuela launched effective counter attacks against Spanish bases in the Caribbean, with native-built boats, which were smaller and better suited to the seas around the islands, achieving success on a number of cases at defeating the Spanish ships.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, colonists from Europe also settled on the otherwise uninhabited islands of the Atlantic such as Madeira and the Azores, where with no slaves to sell, exporting products for export became the main industry.
The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the First and Second Atlantic Systems. The First Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires; it accounted for only slightly more than 3% of all Atlantic slave trade. It started (on a significant scale) in about 1502 and lasted until 1580 when Portugal was temporarily united with Spain. While the Portuguese traded enslaved people themselves, the Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the license to trade enslaved people to their colonies. During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era, although some Dutch, English, and French traders also participated in the slave trade. After the union, Portugal came under Spanish legislation that prohibited it from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier, and become a target for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share to the Dutch, British and French. The Second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly British, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean colonies and Brazil, as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World. Only slightly more than 3% of the enslaved people exported were traded between 1450 and 1600, 16% in the 17th century.
It is estimated than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa. The 19th century saw a reduction of the slave trade, that accounted to 28.5% of the total Atlantic slave trade.
European colonists initially practiced systems of both bonded labor with Europeans and "Indian" slavery, enslaving many of the natives of the New World. For a variety of reasons, Africans replaced Native Americans as the main population of enslaved people in the Americas. In some cases, such as on some of the Caribbean Islands, warfare and diseases such as smallpox eliminated the natives completely. In other cases, such as in South Carolina, Virginia, and New England, the need for alliances with native tribes coupled with the availability of enslaved Africans at affordable prices (beginning in the early 18th century for these colonies) resulted in a shift away from Native American slavery.
The first side of the triangle of trade during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of enslaved people from 1440 to about 1833. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. These included guns, ammunition and other factory made goods. The second leg of the triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave-labor plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum. However, Brazil (the main importer of slaves) manufactured these goods in South America and directly traded with African ports, thus not taking part in a triangular trade.
The Atlantic Slave Trade was the result of, among other things, labor shortage, itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. Native peoples were at first utilized as slave labor by Europeans, until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases. Alternative sources of labor, such as indentured servitude utilizing Europeans, failed to provide a sufficient workforce.
Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on the European mainland. A vast amount of labor was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labor to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as 'the Slave Coast'), and later Central Africa, became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labor.
The basic reason for the constant shortage of labor was that, with large amounts of cheap land available and lots of landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves after a relatively short time of working off their debts, thus increasing the need for workers.
Thomas Jefferson attributed the use of slave labor in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labor:
"For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor."
Africans themselves played a role in the slave trade. The Africans that participated in the slave trade sold their captive or prisoners of war to European buyers. Selling captives or prisoners was common practice amongst Africans and Arabs during that era. The prisoners and captives that were sold were usually from neighboring or enemy ethnic groups. These captive slaves were not considered as part of the ethnic group or 'tribe' and kings held no particular loyalty to them. At times, kings and businessmen would sell the criminals in their society to the buyers so that they could no longer commit crimes in that area. Most other slaves were obtained from kidnappings, or through raids that occurred at gunpoint through joint ventures with the Europeans. Some Africans kings refused to sell any of their captives or criminals. King Jaja of Opobo refused to do business with the slavers completely. However, Kimani Nehusi notes that with the rise of a large commercial slave trade, driven by European needs, enslaving your enemy became less a consequence of war, and more and more a reason to go to war.
Although Europeans were the major market for slaves, Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and fierce African resistance. The enslaved people would be brought to coastal outposts where they would be traded for goods. Enslavement became a major by-product of internal war in Africa as nation states expanded through military conflicts in many cases through deliberate sponsorship of benefiting Western European nations. During such periods of rapid state formation or expansion (Asante and Dahomey being good examples), slavery formed an important element of political life which the Europeans exploited: As Queen Sara's plea to the Portuguese courts revealed, the system became "sell to the Europeans or be sold to the Europeans". In Africa, convicted criminals could be punished by enslavement, a punishment which became more prevalent as slavery became more lucrative. Since most of these nations did not have a prison system, convicts were often sold or used in the scattered local domestic slave market.
The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the last two decades of the 18th century, during and following the Kongo Civil War. Wars amongst tiny states along the Niger River's Igbo-inhabited region and the accompanying banditry also spiked in this period. Another reason for surplus supply of enslaved people was major warfare conducted by expanding states such as the kingdom of Dahomey, the Oyo Empire and Asante Empire.
The majority of European conquests, raids and enslavements occurred toward the end or after the transatlantic slave trade. One exception to this is the conquest of Ndongo in present day Angola where Ndongo's slaves, warriors, free citizens and even nobility were taken into slavery by the Portuguese conquerors after the fall of the state.
Forms of slavery varied both in Africa and in the New World. In general, slavery in Africa was not heritable – that is, the children of slaves were free – while in the Americas slaves' children were legally enslaved at birth. This was connected to another distinction: slavery in West Africa was not reserved for racial or religious minorities, as it was in European colonies, although the case was otherwise in places such as Somalia, where Bantus were taken as slaves for the ethnic Somalis.
The treatment of slaves in Africa was more variable than in the Americas. At one extreme, the kings of Dahomey routinely slaughtered slaves in hundreds or thousands in sacrificial rituals, and the use of slaves as human sacrifices was also known in Cameroon. On the other hand, slaves in other places were often treated as part of the family, "adopted children," with significant rights including the right to marry without their masters' permission. In the Americas, slaves were denied the right to marry freely and even humane masters did not accept them as equal members of the family; however, while grisly executions of slaves were commonplace in the Americas, New World slaves were not subject to arbitrary ritual sacrifice. New World slaves were treated as livestock; they were very useful and expensive enough to maintain and care for, but still the property of their owners.
There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to kidnap, buy, and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere. The number of enslaved people sold to the New World varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more enslaved people than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 15 million enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:
? Senegambia, encompassing the coast from the Senegal River to the Casamance River, where captives as far away as the Upper and Middle Niger River Valley were sold: 4.8%
? The Sierra Leone region included territory from the Casamance to the Assini River in the modern countries of Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and C?te d'Ivoire: 5.9%
? The Gold Coast region consisted of mainly modern Ghana and east of C?te d'Ivoire: 10.4%
? The Bight of Benin region stretched from the Volta River to the Benue River in modern Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria: 20.2%
? The Bight of Biafra extended from southeastern Nigeria through Cameroon into Gabon: 14.6%
? West Central Africa, the largest region, included the Congo and Angola: 39.4%
? The region of Mozambique-Madagascar included the modern countries of Mozambique, parts of Tanzania and Madagascar: 4.7%
There were over 173 city-states and kingdoms in the African regions affected by the slave trade between 1502 and 1853, when Brazil became the last Atlantic import nation to outlaw the slave trade. Of those 173, no fewer than 68 could be deemed nation states with political and military infrastructures that enabled them to dominate their neighbors. Nearly every present-day nation had a pre-colonial predecessor, sometimes an African Empire with which European traders had to barter and eventually battle.
The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.
1. The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
2. The Mandé of Upper Guinea
3. The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
4. The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
5. The Wolof of Senegal and The Gambia
6. The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
7. The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
8. The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria
9. The Chamba of Cameroon
10. The Makua of Mozambique
The transatlantic slave trade resulted in a vast and as yet still unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside of America. Approximately 2 to 4 million Africans died during their transport to the New World More died soon upon their arrival. The amount of life lost in the actual procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the amount actually enslaved.
The savage nature of the trade led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. The following figures do not include deaths of enslaved Africans as a result of their actual labor, slave revolts or diseases they caught while living among New World populations.
A database compiled in the late 1990s put the figure for the transatlantic slave trade at more than 20 million people. Most historians now agree that at least 20 million slaves left the continent between the 15th and 19th century, but 10 to 20% died on board ships. Thus a figure of 18 million enslaved people transported to the Americas is the nearest demonstrable figure historians can produce. Besides the slaves who died on the Middle Passage itself, even more slaves probably died in the slave raids in Africa. The death toll from four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade is estimated at 10 million. According to William Rubinstein,
"... of these 10 million estimated dead blacks, possibly 6 million were killed by other blacks in African tribal wars and raiding parties aimed at securing slaves for transport to America."
According to Dr. Kimani Nehusi, the presence of European slavers affected the way in which the legal code in African societies responded to offenders. Crimes traditionally punishable by some other form of punishment became punishable by enslavement and sale to slave traders. According to David Stannard's American Holocaust, 50% of African deaths occurred in Africa as a result of wars between native kingdoms, which produced the majority of slaves. This includes not only those who died in battles, but also those who died as a result of forced marches from inland areas to slave ports on the various coasts. The practice of enslaving enemy combatants and their villages was widespread throughout Western and West Central Africa, although wars were rarely started to procure slaves. The slave trade was largely a by-product of tribal and state warfare as a way of removing potential dissidents after victory or financing future wars. However, some African groups proved particularly adept and brutal at the practice of enslaving such as Oyo, Benin, Igala, Kaabu, Asanteman, Dahomey, the Aro Confederacy and the Imbangala war bands.
In letters written by the Manikongo, Nzinga Mbemba Afonso, to the King Jo?o III of Portugal, he writes that Portuguese merchandise flowing in is what is fueling the trade in Africans. He requests the King of Portugal to stop sending merchandise but should only send missionaries. In one of his letter he writes:
"Each day the traders are kidnapping our people—children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family. This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated. We need in this kingdom only priests and schoolteachers, and no merchandise, unless it is wine and flour for Mass. It is our wish that this Kingdom not be a place for the trade or transport of slaves. Many of our subjects eagerly lust after Portuguese merchandise that your subjects have brought into our domains. To satisfy this inordinate appetite, they seize many of our black free subjects.... They sell them. After having taken these prisoners [to the coast] secretly or at night..... As soon as the captives are in the hands of white men they are branded with a red-hot iron.”
Despite its establishment within his kingdom, Afonso believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally enslaved persons to sell, he wrote in to King Jo?o III in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice.
The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise would have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighboring peoples. Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French. Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast".
King Gezo of Dahomey said in the 1840s:
“The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…”
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