Throughout black history month I will be highlighting some little facts (some known, some not), in African and African-American history. I hope you enjoy.
Friday, February 08, 2008
* Contrary to popular belief, African kings were not as willing to sell their people into slavery as people think. The argument of, "Well Africans sold their own people!" is ridiculous. There wasn't CNN back then, it took some time to realize Europeans were creating this form of chattel slavery. Many kings protested and in 1526 King Affonso of Congo wrote to King João of Portugal:
"Each day the traders are kidnapping our people of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family [King Affonso's nephews and grandchildren had been kidnapped while en route to Portugal for religious education and sent into slavery in Brazil] . . . This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated . . . . It is our wish that this Kingdom not be a place for the trade or transport of slaves."
King João responded with: "You . . . tell me that you want no slave-trading in your domains, because this trade is depopulating your country. . . . The Portuguese there, on the contrary, tell me how vast the Congo is, and how it is so thickly populated that it seems as if no slave has ever left."
* Southern Homestead Law in June 1866:
You know the term 40 acres and a mule? This is part of where the term comes from. Good white folks decided to give African-Americans 47 million acres of land that was stolen from American Indians. Over 40,000 entries were filed, however, by 1876 that Southern Homestead Law was repudiated and what land that was given away, people were thrown off the land.
* Citizenship was not fully guaranteed to African-Americans till 1870. However, American Indians had to wait till the Nationality Act of 1940 for citizenship.
* While the thirteenth amendment banned slavery, there was a little wording that gave some leeway, which was "except when it is used as a form of punishment". This glitch in the thirteenth amendment allowed generations of black men to be locked away for basically no crime at all. Many people explain this is one of the reasons why so many black men are in prisons today.
Posted by Clay ::
11:09 AM ::