posted
Ok!! not wanting to disrupt or derail Doug's thread I made this in response to Hammered statement:
quote:Oh yes lets all make victims out of the Indians as well. These poeple we nothing like african slaves. They actually fought bravely for their way of life to the end and should be admired for that. Not everyone in history wins but it does not mean they are not respected.
Unfortunatly that view^ is shared by many who don't know better...no excuse for Hammered though he is supposed to be of academia..of an era he specialized in. Yanga, Gaspar (c. 1545- ?) Known as the Primer Libertador de America or “first liberator of the Americas,” Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the Americas earliest free black settlements.
Rumored to be of royal lineage from West Africa, Yanga was an enslaved worker in the sugarcane plantations of Veracruz, Mexico. In 1570 he, along with a group of followers, escaped, fled to the mountainous regions near Córdoba, and established a settlement of former slaves or palenque. They remained there virtually unmolested by Spanish authorities for nearly 40 years. Taking the role of spiritual and military leader, he structured the agricultural community in an ordered capacity, allowing its growth and occupation of various locations.
During that time, Yanga and his band, also known as cimarrónes, were implicated in the disruption and looting of trade goods along the Camino Real (Royal Road) between Veracruz and Mexico City. They were also held responsible for attacking nearby haciendas and kidnapping indigenous women. Perceived as dangerous to the colonial system of slavery through their daring actions against royal commerce and authority, New Spain’s viceroy called for the annihilation of Yanga's palenque. Destroying the community and its leader would send a message to other would-be rebellious slaves that Spain’s authority over them was absolute.
In 1609, Spanish authorities sent a well-armed militia to defeat Yanga and his palenque but were defeated. Yanga’s surprise victory over the Spanish heightened the confidence of his warriors and the frustration in Mexico City.
After defeating other Spanish forces sent again the palenque, Yanga offered to make peace but with eleven conditions, the most important being recognition of the freedom of all of the palenque’s residents prior to 1608, acknowledgment of the settlement as a legal entity which Yanga and his descendants would govern, and the prohibition of any Spanish in the community. Yanga, in turn, promised to serve and pay tribute to the Spanish crown. After years of negotiations, in 1618, the town of San Lorenzo de Los Negros was officially recognized by Spanish authorities as a free black settlement. It would later be referred to as Yanga, named after its founder. Sources: www.blackpast.org/?q=gah/yanga-gaspar-c-1545
Jamaican Maroons Jamaican Maroon* Captain Leonard Parkinson, 1796
The history of the Maroons primarily is the saga of Africans who refused to live in slavery, and it begins on the island of Jamaica with the fleeing of the Spanish in 1655. The name Maroon is the British corruption of the Spanish cimarrones, meaning wild or untamed. Living in inaccessible regions of Jamaica, the numbers of the Maroons grew as more and more runaway slaves, this time from the new British plantations, flocked to their cause, and with their continual raiding of the British plantations, they rapidly became a thorn in the side of the British colonists. Unique among all Africans that were brought to the New World as slaves, the Maroons earned for themselves an autonomy that no other African slaves could. (Wikipedia) In 1795-6 the Maroons of Jamaica revolted against the colonial government. The revolt failed. At the request of Jamaica about six hundred Maroons were then transported to Nova Scotia and given assistance in settling here. In 1800 virtually all of them emigrated to Sierra Leone. www.brh.org.uk/gallery/slavery.html King Zumbi Quilombos — Our forefathers bequeathed to us the oral tradition! telling one to the other the history of a people, that is, a group of black slaves who fled from the plantations in the northeastern region of Brazil and founded an independent village. That place of difficult access, called Palmares, rests in Serra da Barriga, which, today in the State of Alagoas, was at that time a capitancy of the state of Pernambuco.
The black men and women, who escaped from the terrible holocaust of slavery, were called the quilombolas. They rallied together the indigenous people and the white allies, and the free Republics that were formed by these groups were called quilombos.
Palmares — History records many qullombos; nevertheless, the Quilombo of Palmares, the greatest in extension and duration and spreading across various points of the sierra, endured practically 100 years, between 1600 and 1695. Around 1654, the Quilombo of Palmares was composed of many villages where the escaped Africans lived in freedom. Among them were:
Macaco — in Serra da Barriga, with 8,000 habitants Amaro — in the northeast of Serinhadm, with 5,000 habitants Sucupira — 80krn from Macaco Zumbi — to the northeast of Porto Calvo Osenga — 20km from Macaco The total population of Palmares in that period reached 20,000 habitants who represented 15% of Brazil's population. With the quilombos, the maintenance of African identity and of the costumes functioned as the cement of the communities, stimulating numerous slave escapes from the surrounding sugar plantations. In Palmares, the Africans would sing:
Rest Africans, whites won't come here, rest Africans, whites won't come here, if they come, to rags they will go. Zumbi — One of the most famous leaders of Palmares was Zumibi, who was born in 1655 in one of the villages of Palmares. As a child, he was captured by soldiers and given to Father Antonio Melo from the parish of Porto Calvo. He studied Portuguese and Latin, was an altar boy, and was baptized with the name of Francisco. At 15 years old, in 1670, he fled from the parish and returned to Palmares. He became a great leader by having overcome ordeals and by not "whitening" himself. Courageous, with the capacity to organize and command, he became a myth among African Brazilians — not a hidden myth, but one that revealed. Zumbi means: the force and spirit of the present .
The defeat of Palmares was only possible when the authorities of the colony appealed to the frontier explorer, Domingos Jorge Velho, who armed an expedition against Palmares in 1694. After much fighting, Zumbi was martyred and died on November 20, 1695. www.tributetoafrica.com/onlinestore/Zumbi.html
Nat Turner: Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, the week before Gabriel was hanged. While still a young child, Nat was overheard describing events that had happened before he was born. This, along with his keen intelligence, and other signs marked him in the eyes of his people as a prophet "intended for some great purpose." A deeply religious man, he "therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped [him]self in mystery, devoting [his] time to fasting and praying."
In 1821, Turner ran away from his overseer, returning after thirty days because of a vision in which the Spirit had told him to "return to the service of my earthly master." The next year, following the death of his master, Samuel Turner, Nat was sold to Thomas Moore. Three years later, Nat Turner had another vision. He saw lights in the sky and prayed to find out what they meant. Then "... while laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven, and I communicated it to many, both white and black, in the neighborhood; and then I found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens."
On May 12, 1828, Turner had his third vision: "I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first... And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when I should commence the great work, and until the first sign appeared I should conceal it from the knowledge of men; and on the appearance of the sign... I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons."
At the beginning of the year 1830, Turner was moved to the home of Joseph Travis, the new husband of Thomas Moore's widow. His official owner was Putnum Moore, still a young child. Turner described Travis as a kind master, against whom he had no complaints.
Then, in February, 1831, there was an eclipse of the sun. Turner took this to be the sign he had been promised and confided his plan to the four men he trusted the most, Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam. They decided to hold the insurrection on the 4th of July and began planning a strategy. However, they had to postpone action because Turner became ill.
On August 13, there was an atmospheric disturbance in which the sun appeared bluish-green. This was the final sign, and a week later, on August 21, Turner and six of his men met in the woods to eat a dinner and make their plans. At 2:00 that morning, they set out to the Travis household, where they killed the entire family as they lay sleeping. They continued on, from house to house, killing all of the white people they encountered. Turner's force eventually consisted of more than 40 slaves, most on horseback.
By about mid-day on August 22, Turner decided to march toward Jerusalem, the closest town. By then word of the rebellion had gotten out to the whites; confronted by a group of militia, the rebels scattered, and Turner's force became disorganized. After spending the night near some slave cabins, Turner and his men attempted to attack another house, but were repulsed. Several of the rebels were captured. The remaining force then met the state and federal troops in final skirmish, in which one slave was killed and many escaped, including Turner. In the end, the rebels had stabbed, shot and clubbed at least 55 white people to death.
Nat Turner hid in several different places near the Travis farm, but on October 30 was discovered and captured. His "Confession," dictated to physician Thomas R. Gray, was taken while he was imprisoned in the County Jail. On November 5, Nat Turner was tried in the Southampton County Court and sentenced to execution. He was hanged, and then skinned, on November 11.
In total, the state executed 55 people, banished many more, and acquitted a few. The state reimbursed the slaveholders for their slaves. But in the hysterical climate that followed the rebellion, close to 200 black people, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were murdered by white mobs. In addition, slaves as far away as North Carolina were accused of having a connection with the insurrection, and were subsequently tried and executed.
The state legislature of Virginia considered abolishing slavery, but in a close vote decided to retain slavery and to support a repressive policy against black people, slave and free. www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h501b.html
A few months after Turner’s Rebellion a much larger insurrection in Jamaica (”Baptist War”) involving 60,000 slaves broke out. This was followed by England’s decision to abolish slavery in the West Indies. My point is that to understand the fears of white Southerners (slaveowner and nonslaveowners alike) we have to consider the few rebellions that took place throughout the colonial and antebellum periods in a much broader context. Information flowed back and forth freely first through word of mouth in port cities and later via the printed word. White Southerners did not have to have seen the above woodcut, which was published in Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene Which Was Witnessed in Southampton County to understand the dangers of insurrection or their role in preventing such a nightmare. By 1831 many white Southerners had come to view their world from a defensive posture which acknowledged the threat to slavery as stemming from ruthless abolitionists and a distant government. cwmemory.com/.../ The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the only successful slave revolt in history. It established Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Haitian Creole language- and French language-speaking Caribbean country. Along with the Dominican Republic, it occupies the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago.... as the first republicRepublic A republic is a state or country that is not led by a hereditary monarch but in which the people have an impact on its government. The word originates from the Latin term res publica.... ruled by blacks. At the time of the revolution, Haiti was known as Saint-DomingueSaint-Domingue Saint-Domingue was a French colonization of the Americas colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola from 1659 to 1804, when it became the independent nation of Haiti.... and was a colony of FranceFrance France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France.... . Through the revolution, people of African ancestry freed themselves from French colonization and from slaverySlavery Slavery is a form of forced labor where a person is compelled to Labor for another . Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive Remuneration in return for their labor.... . Although hundreds of rebellions occurred during the slave era, only the revolt on Saint-Domingue, beginning in 1791, was successful. Amistad revolt On June 27, 1839, La Amistad ("Friendship"), a Spanish vessel, departed from the port of Havana, Cuba, for Puerto Principe, also in Cuba (then a Spanish colony). The masters of La Amistad were the captain Ramón Ferrer, José Ruiz, and Pedro Montez, all of Spanish origin. With Ferrer was his personal slave Antonio. Ruiz was transporting 49 African slaves, entrusted to him by the Governor-General of Cuba. Montez held four additional African slaves, also entrusted to him by the Governor-General of Cuba.[1] On July 2, 1839, one of the Africans, Cinqué, who had learned metalworking, managed to free himself and the other captives using an iron file. It had been found and kept by a woman on the Tecora (the ship that had transported them illegally as slaves from Africa to Cuba).
The Mende Africans killed the ship's cook, Celestino, who had told them that they were to be killed and eaten by their captors. The slaves also dispatched the vessel's captain in a struggle in which two of the rebelling slaves perished. Two sailors escaped in a lifeboat. The slaves spared the lives of the two crew members who could steer the ship, José Ruiz and Pedro Montez, upon the understanding that they would return the ship to Africa. They also spared the captain's personal slave, Antonio.
The navigator deceived the Africans and steered the Amistad north along the coast of the United States where the ship was sighted repeatedly. They dropped anchor half a mile off eastern Long Island, New York, on August 26, 1839, at Culloden Point. Some of the Africans went on shore to procure water and provisions from the hamlet of Montauk, New York. The vessel was discovered by the United States naval brig USS Washington.
Really I could go on and on untill my laptop burst into flames..so many others I did not add but maybe some else can...like Sojourner Truth,Harrett Tubman,Nanny of the Maroons,Denmark Vessey..etc, you see Hammered we did not just survived but strived..all through those years through the Klan,the Jim crow,everything and then some we are still here up in your face..Bravely we fought and did not die.. we just multiply..because now we march through YOUR HOOD WITH A MILLION MFKERS SO HOW U LIKE ME NOWPosts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Loved the examination of the Phenomena throughout the Americas.
I think that's the way history should be looked at Dr Winters..for what happend in one region affected events in another, did you know that the louisiana perchase was only made possible by the defeat of Napoleons forces in Haiti,after all that was it's most richest colony, and Jamaican ex-slaves sometimes moved back and forth between Cuba,Haiti and Jamaica, this is an aspect largely understudied.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Your post greatly over states slave rebellions, especially in the united States. There were some but for the most part the millions of slaves in the United States were docile. There is no question that the rebellion in Hati impacted Napoleon in terms of the Louisiana Purchase but to say that it was the decidind factor may be an over statement. No doubt Napoleon had his hands full in Europe. When Monroe and Livingston went to France it was clear that if Frnace did not sell the territory to the United States they would have to fight to keep it. Prsident Jefferson was prepared to take it by force if the French would not sell it. Napoleon was not in a position to be able to fight in the new World snd win what amounted to a world war in Europe. That fact was more important in my view than what happened in Hati.
For a great work on slavery check out Roll Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Your post greatly over states slave rebellions,
OH really??..slave rebellions were the pre-curser to independence from Europeans for most of the Americas.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
They may have been a precurser but they were not common place in most areas. Slavery in the United States was not ended by slave rebellions, it ended in June of 1865 following the Civil War. Even as late as 1862 Lincoln was prepared to leave slavery in place if the south would rejoin the union. In fact, he did leave slavery in place in four union slave states, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri.
-------------------- The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of tyrants. Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
^^ excellent work Brada. And indeed some of the South American revolutions needed slave help to succeed as documented in Richard Price's books on the Maroons. Bolivar I think Price says had a significant slice of troops that were black in some of his campaigns. In the United States there are over 200 DOCUMENTED incidents of slave rebellion and revolt ranging from poisonings to small scale rebellions confined to one plantation, to bigger events. And that's the ones we know about.
Not as widely known as the famous Jamaican Maroons are also the Maroons of the United States. There were several bands of them throughout the deep south, particularly in Louisiana and the Carolinas. One old account I read records an incident where a slave patrol cornered several of them while they were fishing. Outnumbered two to one the Maroons attacked- in the words of the recorder - "fighting like Spartans." Some died, some were captured, some escaped.
Course in Florida you had those blacks who joined the Seminoles to continue guerrilla warfare against the system. Can't remember the main players in Florida though. Didn't it cost the US gubment 15 mil to pacify the Seminoles and their black allies? Something like that I read here on ES.
I would recommend Richard Price and Alvin Thompson and also John Thornton's Warfare in Atlantic Africa. Thornton 99 advances the theory that some of the fighting operations of the Maroons were based on military training and skills they had acquired in Africa before they were taken to the Americas. He records an incident on one of the small Caribbean island where a band of Jolof escaped and burnt their plantation down. Maneuvering away from the plantation, they were confronted with a troop of Spanish cavalry. Rather than scatter and flee like most slave escapees however, the Jolof grouped themselves under commanders, and armed only with stones and clubs stood their ground in a compact bloc against two successive charges of the Spanish lancers. At the third, they finally dispersed into the bush. Thornton argues that this unusual grouping, and the presence of designated commanders represented a disciplined regimental formation that could only have been implemented by men who had previous military experience in Africa.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Good information. I wonder where this fighting spirit has gone. I look at the Surinamese and wonder what has happened to them. Some of them defending Dutch views to me, the Dutch their former slave masters still re-colonising them. Their eternal foe dominating the Surinam news media where as a writer I cannot speak directly to my people but are my words filtered and distorted by some Dutch bitch.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Egmond, It might have something to do with the fact that blacks make up less than half the population. What would you expect them to do?
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Maroons of Suriname The Dutch captured the British colony of Suriname during the Second Anglo-Dutch War(1667), and under the WIC it was developed as a plantation slave society. It was a primary destination for the Dutch slave trade, yet unusually it never experienced a general slave rebellion. The regime was one of extreme and deliberate brutality, even by the standards of the time. Mortality was so high that although 300,000 slaves were imported between 1668 and 1823, the ravaged population was never able to grow beyond a figure of 50,000. 'Maroonage' emerged as the main method of resistence. Fugitive slaves, 'Maroons' fled inland, and formed permanent communities. There is nothing unusual about this in any slave society, except for its scope. The Suriname Maroons numbered between 25-47 thousand in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and engaged the Dutch in over 50 years of gureilla warfare. The resistance proved so strong that the colonial government acknowlged their virtual independence in the 1760s. The Scottish-Dutch soldier John Gabriel Stedman witnessed the oppression of the slaves during a campaign against the maroons in 1774. His book a Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, with vivid illustrations by William Blake and Francesco Bartolozzi was taken to heart by abolitionists, through Stedman's real sympathies are thought to have been with reform rather than abolition. faculty.mdc.edu/.../Racism.htm As far as pride and spirit these folk looks like they still go some.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
They may have some pride but they have no money. You might notice they have no shoes. In 2009 they are powerless.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:For a great work on slavery check out Roll Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese
Hammer you wind bag. A more appropriate book by Professor Genovese would be Rebellion to Revolution don't you think? You constantly cite Genovese but did you ever read his books? If you did you'd know how massive the slave rebellions were in the Americas; some of the rebellions among enslaved muslims he even called Jihads! Furthermore Genovese speculated that the slave rebellions in the Americas may have radicalized Europeans especially the Jacobins.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:They may have some pride but they have no money. You might notice they have no shoes. In 2009 they are powerless
But they live free..and have done so for centuries.
And if the so-called modern economy truly collapse..they would still be A.OK..
Zarahan Floridia was almost lost to the expanding United State because...check-out ST Agustine..or the Fort Of The Negroes...these are the kinds of history that Hammered never teaches his studients.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
19th century American history is my field. I teach no fewer than three classes in that peopled every semester, including this one. I cited that book because it gives the lay person a good over view of the subject. I also did not say i agreed with everything he thinks. You may be aware his Marxist views influnce his take on various subjects. I fail to appreciate the link between slave rebellions and the Jacobins. The French revolution operated off of a different dynamic than one would find in slave societies. Anyone is free to make that connection if they wish but it would have from a weak thread.
Further, In the united States the average slave holder would live his entire life and never see a slave rebellion.
-------------------- The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of tyrants. Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:I fail to appreciate the link between slave rebellions and the Jacobins. The French revolution operated off of a different dynamic than one would find in slave societies.
Then you haven't read the Black Jacobins by James either. Anyhow your failure to see how the slave rebellions could influence the thinking of people who were not enslaved demonstrates the poverty of your mind. It is not an unsual thing in human affairs: Note how Marx whose writings were intended for a capitalist economy had his greatest influence amongst agrarian Russia and China.
But lets not digress. The point of my post above is that you probably have knowledge of how massive the rebellions were in the Americas but chose to take the low road and act ignorant.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sure, they were affected by it. They instituted stronger repressive measures to control it and had congress pass stiff laws to deal with runaway slaves. You simply cannot compare slave rebellions in the Islands to the climate in America. Slavery was sanctioned by the laws of the nation and the Constitution and both congress and the white house was controlled by people who would not hesitate to defend the slaveholder at both the state and national level.
-------------------- The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of tyrants. Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
I think that's the way history should be looked at Dr Winters..for what happend in one region affected events in another, did you know that the louisiana perchase was only made possible by the defeat of Napoleons forces in Haiti,after all that was it's most richest colony...
Indeed, other observers agree...
My own view leans toward a version of the Saint-Domingue-center theory. I believe that Napoleon wanted to re-establish control over Saint-Domingue and believed that French Louisiana was essential to that plan. Further, the United States was certainly a beneficiary of the successful Haitian Revolution. Since Saint-Domingue, and not Louisiana nor the United States was the center piece of Napoleon's West Indian strategy, once Saint- Domingue was lost to France, Louisiana became an uninteresting and untenable piece of real estate. On this view the United States is indirectly indebted to Haiti for one of the best real estate buys in history--the Louisiana Purchase, but the U.S. was not really "saved" from Napoleonic domination or invasion by the Haitians' successful revolution. - Bob Corbett of Webster University
Still...
"Leclerc's forces quickly took most of the coastal towns, though Haitians burned many of them before they retreated. Eventually a decisive moment came as Dessalines and his second in command, Lamartiniere, were asked to hold the small former British fort, Crete-a-Pierrot, an arsenal of the Haitians.
Both sides claimed victory. It sort of depends on what measure one uses. The French ended up with the fort, but they lost twice as many men as the Haitians, and were shocked to discover how well the blacks could fight in a pitched battle. The Haitians took great solace in their ability to hold off the French for so long. For the rest of the war they used Crete-a-Pierrot as a rallying cry. After abandoning the fort, the Haitians retreated into the Cahos mountains and fought a guerrilla war from then on..." - Bob Corbett; related linkPosts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Explorer again I like what you have done with your place...If you havn't yet I highly recommend the book Black Jacobins..by ClR James Apocalypse alluded to..really great stuff.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
StTigray,becareful how old are your kid? the book is pretty graphic,so you might want to do a thourgh read and break it down some what before class because it involves touchie subjects such as lite-skinned elites..who for the most part teamed up with the French..repeatedly and was betrayed by them repeatedly untill they were force to side with the Dark-skinned blacks so be prepared to deal with that.
As to the so-called docility of Blacks in the slavetocracy..check this out:
Not only did the Maroons confine themselves to those areas they considered their own purlieus,but now they "kept no bounds".They came down openly to make incursions on plantations all over the Island.In the event, the main roads became so infested with them,as in the days of Robin Hood,that travel,even in broad day light,became a most hazardous undertakingto the slavetocracy:"The insecurity of our country",wrote a Jamaican assemblyman,"occasioned by our slaves in rebellion against us whoes insolence is grown so great that we cannot say we are sure of another day and robbings and murders so common in our capital roads,that is with the utmost hazard we travel them.
Two weeks after the last defeat,about eighty or ninety Maroones took possession of a plantation and two penns(mixed farms consisting of crops and livestock,It's usage dating from the seventeenth century in Jamaica)in the northeast.Fifty soldiers were sent out against them but were beaten,after killing only one rebel.even after being reinforced by with fifty more soldiers ,they refused to attack,pleading insufficient strengh,but the authorities were unable to spare more soldiers from gaurding Port Antonio,thus the enemy was left in possession of "great plenty of cattle and other provisions."
Maroon power grew,and their attitude could be summed up by one word-contempt. "These constant successes," complained the council and assembly,"have emboldened the rebels to that degree that they now despise our power and instead of hiding themselves as they did formely did in those mountains and covered places,they openly appear in arms, and are daily increasing by the desertion of other slaves whom they incourage and intice over to them and have actually taken 3 plantations within 8 miles of Port Antonio and by the sea,by which means theymay at anytime cut off communucation by land with that harbour and town and the new settler in the neighbourhood have been obliged to retire thither with their families for protection."
The sitituation had reached a point where "no man at the north-side"could be said to be the master of a slave-many of them not doing half the work the used to do"nor dare their master punished them for the least disgust will cause them to make their escape and join the rebels as many from several plantations frequantly do.
Under these deplorable circumstances they told the Lord commissioners,they must address his majesty for aid and assistance,without which,since they were already under the greatest of extremity,They would either have to abondoned the Island or became "victems of these merciless people".
From the book The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796 Mavis C.Campbell..another great read highly recommened.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:They may have some pride but they have no money. You might notice they have no shoes. In 2009 they are powerless
But they live free..and have done so for centuries. And if the so-called modern economy truly collapse..they would still be A.OK..
Its not clear when this photograph of shoeless Marrons was taken, but they have come a long way from being outsiders to Surinam society. In fact they rule, are represented in parlement and are cabinet ministers. The streets of Paramaribo are dominated by Marrons displaying afrocentric hairstyles and fashions. They dominate the tropical jungle tours. During a recent flooding of the interior where the marrons have their base, city folks got a idea of the big houses and such they built and that they are not as poor, as they claim to be: according to city folks.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hammer wrote: ---------------------------- Your post greatly over states slave rebellions, especially in the united States. There were some but for the most part the millions of slaves in the United States were docile. ----------------------------
Interesting how it is people who log onto internet forums are more into fantasy, while people who write books and print scholarly materials are into dealing with actual historical facts.
Its funny because I have seen historians and scholars (and for the record they were white) on modern day booktv and black intellectual programs from the 90's discuss the various group and individual acts conducted by slaves. And now you think someone is actually going to take your mindless opinions that are based on nothing but desperate white american race fantasies over theirs? LOL!
This is just another example of how bottom feeding low brows tend to concoct fantasy while those who are intellectual and scholarly don't feel the need to concoct anything because they prefer dealing with reality in the form of historical facts.
Let me guess Hammer, you're one of those people who failed to graduate. : )
Posts: 3085 | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
In regards to Hammer, it is a shame to know that someone teaches a subject that he knows very little of. I would be surprised if he has ever heard the name of John Horse or anything having to do with those events. I daresay as a high school instructor there I see no shortage of bigotry in Academia. Hammer is just one of many.
Posts: 163 | From: United States | Registered: Aug 2009
| IP: Logged |
The black man fought in the new world for his freedom, even in the united states where you had many maroon communities (see Richard Price "Maroon societies).
In the united states more that 200 slave rebellions have been counted from 1619 to 1865 by Herbert Aptheker.
Many blacks fought during the seminole war which was instigated by the US governement in order to get slaves.
In Hispaniola (actual dominican republic) you had many maroon african (bantu) leaders like Diego Guzman, Diego de Ocampo, Juan Vaquero, Sebastian Lemba.
Nicolas de Ovando the governor of Hispaniola wrote in 1514, to the Spanish Monarchs asking them to forbid african (bozales) slaves because they taught native indians to fight the spanish oppressors :
" Que no enviaron esclavos negros a la isla, porque muchos huian a los montes y no podian ser detenidos y los negros se refugiaban entre los indios y les ensanaban malas costumbres"
Before the French Ayiti ,there was many african marrons societies in hispaniola : Sierra de Bahoruco, Puerto Plata, La Vega, Nagua, Samana.
The "negro docility" was a big lie , another justification of slavery. The other lie was the Indian vs Negro hatred.They often fough together European oppressors (Mexico, US, Hispaniola, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil etc).
Please see the following books :
1. "Marrons societies" by Richard price; 3. "African Religions of Brazil" by Roger Bastide; 3. " Origins of the Black Atlantic" by Dubois and Scott; 4. "Avengers of the new world" by Laurent Dubois; 5. "American Negro Slave Revolts" by Herbert Aptheker;
And one last thing many Europeans tried to underestimate the Haitian fighters by saying that yellow fever destroyed Napoleon Army.
But the only truth is that Napoleon's army ( a well trained and experienced army who defeated many fellow European armies) met really fighters ie African veterans fighters.
Before the French, they destroyed the Birtish and Spanish armies.
For more explanation on this fact see books 3 and 4.
-------------------- The wise man knows he knows nothing, the fool thinks he knows all Posts: 70 | From: Paris / France | Registered: Dec 2009
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic