Monday, July 14, 2008

Barack, An Inauthentic Black Slave Trader?


During my time off I heard this audio and a thought came to my meager mind that during the discussion on the Laura Ingraham show didn’t come up. But in order to make my point, you must first hear the audio from Dr. Charles Steele, Jr. the National President and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). One must keep in mind that just because “Christian” is on the description above it does not necessarily mean he is conservative… quite the contrary:


So slave blood separates Michelle and Barack in quality – apparently. The item I want to point to is that since Arab Islamicists were the main perpetrators in both trading, capturing, and shipping slaves all over the world… very possibly the Muslim connection in Barack’s family traded and shipped Michelle’s ancestors. So the “true” black wife possibly could have been traded by the “inauthentic” slave trader!


So After slavery was destroyed in America at a staggering cost in blood and treasure, and the Brits paid reparations to blacks in their own country… the Brits and somewhat American NAVY...


...“patrolled the Atlantic off the coast of Africa, in order to prevent slave ships of various nationalities from continuing to supply slaves illegally. Even during the Napoleonic wars, Britain continued to keep some of its warships on patrol off West Africa. Moreover, such patrols likewise tried to interdict the ship­ments of slaves from East Africa through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Brazil capitulated to British demands that it end its slave trade, after being publicly humiliated by British war­ships that seized and destroyed slave ships within Brazil's own waters. In 1873, two British cruisers appeared off the coast of Zanzibar and threatened to blockade the island unless the slave market there shut down. It was shut down.


“It would be hard to think of any other crusade pursued so relentlessly for so long by any nation, at such mounting costs, with­out any economic or other tangible benefit to itself. These costs included bribes paid to Spain and Portugal to get their cooperation with the effort to stop the international slave trade and the costs of maintaining naval patrols and of resettling freed slaves, not to mention dangerous frictions with France and the United States, among other countries' Captains of British warships who detained vessels suspected of carrying slaves were legally liable if those vessels turned out to have no slaves on board. The human costs were also large:


“The heavy drain, physical and mental, in keeping squadrons on the East African coast was reflected in the loss of 282 officers and men in the ten years 1875-85; and this did not include these invalidated home. Naval personnel, wracked by fever, sunstroke and dysentery, were forced to retire prematurely and live on a small pittance. The cost of upkeep of the squadron over the twenty years prior to 1890 was estimated at four millions ster­ling, and this did not take into account the large amount of work imposed on consular and judicial staff at Zanzibar in trying cases and dealing with reports, etc.


“Even so, the results were slow in coming. More streamlined slave ships were designed, in hopes of being able to outrun the ships of the Royal Navy in the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the dogged persistence of the British eventually reduced the shipment of slaves across the Atlantic and across the waters of the Islamic world. Although the French flag was for many years widely used as protection from the boarding of ships on the high seas by the British navy, even by slave traders who were neither French nor authorized to fly the French flag, eventually France itself turned against slavery, outlawed the institution and sent some of its own warships to patrol the Atlantic off the coast of Africa to intercept and deter the shipment of slaves to the Western Hemisphere. The American flag was likewise so used 43 and the United States, like France, eventually turned against the slave trade and sent warships to join the Atlantic patrols to interdict slave shipments.


“Although by 1860 the Atlantic slave trade had been effec­tively stopped, the slave trade from East Africa across the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf took longer to be reduced significantly. Off the east coast of Africa, smaller Arab vessels called dhows hugged the coastlines, in waters too shallow for the British warships to enter one British commodore estimated that he cap­tured one dhow for every eight that escape." Nevertheless, during the period from 1866 to 1869, 129 slave vessels were cap­tured and 3,380 slaves were freed ` When the threat of being boarded seemed imminent, the Arabs would throw slaves overboard to drown, rather than have them be found on board, which could lead to British seizure of the vessel and punishment of those who manned it:


“The worst that could befall the slaves was when the slaver was overhauled by a British cruiser, and they might then be flung overboard to dispose of all evidence. Devereaux mentions a case where the Arabs, when pursued by an English cruiser, cut the throats of 24 slaves and threw them overboard. Cololm also states that Arabs would not hesitate to knock slaves on the head and throw them overboard to avoid captor


“Because there were only a few naval ships available to cover a vast expanse of water in this region, British warships would often launch smaller boats to engage the Arab slave dhows. In these cases, as one study put it, "the slave traffickers frequently did not hesitate to attack boat crews in defense of their profits." Battles between the Arabs' vessels and the smaller British craft.


“On 26 April 1866, the Pennguin set out after a dhow and fired several shots in an effort to make the crew come to. When the dhow failed to lower its sail, Gartorth felt certain that she was a slaver and ceased firing for the sake of the slaves onboard. How­ever, he managed to close with the dhow which then made for the rocks through a heavy surf. By the time the ship's boats could be lowered to follow, the Arab crew had fled but the pounding surf made any attempt by the slavers to salvage the human cargo too dangerous. To their horror, the boat crew found that they, too, could not reach the dhow which was rap­idly filling with water drowning the slaves. The boat officer decided that he could not risk coming in close to the dhow but several of the crewmen of the cutter recklessly dived in and swam through the surf to the dhow. In a remarkable display of Courage, the sailors managed to bring 28 of the slaves back to the boat. But the dhow appeared to have had more than 200 slaves on board and most died in the pounding waves.


“In another episode, the Arabs' ruthlessness toward the slaves was further revealed:


“When the Daphne's cutter captured a dhow with 156 slaves on board many were found to be in the final stages of starvation and dysentery. One woman was brought out of the dhow with a month-old infant in her arms. The baby's forehead was crushed and when she was asked how the injury had happened she explained to the ship's interpreter that as the boat came along­side the baby began to cry. One of the dhowmen, fearing that the sailors would hear the cries, picked up a stone and crushed the child's head.


“This was not a unique act. British missionary and explorer David Livingston related a similar incident on land: "One woman, who was unable to carry both her load and young child, had the child taken from her and saw its brains dashed out on a stone. Dr. Livingstone also reported having nightmares for weeks after encountering Arab slave traders and their victims. Not only was this Christian missionary shocked by the brutality of the Arab slave traders, so was Mohammed Ali, the ruler of Egypt, who was a bat­tle-hardened military commander.”


(the above is from Thomas Sowell’s book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, pp.122-125)