I received a note from someone on social media saying, "All White people, Hispanics, Latino, Asians, all non-Black people should apologize to Black Americans for what their slave ancestors had to go through. Black Lives Matter."
After shaking my head a little at the thought of someone actually apologizing to Black Americans for things that took place more than a century ago, I thought about how there is no excusing the wrongs of history. I also thought about it was our ancient past.
I thought about how only a fool would try to make excuses and apologize for what took place prior to 1863. That really is ancient history for most of us. Thinking about that fact, I believe someone would be a fool to try to apologize for what took place in ancient history.
But also, imagine what sort of an ego one would have to have to apologize for something that happened in the 19th century, or even make apologies for something that happened in the Middle-Ages. Of course, the adverse is also true as well, imagine what sort of a pretentious jerk would ask for an apology from others of different ancestries?
I thought about how only a fool would try to make excuses and apologize for what took place prior to 1863. That really is ancient history for most of us. Thinking about that fact, I believe someone would be a fool to try to apologize for what took place in ancient history.
But also, imagine what sort of an ego one would have to have to apologize for something that happened in the 19th century, or even make apologies for something that happened in the Middle-Ages. Of course, the adverse is also true as well, imagine what sort of a pretentious jerk would ask for an apology from others of different ancestries?
I believe someone apologizing for things long before their birth is a special sort of nutcase. I find that someone who thinks that they need to apologize for things that happened in the 19th century and before should be considered insane. They are the same sort of people who confess to crimes they did not commit. They are those pathetic individuals who seek notoriety even if it means taking the blame for things that they didn't do -- or had nothing to do with.
As for those who suffer from idiocy and want everyone who is not Black to apologize to Black people today for something that they themselves had nothing to do with, I can't help but wonder what sort of foolishness, what sort of stupidity, would make them think that people should do that and apologize? I understand university students are listening to professors who put all sorts of garbage in their pea brains, but one has to really have an inflated sense of self-worth to expect others to apologize for something that they themselves had nothing to do with.
As for those who suffer from idiocy and want everyone who is not Black to apologize to Black people today for something that they themselves had nothing to do with, I can't help but wonder what sort of foolishness, what sort of stupidity, would make them think that people should do that and apologize? I understand university students are listening to professors who put all sorts of garbage in their pea brains, but one has to really have an inflated sense of self-worth to expect others to apologize for something that they themselves had nothing to do with.
Image how large a sense of self-importance one has to have, how conceited and arrogant, how purely egotistical someone would have to be to expect an apology for what others did in the year 1513 when the Spanish imported the first African slaves to the Western Hemisphere? Yes, that was the year 1513 was when the Spanish took a handful of African slaves to Puerto Rico.
It is lunacy to ask non-Blacks to apologize for something that happened in 1513. I really believe that that would only be outdone by some crackpot who wants to apologize for the Muslim slave trade that took place during the Middle-Ages between 500 and 1500 AD. Yes, the Arab slave trade that took place for hundreds of years before the Atlantic slave trade took place. I'll talk more about that in a minute.
As for when did the first African slaves arrive in North America? Well, one reader recently wrote to ask me if the year 1619 was the first year that slaves were brought to the United States?
Well, since the United States did not form and declare its independence from England until 1776 and actually became its own country as a result of winning its Revolutionary War in 1783, the year 1619 has nothing to do with the United States.
Some today are passing on bogus information saying that 1619 was the year that the first African slaves came to North America. But that's not true! The first African slaves were brought to North America in 1526 when the Spanish landed a few African slaves with them in Florida.
The second time slaves were brought to North America was in 1565 when Spanish conquistador Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles brought three African slaves with him to St. Augustine, Florida. It's said that St. Augustine became a hub for Spanish slave traders in Florida for years before the British brought African slaves in Virginia in 1619. In fact, St. Augustine, Florida, was the place where the first birth of an African slave took place in 1606.
If you're wondering about the year 1619 which seems to be a big deal these days, that was the year that the first African slaves were brought to a British colony. The year 1619 is the year when the first slaves were brought to a British colony in North America. To be more accurate, it was the first time African slaves were brought to one of the 13 British colonies in North America. To be exact, Virginia.
In 1619, it is believed that nineteen African slaves arrived in Point Comfort, Virginia, which is near Jamestown. The British privateer responsible for bringing them to the British colony had stolen them from a captured Portuguese slave ship.
No, that Portuguese slave ship was not maned by my Portuguese ancestors. My ancestors back in the old country were fishermen, whalers, farmers, and cowboys. Yes, Portuguese vaqueiro.
This is one reason why I think apologizing for the slave trade in ancient times is lunacy. None of my ancestors bought or sold slaves. None of them transported slaves or had anything to do with slaves of any color or race. None of my relatives were slave traders. My family did not deal with the African slave trade, the same as how they had nothing to do with the Native American Indian and Chinese slave trades. Most likely, your ancestors did not either. But here's one more thing, if they did have something to do with the slave trade, that is on them -- not me in the year 2020.
In 1619, it is believed that nineteen African slaves arrived in Point Comfort, Virginia, which is near Jamestown. The British privateer responsible for bringing them to the British colony had stolen them from a captured Portuguese slave ship.
No, that Portuguese slave ship was not maned by my Portuguese ancestors. My ancestors back in the old country were fishermen, whalers, farmers, and cowboys. Yes, Portuguese vaqueiro.
This is one reason why I think apologizing for the slave trade in ancient times is lunacy. None of my ancestors bought or sold slaves. None of them transported slaves or had anything to do with slaves of any color or race. None of my relatives were slave traders. My family did not deal with the African slave trade, the same as how they had nothing to do with the Native American Indian and Chinese slave trades. Most likely, your ancestors did not either. But here's one more thing, if they did have something to do with the slave trade, that is on them -- not me in the year 2020.
Now here's the rest of the story about what took place in 1619 in the British colony of Virginia. Those 19 Africans were not treated as slaves. It's true. And here's why. The Portuguese slave buyers baptized their slaves before embarking -- and they did so when they bought them from Black chiefs in Africa. Why did the Portuguese baptize their slaves? So they wouldn't go to Hell if they died at sea or if the ship they were on went down. Strange reasoning, but true.
And by the way, when is anyone going to start asking for both apologies and reparations from Blacks in Africa who sold their own people, in many cases their own family members such as their own children, into slavery? It is a question that no one seems to want to ask Black Africans?
And here's another question, since the Blacks in Africa outnumbered the crews of slave ships a thousand to one in most cases, why didn't they resist being rounded up like cattle and sold? They could have easily defeated any attempts at selling them. Was it because their own people were the very ones doing the gathering, and the selling?
As for what happened in 1619 after that Portuguese ship sailed off with 19 Africans that they had just bought from other Africans? Well, that Portuguese ship was raided by a British ship. The Brits boarded the Portuguese ship and stole the slaves from the Portuguese. But, because the British considered those baptized slaves "Christians," those 19 Blacks were subsequently exempt from being made slaves.
About now, you're saying, but I thought you said they were slaves? And they were, that is until the Brits stole them and realized that they were baptized. As a result of being baptized, the 19 Africans were treated as "Indentured Servants" who would have been able to work their way out of bondage.
Yes, just the same that my ancestors had to work their way out of bondage when they were brought to Hawaii as "Indentured Servants" in the 1870s. But, as they say, that's a story for another day.
As for the 19 Africans who were in Virginia with the status of "Indentured Servants," they were not treated any differently than the Irish, Scott, German, and other "Indentured Servants" that were already there at the time. In fact, those 19 Blacks were part of over a thousand English "Indentured Servants" who were there in the colony.
And here's something else, some of those Africans were freed after they worked out their indentured servant contracts. Some were given land after working out their contracts in the same as that other indentured servants did from their former masters.
And here's something else, some of those Africans were freed after they worked out their indentured servant contracts. Some were given land after working out their contracts in the same as that other indentured servants did from their former masters.
As for mixed-race Spanish and Portuguese with African lineage? One historian called them the "charter generation" in the colonies because there were mixed-race men who were indentured servants, and whose ancestry included African and either Portuguese or Spanish. The fact is, those who were known as "Atlantic Creoles" were descendants of African women and Portuguese or Spanish men who worked in African ports as traders or facilitators in the slave trade.
One such indentured servant was a man who became very famous for all the wrong reasons. His name was Anthony Johnson. He was a Black man who was an African who arrived in Virginia in 1621. He is said to have arrived as a slave but became an indentured servant. Later, he became free and he was a property owner.
Though he was an African, and a Black man, he eventually bought and sold other African slaves for himself. Yes, no different than his relatives did in Africa. In fact, in 1651, he owned 250 acres and had five indentured servants. Four of his indentured servants were white and one was black. What makes Anthony Johnson famous is that he made history by becoming the first legally observed slave owner in the 13 British colonies in North America.
Though he was an African, and a Black man, he eventually bought and sold other African slaves for himself. Yes, no different than his relatives did in Africa. In fact, in 1651, he owned 250 acres and had five indentured servants. Four of his indentured servants were white and one was black. What makes Anthony Johnson famous is that he made history by becoming the first legally observed slave owner in the 13 British colonies in North America.
In 1653, a Black indentured servant by the name of John Casor claimed his indenture status had expired seven years earlier and that he was being held illegally by Johnson. He actually complained about what was taking place to Johnson's neighbor, a white man by the name of Robert Parker. Parker decided to intervene and try to persuade Johnson to free Casor from his indentured status which had expired.
Parker also offered Casor work, and Casor wanted to sign a term of indenture to Parker. Casor knew that conditions for his Irish and German indentured servants were very good compared to the harsh conditions that were commonplace under Johnson. And by the way, I would have bet good money on the idea that conditions for a Black indentured servant would have been better under a Black master -- but I would have lost. Cruel masters come in all sorts of colors.
When Johnson found out about what was happening, he refused to allow Casor to stay with Parker -- and Johnson even sued Parker in the Northampton Court in 1654 for the return of his "property" which Anthony Johnson claimed was John Casor.
The court initially found in favor of Parker, but then Johnson appealed. And in 1655, a British court reversed its ruling finding that Anthony Johnson still "owned" John Casor. With that, the court ordered that Casor be returned and that Robert Parker be made to pay court costs.
That court ruling was the first instance where a judicial determination in the 13 British colonies held that a person who had committed no crime could be held in servitude for life. While Johnson became famous because he made history by becoming the "first legally declared slave owner" in the British colonies in America, Casor became famous because he was the first person to be declared a "slave" in a civil case. Both men were Black. Both men were Africans. Both were sold by their own people.
Johnson believed in owning other Blacks as "property," including his indentured servants who people today seem to think weren't on the same par as slaves. If they weren't on the same par as slaves, why did all of the fugitive slave laws apply to indentured servants who left the plantation? As for his winning that case, Black slave owner Anthony Johnson paved the way for plantation owners to refuse to acknowledge the completion of indentured servant contracts -- thus keeping them slaves.
When the 13 British colonies gathered together to vote for independence from England, they made an agreement that a vote for Independence had to be unanimous. While many today say that our founding fathers sold out and didn't end slavery in 1776, I don't believe they could have. We should keep in mind that many of the 13 colonies had already ended slavery by 1776.
Of course, there were colonies that had not. The colonies in the South depended on slavery and indentured servants for cheap labor. Because of that, there was no way that a vote for Independence would have passed the Continental Congress on a unanimous vote if a clause to end slavery was included in the draft of the Declaration of Independence.
By the American Revolution, the slave trade was outlawed by individual colonies. After the United States became a nation as a result of winning the war with England in 1783, anti-slavery groups grew and soon went about trying to exert political pressure on representatives to end slavery in the newly formed nation we call our United States.
By 1807, President Thomas Jefferson signed a law banning the importation of African slaves into the United States. It went into effect in January of 1808. From that point until slavery was abolished through an executive order in 1863, by way of the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves coming into the United States were smuggled.
Every American should be aware of the horrid treatment that African slaves endured in the United States for 80 years from 1783 to 1863. But how many Americans are aware that Africans sold their own people into slavery to Muslim slave traders for hundreds of years -- long before those same Africans started selling their own people to White Europeans?
While today BLACK LIVES MATTER wants to air their grievances regarding slavery in the United States in the 19th Century, they are silent and do not confront Muslim slave buyers who are presently buying Black African slaves sold by Black Africans. Yes, today in 2020.
Known as the "Arab Slave Trade," Muslims were buying Africans from other Africans for centuries before the Europeans started doing the same thing. It's said the Muslim slave trade benefitted Muslim countries for at least ten centuries. Yes, for a thousand years before Christopher Columbus mistakenly found the Bahamas while thinking he reached Asia.
So with that, I have to wonder why disregard the Muslim culpability that folks like BLACK LIVES MATTER and others don't care about? Why do Muslim slavers get a pass when it comes to paying reparations and issuing apologies? As far as that goes, why do Black Africans get a pass for the same reason since they were involved in selling their own people into slavery for a thousand years before they ever started selling them to Europeans? Is it because it doesn't fit their political agenda for reparation from Americans?
Here's something more, slavery is taking place today in Africa and the Middle East, and groups like BLACK LIVES MATTER and people like Barack Obama and other Black celebrities refuse to acknowledge what's taking place today. They aren't talking about it when they should be fighting modern-day slave traders who are buying and selling other Blacks to Muslims today.
As for reparations, if BLACK LIVES MATTER and other Leftist groups want reparations -- why aren't they seeking reparations from their Black African ancestors who sold them into slavery in the first place? And since the dirty little secret, today is that the Muslim slave trade is still taking place today, besides not seeking reparations from them, why aren't Muslims being taken to task for still buying and selling Black African slaves today?
As for reparations, if BLACK LIVES MATTER and other Leftist groups want reparations -- why aren't they seeking reparations from their Black African ancestors who sold them into slavery in the first place? And since the dirty little secret, today is that the Muslim slave trade is still taking place today, besides not seeking reparations from them, why aren't Muslims being taken to task for still buying and selling Black African slaves today?
The fact is, he apologized for the wrongs that were done by others who built their empires. No, not for the short 80 years from 1783 to 1865 that was in fact the case of slavery in our history as a nation known as the United States. But instead, he apologized for the over ten centuries that Muslim nations were buying and selling slaves. He didn't apologize for the slave trade that was still actively taking place at that time. Yes, the Muslim slave trade is still taking place today.
The Muslim slave trade today is all about money, wealth, and a complete disregard for human life. No different than it was back in the Middle Ages. Those who buy and sell their people have no soul.
In the Arab slave trade, as with the Muslim slave trade today, the skin color of the sellers and the buyers are mostly Black. Sadly, this only goes to prove that history tells us that skin color in itself does not guarantee that a person cares about human life any more than someone of a different skin color.
Frankly, before someone asked me and others to apologize for what took place over a century ago, they should demand an apology from Blacks who are still selling their own people to the highest bidder.
Frankly, before someone asked me and others to apologize for what took place over a century ago, they should demand an apology from Blacks who are still selling their own people to the highest bidder.
Tom Correa
