The most inhumane sacrifice of all was evident during the conquest of the Amerindian land colloquially known as the United States of America. What did this mean for the inhabitants of their homeland? It meant death, disease and destruction of their way of life in the forced interest of Christianity and riches. The advent of mass slavery primarily came when Christopher Columbus on the 12th October 1492 thought he had discovered India. I refute such propaganda as false especially as the myth goes whilst fishing, that’s right fishing. Also the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral discovering Brazil accidentally. A misunderstanding that has been with the world ever since. Slavery is based on the roots of racism. Where the coupling of non-white black skinned races (if you will) were amalgamated together, as if there was/is no distinction between the two continents and regions Amerindian (USA) or India in the East.
The rise of chattel slavery meant that one race namely the imperial European race would control and conquer another race by means of barbaric torture in the name of progress and profit. This meant that the Amerindian doctrines, culture, arts, weapons, community, family values nationhood and patriotisms that they previously held were dashed to pieces and in its place another set of doctrines were imposed by force. This was done without due care or attention to the native peoples for example Caribs and Arawak Indians. The widely held belief by the world is that the settlers wiped out the original natives by force, using weapons that were far superior to their own. This was true to an extent but not the central factor of the millions of Native American Indians that perished under the white European race. Rather evidence suggests that the majority died because of ‘germ warfare;’ namely: malaria, typhus, flu, chicken pox, syphilis, dysentery and yellow fever to name but a few. Whether deliberate or not the combination of guns, germs and steel put an end to their original way of life.
We are told that syphilis was given to the sailors by the indigenous population, yet in reality it was the sailors who brought this disease from Europe having been on board ship for weeks/months on end. This gave rise to little sanitation to help them deal with the filth on board, using only lime and lemons to help deal with scurvy. Even today sailors are portrayed as having an image of promiscuity and notoriety.
A prime example of the European conquest for power is evident in the British maritime fleet where in the 18th Century, the Royal Navy was supreme throughout the world known as buccaneers but in reality they were nothing but pirates. For example: Francis Drake, James Cook, and Walter Raleigh.
It was the idea of an easy search for an alternative means of acquiring silver, gold diamonds and slaves; that led to the ‘middle passage’ according to scholars and academics of the day. The arrival of famine across most of Europe in the 14th Century compounded by the plague led to a new era of thinking other than tilling the land for produce and sustenance. The alternative was to acquire cheap labour through forceful means of chattel slavery. This was pressed upon by conquistadors such as Cortez, Pizarro, Cabral and Columbus the latter starting European exploitation of Africans for 500 years of murder and disruption of two of the world’s largest continents on earth. This new search for civilisation and progress was not in the interest of humanity but rather greed.
One of the disappointing aspects of slavery was that very little documentation was recorded in favour of the indigenous Amerindians. Rather events were biased towards European thinking as Galliano suggests:
“Aztecs, Incas and Mayas totalled between 70-90 million when the foreign conquerors appeared on the horizon a century and a half later they had been reduced to 3 million.”
(Source Roots of Racism, 1982)
The following two pages show North America, (in black) of how much land was inhabited by the indigenous population. The black dots now show what they inhabit.
The displacement, dislocation and diasporas of millions of Africans to these lands came when the European invaders having quite literally destroyed the Amerindians needed more labour. They looked to Africa for their continuous desire to maintain their dominance, realising their weaponry and disease was far superior would be easy to conquer. This led to catastrophic acts of barbarism never before seen on earth. Pursuing and scattering millions of black people across the globe in the interest of wealth, greed, riches and fame. This displacement effect or ‘black diaspora’ was a natural progression for white Europe for economic purposes and progress to the cost of Africans.
European ideology has a natural violent temperament, believing that they should rule the world and not anyone else who looks different from themselves. How? Using guns, germs and steel.