Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click on image for hi-rez)

Fought As Well As They Could

"In 1730, for instance, newspaper accounts and a letter written by a Royal African Company agent at Cape Coast Castle all reported that the Africans rose and killed all but three of the sailors on board the Boston ship William.  No mention was made of the fate of the Africans, and although the vessel was later reported to have run aground at Anomabu, there is no reason to believe the victorious Africans did not either jump overboard or take the William's boats, ultimately getting ashore and reclaiming their freedom.  In January of 1747, a Rhode Island ship underwent a revolt off of Cape Coast Castle, and the entire crew was killed except for two mates who jumped overboard and swam ashore.  Taking its information about this revolt from a letter, one Boston newspaper wrote that "what became of the Vessel and Negroes afterwards the Letter does not mention."  Even though this incident occurred in a busy slaving shore, and it is not at all unreasonable to presume that at least some of the Africans succeeded in escaping inland.

…the possibility of revolt also helped earn Africans a grudging respect from those whose business it was to enslave them.  As one sailor was compelled to write of a revolt in 1790, after more than one hundred slaves had taken possession of a French slaver as it was at anchor off the African coast, "I could not but admire the courage of a fine young black, who, though his partner in irons lay dead at his feet, would not surrender, but fought with his billet of wood until a ball finished his existence.  The others fought as well as they could, but what could they do against firearms?"

 ~Eric Robert Taylor, If We Must Die (p. 135-6).

What could they do? ...they could fly away home & knew it.    Awo.

A man called "No. 3" and a woman called "No. 4"

"Norris kept a captain's log for his ovyage in the Unity from Liverpool to Whydah, to Jamaica, and back to Liverpool between n1769 and 1771.  A week after weighing anchor at Whydah and setting sail to cross the Atlantic, Norris noted that "the Slaves made an Insurrection, which was soon quelled with ye Loss [of] two Women."  Two weeks later the enslaved rose again, the women once more in the lead and therefore singled out for special punishment; Norris "gave ye women concerned 24 lashes each."  Three days later they made a third effort after several "got of their Handcuffs," but Norris and crew managed to get them back into their irons.  And the following morning they tried for a fourth time: "the Slaves attempted to force up ye Gratings in the Night, with a design to murder ye whites or drown themselves."  He added that they "confessed their intentions and that ye women as well as ye men were determin'd if disappointed of cutting off ye whites, to jump over board but in case of being prevented by their Irons were resolved as their last attempt to burnt the ship."  So great was their determination that in the event of failure they planned a mass suicide by drowning or self-incineration.  "Their obstinacy," wrote Norris, "put me under ye Necessity of shooting ye Ringleader."  But even this did not end the matter.  A man Norris called "No. 3" and a woman he called "No. 4," both of whom had been on the ship a long time, continued to resist and died in fits of madness.  "They had frequently attempted to drown themselves, since their Views were disappointed in ye Insurrection."

~Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship (p. 32).

The FOR REAL Don't Stop, Can't Stop, Won't Stop.  (BA homing impulse.) Awo.

Esteban Montejo (en Cuba). A man AGAIN.

"…hands were swollen.  I camped under a tree.  I stayed there no more than four or five days.  All I had to do was hear the first human voice close by, and I would take off fast.

I came to hide in a cave for a time.  I lived there for a year and a half. . ..I was careful about all the sounds I made, And of the fires.  If I left a track, they could follow my path and catch me.  I climbed up and down so many hills that my legs and arms got as hard as sticks.  Little by little I got to know the woods.  And I began to like them.  Sometimes I would forget I was a Cimarron, and I would start to whistle.  Early on I used to whistle to get over the fear.  They say that when you whistle, you chase away the evil spirits.  But being a Cimarron in the woods you had to be on the lookout.  I didn't start whistling again because the guajiros or the slave catchers would come.  Since the Cimarron was a slave who ahd escaped, the masters sent a posse of rancheadores after them.  Mean guajiros with hunting dogs so they could drag you out of the woods in their jaws.  I never ran into any of them.  I never seen any of those dogs up close.  They were trained to catch blacks…  When a slave catcher caught a black, the master or the overseer gave him an ounce of gold or more.

Truth is that I lived well as a cimarron, very hidden, very comfortable.  I didn't even allow other cimarrones to spot me: "cimarron with cimarron sells a cimarron."  For a long time I didn't speak a word to anyone.  I liked that tranquility.  …You live half wild when you're a cimarron.

I found out about the end of slavery from all the people shouting. . . They shouted, "We're free now."  But I wasn't affected.  To my mind, it was a lie…  When I came out of the woods I started in walking, and I met an old woman with two children in her arms.  I called to her from a distance, and when she came up to me I asked her: "Tell me, is it true that we're no longer slaves?"  She answered me: "No, son, now we're really free."  And, with that, as quickly as I became a cimarron… I stopped being a cimaroon.  And became myself…a man…again."

[In 1963 at the age of 103, Estaban Montejo recounted his experiences to Cuban writer and ethnologist Miguel Barnet.  Montejo had suffered the lash and toiled as a slave.  He had escaped into the wilderness and lived for years as a Cimmaron/Maroon, and had fought as a soldier in the Cuban war of independence.  His story is a rare and remarkable window into the history of Cuba.]

Unspoken Resistance & Drum Texts

"In addition to being a space for African spirituality and ritual, the African Burial Ground was also a space for slave resistance on a number of levels.  ...it was the principal location for the execution of slaves involved in the 1712 and 1741 disturbances.  Furthermore, Burial #25 excavated on October 16, 1991, provides some insight into the end result of rebellious activities in eighteenth-century New York City.  The twenty-two-year-old woman interred in this grave was found with a musket ball in her rib cage, significant blunt force trauma to her lower skull and a diagonal fracture along her right forearm.  Based on a forensic examination of her skeletal remains, it appears that she was shot in the back, severely beaten, and then restrained by someone who twisted her arm-thus causing the fracture.  Since the fractures on her lower skull and arm had not healed, she likely suffered these injuries in the last hours or minutes of her life.  Whether she was one of the slaves killed during the 1712 revolt will probably never be known.  It is plausible, however, that she died during some act of resistance to white authority.  Physical anthropologists studying the remains at the site have found distinct signs indicating that in at least two cases individuals were burned to death-a capital punishment associated with enslaved Africans found guilty of arson, rebellion, or murder."

~Walter C. Rucker, Fires of Discontent, Echoes of Africa: Slave Resistance in Colonial. New York City 

Mo nyinaa mma yenkaw kwan no

(you all should allow us to go on the path)

Mo nyinaa mma yenkaw kwan no

(you all should allow us to go on the path)

Nnipa dodo a yekawee, yemmae

(the multitude of people that went, they did not come)

Mo nyinaa mma yenkaw kwan no

(you all should allow us to go on the path)

~Akan drum text, Kwasi Konadu, The Akan Diaspora in the Americas

Pictures Speak 172,000 Words (click image for hi-rez)

Babylon Dem da Letter A... "A" (PF5 to refresh)

Here is an example of the Europeanization of an African phenomenon (click ea. image to see better):

Proto-Sinaitic* to Canaanitic

 Canaanitic to Syriac (Phoenician)

Phoenician to Latin ('your' script from the angles & sajones)

The letter "A".  Seen?  A mere turning upside down and manipulation of.  The letter J.  Seen?  Jesus.  

Take any part of a life area: hospitality, law/justice, how the aged are treated.  ...a mere turning upside down and manipulation of.  AWO.  See Baba Walter Rodney detail in mo fya from whey bak ova deah: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/rodneylib.html 

*for those who scairt: AFRICAN mdw ntr or hierogliphics (if u Will).

New England: Emancipation-ish

"The statutory servitude mandated by post nati ['born after', or gradual] emancipation was not, and was never intended to be, training for independent citizenship.  What the gradual abolition statutes offered was a framework within which whites could enjoy abolition and slavery at the same time-just as they had always enjoyed personhood and property together in their slaves.  Post nati emancipation hardly provided the context for the kind of transformation in imagination, practice, and language that freedom demanded."

~Joanne Melish, Disowning Slavery

Flying vs. Walking

“I will give you an example of how race affects my life. I live in a place called Alpine, New Jersey. Live in Alpine, New Jersey, right? My house costs millions of dollars. In my neighborhood, there are four black people. Hundreds of houses, four black people. Who are these black people? Well, there’s me, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z and Eddie Murphy. Only black people in the whole neighborhood. So let’s break it down, let’s break it down: me, I’m a decent comedian. I’m a’ight. Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers to ever walk the Earth. Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers to ever live. Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors to ever, ever do it. Do you know what the white man who lives next door to me does for a living? He’s a fucking dentist! He ain’t the best dentist in the world…he ain’t going to the dental hall of fame…he don’t get plaques for getting rid of plaque. He’s just a yank-your-tooth-out dentist. See, the black man gotta fly to get to somethin’ the white man can walk to.”
~Chris Rock