Adahoonzou II Quotes
What hurts me most is, that some of your people have maliciously misrepresented us in books, which never die; alleging that we sell our wives and children for the sake of procuring a few kegs of brandy. No! We are shamefully belied, and I hope you will contradict, from my mouth, the scandalous stories that have been propagated; and tell posterity that we have been abused. We do, indeed, sell to the white men a part of our prisoners, and we have a right to do so. Are not all prisoners at the disposal of their captors? and are we to blame, if we send delinquents to a far country? I have been told you do the same.
The English sentenced many, criminals to “export” with America being one of the penal destinations. Georgia, for example, was heavily populated with convicted criminals.
Adahoonzou II, Late 18th Century, King of Dahomey, Speech to English Emissaries, Quoted in Richard Burton, Mission To Gelele, Published in America as: “Remarkable Speech of Adahoonzou, King of Dahomey, an Interior Nation of Africa, on Hearing What Was Passing in England Respecting the Slave Trade,” The New York Weekly Magazine, Number 2, 1792
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The colonists had united for a war against the Narraganset Indians. The Charter allowed them to keep captives as slaves.
The Nationalist/Fascist views in the Spanish Civil War were so gross that they actually hurt the Nationalist cause in International opinion. See {592113} for another example. Despite the facts, most of the Western world was not then knowledgeable about the evils of Fascism and distrusted democracy, socialism, and communism more.
Weebaigah was his predecessor as King. The Arabs and Europeans seeking slaves created a market for captives which had not existed in earlier times.
The “customs” were ceremonies where criminals were executed along with enemy raiders who were captured.
Johannis Leo de Medici. He had been a slave captured by Christians but was freed and converted by the Pope who commissioned the study. This work was the primary European resource on Africa for years. It demonstrates that Black slavery existed as an African institution for some time before the Europeans and Americans took it to a new plateau.
Often referred to as “The Dean of Black Historians.”. Although critical of the behavior of Africans involvement in the slave trade, Person-Lynn maintains that there was a qualitative difference between African concepts of slavery where the enslavement was conceptually of human beings whereas the chattel slavery of the Atlantic trade considered the slaves as sub-human property. It is arguable as to which of the two views is the greater moral failure, but many regard it as a difference not worth much in that both views were grossly immoral and had devastating consequences for a large number of people.
John Sutter was an immigrant to California from Switzerland where he became a Mexican citizen. Slavery was outlawed in Mexico and its territories, yet Sutter and others maintained Indians as slaves. The Roman Catholic Missions of California also kept Indian slaves. This quotation is historically important because many people never realized that slavery was prevalent in California.
Enemy captives were sometimes adopted by Indian families to replace a lost loved one.
The issue is whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state of a free state. If a free state, the free states would be able to block further slavery. If Kansas were to become a slave state, the slave states would have a sufficient majority to make all future expansion hospitable to slavery. The slavery forces started sending men and families into Kansas so that they could vote; the abolitionists did the same. Both sides armed and a war began with each faction trying to kill or drive the other faction out of Kansas before the vote. See {612516} for the anti-slavery perspective.
One might think that this remarkable pronouncement would have put an end to Catholic participation and support of slavery. However, in an exercise of theological hair splitting, the Southern Catholic Bishops of the United States took the position that In Supremo outlawed Catholic participation and support of slave trading but not the institution of slavery itself. See {617544} for their official position to the United States Government.
There were so many Blacks fighting for the Americans in the Revolution that the British Commander had to issue a special proclamation which would make slaves of any Negro captured but issued freedom to those who would desert. Despite the greater risk to Negro Revolutionaries than their white counterparts many volunteered and few deserted.
After his Presidency, Adams served in the House of Representatives for many years and was thus active in politics.
The Philippine-American War was terribly brutal. In response to insurgent atrocities against American soldiers, some of the Americans also adopted brutal tactics including torture and mutilation. Washington had heard stories of this improper behavior in the part of some American troops and instructed the senior officers to investigate and discipline the men if the reports were true. Unfortunately some of the senior officers covered up the illegal and criminal behavior of some Americans. This quotation was taken from a New York Times report on a representative of the Red Cross who went to the Philippines at the invitation of the insurgents. He generally found serious atrocities by some of the soldiers on both sides but by no means all of the combatants. General Otis, the U. S. Commander tried to keep Blake out, and had him detained away from the battle areas for some weeks where he was “educated” about the enemy atrocities. Finally Blake got to the field and reached the insurgent commander who had invited him. His report generally praised the American troops, but spared no details when there were guilty of atrocities.
This quotation was reported to Congress by Thomas Jefferson. Essentially, this religious justification is no different from that made by contemporary Islamic extremists. Particularly interesting is the last sentence. The Koran states that all Muslims who die defending Islam will go immediately to heaven regardless of their previous sins and transgressions. Under that justification, even criminal extortion and terrorism is justified by some Muslims whenever the victims are non-believers.
In the 18th Century, the Islamic Barbary States combined their religious beliefs for Jihad against non believers with a classic criminal enterprise. They would authorize cosairs to outfit ships and attack Christian merchant ships on the high seas. They would capture the ship and the cargo, which would be split with the ruler of the country. The crew and passengers would by “rented out” as slaves until they would be ransomed, the proceeds of which would also be shared. To motivate a larger ransom, the captives were regularly tortured as well as worked almost to death. The Barbary Pirates encouraged the “slaves” to write to their relatives, friends and governments to try and raise the ransom. O’Brien’s ship was captured in 1785. He had been a slave for 4 years when he wrote this. See {623704} for a quote from a letter he sent Congress. Finally, after 10 years, O’Brien and those of his crew that were still alive were finally freed. O’Brien’s unusual experience and knowledge of the Barbary States qualified him as an expert and he was then appointed Consul-General to Algiers. Individual Christian countries were offered a “treaty” whereby for an annual payment of tribute to the Barbary country, the corsairs of that country would not attack ships flying their flag. The Christian country had to make 4 different tribute payments to each of the Barbary nations. Most of the European powers were paying the tribute even though some could easily defeat the Corsair navies in a war. The cost of outfitting a fleet for war was much more costly than paying the tribute. The new nation of the United States was good pickings for the Barbary pilots and there was a period of several decades where the Americans had to create a policy to pay tribute or go to war. At different times America did both.
