Posts

Jingles Sell, Minstrels Tell.

Image
 Here's the racist behind the popular Christmas carol Jingle Bells . Jingles Sell, Minstrels Tell. What happens when you find out that your favorite Christmas carol was written by a racist to be performed in racist style? Childhood ruined. James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893), the uncle of billionaire banker J. P. [John Pierpont] Morgan (1837-1913), also happens to be the man that wrote and composed the holiday song Jingle Bells . A quick internet search for the background to the song will reveal that Pierpont wrote it in 1857 a few years before the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War. One might even find that the song was inspired by an actual American sleigh racing tradition, but was likely intended for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas. What is not so apparent is the fact that Pierpont was a racist, whose lyrics for even his most popular tune were not meant for children . Here's what the original tune for Jingle Bells sounded like: You will notice that Pierpont's arrangement wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Things That Children Saw in Slavery

Image
 Everyone was a child under American slavery, but not all were "childish." The Things That Children Saw in Slavery "Black Angels" Charleston, South Carolina (Credit: Rob a.k.a. Okinawa Soba on Flickr ) Many of the things that happened during the time of institutionalized chattel slavery in the United States were not spoken of or written down. But from what was recorded about this history, we can learn a great deal about the lives of enslaved African people. The same holds true when researching the lives of children, who represented 25% of the enslaved population at the time of the Civil War. Some of their stories survived with them into adulthood and were preserved in interviews with government workers and in books published on their behalf.  As the celebrated historian of the African diaspora, Sylviane Diouf , writes: No person alive today can really know what it was like growing up as an enslaved child in the United States, but all these testimonies help form a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Brutal Punishments of Black Slaves

Image
One man was such a threat to British rule that they cooked him for 10 hours straight.   The Brutal Punishments of Black Slaves 'Barbarities in the West Indias [Indies]' April 23, 1791 Artist: Hannah Humphrey (Source: UK National Portrait Gallery ) The picture above is a caricature depicting a scene in a British island colony, described in shocking detail during a debate before the British parliament on the abolition of the slave trade. The motion before the floor was presented by the abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). An excerpt  of a speech from the debate is written at the bottom of the print. Mr Frances [sic] relates 'Among numberless other acts of cruelty daily practised, an English Negro driver, because a young Negro through sickness was unable to work, threw him into a copper of boiling sugar juice, and after keeping him steeped over head and ears for above three quarters of an hour in the boiling liquid whipt him with such severity, that it was near six m...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret Savage

Image
 A slave-owner was only as savage as society knew them to be. The Secret Savage William Byrd II (1674-1704) ca. 1700-1704 Artist: Sir Godfrey Kneller (Source: Encyclopedia Virginia ) I am currently reading the secret diaries of William Byrd II (1674-1744).   In my own estimation, Byrd was Thomas Jefferson before there was a Thomas Jefferson - the model of the American intelligentsia.  There were many striking similarities between the two. Both were born in Virginia. Both were raised into slave-owning families, inheriting both land and human "property" from their fathers. Both were "men of letters" and enjoyed reading Greek, Latin, and Hebrew literature. Both became fairly successful politicians. Perhaps, the great difference between them was the contributions that Jefferson made to the establishment of the new government. Louis B. Wright as a member of the research staff at Huntington Library (Source: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens ) Bryd...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Fraud God

Image
 The Fraud God James Anthony Froude 1860 Photographers: John & Charles Watkins (Source: UK National Portrait Gallery ) I am currently reading the book Froudacity: West Indian Fables by J. A. Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas - a book written and published by Trinidadian author John Jacob Thomas in 1889. Front cover of Froudacity  (1889) by J. J. Thomas (Source: British Library ) Thomas wrote the book as a response to James Anthony Froude's book The English in the West Indies, or The Bow of Ulysses , published the previous year. That book by Froude, an unapologetic racist and White supremacist, was full of lies about Blacks he observed while they were under British colonial rule in the Caribbean islands, especially in Trinidad. Front cover of The English in the West Indies (1888) by J. A. Froude (Credit: Nicholas Laughlin on Flickr ) Penelope Weeping Over the Bow of Ulysses 1779 Creator: Angelica Kauffmann (Source: The William Benton Museum of Art ) Froude title...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Other Black Revolutions

Image
The Other Black Revolutions Desenkadená ("Unchained") Emancipation Monument January 30, 2020 Creator: Nel Simon Freedom Fighting Park, Willemstad, Curaçao Photo by Wikipedia User Kattiel The Haitian Revolution is known for its great success at establishing a civil and independent society of individuals with the potential to determine their own destiny. It was a revolution against all odds. What started as a small camp of rebels became something beyond the wildest imaginations. Not only did the people of Haiti manage to exceed their own expectations, but they also disproved popular prejudices of that period regarding the capabilities of African people. Still, questions remain.  Was the Haitian Revolution an anomaly?  Were there other revolutions like it?
Post a Comment
Read more

The Top Five Reasons Why Black People Were Not United Against Their Enslavement

Image
Black People Were Never Truly United.  The Top Five Reasons Why Black People Were Not United Against Their Enslavement Shipping Slaves Through The Surf, West African Coast. A Cruiser Signaled in Sight (From a Sketch by a Merchant on the Coast) 1856 (Source:  The Church Missionary Intelligencer: A Monthly Journal of Missionary Information, vol 7 , via Slavery Images ) Black people have been through it all.  We have been through the thick and the thin; the pain and the gain; the highs and lows; the sunshine and the rain. But even while we endured these trials together, we were never a fully unified people. Here are some of the primary reasons why we were not united in the time of our greatest adversity: universal enslavement.
Post a Comment
Read more