The Black Researcher

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.

 The European Governor of an African Empire 2010 Reproduction of an oil painting of Francisco de Sousa (Credit: Professor and anthropologist Milton Guran) French ethnographer Pierre Verger (1902-1996) once called Francisco Félix de Sousa (1754-1849) the greatest slave trader of all time. And yet, de Sousa was an adopted member of the kingdom of Dahomey and, particularly, its government. Reproduction of an oil portrait of Francisco Félix de Sousa 1996 (Credit: Professor and anthropologist Milton Guran) Francisco Félix de Sousa helped to overthrow the administration of King Ghezo's predecessor. For that, the king declared that he was eternally indebted to "Dom Francisco." Ghezo made him the chief of all trade in Dahomean territories, the majority of which was conquered from other Africans. As a result, de Sousa could take as many slaves as he wanted from the stockpile of captives taken in war and sell them to whomever he pleased. And as de Sousa was Portuguese, many of the...

The Participation of African People in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Slavery is a very serious and delicate topic for anyone to research. To research and to present on the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is to undertake a task that can lead to a better understanding of the present situation facing the descendants of its victims and benefactors in our world today. But if a careful effort is not taken in this process, this same work can lead to negative consequences in our society. It can potentially spurn alternate histories, adding to the cadre of myths that are often presented as fact. A reckless approach to research on the history of the slave trade can make villains out of heroes and heroes out of villains. From Hull Maritime Museum, Featured in  A Pictorial History of the Slave Trade (1971) by Isabelle Aguet (Source: Slavery Images ) In the "reflections" chapter of his massive 900-page  Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade   (1997), the culmination of many ye...

Was Abraham Gannibal Really A Black African? Left: 1888 drawing of Abraham Gannibal speaking with Alexander Suvorov; Right: signature of 'Ganibal' in letter from the Tallinn City Archive in Estonia (Source: Wikipedia Commons ) It was long believed that the ancestor of Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, was a "Caucasian" man from North Africa. After the death of Abraham Gannibal in 1781, a portrait of General Ivan Muller-Sakomelsky (1725-1790), commonly mistaken for an image of Gannibal, further advanced this theory. Portrait of Alexey Wolfe 1830s (Source: Wikipedia Commons )   Even Pushkin's close friend, Alexei Nikolaevich Wulf (1805-1881), hinted in his diary that Pushkin himself believed his great grand-father came to Russia from Abyssinia (a kingdom in modern-day Ethiopia). This knowledge of Gannibal's birthplace was based on the earliest biography of Gannibal, written by his son-in-law, Adam Karpovich Rotkirkh, around the 1780s. Yet, in his b...

Africa - A History of Mystery African history is not spoken about enough. Why do I say that? Because it is the truth. Often times when people in the “Western World” hear about Africa, their first perceptions are of people running around naked in a jungle. It is not easy for them to break free of this narrow perspective either as this popular view has been held for many centuries until now! When we study Black History, we are told about all the negative aspects of the past. We learn of wars, genocide, famine, poverty, disease, and death. You can never outpace the best of what you know your limits to be. I can assure you that the African youth of today don’t even know the African youth of yesterday and even worse, they are not taught about their wonderful history at school either-the very institution which claims to grant essential knowledge and truth. Why is African History important? Here is a quote by 18 th  Century British Statesman Edmond Burke: “Those who don’t know hist...