Black Lives — Matter Then, Matter Now

[struggle4progress]

Barry Evans / Today @ 8:12 a.m. / Growing Old Ungracefully

“Yo Akono! Where Bem? He go work over de sea?” “Sho nuff. Dem honkies give him good job pickin’ cotton…”

Is that what they were thinking? “They” being the writers and editors of World Geography, published by McGraw-Hill, one of the world’s largest textbook publishers. On the page headed “Patterns of Immigration,” the authors helpfully explain that “The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations ...”



... No one said, this caption might be insanely offensive, insulting, derogatory, abusive, odious, detestable? ...



... Some influential Texans have, it seems, a pretty skewed view of the history of slavery, leading to this sort of debacle. For instance, Texas Board of Education member Patricia Hardy told NPR, “States’ rights were the real issues behind the Civil War. Slavery was an after issue” ...

http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2015/oct/18/growing-old-ungracefully-black-lives-matter-then-m/

[PatrickforO]

1. ...brought millions of workers?????

Wow.

[Igel]

2. Probably overstated.

Depends on your estimate. But around 90-95% of the slaves didn't go to the US, and a common estimate is 10 million slaves arrived in the West. So more than half a million and less than a million to British N. America, not just to plantations in the South. Note that this, of course, leaves out French and Spanish N. America--Louisiana and Florida, for instance.

The large population was the result of procreation here or migration/resale in the West.

"Workers" seems a bit mild a term for it, to be sure. Just not entirely inaccurate, since that's how they were viewed. (A lot of workers weren't freemen--slaves, indentured, prisoners, and other misc. categories.)