Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, with Virginia historian and artist, Ana Edwards, at the marker in recognition of the African troops who liberated Richmond from the confederacy in April 1865. (Photo: Phil Wilayto)
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
State proclamation recognizes southern ruling class and not African slave laborers
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell issued a proclamation recently designating April as "Confederate Heritage Month." This was done initially without even mentioning the Atlantic Slave Trade or the economic system that was built from the labor of African people brought to North America between the 17th and 19th centuries.
Virginia was the first British colony where Africans were enslaved in the region that later became known as the United States at the close of the 18th century. Beginning in August 1619, when 20 Africans landed on a slave ship at Jamestown, a process of exploitation and oppression involving millions of people would define the character of North America for another four centuries.
These Africans brought to Virginia initially were designated as indentured servants as was many Europeans who came during the 17th century to the British colonies in North America. Nonetheless, by 1670, approximately 2,000 Africans had fallen victim to the system of chattel slavery in this region of the continent.
However, this historical episode in Virginia was not the beginning of slavery or the Atlantic Trade. Slavery as a world economic system took firm root in the western hemisphere beginning in the early 16th century when in 1503 the Spanish directed their attention towards the African continent seeking a vast reservoir of free untapped labor power.
Initially the indigenous peoples of the North American continent were transported to the Caribbean islands of St. Domingo (later Haiti) and Cuba in astronomical numbers for the purpose of chattel slavery. Using the rationale of the necessity of spreading Christianity among the Native Americans, the indigenous people suffered and died in great numbers as a result of the barbaric treatment meted out by the European slave traders and owners.
With the conquest of Peru and Brazil by Cortez and Pizarro in the early 16th century, the stage was set for the mass capture and importation of African slaves into South America, the Caribbean and later in the North American continent. As early as the mid-1500s, the Native peoples of the Caribbean had virtually become extinct as a result of the genocidal social and economic policies of the European colonialists.
Consequently, the African population became the numerically dominant group in the so-called West Indies by the middle of the 16th century, serving as the principal engine of economic growth for the Spanish colonialists. Soon afterwards the British adventurers embarked upon the trade in African labor as well, which they proceeded to carry out under charters issued by Elizabeth and James I.
The Continuing Debate Over Slavery
In the aftermath of the actions taken by Gov. McDonnell, a debate ensued around the historical significance of the slave system in the United States. Some conservatives and neo-confederates claimed that the upholding of the confederate heritage of the South was not intended to be an act of racist denial of the suffering of African people.
These same apologists for the secession of numerous southern states from the Union government in Washington would go as far as saying that the dividing of the country in 1860-61 had nothing to do with slavery as an economic system but was based on the notion of "state's rights." These ideologists for the South say that Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and the others withdrew and provoked a civil war because they believed the states should be allowed to decide what economic and political system would prevail.
Then there are the false ideas surrounding the character of slavery and its economic impact on the historical development of the United States and other western countries as a whole. Southern historians and their supporters in the aftermath of slavery, advanced the believes that the system of exploitation was relatively benign and that Africans were content to work for white plantation owners and other ruling class interests that were dominant in the southern U.S.
However, starting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a new current of historians arose who looked at the material benefits that the ruling classes in the United States and western Europe gained as a result of slavery. Rather than viewing the system of slavery as benign, the African-Americans and other progressive historians argued that the bondage Africans were subjected to created a labor system that not only led to the accumulation of tremendous wealth but it created the conditions for the rise of industrial capitalism.
W.E.B. DuBois wrote in his book entitled "Black Reconstruction" that the system of slavery stripped all rights away from Africans and subjected them to the worst forms of exploitation and degradation. This system not only made enormous profits for the slave owners but destroyed any semblance of family life for the African people.
DuBois notes that "Negroes could be sold--actually sold as we sell cattle with no reference to calves or bulls, or recognition of family. It was a nasty business. The white South was properly ashamed of it and continually belittled and almost denied it."
The African-American historian continues saying "But it was a stark and bitter fact. Southern papers of the Border States were filled with advertisements: 'I wish to purchase fifty Negroes of both sexes from 6 to 30 years of age for which I will give the highest cash prices.'" (Black Reconstruction, p. 11)
Nonetheless, the defenders of the confederacy continue to deny and make false claims that Africans were treated reasonably well under the slave system. They have also said that the neo-confederate movement since the conclusion of reconstruction and up until today, is a mechanism for the descendants of slave owners and those who fought to preserve slavery, to honor their heritage. According to many of the neo-confederates, they are not racist in their recognition and championing of this legacy.
A New York Times editorial written by Jon Meacham in the aftermath of the declaration of "Confederate Heritage Month" in Virginia challenges the notion of a non-racist recognition of confederate symbolism and heritage in the South. Meacham, who is the purlitzer prize winning editor of Newsweek, says that "If neo-Confederates are interested in history, let's talk history." (New York Times, April 11)
The editorial goes on to say that "Since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate symbols have tended to be more about white resistance to black advances than about commemoration. In the 1880s and 1890s, after fighting Reconstruction with terrorism and after the Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act, states began to legalize segregation."
Meacham continues that "For white supremacists, iconography of the 'Lost Cause' was central to their fight; Mississippi even grafted the Confederate battle emblem onto its state flag. But after the Supreme Court allowed segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Jim Crow was basically secure. There was less need to rally the troops, and Confederate imagery became associated with the most extreme of the extreme: the Ku Klux Klan."
This editorial in the New York Times prompted a response from Edward H. Sebesta of Dallas, TX, who wrote to the Pan-African News Wire saying that the above-mentioned opinion piece "actually has a sly defense of the Confederate 'heritage.' After citing the just-mentioned quote related to the role of confederate symbols subsequent to the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling of 1896, Meacham then launches an attack on the Times editorial saying that it contributes more to the confusion surrounding the history of the United States than clarifying not only the role of slavery but also the political character of the neo-confederate movement today."
The author continues saying "Confederate imagery was used to promote white supremacy throughout the Nadir. Confederate 'heritage' has always been about white supremacy from the end of the Civil War into the 21st century."
The Legacy of Slave Rebellions in Virginia
Despite claims to the contrary, Africans revolted against slavery and sought to build an independent existence outside the plantation system. Perhaps the most glaring conflict over the significance of slavery among whites and African-Americans is the efforts underway in Richmond, Virginia to gain proper recognition of a burial ground for enslaved Africans which is currently covered up by a parking lot owned by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). This burial ground area is reported to have contained a detention facility for rebellious Africans and a location for carrying out executions.
In a brochure issued by the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, it states that "undoubtedly the area's greatest significance is the fact that, for the three decades preceding the Civil War, it was, after New Orleans, the largest market for enslaved Africans in this country." (An Appeal to All People of Good Will: The Case of Reclaiming Richmond's Shockoe Bottom)
The brochure says that "This was where many of the 300,000 to 350,000 men, women and children of African descent who were sold from Virginia to plantations in the Deep South were auctioned off. At the same time, it is also a story of incredible courage. From Gabriel's Rebellion to the mass escape on the hijacked slave ship Creole to thousands of individual acts of rebellion, this continuous resistance to injustice is a tribute to the deep resilience of the human spirit."
Gabriel was captured and later executed at the site where the African burial ground existed and is today a parking lot owned by VCU. The Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and other organizations are demanding that this area be not only recognized with a historical marker as it is today, but that a more extensive memorial be constructed that accounts for the significant legacy of slavery within the economic and political development of Virginia.
The Reclamation Project says that "That story holds the potential for Richmond to become an educational center of international significance, as well as a unique place for racial learning, reconciliation and healing. Shockoe Bottom (the site of the burial ground, slave prison and location of Gabriel's execution) is truly Sacred Ground, a place that belongs to all Richmonders, all Virginians and all peoples throughout the world--especially those of West Africa, from where so many African-Americans can trace their ancestry."
The brochure continues stating that "Properly reclaimed and memorialized, with a museum, genealogy center, meditative park, visitors center, reconstructed historic buildings and, especially the reclamation of the long-neglected and profoundly disrespected Burial Grounds for Negroes, this small area could become one of the most visited Heritage Tourism sites in the country."
The attempted rebellion led by Gabriel in 1800 is one of the most interesting episodes in United States history during the period of slavery. Gabriel was a literate African who had been contracted to work in Richmond from a plantation. He made contact with numerous Africans and developed an extensive plot to liberate plantations and to kidnap the Virginia governor of the time period.
This plot coincided with the Haitian Revolution which had a monumental impact on the United States by striking fear into the minds of the slave owners and the triumph of that struggle in 1803 led to the so-called "Louisiana Purchase", where the colonial power of France, after losing its most prosperous colony on the island of Hispaniola, sold its territories to the government in Washington.
Later in 1831, Nat Turner led a rebellion in Southhampton County that resulted in numerous deaths and a further intensification of the slave system designed to suppress African people. In 1859, the raid on Harper's Ferry by John Brown, Osborn Anderson and others has been cited as a significant signal of the coming Civil War between 1861-65.
Re-writing History and the National Question
This conflict of emphasis on the part of Southern apologists for slavery and those who seek recognition for the centuries of free labor, reveals the class and national interests that have arose as a result of the economic history of the United States. There can be no real improvement in race relations or the resolution of the national question in the U.S. without the recognition of the horrors of slavery by the ruling class and the payment of reparations for the centuries of free labor.
In the 21st century with the election of the first African-American President Barack Obama, the U.S. has witnessed the rise of a new crop of racist and neo-fascist organizations. This resurgence of racism comes at a time when the U.S. is facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The purpose of this rightward shift, which is supported and encouraged by the corporate media, is to further divide the working class along racial lines and to deflect attention away from the bank bailouts and other direct handouts to the capitalists. The corporate support for the so-called "Tea Party" is designed for the same purpose: to split off white workers from the struggles of the proletariat and to promote racism against African-Americans, Latinos/as, Asians, and other oppressed peoples.
Fighting this racism and other forms of bigotry can only be effectively carried out through international solidarity. White workers and the proletariat as a whole must unite to fight racism and anti-immigrant sentiment.
It is through such forms of solidarity that the working class and nationally oppressed movements can overcome these continuing attempts to divide the people and consequently weaken the struggle against racism, national oppression and the hegemony of international finance capital.
No comments:
Post a Comment