We can also say that it started around
12000 years ago with the first Native American in North America. After all, more than 20 states are of Native American origin in name, and the agricultural expertise of the Native Americans provided the basis for the colonists to feed themselves, grow and survive- from tomatoes, corn, potatoes, beans, all the varieties of berries, corn, squash,
and more, to medicaments and the pepper drinks and the proto-Coca Cola beverages.The soft drink industry, anesthetics and the food snack industry, from popcorn to
chewing gum, are all inherited from
that historical era.
We don't have to leave out the Native Americans.
Gloria Emeagwali
On Jun 3, 2021, at 05:02, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
well, what gloria is saying makes sense. but i wonder if we could also think about it from another angle. the "america" that emerged from the east coast had become an anglo, that is british, colony, as you say. but consider for a moment that that vision of the united states excludes other colonizing peoples whose imprint mattered greatly. if we leave aside the native americans for a moment, we still have the french and spanish. the spanish impact on the east coast became negligible, i think. the french traders got pushed out, eventually; new orleans came a century after jamestown, and even became spanish for 40 years, before they took it back and it got "purchased" by the u.s. but what about the spanish side in the southwest. i scanned it and notice desoto, who had come to florida, also came to arkansas, and most important, to texas.texas.the spanish conquered mexico, and eventually that included the whole southwest, and even the west. i don't know anything about whether they brought enslaved people, and especially if africans were involved since, as we know, slavery became a vast enterprise in the caribbean and central america, as well as brazil. i think most slaves brought to the u.s. were sent up in ships from the caribbean. the portuguese ran that slave trade initially, but spanish colonies purchased many enslaved people, enormous numbers. and eventually the portuguese ships got supplanted by the british, the french, and the dutch....the dutch... don't forget, before it was new york, it was new amsterdam....(1609, henry hudson)
anyway, if we stick to one version of u.s. history, marked by africans and african enslaved people, we might want to focus on the british, but i would also want to ask about the french and spanish whose imprint on that history was more significant depending on where we are standing (i.e.new orleans or the american southwest). we have a habit of starting on the east coast, and when i learned u.s. history as a child, they left out the spanish side, the entire theft of vast stretches of the country, mostly taken from mexico. but if we lived out west, i bet we'd see this country through other eyes, and construct a different history.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 3:26 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: 1619 project--First of all, I actually prefer the term captive or enslaved Africans, depending on the context. To use the term slave indiscriminately and across the board may be inaccurate.
The humans involved (minus the kidnappers and traffickers) were victims of human trafficking in all cases. They were taken aboard a ship, perhaps rat infested, and packed like sardines.At this point they were kidnappees and captives.They landed in Virginia , and at that point, the purchaser of the trafficked victims offered a price.The process of enslavement on a tobacco plantation was about to begin.A new form of human rights violation, brutality and terror awaited them. Those who liberated themselves from the shackles ( the so-called "runaways") were no longer "slaves."Some analysts have a hard time using an appropriate term for those Africans that were no longer enslaved whether from self- liberation or from judicial intervention.
So when did the first African arrive in the US, in 1619 or 1526? I suspect that if the author had started from the earlier date, critics would have argued that the United States, in the context of British colonialism started in the 1600s, and that going earlier than than undermined the true initial Anglo roots of the US as a British colony.I don't necessarily agree with the argument but it has some merit.The land purchases made later were to consolidate the initial structure.
Bear in mind also Van Sertima's proposition that Africans were in the Americas before the Columbine invasion, and we can even go back to the beginning to Brazil's Luzia, to complicate the discourse-but I will leave it at that. This isin reference to the era before terror.
Brazil's Luzia:
By the way I hope the Wikipedia note is there exactly as Harrow and Ryan cited it. It is now 3.26 Eastern Time.
Gloria Emeagwali
On Jun 2, 2021, at 12:16, Connor Ryan <connoro.ryan@gmail.com> wrote:
--Have folks read Laila Lalami's novel The Moor's Account? Not her best work, but the book's premise alone is enthralling. In a way, she writes the history the 1619 project overlooks. The novel is framed as the (fictional) memoir of Estebanico, an African slave mentioned in historical records from the 1527 Spanish expedition lead by Cabeza de Vaca through, among other places, present-day Florida.
I found the novel intriguing for how Lalami interrogates what "slave" entails in the context of the expedition, and how the slave's bondage dissolves as the Spanish masters wander further from everything that once enshrined their authority. The novel also reflects what the wikipedia note mentions about rebellion and falling in with indigenous communities.
Connor
--On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 6:03:30 AM UTC-5 Kenneth Harrow wrote:
could one of you historians explain to me why the 1619 project wants to make the claim that the first slaves brought to the u.s. was in 1619 when the spanish had done so earlier?here's a piece of the wiki reference on this:In Spanish Florida and farther north, the first African slaves arrived in 1526 with Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's establishment of San Miguel de Gualdape on the current Georgia coast.[38][39] They rebelled and lived with indigenous people, destroying the colony in less than 2 months.[40] More slaves arrived in Florida in 1539 with Hernando de Soto, and in the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, Florida.[39][40] Native Americans were also enslaved in Florida by the encomienda system.[41][42] slaves escaping to Florida from the colony of Georgia were freed by Carlos II's proclamation November 7, 1693 if the slaves were willing to convert to Catholicism,[43][44] and it became a place of refuge for slaves fleeing the Thirteen Colonies.[44][45]
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
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