[url]http://proudnigerian.com/index.php/topic,115.msg241.html#msg241[/url]

[size=16pt]The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades[/size]

Nunn, Nathan (2007): The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades. Forthcoming in: Quarterly Journal of Economics

Abstract

Can part of Africa’s current underdevelopment be explained by its slave trades? To explore this question, I use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa’s slave trades. I find a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves exported from a country and current economic performance. To better understand if the relationship is [B]causal[/B], I examine the historical evidence on selection into the slave trades, and use instrumental variables. Together the evidence suggests that the slave trades have had an adverse effect on economic development.










VI. Possible Channels of Causality
I now turn to the channels through which the slave trades may have
affected economic development. I view this analysis as preliminary and ex-
ploratory. With only 52 observations it is not possible to pin down the pre-
cise channels and mechanism underlying the relationships with any reason-
able degree of certainty. My strategy here is to simply investigate whether
the data are consistent with the historic events described Section II.
An important consequence of the slave trades was that they tended to
weaken ties between villages, thus discouraging the formation of larger com-
munities and broader ethnic identities. I explore whether the data are consis-
tent with this channel by examining the relationship between slave exports
and a measure of current ethnic fractionalization from Alesina et al. [2003].
As shown in Figure VI, there is a strong positive relationship between the
two variables.18 This is consistent with the historic accounts of the slave
trades impeding the formation of broader ethnic identities.
This consequence of the slave trades is important because of the increas-
ing evidence showing that ethnic fractionalization is an important deter-
minant of a variety of factors necessary for economic development. Since
the seminal article documenting the link between ethnic diversity and eco-
nomic growth by Easterly and Levine [1997], subsequent research by La
Porta et al. [1999], Alesina et al. [2003], Aghion et al. [2004], and Easterly
et al. [2006] looks more deeply into why ethnic fractionalization is important
for development. These studies find that ethnic diversity is important for
social cohesion, domestic institutions, domestic polices, and the quality of
government. As well, Alesina et al. [1999], Miguel and Gugerty [2005], and
Banerjee and Somanathan [2006] find that ethnic fractionalization reduces
the provision of public goods, such as education, health facilities, access
to water, and transportation infrastructure, all of which are important for
economic development.

A second, and closely related, consequence of the slave trades was the
weakening and underdevelopment of states. To examine whether the data
are consistent with this channel, I consider the relationship between slave ex-
ports and the level of state development following the slave trades. To do this
I use a measure of pre-colonial state development from Gennaioli and Rainer
[2006]. The measure is constructed using ethnographic data from Murdock
[1967] on the indigenous political complexity of ethnic groups, measured by





the number of jurisdictional hierarchies beyond the local community. The
original measure ranges from 0 to 4, with 0 indicating “stateless” societies
and 4 indicating societies with “large states” [Murdock, 1967, p. 52]. Using
this data, Gennaioli and Rainer [2006] construct a measure of the proportion
of a country’s indigenous population that belongs to an ethnic group that
falls into category 2, 3, or 4.
The relationship between slave exports and 19th century state devel-
opment is shown in Figure VII. The negative relationship between slave
exports and state centralization shown in the figure is consistent with the
historic accounts of the slave trades causing long-term political instability,
which resulted in weakened and fragmented states.
Recent empirical research shows that a country’s history of state de-
velopment is an important determinant of current economic performance.
Bockstette et al. [2002] and Chanda and Putterman [2005] find that ‘state
antiquity’, measured using an index of the depth of experience with state-
level institutions, is positively correlated with real per capita GDP growth
between 1960 and 1995. Looking within Africa, Gennaioli and Rainer [2006]
find that countries with ethnicities that had centralized pre-colonial state
institutions today provide more public goods, such as education, health, and infrastructure.





Herbst [1997, 2000] also focuses on the importance of state development
for economic success, arguing that Africa’s poor economic performance is a
result of post-colonial state failure, the roots of which lie in the underde-
velopment and instability of pre-colonial polities. Herbst [2000, chpt. 2–4]
argues that because of a lack of significant political development during
colonial rule, the limited pre-colonial political structures continued to exist
after independence.19 As a result, Africa’s post-independence leaders inher-
ited nation states that did not have the infrastructure necessary to extend
authority and control over the whole country. Many states were, and still
are, unable to collect taxes from its citizens, and as a result they are also
unable to provide a minimum level of public goods and services.
A corollary of Herbst’s argument is that the impact of the slave trades
may have been felt most strongly after colonial independence. This is be-
cause this is when pre-colonial political structures suddenly increased in im-
portance, as they became central determinants of the success of the newly
formed state. Using Figure VIII, I examine whether the evolution of in-
comes since 1950 is consistent with this hypothesis. The figure shows av-
erage per capita GDP between 1950 and 2000 for two groups of African
countries.20 One group consists of the 26 countries with the lowest mea-
sures of ln(exports/area) and the other is the 26 countries with the highest
measures of ln(exports/area). As shown in the figure, throughout the pe-
riod low slave export countries are richer on average than high slave export
countries. Also interesting, however, is the difference in the evolution of
income between the two groups of countries. Although the low slave export
countries were richer in the early 1950s when most countries were still under
colonial rule, the income gap between the two groups increased significantly
over time, and became most pronounced after the late 1960s and early 1970s
when most countries had gained independence.21 This pattern is consistent
with the slave trades affecting early state development, which may have
mattered during colonial rule, but mattered much more after independence.
Because those parts of Africa that were most severely impacted by the slave
trades tended to have the least developed political systems, after indepen-
dence these countries continued to have weak and unstable states, as well
as slower economic growth.


VII. Conclusions
Combining data from shipping records and data from historical docu-
ments reporting slave ethnicities, I have constructed estimates of the num-
ber of slaves exported from each country in Africa during Africa’s four slave
trades. I found a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves
taken from a country and its subsequent economic development.
I pursued a number of strategies to better understand if the relation-
ship is causal or spurious. If countries that were initially underdeveloped
selected into the slave trades, and if these countries continue to be under-
developed today, then this may explain the observed relationship between
slave exports and current income. I first reviewed the historical evidence on
the characteristics of African societies that were most affected by the slave
trades. The qualitative and quantitative evidence show that [B]it was actually
the most developed parts of Africa, not the least developed, that tended
to select into the slave trades[/B]. I also used the distances from each country
to the locations of the demand for slaves as instruments to estimate the
causal effect of the slave trades on economic development. [B]The IV estimates
confirmed the OLS results, suggesting that increased extraction during the
slave trades resulted in worse economic performance.[/B]
I then examined the channels of [B]causality[/B] underlying the relationship
between slave exports and economic development. [B]I showed that the data are
consistent with historic accounts suggesting that the slave trades impeded
the formation of broader ethnic groups, leading to ethnic fractionalization,
and that the slave trades resulted in a weakening and underdevelopment of
political structures.[/B]

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4134/1/MPRA_paper_4134.pdf

Omo - i need to aquire a PHD to analyse this information you have provided - i will come back in two years time.

You may also wanna look at this. I am in a very strong cultural awakening moment now-

http://nigerianwiki.com/wiki/African_Writing_Systems

^ Nice site.

@Superego

Loved the document provided? Is that your work?

Without citing any scholarly documents, may I just add that in my layman's opinion there must be a purely GENETIC basis for the kleptomania that drives Nigeria's "selected" leaders to steal all they can lay their paws on, leaving the country in deeper ruin that it was when they assumed power.   I sincerely believe that there is a DNA code sequence in the genome of MOST people born to Nigerian parents, which COMPELLS them to steal instinctively and relentlessly until such time as they either die or the money dries up.

Consider Nigeria's Hall of Shame, populated by an unbroken parade of greedy treasury-looting presidents and their cronies who came, saw and plundered every phucking dime that fell under their control, all the while promising the victims of their avarice brighter days ahead or in heaven, and who then retired to become figures of national reverence and fawning adulation by the the survivors of their toxic regins,  all of whom hope and pray for a few crumbs from their master's overflowing table.

Oddly enough, the klepto-gene is comparatively rare in other African countries besides Nigeria, such that relatively poor nations like Ghana have quietly surpassed Nigeria in all indexes of national development and progress, ranging from the basic provision of grid electricity to highway maintenance, medical care, education, positive industrial growth and crime control.

get over it.

it must be slavery that made Abacha to loot $3bill

it must be slavery that made Obasanjo to loot $16bill

They are simply pathetic and the people to weak to stand-up for their future.

Superego

Thanks for your postulations, I am always happy when Nigerian look for the reason we are un-develping in every indice of life, but please also go a stop further by postulating solutions and making physical impact.

Having said that i partially  disagree with you. Until we can overcome the excuses we always bring up to justify our failing as a people, we would not get any where. Blaming our current state of development on the slave trade and colonization is escapist. I would employ you to also read history, especially the history of western and eastern civilization. You will find out that except for a very few countries, like England, Ethiopia and maybe japan(until it was conquered by the US), no nation had escaped slavery and colonization. The country that suffered the worst in terms of slavery and colonization is Israel,   for over 95% of its existence it was either under slavery or colonization, and we never heard them giving up and blaming colonization for all their woes, they even never at any time blame their oppressors, they always blame themselves. Even before the advent of the slave traders, we were taking our selves as slaves.

What we should be studying is why an average African can sell his soul to the devil for material gratifications, that was why the slave trade succeeded as the Europeans slave traders did not come with their army but with their Bibles and mirrors, gins, etc.

You also need to postulate why Black African did develop scientific reasoning, astronomy, mathematics, writing, literature , strong political societies,  etc, when all other cultures were way ahead in those indices.

I have to go now, please lets hear your answer to these questions.

wirinet:

Superego
You will find out that except for a very few countries, like England, Ethiopia and maybe japan(until it was conquered by the US), no nation had escaped slavery and colonization.

The country that suffered the worst in terms of slavery and colonization is Israel, for over 95% of its existence it was either under slavery or colonization, and we never heard them giving up and blaming colonization for all their woes.

Food for thought about Israel.

Nice article. Very informative. Too academic though.

I've always known that slavery played a huge role in dismantling the structures required for indigenous African development. I always thought the other major factor was inability to evolve our own writing systems which we could have used in passing on information from generations to generations. But your write up is re=informing and I'm relearning.

However, if we must move forward, we would have to ignore the past and focus on the future, as our past has little to teach asides the the reminder of atrocities meted on those past generations.

yeepa, i'd cum bak to this after my exam. over n out.

The country that suffered the worst in terms of slavery and colonization is Israel,   for over 95% of its existence it was either under slavery or colonization,

you must be joking. right or go read your history well.

Israel was formed in 1948. It never had any history colonisation or slavery.

keep looking for an  excuse for why our continent is so poor, when the answer is so obvious. I was just reading about the nation of Israel, a country that is only 61 years old and located in a desert that is not blessed with any mineral resources and scarcely any natural resources (heck, its a country stuck in a desert with hardly any rain),  yet they have amazing agricultural output and despite this  they realized that being reliant on agriculture would not make them a rich country so they decided to focus heavily (i mean HEAVILY) on science and technology. The reason they decided to do this was that they realized that there greatest asset was there people and they decided to invest heavily on them by granting them a world class education, the result is that Israel with just a population of around 7 million has over 2000 STARTUPS!!, 2nd to Sillicon Valley in California. Meanwhile our Nigerian counterparts are still running around building resorts (tinapa), skyscrapers (millenium tower), and even planting flowers (Fashola).

busi-bodi:



you must be joking. right or go read your history well.

Isreal was formed in 1948. It never had any history colonisation or slavery.

Please read your History well, and if you do not like history then read the Bible.

I am talking about the people of Israel, I assume that when you are talking about Africa, you are talking about the people. The Israelis had been either held captive or colonized by every super power the world had produced except the US - Babylonia, Egypt, Rome, Britain. An Independent state of Israel was first established by David, After David solomon ruled, but soon After they were driven out of the land and scattered again. I AD 70 the Romans Dealt with Israel for rebellion burned their temples and scattered them around Europe, it was not until 1948 that they came together again to form a state.

To tell the Jews that they did not suffer any Slavery of colonization smacks of utter ignorance.

You said the country of Israel, don't twist your words.

busi-bodi:



you must be joking. right or go read your history well.

Israel was formed in 1948. It never had any history colonisation or slavery.

Please go read your history well. Even the average arab will tell you that you do not know what you are talking of. No need to claim it is not so cause of a technical error!

Kenezi:

You said the country of Israel, don't twist your words.

I am not twisting words, when i said country, you should know i was talking about the people occupying the present land called Israel. Because with your skewed argument a land called Nigeria was never involved with slavery and colonization of Nigeria started in 1914.

wirinet:

I am not twisting words, when i said country, you should know i was talking about the people occupying the present land called Israel. Because with your skewed argument a land called Nigeria was never involved with slavery and colonization of Nigeria started in 1914.

You meant Jews, not the country of Isreal.

1. Israel receive more than adequate reparations for their suffering. To compensate them they were given the Palestinian land, and also they are given in donations upto 10% of US economic capital every year. I think if we use Israel as an example then we should demand reparations like Israel demanded for and receive till date. Indeed the Jews were an equal part if not major of the European colony to which they belonged, that carted away African slaves to build their wealth. So they too destroyed Africa.

2. There is no Nation on earth that has gone through what Africa went through that is better than Africa is today. If you have any example of a Nation that has been pillaged constantly as Africa has, and is better off than we are, please share this with me, as I would be more than happy to see it. The Arabs robbed us of at least 1-10 Million deportees(slaves) This was through a terrorizing experience that leaves post traumatic stress disorder in us.
The western colonialist then stole about 100 Million of our strongest, and our smartest put up fight with them and were killed in the process. While this was happening they were teaching us corruption and the nature of selling our own brothers to survive. This habit persists in us till today.

3. In addition to slave trade there were events like King/devil leopard of Belgium who killed 10-30 Million in Congo and cut the hands of much more- then you wonder why the Congolese still cut their hands when the factions of destroyed humans there continue the habits implanted on them? read about this in 'King Leopalds Ghost'. Please show me a single Nation or continent that has gone through and still goes through what Africa went through. from a medical point of view we must still be traumatized and unless we get serious therapy for what we suffered and what we were taught as infants of a murderous and corrupt way of living, I can not blame us.

4. We are still being robbed as Africa has lost over 300 Billion in the un-free trade agreement, that enslaves us till date.

Factors that make the Africa case unique:

1. Colonization and working intra-plantations.
2. Removal of 100-300 Million of the stronger/more fit individuals of that continent/Nation to foreign lands to work extra-plantations
3. Resource exploitation.
4. UnFree trade.
5. New language, religion and culture indoctrination.
6. Ruler-line divisions and combination's of territories as nations.

We anxiously await your example, so we can examine that Nation/continent and aim to follow its speed.



My suggestions are revolutionary but must be seriously considered.

Here are 10 essential items:

1. We must educate everyone  on the reality of the past.

2. We must educate everyone of our present existence, still in a state of colonization.

3. We must progressively discard the western culture, start desensitizing our kids- no more- Suit and tie, no more 'English' as Nigeria's formal language. No more- Saturday and Sunday as days off. Complete cessation and re-setting all trade agreements with the west, as the Iranian revolution brought about.

4. We must promote indigenous languages and cultures in our education and as our official languages of instruction.

5. We must reconsider all territorial boundaries, and re define these, even if it includes dividing Nations into little pieces.

6. We must rename 'Nigeria' if it still remains after the divisions/recombination.

7. If we choose not to discard the western culture, then we must embrace it fully, including bringing the westerner back to rule the Nation.

8. We must dump 'demoncrazy' and reconsider our leadership options, including the more sensible 'Philosopher Kings' system.

9. We must entirely flush out all useless western indoctrination books in our educational system. No, Lord Lugard did not ever discover our very own River Niger.

10. We must demand full compensation for human and natural resources robbed to use to build the west, and for toxic waste dumped!

That one hell of a task

Well, if we don't do those now, we will still get there but it will take a bit longer. main point is we must celebrate how far we have come in lieu the unique holocaust dwarfing proportion of damage that has been done us, our land, and our minds. We have done a lot in just 40 years since west African partial independence, and we must celebrate. The US used 300 years to get where it is today (Actually - collapsed). remember for how long they were the filthy wild-wild west? Don't let anyone fool you that we are slow, we were held back, our race was sabotaged but unless the west ends the race with a fight, which I bet they will, we are slowly and surely on course to once again save and rule the world as we did in the not too distant past.

what about Africa's internal slave trades? What are the effects of that?

Internal trades, albeit, bad, destroy one part of Africa to build another-recipient part. And these are minimal in the context to which we speak. We are talking about human resource depletion catastrophies in the Millions.

superego,
keep looking for excuse for the failure of African countries ehn. Was it slavery that encouraged Abacha to loot close to 30 billion of nigeria's money or was it slavery by the "jews" (which is a lie by the way because it was the portuguese and the arabs who pioneered the transatlantic slave trade), was it slavery that has caused the Nigerian govt to loot over 500 billion dollars in public funds since independence? So please enough of those useless excuses. Nigeria made the guiness book of world records for spending the second least on education (just 0.6% of its GNP), liberia and sierra leone who were war zones at the time spent more on education that is enough to explain why Africa is poor.

Superego,
I enjoyed you posts until that last one about What we have done in 40 yrs and about the us getting to where it is today in 300 yrs, so we too should need 300 yrs to develop. I will come back to this later. But let me deal with the points you raised earlier.

Let me first start by stating that i am neither a Jew(in terms of religious belief) nor a Christian. I consider my self an Evolutionist, so i do not support Israel on sentimental views. I love their resilience on overcoming very difficult adversities. Although they are a tiny population, they were able to develop strong and enduring religion, culture, their own writing, language, technology and most of all they were able to resist external contamination to their way of life through many millennia. So i disagree with you when you compare the what we endured over a period of about 300yrs to what the jews endured over a period of 3000yrs. The Germans are paying reparations to Israel because the Germans made it a state policy to eliminate the Jews and murdered over 6 million of them. So the German state is paying compensation.  Besides the Jews became influential and powerful enough to force the germans to pay the compensations.
Our own case was different, the whites bought slaves from our Obas, Chiefs, etc. They paid in mirror, Gin, Guns, etc. So our kings built their empires on a thriving slave trade.  Even if we have a case for reparation, are we cohesive , powerful and influential enough to force the whites to pay?
Let me ask you a simple question, Was it slave trade and colonization that caused our society to be so fragmented or was it our fragmented society that made slavery and colonization by foreigners possible. Because our society was highly fragmented with every 1000sq.km a different tribe and language.

As per nations that went through very difficult times in the hands of foreigners, i still mention Israel, another is Gaul (France), there is Poland (so many times), even Germany came out of two world wars and is still strong less than 30 yrs after being destroyed.

I must confess, I had never heard of 'King Leopalds Ghost'. I will look for it and read it to get your perspective.
Let me finish by saying the cruel truth about survival of countries, tribes, etc, A superior society always dominates and exploits weaker societies. My question is why had  Black African never been able to build strong society. As long as our society is as weak as it is today, we will always be exploited. Now it is the turn of the Chinese to exploit Black Africa.

I strongly disagree with you that we have made progress in 40 yrs, In which aspect have we made progress? is it economic, political, technological, social. Please tell me which aspect.

It will be ignorant to exclude the Jews who were normal and even ruling citizens and a complete harmonious economical, and cultural and political part, if not a leading part of the western civilization up until the formation of Israel and still are a leading European political decision and polity making block in most European countries, from the horrors perpetrated by the Europeans. That is akin to claiming that beans is not tasted when a meal of rice-and-beans is consumed.

If you can provide us evidence that during the slave trade, the Jew-Europeans folded their arms and said they will not participate, we will be happy to recognize this.

Now, to your second point, or is it- your only point. Yes, I do not relinquish Abacha of the blame for what he did, but from a scientific and enlightened point of view, I do understand why and how, barbarism and corruption got entwined in the priorly clean culture of Africa. What I and these studies presents is a factual analysis of the root cause of the problems of Africa. Facts that can not be ignored but must be accessed and relieved to restore function in the African society.

It's like when studies prove that homosexuals were 90% of the time deprived of love or given wrong love as children. uch makes us understand homosexuals better and know how to deal with their situation. Africa sufferers from post traumatic corruption infusion and post traumatic stress disorder. This is a fact.

Well, if we don't do those now, we will still get there but it will take a bit longer. main point is we must celebrate how far we have come in lieu the unique holocaust dwarfing proportion of damage that has been done us, our land, and our minds. We have done a lot in just 40 years since west African partial independence, and we must celebrate. The US used 300 years to get where it is today (Actually - collapsed). remember for how long they were the filthy wild-wild west? Don't let anyone fool you that we are slow, we were held back, our race was sabotaged but unless the west ends the race with a fight, which I bet they will, we are slowly and surely on course to once again save and rule the world as we did in the not too distant past.

NONSENSE, ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. It took 30 years for south korea, singapore, malaysia and taiwan to become developed. It took Israel less than that and Japan a country that America leveled with its bombs after world war 2 took less than 30 years. This guys built new industries and there products started to push the americans out of business so stop giving any useless excuses my friend. The same stories apply to Germany after world war 2 but they rebuilt within a very short period of time.
You said israel got aid from the US, hasn't Africa taking a lot of aid ( hundreds of billions of dollars) from the US and other developed countries? Abeg please, i don't want to hear excuses anymore. Go read my earlier post about Israel and you would see how a small country in the desert became so developed within a short period of time.

@ wirinet,

[B]How Congo Got Destroyed! The Holocaust of Congo! 10-30 Million mass murdered by the White man from Belgium! [/B]

'King Leopold's Ghost'
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COMM.7.1.03.HTM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3516965.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium

Having just read Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, and followed up on its reviews and what I could find about the Congo Free State on the internet (such as this website). I'm aghast at the democide I missed. It is probably over many millions, possibly 10 million murdered or more from 1885 when The Berlin Conference formally recognized the Congo Free State (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo-formerly Zaire) to 1908 when Belgium took it over as a colony. The Congo Free State was the private land, not a colony, of King Leopold II of Belgium to do with whatever he wanted.

And the massive killing did not stop when Belgium took it over.

But amazingly, although the death toll is in the many millions, far exceeding what Germany did to the Hereros (I get a toll of 55,000), the incredible terror, slavery, and death imposed on the Congo natives by one man has been virtually ignored in books on genocide. For example, there is nothing on it in Chalk and Jonassohn's The History and Sociology of Genocide, Kuper's Genocide, and Charny's two-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide. There is one paragraph without estimates of the toll in Totten, Parsons, and Charny's Century of Genocide.

Leopolds Congo- Cutting Africans hands, this is how Congolese learned such crazy behavior from this psychological destruction from Leopold!





Israel got Palestinian land for a Holocaust of questionable quantity, estimates at 6-8Million.

[B]In Congo the estimate that were killed by Devil Leopold by estimates were 8-30 Million!!!! all because he wanted Africa's rubber to build Belgium
[/B]


Where is justice!!!!!!!

Where is Justice!!!!

I am so mad! And this is what he used to build Belgium.

I don't want revenge, all I ask for is reparations!


[B]I mean, such carnage causes permanent post traumatic disorder in the populace, and there has been no therapy offered to Congo! The world must stop! And fix what it has destroyed![/B]

Like I said earlier David. Stop comparing oranges and apples. Show me any other Nation that has gone through as much trauma as us and has done better than us.

Factors that make the Africa case unique:

1. Colonization and working intra-plantations.
2. Removal of 100-300 Million of the stronger/more fit individuals of that continent/Nation to foreign lands to work extra-plantations
3. Resource exploitation.
4. UnFree trade.
5. New language, religion and culture indoctrination.
6. Ruler-line divisions and combination's of territories as nations.


If you show me any such nation, I will accept and submit that we should be up to its speed.

@ Wirinet,

1. I disagree that we should use the Jews as an example. I would rather stay down than bring others down to raise us. Which is what the Jews did and keep doing.

2. The Jewish so called Holocaust is nothing compared to that of just a single Nation like Congo in Africa (Upto 30 Million killed and more millions mutilated). the Jews lived well for 3000 years all over the world. In fact they even lived better where they were than the natives. i do respect how they keep their culture.

3. the Jews were part of europe that colonized us and carted us away as slaves to build and amass their wealth.

4. I did not say we needed 300 years, maybe 100 is enough, or is it too much to ask for? And the west should please stop the ongoing colonization of Africa so we can start the real count.

5. That we were Africa a land of a million kingdoms and tribes is not a problem to me, is it one to you? Unless man was made to fight and as such we must join faster than we did to fight off invaders, I see it not as a curse that the African formed millions of happy cultures and Kingdoms. Please explain why this is a problem,

superego, BRAZIL, CHILE, MEXICO, GUATEMALA. This were countries that had a majority of there native population wiped out and were then ruled by feudal spanish lords and the natives were forced to work on plantations for centuries. The west indies and some other carribean nations were enslaved by European imperialist for centuries too and all this guys seem to be pulling themselves up with there bootstraps despite not having the same resource that we have, especially brazil. Brazil is now one of the world leaders in innovation and they have an amazing economy.

Show me any other Nation that has gone through as much trauma as us and has done better than us.

Also, another point that i would like to make is that you generalize Africa as one nation and you compare it to other individual nations. What happened in King Leopold's Congo did not happen in Nigeria. We also didn't go through traumatic independence movements like Angola and Kenya. We also never had apartheid. In fact most countries in Africa didn't so stop lumping Africa as a nation. My brother please enough of the excuses.

This and a million more articles-

http://www.whitecivilrights.com/the-jewish-role-in-the-slave-trade_556.html

The Jewish Role in the Slave Trade

Now, of all people, a Jewish feminist historian named Natalie Zemon Davis has written a book on a subject which has up until now been strictly off limits to historians and scholars–Jews and their role in the slave trade and in slave ownership. Davis uses as her starting point the life and times of one Jewish physician who also made big bucks (or in his case, big guilders) in the slave trade during the 18th century, David Isaac Cohen Nassy, a resident and merchant prince of the Dutch colony in Surinam in South America, where tens of thousands of black African slaves lived and toiled in the sugar cane fields and the steaming, fever and snake-infested jungles under conditions that made a plantation in Virginia or domestic service in Massachusetts look like paradise.

According to an article in The Jewish Forward, the largest and most prestigious Jewish newspaper in America, “…Nassy was not an anomaly. Of the hundreds of Portuguese and Dutch settlers who traveled to the small plot of land just north of Brazil, almost a third were Jewish. And almost all had slaves. Surinam provided a choice example to exhibit this intermixing — if not for the abundant paper trail that Nassy left behind, then for the sheer exoticism of the place…Sephardic Jews from Portugal had lived on the land and were some of the colony’s first owners of slave-run sugar plantations. By the early 18th century, when Nassy lived…Jews were also granted autonomy and maintained their own legal system and militia, whose largest task involved capturing runaway slaves called maroons.” In other words, the Dutch colonial authorities contracted the lucrative racket of “slave-catching” to the Jews.

The connection between Jews and slavery was known even prior to the Civil War, and it is interesting to note that the Jews, as always, were on the side that could make them the quickest buck. One of the major advocates of slavery in the South was “Major” Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851.) He was considered the most distinguished Jewish layman in his time. He was such a prolific proponent of slavery, that the first negro periodical, The Freedom Journal, was launched in response to Noah’s activities, including “To emancipate the slaves would be to jeopardize the safety of the whole country.” The Freedom Journal called Noah the black man’s “bitterest enemy” and William Lloyd Garrison, the leading White abolitionist, called him the “lineal descendant of the monsters who nailed Jesus to the cross.” (From the banned book: The Secret History of Blacks and Jews)

The annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society for the year 1853 stated: The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society Report of 1853 “The Jews of the United States have never taken any steps whatever with regard to the slavery question. As citizens, they deem it their policy to have every one choose which ever side he may deem best to promote his own interests and the welfare of his country. They have no organization of an ecclesiastical body to represent their general views; no General Assembly, or its equivalent. The American Jews have two newspapers, but they do not interfere in any discussion which is not material to their religion. It cannot be said that the Jews have formed any denominational opinion on the subject of American slavery….The objects of so much mean prejudice and unrighteous oppression as the Jews have been for ages, surely they, it would seem, more than any other denomination, ought to be the enemies of caste, and friends of universal freedom.”

Jewish attorney and historian Seymour B. Liebman has written: “They came with ships carrying African blacks to be sold as slaves. The traffic in slaves was a royal monopoly, and the Jews were often appointed as agents for the Crown in their sale….[They] were the largest ship chandlers in the entire Caribbean region, where the shipping business was mainly a Jewish enterprise….The ships were not only owned by Jews, but were manned by Jewish crews and sailed under the command of Jewish captains.” [New World Jewry 1493-1825: Requiem for the Forgotten (KTAV, New York, 1982), pp. 170, 183.]

Essentially, the infamous “Middle Passage” was largely a Jewish racket. The Jews owned the ships and Liebman notwithstanding, it was assorted Gentiles sailed in them and took all the risks from storms, African tribesmen, slave revolts on board, and the terrible fevers of the disease-ridden West African tropics. The Jews handled the sale once the negroes had arrived in the Americas, usually the West Indies or Cuba or Surinam or Brazil. (The actual importation of blacks right off the boat from Africa into the thirteen British colonies was comparatively rare; most American slaves came from Cuba or the West Indies and had already been slaves for several generations when they arrived here. Importation of foreign slaves into the United States was outlawed by Congress in 1808.)

The truth is out there about the origins of American slavery. The big question is “How long will the Jewish role in slavery be hidden?”