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Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:41pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]and advanced, whatever skills or technologies that had not been lost or

forgotten ; other migrating groups had been on the move from one

settlement to another for so many generations that they had lost some of

the most essential elements in the heritage of their distant forebears

during these constant movements from place to place, movements

which were the most potent factors in disintegrating civilization itself;

and still other invaders were ruthless barbarians "pure and simple ."

Even these, after being absorbed by an advanced population, were

often given the credit for the new advances made by the state . Some of

the societies in this great region were on different levels of development .

Among these were the Sotho, Tswana, Matadyatadya or the so-called

"Bushmen," the Vatonga et al . The Arabs, of course, had been slowly

penetrating the interior from their seacoast footholds for over two

hundred years before the Vakaranga arrived . By 1400 they had their

trading posts scattered throughout the independent states which were

to form the empire . According to D .P. Abraham, by 1500 about 10,000

Arabs were stationed at different points in the interior . They had been

penetrating inland all the way from beyond Kilwa to stations southward

below Sofala . The major built-in threat was complete before the first

great Vakaranga king surveyed the scene .

THE GREAT MUTOTA

The year was 1440 . The king was Mutota . In just about any other land

he would be known to history as Mutota the Great . He and his council

were apparently quick to see that even the most advanced states, each

standing independently and alone, were doomed unless unified into a

single nation with a strong central government. This should be achieved

by voluntary association if possible . The divisive influence of the Arabs

operating in the capitals of the respective states had to be obvious, as

they appeared not to feel it necessary to be either as secretive or as

subtle as their Portuguese enemies . Both the Arabs and the Europeans

had one thing in common, however . Both had the deeply rooted

conviction that they knew the Blacks and that their power over them

and the continued ability to garner their endless wealth rested squarely

on keeping them divided and continuously at each other's throats . No

one, except the Blacks themselves, needed any argument to show that

black unity meant black power and black power meant an end to white

domination, from the east or the west .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:40pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]THE EMPIRE BUILDERS

We have been establishing that the high civilization of Monomopata,

for which the invading Vakaranga have been credited, antedated their

coming by at least 1,500 years . During this long period, before the Rosvi

chiefs led their people into the region in 1400 (circ .), there were many

changes and improvements in the methods and styles of the various

crafts. The changes are shown by determining the period of such

artifacts as pottery and the architectural designs of buildings . The

Vakaranga simply continued to build upon and further develop

preexisting states . Their greatest achievement was in welding several

strong states and some lesser ones into one great empire . Their second

greatest achievement was the reclaiming of the seacoast lands that had

been leased by the states to Asians as trading posts, but over which the

Asians had gradually assumed absolute sovereignty . It is the same old

story of the same techniques of penetration and domination that had to

be repeated over and over in these pages as we moved from country to

country . Ethiopia, Makuria, Alwa, Ghana, Mali, Songhay, the Mossi

States, Kongo, Angola, and Kuba were all destroyed as a direct result of

the first trading post footholds established in their lands . And so it was

for the other states on the continent, large and small . None withstood

the Sirens' songs of the fabulous riches to be gained from trade . As the

history of this region of Africa is generally written, one gathers that the

advanced cultures on the seacoast and key islands were of Asian origin,

the black barbarians being confined to the interior . The fact is that,

while readily granting concessions for trade and settlement to the Asians

on lands along the Indian Ocean coastline, Africans did not withdraw

but remained as active sea captains, sailors, traders, boat and ship

builders and, in short, in all the on-going occupations along the coasts .

The builders of stone cities in the interior also built where Arabs,

Indians and later Portuguese settled at Sofala, Chinde, Quelimane and

farther north at Kilwa . When the cattle-breeding Vakaranga came into

the country under the leadership of the Rosvi ruling clan, they found

the indigenous people more highly advanced than themselves . The fact

that so many of the states that came into prominence between the 13th

and 16th centuries were further reorganized and expanded by

newcomers has tended to obscure the preexisting civilization upon

which the immigrants built . There were several kinds of invaders . Some

were from a homeland only recently broken up . These could make

immediate contributions from their own society of whatever was new[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:39pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]with alloys to tin and copper and began the production of bronze and

bronze implements on a limited scale . The widespread pottery finds of

so many different types indicate the vastness of their ceramics industries .

The decorative designs of all pottery, as well as on all other artifacts

found, seem to tell us that all of these early craftsmen were artists also .

That there were many other highly skilled and professional classes is

evident from the total cultural record these early Blacks left behind in

Southern Africa . The several thousand mining sites of so many different

kinds-iron, gold, copper, tin-suggest expert prospectors, just as the

ruins of nearby temples and other beautifully designed stone structures

tell us that there were great black architects and stonemasons here just

as they had been in Black Egypt when the first pyramids were built
there .

But the ancient ruins of so many cities, towns and villages are the

stony pages of the unwritten history we seek . And just as written records

of black history were destroyed, here, too, in Monomotapa the first

Arabs and Europeans to find these long since deserted sites undertook

wrecking and destroying operations on a scale beyond belief . These

were your modern men, your civilizers of other men . Hidden and lost in

the tangled vines and trees of forests, many stone temples were still

defying the centuries of passing time and standing in all the dignity of

their colonnaded beauty until the 20th century when they were wrecked

by the same people who had wrecked the race of the builders . The fact

that almost all of these ruins were located in or near gold mining areas

enabled some writers to "explain" that the wanton destruction was

carried on in a feverish search for gold . But anyone viewing the nature

and scale of the demolition of the massive stone structures would find it

difficult to see how the search for gold involved the destruction of
buildings .

Their efforts were in vain, however. So much could be reassembled,

reconstructed ; so much could not be destroyed at all . There was,

therefore, a record left written in stone, a record that tells the story of

Blacks who were building a highly developed civilization in Southern

Africa during the same ancient period their brothers were amazing the

world by their advances in Northern Ethiopia (Egypt) and its southern

region (Sudan) .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:37pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]endeavors even on common utilities where art could hardly be expected .

The huge jars for storing grain were glazed and as beautifully channelled

as the cups used by priests and kings . Here, as elsewhere in early Africa,

there seems to have been an insatiable drive for beauty and perfection .

There was an underlying philosophy : Each craftsman felt that his

finished work was at once a reflection and actual measure of what he

himself was, his character . The industrial activities, particularly mining,

overshadowed agriculture and even threatened the existence of this

very basic economy . Over four thousand ancient mining sites have been

discovered, and no one claims that these are all. Iron ore, gold and, to a

lesser extent, copper and tin were the leading industrial activities,

although ivory and ivory carvings always played a considerable role in

the total economy .

These widespread industrial activities, along with the ever increasing

number of cattle brought in by migrating pastoral groups, drove the

farmers to the hills-to a new type of terrace farming on every available

hillside, and the building of mounds for the same purpose where there

were no hills . As difficult as all this was, the genius of African man was

further tested in overcoming the more formidable problem of water and

an irrigation system for hillsides and mounds . Widespread mining

meant widespread deforestation because of the demand for timber for

charcoal production-another industry by itself . Soil erosion kept pace,

unchecked . The steady disappearance of grasslands was assured by

cattle and other roaming animals that fed on grass, the goats being the

most ravishing . The agricultural life of the country was sustained by

intensive terrace farming in the northesast region of which Inyanga was

the center .

By 1200 A.D ., production and international trade had already reached

the high level affluence that was to attract Arabs and Europeans to this

land . Gold was the leading export commodity, although there was also a

great demand in India for the superior type of ironware processed in

Monomotapa . The African smelting process and type of iron ore

peculiar to the region enabled them to produce the best swords, spears

and other weapons that could be found anywhere . The iron industries

created an economic revolution not only in warfare but also in the production

of farming tools, household and kitchenware and better mining

tools . The crafts of blacksmiths, goldsmiths, coppersmiths and tinsmiths

were the most important, each being a well organized secret society .

Quite early, and without any "Bronze Age" period, they experimented[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:36pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]more to their black brothers in Egypt than they borrowed from them is

becoming clearer as our research develops . The stepped-up waves of

"crisis migrations" after the destruction of the Ethiopian Empire should

not obscure the central facts .

The invading immigrants, then, often found the already existing

states as well organized and with institutions as highly advanced as their

own had been before the 13th century . But, almost without exception,

they all had one thing in common, the one thing that made each one so

easy to conquer first by black invaders and later by white invaders :

They were all small ; the smaller and weaker the state, the more fiercely

"independent" it was . The African continent presented a vast, vast

panorama of mini-states-at once a vast panorama of disunity and

weakness. The reorganizing invaders tended to expand territorially over

many of these adjacent states, thus forcing a kind of artificial unity .

Unlike the Kuba of Shyaam and the Angola of Nzinga, few undertook

the great task of developing a sense of national community among the

many diverse groups that made up the state . The Vakaranga immigrants

who developed the Empire of Monomotapa followed the general

practice of establishing effective political rule, while promoting economic
development .

As forecast above, however„ we shall look briefly at the people and

their civilization some centuries before the Vakaranga advent in the

early 1400s . The land and the people to be covered by the Empire

extended from the north above the Zambezi River, included Rhodesia,

westward to the Kalahara, eastward over Mozambique to the Indian

Ocean, and southward into the Transvaal in South Africa below the

Limpopo River (Vembe) .

Since the archaeological evidence gathered all over this vast territory

makes it clear that iron technology and allied crafts were well advanced

here long before the Christian era, the spread of the economic revolution

over Africa by the iron age may have come from this southern

center as well as from Meroe in the northeast . From the period roughly

indicated as early as 300 B .C ., the states which were to form the Empire

of Monomotapa were engaged in a wide range of diversified economic

activities that led not only to interstate trade but foreign commerce over

the Indian Ocean as well .

This economic development was inextricably an index of the

development of their civilization . The drive for the attainment of

excellence in everything produced was reflected in their artistic[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:35pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]The Last
of the Black Empires

ON A BALMY SPRING AFTERNOON IN 1964,1 CAME OUT OF A

large cave where archaeologists had been working and climbed up the

highest of the six hills in the area . In the valley and as far as the eyes

could see there was so much of the same breathtaking natural beauty

that had been seen everywhere in the country that one might wonder

whether the Garden of Eden surpassed it . I was standing in the heart of

Monomotapa, (then white-ruled Rhodesia, but now independent Zimbabwe).,

the last of the black empires in Africa . (Abyssinia, or modern

Ethiopia, has been under Semitic or Solomonid rule for centuries . The

ruling house traces its line to King Solomon) .

Up to this point we have been dealing very largely with states created

or expanded by migrating groups before the coming of Asians and

Europeans into their territories . We have, therefore, been looking at

purely African-created institutions . But the picture has been very much

skewed by the fact that very little attention was given to the advanced

state of early civilization in other parts of the continent prior to the

incursions of this or that group of immigrants after the 1200s (A .D .).

This kind of treatment has misled many in the belief that a highly

advanced civilization existed only in the Nile regions of ancient Ethiopia

(Egypt and the Sudan), and was spread southward from the earliest

times . That these early black brothers from the south probably brought
[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:55am On Mar 09, 2012

To be continued,

The Last
of the Black Empires

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:49am On Mar 09, 2012

Nzinga had returned to the Church that had baptized her "Ann" . Yet

she was one of the very first Blacks to see that the Portuguese conquests,

the slave trade, and the Church were all inseparably one and the same .

The long years of warfare had been equally against all three-the

unholy trinity . And she had never surrendered . In 1963, three hundred

years after her death, her people, now Catholic themselves, did not

believe she had ever returned to the Church . 12
-----------------------------------------------

Notes

12 . For a more detailed study of Queen Nzinga, see Roy Arthur

Glasgow's The Warrior Queen, John Wiley Y Sons, 1969, and Queen

Nzinga and the Mbundu Resistance to the Portuguese Slave Trade,

scheduled for publication 1971 by Oxford University Press . Note in

particular the great difference in the account of the last days of the

Queen and that of mine .

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:47am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]kept them anxiously waiting for action on the treaty, toying with it for

six years, while giving her war-torn land and tired-out people a period

for rest and recovery . She was the same queen who had twice fled the

country not to save herself but save her people from a slaughter that her

flight would prevent . For the same reason she did not want the war

resumed again after over forty years of warfare . On the other hand, she

would not surrender her country to Portugal and its slave trade . The

areas of Angola they still held, including the important islands of

Luanda and Sao Thome, belonged to the Angolan people, and some of

these areas belonged directly to her own kingdoms of Ndongo and

Matamba. Finally, then, in 1656, tired and weary from four decades of

relentless struggles, she signed a treaty that was revised and made

acceptable to her . Her greatest concession allowed the Portuguese

puppet king, Aidi, to head the territory conceded to them .

There were seven more years of a busy life for Queen Nzinga-pushing

reconstruction, the resettlement of ex-slaves, and undertaking the development

of an economy of free men and women that would be able to

succeed without the slave trade . She could not have been unaware that,

with the Portuguese still strongly entrenched in the most strategic areas,

unless she was succeeded by equally great leaders, all of her labors in

defense of the freedom of the Blacks would ultimately be in vain . That

was the burning question in 1663 as a dull autumn sun lengthened the

shadows over the palace grounds where thousands stood in tears : Were

there any more Garcias anywhere? Would God send them another

Nzinga to hold the line against the truly white devils? The sun slowly

went down behind the Angolan trees and darkness spread over the

land . Over three hundred years later the Blacks of Angola are still

fighting the Portuguese, and still waiting for the sunrise .

In the heart-torn state of national mourning the Queen's Council

permitted two priests to come in and perform the last rites of the

Church. Since the Queen had renounced the Catholic religion many

years before her passing, and had banned missions from her country as

centers of subversion, this appearance of priests at the royal bedside

may be explained either as a once-a-Catholic-always-a-Catholic theory,

or as an attempt by Catholic Portugal to give the appearance of final

victory on all ftonts . In this case it would mean that the most unconquerable

of foes, recanting and submissive, had been conquered by

their religion in the end . And so it is written in the official documents of

Portugal, the written record used by almost all historians of Africa, that[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:45am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]city in Africa, to fend for themselves alone . While the chiefs and their

forces did indeed put up a gallant fight, they were massacred in one of

the most savage onslaughts on record . The recapture of Luanda by

Salvador de Sa, the new governor, and his crushing of black opposition

there, led him to initiate new peace efforts with the two kingdoms of

Kongo and Nzinga. The Kongolese king refused to answer his letter, but

did send a monk to hear the governor's terms . Nzinga also agreed to

efforts at negotiations . These gestures by the two African leaders led

Salvador de Sa to advise the king of Portugal that all the African states

were cowed and their power broken . He knew better, of course, for

even the chiefs and their people in his own Portuguese-held territory

were still fighting on despite the massacres, and probably because of
them.

If the Portuguese had been able to conquer either Kongo or Ndongo-

Matamba, no peace offers would have been made . Hadn't they tried it

over and over and failed? To be able to conquer both now was out of

the question . Again, the old conquest route was invoked: beguiling

smiles and protestations of friendship, finding concrete expression in

negotiations for peace . The language of diplomacy reached its most

brilliant heights of deception in those velvety clauses of proposed

treaties which the Africans, if they signed them, would be signing

themselves and their people into perpetual bondage . This fact was

supposed to be assured by the other fact that the relevant clauses were

so ambiguous that they could be interpreted in several different waysin

this case in whatever way the Portuguese chose to interpret them .

The very same provisions of the treaties could be read and explained to

the Blacks in such language that it would appear that the Europeans

were not only humbling themselves but also proclaiming the outcome

as . a glorious victory for the Africans . Of course, no Blacks, not even a

Nzinga, was supposed to be intelligent enough, sharply intelligent

enough, to see through all this . But, stripping away all the glittering

verbiage, Nzinga saw at a glance that what it all meant was that she was

to be a vassal of the Portuguese king, one paying him a big annual

tribute . She would die first . And no one should have known this better

than the Portuguese who, at the time of this latest treaty offer, had been

at war with her, and repeatedly defeated, for over twenty-eight years .

They had met one of the giants of the human race whom they had

found impossible to recognize as such because she appeared on the

planet not only as a woman but one with black skin . Nzinga, therefore,[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:42am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]Even the holy robes of the priests in Angola not only covered their real

mission as agents of empire, but also covered their insatiable lust for the

black bodies of their helpless slave girls ." She had been forced by the

actualities of black-white relations to distrust all whites, along with their

tricky treaties .

By 1641 the Dutch had made great progress in reducing the power of

Portugal all along the coast, and Nzinga's adamant position made their

situation an impossible one to maintain . A despairing governor and

council had no choice but to declare war against her once again, a fullscale

war . But the situation was now most favorable for the Angolans .

Their northern neighbor, Kongo, had become more active in its own

war against the Portuguese and, besides, a new and greater king had

assumed the leadership . This was Garcia 11, who continued the policy of

cooperating with the Dutch where and when Kongolese interests were

involved . (Some black leaders had learned to use the whites as the

whites always used them : when it served their own interests .) The other

happy development for Ndongo was that the Dutch invasion of Portuguese-

held areas had actually begun in 1641 before any moves could be

made against either of the two black states, Kongo and Ndongo .II

Nzinga continued her campaign against the Portuguese, winning

victories everywhere a battle was joined . With Dutch aid, the great

Portuguese stronghold of Masangano fell in 1648 . The Dutch, having

previously captured Luanda, now found themselves threatened by the

steady reenforcements that continued to pour in from Portuguese

Brazil . The Dutch withdrew, leaving the Blacks in the area, who had

helped them to capture and defend this, the most important Portuguese
----------------------------------------------

Notes

10. The Queen was further outraged over the success of the

Portuguese in capture both of her younger sisters . This gave the enemy

a most powerful bargaining weapon . Yet she continued to reject all of

their principal demands, with the result that her sisters, to whom she

was deeply devoted, remained in captivity for many years .

11 . We must continue to skip over much in every 'region that is briefly

covered in this work . This is often painful, as here, for example, I am

unable to deal with the quite relevant struggle of the unconquerable

Dembo people against the Portuguese and slavery . But this must wait

until black history is written in depth, period by period, region by

region and state by state .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:40am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]countless thousands of her people would die in her defense, she

outwitted the Portuguese again by slipping out of the country, instructing

her lieutenants to spread the word everywhere that she had fled the

country and, mistakenly entering the territory of an enemy, had been

killed. To give point to the story, there was general weeping and

mourning throughout Ndongo, real weeping and mourning, because

the masses believed the story to be true . So did the Portuguese. The

only reason for the war having been removed by Providence, the

Bishop could celebrate a special mass in celebration of this special

blessing, and the Colony of Angola could at last be organized after over

fifty years of obstruction . All things now seemed to be happy and going

well according to the original grand design .

Then in 1629 the Portuguese stood aghast when Queen Nzinga

"burst upon them from the grave," sweeping all opposition before her .

She brought in her fierce Jaga allies, apparently willing to do even this to

defeat the whites . The Portuguese were completely defeated . She had

not only retaken her own country, but had, meanwhile, become Queen

of Matamba also, having replaced the weak Queen there . Nzinga was

now an empress of two countries . She now redoubled her campaign

against slavery and the slave trade by making both Ndongo and

Matamba havens for all who could escape from the slaver by rebelling

or otherwise .' Chiefs engaged in the traffic in nearby states now stood in

fear of her wrath. The Portuguese saw "the handwriting on the wall ." In

order not to lose every foothold in the area, Lisbon suddenly

remembered that it had never carried out the treaty signed with Nzinga

in 1622, and declared that Portugal's wars against her had been unjust!

High level embassies were sent to the Queen in 1639 in efforts to effect

a settlement . Nzinga received them, listened to their protestations of

eternal friendship, and went ahead with determination in reorganizing

both of the kingdoms and undermining colonial rule in areas held by

the enemy . That every white man in Africa was an enemy of the Blacks

was a matter about which there was no room for debate in her mind .
---------------------------------------------------

Notes

9 . Queen Nzinga's anti-slavery crusade did not mean that she herself

did not hold her own captives in bondage, including the Portuguese .

The Portuguese had changed the nature of slavery into a racial pattern,

and Nzinga was particularly ruthless with capture black chiefs who were

allies of the whites . She did not hesitate to sell such chiefs and their

followers into slavery .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:39am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]The solidarity of the Blacks remained unbroken, however, and their

loyalty to Nzinga remained steadfast . She was "just away a little while,"

and would soon return . Any child in the most distant bush could tell

you that their Queen was "just away on business ." So who was this

Philip? His name said he was a Portuguese, so he couldn't be King of

Ndongo. All Angolan kings and queens were so African that they

couldn't be tricked out of their own African names . The Queen herself

had dropped "Ann" from her name when she discovered that baptizing

a Black into Christianity meant surrendering his soul and body not to

any Christ, but to the white man . And oral tradition further has it that

the people not only rejected "Philip I," but made fun of the very idea

that he considered himself to be king . Their blind faith in their Queen

and the certainty of her return, according to the same oral record, was

not really so blind . Those who understood the coded drum messages

spread the news that all guerrilla attacks which occurred throughout the

land were attacks which were personally directed by the Queen and

that, in fact, she was raising a new army of liberation . Her loyal chiefs

and people in Ndongo were to stand by, ready .

The written record, no matter how slanted, supports the oral . For in

November, 1627, she crossed the borders back into her country at the

head of a strong army, made stronger and stronger as her loyal chiefs

and wildly cheering people, including her fanatically devoted freed

men, flocked to her standard as she swept forward to recapture the

Cuanza stronghold held by Philip I and put him to flight . The Portuguese

continued to be amazed at this display of black unity-an'd under a

woman's leadership at that . Black unity was now seen clearly as Black

Power, and that meant an unconquerable people . The Portuguese were

resolved to break that unity and the power that developed from it . The

revolt against them had become general as Nzinga's victorious forces

advanced. The Portuguese retreated to their own strongholds on the

coast, giving the Dutch threat as an excuse and not the threat of being

annihilated by the Queen's forces .

But as there was in fact no imminent Dutch threat, the Portuguese

regrouped and strengthened their forces for an all-out war to destroy

Nzinga and this time, not to cease fighting until this was done . They

began by giving orders and offering a big reward for her capture, dead

or alive . Their slave troops, still the backbone of the Portuguese armed

forces, were given the special inducements of land and freedom for her

capture . Realizing that such an all-out attempt to capture her meant that[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:32am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]by Portuguese recruiting agents to join their forces . The quiet and

effective work of Nzinga's agents among the black troops of Portugal

was one of the most glorious, yet unsung, pages in African history . For

whole companies rebelled and deserted to the colors of the black queen,

taking with them the much needed guns and ammunition which she

had been unable to secure except by swiftly moving surprise attacks on

enemy units . The Queen's armies were further strengthened by the

runaway slaves who streamed into the only certain haven for the free on

the whole continent of Africa . To the Portuguese, Queen Nzinga had

passed the last word in unheard-of audacity when she was able to

influence scores of vassal chiefs to rebel against them and join the cause

of their own race . This was too much . This woman had to be destroyed .

It had come to that.

The Portuguese sent their ultimatum to the Queen from their Luanda

stronghold, Portugal's Lisbon in Africa . It demanded the immediate

return of all chiefs, soldiers and slaves to Portuguese territory ; that is, all

who had fled therefrom . Refusal would mean war, the ultimatum

concluded . The fact was that a state of war already existed since the

Queen's own ultimatum of the previous year . The Portuguese were

afraid to move against her then and they were even more afraid. to move

against her stronger forces now, although they continued to give the

Dutch threat as the reason for delaying the required all-out attack .

Meanwhile, the usual strategy of first instigating factional strife among

the Blacks was by no means forgotten . It was just that there was so much

unity and patriotism in this dominant Angola state, so much fanatical

devotion to this "terrible Black Queen," that internal subversion was

almost impossible . They tried to overcome all this by formally declaring

that Nzinga was not legally Queen of Ndongo, the throne vacant, and

one of their own vassal chiefs, Aidi Kiluanji, was declared king. The

Portuguese marshalled all of their forces on land and sea, their special

river fleets in particular, to crush Nzinga before the Dutch struck again .

But the Queen herself opened the offensive, striking first at the Portuguese

puppet king and his forces . The Portuguese captured her principal

island stronghold in the Cuanza river in July, 1626, thus dividing her

forces and, by a swift encircling movement designed to capture the

Queen, cut off her main supporting regiments and forced her not only

to retreat but to withdraw from her country . Joy reigned at Luanda and

Sao Thome. With Nzinga's flight from Angola it appeared that the black

menace was over and victory complete . Aidi Kiluanji was crowned King

Philip I of Ndongo .
[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:31am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]three hundred years . Yet, if lying is a legitimate aspect of warfare, the

Portuguese may have felt justified in trying to destroy such an implacable

foe in any way they could .8 Their greatest trouble was yet to come .

Nzinga became queen in 1623, and went into action at once . Her first

major move was to send an ultimatum to the Portuguese authorities

demanding the immediate execution of the terms of the treaty, otherwise

war would be declared . While the Portuguese were preparing to meet

the Queen's armies, the Dutch fleet appeared as a new threat . The

Dutch, themselves great slavers, certainly did not come as liberators of

the hard pressed Blacks . Their aim was to break the Portuguese

monopoly and secure their share of the slave trade and the mineral

wealth of West and Central Africa . To further these ends, they used the

Blacks as other white peoples did and still do . No time was lost in

forming an alliance with Pedro 11, King of Kongo, in his war with the

Portuguese . The Dutch had already captured seven Portuguese slave

ships at sea, sunk other vessels in the harbors at Luanda and Mpinda,

and generally raising hell . All this gave Queen . Nzinga more time to

prepare for the inevitable . She even reversed her demands for a

Portuguese war against the Jaga and formed a military alliance with

them herself. Knowing how very unreliable the Jaga were, she sought to

make the alliance binding by promising to marry the Jaga chief, Kasanji,

and adopting certain desirable Jaga customs .

Nzinga's greatest act, however, probably the one that makes her one

of the greatest women in history, was in 1624 when she declared all

territory in Angola over which she had control as free country, all slaves

reaching it from whatever quarter were forever free . She went further .

Since it was clear to her that white power in Africa rested squarely on

the use of black troops against black people, she undertood the first and

only carefully organized effort to undermine and destroy the effective .

employment and use of black soldiers by Whites-the first and only

Black leader in history who was ever known to undertake such a task .

She had carefully selected groups of her own soldiers to infiltrate the

Portuguese black armies, first separating and spreading out individually

into Portuguese held territory and allowing themselves to be "induced"
----------------------------------------------

Notes

8, I am not unaware that Nzinga hated her brother not only because

he was a slave trader, but also because he had murdered her young son,

being the king's nephew, was heir to the throne . .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:30am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]down on all fours and expertly formed himself into a "royal throne"

upon which the princess sat easily without being a strain on her devoted

follower . Yet she rose at regular intervals, knowing that other attendants

were vying for the honor of thus giving to these whites still another

defeat . I gather from the different ways this incident is reported that the

Western mind is unable to grasp its real meaning . Some historians saw it

as a cruel and inhuman use of slaves, ignoring the fact that Nzinga's

chief claim to fame was that she was the greatest abolitionist of slavery,

that she herself had no slaves and, indeed, had not the slightest need for

any. One reason might be that she was so much loved and even blindly

followed by her people that it was believed that all would die, to the last

man and woman, following her leadership . Such were the men, not

slaves, who gladly formed a human couch before the astonished Portuguese

for their leader .

She faced the Portuguese governor and spoke as a ruler of the land,

and not as a subject of the king of Portugal . She did not recognize the

man in the big chair as governor because she did not recognize the

existence of a Portuguese "colony of Angola ." She only saw before her

what her people had seen approaching their shores over a hundred

years before- pompous white devils bent on the destruction of the nonwhite

world . The Ndongo terms for peace were presented as uncompromising

demands, and it was clear from the beginning that the Portuguese

would have fared better with a man . For before any kind of treaty was

signed Portugal had to agree (1) to evacuate Kabasa and all nearby

fortifications ; (2) the Portuguese were to wage war against the Jaga (a

harsh provision since the Jaga had been Portugal's allies in trying to

crush Ndongo) ; (3) all chiefs who had become vassals of the Portuguese

king were to be freed and enabled to return to former tributary status at

home and, finally, the important concession Nzinga made was to return

the Portuguese prisoners-of-war she held . The treaty of 1622 was

supposed to end all fighting in the whole West-Central region . But the

governor, as though to make up for his defeat in the peace negotiations

with Nzinga, marched off, almost immediately, to invade Kongo again .

The treaty then became dead insofar as its execution was concerned .

But Nzinga's brother died the next year and she became Queen of

Ndongo. The distressed Portuguese, in order to discredit her, put out

the story that she had poisoned him . And while there was not a scintilla

of evidence or any basis at all for the concoction, historians have shown

their unbiased objectivity by faithfully carrying on the charge for over[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:28am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]the war of resistance .' It paid off. Both the Portuguese and their Jaga

allies were checked, and the war dragged on year after year . After

Kabasa, the capital city, fell to the Portuguese, their losses had become

so heavy that the new governor who had been sent from Lisbon with

firm orders to complete the conquest of Angola "once and for all,"

nevertheless was forced to sue for peace without victory . The Portuguese

had suffered a disastrous defeat by the Blacks, but the official version,

and excuse, was that there was "general illness" in their ranks . Yet the

Portuguese insisted on holding Kabasa . The Africans therefore rejected

peace proposals as a trick and the war was resumed in a land of famine

where food crops and the slave trade itself had come to a standstill . In

this desperate state of affairs, the fighting somehow continued, with

both sides obviously weakened and in disarray . It was during this

period, in 1619, that a new Portuguese commander managed to murder

over a hundred chiefs . At this point the Pope intervened, insisting that

the wholesale slaughter be ended and peace be pursued . In 1622, a new

governor was sent from Lisbon to make peace . Portugal had been

appointing "governors of Angola" for over forty years without having

control over it .

The peace conference was held at Luanda . The black delegation was

headed by the country's ablest and most uncompromising diplomat,

Ann Nzinga, not yet queen, but sister of the king-the woman power

behind a weak king, and the one responsible for inspiring the people to

continue the war of resistance when every hope was gone, unless she

herself had become their last hope . But even before the peace conference

began, and at the risk of wrecking it, the governor's Caucasian arrogance

could not be restrained . He had decided on a studied insult at the outset

by providing chairs in the conference room only for himself and his

councilors, with the idea of forcing the black princess to stand humbly

before his noble presence . He remained seated, of course, staring

haughtily as she entered the room . She took in the situation at a glance

with a contemptuous smile, while her attendants moved with a swiftness

that seemed to suggest that they had anticipated this stupid behavior by

the Portuguese . They quickly rolled out the beautifully designed royal

carpet they had brought before Nzinga, after which one of them went
-----------------------------------------------------------

Notes

7 . The People were actually rallying behind the King's sister Nzinga,

who had opposed him for engaging in the slave trade .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:26am On Mar 09, 2012

[b]QUEEN NZINGA:
THE UNCONQUERABLE

Greatness was born out of the savage oppression of the Africans and

out of that oppression it grew like a giant . Just why the Portuguese drew

so much blood with the lash from already chained and helpless slaves is

beyond all human understanding since, if for no other reason, the

victims were "articles of commerce" and the source of the very riches

slavers sought. Besides, over half of the captured Blacks died before

reaching their destination . Self-interest, then, should have stayed the

murderous hands of the slavers . Nothing did, and that fact was one of

the reasons that Queen Nzinga said that the real savages in Africa were

the whites . They created the conditions that brought her to the fore .'

The Portuguese were so aggressive in their program of dividing the

Blacks and keeping them fighting among themselves that they overshot

the mark, simply went too far . The system of spreading out over the

country into the provinces and allying themselves with the various

chiefs has been mentioned more than once . But after 1608 the commander-

in-chief of the Portuguese army tightened the noose . This was

Bento Cardoso . Under his plan Angola was to be further depopulated

by a massive onslaught for slaves through a closely coordinated system

in which every chief in the land would be "owned" by a Portuguese and

directly responsible to him for a stated quota of slaves . This would

bypass the Angolan king (of Ndongo) to whom the provincial chiefs

paid their taxes in slaves . This would also mean increased warfare

between the chiefdoms in order to meet the increased quotas demanded

by raiding into each other's territories . Chiefs failing to secure the

required number of slaves were themselves enslaved . Over a hundred

chiefs and other notables were sold into slavery in a single year and

another hundred murdered by the Portuguese .6 We may safely assume

that the actual number of chiefs enslaved or murdered was greater than

that state above, since the Portuguese, like other nations, generally cut

casualty figures for the record . The situation to be considered here

however, is the widespread confusion and terror among a hunted and

leaderless people . To make matters even worse, if that was possible, the

half-savage Jaga, who would join anybody for their favorite game of

looting and raping, became allies of Cardoso . The Angolan king, who

had been cooperating with the slave traders, now saw himself being

ruined on all fronts, losing his people and his profits . He therefore

began to resist the Portuguese . The people, even though they knew that

their king himself was a slaver, in sheer desperation flocked to support
-----------------------------------------------------

Notes

5. For quite a different version see Portuguese sources, such as the

works of the Capauchin monk, Joao Antonia Cavazzi, Descricao e

Historia dos tres Reinos, do Congo, Matamba e Angola ; and the soldier,

Antonia de Olivera Cadornega, Historia Geral dos Guerras Angolamos .

Reprinted 1965 and 1942 respectively, Lisbon .

6 . Some accounts give 80 as the number massacred .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:57pm On Mar 08, 2012

To be continued,

QUEEN NZINGA:
THE UNCONQUERABLE

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:52pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]a colony of Portugal . Even the Portuguese counselors to Diogo could

now deny any responsibility for the disaster with a straight face . Yet

when Diogo died five years later (1561), they were still actively on the

job to choose his successor, thus promoting further turmoil in an already

disintegrating nation . The murder of one king after another became

almost routine. Attacks from enemy neighbors, quick to take advantage

of the royal weaklings and internal chaos, marked the declining years of

Kongo as a great power . Jaga warriors almost gave it a death blow in

1568, but not quite .

Things moved rapidly . In 1575, Angola became a colony of Portugal

by a royal decree only, and Mother Kongo, fighting for her own life,

could only weep at the permanent loss of her greatest offspring . But

does not the very mention of 1575 as the year Angola became a

Portuguese possession-does this not seem to be sort of closing the book

on the most important events prior to and after 1575, making it appear

that the Kongo's near-collapse led to an almost immediate and easy

takeover of Angola as a colony? This is the way historians generally

read . Well, it was not that way at all . The disintegration of the Kongolese

state seemed to be complete, but it was not . There was still another

revival under another line of great kings . And although the conquest of

Angola was ordered by Lisbon in 1571 and began in 1575, the

Portuguese, to their great surprise, had to fight their longest and bloodiest

war, almost foot by foot, before Angola was finally taken nearly a

half century later . They had not counted on being confronted with a

black queen who would turn out to be one of the bravest generals that

ever commanded an army . They had not counted on the new Queen of

Ndongo, Ann Nzinga .

[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:49pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]dealers, but the personification of all that is meant by corruption and

immorality . All of Affonso's efforts to get at least one good school established

in Kongo were blocked . For one thing, widespread education of

the Blacks was not really intended ; that would have meant sending welltrained

teachers instead of the unwanted dregs of Portuguese society .

But even if Portugal had had the best intentions, she herself did not

have many educated men in the sixteenth century and her own illiterate

masses were just as ignorant as those in the rest of Europe .

The situation had become worse on all fronts when Diogo became

king of Kongo in 1545, supported by the Lisbon court factions that

could still make or break kings and influence their policies . On the other

hand, the powerful trader population had their principal strongholds at

strategic Luanda and Sao Thome, from which points they continued to

expand slave operations in, below, around and beyond Kongo, all in

defiance of Kongolese kings and the king of Portugal himself. They were

greatly aided by the king (ngola) of Ndongo, the strongest state in the

Angola region .4 But Ndongo was nominally under the Kongo as a

tributary state . In 1556 war between the major conflicting groups,

hitherto undercovered, broke out, open and full scale : Royal Portuguese

forces allied with those of Kongo against Portuguese trader force allied

with Ndongo-Portuguese against Portuguese and Africans against

Africans .

So it appears on paper in the records . The simple truth is that it was a

war of Africans against Africans, with the Portuguese forces safely in the

rear . That black troops were to be used in all dangerous situations and

white lives safeguarded wherever possible was no silent "Gentleman's

Agreement" or an aspect of the Grand Caucasian Consensus ; it was,

rather, an explicit royal decree from Lisbon . But it was so very unneces- .

sary, this royal order to put Blacks in the front lines of battle . This would

have been done anyway as a matter of course . The Kongolese were

defeated and Ndongo and the slave traders now controlled the whole

trade . And although the war waged against them was instigated by

Lisbon and directed by Manuel's own representatives in Kongo, the

victorious traders used Ndongo for negotiations leading to a new

alliance with Lisbon and the foundation for taking over all of Angola as
----------------------------------------------------

Notes

4. The name "Angola," later taken from the title for the king, was not

yet applied to the region that is now the Portuguese colony of Angola .
[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:48pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]cannons . And while we now surround ourselves with armed guards on

these long marches, we never know how many of our black soldiers are

the Queen's own men! . . . "

This would have been a true account up to 1663 when the forty years

of unremitting warfare that Queen Nzinga waged against the Portuguese

to free Angola ended with her passing . Africa had lost her greatest

daughter, the slaves their greatest emancipator . Where is this explicitly

written? Nowhere .

It has been pointed out that Affonso was himself a statesman, and far

from being a mere puppet in the hands of the Portuguese . Even though

the process got under way with his conversion to Christianity and the

replacement of his own African name with a Portuguese one, he was

awakened by the Code, and began to resist and reject those provisions

which were designed to make Africans Black Portuguese in the name of

Christ, while destroying their sovereignty at the same time . The fact that

the enemy prevailed in the end does not detract from his stature as a

great African . The pressures had increased as Portuguese riches from

the slave trade, far from satisfying their greed, led them into excited

searches for gold, silver, copper and lead they believed to be in abundance

in the region, but concealed by the Blacks .

Pressures from the African population increased with the widespread

slave hunts and raids . Historians have highlighted the role of African

chiefs and kings in the slave trade ; little is said about the general African

opposition to the trade or about the kings and chiefs who led the fight

against' it . Yet, by the very nature of the situation, these had to be . as

well known as the Blacks who enriched themselves from the traffic .

Queen Nzinga was not the only African abolitionist . It just happened

that in her case she was not only involved in treaty negotiations of

record, but operated over so many Angolan areas that she could not

easily be excluded from history . The Kongolese opposing their kings

were fighting both slavery and the Christian Church that promoted it .

Even the broader education they all so passionately desired turned out

to be a farce, another Western bait . The "schools," rigidly restricted in

number and attendance, were little more than Catholic catechistic

classes, under semi-literate priests who were themselves not only slave[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:47pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]the slave pens on the coast . The greatest number died from poison

which hundreds of women would conceal on their bodies for the

purpose, passing it to friends and kinsmen in the darkness of night

before giving it to their children and finally taking it themselves . All this

slowed us down during the night when we should have moved faster

because it was cooler . Yet the dead and the dying had to have their

chains chopped off from the living . Many babies were deliberately

smothered to death by their dying mothers . . . We do not believe that

the other deaths were caused by the long march as some allege . For

while it is true that we ourselves are carried in hammocks, the bearers

changed every ten or fifteen miles . The biggest and strongest boys are

selected to carry us . They are usually between twenty and thirty years

old. They also collapse sometimes, but only five have died during this

year . It must be remembered that these Blacks are quite used to walking

very long distances with heavy burdens . . . There are many problems in

this business. The captains, taking it easy on the coast, are always complaining

about our slow movement and the many weeks it takes on the

march. They never take into account how much we are slowed down by

tramping and stumbling over the skeletons and rottening dead bodies

of slaves that went along these trails before us, sometimes years before

us. The stench of those who died recently is unbearable, yet we bear it .

We also lose much time trying to find routes free of the dead and dying .

Then there are scores and scores of perfectly healthy Blacks who drop

dead without any apparent cause . Some say they die out of sheer

spite-another way of defeating us . . . We work in fear, for our guns are

often useless in the increasing number of ambush attacks along these

death-ridden trails . And while the Kongolese kings now harass us in

their attempts to check the spread of the trade, the real danger is in the

Angola region, the region of the Black Terror in the form of a deathdefying

black queen, Ann Nzinga. Who ever heard of a woman general,

leading her armies in person? The truth is that she is the greatest

military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal . Her

tactics keep our commanders sweating in confusion and dismay . Her

aim is nothing less than the total destruction of the slave trade . To this

end, and what alarms us most, she has developed a system of infiltrating

our black troops with her own men, causing whole companies to rebel,

desert, and join her armies in what she calls a'War of Liberation .' Portuguese,

casualties are always heavier than reported, for she stages surprise

attacks with lightning speed, always aiming first to capture guns and
[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:46pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]this very quickly and found that it fitted in well with the general plan to

keep the blacks divided, forever suspicious of each other, and to have

these mutual hatreds and suspicions historically derived not from anything

the Europeans had done but from the Blacks' own record of

tribal" warfare .

As the slave raids spread throughout Angola and Kongo, the Blacks

continue to flee overland and up the rivers toward the central and

southern areas of the great savanna regions and the lakes . Some, as we

have seen in the case of Kuba, found security long . enough to rebuild

remarkable states again, others found security only in the hidden

recesses of decay and decline . Meanwhile, the fierce Jaga warriors were

still on rampage, fighting with or against any group, including the

white slave traders . But since the Jaga generally waged war only against

their own kind, Africans, the Portuguese were less hesitant in supplying

them with guns . The wars to capture slaves had become so widespread

among and within the various states, and the slave trails to the coasts

were so heavy with barefooted traffic that it is difficult to see why any

alliance with the Jaga were needed, unless it was thought to be necessary

to make up for the unbelievable death toll among the captives .

For every two million Blacks enslaved over a million died . The record

indicate rather clearly that many millions preferred death to slavery. I

just said the record indicates," but you will never find a single Portuguese,

Dutch, Spanish, English or American document that explicitly

says arsuch things . The archives in Lisbon are rich to overflowing with

African documents going back 500 years . By wading through a great

mass of much written records the historian often gets a picture that was

not intended for painting and messages from the same documents

which were not sent-which is merely another way of saying again that

written documents often reveal far more than their authors intended .

You will therefore search in vain for an account written as the following :

" . . .It is not true that all women, and even children, were likewise

marched in chains ; this would have been unnecessary anyway because

we hadearned that these black women are so loyal to their men that

they would follow them even into hell . Capture their men and you did

not have to capture them . Yet many of these same women would seek

death directly by attacking us and our armed guards . These, of course

were beaten and chained the same as male slaves . . . Another problen

was the large number of suicides during the two-hundred mile trek to
[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:07pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]Dogs of the Lord" (Jesuits), wore most helpful as spearheads into the

interior chiefdoms to form slave hunting alliances in exchange for

discarded guns.

For those who require the specific details and examples of just how

advancing black states were destroyed throughout the African continent

and want the facts repeated over and over again, here then is still

another example in both Angola and the Kingdom of Kongo . The

strategy for destruction seldom varied, giving added weight to my

concept of a Grand Caucasian Consensus on matters concerning nonwhite

peoples . The aspect now under discussion was the practice of

having white groups spread out over the country into the various

provinces, heavily ladened with gifts of goodwill, and getting themselves

attached to the courts of local chiefs as friendly advisors who were

going to guarantee the security of the chiefs and their people, and even

extend their power over other peoples, all of which would make great

riches for the chiefs . A few old Juns replacing spears seemed to be sufficient

evidence that these whites were indeed saviours as well as friends .

(The French name for them was agents provocateurs . The American

name would have been C .I.A or A.I .D .) No matter how strong and

effective the administrative machinery of the central government at San

Salvador had been, it was being undermined and destroyed by the well planned

European activities in the provinces-the identical activities

that had been carried on in the Egyptian provinces three thousands

before, in Kuba, and would be repeated all over Africa . The aim was to

provoke war between the Black, pitting the gun-armed groups against

those who only had shields and spears, and thus skyrocketing the

number of captives for slavery from a few thousands into millions . Not

only were whole villages destroyed, but entire provinces were depopulated

and their formerly proud and free citizens were marched off in

chains, collared and joined together by heavy poles-as though the

chains that bruised and bound hands and ankles were not enough .

Many royal lineages were among the captives, including chiefs, which is

exactly how it should have been if any of the people were to be

enslaved. According to African tradition leader and people were one

and the same, sharing a common lot . This sense of oneness, however,

applied only to the members of one's tribe, and not to Africans outside

of it, another tragic fact of black iistory . This is why the chiefs and kings

would secure prisoners of war by attacking other states . Only a savage

chieftain would sell his own people into slavery . The Europeans learned[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:00pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]The Portuguese Christianization of the Kongo created something

more than chaos . It was a revolting mess, no matter from what angle it is

viewed . To begin with, priests were not only among the leading slave

traders, but they also owned slave ships to carry the "black cargoes" to

distant lands . Priests also had their harems of black girls, some having as

many as twenty each. They were called "house servants" by these "holy

fathers." the great majority of the whites were the scum of the land

from whit] they came . Even the half-educated priests were generally of

the very incest character, morally and otherwise . The slave situation

became more and more desperate and out of hand as every white man

down to to lowly worker became a trader . The builders sent over to

erect fortifications and other permanent installations for the Portuguese

(stone an, brick masons, carpenters, engineers, painters, metal and

other craftmen) were all slave traders . Sailors and unskilled Portuguese

laborers had their own quotas of slaves, especially slave girls . For let this

truth emerge from the many facts which are buried, and let it stand out

clearly : One of the main attractions that drew thousands of white men

was their unlimited sexual freedom with all the black girls and women

who were enslaved and helpless in the power of their masters . These

"wholesale raids" on black womanhood continued to swell the mulatto

population the majority of which, as in the case of Egypt and the

Sudan, became the faithful servants and loyal representatives of- the

conquering races to which their fathers belonged .

The Kongolese king, Affonso, found himself in the middle of fires

from several directions, and hamstrung by the Portuguese advisor who

had acquired veto power even over the King's actions . Yet Affonso was

far from being a weakling . He tried, too late, to gain control of the slave

trade, a control now most urgent because every Black that competing

raiders could get their hands on was enslaved, including some members

of the royal household and numerous titleholders throughout the

country.On the other hand, the king of Portugal declared a royal

monopoly over the trade . This not only frustrated Affonso's efforts, but

clashed head-on with the interests of the powerful and independent

slave merchants, the real controlling settlers on the seacoasts and

islands . These were the representatives of the great chartered companies

that controlled the commerce of the world . Since they operated under

royal charters and the Court was a principal shareholder in all such

enterpries, they could not openly defy the king ; but the distance from

Lisbon enabled them to bypass de Silva and any other representative of

the king and carry on as they wished . The mission fathers, the "War[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:51pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]mainly on the coast and off-shore lands, desired the quicker riches that

would flow from the increasing d land for black slaves . The settlers,

therefore, pursued a more aggresive course of action, ignoring the

Lisbon court's attempt to cover up the real operations with the friendly

language of diplomacy .

Up to the sixteenth century the °people we are calling slaves were not

slaves in the modern sense, but labourers either captured as prisoners of

war or persons imprisoned for various offenses. During the first stages of

the slave trade many African chiefs and kings actually thought they

were supplying workers needed aload, and at a great profit to themselves

. They had not had experiece with the white man's slave system

or its equation with "race ." Not at first, we have said . But as the decades

passed, and the Kongo state is a good example, many Africans became

enmeshed in the horrors of the trade, knew what they were doing and,

in the pursuit of guns and riches, became as brutal as the whites in

dealing with their own kind .

Guns. Black leaders saw these new weapons of death as the source of

the white man's power and the immediate threat to their own existence ;

the earth-shaking cannons that were being brought into Africa seemed

to herald the death of a whole race or its total enslavement . The

Africans became insistent in their demands for guns as articles of trade .

There was then, as now, a silent embargo on arms to Black Africa, a sort

of white "Gentlemen's Agreement. The demand for guns by the chiefs

was pitted against the demand for slaves by the Europeans and Arabs

(the Arab slavers had no trouble procuring firearms) . The chiefs could

seriously hamper the trade if their demands for guns were not met .

Besides, many slave traders were nick to see that the supply of slaves

would double and triple if firearms were given to certain strategically

located kingdoms and chiefdoms ; from these would then seek to become

big, wealthy powers, expanding their territories over weaker black

states, and capturing millions of prisoners to be enslaved in the process .

The more aggressive traders were willing to arm such African states as

one of the risks capitalists must takin the pursuit of wealth . The more

imperialist-minded saw an outcorr even more important : That this

would be a built-in motivation for perpetual warfare among the Blacks

themselves, creating an everlasting hatred between groups, destroying

every basis for unity and, above all,firearms would keep them so busily

hatitig and fighting each other that iey would forget their real enemies,

the "white devils" from the sea .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:41pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]Portuguese as a kingdom ruled by a "King Prester John ." The idea was

to unite the Christian forces of Europe with those of Africa in an all-out

war against the Arabs .

But what was not generally known was that the kingdom of Axum,

expanding to become the Empire of Abyssinia, was ruled alternatively

by Christian Arabs and Coloured Christian Hebrews . All Arabs were

not Muslims; all Hebrews were not Jews in religion . It appears that

African Hebrew and Christian Arab communities were in Southern

Arabia and Yemen, just across from the East African country they later

conquered . The Portuguese, however, did not reach the African Christian

kingdom at the time they sought it for the promotion of their campaign

against Islam . They had therefore begun the work of creating a

Black Christian kingdom in their own image . This was Kongo . By 1512

no one needed to guess or speculate about the Portuguese plans . Their

king, Manuel, made them clear in documentary form : The Regimento .

This is one of the interesting and significant documents in the history of

black people because it was the first detailed blue print for the conquest

of the black man's mind (acculturation via Christianity), his body

(slavery), and his country . This historic document, however, was couched

in all the endearing words and phraseology of equality and brotherly

love -from which fact historians have declared the Portuguese African

policy to be one of equality replete with humanitarianism . But the Kongolese

King, Affonso (his Portuguese name notwithstanding), saw

through the elaborate plan to reorganize his country and began to throw

up roadblocks, albeit too late . Manuel levied on the King a heavy

tribute in slaves, ivory and copper to pay the cost of his Christian civilization

program in the country, his various expeditions there, and for the

"huge expenses" in connection with the education of a few Kongolese

children in Portugal, including the King's son . Manuel's next most

important move was to make certain that his Code de Kongo was

carried out . He, therefore, sent Simao de Silva both as his ambassador,

and, in effect, governor-general or viceroy of Kongo .

While Simao de Silva's real functions were clearly outlined, these

were covered by the usual title of courtesy : Advisor to the King or the

King's Counselor . In this capacity he was the coadministrator of the

nation, a supreme judge, and had control over army and finance . He

was to have a comprehensive geographical survey of the country to

determine the extent of its natural wealth for direct exploitation . Things

quickly got out of hand . The Portuguese settler population, based[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:40pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]simple matter of course and require no comment . Yet they are the

subtle weapons which have been more devastating in Conquering the

Blacks and reducing them to an inferior status than armed might . Caucasian

victory- was complete and seemingly permanent when the Blacks

throughout the world joined the whites in glorifying all things white and

condemning all things black, or even tinged with black, including themselves.

Here we are at the very heart of the "race problem," this selfabnegation,

self-effacement, the loss of self-identity by cutting their

roots with the past and thereby losing the very links with their history

from which a people draw strength and inspiration to move forward to

even higher ground and, in fact, the reason for being .

In short, in the incongruous attempts to replace his own values with

those of the white man, the black man lost his own personality and,

therefore, his manhood-almost absolutely . Nearly five hundred years

have passed since the first Europeans landed on the coasts of West

Africa and their phase of transforming Blacks from men to half-men

began . Yet even with this long background there are countless millions

of frustrated Blacks, frustrated by the perpetual annoyance of the

blurred vision and the blank wall as they struggle to see life through the

blue eyes of Caucasians .

The status of African people throughout the world remains too precarious

to deal with their history by merely chronicling important

events . The situation demands that greater efforts be made to determine

the meaning of those events, their effect on the people, the overall

change in the direction of history, and what new directions -the race

must take . The major and immediate Portuguese aim in Africa was not

the conquest of Blacks; rather, their first aim was to destroy Arab power

in Africa and the Islamic control of just about all of the overland trade

routes to the East . For this cause Columbus had sailed, and other

European nations took to the high seas . The Portuguese sought to use

religion as the usual spearhead . That Christian states were in Africa

from the earliest times had not been completely forgotten .' One that

had escaped Muslim destruction was located in what had been a southeastern

border state of the ancient Ethiopian empire, identified by the
--------------------------------------------

Notes

3. There was no reason why the ancient African Church should have

been "forgotten" at all . The Vatican records and those at Constantinople

were available .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:38pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]political system was made to appear as a Portuguese creation . It was

already highly and efficiently organized before any Europeans came -organized

with each village and town under a chief (called mani), each

district under a mani, and each of the six major provinces that made up

the kingdom was under the administration of a governor, also bearing

the title of mani . Now, in addition to the widespread use of Portuguese

names, important Portuguese titles appeared, such as dukes and infantes

(a new class of princes) hitherto never used in Africa because the

Western conception of royalty was absent . Here, then, is another case

where the "external influence" school can have a field day, since

nothing is better known (and nowhere denied) than the fact that the

Africans who adopted European or Asian institutions, such as Islam and

Christianity, for example, were not only "influenced" by them, but

often transformed into "Black Arabs," "Black Portuguese," "Black Frenchmen,"

"Black Englishmen" and so on.

In fact, it was this very transforming external influence that played a

decisive role in first destroying the best in African civilization while at

the same time giving worldwide publicity to all remaining elements of

barbarism that could be found . The new masters of the continent were

in the position of all-power and could, therefore, make their viewpoints

the viewpoints of the world . The system of reducing Blacks to nonpersons

was so thoroughgoing that not only did the various people of

the world regard them as such, but-tragedy of tragedies-the Blacks

themselves came to feel inferior and to hate themselves and all of their

kind . Magic? Here, indeed, a magical thing had happened since these

whites who called themselves Portuguese had arrived .

As the 15th century moved on toward the 19th, the Europeans

became less and less "white devils" and more and more white masters,

backed up by awesome firepower . "White" was no longer the face of evil

in the Black world . 'It had changed places with "black ." Now "black" was

the badge of evil, all that was bad-even bad luck . To make a white

man look evil you had to dress him in black ; life's final tragedy, death,

called for mourning in black ; happy events, such as baptisms and.

weddings, required the wearing of white . God Himself, being white,

had cursed the Blacks and made them the "servants of man"-man

being white man, for was not he made in the "image of God?" To

worship God, in effect, was to worship the white man . A volume could

be written on the scores of these little psychological gimmicks that are

now so deeply embedded in cultural thought that they are taken as a[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:36pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]man's image-a process, previously mentioned, which caused Blacks to

reject and become ashamed of both their culture and themselves, the

only people on earth to do so . This is why it is important to have a close-up

look at the process of Westernization in the Kingdom of Kongo

where it began .

The missionaries began their work on kings and notables . There was

nothing new in this approach. Indeed, the Kongolese were so anxious

for the new education and its vehicle, Christianity, that the priests

found their tasks easy .

First of all, to become a Christian one had to be baptized and given a

"Christian" name . Christian names were Western names, and they all

took the form used in the conquering country . The first Kongolese King

to become a Christian was Nzinga Kuwu in 1492, taking the Portuguese

name of Joao I . Hundreds of other Blacks immediately followed his

example-princes, chiefs, ministers and some of the masses . The most

notable Kongolese kings who became "Black Portuguese" were Affonsos,

Alvares, Dom Pedros, Diogos, etc . Overbearing Jesuit Fathers were

installed as councilors to the king, one functioning as a prime minister .

This move at once destroyed the troublesome traditional council that

controlled chiefs and kings-with such councils no European power

could operate . The age of absolutism with the rise of the nation-state in

Europe was directly reflected in the Kongo kingdom . With this Portuguese

wedge between the king and the people, the Kongo rulers now

found themselves free to make important decisions without reference to

black councilors .' They therefore tended to become absolute monarchs

insofar as their own people were concerned, but generally puppets in

the hands of Europeans . The exceptions were Affonso I and Diogo 1 .

The idea of divine kingship was promoted through the anointment and

crowning of kings by Portuguese bishops . Kings now ruled as "sons of

the Church," chosen by divine decree to serve it . This meant serving the

Portuguese by meeting their demands-always made as friendly suggestions

from brothers who were "equal in Christ ." Even the traditional
----------------------------------------------------

Notes

2. Since the Kongolese rulers were migrants into the territory and

extended their kingdom over indigenous people, the king's appointment

of key officials was one of the same routes to autocracy I have discussed

in connection with the rise of new African states following migrations[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:34pm On Mar 08, 2012

[b]The Kingdom of Kongo, therefore, is a case-study of the processes of

Westernizing the very first group of Blacks on the African continent .'

This, however, was only one of the means to a much greater end .

Nothing could have been farther from Portugal's real objective than

bringing Christianity and a higher civilization to Africa . "Christian civilization"

served as the charm words in the white man's magic with the

incantations which hypnotized both his victims and himself : They

believed they were being introduced to a better life, while the latter

convinced himself that even the enslaved people were better off under

the white standard for civilization-besides which there was no other .

He was, therefore, serving God himself in Africa ; for did not the

churches throughout the Western world so proclaim? And were not the

Christian missionaries the most effective servants of empire?

The court at Lisbon had planned well . . For such a mini-state as

Portugal an ambition for an empire bigger than the continent of Europe,

and then daring enough to operate the plan-this must compel a degree

of admiration for the kind of Caucasian genius and uninhibited aggressiveness

that enabled very small groups of men to go forth and dominate

almost all the people on this planet . Portugal's presence in West

and Central Africa aimed at nothing less than building an empire across

Africa from west to east (from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean)

a vast swath across the continent that would also serve directly as the

imperial highway connection with the projected Indian empire . The

African-Indian empire was Portugal's grand design. The Kongo interlude

was merely a needed stepping-stone and base of operations .

But they were smart enough to realize that the foundation for a permanent

empire in the land of another people, built with their own

sweat and blood, would be more successful if the minds of the people

could be captured first . One did not go in with guns blazing . Only fools

did this, except in cases where the "natives" were too damn smart and

saw through every scheme, no matter how shining the Cross or how

white the extended hand . In such cases it was their own fault, yet for

their own salvation, that Christian cannons had to blast away . First of

all, however, the really big thing was to change the Blacks into the white
----------------------------------------------------------

Notes

1. The ancient Ethiopian Church (in Makuria and Alwa) had no

conscious Westernization program beyond the changes in names, and

these, like those of Jews, were Bible names .[/b]

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