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Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:59pm On Mar 10, 2012

And the bridge was suspended between the two
eternities
Arched so high up there that the Watchman
Could from his tower see all that had gone before
And all that was to come.
And that is why the anxious, helpless peoples of this
crazy world
Continue to look up in despair and cry
O Watchman, tell us in this endless night
Just what the signs of promise are!

[b]A View from the Bridge

THE SUMMING UP

THIS HAS BEEN AN INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY . I HAVE

swept across 6,000 years with the story of the African people, touching

here and there on prehistoric' beginnings, such as at Wo'se, and selectively

spotlighting the "blackout" areas in that history in my broad

sweep through the milleniums. My own field studies in just about every

region on the continent and my interpretation even of the data of many

of the scholars appearing in the bibliography often led to quite different

conclusions than theirs . Indeed, these modern Westerners either ignore

or contradict some of the best evidence of the ancient writers on Africa .

The conflict of viewpoints on the history of the Africa people develops

as issues in the work, and I suppose that at the present level of civilization,

such a conflict should be expected between those who represent the

masters of the globe and those who are in rebellion against them as the

writers of the history of the people they oppress . Invariably there is a

deeply felt need to present the dominated people as child-like creatures,

inferior by an ordinance of nature and, therefore, helpless without the

permanent rule and guiding hand of the master race .
------------------------------------------

Notes

1 . "Prehistory" is another improper term we are stuck with. Its very

origin reflects the self-glorification of those who had learned to write,

the written records becoming sacred and the principal source of truth .

There is actually no such thing as "prehistory ." Man was leaving

historical records millions of years before he began to write them .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:55pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]general leadership of the Matabele invaders who, therefore, could

expect no support from the general population . They were defeated by

the British . In 1902, the Blacks of another important kingdom in the old

empire, Barwe, rose in rebellion . By then British power was so firmly

established that the outcome was predictable . The last black empire had

become white-ruled Rhodesia and its southernmost territory was now

under the iron rule of the Dutch invaders of South Africa .

This marked the close of still another tragic era . The last emperor of

the last black-ruled empire on the African continent, Chioko Dambamupute,

knew no more how to deal with the engulfing tides of

conquest than most of the black leaders who preceded him . Like Kot a

Pe, the Bakuba king when the Belgians took over the Congo, none

seemed to have had sufficient insights for the white situation, to have

just enough sense of race to enable them to realize that the destiny of a

whole people was at stake, and not just their personal well-being or

even the fortunes of a single state .

The black queen of Angola remains the outstanding leader who read

the white man straight from A to Z and mapped strategies for the confrontations

. When she died, she was still Queen of the Blacks, and her

people were still free .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:54pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]referred several times . The third threat, insofar as Monomotapa was

concerned, was the rapid rise and expansion of the Zulu Empire under

Shaka, an empire which developed from a small village state . We have

seen that the great migrations over the continent developed from many

different causes, taking many different forms, and went in all directions .

And we have seen that whole black communities fled before incoming

black conquerors just as they did when whites invaded their land . The

great Zulu Emperor-King, Shaka, became more ruthless in his onslaughts

to unify the Blacks in an empire that would be greater and stronger than

the undisciplined and, therefore, falling Monomotapa . An empire,

unlike Monomotapa, that would not only serve as one vast and impregnable

fortress against the shrewdly scheming whites swarming up from

the Cape, but a fortress from which they could be attacked and

destroyed. Shaka and his people, like the other countries we have

studied, had never seen a white face before the invasions. But he had

learned about them more and more as they approached the borders of

his country . To resist he had to unify the Blacks first. Kings and chiefs

who could not see the danger in so many little independent states had

better prepare to meet their maker . Countless thousands fled en masse

before Shaka's mighty armies . A swelling tide at many tribal states

under powerful kings and chiefs moved-a wild and merciless rampage

that expressed their anger ovet Shaka on all the people in their path .

The leading groups that struck the Changamire kingdoms first were

the Ndebele, Swazi and the Shangana . They crossed the Limpopo in

1830 and swept on to the Zambezi, spreading terror as they moved

northward . This left the few Portuguese centers that remained in the

unconquered territory exposed to the new danger . That strip of territory

was once again all that was left of the former Empire of Monomotapa .

The overall scene was one of British-Dutch pressures on the black

empire in South Africa, the pressure of the migrating Blacks from that

empire on other Blacks and their destruction of what remained of still

another black empire ; while the British and the Dutch, in fierce competition

with each other, moved steadily forward to take over the whole

southern region . The Portuguese still held on to their strongly fortified

posts, especially along the Zambezi, and were able to reach a partition

agreement with the British in 1890 . Thus, the Portuguese in gaining

Mozambique still held a vast black empire . The Blacks who had fled

from Shaka's armies and had entered the land before the British,[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:53pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]In 1693 the seemingly all-powerful Portuguese were amazed by the

rapid development of an unexpected phenomenon : the revival of black

unity in the southern provinces which were the original center of the

Empire, now still under the leadership of a continuing line of Changamires

. Other formerly separatist kingdoms united under the Changamire's

leadership and opened a full-scale war against the Portuguese,

aiming at driving them out of the land . The successful military tactics of

Matope and his generals were remembered and followed : careful,

unrushed training and organization ; the secret movement of troops in

small groups in different directions, all assembling en masse at a stated

time and place near the enemy strongholds ; then the swift-moving and

generally surprise attacks by different armies on different Portuguese

centers at the same time . These operations took two years of desperate

fighting because, of course, the Portuguese forces were better armed .

According to the oral records of the Blacks, the real reason for the series

of victories over the Portuguese was that their black troops only put up

token resistance, often not even that, but whole companies deserting to

join their black brothers .

With their black shield thus removed, the . Portuguese themselves

were now exposed to danger . The number killed was frightening . They

fled the country to zones of comparative safety . The Changamire armies

reconquered most of Monomotapa and a vigorous anti-Portuguese

policy was adopted . This not only aimed at their total exclusion from

the interior but also at ending their influence in what remained of the

old Empire which did not come directly under the Changamire rule .

Even trade relations with the whites and other contacts . had to be

carried on through Blacks and Mulattoes . The greatly reduced Monomotapa

continued to be further destroyed by the endless internal strife

among the Blacks, frustrated by the state of decline and helplessness,

but, yet unwilling to join forces with the stronger southern kingdoms

which were united under the Changamires . Decade after decade the

same story of chaos, social disorganization and decline repeated itself .

This time, however, neither Portuguese nor Arabs were able to reestablish

their former power position throughout the region . For while all this

was going on during 17th, 18th and into the 19th centuries, three other

threatening storm centers had been rising in South Africa .

Two of these, the British and the Dutch, had moved inland from the

Cape, establishing "republics," and thereby completing the encirclement

of the Blacks of Africa-a most significant development to which I have
[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:51pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]the priest's death was "engineered by Muhammadans of Mozambique"

may or may not have been true . The Portuguese themselves may have

done it. This death, then, meant that the honor of Portugal had been

challenged . Instead of attacking the Arabs charged with the crime,

however, they directed their pretended outrage at the tottering Black

Empire with military intervention . In 1575 an ultimatum, disguised as a

treaty, required the Emperor to expel all Arabs from the country, grant

more land concessions for Portuguese gold mining operations, more

trading posts and missions and, finally in 1629 the great objective was

reached when the Emperor Mauura acknowledged the King of Portugal

as his Overlord and became his vassal . Portuguese Caucasianization of

the Blacks had begun early by having all chiefs, kings and emperors

replace their African names with Portuguese names . There was, therefore,

a long line of Emperors Sebastiaos, Philippes, Domingos, and

Affonsos, here as in Kongo and Angola . ;

The Portuguese land-grabs all over the region meant that they were

not content with political overlordship and commercial supremacy but

were physically taking over the absolute ownership of the lands of the

people in all areas. When, in 1663, the Emperor Domingos summoned

up enough courage to resist the onslaught, he was murdered . This was

the year Queen Nzinga died and Portugal now felt unchallenged . Meanwhile,

the Portuguese were riding so high and mighty that they had set

up their own capitals in the interior at Masapa and in Manyika, centers

of general administration and commerce . The Great Zimbabwe capital

city of the Empire became a mere shadow of Portuguese power ; useful

only in carrying out their orders and, as was the case with the other

towns and cities, began to disintegrate toward a state of ruins as the gold

wealth of the nation was taken over and depopulation of the country by

the slave trade spread . The highly organized African religion, under a

priesthood that had been so powerful that it had blocked the spread of

Islam for over 200 years, was now swept aside by the aggressively

pushed Christian missions in almost every village .
---------------------------------------------

Notes

3 . 1 have been referring to name changing throughout the book ; yet I

doubt whether Blacks in general fully realize the role this played in loss

of the sense of self worth .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:50pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]just advise . They backed the respective rulers with money and materials

and men-black men, that is-the Arabs' own private armies of black

troops . Thus the Arabs, and later the Europeans, were always able to

send into battle still more Blacks against Blacks . Now Changa, grown

old and uncertain, was given an entirely new vision'of greatness : He

could not only capture the Empire and become as great an emperor as

he was a general, but, in doing so, he could create a great brotherhood

of Arabs and Africans, a brotherhood in which Arabs would be his

faithful servants as citizens . To crown it all, and in testimony thereof, he

was given the "unprecedented honor" of the Arab title of Amir, so that,

as in the case of the immortal Caesar, his very name, Changamire,

would mean "emperor" forever .

This flattery was too much for the old man to withstand . The new

Changamire concluded his war against the central government with

victory and the death of Nyahuma in battle in 1490. It was again the

same old story of the wars that followed, the internal chaos during the

rise and fall of one section of . the empire after another, and the murder

of Changamire or, in short, the fragmentation of the empire until what

remained was the much reduced northern region and about 600 miles

along the Indian Ocean to an inland depth of between two and three

hundred miles. In this much reduced and weakened state, Monomotapa

had to meet a still more ruthless enemy when the Portuguese arrived in

1505 . They were aggressive . Their original aim to replace the Arabs

first, to break and take over their commercial and political power in all

of the now disunited kingdoms was ruthlessly pursued . This, it will be

recalled, was implementing the original "Grand Design" that began in

Kongo and Angola. Within fifty years they had penetrated all of these

kingdoms, securing concessions of land, establishing trading posts and

missions throughout the interior as well as along the Zambezi and the

Indian Ocean coast and islands . The Arabs did not take all this without

a fierce struggle, largely centered around attempting to incite the Blacks

against the Portuguese, and thus creating further chaotic situations out

of which they hoped somehow to emerge on top . The murder of a

Portuguese priest at the court of the Monomotapan Emperor in 1561

was just what the Portuguese needed as a reason for open intervention

with eventual Portuguese sovereignty over the entire region . It was an

old trick, well known and practiced by the secret agents of great powers :

To sacrifice one's own fellow citizens in a foreign land, if by so doing, the

larger ends of the state might be served . The Portuguese version that[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:49pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]The foreigners' role was to intensify the disunity, to promote the

suspicions and hatred that developed from it, and to check any tendency

or movement toward unity among the Blacks .'

All the Arabs had to do in Monomotapa was to move swiftly during

the period of mourning, confusion and uncertainty following Matope's

death . "Advisors" would surely be needed at the various provincial

capitals more than ever. From these key bases they actively furthered

the destruction of an empire, the very existence of which was a threat to

their own power position within it . It was more than a threat, for had

not Matope's sweep to the Indian Ocean reduced their control there,

leaving them with only three trading stations? The Africans, already

having the "every-province-for-itself" psychology, were simply urged to

do more speedily what they were doing more slowly in their own way .

Of Changa and Togwa it must be said to their honor that devoted

servants, able generals, governors of two of the most important

provinces, remained loyal to Mutota and Matope throughout their

lifetime, a period of devoted service extending over forty years . Now,

however, there appeared to be no reason or even a possibility for transfering

the same loyalty and love to Nyahuma, weak son and successor to

the great King. The Arabs hastened to exploit this in Guniuswa where

Changa was king with aspirations to become emperor . Togwa, King of

Mbire, supported his long-time friend and colleague in the imperial

venture . Both occupied the most favorable position for rallying support,

for they held the southern region which was the first center of Karanga

power, the center from which the expansion spread, and the location of

the first Zimbabwe capital .

The Arab strategy must not be overlooked . Beyond the consideration

of greater concessions from the winning side, they did not care which

side won. They worked for and supported all sides, each against the

other . None wanted a strong empire, but they wanted Changa to launch

a war against the existing empire under the pretext of building a greater

one than was possible under the new Emperor Nyahuma . The Arabs in

the north, of course, would urge Nyahuma to crush the pretensions of

the upstart Changa in the south . Arabs in both regions did more than
----------------------------------------------

Notes

2 . This strategy of the whites is as clear and unmistakable today as it

was centuries ago . It is an aspect of what I have referred to as the

"Grand Caucasian Consensus ." Yet Blacks appear to be heedless of it .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:47pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]certainly the national center of religion .) The other important factor that

should have made unity imperative was the greater prosperity that

would flow from economic interdependence and close commercial

relations between the constituent states and provinces . The great system

of roads and highways, instead of being recaptured by the bush and

forests after serving their initial military purpose, could have been

converted into permanent national highways, crisscrossing the Empire,

and thus serving as the indispensable communication links for administration,

trade, travels by the people and, in short, unification . Other

factors that should have been a solid foundation for black unity were

the similarity of their social institutions and the absolute sameness of

their constitutional system .

Yet, with Matope's death the Empire began to break up. Why? Notwithstanding

all the forces mentioned above that should have made for

unity and stability, the actual fact is that the traditional African political

system was fundamentally and structurally anti-empire . The very circumstance

of the endless process of segmentation, of forever splintering

off to form little independent mini-states, developed a built-in disunity,

reinforced by the attending growth of different languages . But selfgovernment

or chiefdom was a way of life, not a theory . Chiefs and

Elders, as we have seen, were leaders, advisors and representatives of

the people, and not their rulers . The same operating principle prevailed

when a group of states united to form a kingdom and kingdoms united

to form an empire, but with a disturbing difference : Centralization

tended to erode local autonomy, transfering chiefs from the control of

their people to the control of the central government . In the case of

conquered territories this change was abrupt and painful . And it was

one of the principal reasons for later rebellions and the break-up of

kingdoms and empires . Therefore, let us say again, to say that Arabs

and Europeans were solely or even mainly responsible for the destruction

for the destruction of all great African states would be glossing over or

attempting to ignore the principal internal factor : disunity . What the

whites did, Asians and Europeans, was to appraise this continent-wide

disunity and "cash in" on it to the fullest extent possible . They did not

have to divide and conquer even, for the Blacks were already divided,

just as though they were waiting for the foreign conquerors to come .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:46pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]What would happen now? The great imperial system had been

completed . Black unity had been achieved among numerous language

groups on one of the widest scales in history, from Zambia down into

South Africa . Cities of stone dotted the land, the Zimbabwe cities north

and south were the deathless symbols of a people's greatness . The long

wars of expansion seem to have stimulated economic development

rather than hinder it . The government had gained a more direct control

over the mines and mining industries, and this meant more control over

the Arabs in the interior and on the coast, especially at Sofala, Kilimoni,

Sena and Tete on the Zambezi . The agricultural system was actively

promoted by the central government and, indeed, just as the vast

building operations that produced the amazingly beautiful temples and

huge structures such as the Great Zimbabwe were all government

sponsored, so were all the other craft industries . Active government

sponsorship, promotion or encouragement in all these fields did not

necessarily mean government ownership or direct control .

The Emperor Matope also left the country with a great organized

religion with a powerful and formally organized priesthood, something

unusual in Africa outside of ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and Abyssinia .

The traditional African religion is essentially the same everywhere on

the continent, but it is generally unorganized and, therefore, has seldom

had an organized priesthood with a single recognized creed or body of

prescribed beliefs . Yet just about every African society known believed

in one Almighty God, no matter by what name he was called or how

many lesser gods there might be . In Monomotapa he was called

Mwari-the Vakaranga version and contribution toward national unity .

But would there be unity now that the last of the two great personalities

around whom unity revolved had silently stolen away in the shadows of

the Great Zimbabwe, gone forever? The question arises whenever a

great leader passes ; political psychology and mass psychology are crucially

combined . Whether a great state survives after the death of the leader

who made it great and held its disparate parts together by his charisma,

alone, would depend upon the good fortune of having a successor of

equal greatness, or the miracle of having developed a strong spirit of

national community, of oneness, of a loyalty and a sense of belonging to

the nation that transcend the tribe .

There were unifying factors which Matope left behind in his great

empire . One was that same organized religion led by a highly advanced

and literate priesthood . (Religious temples at the Great Zimbabwe was[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:44pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]Unlike most of the societies we have been studying, the Vakaranga

clans had become patrilineal . Therefore, Mutota's son rather than his

nephew was the successor to the throne . This was a happy circumstance,

since the son, Matope, turned out to be as great a statesman-king and

general as his late father . He had the greater task because some of the

most powerful states in the "Blueprint" had yet to be won, and breaking

Arab control over the seacoasts, the greatest undertaking, had not been

achieved . Matope assumed the leadership aggressively, having the good

fortune of securing the same loyalty the ablest generals had given to his

father, supported by fanatically devoted soldiers . This was no accident,

for Matope himself had been a popular young commander during his

father's reign. Above all, Changa and Togwa, two of Matope's greatest

generals, were his friends . The armies were reorganized, strengthened

by relentless training, and expanded .

This display of both strength and unity among the Blacks puzzled the

Arabs . This was something new, amazing . They had a long history of

dealing with Blacks, and nothing was better known than the disunity,

mutual suspicions and the hostility of one group toward another . How

was this spectacle of over thirty different tribal groups forming solid

phalanxes of unity under black leaders to be explained? Moreover, the

Arabs, who had always maintained their own black troops under Arab

officers, were barred from joining the imperial forces by both Mutota

and Matope . All this was seen as a very real threat to the powerful

commercial position the Arabs had in all the hitherto independent

states as well as the equally powerful political influence they enjoyed at

the capitals of these states, not to mention their independent status on

the coasts .

Matope's campaigns for the unification of many states into one

empire were not easy . For although the Arabs pledged and proclaimed

their undying loyalty to the new Emperor as this mission of empire

building advanced, they secretly gave active support to the armies of

resisting states . Some of the key states that formed the Empire were

Mbire, Guniuswa in the southern region; Chidima, Utonga, Barwe,

Manyika, Madonda, and Shiringoma formed the eastern and southeastern

region . It took thirty years of unremitting efforts to complete the

Empire of Monomotapa with its long eastern border bathed at last by

the Indian Ocean. Every detail of his father's specifications having been

carried out in full, a weary Emperor, worn out by the task, retired for the

final sleep. The year was 1480 .

***[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:43pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]But, returning to the traditional white line in this case of the Vakaranga

king, Abraham and others say that the Arabs persuaded him to unify

and expand the country north and south and to the Indian Ocean-the

Arabs who had nothing to gain from a strong and unified Black empire

and might lose what they had . Professor Abraham says that the Arabs

"conceived and implanted in the mind of the Rosvi king a desire for

empire ."' The empire was to serve as an "effective umbrella," protecting

their operations in the country from the Portuguese . Scholarly reasoning,

but logical? Of course, except that there were no Portuguese or Portuguese

threats in the area in 1440 . They did not arrive until 65 years
later .

Meanwhile Mutota moved forward . His first move was to recruit and

build up strong, well-trained armies, each under an able general . He

displayed the mark of a great executive by his keen insight in the

evaluation and selection of men for posts of high responsibility and, in

so doing, secured the active support of the Great Council of the realm . It

is significant, too, that his leadership strategy included recruiting soldiers

from the surrounding states which were not yet a part of the projected

empire . Another important move was to secure unity through the

voluntary association of as many states as possible before any conquest

by force was attempted . The usual African pattern of empire building

was followed : All states joining the imperial union were not only

assured of autonomy but special rights also, such as membership in the

Great Council of the Empire, a privilege denied territories that had to

be conquered . With these policies reaffirmed and settled, Mutota's

formidable armies began their sweep in the different planned directions

and fields of operation. The main drive was northward under the

command of the King himself . Within ten years all territory between the

Limpopo in South Africa to the Zambezi had been brought under

imperial rule . The great undertaking was far from completion when

Mutota died in 1450 . The objectives had been worked out in detailed

specifications of a blueprint for expansion, unification and development

of a great empire composed of great states .
-----------------------------------------------

Notes

1 . D.P. Abraham, "MARAMUCA : An Exercise in the Combined Use

of Portuguese Records and Oral Tradition," Journal of African History,

Vol. II, No . 2, 1961 .[/b]

Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:42pm On Mar 10, 2012

[b]Mutota and the new leaders saw and understood this very well . They

knew where almost all the gold, copper, iron and tin had been going

from over 4,000 mines. They knew how all the strategems used by the

Blacks to bar the Arabs from the interior had failed, and would

continue to fail as long as the Arabs controlled all overseas trade by

controlling the entire seaboard and, having done so unchallenged for so

long that they now claimed sovereignty over the whole coastal area .

Therefore, Mutota, in 1440, began the campaign to carry out his own

"Grand Design," a great plan that aimed at nothing less than uniting

.Blacks in a vast empire that cut across South Africa below the Limpopo

River, and covered Rhodesia with an indefinite boundary beyond the

Zambezi River in Zambia, and on over Mozambique to the Indian

Ocean, sweeping southward again to repossess the entire coastline

fronting the new empire.

Now is all of this the same version as given by Abraham and other

Western historians? Would an Arab historian, no-matter what the fact :

might be, present it this way? Of course not . The Western historians,

employing their usual club to crush rebellion from the masters' viewpoints,

would proclaim "sheer Romanticism!" For, see here now, listen :

Does not Professor Abraham make it quite clear at the very outset that

no black man, king or commoner, could have conceived of such a vast

undertaking? What black man, unaided by whites, could have Mutota's

great and awe-inspiring vision? Abraham and his school might well

thank their God that there were many "White" Arabs around to whom

such credit could be given . After a review of so many centuries of the

ideological stance of writers where Blacks are concerned, anger and

outrage should be replaced with amusement . For it has become

amusing-to this writer at any rate-to witness the sweating dilemma of

these investigators when confronted with any kind of all-Black achievements,

even in relatively unimportant and routine matters which any

human or, any people of any race anywhere would be thought capable

of achieving. But where Blacks are involved in anything considered outstanding,

the whites somehow feel threatened . What is threatened, of

course, is the deeply rooted presupposition of the innate inferiority of

the Blacks . If somewhere in their long history a single record of

outstanding achievement by Blacks was found by whites and declared

at once to be such, rather than "evidently" non-Negroid, if this was ever

done the black world has been unable to discover it and, if there is an

error here or a misconception, a correction is welcomed .[/b]

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]

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