The book Stamped, Antiracism, Racism and You makes it difficult for readers to distinguish between a confusing mixture of truth, opinion, and a distortion of facts. To decipher fact from opinion, research into the authors’ sources was required. This is not a review of all sources – this is a small research sampling from the 200-plus sources the authors reference.
Our research found a variety of inaccuracies, omissions, manipulation of facts, and unsupported claims.
While many books have flaws, when it comes to required reading for school children, accuracy should be prioritized. And perhaps in today’s world, resources used to teach America’s complicated history should be examined even closer.
Below are three examples where the authors directly contradict their own sources. Often, it seems that producing an emotional response from the reader took priority over presenting facts accurately.
Stamped, Page 33
CLAIMS:
- Using the color black to describe visions during the Salem Witch trials correlates to the Black race.
- Using the color black to describe visions of the devil during this period is what “made the Black face the face of criminality.”
REBUTTAL:
- The sources provided do use the color black in descriptions but do not use it to refer to race.
- As the authors state – the Salem witch trial accusers were Puritans – one can make a fairly safe assumption that they would be very aware of the Bible’s references to light and darkness. It would make sense that they’d use the color black to describe the devil and evil – however, in the sources referenced, they are not referring to race.
- Throughout the book stamped, the authors capitalize Black and White to refer to race. Here, they say, “And in nearly every instance, “the devil” who was preying upon innocent White Puritans was described as Black.” A Capital B – The authors are trying to persuade the readers that this is about race.
- The authors claim that the use of the color black as part of a description of the devil led to “the Black face becoming the face of criminality.” Yet, they do not mention that of the over 200 people who were tried, only three of them are known to be people of color; three enslaved women, Tituba, Candy and Mary Black.
- In an attempt to link using the color black to describe evil with a forced association with the Black race, the authors leave out relevant content. The same paragraph from where quotes are extracted in the source also elaborates on the topics of race and color, providing more context.
STAMPED SOURCES:
Source 1: Salem Witchcraft, 411-412
- This source does not seem to be relevant to the authors’ claims. No descriptions or content is pulled from this text.
Source 2: The Color of Christ, 27-28
- The reference to a “little black bearded man” could be a White or Black man with a black beard.
- While the authors highlight the color black when it can be humanized (to describe a beard and thing of considerable bigness), they left out when it was used to describe a dog.
- Most importantly, they omit the rest of the paragraph. This seems to be the only time in the referenced material that race is mentioned, but not the Black race: “The devil came as a Jew and as a Native American as well. But we need not be fooled – the devil did not always come in blackness or redness. Sarah Bibber saw “a little man like a minister with a black coat on and he pinched me by the arm and bid me to go along with him.” The devil could corrupt, seduce and use the bodies and souls of British colonists, their children and many others.”
- In the same source and within the pages cited, it states that “Colonists lived in an enchanted world where lightning, rainbows and bumps in the night could be rendered as acts of God or designs of the devil.” ie. symbolism not using the color black in reference to the devil.
Source 3: Cotton Mather, 109-110
- This source also uses the color black to describe things people saw during the Salem trials “One man saw a black thing jump in his window”. A subtle but important difference, the authors capitalize “Black” here to refer to race (as they do throughout the book), yet in the original text, it is lowercase.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES
Verses Puritans may have been familiar with:
- 1 John 1:5: “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
- John 12:46: “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.”
- John 3:19: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and man loved the darkness rather that the Light, for their deeds were evil.”
- Acts 26:18″ “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”
- Luke 11:35: “Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness.”
Stamped, Page 105
CLAIM:
- President Lincoln was comfortable with praise from Black people after the Emancipation Proclamation.
REBUTTAL:
- The authors contradict their own source, which clearly states that President Lincoln was uncomfortable with the attention he received from Blacks. The authors’ twist alters the reader’s perception of one of America’s most esteemed leaders. They even italicize “was” to emphasize this untrue fact.
STAMPED SOURCES:
Source 1: Reconstruction
- States: “At every step [Lincoln] was besieged by former slaves who hailed him as a “Messiah” and fell on their knees before the embarrassed President, who asked them to remain standing.”
Stamped, Page 22
CLAIM:
- Locke believed Whites had better minds.
REBUTTAL:
- Much like the treatment of America’s complex history – the authors try to simplify the impact of important, complex historical figures, in this instance, with just a couple of sentences.
- The authors use terminology designed to elicit emotional responses “Africans had dirty brains”
- Locke states, “All men by Nature are created equal,” but then considers that after creation, life experiences (ie age, virtue, etc.) could create unequal outcomes, with some people falling into permanent subordinate positions (18).
- The authors omit information their own source provides, stating, “Locke did not attach racial significance to this category”
- The authors only show an inaccurate and negative viewpoint of Locke when their source, in the same paragraph, also states, “Locke’s liberal assumptions would offer a moral foundation to the burgeoning antislavery movement of the next century.” (pg 18)
STAMPED SOURCES:
Source 1: Locke: A Biography, 98, 276
- This reference does not seem relevant to the claims made
Source 2: “Introduction,” in Proslavery and Sectional Thought in the Early South, 18
- “Adhering to the position that nature had bestowed equality on men, Locke insisted that rulers could govern only with the consent of the governed.” (pg 18)
- “Notwithstanding his claim “that all men by Nature are equal,” he clarified, “I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality: age or virtue may give mean a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level.” Significantly, Locke also reasoned that some people might fall into permanently subordinate positions due to their innate incapacities. “But if through defects that may happen out of the ordinary course of nature,” he wrote, “any one comes not to such a degree of reason, wherein he might be supposed capable of being a free man.” Locke did not attach racial significance to this category, but other subscribers to his philosophy – most notably Thomas Jefferson – would make that leap.” (pg 18)
Below are additional inaccuracies, non-cited claims, and omissions.
Stamped, Page 12
CLAIMS:
- Climate Theory came from Aristotle
- Aristotle questioned if “Africans were born “this way” or if the heat made them inferior”
- “If Africans lived in cooler temperatures, they could become White”
REBUTTAL:
- Environmental Theory was founded during the Greco-Roman time period by Hippocrates, not Aristotle.
- In the sources provided, Aristotle does not talk about Africans.
- The sources provided do not support the theory that “they could become White”
- In the additional sources found, Aristotle uses Environmental Theory to compare Northern Europeans and Asians.
STAMPED SOURCES
Source 1: Racisms, 3, 13-15
- This source does discuss Environmental Theory, describing it as a belief held by “Greek and Roman men of letters.”
- The source does not mention Aristotle.
- These statements in the source doc and cited pages contradict the claim that moving to cooler temperatures would change their characteristics or physical appearance: “This meant that descendants of Syrians, for instance, would carry with them the basic mental and physical features of their ancestors, even when born abroad.” Or “The Roman prejudice against most Eastern peoples, considered natural slaves, was directed not only toward these peoples in their own environment but also toward migrants living in other provinces or at the center of the empire, in Rome. In general, the supposed connections between environment and heredity, or physical and mental characteristics, meant the refusal of individual or generational variation.” (Pg 14)
Source 2. Racism, Color Symbolism and Color Prejudice, 88-92
- This source refers to “hostile thinking against others found in Greek and Roman writers,” but it does not mention Aristotle.
- It does discuss make reference to Environmental Theory.
- On page 90, this source says: “Neither the Greeks nor Romans saw very dark skin or very light skin as aesthetically pleasing.”
- And that Greeks and Romans had “a preference for the Mediterranean somatic norm of light brown skin.” The idea of relocating to “become white” does not match the Greco-Roman ideal and is not supported.
Source 3. The Politics of Aristotle, 91253b
- This source does not seem relevant to the claims made
- Does not mention race
- Does not discuss Environmental Theory
- This source discusses the management of a household and the “three relations of master and slave, husband and wife, and parent and child.”
Source 4. Ideas of slavery from Aristotle to Augustine, 114
- Does not discuss Environmental Theory
- In discussing a slave’s mental capability, Aristotle compares them to “certain tribes on the borders of the civilized world” but does not reference a specific race or location in this comparison.
- This source discussed Aristotle’s idea of the natural slave.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS AND SOURCES
- Aristotle wrote about Climate Theory in (334-323 BC), but it was Hippocrates who came up with Climate Theory in 400 B.C. In his writings, Aristotle compares Europeans, Asians and Greeks.
- “The people of cold countries generally, and particularly those of Europe, are full of spirit, but deficient in skill and intelligence; and this is why they continue to remain comparatively free, but attain no political development and show no capacity for governing others. The peoples of Asia are endowed with skill and intelligence, but are deficient in spirit; and this is why they continue to be peoples of subjects and slaves. The Greek stock, intermediate in geographical position, unites the qualities of both sets of peoples. It possesses both spirit and intelligence: the one quality makes it continue free; the other enables it to attain the highest political development, and show a capacity for governing every other people – if only it could achieve political unity.” (The Politics of Aristotle, pg. 296 / 1327b)
- Hippocrates wrote about Climate Theory on pages 237-250 in Airs, Water, and Places.
- “I wish to show, respecting Asia and Europe, how, in all respects, they differ from one another, and concerning the figure of the inhabitants, for they are different, and do not at all resemble one another…” (Airs, Water, and Places, pgs 237-250).
- Andreas Cratander wrote about Hippocrates’ climate-based theory and how he also compares Europeans to Asians:
- “Hippocrates’s Airs, Waters, Places is considered to be the source document of climate-based theories of racial difference. In this treatise, Hippocrates describes the effects of different environments, diets, and customs on human disposition, including physical and moral susceptibilities to disease and humors. These differences are epitomized by European peoples, whom Hippocrates characterizes as ungovernable yet courageous as a result of their cold climate, and Asian peoples, who are characterized as peaceful but timid due to their hot climate.”
- Additionally, it should be noted that Aristotle did write about what he considered the “natural slave” – today, his viewpoint is abhorrent – while some Africans were slaves, they were not the majority.
- Robin Osborne, in Classical Greece 500 – 323 BC (Page 159), states, “Moreover mass-enslavement was a not unusual occurrence when a Greek city fell. So it was not only Persians and Asians who found themselves on sale in the market-place, … although Greek slaves were always the minority among the Thracians, Anatolians [Asiatic Greeks or Asia Minor Greeks] and Syrians who made up the bulk of the servile bodies, …”
Stamped, Page 47
CLAIMS:
- Britain disapproved of America’s slavery system
- America had to break free of British rule to continue with slavery
REBUTTAL:
- America declared its independence from Britain in 1776. At that time, slavery was still legal in Britain and the British colonies; Slavery in Britain was declared illegal 30 years later in 1807 and in the British colonies in 1833. America did not declare independence in order to continue slavery – but because of taxation without representation.
STAMPED SOURCES:
- None
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
- Slavery was legal in Britain until 1807: “Legislation was finally passed in both the Commons and the Lords which brought an end to Britain’s involvement in the trade. The bill received royal assent in March and the trade was made illegal from 1 May 1807. It was now against the law for any British ship or British subject to trade in enslaved people.”
- Slavery was legal in British colonies until 1833: Slavery Abolition Act, (1833), in British history, act of Parliament that abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada. It received Royal Assent on August 28, 1833, and took effect on August 1, 1834.
Stamped, Page 172
CLAIMS:
- Kennedy launched an investigation into the Birmingham bombing that killed 4 Black children.
- The investigation caused his approval ratings to drop
REBUTTAL:
- The authors aim to elicit an emotional response from the reader through their claim. The tone employed further intensifies their desired effect.
- Research does show that President Kennedy’s approval ratings did drop due to his racial viewpoints; specifically, data shows a drop after his speech in June and the March on Washington in August. This data alone makes the authors’ point, but the authors chose to use an unsubstantiated claim to make their point.
- Polls actually show a slight increase (from 56% to 58%) in popularity the month after the bombing.
STAMPED SOURCES:
Source 1: Further Statement by the President on the Sunday Bombing in Birmingham
- This source simply confirms that the President launched an FBI investigation
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
JFK’s Presidential Approval Ratings
- May 23-38: Approval rating of 65%
- June 11, 1963: JFK – Address to the Nation on Civil Rights
- June 21-26: Approval rating of 61%
- August 15-20: Approval rating of 63%
- August 28, 1963: March on Washington
- Sept 12-17: Approval rating of 56%
- Sept 15, 1963: Bombing
- Oct 11-16: Approval rating of 58%
Pew Research Center: From the archives of JFK’s America
- “But liberalism had its limits when it came to integration and civil rights. Over the course of 1963, particularly following JFK’s call for civil rights legislation in mid-June, a growing number came to the view that the president was pushing racial integration too fast. A third of the public held that view in June (36%) but that number inched up to 41% in July, and soared to 50% in a Gallup survey following the March on Washington.
And the race took a toll on President Kennedy’s popularity rating. His approval score slipped from 70% in February to 59% in October. Most of the decline occurred after JFK’s June civil rights speech and most of it occurred in the South.”
Stamped, Page 170
CLAIM: Davis didn’t agree with the kind of activism by White people at Brandeis.
REBUTTAL: The authors fail to mention that Brandeis is where Davis met a white, Jewish communist; Professor Herbert Marcuse; who became her mentor.
STAMPED SOURCE:
Source 1: Angela Davis an Autobiography
- The authors reference pages 101-112. This part of the book discusses her high school years through 1960. She entered Brandeis College in 1961.
- On page 135, she speaks fondly of her time with Marcuse, “I had no idea that my little request would develop into stimulating weekly discussions on the philosophers he suggested, discussions which gave me a far more exciting and vivid picture of the history of philosophy than would have emerged from a dry introduction-to-philosophy course.”
- And on page 136, “The most challenging and fulfilling course was the graduate seminar that Marcuse conducted on the Critique of Pure Reason Poring over a seemingly incomprehensible passage for hours, then suddenly grasping its meaning gave me a sense of satisfaction I had never experienced before.”
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
Source: Interview: Brandeis University: Herbert Marcuse – Angela Davis
- “Well, [Marcuse] had a profound effect on my life and my work. I attended his lecture course when I was a first-year student, a freshman, and I always was drawn by the way he was able to put history and philosophy together in a context that allowed us to think about the future as history. And so — I watched him from afar for a while. I can actually remember him speaking during the Cuban Missile Crisis. James Baldwin was also on the campus.”
- Timeline by marcuse.org:
- 1961: Davis went to college in Brandeis, Mass., where she took French as a major.
- 1963: Davis spent her junior year in Paris, where she had contact with Algerian revolutionaries.
- 1964: Back in Brandeis she started studying philosophy with Herbert Marcuse, the marxist philosopher.
- 1965: After she had finished college, Marcuse sent her to West-Germany to study at the “Institute for Social Research” in Frankfurt.
Living with SDS-leaders in the so called “Factory” she experienced the heyday of the German student movement. - 1967: Davis came back to America and continued her studies with Marcuse as her doctoral adviser, now teaching at the University of California in San Diego.
Stamped, Pg 207
CLAIM:
- Charles Krauthammer invented the term crack baby.
STAMPED SOURCE:
Source 1: Children of Cocaine
- The Washington Post article published on July 30, 1989, by Dr Charles Krauthammer does use the term “crack baby.”
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
Source: Mothers, Babies and Crack
- This article was published on May 14th, 1989, in The New York Times and uses the term “Crack baby”:
“They are crack babies, born to women addicted to the powerful cocaine derivative.”
Stamped, Page 231
CLAIM:
- There are racial preferences in standardized testing.
- No Child Left Behind put the blame for educational failures on black children, black teachers and public schools.
REBUTTAL:
- The authors discuss eradicating the “racial preferences of standardized testing” as a solution to education – the authors do not provide a source for this theory. Arguments against this theory rule out both race and income as factors, and question if a “generations-long indoctrination in victimhood” is to blame. See additional sources below.
- Although it seems the No Child Left Behind Act did not have the desired effects and often did leave the neediest students behind, it did highlight racial disparities in education and had the intention of helping – not blaming students.
STAMPED SOURCE:
Source: Race, Reform, and Rebellion
- The source does not mention standardized test
- The source does not mention the No Child Left Behind Act
- The source did not place any blame on black teachers or public schools
- According to the source, African-American males were “being stigmatized by teachers and the court system as “violent,” “disruptive,” and excessively “sexual,” justifying their expulsion from public schools.” The source did not correlate the effects this had on student and school outcomes with the No Child Left Behind Act.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
Source 1: The Struggle for Black Education
- “Despite the hope that many invested in President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) initiative, which highlighted the persistence of the racial “achievement gap” and set the goal of closing it by 2014, progress toward that end has been incremental at best.”
Source 2: Explaining the Test-Score Gap
Are “generations-long indoctrination in victimhood” to blame for Test-score gaps?
- “These white students in England come from the same race that produced Shakespeare and the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton, among other world-class intellects over the centuries. But today many young whites in England are barely literate, and have trouble with simple arithmetic. Nor are these white students the victims of racial discrimination, much less the descendants of slaves.”
… We in America have gotten used to vast gaps between blacks and whites on test scores. But this was not always the case, in places where there was anything like comparable education.
Back in the 1940s, before the vast expansion of the welfare state and the ideology of victimhood used to justify it, there was no such gap on test scores between black schools in Harlem and white, working-class schools on New York’s Lower East Side.”
Also see on standardized testing (and a full review Neil Shenvi) >
Stamped, Page: 214
CLAIM:
- Justice Thomas’ work as an activist got him into his fancy schools
- Justice Thomas’ work as an activist got him his fancy job
STAMPED SOURCES:
- None
REBUTTAL ON ACTIVISM AND SCHOOLS:
According to his memoir, it was not activism that got him into school; rather, it was Thomas’ hard work as a student that got him into college. He also said affirmative action played a role in his acceptance into Yale Law School.
- At St. John Vianney Minor Seminary, he developed good study habits and spent summers teaching himself typing skills, algebra and reading. (My Grandfather’s Son: pg 29-36)
- He went to Holy Cross on a scholarship and worked as a dishwasher and waiter in the college’s dining hall.
- In 1971, Thomas graduated ninth in his class with an English honors degree.
- He attended Yale as one of 12 black students and graduated in 1974.
- “The fact that I was black didn’t enter into it at first. I thought of myself more as disadvantaged than as black, and I asked Yale to take that into account when I applied, not thinking that there might be anything wrong with doing so. … But in the years following Dr. King’s assassination, affirmative action (though it wasn’t yet called that) had become a fact of life at American colleges and universities, and before long I realized that those blacks who benefitted from it were being judged by a double standard. As much as it stung to be told that I’d done well in seminary despite my race, it was far worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it.” (My Grandfather’s Son: pg74)
REBUTTAL ON ACTIVISM AND JOB:
- His activism for the left started while in college, not prior to (My Grandfather’s Son: pg 46). If the authors’ unsubstantiated claim about Thomas’ activism getting him his job is true, it would mean his radical left-wing activism is responsible for the esteemed conservative position he holds, not his years of hard work and determination.
- “I lost my battle with the beast in the summer of 1968. …Bob DeShay had come home from Holy Cross that summer, and we spent long hours talking about the condition of blacks in America. He told me about the theory of Marxism and a new organization called Students for a Democratic Society. I didn’t understand everything he was saying, but I got the point, which was that northern blacks were more radical and confrontational than the ones among whom I had grown up. We fought to cage the beast, while they turned it loose and let it roar. That was the “long, hot summer” of urban riots and nationwide protests, and the more I read about the black power movement, the more I wanted to be a part of it.” (My Grandfather’s Son: pg 47-48)
- In contrast to the claim that Thomas’ activism got him into school – it almost got him kicked out. Protesting black demonstrators at school being singled out, Thomas “supported the idea of simply leaving a place where we no longer felt welcome, and that was what we ended up doing… we announced that we were quitting school in protest, and marched out. As I got ready to head home to Savannah, I started thinking about what I would tell my grandparents. Suddenly it hit me that I was in deeper trouble than I’d thought.” The leaders of the BSU (Black Student Union) were able to convince the administration to give those who left a second chance. (My Grandfather’s Son: pg 56-57)
- Thomas also attended anti-war rallies as well the 1970 Harvard Square riot “to protest the treatment of America’s domestic political prisoners… demanding freedom for Angela Davis…” Angela Davis seems to be the beloved heroine of Stamped, yet in this instance, the authors fail to mention her or Thomas’ activism for her. (My Grandfather’s Son: pg 58-59)
- Thomas states it wasn’t until the “fall of 1980 I changed my voter registration from Missouri to Maryland – and registered as a Republican. (My Grandfather’s Son: 129)
Stamped, Pg 22
CLAIM:
- · Baxter believed slavery was helpful
- · Baxter said Africans volunteered to be slaves so they could be baptized
REBUTTAL:
- Based on the information found, the authors’ statement is false: It was not found where Baxter said slavery was helpful to Africans and it was not found where he said Africans volunteered as slaves so they could be baptized.
- Baxter did write of voluntary slaves; he defined this as when a person sells himself to get out of a bad situation or to pay a debt. He also said another person should not take advantage of their state and that a contract should be in place.
- The authors use partial facts, stating, “[Baxter] said there were voluntary slaves,” and added their own spin on it.
- Baxter wrote about the importance of spreading Christianity and saving the souls of others, including slaves. Once an infidel has accepted Jesus and converted – they should be baptized (1954-1955).
- Additionally, Baxter goes into great detail about his views on the evils of capturing, selling and buying slaves.
STAMPED SOURCE:
In researching the provided source, there are various directory volumes as well as a version that includes all volumes. Detailed information is not provided in the citation; however, best efforts have been made to find the reference in the source.
Source 1: A Christian Directory, 216-220
- Through additional research Baxter’s writings on voluntary slaves:
- “Though poverty or necessity do make a man consent to sell himself to a life of lesser miser to escape a greater, or death itself; yet is it not lawful for any other so to take advantage by his necessity, as to bring him into a condition that shall make him miserable, or in which we shall not exercise so much love, as may tend to his sanctification, comfort, and salvation…” (page 1948)
- “A servant and a voluntary slave were both free-men, till they sold or hired themselves; and a criminal person was a free-man till he forfeited his life or liberty… A free servant is my servant, no further than his own covenant made him so; which is supposed to be, (1) To a certain kind of measure of labour according to the meaning of his contract. (2) For a limited time expressed in the contract, whether a year, or two or three or seven.” (page 1951-1952)
- His writings on selling and buying slaves:
- “To go as pirates and catch up poor negroes or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is on to the worst kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts, for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called incarnate devils than Christians, though they be no Christians whom they so abuse.” (pg 1951)
- “But what if men buy negroes or other slaves such as we have just cause to believe did steal them by piracy, or buy them of those that have no power to sell them, and not hire or buy them by their own consent, or by the consent of those that had power to sell them, nor take them captives in a lawful war, what must they do with them afterward?
Answ. 1. It is their heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them. 2. Having done it, undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them; because by right the man is his own, and therefore no man else can have just title to him.” (1952-1953)
Stamped, Page 126
CLAIM:
- Ghana, Mali and Songhay were glorious African empires
REBUTTAL:
- The authors point out the negative aspects of American history at every opportunity – Although Ghana, Mali and Songhay may have been glorious African Empires, they too were built with slave labor, a point conveniently left out.
STAMPED SOURCE:
Source 1: Race Unmasked: Biology and Race in the Twentieth Century, 48-49
- “…Boas, invited by W. E. B. Du Bois to deliver the commencement address to Atlanta University, offered a changed vision of race difference to the graduates: “To those who stoutly maintain a material inferiority of the Negro race and who would dampen your ardor by their claims, you may confidently reply that the burden of proof rests with them, that they past history of your race does not sustain their statement…”
Source 2: Black Folk Then and Now: An Essay in the History ond Sociology of the Negro Race, vii
- “Franz Boas came to Atlanta University where I was teaching history in 1906 and said to a graduating class: You need not be ashamed of your African past; and then he recounted the history of the black kingdoms south of the Sahara for a thousand years.”
A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana: From the 15th to the 19th Century (review)
- “Slavery lay at the core of Ghana’s precolonial states, whose economy was “almost totally dependent on slave labour.” Indigenous slavery predated the Atlantic slave trade, coexisted with it from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, and survived it through the early twentieth century.”
- “Slave labor produced the food surpluses that underlay the power of Mali’s rulers and lineage chiefs. Slaves lacked kinship ties, and Mali’s ruling elite prized slaves for their loyalty. Slaves played an important role in Mali as royal administrators and soldiers. Indeed, a court slave, Sakura, ruled the empire for a decade, from 1298-1308.”
Mali fails to face up to the persistence of slavery
- Written in 2021, the article states, “The internal African slave trade was officially abolished in colonial Mali in 1905. But a form of slavery – called “descent-based slavery” – continues today. This is when “slave status” is ascribed to a person, based on their ancestors having allegedly been enslaved by elite slave-owning families.”
Ancient Western African Empires
- “In the Songhai Empire, slavery was an important portion of the economy; the slaves were used to transport goods across the Sahara Desert and they were sold to Europe and the Americas.
- Slaves were usually people who had been captured from rivaling empires during war.”
- In each of the villages situated in the lands that we have listed, without a single exception, the prince had slaves and a fanfa. Under the orders of certain of his fanfa [chief of slaves] were found 100 slaves employed in the cultivation of the soil; while in others there were only 60, 50, 40 or 20.
Checking sources is a time-consuming process – we will continue to research and add to this list if additional inaccuracies are found.
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