Reparations?

Yes, but for whom?

Copyright by Michael Auld

And how does one pay humans back for a horrific history? 

Although it’s a hot topic in some quarters, here is the reparations story we are NOT told!

The first impacted!

ABOVE: Spanish print of "The Martyrdom of Anacaona", (Golden Flower), the Taíno Queen of Haragua, Ayti Bohio (Haiti) 1504.

The onslaught against the Indigenous people of the Americas began in the Caribbean island of Guanahani (Island of the Iguana) in th Lucayan Bahamas in 1492 when Cristopher Columbus (Latinized, or a.k.a. originally, Cristoforo Colombo in his Italy, and Cristobal Colon by Spain), who was the first European to land there. He took. some Lucayan Taíno back to Spain to prove that he had arrived in India.

"They would make good servants," the Admiral of the Seas hastily said about the small Bahamian islanders.

He was then unaware of the larger and politically organized, savvy Amerindian civilization, organized into cacicazgos (districts with caciques or kacikes, of which the island of "Hispaniola" was divided, their villages with hundreds of sub-kacikes, just a short step away from becoming city states as on the mainland Central American empires with whom they traded.

However, this scene above is twelve years later when he had been kicked out of the governorship of Ayti Bohio/Kiskeya, renamed "Hispaniola", by territorial thieves from Europe. Murderous governor, Nicolas de Ovando replaced the believed "incompetent" Colon, for being too soft on the "Indios".

So, when Kacike Anacaona (Golden Flower) invited the new governor to a reception with 100 of her sub-kacikes, Ovando, upon arriving on his white horse and a contingent of crossbowmen, surrounded the large bohio (round house). dragged Anacaona out, set the bohio on fire, killing anyone trying to escape. Anacaona refused Ovando's offer to become his concubine, and so, was hanged on the spot. This demonstration was later replicated throughout the Americas by both the Spanish and other European arrivals.

Next in line for assassination, was one of Anacaona's sub-kacikes from the next door island of Gonive. Late for her reception, he fled to Cuba, to warn the Cubanakan Taínos, to "throw away their gold into the rivers, since it was the Cristianos' god, whom they loved so much."

This is a sculpture of Hatuey, a Ayti Bohio (Haitian) Taíno martyred in Cuba
on February 2, 1512. He is a National Hero in Cuba. Wood sculpture by the author,

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FIRST ENCOUNTER IN THE AMERICAS?

A somewhat popular sentiment in the Black community is a concept of the payment for the horrific European institution of African slavery, a Crime Against Humanity. How should those Europeans, beginning with Spain, then England, Portugal, France, and Holland pay the descended victims of the African Slave Trade? By giving billions of dollars overseen by the United Nations and the World Bank? All of the above perpetrators would go broke.

However, on the other hand, for a greater number of over 100-million Amerindian Holocaust victim’s survivors the payment amount would be even more massive! What would this reparation look like?

(a) Give back the gold, precious jewelry, metals, oil, foodstuffs, and lumber? 

Naah!

 (b) What about stolen territories which you and I now “own”? Houses, apartments, land, farms...? And the list goes on!

Incidentally, where I'm from in the Caribbean, one old saying goes, "The receiver is worst than the thief!"

CORRECTING THE PAST?

Q: So, what is Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and now the USA doing about Indigenous reparations?
A: Only giving the “spoken word” in the form of Land Acknowledgments! ... A speech in America given by or for named Native Americans on whose territory one’s organization now stands.

Returning stolen goods, anyone? 

Naah!

THE AFRICAN STORY

ABOVE: My graphic novel 
http://anansistories.com/How_Anansi_Came_book.html

This is the result of my 1970s research on Africa slavery. I used our folkloric character, Kweku Anansi the Spider-Man in telling how West Africans came to the Americas via the European/African Slave Trade. The comic strip story pulled no punches and was published in Jamaica’s Gleaner newspaper. Later, in 2019, it was published as a novel, picked up by an Advanced Placement (AP) company for multiethnic course. Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/How-Anansi-Came-Americas-Africa/dp/154540660X

Barns & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-anansi-came-to-the-americas-from-africa-michael-auld/1127753697

However, this is the story we are all told.

EXERPT # 1: SLAVERY, the Myth is that only Europeans captured Africans for enslavement in the Americas. From the graphic novel, "How Anansi Came to the Americas from Africa" by the author.   

But, here are the facts we’re not told.

EXERPT #2:Another illustration from my graphic novel, originally published as an Anansesem folkloric comic strip,

My Jamaican multiethnic boys high school was named for a notorious Nigerian slave port by the island’s British  Baptist founders. So, if some graduates wanted reparations, shouldn’t we get the money from both Britain and Nigerian accomplices? This sentiment was recently made about an upper crust Nigerian woman in London. She was the recipient of slave trade wealth while her subjects back home go hungry today. 

So, what's the truth?

 WEST AFRICAN SLAVERY

Exerpt # 3: The continued Anansesem story.

Reparations for African slavery is s two edged sword. The African Slave Trade could not have been as successful if rulers on the West Africans coastline did not participate in the trade in human lives. Portuguese captains at Fort Elmina  could not go inland to steal people. These coastlines were occupied by small nations while large empires were located more in the interior. So, coastal regions were ruled by middlemen during the Slave Trade.

The Devastating Enterprise

Elmina Fort, Ghana.

The Portuguese "Elmina Fort and Cape Coast Castle in Ghana were just two of over 50 slave holding castles on the West African coast that held thousands of enslaved people, mainly POWs, on their way across the Atlantic Ocean" to Portuguese and British colonies in the Americas.

Given this fact that European cannons were aimed out to sea to ward off European competitors, their friendly co-conspirators were their African neighbors. So, who are responsible for the African Slave Trade? 

AN EXCUSE 

We can see what one West African professor at Howard University said in his class concerning why his people exported their own.

“We sent only criminals into slavery. That’s why America has so many Black criminals,” he justified.

“So, women and little children were also criminals?” A student challenged.

Embarrassed, he gave this bright student a low grade for speaking out.