Posted on 11/29/2020 7:54:23 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Among the extracts from foreign journals, published in yesterday's TIMES, was one from the West African Herald, in which it is clearly shown that the Slave-trade was never more prosperous than it is in the year 1860. When the traffic was legal, and was carried on between many countries and the Coast of Africa, the traders were not so numerous as they are now when the Island of Cuba is the only market open to them, and large fleets keep vigilant watch both in African and American waters. Our correspondent at Havana, in a letter recently published, estimated that 30,000 Africans had been landed on the Coast of Cuba during the current year, but this, it would seem, falls far short of the number actually stolen from their African homes. The West African Herald, in the article already referred to, affirms that from a single district, including St. Paul, Lagos and South Coast, 12,000 Africans have been carried off, in spite of the cruisers, between the 1st of January and the 1st of August, 1860; and the inference is that the entire number of Africans actually shipped for Cuba during the present year is nearer 60,000 than the figure named by our correspondent. It must be remembered that the trade is not prosecuted now as it was formerly, when its legality was recognized, and when it was in the interest of the proprietor and the shipmaster to be as merciful as possible towards their chattels. Now, from fear of detection, the captain of a vessel is compelled to subject his slaves to the most cruel confinement, and to imprison them in the smallest possible space.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Link to previous New York Times thread
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3910242/posts
Check out The Zong Massacre. The Song was a British slave ship that had been captured by the Dutch. It was carrying 400 slaves, double its capacity, to Jamaica and was running out of drinking water:
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the notorious events off Jamaica in 1781 and their background. The British slave ship Zong, having sailed across the Atlantic towards Jamaica, threw 132 enslaved Africans from its human cargo into the sea to drown. Even for a slave ship, the Zong was overcrowded; those murdered were worth more to the ship dead than alive. The crew said there was not enough drinking water to go round and they had no choice, which meant they could claim for the deaths on insurance. The main reason we know of this atrocity now is that the owners took their claim to court in London, and the insurers were at first told to pay up as if the dead slaves were any other lost goods, not people. Abolitionists in Britain were scandalised: if courts treated mass murder in the slave trade as just another business transaction and not a moral wrong, the souls of the nation would be damned. But nobody was ever prosecuted.
Fascinating stuff—of course we now know that South Carolina will secede while Buchanan is still a lame duck—that lame duck period was totally crazy....
Buchanan speech of January 8, 1861:
He was trying to “kick the can down the road” for the new President to deal with...
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/january-8-1861-message-threats-peace-and-existence-union
He was trying to “kick the can down the road” for the new President to deal with...
Actually in his January 8 speech, Buchanan was not telling the whole story. His speech mentions the December 11, 1860 orders transmitted to Anderson by Buell as though that gave permission to Anderson to move into Fort Sumter. Those December 11 orders were verbal, unauthorized, and counter to Buchanan's policy and promises to South Carolinians concerning the Charleston forts.
When Buchanan found out what Buell had told Anderson on December 11, Buchanan countermanded those orders. He had Secretary Floyd send new orders to Anderson:
WAR DEPARTMENT,
Washington, December 21, 1860.
Major ANDERSON,
First Artillery, Commanding Fort Moultrie, S. C.:
SIR: In the verbal instructions communicated to you by Major Buell, you are directed to hold possession of the forts in the harbor of Charleston, and, if, attacked, to defend yourself to the last extremity. Under these instructions, you might infer that you are required to make a vain and useless sacrifice of your own life and the lives of the men under your command upon a mere point of honor. This is far from the President's intentions. You are to exercise a sound military discretion on this subject.
It is neither expected nor desired that you should expose your own life or that of your men in a hopeless conflict in defense of these forts. If they are invested or attacked by a force so superior that resistance would, in your judgment be a useless waste of life, it will be your duty to yield to necessity and make the best terms in your power.
This will be the conduct of an honorable, brave, and humane officer, and you will be fully justified in such action. These orders are strictly confidential, and not to be communicated even to the officers under your command, without close necessity.
Very respectfully,
JOHN B. FLOYD
As the book, "Don Carlos Buell: most promising of all" by Stephen Douglas Engle says [Link, pages 61-62]:
When Anderson received the secretary's latest words of guidance, he became furious. Buell's message had allowed Anderson to decide for himself when and how to act. Now the administration was drawing back.
If Anderson thought he already had approval to move to the fort, he wouldn't have wired Washington on December 22 saying [Anderson Dec 22 letter, my emphasis below]:
I think that I could, however,were I to receive instructions so to do, throw my garrison into that work [Sumter], but I should have to sacrifice the greater of my stores as it is now too late to attempt their removal.
Although Buchanan never publically acknowledged that he promised the South Carolinians that US troops would not be moved into Fort Sumter, there is evidence after the war from two of his Union-favoring secretaries that Buchanan did promise the South Carolinians, but that if he did order Anderson back into Fort Moultrie, three of his Union-favoring secretaries would have resigned. So, publically Buchanan lied to the country.
Good evening Professor.
It is true that we should have invented the cotton gin much earlier, or we should have picked our own cotton. I have before and you better wear gloves.
Anyway, if it hadn’t been for the African tribes and the Arabs, there probably wouldn’t be a slave trade.
But that is history.
If all that didn’t happen, I probably wouldn’t have married my wife. Who happens to be African American.
Go figure.
5.56mm
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