Human beings by nature aren’t inherently good or evil. Therefore, human beings by nature are capable of doing great deeds or causing great destruction. The enslavement of people has been part of human history for centuries. Slavery and human bondage has taken many forms, including enslaving people as prisoners of war or due to their beliefs. The enslavement of people has been part of human history for centuries. Slavery and human bondage has taken many forms, including enslaving people as prisoners of war or due to their beliefs, but the permanent hereditary enslavement based on race later adopted in the U.S. was rare before the 15th century. On March 25th this year (2026) the UN General Assembly declared the transatlantic slave trade, “among the gravest violations of human rights in history…” The most comprehensive shipping records compiled in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database indicated that approximately 12.5 million Africans were forced on ships between 1525 and 1866. Any data scientist, economist, or statistician will tell you that data informs decisions, and the decisions historically made by the Europeans to conquer and impede on human rights is incredibly informational. The decision to conquer and impede on human rights in Africa culminated at the Berlin Conferences between November 15, 1884 - February 26, 1885. 14 countries attended the Berlin Conferences including the United States, Sweden-Norway, Spain, Russia, Portugal, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and The Ottoman Empire?…This conference is where their greed turned into an organized effort to stake claims on parts of Africa, harmoniously. By 1914 nearly the entire continent of Africa was under European control with only Liberia and Ethiopia maintaining independence, shoutout to y’all, especially Ethiopia. If you know, you know. 1914 is also the same year as World War 1…It wasn’t until World War 2 that Africa began to decolonize.
Black History 365 | #300 Darryl "Cornbread" McCray
Black History 365 | #299 The Moors
Who are The Moors? Their identity and history could be divided into two parts — African Moors and Arab Moors. Moors is a very broad term. You may notice a pattern of confusion, a labyrinth-like search to find black history that would be attributed to black people who are phenotypically Black/African. You should know by now, that this is by design. The Moors, again were the indigenous people of North Africa who civilized Europe. Yes, influencing architecture, philosophy, governance systems, agricultural innovations turning Iberia (modern day Spain and Portugal) into the most sophisticated territory in Europe. From 711 to 1492. Try to imagine what you think indigenous people from Africa would look like. European’s are not slouches. The history of who the indigenous people are versus who they became as a result of Arab Conquest and eventual European involvement and mass mixing is where plain, simple readable, cut and dry chronological timeline is inconclusive and hard to understand. Fortunately it is easy to overstand this; history books have a repeated history of either leaving out positive, influential Black/African history (that is not under the shadow of transatlantic slave trade) or just muddying and confusing it. This here is no different. African Moors were called Berbers as a derogatory term, meaning barbarian, but they themselves identified as Amazigh people. Which translates to “free people” or “noble men.” The title Moors is an exonym. Meaning the name given to, from outside. You’ll find from the massive information service EBSCO, that “The Moors are primarily North African Arabs and Berbers who invaded the Iberian Peninsula…leading to a complex history of conquest, coexistence, and conflict. Their reign, known as Al-Andalus, was characterized by remarkable advancements in architecture, science, and culture…” Diversity exists under The Moors umbrella, but which group under that umbrella-term got Europe out of its dark ages?
Black History 365 | # 298 The African Middle-Men Of The Slave Trade
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.” - Will and Ariel Durant. That quote will preface the African role in the transatlantic slave trade. Yes, Africans participated in the slave trade acting as middlemen with Europeans, selling our own people. Class plays a vital part in this thing too, not just race. Both of which are social constructs that heavily affect your quality of life and your access to quality in general. Hip-Hop’s billionaire, Jiggaman says “No civilization is conquered from the outside until it destroys itself from within.” sounds flyer. It is vital to understand that human beings in general are capable of great evil as well as great good. Harriet Tubman was known to carry a small pistol with her on rescue missions as protection, but also to encourage weak-hearted folks from turning back and risking the safety of the group. Additionally, Dr. Umar Johnson said “Some of our [people] are so far gone that we’re going to have to put some of them to sleep in order to take back the neighborhood.” Places like Elmira Castle in what is present-day Ghana in West Africa acted as a center for slave trade. Nigerian politician Donald Duke acknowledges that his ancestors participated in the slave trade. Know that the modern use of providing this history could be to elude black on black crime. This being one on an international level. Now, black on black is a myth it doesn’t exist. Crime is fundamentally intraracial and proximal between people who know each other and live in the same area. That aside, It gets deep y’all, truth is always stranger than fiction. “In Benin, the government plans to build two museums devoted to the slave trade in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution... It is raised in political debates, downplayed by the descendants of slave traders and deplored by the descendants of slaves. For over 200 years, powerful kings in what is now the country of Benin captured and sold slaves to Portuguese, French and British merchants. The slaves were usually men, women and children from rival tribes — gagged and jammed into boats bound for Brazil, Haiti and the United States.” Knowledge is power y’all.
Black History 365 | # 296 The Creators of Race & The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Henry, The Navigator? I don’t know. The Navigator should be changed to Henry, The Transatlantic Slave Trade Creator, because he did in fact NOT actually navigate any trips himself, he assembled groups of people to navigate trips. He was a Prince, not to be King, because it was his eldest brother Duarte who was King. He and his crony, Gomes de Zurara, his biographer, followed him around, “glazing him,” as the kids say, writing about his life and crimes against humanity. Now, Gomes, the royal scrub is the person recognized as having the earliest anti-black writings. For example in this text he justifies slavery through Christianity and uses The Curse of Ham as evidence of this hierarchy of race. To quote him describing enslaved Africans being forced to Portugal, he says “Amongst them were some white enough, fair to look upon, and well proportioned; others were less white like mulattoes; others again were as black as Ethiops, and so ugly, both in features and in body, as almost to appear…the images of a lower hemisphere.” It is called The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea (approx. 1410-1474). In 1476, Christopher Columbus got shipwrecked in Portugal. He eventually found his wife there whose family was tied in with Portuguese “exploration.” Books will not say that Christopher Columbus attended Henry The Navigator’s school for “explorers,” Sagre. But he was there in Portugal right when Henry and Gomes were spreading their hatred and coordinating the dehumanization of African people. Portugal denied Columbus’s request to sail west, Spain accepted. Now, if you ask me, Christopher Columbus learned his whole getdown from Henry, The Transatlantic Slave Trade Creator and remixed it to Native desecration. Back to Henry, the Prince, son of the King, little brother to the heir apparent began promoting violation of the lands along the western coast of Africa in the mid-1420s. West African commerce to them was exploiting land for gold and slaves, you know how the European colonizers do…don’t take no for an answer, void of a no moral compass, God justifies their actions…so, the church and his brother, The Crown funded the quest to violate and usher in what they call The Age of Exploration. and changed the justification of slavery from this group of people lost to us in war to now, black people are beasts let’s own them and remove them from their land and exploit their land. God said it’s OK. Gomes, the royal scrub wrote about it and these two changed the world. Got a in Lisbon, Portugal in their honor.