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This is a must read for anyone interested in the slave trade. It will most likely give a whole new perspective.
John Newton On the slave trade pages 227-252:
(close the space in the link)
http://books.google.com/books?id=OjI3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA245#v=onepage&q=&f=false
"I verily believe, that the far greater part of the wars, in Africa, would cease, if the Europeans would cease to tempt them, by offering goods for slaves. And though they do not bring legions into the field, their wars are bloody. I believe, the captives reserved for sale are fewer than the slain.
I have not sufficient data to warrant calculation but, I suppose, not less than one hundred thousand slaves are exported, annually, from all parts of Africa, and that more than one-half of these are exported in English bottoms.
If but an equal number are killed in war, and if many of these wars are kindled by the incentive of selling their prisoners ; what an annual accumulation of blood must there be, crying against the nations of Europe concerned in this trade, and particularly against our own!"
The absurdity of racial classification systems LOL
Bellow is "Africa" By Ethlyn T. Clough starts last paragraph of page 209
http://books.google.com/books?id=E5wXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA209
"In Southern Africa the true negro is not found, and from the Equator to the Cape the continent is mainly populated by the various negroid branches of the great Bantu-speaking stock. The Bantu hordes, emigrating at various periods from the north of the Zambesi, possessed themselves of all the richer lands that were occupied by the aboriginal Hottentots and Bushmen. The Bantus are distinguished for their fine physique, notably in the case of the Zulus. Many of them are handsome, even from the European standpoint, with aqueline features and sometimes a complexion not darker than that of Southern Europeans. They -are a pastoral and agricultural people, breeding cattle in immense quantities, and cultivating cerials, principally mealies (maize) and Kaffir corn (millet). The Bantus are capable of a considerable degree of civilization, and their mental and moral qualities are higher than those of any negro race"
The bellow is written by Fredrick Perry Noble a century ago.
http://books.google.com/books?pg=RA1-PA11&id=GIkAAAAAMAAJ#PRA1-PA11,M1
"As a farmer, the Negro is more efficient than the Chinese and the Hindoo. In practising a new handicraft he quickly acquires dexterity. In book-learning his aptness is equally great. His capacity for endurance has proved exhaustless. Pestilence, slavery, spirituous liquors, war and the devastation of barbarism have not exhausted his vitality. He works willingly, even as a slave; and as a free man is capable of any degree or kind of industrial activity. Mother Nature made him one of her born diplomats, orators and traders. His inner life finds expression in a folk-lore not without poetry and power.
The Negro might almost be characterized as a semi-civilized race. An extinct culture in Fezzan (South of Tripoli) has been justly credited to him. His native genius had already struck out a path of its own, even before the first immigrants into Africa—the Asian founders of Egypt and the Berber—arrived. The Egyptian civilization—in part, at least—was originally the work of Negroes cooperating with the Asiatic immigrants. Negro Africans, even when uninfluenced by outside forces, have shown native ability for material advancement, self-elevation and state-building. They have done this in the teeth of adverse circumstances, isolation and unfortunate environment. The Ashanti and the Dahoman, though true Negroes, though typical Guinea Negroes, had spontaneously developed considerable culture even before Islam could possibly have affected them.
The average of Negro culture, though below that of Mexico, Peru and Yucatan, was higher than that of other aboriginal Americans. Many Negro tribes, untouched by any stimulus from outside, voluntarily rose above the level where Caesar found the Kelts of Britain, and, even from the European and the Christian point of view, had a measure of the factors and forces that initiate real civilization. The most useful of metallurgic discoveries or inventions consists of smelting and working iron. The American Indian, whether Aztec, Inca, Maya or other, never fell upon this art. The Negro, though mentally inferior to the Indian, found it independently. The Bongo Negroes, as well as other Africans, constructed furnaces of an ingenious type, and also minted money. Among the Fan Negroes, on Ogowai River, bits of iron have been current coin since before European currency appeared.
The Negro also is more of a bridge-builder than the Teutons that Tacitus knew. Yet he has not devoted his native power solely to material progress. He has revealed natural ability to build states and govern himself. Ashanti and Dahome prove this; especially, too, as they were realms of woman's rights."