The Story of Anastacia Escrava

Anastacia Escrava

The Story of Anastacia Escrava

As the story is told Anstacia was born to Delminda from the Bantu tribe in Southern Nigeria and Cameroon. Delminda was royal blood from the Galanga family and she was brought to Brazil in 1740 as a slave.

Delminda was sold by Antonio Rodrigues Velho, previously raped by a European man and pregnant at the time she was sold to Joaquina Pompeu. 

In March of 1740, she gave birth to Anastacia, who was born with blue eyes, a rarity in Brazil for a black child. Anastacia grew up to be a very beautiful woman and Joaquin Antonio, the owner’s son became obsessed with her. Anastacia fought against Joaquin’s advances toward her and the women jealous of her beauty suggested that he make her wear a metal mask. This did not keep Antonio from raping Anastacia and as punishment for her refusal of his advances Antonio made her wear the mask. Anastacia wore this mask for the remainder of her life only removing it once a day to eat. As a result of the continuous wear of the mask for years, Anastacia developed a toxicity to the metal and succumb to tetanus. 

The story of Anastacia Escrava is considered to be the most important story told in Rio de Janeiro of a woman in black history.

It is said toward the end of her life Anastacia had the gift of healing. She forgave the mistreatment she suffered at the hands of her owner and his mistress, healing his son.

"Negro Dog"

"Negro Dog"

Years ago I watch a 1982 movie called ‘white dog” starring the black actor Paul Winfield. The movie was about a white German Shepard trained to attack and kill people of the melanin persuasion; of course, then, I assume the movie was fictional. Paul Winfield’s character took on the task of trying to break the dog from this heinous indoctrination, ultimately believing he had taken the killer instinct out of the dog, he tested the dog on a fellow black trainer and the dog no longer had a hatred for black skin but he turned on his white coworker and Paul’s character had to kill the dog.

It was a tragic ending to a perverted coercion from a sick owner who would teach an innocent animal such a sadistic psychosis. 

In later years my love of animals took me into the field of a veterinary technician and my job brought me in contact with an actual racist dog, yes, a dog that reacted viciously because of the color of my skin. At first I thought that I may have been mistaken but I decided to test my theory. There was one other black co-worker and I asked her to attempt to cuddle with the dog, she was an Australian Shepard and the dog became vicious with her as well. I then asked my white coworker to do the same thing and the dog was extremely friendly with her and other white people, but the moment I or the other black woman came any where near her she would become vicious again. When the dog was in the company of white people she was totally sweet and loving, a completely pleasant demeanor. I never thought it was possible, but sure enough there are people who raise their dog to hate people of color too. 

In my recent research of black history, I came across true stories of dogs that were trained to hunt, subdue and sometimes kill runaway slaves, they were called “negro dogs.”

Solomon Northrup of which the book and movie, “12 years a slave” was written about gave his account of escaping into the Louisiana swamp. In the swamp his worries were many; he spoke of water moccasins, slimy reptiles, bears, wild cats and alligators but neither of these he dreaded more than the fearsome dogs that were in pursuit. These dogs were called “negro dogs” trained to hunt specifically slaves that ran away from their owners, but sometimes even a slave caught on the roads traveling at night coming from a neighboring plantation also were victim to the vicious dogs.

In the book The name "Negro" its Origins and evil use, by Richard B. Moore page 75 reads:

Special uses are noted like a "negro dog" a dog used in hunting runaway slaves. No mention is made in the Oxford Lexicon though the fact that many such dogs were trained ferociously to tear into pieces human beings of dark hue commonly enslaved at the time. this was accomplished by starving these dogs and then deliberately allowing them to eat raw meat out of the abdomen of a black figure formed like a human person, thus conditioning the dog to associate satiation of starvation with the rabid rending and eating of a dark-colored human being. Doubtless, the sense of smell was also used in this monstrous training of dogs to devour human beings.

Slave patrols, which often were non slave owners were known to be brutal, most brutal of all were the pattyrollers who were used to track down fugitive slaves and often used dogs who would pick up the scent of the slaves tracking them into trees or nearby fences. Most commonly used were bloodhounds because of their strong sense of smell, oftentimes if the dogs caught up to the slaves before the owners they were terribly maimed and sometimes killed. 

The situation was so bad that the Georgia Supreme Court ruled in 1855 that dogs could be used to track fugitives if they did not "lacerate or otherwise materially injure the slave."

The popularity of the dogs was such there would be promotions in advertisement to sale these “negro dogs” trained specifically to hunt black human beings.

 

The New York Rens

The New York Renaissance, also known as the Renaissance Big Five and as the Rens, was an all-black professional basketball team established February 13, 1923, by Robert "Bob" Douglas in agreement with the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom. The Casino and Ballroom at 138th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem was an entertainment complex including a ballroom that served as the Big Five's home court. Following each game, a dance took place. The success of the Rens shifted the focus of black basketball from amateur teams to professional teams. Initially, the Rens played mostly in Harlem, but by the end of the 1920s, as attendance began to dwindle, the team could be found more often playing on the road, barnstorming across the country out of necessity.

The Rens were one of the dominant basketball teams of the 1920s and 1930s. They were originally known as the Spartan Braves of Brooklyn. The team played its first game on November 3, 1923. That night the Rens played a team of white players; interracial games featured regularly on their schedule, drawing the largest crowds.  In its first years, the team strove to beat the Original Celtics, the dominant white team of the time, and claim the title of world champions: in their fifth encounter, the Rens did so for the first time, on December 20, 1925. During the 1932-33 regular season, the Rens compiled a record of 120-8 (six of those losses came at the hands of the Celtics, who the Rens did beat eight times). During that season, the Rens won 88 consecutive games, a mark that has never been matched by a professional basketball team. In 1939, the Rens won the first professional basketball championship, when they beat the Oshkosh All-Stars, a white team, 34-25, in the World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago.

The team compiled a 2588-539 record over its history. Some of the longest-serving and best-known early Rens were Clarence "Fats" Jenkins, Pappy Ricks, Eyre Saitch, Charles "Tarzan" Cooper, Bill Yancey, and "Wee" Willie Smith. In 1936, the Renaissance became the first top-level team to sign a four-year African American college star, David "Big Dave" DeJernett of Indiana Central.
The Rens disbanded in 1949 after completing the 1948/49 season of the racially integrated National Basketball League as the Dayton Rens based in Dayton, Ohio. That was also the final season for the NBL, which merged with the all-white Basketball Association of America to form the also (initially) all-white National Basketball Association. The team left New York and moved to Dayton where it was renamed as Dayton Rens.

*source:wikipedia

David Walker-Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

David Walker

David Walker (September 28, 1796 – August 6, 1830) was an outspoken African-American abolitionist and anti-slavery activist. His mother was free and his father was a slave. Therefore, he was free. In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, he published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and self-help in the fight against oppression and injustice.
The appeal brought attention to the abuses and inequities of slavery and the role of individuals to act responsibly for racial equality, according to religious and political tenets. At the time, some people were outraged and fearful of the reaction that the pamphlet would have. Many abolitionists thought the views were extreme.
Historians and liberation theologians cite the Appeal as an influential political and social document of the 19th century. Walker exerted a radicalizing influence on the abolitionist movements of his day and inspired future black leaders and activists.
His son, Edward G. Walker, was an attorney and one of the first two black men elected into the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1866 Walker was born in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina. His mother was free and his father, who had died before his birth, had been enslaved. Since American law embraced the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, literally "that which is brought forth follows the womb," Walker inherited his mother's status as a free person.

Despite his freedom, Walker found the oppression of fellow blacks unbearable. "If I remain in this bloody land," he later recalled thinking, "I will not live long...I cannot remain where I must hear slaves' chains continually and where I must encounter the insults of their hypocritical enslavers." Consequently, as a young adult, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, a mecca for upwardly mobile free blacks. He became affiliated with a strong African Methodist Episcopal Church community of activists, members of the first black denomination in the United States. He later visited and likely lived in Philadelphia, a shipbuilding center and location of an active black community, where the AME Church was founded.
In September 1829, Walker published his appeal to Black people entitled Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. The purpose of the document was to encourage readers to take an active role in fighting their oppression, regardless of the risk, and to press white Americans to realize the moral and religious failure of slavery

 *source: wikipedia


Below is an excerpt of the end of the Article 4 Appeal

 ARTICLE 4     OUR WRETCHEDNESS IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE COLONIZING PLAN

* Those who are ignorant enough to go to Africa, the coloured people ought to be glad to have them go, for if they are ignorant enough to let the whites fool them off to Africa, they would be no small injury to us if they reside in this country. * See St. Matthew's Gospel, chap. xviii. 6. * The great slave holder, Mr. John Randolph, of Virginia, intimated in one of his great, happy and eloquent HARRANGUES, before the Virginia Convention, that Ohio is a slave State, by ranking it among other Slave-holding States. This probably was done by the HONORABLE Slave-holder to deter the minds of the ignorant; to such I would say, that Ohio always was and is now a free State, that it never was and I do not believe it ever will be a slave-holding State; the people I believe, though some of them are hard hearted enough, detest Slavery too much to admit an evil into their bosom, which gnaws into the very vitals, and sinews of those who are now in possession of it. 

* You are not astonished at my saying we hate you, for if we are men, we cannot but hate you, while you are treating us like dogs.

* Some of my brethren, who are sensible, do not take an interest in enlightening the minds of our more ignorant brethren respecting this BOOK, and in reading it to them, just as though they will not have either to stand or fall by what is written in this book. Do they believe that I would be so foolish as to put out a book of this kind without strict—ah! very strict commandments of the Lord?—Surely the blacks and whites must think that I am ignorant enough.—Do they think that I would have the audacious wickedness to take the name of my God in vain?
Notice, I said in the concluding clause of Article 3—I call God, I call Angels, I call men to witness, that the destruction of the Americans is at hand, and will be speedily consummated unless they repent. Now I wonder if the world think that I would take the name of God in this way in vain: What do they think I take God to be? Do they suppose that I would trifle with that God who will not have his Holy name taken in vain?—He will show you and the world, in due time, whether this book is for his glory, of written by me through envy to the whites, as some have represented.* Why do the Slave-holders or Tyrants of America and their advocates fight so hard to keep my brethren from receiving and reading my Book of appeal to them?—is it because they treat us so well?—Is it because we are satisfied to rest in Slavery to them and their children?—Is it because they are treating us like men, by compensating us all over this free country!! for our labours?—But why are the Americans so very fearfully terrified respecting my Book?—Why do they search vessels, &c. when entering the harbours of tyrannical States, to see if any of my Books can be found, for fear that my brethren will get them to read. Why, I thought the Americans proclaimed to the world that they are a happy, enlightened, humane and Christian people, all the inhabitants of the country enjoy equal Rights!! America is the Asylum for the oppressed of all nations!!!

Now I ask the Americans to see the fearful terror they labor under for fear that my brethren will get my Book and read it—and tell me if their declaration is true—viz, if the United States of America is a Republican Government?—Is this not the most tyrannical, unmerciful, and cruel government under Heaven—not excepting the Algerines, Turks and Arabs?—I believe if any candid person would take the trouble to go through the Southern and Western sections of this country, and could have the heart to see the cruelties inflicted by these Christians on us, he would say that the Algerines, Turks and Arabs treat their dogs a thousand times better than we are treated by the Christians.—But perhaps the Americans do their very best to keep my Brethren from receiving and reading my "Appeal" for fear they will find in it an extract which I made from their Declaration of Independence, which says, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," &c. &c. &c.—If the above are not the causes of the alarm among the Americans, respecting my Book, I do not know what to impute it to, unless they are possessed of the same spirit with which Demetrius the Silversmith was possessed—however, that they may judge whether they are of the same avaricious and ungodly spirit with that man, I will give here an extract from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter xix,—verses 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.
"And the same time there arose no small stir about that way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen; whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this raft we have our wealth: moreover, ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying, that they be no gods which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also hat the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth."
I pray you Americans of North and South America, together with the hole European inhabitants of the world, (I mean Slave-holders and their advocates) to read and ponder over the above verses in your minds, and judge whether or not you are of the infernal spirit with that Heathen Demeius, the Silversmith: In fine I beg you to read the whole chapter through carefully. * See the Declaration of Independence of the United States.* The Lord has not taught the Americans that we will not some day or other throw off their chains and hand-cuffs, from our hands and feet, and their devilish lashes (which some of them shall have enough of yet) from off our backs.

I am reading the book and I will come back on a later post to give my opinion on the book. What I do find amazing is the content of the message he writes are eerily similar to this very day and time period.
I took the liberty of looking up the scriptures he called upon in his excerpt to Acts 19, for those who would like to reference it.

Acts 19:23-27 (NKJV)

23 And about that time there arose a great commotion about the Way. 24 For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no small profit to the craftsmen. 25 He called them together with the workers of similar occupation, and said: “Men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. 26 Moreover you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. 27 So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship.”

 Hmmmm, interesting. The worshipping of false gods was being destroyed because of Paul's teaching of the word.

From 1829 until his death in 1830, David Walker was the most controversial, and most admired, black person in America. Shortly after completing the third edition of the Appeal, David Walker was found dead near the doorway of his shop on June 18, 1830 (ironically, just months before his son was born). Most people suspected that he was assassinated. However, the power of his message continued to spread among his people.