It wouldn’t be Black History Month without my fulfilling my mission to clarify the difference between true history and ‘his-story.’
As a history chef, I attempt to remove poison mushrooms from ‘his’ recipe and add truth to the mixture fed to a hungry—albeit culpable and drunken– populace who rarely looks beyond the garnish.
My reform recipe removes harmful and unhealthy ingredients, including distortions, half-truths, alternate facts and outright lies—and replaces them with healthy alternatives like collard greens and smoked red beans and rice—cleansing the colon and fueling muscle growth.
Some of those falsehoods have been ingrained for so long that they are part of our sub-conscience.
As such, ‘his-story’ contributes to our generational ignorance and dysfunctionality. It also impedes our sociocultural and economic independence and foundational growth.
‘His-story’ has provided the plaster for a deceptive cultural mask, one in which we view ourselves as second-class, inferior beings, content to be impoverished and dependent on political entities for our survival.
Intermingled in my historical ‘corrections’ are lesser-known historical events intentionally excluded from the massa’s books, government (public) school curriculums, and political policies.
For example, you could include in the category the disingenuous invention that in 1976 Federal Court John Reynolds responded to Milwaukee’s system of educational apartheid with an ‘integration’ plan.
In fact, that lie was perpetrated by every local newspaper –save for this one.
But the truth is Reynold could not order forced or voluntary ‘integration’ as the concept is a nonsensical oxymoron.
Simply put, the legal response to segregation is desegregation, not integration.
The same is true of the schools in the South that were forced to accept Black students after the 1954 court order.
From that perspective, Judge Reynold’s decision failed to achieve the intended goal, as evidenced by the fact that today, the Milwaukee Public Schools ( MPS) are more segregated than they were in 1976, and the academic achievement gap is much wider.
A list of ‘his-torical’ falsehoods that occupy my stated goals’ starts with the near-universal acceptance of 1619 as the initial arrival of African slaves to these colonial (not American) shores.
As ridiculous as it seems, I have been castigated, beat up, and even peed upon for disputing that lie.
When I first wrote about the actual date (1526), a White government (MPS) school teacher accused me of doing a disservice to the ‘po Negro chilins.’
Most recently, a representative of one of the 1619 projects responded to a message I sent that ‘too much was at stake’ to correct the historical mistake.
By that, she meant millions of grant dollars and souvenir products—tee-shirts, conferences, and books—would be compromised with the truth.
For the record, it is questionable if those Africans who were brought to Jamestown in 1619 on a ship appropriately named the ‘White Lion’ (as in lying) were ‘slaves’ until they arrived and were purchased as chattel.
The Africans were originally from the kingdom of Ndongo, incorporated as Angola, one of the few African nations that fought against enslavement.
Nonetheless, Portuguese slave traders captured an undisclosed number of Angolans.
They forced them to trek hundreds of miles to the coast to board the San Juan Bautista, one of three dozen Portuguese and Spanish slave ships engaged in human trafficking.
In a disingenuous religious act that would resonate for centuries, the captive Angolans were sprinkled with ‘holy’ water by a Christian priest before being boarded on the San Juan Bautista.
I can only assume that the purpose of ‘blessing’ was to seek their god’s approval.
The ship embarked with over 300 Africans on board, half of whom died during the middle passage.
Many succumbed to disease from being trapped and packed like sardines in the lower compartments, forced to urinate and defecate on each other. Others were thrown overboard when food ran low.
(A side note: In the 1990s, Milwaukee scientist Clarence Grimm conducted a study showing those captives who survived did so because their physical makeup allowed them to endure the humid conditions of the ship. The result was hypertension in their descendants, including myself.)
When the San Juan Bautista approached Mexico in the summer of 1619, it was attacked by two English pirate ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer.
The crews seized and divided 50 of the remaining Africans. The pirates then headed toward America’. Nothing is known of the Treasurer, but the White Lion went to Virginia, where it offloaded its cargo.
Ironically, its 20 surviving Africans were ‘bought by Virginia Governor Sir George Yeardley’ for, as chronicler colonist John Rolfe wrote, ‘victuals’–whatever that implies.
For a variety of reasons, specifically our reprogramming and acceptance of ‘his-story’ as truth, we have brought into the disingenuous lie that we arrived here on the good ship Lollypop, benefitting, as former HUD Secretary Ben Carson declared, from being introduced to Western Christianity.
A form of Christianity, he failed to mention, mandates we ‘obey’ our massas’ and our reward would come in the afterlife.
Now, write this down (after independent research if you wish): The first African ‘slaves’ were brought to what would ultimately be called South Carolina by a Spanish ship of White settlers in 1526!
Allow me to be more specific: The first African slaves arrived in Winyah Bay (South Carolina) on August 9, 1526, as part of a Spanish expedition.
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón brought 600 settlers to start a San Miguel de Gualdape colony.
Records say the company included an undisclosed number of enslaved Africans.
The land was given to the colonialists by royal Spanish charter, meaning someone 3,000 miles away claimed the land despite the presence of its Native inhabitants.
That thief backfired as the colony didn’t survive, and some believe it was because the Native Americans turned on them—as they should.
(Another point of reference: It is known that Spanish explorers took over Portuguese lands in the Caribbeans, including their ‘stock’—slaves.
One of the lieutenants under Juan Ponce de Leon was a free African conquistador, Juan Garrido, in 1511.)
Several ‘accounts’ of what happened to liberate the land from the invaders. Each ends with the African slaves freeing themselves.
One reason this ‘history’ is obscured is that in Europe, if not America, it represents the first ‘successful slave rebellion.’
By all accounts, de Ayllón died shortly after Christening his settlement in San Miguel de Gualdape on September 29, 1526. His second in command, Captain Francisco Gomez, assumed leadership.
The captain hoped to reinforce the settlement despite Native American attacks and a shortage of food, which was impaired because the Indians (as they were called) saw through their forked tongues and kept them isolated.
Taking advantage of dissension among the conflicted settlers, the African slaves rebelled and ‘treated the settlers as they had been treated.’
Another narrative suggests the Natives attacked, freeing the slaves who joined them in cleansing the earth of the plague of colonalization.
Some Africans married into the Indian tribe. Others moved southward, establishing their own community called Obama Ville…
Actually, only the last sentence in that narrative is made up. Either way, score one for the Africans and zero for the racists.
As I noted, this history has been lost, stolen, or strayed for several reasons.
What can’t be confused is that our history and that of the bigots who used stolen labor—in the most inhumane slave system known to mankind—didn’t start in 1619.
There can also be no doubt that millions of African souls are lying on the Atlantic Ocean floor due to the Middle Passages.
Nor that from 1526 until two years after the Civil War (figure that out), 12.5 million African Slaves were brought to North America. My estimate is about 3.2 million are still in slavery—if not physically then mentally.
My top ten lies and distortions of his-story will be published in this week’s WEEKEND edition.