Chapter IV
The Slave Trade
Three hundred years ago no Negroes were to be found in this Western Hemisphere, we were to be found exclusively in Africa. Just about that time a large number of white people (called Colonists) settled in America. They desired laborers to help them in the country's development. They turned to Asia and were unable to use the yellow man. At that time a man named John Hawkins (afterwards knighted) asked permission of Queen Elizabeth of England to take the blacks from Africa into her colonies of America and the West Indies and use them in their development. The Queen asked, "what consideration will you give them?" Hawkins said "They will be civilized and Christianized in the Colonies, for in their own. Country they arc savages and barbarians." Under these pretenses the British Queen signed a charter empowering John Hawkins and others to remove from Africa millions of our fore-parents—men, women and children—who were sold in the slave markets of the Southern States of America and the West Indies. Parents were separated from children, husbands from wives. All scattered in this Western Hemisphere to work in the cotton fields of the Southern States of America and the sugar
plantations of the West Indies.
The Negroes who were sold in the West Indies remained as slaves for two hundred and thirty years and those sold in America for two hundred and fifty years. The West Indian Negroes were emancipated eighty five years ago by Queen Victoria of England, and the American Negroes fifty eight years ago by Abraham Lincoln.
We—the Negroes in this Western Hemisphere are descendants of those Africans who were enslaved and transported to these shores, where they suffered, bled and died to make us what we are today—Civilized, Christian free men. Should we not, therefore, turn our eyes towards Africa, our ancestral home and free it from the thralldom of alien oppression and exploitation?
Negroes' Status Under Alien Governments
Within modern times the Negro race has not had any real statesmen, and the masses of our people have always accepted the intentions and actions of the statesmen and leaders of other races as being directed in our interest as a group in conjunction with the interests of others. Such a feeling on our part caused us to believe that the Constitution of the United States was written for Negroes, as well as the Constitutions of England, France, Italy, Germany and other countries where Negroes happen to have their present domicile, either as citizens or as subjects.
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Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook
