U.S., CUBA PLAY UNIQUE ROLES IN ABOLISHING SLAVERY

U.S., CUBA PLAY UNIQUE ROLES IN ABOLISHING SLAVERY
Bill Federer recounts real history of world's forced labor
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Nearly all ancient cultures made captives of war serve as slaves, such
as in Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, China, India, Africa and Rome.

Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and brought so many captured slavic peoples
into to Rome that the term "slav" took the connotation of permanent servant.

Over half of Rome's population were slaves.

Another form of slavery was generational indebtedness, spread by Roman
Emperor Diocletian.

The Roman economy was so bad that people unable to pay their mortgages
abandoned their properties, renounced their Roman citizenship and went
off to live with the barbarians.

Diocletian made it so people could never be free from their debts, tying
them and their children to the land in perpetuity, creating the feudal
system.

When Muslims conquered areas of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece
and the Mediterranean, over a million Europeans were carried off into
slavery. Medieval Catholic religious orders of the Trinitarians or
"Mathurins" collected donations to ransom people from Muslim slavery.
Muslims enslaved an estimated 180 million Africans over its 1,400 year
expansion.

In pre-Columbian America, the Inca Empire had a system of mandatory
public service known as mita, similar to the Aztec's tlacotin.

When Spain conquered the New World in the early 1500s, conquistadors
deposed Indian government leaders and ruled in their stead.

As Indian populations had been trained to obey government orders, they
willingly obeyed their new leaders, even though it meant dying in forced
labor such as in the Potosi silver mines.

Spaniards set up a system called encomienda or repartimiento, which was
similar to feudal France's Corvée "unfree labour."

Priests like Bartolomé de las Casas, Franciscan Friars and Papal Bulls
ended the enslavement of Indians.

Those wanting slaves replaced Indians with Africans purchased from
Muslim slave markets.

A notorious trade triangle developed with Havana, Cuba, at its center:
Slaves from Africa to sugar from the Caribbean to rum in England.

In North America, Christian missionaries and movements, especially
Quakers, Moravians and Methodists, were a voice of conscience against
slavery.

Many poor Europeans sold themselves as "indentured servants," a
temporary slavery for seven years, in exchange for transportation to
America.

King James II, followed by Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, sold over
500,000 Irish Catholics into slavery throughout the 1600s onto
plantations in the West Indies Islands of Antigua, Montserrat, Jamaica,
Barbados, as well as Virginia and New England.

Some North American Indians were sold into slavery in the West Indies.

The first African slaves were brought to North America on a Dutch ship
to Virginia in 1619.

Importation of slaves to the United States ended in 1807, but in 1839,
an international incident occurred. A Portuguese ship from Sierra Leone
sold 53 slaves to Spanish Planters on the Cuban ship Amistad.

On July 1, 1839, the African slaves broke free of their shackles and
seized control of the ship, demanding to be sailed back to Africa. The
captain misdirected the ship, sailing slowly east during the day, but
quickly west at night, landing at Long Island, New York, where the
slaves were arrested.

The Amistad case went to the Supreme Court. Former President John Quincy
Adams, now 74 years old, defended the jailed Africans.

Adams stated, "By the blessing of God, I will argue the case before the
Supreme Court."

He wrote in his journal, October 1840: "I implore the mercy of God to
control my temper, to enlighten my soul, and to give me utterance, that
I may prove myself in every respect equal to the task."

Francis Scott Key offered John Quincy Adams legal advice.

Adams shook hands with Africans Cinque and Grabeau, saying: "God
willing, we will make you free."

John Quincy Adams, known as "Old Man Eloquent," argued in court: "The
moment you come to the Declaration of Independence, that every man has a
right to life and liberty, an inalienable right, this case is decided. I
ask nothing more in behalf of these unfortunate men than this Declaration."

Against all odds, John Quincy Adams won freedom for the Africans.

President James Buchanan wrote Dec. 19, 1859: "When a market for African
slaves shall no longer be furnished in Cuba … Christianity and
civilization may gradually penetrate the existing gloom."

In 1868, a revolt began in Cuba by a farmer of Spanish descent crying
out for racial equality, freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Spain put down the Cuban revolt in the Ten Years War, killing thousands.

A Spanish Royal decree finally ended slavery in Cuba in 1886.

In 1895, another rebellion began in Cuba, and Spain sent 200,000
soldiers to put it down. Thousands were put into concentration camps
where they suffered from starvation, disease and exposure.

Yellow Press journalism excited the American public, who demanded
President William McKinley intervene.

The U.S.S. Maine was sent to Havana, and on Feb. 15, 1898, it blew up in
the harbor under suspicious conditions, beginning the Spanish-American War.

President McKinley approved the Resolution of Congress: "Whereas the
abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the
island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of
the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian
civilization, culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United
States battle ship, with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a
friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured. …
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives … that the people of
the island of Cuba are and of right ought to be free."

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Source: U.S., Cuba play unique roles in abolishing slavery -
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