#Transatlantic Print Culture

[lionheartapothecaryx]

BIBLIOMANCY: THE PSALMS 📖🔮🕯️


During the many centuries of American history, Black African Americans had contact with various different religions and ethnic cultures ie; multiple Indigenous Tribes, Jews, Appalachians, Dutch, Swedes, Caribbeans, Haitian Kreyols and many more, through the Chattel Transatlantic Trade an land migration. These pivotal interactions are introduced the assimilation of many ritual practices. Hoodoo is a multiculturally mixed practice, with many nuances and intersections. It reflects the attitude and practices of many different generations, cultivated, passed down and preserved. While purists believe in keeping Hoodoo strictly traditional, the realist and preservationists, see Hoodoo as a constantly evolving and cunning art form, always adaptable to the times. Throughout the 1600 - 1900s, multiple different denominations of the Abrahamic faiths were wide spread through the United States influencing Black American folk magic and way of life. 
Bibliomancy was already a common folk practice at and slowly making into the consciousness of Black American folk Magick. 

The first book printed in North America to contain the psalms was The Bay Psalm Book, published in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Minister an Planation Owner, Joseph Glover, who was well known for being the pioneer of printing in the English colonies and was one of the co-founders of Harvard University. Without sufficient historical evidence we can only speculate that this is the it’s one possible origins of the usage of the psalms in Black American Folk Magick. Glover was a Rector aka a parish priest for the Church of England and was decently educated. It is highly likely during his studies in England he had access to Jewish Psalm Prayer Books which inspired him to publish one of his own, when he came to America. There were also a small afro-jewish populations and various intersectional social connections with the black community, with the Jewish, Catholic and other various Christian religious denominations that were also clear influences.


The Church was a place of indoctrination but also social relief, community and emotional escapism for Black Americans during these times. Throughout the centuries the Indoctrination of the Church became the only source of solace and safety for Black American mental health & society during ever shifty and dangerous social climates. Deeply imbedding itself into consciousness of the black community, subconsciously and consciously, which we can still see in modern times. 
As the ability to read and write increased within the black community, in addition to the growth of printing more books access to reading the Bible and the Psalms became easier and easier. Now the Psalms were seen as a powerful book of spells in African American folk magick, with a multitude of different uses. Psalms could be scratched in the mud, written on doorways, or just simply spoken or prayed over folks, tools, plant allies, talismans, mojo bags, roots, other items, water, candles and more. The intent could be love, justice, abundance, peace and even hexing. Eventually, this belief trickled down to usage of other verses, from other Bible, an influenced African American communities, all over the country. Each community like their own little tribes, some with similar or different practices and rituals, regionally. 
In practice, The power of the psalms was unmatched, people swore by it by its success rate and still do to this day, which is why the practice has stuck in modern times.

The Psalms were a vehicle of rejuvenation and life, these scriptures were considered living words of power. I’ll go into the sacred mythos behind that, for members of my Patreon, later on this month.


For some Black Americans it’s easy to overlook and even discard the power of bibliomancy especially when they have deep religious trauma when it comes to any Abrahamic faith (Baptist, Catholic, Christian, Cogic etc) which is understandable. These feelings are valid & practicing Hoodoo, means understanding the many intricate nuances of the intersection and history of this folk culture. Others also see the value in Bibliomancy and continue this ancestral practice in modern times, knowing two things can be true at once. There is a great deal of duality in Hoodoo, which is something many of us have come to accept and honor at the same time. Respecting this balance demands a deep sense of self and cultural respect, a discerning eye and great deal of empathy, whether practitioners like it or not.

Using the Psalms is a powerfully easy way to reconnect and heal with ancestral Black American practices and medicine. It’s not a requirement of course, but it’s fun to encourage other black Americans to practice and discover all of its hidden powers. Many African folk practices, were hidden out of survival, requiring a level of covert cunning. Bibliomancy was a clever way hide in plain sight without attracting too much attention. Think of our ancestors as secret agents of truth, justice with a covert strategic mentality that still has important place in modern times. Some magick requires a keen mind, good sense, without calling any attention to itself, teaching us the practice of self control and discipline. This is why the practice of bibliomancy is important, allowing you to tap into this energy and honor your ancestors and yourself.

Examples of Bibliomancy


Psalms 54 - Help In Times Of Need. Mastering Negative Thoughts, Revenge Against Enemies. 
Psalms 60 - Put The Past Behind You. 
Psalms 41 - Help With Money Troubles 
Psalms 23 - Protection, Abundance, Stability & Healing

HAPPY HOODOO HERITAGE MONTH ✨

🕯️🕯️🕯️

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Character Profile - America

Character Name: USA, Murica, Alfred, Alfie-come-lately, Al. 1585-1775 - Alfred F Kirkland. 1775-???? - Alfred F Jones.

Age: 16 as of 1775, 18 in 1789, 21 mid 19th century. 25 by WW2 and still generally in that range.

Height: 6'0/183cm in 1775, 6'2/189cm after 1850ish.

Physical Description: This child was born a tungsten cube and grew into an adamantium adult. He's tall, broad-shouldered and strong. USDA Grade-A corn-fed BEEF right here. He's muscle as fuck with a good inch of fat on him every which way. Really putting the dough in doughboy. He's athletic, with the shoulders of a linebacker but is shockingly graceful and easy in his body. Arthur loved him enough that the confidence and good nature he exuded in his posture and looks are 100% genuine 80% of the time. He was an absolute cherub of a baby and grew into the kind of good looking that would really be described as more beautiful than handsome if he wasn't as broad as the baptist definition of sin.

Eye colour: Pacific, deep water navy, NASA mission blue. Dark, dark blue. Almost black, if not in good light.

Hair colour/style: Amber waves of grain. Two or three shades darker than Matt's and less red than Matt's or Jack's. Imagine all the wheatfields of America at the reaping, find the average tone, and that's Alfred's hair colour. Rich, harvest grain gold. It has a good amount of wave to it that shows even with its being short. He's generally worn it short and to one side to show off the wave he can get. Had some wicked curtain bangs in the 90s tho.

Other distinguishing physical traits: He has never worn a beard in his life, but it tends to come in redder than his hair. Aunt Bridgie's genes really start flexing there. He's got a mostly faded scar over his heart from Matt's pyromaniac-ass burning down DC. And probably more I'll have to add here later.

Personal Appearance/Style: Alfred loves looking good. The first thing Francis taught him was how good he could look and he's been following it ever since. He prefers blue suits, but he'll wear warm greys and black. He knows he looks like a ten-course meal in just grey joggers and a NASA t-shirt against those golden guns of his though. Also, the uniforms he picks are the ones that look good on him. Does he look like shit in one shade of olive drab? He's swapping it out. He showed up in Japan on the Black Ships in the most flattering cut of the Navy officer's uniform there was and it looked fucking good on him, all that dark blue with gold accents. He likes brown leather over black because the warmer colour looks better with his golden boy looks, and he knows it.

Verbal Style: He uses a neutral American or a less broad New England accent when overseas but slides in and out of any possible American accent at home. He got shot at during the Civil War because even in blue the whole goddamn time, he would slide into his original Virginia accent and have to duck rifle fire. Fucker probably sounded slightly transatlantic for a while in the 20th century. He doesn't purposefully code-switch from culture to culture; it's just automatic. He speaks several languages fluently and without an accent if he wants to, but he uses a southern accent speaking Japanese or a Kennedy Accent when speaking German. He knows it's not a jelly doughnut, Deutschland, promise! The more Arthur annoys him, the thicker his American accent gets.

Level of Education: Arthur educated him at home, got him, tutors on literally anything that Alfred fancied, apprenticed him out to any trade that interested him; printing and gunsmithing were the big ones, and then sent him to Harvard when he got bored with that. He graduated from West Point just before the Civil War and personally shot a few of his classmates who sided with the south :) but turned more to engineering, commerce and math after the war. He didn't reappear in the east until the 1880s, so he did a lot of mail-order books and self-study during that period. He also got another degree from The University of the Pacific in that period out west.

Occupation: The government is always trying to rope him into shit, but the boy's heart is in the stars, and something the government did has to be a big deal before he gives a flying fuck. His main squeeze is NASA, but he occasionally shows up to DC to steamroll some favours out of congress, especially when he has the urge to fly something experimental or a particular issue has been bothering him.

Past Occupations: Soldier, sailor, airman, astronaut, gunsmith, printing press operator, mechanical engineer, heiress, physicist, chemist, biologist, anthropologist, archaeologist, mechanic, railroad engineer, cowboy, blacksmith, cook, construction worker, gamekeeper, welder, a gold miner. The boy has some restlessness, okay? He's had many jobs.

Skills, Abilities or Talents: Alfred, even amongst nations, is quite freaky. Super strength, damage resistance, resurrection power that's faster than almost anyone. He can fly, drive, handle or otherwise operate any vehicle without training. He knows how they all work. He's also highly gifted in math and physics. He has been known to make California tremble a wee bit when he's genuinely well and fucking pissed. He'll get his ass lost on a boat or on foot, but in the air, he's possibly the best navigator on the face of the earth. But literally, he can do almost anything he sets his mind to. It's unnatural.

Admirable Personality Traits: Optimistic, idealistic, brilliant, generous, confident, fair.

Negative Personality Traits: Self-righteousness, recklessness, thoughtlessness, arrogance,

Sense of Humor: Silly, slapstick, observational.

Physical/Mental illness or affliction: He's sometimes just shy of narcissistic but usually pulls himself off the brim. Arthur's sons might be eligible for an ADHD diagnosis, but I did that on accident before I got diagnosed rifp. He's not the anxious or depressed type. He has had periods of pretty acute PTSD.

Hobbies/Interests: Computers and tech, filmmaking, archaeology, camping, hiking, adventure sports, surfing, paleontology, working out, protein foot products, star gazing, listening to audiobooks and podcasts. But, like, literally everything interests this kid.

Favourite Foods: BBQ; he can't pick a favourite style tho. Burgers, cheese fries, pizza, strangely flavoured novelty chips. Apple pie with ice cream and blueberry maple ice cream is his and Matt's favourite. Paw-paws are a very rare treat. Huckleberry-flavoured anything will make him absolutely grin.

Most important personal item: He expected to inherit Arthur's pocket watch like other sons did their fathers in the 18th century, so in 1976, when Arthur did give him the pocket watch and a very expensive wristwatch because the pocket watches had gone out of style, he has worn it everywhere since. To Mars and the Mojave, he'll wear that thing everywhere and get it repaired if it takes any damage.

Person/friend close to character: Matt's his best friend. He and Maria are also close but belligerent. Arthur is also in his top 5. Kiku, Ludwig, Tolys, Romano, Mai, etc, are all on his very close friend list. Of older nations, he and Brighid are very close, if complex.

Brief family history: He was born in 1585 or so in Virginia. Arthur said, "finders keepers," From that moment, he was the man's firstborn child. In his childhood, he mainly had Arthur and Rhys, and Alasdair and Brighid, somewhat less until later. He's never met his grandmother or her ghost. He was an only child for about 20-30 years and spent a lot of his childhood functionally an only child with Matt in Francois' care. The two youngest 'siblings' he's got he's not quite sure what to do with them. The relationship isn't precisely sibling-like, but he's pretty fond of them, and he has some trauma from being ditched in New England during the British Civil War, so he saved their asses in 1941.

Most painful experiences in the character’s past: I don't think anything can top the Civil War because he represented the Union, i.e. the United States. It took him years and years to recover, especially because he was living a rough out west lot of the post-war. He got consumption while personally marching to the sea to burn the fucking shit out of the Confederacy. :)

Their Song: Babylon by Barnes Courtney.

[thelesbianpoirot]

It AMAZES me how trans identifier males have become the all knowing arbiters of lgb but mostly lesbian culture. That people treat these fetishists like they’re so precious and soft while reminding women that they’ll cause harm to those who don’t fall in line. Sick. I remember back when I was in the ‘let adults do what they want to their bodies if it’s healthy’ camp what made me turn was the way they’d always say ‘you should me open to dating trans ‘lesbians and black lesbians’ as if males and us are the same. It was so disturbing and nasty and it made me furious watching non black lesbians agree and try and fight me when I spoke out against the racism. The fact that people allow racism because they don’t want to hurt these males feelings is insane and pathetic and how I know no one thinks they’re women because women could never get away with such toxicity and inanity. Idk sometimes I lose hope because part of me feels like this trend will be over in another five years, but even waiting that long seems crazy. Plus it really could go on forever because people are obsessed with men no matter what outfit or pronoun they claim 

Sweetie! You're setting me off. It enrages me beyond belief that BLACK WOMEN are being classed in the same category as these loser failure men by these fucking nutjobs. It is even worse to me when they say black butches and studs shouldn't be "transphobic" because we're "practically" men. The amount of racism I have felt from this community is just overwhelming because you don't expect it. They even seem to go to lengths white conservative don't go to. Because in order for them to justify why they are worshipping delusional men, they have to start ranking women based on least and most like men, and they have decided women they aren't attracted to, Black women, gay women, fat women, tall women, and muscular/athletic women, even poor women are Men-lite. I have heard this rhetoric from trans people and their supporters more than right wing bigots. It's nasty! It's pathetic! It's sick! And Racist. And I don't go around pulling the race card for any old mess, but if another fucking white kid from the suburbs say some dumb shit to me like I can't talk about the black FEMALE experience because it is not inclusive enough, I will fucking go off. It riles me up too because black women are the most feminine women on the planet, AND That's a bad thing! I don't know another group of women who spent more time on beauty procedures, heterosexual roleplay, and value motherhood/having kids more than us. I read a korean book "If I had your face by cha francis", about how women are going into debt for their cosmetic procedures and are willing to undergo so much pain & discomfort beauty and it sounded so much like black women everywhere in the world. And I think a big driving factor behind the huge escalation in black women's behavior has to do with how common place it is for young black women to hear this outdated evil talking point that we are more like men than any other women. This is archaic evil shit man. Despite modern gynecology being based unethical and cruel experiments done on our female ancestors during transatlantic slavery. We are the blue print for womanhood, yet ours is being called into question, weighed and measured. WE INVENTED THIS SHIT! Five years is too long, I need this trend to die out NOW! And I am glad women are taking screenshots, videos and other catalogue of evidence. When this trend dies, whether I am forty or 100, I don't need people saying it wasn't that bad, or they didn't said any of this, or that they aren't susceptible to propaganda. You're right, I do think people will obsess over men forever, and this movement is the finale form of the patriarchy, when your serial killer wears you skin and larps as you, and can now receive government benefits, special treatment and law reform for it. This is a man's world and never has this statement been more true. Men are still abusers, rapists, enslavers of women and we are now bullied into accepting them as one of us. INSANITY. How am I not stark raving mad is beyond me?

[ten-quadrillion-blog]

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that Ubisoft is being racist?

I’m a long-time fan of Assassin’s Creed. It’s a part of me at this point: a reason I got interested in history, a reason I opted to take French classes in Highschool. I remember counting the days until the movie came out, going to theaters on release weekend with a friend. It wasn’t a good movie, but it remains a fond memory to this day.

As I played Ghost of Tsushima, I kept thinking about how cool it would be if the protagonist were a Ninja. Sure, there was a skill tree focused on stealth, but the storyline was very much about honor and the internal conflict of being a warrior. I wanted more subversion, loyalty and shady dealings- in short, I wanted to see the Assassin’s creed take on it. Templars funding corrupt kirishitan daimyo, lone assassin shinobi becoming nukenin, that sort of thing.

When I first heard that there would be an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan, I was excited for it. Then, they revealed the protagonists to be a Japanese kunoichi and …a samurai foreigner. Was it a marketing decision? Because we’ve had Italian assassins in Italy and American Assassins in North America and Egyptian Assassins in Egypt. It’s obviously a conscious choice, then. Ubisoft stating that no, having a Japanese woman as the sole protagonist just won’t do. The Japanese Ubisoft statement that has since been deleted spoke of the creative team finding “our” samurai. Are the Asian, much less Japanese, constituents of the AC fandom not “theirs” enough?

If that were all, then it would’ve been business as usual; I wouldn’t have posted anything, albeit with lingering disappointment towards Ubisoft. However, there’ve been claims that the allegations of cultural appropriation and historical fabrication are all racist reactionary backlash to having a black protagonist, which I felt was actively harmful to my continued existence so here I am.

First of all, the fact that Assassin’s Creed is a work of fiction and that there are many works of historical fiction that do outright silly things in Japan is not the center of discourse anymore in Japanese circles so arguing that Ubisoft has artistic license is rather a moot point. Yes there’s feminized Oda Nobunaga in FGO, made by a Japanese company, move on from that please. Most people aren’t concerned about the player base being stupid enough that they can’t tell that AC is a fictional game. We aren’t stupid, neither are you.

The issue about historical fabrication lies in the concern that players will enjoy the game and decide to search about the historical Yasuke and come across Lockley’s book, African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, which is utter bullsh*t. He is alleged to have edited Wikipedia in small increments over the course of ten years to authenticate his speculations as fact. After being outed on Twitter by Japanese AC fans he deleted his socials. And although I believe gamers aren’t stupid enough to believe AC is completely factual, I can’t believe that people won’t trust a printed book written by a scholar since even Encyclopedia Brittanica believed him. An article in ScreenRant even cites this book; while Japanese fans have been exposing one falsification after another these past few weeks, none of that information is reaching across the waters, where it would actually be relevant to target misinformation. If you think I’m lying, go to the Japanese language version of Wikipedia and click on ‘translate page’ for a quick overview of the problem (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%88%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AD%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC). It’s not in the English version. We are rightfully concerned that people will read the book because they like the game and come to believe that Japan participated in the transatlantic slave trade. We are rightfully concerned because we know there’s been wars fought over who has enslaved who and punishing those deemed morally degenerate. We are actually scared because Assassin’s Creed is a big title series god*amn it.

This is honestly my first time coming face to face with racism to this degree. Posts on Tumblr, English Twitter, and gaming media have made it out to be that the only people complaining are white men, as if the backlash is only from gamergate. I enjoy reading articles from IGN and Polygon and whatnot on a normal day, but now I’m faced with articles saying there’s been “some criticisms” (emphasis not mine) being raised in Japan and even claims that Japanese people are overwhelmingly looking forwards to the game while white bigots are the only ones complaining, completely minimizing the issue. There’s 90k+ signatures to cancel the game in a Japanese language petition, and sure, there may be a few thousand racists who took the time to translate the page and sign, but it’s insane to state that it’s composed of mostly white men. Like c’mon. There’s been boatloads of Japanese language tweets about the AC Shadows controversy getting tens of thousands of likes and quotes on Twitter. There were only two English articles that I could find that cut into the issue and one was written by a Japanese writer translated from Japanese media. COME ON. “Ubisoft didn’t need to release an apology since they’re only angering internet trolls” is not the point media should be making. Can someone have the guts to write “Ubisoft needs to release an actual apology instead of dancing around the problem?” And why do we need to say that we want a Japanese Assassin’s creed game to be about Japanese people in the first place? Shouldn’t it have been the obvious choice? I’m looking forwards to playing an African Assassin cutting the throats of colonial traders in Capetown, whenever that might happen, and my non-Asian friends have been looking forwards to playing a Japanese Assassin in feudal Japan, and I think Ubisoft is just giving all of us the finger. A nice, nonthreatening, manicured finger.

I really hope Ubisoft and/or HarperCollins denounces Lockley’s book before the release date for at least some semblance of damage control.

And before anybody says anything stupid, I am in fact not a white dude, I am a Japanese American Female studying Anthropology. So thank you, Ubisoft, for influencing my life decisions. I hope my disappointment reaches you.

[m45t3rc0mput3r]

What were your main inspirations when developing the way channel 00 looks and their personality?

He's very vaguely based on vintage TV ads and personalities, though the faded but very brightly-colored suit is based more on old printed ads (like below)! Fun fact about this all is that he does have some old-timey transatlantic accent :]

He also draws some influence from TV ads that I/others my age would be nostalgic about, like what would play on the TV in the 2000s - he's a weird mix of anachronisms, making it hard to place what his main demographic would be or what era he's meant to be from, since he exists in a plane of existence separate from our own (being the Backrooms). He's supposed to be a bit jumbled up and confusing. He doesn't even truly understand human culture/timelines/etc., only knowing any of that secondhand and replicating it to the best of his ability/knowledge, so he probably wouldn't even notice these inconsistencies himself.

Personality-wise, I was just playing with the trope of a sleazy/manipulative but charismatic salesman, just with the added twist of him being an eldritch-like entity whose main goal is to get under your skin, not to actually sell you things. He's more based on tropes than on any specific inspirations! He does have some song inspos though so I'll link those below!

Good Life - Shayfer James

You Liked This (Okay, Computer!) - Will Wood

Nasty Habits - Oingo Boingo

Call This # Now - The Garden

Haunt, The Cartoon Heart - Bear Ghost

Gallery Piece - of Montreal (warning for NSFW lyrics!)

[brooklynmuseum]

From the eighteenth-century poetry of Phillis Wheatley to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, Black artists in America have long grappled with the place of Africa in their lives and art: What is Africa to the Black artist for whom transatlantic slavery profoundly altered a cultural connection to the continent? In A Sidelong Glance, John Edmonds extends this question, refracting it through a photographic practice that centers African art, highlighting its position as a complex site of identity, power, and artistic ingenuity. The exhibition comprises a three-part series featuring portraits and still lifes of Central and West African sculptures and masks drawn from private and public collections, including the artist’s own, as seen in Anatolli & Collection, 2019. 

This Black History Month we’ll be exploring this aspect of John Edmonds’s practice through select works from his first solo museum exhibition, on view at the Brooklyn Museum through August 8.

John Edmonds (American, born 1989). Anatolli & Collection, 2019. Digital silver gelatin print. Courtesy the artist and Company Gallery. 

[onetwofeb]

1971 REVOLUTIONARY SPIRITUAL AFRO JAZZ FROM EXILE Matsuli Music presents soul, spirituality and avant-garde jazz from South African political exile Ndikho Xaba. Its rarity has until now served to obscure both its beauty and its historical significance. Making profound links between the struggle against apartheid and the Black Power movement in the USA Ndikho Xaba and the Natives is arguably the most complete and complex South African jazz LP recorded in the USA. It stands out as a critical document in the history of transatlantic black solidarity and in the jazz culture of South African exiles. This reissue from Matsuli Music brings this collectors’ treasure back into print for the first time since 1971. Ndikho Xaba and the Natives opens a fluid channel of sonic energy that courses between two liberation struggles and two jazz traditions, making them one. It is a critical statement in the history of transatlantic black solidarity, unifying voices stretching from San Francisco to Johannesburg. There is no other recording or group in which the new jazz spirituality of the late 1960s is so fully blent with an African jazz tradition.

[haitianhistory]

Daut, Marlene. Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1789-1865. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015, 692pp.

Liberté ou la mort: Placing the Haitian Revolution in the Age of Revolution and Atlantic History

In the words of the publisher: “The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was an event of monumental world-historical significance, and here, in the first systematic literary history of those events, Haiti's war of independence is examined through the eyes of its actual and imagined participants, observers, survivors, and cultural descendants. The 'transatlantic print culture' under discussion in this literary history reveals that enlightenment racial 'science' was the primary vehicle through which the Haitian Revolution was interpreted by nineteenth-century Haitians, Europeans, and U.S. Americans alike. Through its author's contention that the Haitian revolutionary wars were incessantly racialized by four constantly recurring tropes—the 'monstrous hybrid', the 'tropical temptress', the 'tragic mulatto/a', and the 'colored historian'—Tropics of Haiti shows the ways in which the nineteenth-century tendency to understand Haiti's revolution in primarily racial terms has affected present day demonizations of Haiti and Haitians. In the end, this new archive of Haitian revolutionary writing, much of which has until now remained unknown to the contemporary reading public, invites us to examine how nineteenth-century attempts to paint Haitian independence as the result of a racial revolution coincide with present-day desires to render insignificant and 'unthinkable' the second independent republic of the New World.”

The publisher adds that “Marlene L. Daut is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Studies at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies and the Program in American Studies at the University of Virginia. She specializes in early and nineteenth-century American and Caribbean literary and cultural studies. Her work has been supported with grants from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment in the Humanities, and the National Humanities Center (Research Triangle Park).” You can follow Prof. Daut and see more updates on her work here.

*You can also read a review of this book written by Prof. H. Adlai Murdoch here.

[sologicalco]

Print and New Year’s Revolution (column at Print Media Centr)

A story has long circulated that Haitian families like mine eat Soup Joumou because our ancestors were supposedly forbidden to eat it during slavery. Once the Avengers of the New World had wrapped up Batay Vètyè and sent Napoleon’s boys back into the sea, it was time to eat! It’s for this reason that people like “Culinary Curator” Nadege Fleurimond call it “freedom soup.”

Even if the story is more myth than history, the ritual is meaningful and the soup is delicious.

Whatever place our soup originally held, we know for certain that print was part of that first New Year’s Revolution. On January 1st in 1804, Haitian leaders under the command of General Jean-Jacques Dessalines assembled in the city of Gonaïves to formally proclaim independence, recognize Dessalines as governor general, and renounce France. Dessalines delivered a speech in Kreyòl (the dominant language among Haitians) and there was a public reading of a proclamation, written in French, that we now call “The Haitian Declaration of Independence.”

[garudabluffs]

London home of US abolitionists receives blue plaque October 8, 2021

"This week, London placed a blue plaque on the former homes of Ellen Craft and William Craft. The Crafts were enslaved in the US, then fled the country in 1850, joining the trans-Atlantic abolitionist movement. The World's Marco Werman spoke with Martha J Cutter, a professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut, about the Crafts' story and the impact of the trans-Atlantic abolitionist movement overall."

LISTEN 4:41 https://www.pri.org/file/2021-10-08/london-home-us-abolitionists-receives-blue-plaque

The Illustrated Slave: Empathy, Graphic Narrative, and the Visual Culture of the Transatlantic Abolition Movement, 1800–1852

How print culture and visual representations of slavery informed the abolitionist movement

[sciencespies]

Who Were America's Enslaved? A New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

https://sciencespies.com/history/who-were-americas-enslaved-a-new-database-humanizes-the-names-behind-the-numbers/

Who Were America's Enslaved? A New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

The night before Christmas in 1836, an enslaved man named Jim made final preparations for his escape. As his enslavers, the Roberts family of Charlotte County, Virginia, celebrated the holiday, Jim fled west to Kanawha County, where his wife’s enslaver, Joseph Friend, had recently moved. Two years had passed without Jim’s capture when Thomas Roberts published a runaway ad pledging $200 (around $5,600 today) for the 38- to 40-year-old’s return.

“Jim is … six feet or upwards high, tolerably spare made, dark complexion, has rather an unpleasant countenance,” wrote Roberts in the January 5, 1839, issue of the Richmond Enquirer. “[O]ne of his legs is smaller than the other, he limps a little as he walks—he is a good blacksmith, works with his left hand to the hammer.”

In his advertisement, Roberts admits that Jim may have obtained free papers, but beyond that, Jim’s fate, and that of his wife, is lost to history.

Fragments of stories like Jim’s—of lives lived under duress, in the framework of an inhumane system whose aftershocks continue to shape the United States—are scattered across archives, libraries, museums, historical societies, databases and countless other repositories, many of which remain uncatalogued and undigitized. All too often, scholars pick up loose threads like Jim’s, incomplete narratives that struggle to be sewn together despite the wealth of information available.

Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade, a newly launched digital database featuring 613,458 entries (and counting), seeks to streamline the research process by placing dozens of complex datasets in conservation with each other. If, for instance, a user searches for a woman whose transport to the Americas is documented in one database but whose later life is recorded in another, the portal can connect these details and synthesize them.

“We have these data sets, which have a lot of specific information taken in a particular way, [in] fragments,” says Daryle Williams, a historian at the University of Maryland and one of the project’s principal investigators. “��� [If] you put enough fragments together and you put them together by name, by place, by chronology, you begin to have pieces of lives, which were lived in a whole way, even with the violence and the disruptions and the distortions of enslavement itself. We [can] begin then to construct or at least understand a narrative life.”

“I love that [the portal] really educates people on how to read the record,” says Mary N. Elliott, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

(Enslaved.org)

Funded through a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Enslaved.org—described by its creators as a “linked open data platform” featuring information on people, events and places involved in the transatlantic slave trade—marks the culmination of almost ten years of work by Williams and fellow principal investigators Walter Hawthorne, a historian at Michigan State University, and Dean Rehberger, director of Michigan State’s Matrix Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences.

Originally, the team conceived Enslaved.org as a space to simply house these different datasets, from baptismal records to runaway ads, ship manifests, bills of sale and emancipation documents. But, as Rehberger explains, “It became a project about how we can get datasets to interact with one another so that you can draw broader conclusions about slavery. … We’re going in there and grabbing all that data and trying to make sense of it, not just give [users] a whole long list of things.”

The project’s first phase launched earlier this month with searchable data from seven partner portals, including Slave Voyages, the Louisiana Slave Database and Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. Another 30 databases will be added over the next year, and the team expects the site to continue to grow for years to come. Museums, libraries, archives, historical societies, genealogy groups and individuals alike are encouraged to submit relevant materials for review and potential inclusion.

***

To fulfill the “important obligation” of involving researchers of all types and education levels, the scholars made their platform “as familiar and unintimidating as possible,” according to Williams. Users who arrive without specific research goals in mind can explore records grouped by categories as ethnicity or age, browse 75 biographies of both prominent enslaved and free people and lesser-known ones, and visualize trends using a customizable dashboard. Researchers, amateur genealogists and curious members of the public, meanwhile, can use Enslaved.org to trace family histories, download peer-reviewed datasets, and craft narratives about some of the 12.5 million enslaved Africans transported to the New World between the 16th and 19th centuries.

At its core, says Rehberger, Enslaved.org is a “discovery tool. We want you to be able to find all these different records that have traditionally been out in these silos, and bring them together in the hope that people can then reconstruct what’s there.”

Albumen print of enslaved women and their children near Alexandria, Virginia, in 1861 or 1862

(Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Mary N. Elliott, curator of American slavery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, emphasizes the project’s potential to help the public “understand [history] in more nuanced and personalized, humanized ways.” Reflecting on the creation of the museum’s “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition, she recalls, “One of the things that people said was ‘Oh, there’s only so much you can say about the lives of enslaved people during the early period. There’s nothing that they wrote.’” But as both Elliott and the team behind the web portal point out, archival records—when read correctly—can convey a strong sense of lived experiences.

Some of the sources featured in the database “have the enslaved person speaking, or at least someone writing down what they said, or something close to their physical presence,” Williams says. By weaving these threads of information together, he adds, contemporary observers can gain a sense of everything from enslaved people’s personal sentiments to how the official record may obscure the reality of their lived experiences.

Individuals looking for stories of their own family history may end up empty-handed (for now) but still come across records that inform their understanding of the brutal reality of enslavement. If, for instance, someone searching for their great-great uncle Harry comes across a runaway ad for Ned, an enslaved man who lived in the same area around the same time, they might dismiss it as unrelated. “But if you look at Ned’s story, you start to read the record, and you [see] that he has a scar over his eye. He ran away twice before,” Elliott says. “He’s probably running toward his loved ones. … It tells you about how he had the ability to run away twice. And is this plantation near the one my family was enslaved at? And I wonder where he got that scar.”

For people to “read the record, in a way that they understand the humanity of African Americans under the most inhumane circumstances,” is key, the curator continues. “You’re not reading it for the sake of reading. You’re really connecting with this … man who [had] something traumatic happen to him within the framework of slavery.”

***

Enslaved.org traces its origins to the 2000s, when Hawthorne was researching a book on the flow of enslaved people from two ports in West Africa. Drawing on an archive of Brazilian state inventories, which listed enslaved Africans as property whose value was based on factors such as age and skills, he created a database with demographic information on some 9,000 individuals. This broad swath of data allowed the historian to run statistical analyses about patterns of enslavement, including “Where were people coming from? … Can I zero it down to a particular place? What … were they bringing with them across the ocean? What foods did they eat? How did they worship?”

Hawthorne adds, “You begin to see people coming [to the Americas] not as generalized Africans, … but as Balanta, as Mandinka, as Fulani, as Hausa, people who come with specific cultural assumptions, with specific religious beliefs. What did they preserve from the place [where] they came? What did they have to abandon based on the conditions in the Americas?”

In 2010, Hawthorne partnered with Rehberger and historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, who had created a similar portal featuring 107,000 records of enslaved individuals in Louisiana, to build a digital repository for both datasets. Funded through a $99,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the resulting project, Slave Biographies: The Atlantic Database Network, laid the groundwork for Enslaved.org, a site capable of not only housing dozens of datasets but also placing them in interaction with each other.

Bill of sale with two transactions for an enslaved man named Joe or Joseph

(NMAAHC / Gift of the Liljenquist Family)

A decade ago, computing technology hadn’t advanced enough to interpret data on the scale used by Enslaved.org. Today, however, researchers can use semantic triples—three-part sentences that “define a particular moment,” like “Maria was baptized in 1833” or “Maria got married in 1855,” according to Rehberger—to create vast “triplestores” filled with linked information. Here, the site can parse out Maria, the religious rite (baptism or marriage), and the year as three distinct bits of data.

“I often think of … ripping apart the dataset into little bits and pieces of paper, and then taking a thread and trying to thread and bring them back together again,” Rehberger says. “That, in a sense, is what we’re trying to do.”

***

As Hawthorne notes, the team is still “in the early days of our project,” If an individual enters their family name in the search bar in the near future, they likely won’t find anything. “It’s possible that you will,” he adds, “but certainly as this project grows and expands, as more and more scholars and members of the public contribute, those possibilities [open] up.”

Enslaved.org welcomes data compiled by the public, but Williams emphasizes that the researchers aren’t “exactly crowdsourcing.” All submissions will undergo two levels of review; scholars can also submit their datasets to the portal’s peer-reviewed Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation. Another option for individuals with an interest in unearthing these kinds of hidden histories is to volunteer at local historical associations and museums, which can then collaborate directly with the Enslaved.org team.

The project’s launch earlier this month arrives at a pivotal point in the nation’s history. “We’re in a moment right now, of interest in slavery and slave histories and slave names, slave biographies,” Williams says. “It’s also a social and racial justice moment, … a family history, genealogy curiosity moment.”

One of Enslaved.org’s strengths, says Elliott, is its ability to map current events onto the past. Though the database’s focus is enslaved people, it also contains information on enslavers and individuals who participated in the historical slave trade. Slavery involved “all these different actors,” the curator explains. “And that’s vastly important, because it’s so easy for people to segregate this history. But … you cannot look at a bill of sale and [say] it’s only a black person on that document. Guess who signed it? The seller and the purchaser. [And] there’s a witness.”

By focusing on individuals rather than the overwhelming—and often unfathomable—numbers that tend to dominate discussions of slavery, the team hopes to restore once-anonymous figures’ identities and deepen the public’s understanding of the transatlantic slave trade.

“There’s a lot of power to reading about individuals as opposed to populations of people,” Hawthorne says. “If you look through the datasets, every single entry is a named individual. And there’s a lot of power to that, to thinking about Atlantic slavery, slavery in the American South, as being about individuals, about individual struggles under this incredibly violent institution.”

#History

[ricxieoreta-blog]

DEFINITON

LITERARY JOURNALISM

Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with some of thenarrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. Also called narrative journalism.

In his ground-breaking anthology The Literary Journalists (1984), Norman Sims observed that literary journalism "demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writer surfaces to show that an author is at work."

The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with creative nonfiction; more often, however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.

Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Mark Singer, and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past century include Stephen Crane, Jack London, George Orwell, and Tom Wolfe.

See the observations below. Also see:

100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction: A Reading List

Advanced Composition

Article

Essay

Literary Nonfiction

Prose

Classic Examples of Literary Journalism

"A Hanging" by George Orwell

"The San Francisco Earthquake" by Jack London

"The Watercress Girl" by Henry Mayhew

Observations

"Literary journalism is not fiction--the people are real and the events occurred--nor is it journalism in a traditional sense. There is interpretation, a personal point of view, and (often) experimentation with structure and chronology. Another essential element of literary journalism is its focus. Rather than emphasizing institutions, literary journalism explores the lives of those who are affected by those institutions." (Jan Whitt, Women in American Journalism: A New History. University of Illinois Press, 2008)

Characteristics of Literary Journalism - "Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism, voice, a focus on ordinary people . . ., and accuracy. Literary journalists recognize the need for a consciousness on the page through which the objects in view are filtered. "A list of characteristics can be an easier way to define literary journalism than a formal definition or a set of rules. Well, there are some rules, but Mark Kramer used the term 'breakable rules' in an anthology we edited. Among those rules, Kramer included:". . . Journalism ties itself to the actual, the confirmed, that which is not simply imagined. . . . Literary journalists have adhered to the rules of accuracy--or mostly so--precisely because their work cannot be labeled as journalism if details and characters are imaginary." (Norman Sims, True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism. Northwestern University Press, 2008) - "As defined by Thomas B. Connery, literary journalism is 'nonfiction printed prose whose verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of narrative and rhetorical techniques generally associated with fiction.' Through these stories and sketches, authors 'make a statement, or provide an interpretation, about the people and culture depicted.' Norman Sims adds to this definition by suggesting the genre itself allows readers to 'behold others' lives, often set within far clearer contexts than we can bring to our own.' He goes on to suggest, 'There is something intrinsically political—and strongly democratic—about literary journalism—something pluralistic, pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite.' Further, as John E. Hartsock points out, the bulk of work that has been considered literary journalism is composed 'largely by professional journalists or those writers whose industrial means of production is to be found in the newspaper and magazine press, thus making them at least for the interim de facto journalists.' Common to many definitions of literary journalism is that the work itself should contain some kind of higher truth; the stories themselves may be said to be emblematic of a larger truth." (Amy Mattson Lauters, ed., The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist. University of Missouri Press, 2007) - "Through dialogue, words, the presentation of the scene, you can turn over the material to the reader. The reader is ninety-some percent of what's creative in creative writing. A writer simply gets things started." (John McPhee, quoted by Norman Sims in "The Art of Literary Journalism." Literary Journalism, ed. by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer. Ballantine, 1995)

- Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects' worlds. . . . - Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor. . . . - Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.- Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers' sequential reactions.

Background of Literary Journalism

"[Benjamin] Franklin's Silence Dogood essays marked his entrance into literary journalism. Silence, the persona Franklin adopted, speaks to the form that literary journalism should take--that it should be situated in the ordinary world--even though her background was not typically found in newspaper writing." (Carla Mulford, "Benjamin Franklin and Transatlantic Literary Journalism." Transatlantic Literary Studies, 1660-1830, ed. by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning. Cambridge University Press, 2012)

"A hundred and fifty years before the New Journalists of the 1960s rubbed our noses in their egos, [William] Hazlitt put himself into his work with a candor that would have been unthinkable a few generations earlier." (Arthur Krystal, "Slang-Whanger." Except When I Write. Oxford University Press, 2011)

"The phrase 'New Journalism' first appeared in an American context in the 1880s when it was used to describe the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism--muckraking on behalf of immigrants and the poor--one found in the New York World and other papers.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE

Personal narrative (PN) is a prose narrative relating personal experience usually told in first person; its content is nontraditional. "Personal" refers to a story from one's life or experiences. "Nontraditional" refers to literature that does not fit the typical criteria of a narrative.

Write a Personal Narrative that

Engages the reader by introducing the narrator and situation

Organizes events to unfold naturally; manipulates time and pacing

Develops details of events with description and action

Develops characters with physical description and dialogue

Uses vivid verbs, sensory details, similes, metaphors, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification to set tone and mood

Uses transitions and varies sentence beginnings

Closes with a reflection

Has all no excuse words and conventions correct

Has exemplary presentation (neat writing that is pleasant to read)

TRAVELOGUE

A film, book, or illustrated lecture about the places visited by or experiences of a travelLER

[peterabell]

Health Secretary makes case to 'shield' Scotland's health services from Brexit

HEALTH Secretary Shona Robison will make the case for European single market membership in order to "shield" health and social care services from the impact on Brexit when she appears before a Holyrood committee this week. Robison is due to give evidence to the Health Committee on Tuesday as it continues its inquiry on the impact of leaving the European Union on health in Scotland.

Peter A Bell's insight:

Shona Robison is, of course, quite correct to highlight the threat to Scotland's health service posed by Brexit. Talk of "an immigration system that works for the whole of the UK" from the British government makes no more sense than anything else about the entire Brexit fiasco. Devising such a system in the face of the diverse and diverging needs, priorities and aspirations of the four nations would be a massively complex and problematic task. A task which, on the basis of all available evidence, we must therefore assume to be well beyond the capacities of the current London regime.

 It is inevitable that a BritNat Brexit imposed on Scotland by this regime will do real and serious harm to NHS Scotland. Pandering to a xenophobic obsession with immigration is bound to have an adverse impact on workforce recruitment and retention. We can only guess at the deleterious effects of Scotland being dragged out of the EU agencies which facilitate cooperation in medical research, recognition of qualifications, drug approvals and much more. Our enforced isolation from the single market can hardly be less than catastrophic for Scotland's burgeoning life science industries. The British political elite have no answers to questions about the rights of Scottish patients to access treatment in the EU - only vacuous, patronising platitudes.

 All of this is bad enough. But there is an additional threat which Shona Robison does not mention. The threat of Scotland's cherished public health service being laid bare to the ravages of predatory US corporations - sacrificed by a British state desperate to secure anything that can be presented as a shiny new transatlantic trade deal.

 Does anybody seriously believe that the 'UK-wide common frameworks' which the British government proposes to inflict on us have anything at all to do with making Scotland's healthcare system work better for patients? Given what we know of the British political elite's obsession with austerity and rigid adherence to neo-liberal orthodoxies, is it not infinitely more likely that the purpose is to prepare NHS Scotland for large-scale privatisation? As a non-negotiable condition of any deal, those ravenous corporations will demand the removal of such inconveniences as a Scottish Parliament and Government committed to the principles of universal healthcare free at the point of need.

 The obvious ‘solution’ is to take control of NHS Scotland out of the hands of Scotland’s democratically elected representatives and hand it to a shadow administration which is not accountable to Scottish voters. An unelected quasi-government, based at the Scotland Office, which can be relied upon to give precedence at all times and in all matters to the interests of the British state and its corporate clients over the needs, priorities and aspirations of Scotland’s people.

 And why wouldn’t they? Why would the British state not adopt this ‘solution’? After all, when Scotland voted No in 2014 we gave the British political elite licence to do whatever they want with our nation. Why would they not take full advantage of that licence?

 Those who voted No may protest that this is not what they voted for at all. But it’s a bit late now to start thinking about consequences. They should have read the small print. They should have heeded the warnings.

 The mistake Scotland made in 2014 must be rectified. If Scotland’s precious NHS is to be rescued from the menace of rabid British Nationalism then the licence that was so recklessly given to the British state by that No vote must be revoked. All of Scotland’s vital public services, along with the distinctive political culture and democratic institutions which sustain them, are put in jeopardy by being party to a political union which renders us powerless to protect them. That political union must be dissolved.

[lazaroschamberger20]

Homegoing: A novel Audiobook

[Audio Books] Homegoing: A novel Audiobook by Yaa Gyasi

Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize A New York Times 2016 Notable Book One of Oprah’s 10 Favorite Books of 2016 NPR's Debut Novel of the Year One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016 One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016

“Homegoing is an inspiration.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates 

The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.             Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation. 

Includes a PDF of the Family Tree

Free Download Homegoing: A novel Audiobook by (Yaa Gyasi)

Duration: 13 hours, 11 minutes

Writer: Yaa Gyasi

Publisher: Random House (Audio)

Narrators: Dominic Hoffman

Genres: Dominic Hoffman

Rating: 4.46

Narrator Rating: 4.75

Publication: Wednesday, 01 June 2016

Homegoing: A novel Audiobook Reviews

Latoya l

It was a great book, in the beginning it was hard to get into, but later i loved it. I loved how each story tied into another showing the lineage back to the motherland. How proud the African culture was, the downfall when the colonizers came, the slavery, the false imprisonment and all the way to today. It showed the kids today going back home to where it all started, Great end!

Rating: 4

Malinda Moore

Gorgeously written by the author and beautifully read by the narrator. I frequently listened to some passages multiple times just to savor the sound of the words. I would have given both the book and the narration 10 stars if that were possible.

Rating: 5

Danielle F.

I listened to this book one year ago, as part of a book club. Incredible story, one that I still think about and discuss today. The story opened my eyes to the slave trading present even in Africa and gave me further appreciation for the history of people before our time. It made me think of my own family history and how I became to be as a result of their own stories. I usually don’t listen to books, as I prefer looking at the written words. However, time doesn’t usually let me indulge as much. I found the narrator, who skillfully used authentic sounding accents, to accentuate the words wonderfully, adding an element to the book that would not have been present in the print. I very highly recommend this book, though parts would not be suitable among children (and awkward around your parents).

Rating: 5

Rachel A

This was immaculately written. I could see the amount if research that went into this novel. Presenting the different eras within Ghana/Gold Coast and the USA. I'm from Ghana myself and raised in the UK. I could really relate to Marjorie's story. That being said, the Narrator tried really hard with the west African accent but it was very off. It didn't take away at all so it was fine.

Rating: 5

Nadia R

This is a beautifully written piece of art. It encompasses the essence of Africa, dictates the horrors of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. The author grabs your interest from the beginning to the end.

Rating: 5

Jill A

This was a fantastic book!! I would recommend googling the character map as it will be helpful as the story evolves!!

Rating: 4

Jael R

This book is amazing, but the narration in this audiobook was equally brilliant. The accents were so wonderful and gave such a delightful, subtle taste to the storytelling. This book is a beautiful audiobook. I'm so glad I "read" it this way.

Rating: 5

Ken A

Good book and GREAT narration, very interesting story presented in an captivating way.

Rating: 4

Koretta S

I loved this book. I felt so connected to the characters as the story progressed. Such a great book!

Rating: 5

Stephanie M

A perfect, heart-wrenching read. I loved the history and the people introduced and intertwined. I have a long daily commute and it fully occupied me leaving me wondering how I even got to my destination safely - like a time warp. I found myself spending a lot of my breaks outside in my car just to continue listening and even missing the characters throughout the day. Well done!!!

Rating: 5

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[shannara-fashion]

Although his buildings are all in a relatively small part of Italy, Palladio's influence was far-reaching. One factor in the spread of his influence was the publication in 1570 of his architectural treatise, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture), which set out rules others could follow. The first book includes studies of decorative styles, classical orders, and materials. The second book included Palladio's town and country house designs and classical reconstructions. The third book has bridge and basilica designs, city planning designs, and classical halls. The fourth book included information on the reconstruction of ancient Roman temples. Before this landmark publication, architectural drawings by Palladio had appeared in print as illustrations to Daniele Barbaro's "Commentary" on Vitruvius.

Interest in his style was renewed in later generations and became fashionable throughout Europe, for example in parts of the Loire Valley of France. In Britain, Inigo Jones, Elizabeth Wilbraham, and Christopher Wren embraced the Palladian style. 

In his Italian Journey, Johann von Goethe describes Palladio as a genius, commending his unfinished Convent of Saint Maria della Carita as the most perfect existing work of architecture. Another admirer was the architect, Richard Boyle, 4th Earl of Cork, also known as Lord Burlington, who, with William Kent, designed Chiswick House. 

The influence of Palladio even spread to America. Thomas Jefferson loved that style of architecture and the United States Capitol building is an example of a slightly evolved version of Palladio's works. The One Hundred Eleventh Congress of the United States of America called him the "Father of American Architecture" (Congressional Resolution no. 259 of 6 December 2010). Exponents of Palladianism include the eighteenth century Venetian architect, Giacomo Leoni, who published an authoritative four-volume work on Palladio and his architectural concepts.

More than 330 of Palladio's original drawings and sketches still survive in the collections of the Royal Institute of British Architects,most of which originally were owned by Inigo Jones. Jones collected a significant number of these on his Grand Tour of 1613–1614, while some were a gift from Henry Wotton.

The Center for Palladian Studies in America, Inc., a nonprofit membership organization, was founded in 1979 to research and promote understanding of Palladio's influence in the architecture of the United States.

In 2010, the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. created an exhibition dedicated solely to Palladio and his legacy. The exhibition, titled Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey,was open to the public until January 2011.

what materials he used and why?

Palladio's architecture was not dependent on expensive materials, which must have been an advantage to his more financially pressed clients. Many of his buildings are of brick covered with stucco. Stuccoed brickwork was always used in his villa designs in order to portray his interpretations of the Roman villa typology.

In the later part of his career, Palladio was chosen by powerful members of Venetian society for numerous important commissions. His success as an architect is based not only on the beauty of his work, but also for its harmony with the culture of his time. His success and influence came from the integration of extraordinary aesthetic quality with expressive characteristics that resonated with his client's social aspirations. His buildings served to communicate, visually, their place in the social order of their culture. This powerful integration of beauty and the physical representation of social meanings is apparent in three major building types: the urban palazzo, the agricultural villa, and the church.

Traditional stucco

As a building material, stucco is a durable, attractive, and weather-resistant wall covering. It was traditionally used as both an interior and exterior finish applied in one or two thin layers directly over a solid masonry, brick or stone surface. The finish coat usually contained an integral color and was typically textured for appearance.

[jamaicaismyplayground]

What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind, and this trade [in Indian slaves] as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them.

— Bartolomé de las Casas

Age Of Exploration

Christopher Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas, nor was he the first to realize that the earth is round. He was the first, however, in other exploits, namely genocide and the transatlantic slave trade. Doesn't sound familiar? Read on.

Columbus may not have been the first to discover the Americas; the Afro-Phoenicians are described as having sailed from Egypt to the coast of Mexico as early as 750 B.C. Nevertheless, his exploits there marked a turning point in European thought and conquest. Five factors made this new "Age of Exploration" possible:

Advances in military technology. Around 1400, due to ongoing wars, European rulers began to improve their guns and refine their warfare strategies, prompting a European arms race. Nations with less military ability would now easily succumb to the European nations who chose to conquer them.

The printing press. Increased information now allowed rulers to govern distant lands more easily. News of Columbus' findings traveled quickly back to the King and Queen of Spain.

Winning esteem through wealth. The amassing of great wealth was now seen as a way in which to dominate others and allow for their "salvation."

Proselytizing religion. European Christianity believed that religion legitimatized conquest. They would land and say a few words (in an unfamiliar language) to get the inhabitants to convert to Christianity. If they were not instantly converted, the Europeans felt relieved of their religious duties, and free to do whatever they wanted with them.

Disease. European strains of smallpox and the plague were transmitted to those they met in their travels, allowing for easier and faster domination of them.

Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood.

— Christopher Columbus

The ships Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria | Source

Resistance Was Futile | Source

Discovery And Domination

In 1492, Columbus "discovered" the Americas when he landed in Haiti and several islands in the Caribbean. The Arawak Indians inhabited these islands, and at first Columbus described them as "very handsome," and went into great detail about their formidable wooden boats that could hold 40-45 men. In little time, though, and after noticing their gold nose rings, he got to the point: "I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold." In search of this gold, he sailed the next day around the island, ending with the ominous statement: "I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I pleased." On this first voyage, Columbus captured 20-25 Arawak slaves, who he then transported back to Spain.

For the second voyage to Haiti the following year (1493), Ferdinand and Isabella gave him the resources needed to subdue the population. When he returned to Haiti, Columbus demanded food, gold, and cotton thread, and was increasingly met with resistance. This resistance gave him the opportunity he needed to declare war on the Arawaks. According to Bartolomé de Las Casas, who was there with the Spanish, Columbus chose "200 foot soldiers and 20 cavalry, with many crossbows and small cannon, lances, and swords, and a still more terrible weapon against the Indians, in addition to the horses: this was 20 hunting dogs, who were turned loose and immediately tore the Indians apart."

The Spanish won the war, of course, for the Arawaks had only rudimentary weapons. As Columbus still could not find the gold he sought, and needed to bring something back to Spain, he rounded up 1,000 Arawaks to be used as slaves. Five hundred of these he brought back to Spain, and the remaining 500 he gave to the Spanish then "governing" the island.

These people are very unskilled in arms; with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.

— Christopher Columbus

Columbus's "Tribute System" in Hispaniola | Source

Hawk's Bell of Gold Dust | Source

Tribute System

Though now in control of the Arawak Indians and their island Haiti, Christopher Columbus still could not find the gold that he was sure was somewhere on the island.

The Arawaks, I'm sure, were not very willing to tell him where it was. Therefore, he set up a "tribute system" which worked thus:

Every three months, each Haitian over 14 years of age would be required to pay Columbus with either 25 pounds in cotton or a large "hawk's bell" of gold dust (a lot of gold dust.)

Once the slaves paid this, they would receive a metal token. This token was worn around their necks as a signal that they were home-free for another 3 months (during which time they saved up for their next token, of course.)

Those who did not pay had both of their hands chopped off.

Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.

— Christopher Columbus

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is a major island in the Caribbean, [now] containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti

Genocide

Due to the tribute system, the Arawaks were forced to work in the mines instead of growing food in their fields, which led to generalized malnutrition. According to a letter written by Pedro de Cordoba to King Ferdinand, "As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth...Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery."

The initial Arawak population was estimated at 8,000,000. By 1516 only around 12,000 were still alive. By 1542, less than 200 remained. By 1555, the Arawaks were all gone

Thus, the crime of genocide began with our very own Christopher Columbus. He completely exterminated an entire race of 8,000,000 people –and that's only counting one of the cultures he decimated. "Haiti under the Spanish is one of the primary instances of genocide in all human history." – Dr. James W. Loewen

After having dispatched a meal, I went ashore and found no habitation save a single house, and that without an occupant; we had no doubt that the people had fled in terror at our approach, as the house was completely furnished.

— Christopher Columbus

The Santa Maria | Source

Slaves "Packed In Below Deck" | Source

Transatlantic Slave Trade

Columbus wasn't just into subjugating and decimating; he was also interested in the sexual aspect of slavery. According to a letter written by Michele de Cuneo, before his first voyage had even reached Haiti in 1492, "Columbus was rewarding his lieutenants with native women to rape." Columbus wrote in 1500: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand." This is not exactly the character of Christopher Columbus that was portrayed in public school.

Aside from sexual slavery, there existed, of course, the aspect of using slavery for profit. When there were no more Arawaks to mine his gold for him–for they no longer existed–Columbus systematically depleted the Bahamas of their peoples for this task. Tens of thousands of slaves from the Bahamas were transported to Haiti, leaving the islands behind deserted. Peter Martyr reported in 1516: "Packed in below deck, with hatchways closed to prevent their escape, so many slaves died on the trip that a ship without a compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola."

After the new batch of slaves died, Columbus depleted Puerto Rico, and then Cuba. When they had all succumbed, he turned his eyes to Africa, thus establishing the transatlantic slave trade and the concept of "race." Through his exploits in Haiti, Columbus lead the way for other European nations to begin seeking wealth through domination, conquest, and slavery. In essence, Columbus changed the world, and we recognize this in one way or another by delineating history as being either pre- or post-Columbian.

Columbus' government was characterized by a form of tyranny. Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place. Now one can understand why he was sacked and we can see that there were good reasons for doing so. The monarchs wanted someone who did not give them problems. Columbus did not solve problems, he created them.

— Francisco de Bobadilla

Help Spread The Word About Columbus | Source

Source

Columbus Day

The second Monday of each October, The United States of America celebrates "Columbus Day" with a public holiday and ridiculous star-spangled parades. Grade school kids write about how wonderful he was, and high school students write reports proclaiming his brilliance and enduring courage.

He is virtually made into a sort of God, carefully placed upon a pedestal of complete ignorance. In fact when I was growing up, this is the only portrayal of the man that I came in contact with until college. Imagine my surprise! Well, not total surprise, but for my entire life I had been conditioned to believe that he was some sort of heroic demi-God. Quite the opposite.

Many college students who take history classes, and many indigenous peoples from around the world, in contrast, opt to protest the holiday in respect for the countless nations and peoples decimated by Christopher Columbus. As George P. Horse Capture writes, "No sensible Indian person can celebrate the arrival of Columbus." Nor, I should add, can any sensible person who knows anything of his history!

"The worshipful biographical vignettes of Columbus in our textbooks serve to indoctrinate students into a mindless endorsement of colonialism that is strikingly inappropriate in today's post-colonial era." – Dr. James W. Loewen

"Here was a man lived long ago,

Who dreamed a special dream.

Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus,

Dreamed a special dream." – Nursery rhyme

Clearly it's long past time to stop celebrating Columbus Day as a federal US holiday. You can start by spreading the word about his atrocities and genocide, and by refusing to participate in Columbus Day activities

— The Author Of This Article

Were you aware of all the negative aspects of Christopher Columbus?

No, my eyes have definitely just been opened

Yes, but this was a great reminder

See results

Sources

"A People's History of the United States" by H. Zinn

"Lies My Teacher Told Me" by J. W. Loewen

University of Wisconsin-Superior: History Dept.

Wikipedia: Christopher Columbus

Wikiquote: Christopher Columbus

Their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need, and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped.

— Christopher Columbus

© 2010 Faceless39

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