May 11, 2019 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Tecora versus La Amistad
(5.) Bight of Benin (Togolese Republic,
Republic of Benin and Nigeria west of Niger Delta): 20.2%
(6.) Bight of Biafra (Nigeria east of Niger
Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon): 14.6%
(7.) West Central Africa (Republic of
Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola): 39.4%
(8.) Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and
Madagascar): 4.7%
The profitability of Atlantic slave trade
was maximized in the 18th and the early 19th centuries as
that coincided with the boom in the large plantations in the southern colonies
and later the states of Americas and finally the United States.
The conditions in which these poor slaves
were kept aboard Tecora was far worse than in La Amistad as Tecora was the
classical slave ship in contrast to La Amistad which only engaged in short
coastal trade around Cuba and Caribbean ferrying sugar and other such goods.
On board Tecora the African captives were
stripped almost naked, chained in groups of five and packed tightly like
sardines in the slave gallery which lay in between the main deck and the bottom
cargo hold.
The journey from the west coast of Africa
to Havana was usually of a ten-week duration (over two months and slightly less
than three months) and in this entire long tedious stifling journey each slave
was permitted a space of just 3 feet by 3 feet.
When these people were made to lie down or compelled
to out of sheer exhaustion or illness one person’s head would fall over other’s
thigh making them physically cramped.
The lack of ventilation of the slave
gallery only added to their misery by increasing the already existing suffocation
from jam-packing of the slaves like poultry before butchering.
Water supplies ran low and only
occasionally some of the slaves were brought up on the deck to be fed just
plain rice so as to keep them alive with barest minimum nutrition possible.
After all they were a precious commodity
who would churn the gears of economy of the New World and the Colonial Empires.
The slaves would often prefer starving to
death and die with dignity than to live an existence of slavery and often
refused to eat or drink.
If any slave tried to end his misery by starving
to death he was brought out to the deck, whipped and forced to eat that bare
little so that he would remain alive and be taken to the American colonies and
plantations for being sold.
It is not surprising then that if you are
even remotely versed with our bloody human history you will agree - at least
partly if not totally - with the argument the Steven Pinker the Canadian American
linguist makes in his 2011 book ‘The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence
Has Declined”.
The book’s title, very aptly I may say so,
comes from Lincoln’s first inaugural address that he delivered on March 04,
1861 as he took his oath of office as the sixteenth President of the United
States.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer
and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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