Oluale Kossola, the Last Survivor of the Atlantic Slave Trade

[David Lockmiller]

(02-05-2019 07:59 PM)Steve Wrote:  I came across this video about the last known survivor or the Middle Passage, that I think is really interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgcbC7qu10

This was a very good, informative video. I wonder what percentage of Americans, especially black Americans, realize that the first profiteers of the African slave trade were the African tribes who captured the members of other African tribes for sale to European and American slave traders. Surprisingly, this video also stated that it was the women warriors of one tribe that killed the elders of his tribe and wore the heads of their victims on their belts. The qualifying members of the captured villagers, including Oluale Kossola, were then sold into slavery. The video included a photograph of some African women warriors (obviously, at a much later date than the time of his capture).

One interesting portion of the video was Thomas Jefferson speaking sympathetically of slavery and the contradictions within the U. S. Constitution.

And, the last point that I should like to make is about the "justifiable" criticism of Lincoln for proposing that former slaves be recolonized to Africa. So very few Americans know that many Northern states, like Illinois and Indiana, had black exclusion laws. And, more recent slaves who were liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, like Oluale Kossola, actually wanted to return to the Africa of their youth and its culture.