This is the unvarnished truth that people do not want to hear. It is mans' inhumanity to man. Anita >From: "Stephan A. Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history > <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Slavery and Unanswered Questions >Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:02:31 -0400 > >The Caribs and Arawaks, were literally driven to extinction by slavery, >particularly the early sex slavery practiced by the Spanish. The Arawak >population in the West Indies was estimated to be about 2 to 3 million at >first contact, and had been reduced to a few thousand by the early 16th >century. By time that century had ended the island Arawak were extinct. >This catastrophic mortality resulted from the introduction of European >diseases,disruption of their system of sustainable agriculture and, >equally, from Spanish brutality and attempts to enslave them. There were >mass suicides amongst the Caribbean tribes, especially the Arawaks when it >became clear to some tribal groups that slavery was their only option. >Amongst some archaeologists, who specialize in the opening of the New >World, the reason Columbus' diaries have never been released by the family >is that they reveal that much of his fortune came from selling pubescent >girls, and boys, to grandees in the Old World. The Arawaks girls were, by >contemporaneous reports, very lovely. > >-- S > > >On 14 Jun 2007, at 21:04, Anne Pemberton wrote: > >>Actually, according to the Jamestown Narratives, and what I am reading on >>the Pennsylvania Colony and its relationship to the Indians, "saving" the >>Indians had little to do with the goals of the colonies. >> >>Jamestown came to seek riches. When they discovered the riches in >>tobacco, they wanted land. The Pennsylvania colonists came specifically >>for land. Land, was the most desired commodity. The Natives were on the >>land, so the notion of calling them savages, marginalizing them, making >>them slaves in accordance with the Old Testament commands, and feebly >>trying to Christianize them (then totally ignoring those who converted >>when removal was the goal), were the initiatives involved. I'm not as >>knowledgeable on the Massachusetts colony, but again, the goal seems to >>have been to secure land, with a feeble intent to Christianize the >>Indians, again with the colonists ignoring the Christians among the >>Indians when removal became the goal. >> >>As soon as the Indians posed any resistance to the colonists intents, the >>saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" spread throughout the >>colony, whichever one it was. >> >>There seems to be little distinction among the Puritan colonists in >>Massachusetts, the Quaker colonists in Pennsylvania, and the Corporate >>colonists in Virginia. They all seemed to follow the same agenda. The >>Indians as slaves had one advantage over the African slaves - they knew >>the lay of the land better than their owners and could escape almost at >>will. The Africans did not know their way around and were stuck in place. >> >>Anne >>Anne Pemberton >>[log in to unmask] >>http://www.erols.com/apembert >>http://www.educationalsynthesis.org _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail to go? Get your Hotmail, news, sports and much more! http://mobile.msn.com