The destruction of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue and prisoner’s dilemma.

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franci kwarteng 9 years ago

My tentative resposne to Anil Nauriya

Dear Anil Nauriya,

Thanks for the piece.

I am aware of all these sources and almost what they all entail.

As a matter of fact, none of the men he quoted knew Gandhi was a raci ...
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My tentative resposne to Anil Nauriya

Dear Anil Nauriya,

Thanks for the piece.

I am aware of all these sources and almost what they all entail.

As a matter of fact, none of the men he quoted knew Gandhi was a racist and that he and his South African Indians contributed to the British slaughter of nearly four thousand Zulus.

Not even Dr. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah whom he quoted mentioned the fact that Gandhi was a racist and that he lied about his role in the subjugation of Black South Africans.

The scholarship is in progress.

And then there are those who cite from his paper "Indian Opinion," to make their case in support of Gandhi but pretend there were/are tons of contemporary papers that contradicted many of the things he had to say about the present controversy. I have all these other sources.

The scholarship is in progress.

Furthermore, as is usually the case, this deeply flawed article failed to look at tons of other sources some of which are in my possession and in so many publications.

I will respond to some of these glaring omissions and what they had to say about the racist Gandhi. Even his paper "Indian Opinion" has a lot of negatives on him to indict.

American scholars are already digging into this just as Indian scholars Arundhati Roy (and other writers from T.K. Mahadevan, Suredra Bhana, Goolem Vahed, Maureen Swan, Ashwin Desai, Isabel Hofmeyr, Patrick French and so many influential scholars, writers, historians and researchers from around the world are doing).

Yours is merely a parochial treatment of the subject. But then again your not adequately informed on African history as your selective quotes do not have the support of the totality of African and world history including such as the history of the "Protest Movement."

Not even Leo Tolstoy or Henry David Thoreau and several others who developed the concept of non-violent resistance before Gandhi was mentioned.

Gandhi's was but an instantaneous node in a long history. I will make all these clear in the future. For now your article fails woefully to prove why Gandhi was not a racist, why so many historical sources contradict and undermine him, and why he tried to lie about some of the major horrible things he (and South African Indians) did against black South Africans.

Thanks.
franci kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear Anil Nauriya,

I even forgot to mention Cluade Markovits and his excellent scholarly work "The Un-Gandhian Gandhi: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma" which powerfully deconstructs Gandhi's autobiography "The Story ...
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Dear Anil Nauriya,

I even forgot to mention Cluade Markovits and his excellent scholarly work "The Un-Gandhian Gandhi: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma" which powerfully deconstructs Gandhi's autobiography "The Story of My Experiments" and "Satyagrapha in South Africa," both of which historians, researchers and scholars uncritically accept as authoritative.

I will have more to say about this particular work and more of such in the future.

As for your convenient selective quotes they lack the context of African history, resistance movements, and global history.

Good day!
franci kwarteng 9 years ago

Like the problem with your convenient selective quotes, here is what the scholar Claude Markovits got to say about Gandhi:

"The iconic image of Gandhi is of a man of God steeped in austerity, sexually renunciate, neditatin ...
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Like the problem with your convenient selective quotes, here is what the scholar Claude Markovits got to say about Gandhi:

"The iconic image of Gandhi is of a man of God steeped in austerity, sexually renunciate, neditating in his ashram, who the assassin's bullet providentially transformed into a martyr...All the evidence available, however, points to the real Gandhi as being very different...The contrast between the icon and the blood-and-flesh individual is the result of selective memory."

We shall have more to say about this and more in the future.

Thanks.
godbless 9 years ago

there are always two sides to a coin; to any person for that matter. you consistently have taken an attitude than can only be called 'reverse' racism and forget the need for peace, harmony and non violence in the world today.

there are always two sides to a coin; to any person for that matter. you consistently have taken an attitude than can only be called 'reverse' racism and forget the need for peace, harmony and non violence in the world today.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

I guess you have not read this:

Government will move the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the University of Ghana campus to ensure its safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

This comes a day after Citi News reported ...
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I guess you have not read this:

Government will move the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the University of Ghana campus to ensure its safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

This comes a day after Citi News reported the statue had been defaced by some unknown persons who were incensed by its presence in the academic community.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration on Wednesday [October 5] described as “unfortunate verbal attacks”, allegations of Mahatma Gandhi being a racist not worth honoring with a statue.

It said the comments are an “attack on an Indian Nationalist Hero and icon who is revered and cherished by over one billion people who are either citizens of India or persons of Indian decent.”

The Ministry lamented the comments and agitations against the situation of the statue on the University had the potential of creating disaffection for Ghana at the level of Government relations and among Ghanaians across the world.

The Ministry also emphasized that government erected the statue on the University of Ghana campus with the consent of the University’s authorities saying “The University was not compelled by government to accept the statue.”

It added that, “While acknowledging that human as he was, Mahatma Gandhi may have had his flaws, we must remember that people evolve. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.”

“The government would, therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy on the Legon Campus being a distraction of our strong ties of friendship that has existed over the years.

To this end, the Ministry is urging Ghanaians to look beyond the comments attributed to Mahatma Gandhi and acknowledge his role as one of the most outstanding personalities of the last century who demonstrated that non-violent,” the statement concluded.

‘Remove ‘racist’ Gandhi’s statue from Legon’

A former Director of the Institute of African Studies, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, in September started a campaign demanding the removal of the statue of Indian independence icon, Mahatma Gandhi, from the University of Ghana campus.

Prof Adomako Ampofo together with another academic at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr. Obadéle Kambon, urged members of the University of Ghana Council to heed to the petition arguing among other things that, Gandhi was racist against black people and honoring him sets the wrong example for students.

‘Pulling down Gandhi’s statue unnecessary’

But, Ghana’s former High Commissioner to India, Professor Mike Ocquaye, has described as unnecessary demands for the demolition of the statue.

According to the professor of political science and lawyer, a decision to demolish the statue might have implications on diplomatic ties between Ghana and India.

So far, the university authorities have not commented on the matter, and have also not responded to the petitioners.

But it appears some unknown persons in support of the call, may want to take the law into their hands, by gradually destroying the statue.
Salifu, Bolga Tanga 9 years ago

You are more racist than Gandhi Francis Kwarteng.

You are more racist than Gandhi Francis Kwarteng.
Salifu, Bolga Tanga 9 years ago

Your response is not coherent enough to flaw the analysis of the writer. The writer's point is be the change that you wish to see in the world. You
might not know south African history more than Nelson Mandela who took inspi ...
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Your response is not coherent enough to flaw the analysis of the writer. The writer's point is be the change that you wish to see in the world. You
might not know south African history more than Nelson Mandela who took inspiration from Gandhi. Don't study history with personal values. This is a very poor response to the main points in the article.
godbless 9 years ago

exactly. in the four something part this francis wrote he never even quoted the counter arguments, writings from Gandhi how he thought it a privilege to nurse the Zulus etc. He really refuses to keenly study the history and t ...
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exactly. in the four something part this francis wrote he never even quoted the counter arguments, writings from Gandhi how he thought it a privilege to nurse the Zulus etc. He really refuses to keenly study the history and the situation in SA then, it was like it is today. Moreover, our connotations to words now was not the same then. shame on such scholarship.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Get the book "The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire" (Ashwin Desai/Goolem Vaheb) and see how people like Nelson Mandela fabricated the history on Cecil Rhodes and Gandhi.

Of course, Mandela himself said we ...
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Get the book "The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire" (Ashwin Desai/Goolem Vaheb) and see how people like Nelson Mandela fabricated the history on Cecil Rhodes and Gandhi.

Of course, Mandela himself said we should forgive him though he, Mandela, would go on to whitewash that sordid past of Gandhi (Cecil Rhodes and other racist colonialists). These are all well documented. It is sad that our schools do not teach these. We also don't like reading as a people to know these facts.

Let me stop here because I don't have time to give you a tall list of scholarship on the subject. Juts make time and read the one I have given you here.

Yaw's article is flawed in many ways. I expected a PhD candidate like him to do better.

And for your information, I have given Nana Yaw Osei several sources (academic books, peer-reviewed and newspaper articles, etc) to show him that there are several international universities/colleges around the world that are doing the same things I am asking for, which is that symbols and statues of racists be removed from universities/colleges and other public properties. Gandhi was a racist (but we should not replace it with that of Idi Amin, Omar Bashir, Joseph Kony, Charles Taylor, or Foday Sankoh.

Anyway I am done on commenting on this Gandhi controversy. I guess you read this:

Government will relocate the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the University of Ghana campus to ensure its safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

This comes a day after Citi News reported the statue had been defaced by some unknown persons who were incensed by its presence in the academic community.
A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration on Wednesday [October 5] described as “unfortunate verbal attacks”,

Allegations of Mahatma Gandhi being a racist not worth honoring with a statue.
It said the comments are an “attack on an Indian Nationalist Hero and icon who is revered and cherished by over one billion people who are either citizens of India or persons of Indian decent.”
franci kwarteng 9 years ago

My response to a Ghanaweb commentator

Dear Doubtful Thomas,

Please make time to read Craig Wilder's book "Ebony and Ivy
Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities" for a little enlightenment.

...
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My response to a Ghanaweb commentator

Dear Doubtful Thomas,

Please make time to read Craig Wilder's book "Ebony and Ivy
Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities" for a little enlightenment.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Now read what Martin Luther King, Jr. before he came into contact with Gandhian nonviolent protest:

"During my early college days, I read Thoreau's essay on 'Civil Disobedience' for the first time...I became convinced then that non-corporation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is corporation with good."

Here too is what the scholar Brent Powell has to say:

"King best articulated his convictions in his 'Letter from Birmingham Jail.'

"The 1963 letter supported and expanded the concepts first presented in Thoreau's essay, injecting nonviolent direct action into the American tradition of protest...

"The American tradition of protest, strongly influenced by Thoreau's writing on civil disobedience, includes the notion of non-violent, direct action.

"Martin Luther King, 'fascinated' and 'deeply moved' by Thoreau, built upon the work of both Thoreau and Gandhi.

"Likewise, Gandhi also admitted that, 'Thoreau's ideas greatly influenced [his] movement in India..."

Before Gandhi came into Martin Luther King, Jr's intellectual life, there was already Henry David Thoreau who greatly influenced both men!

Brent Powell. "Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Jr., and The American Tradition of Protest."

Source: "The Organization of American Historians Magazine of History" (The OAH Magazine of History). Publisher: Oxford University Press!

Volume 9, #2, 1999 (winter), pages 26-29 ("Taking a Stand in History").

There is more but let me stop it right here!
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"Georgetown University Plans Steps to Atone for Slave Past"

WASHINGTON — Nearly two centuries after Georgetown University profited from the sale of 272 slaves, it will embark on a series of steps to atone for the past, including awarding preferential status in the admissions process to descendants of the enslaved, university officials said Thursday.

Georgetown’s president, John J. DeGioia, who announced the measures in a speech on Thursday afternoon, said he would offer a formal apology, create an institute for the study of slavery and erect a public memorial to the slaves whose labor benefited the institution, including those who were sold in 1838 to help keep the university afloat.

In addition, two campus buildings will be renamed — one for an enslaved African-American man and the other for an African-American educator who belonged to a Catholic religious order.

So far, Dr. DeGioia’s plan does not include a provision for offering scholarships to descendants, a possibility that was raised by a university committee whose recommendations were released on Thursday morning. The committee, however, stopped short of calling on the university to provide such financial assistance, as well as admissions preference.

Dr. DeGioia’s decision to offer an advantage in admissions to descendants, similar to that offered to the children and grandchildren of alumni, is unprecedented, historians say. The preference will be offered to the descendants of all the slaves whose labor benefited Georgetown, not just the men, women and children sold in 1838.

More than a dozen universities — including Brown, Harvard and the University of Virginia — have publicly recognized their ties to slavery and the slave trade. But Craig Steven Wilder and Alfred L. Brophy, two historians who have studied universities and slavery, said they knew of none that had offered preferential status in admissions to the descendants of slaves.

Professor Wilder, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Dr. DeGioia’s plans to address Georgetown’s history go beyond any initiatives enacted by a university in the past 10 years.

“It goes farther than just about any institution,” he said. “I think it’s to Georgetown’s credit. It’s taking steps that a lot of universities have been reluctant to take.”
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage

Opinion Op-Ed Contributor
Georgetown University, Learning From Its Sins AUG. 31, 2016
RACE/RELATED
272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? APRIL 16, 2016
‘A Million Questions’ From Descendants of Slaves Sold to Aid Georgetown MAY 20, 2016
RACE/RELATED
Moving to Make Amends, Georgetown President Meets With Descendant of Slaves JUNE 14, 2016

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But whether the initiatives result in meaningful change remains to be seen, he said. Professor Wilder cautioned that the significance of the preferential status in admissions would rest heavily on the degree to which Georgetown invested in outreach to descendants, including identifying them, making sure they are aware of the benefit’s existence and actively recruiting them to the university.

“The question of how effective or meaningful this is going to be will only be answered over time,” Professor Wilder said.

Dr. DeGioia’s plan, which builds on the recommendations of the committee that he convened last year, represents the university’s first systematic effort to address its roots in slavery. Georgetown, which was founded and run by Jesuit priests in 1789, relied on the Jesuit plantations in Maryland — and the sale of produce and slaves — to finance its operations.

The 1838 sale, worth about $3.3 million in today’s dollars, was organized by two of Georgetown’s early presidents, both Jesuits. A portion of the profit, about $500,000, was used to help pay off Georgetown’s debts at a time when the college was struggling financially. The slaves were uprooted from the Maryland plantations and shipped to estates in Louisiana.

Dr. DeGioia said he planned to apologize for the wrongs of the past “within the framework of the Catholic tradition,” by offering what he described as a Mass of reconciliation in partnership with the Jesuit leadership in the United States and the Archdiocese of Washington.

“This community participated in the institution of slavery,’’ Dr. DeGioia said, addressing a crowd of hundreds of students, faculty members and descendants at Georgetown’s Gaston Hall. “This original evil that shaped the early years of the Republic was present here. We have been able to hide from this truth, bury this truth, ignore and deny this truth.”

“As a community and as individuals, we cannot do our best work if we refuse to take ownership of such a critical part of our history,’’ he said. “We must acknowledge it.”

When Dr. DeGioia invited questions from the audience, a man in a gray suit took the microphone. “My name is Joe Stewart,’’ he said, “and I am a descendant of the 272.”

Mr. Stewart, a retired corporate executive and an organizer of a group of more than 300 descendants, expressed gratitude to the university’s working group on slavery and to Dr. DeGioia for their efforts. But he said that descendants, who had not been included as members of the committee, must be involved in decision making on these initiatives moving forward.

“Our attitude is nothing about us, without us,’’ said Mr. Stewart, who was flanked by five other descendants.

The two buildings being renamed by university officials originally paid tribute to the Rev. Thomas F. Mulledy and the Rev. William McSherry, the college presidents involved in the 1838 sale. Now one will be called Isaac Hall to commemorate the life of Isaac Hawkins, one of the slaves shipped to Louisiana in 1838, and the other Anne Marie Becraft Hall, in honor of a 19th-century educator who founded a school for black girls in Washington.

Dr. DeGioia assembled his working group of scholars, administrators, students and alumni last September, asking them to consider how the university should address its history. Their work took on greater urgency in November in the wake of student demonstrations. In April, The New York Times published an article tracing the life of one of the slaves, Cornelius Hawkins, and his modern-day descendants. Cornelius was the grandson of Isaac Hawkins.

In its 102-page report, the committee said that the university’s dependence on slavery was deeper and broader than originally believed.

Slave labor and slave sales were envisioned as part of the financing model of the college even before the doors opened in 1789. And slaves were not only forced to work on the Jesuit plantations. Some also toiled on campus, hired from students and other wealthy people.

The committee said that it was likely that all of the earliest buildings on campus — including the ones named for the university leaders who orchestrated the 1838 sale — were built with slave labor.

More historical research needs to be done, the committee said, and that will be coordinated by the new research center, the Institute for the Study of Slavery and its Legacies. The university has already selected the program director for the institute, which will also support Dr. DeGioia’s plans to deepen engagement with descendants of the enslaved.

Dr. DeGioia, who met with dozens of descendants this summer, plans to establish a new committee for the creation of the public memorial that will include descendants. He also plans, among other efforts, to provide descendants with access to genealogical information housed in the university’s archives.

“All of these will have a substantial financial impact,” said Dr. DeGioia, who believes that Georgetown’s philanthropic community will support his initiatives. “I’m very confident that will not be a constraint.”

But some descendants on Thursday expressed disappointment, saying that the university’s measures were inadequate, given the suffering that their ancestors endured.

Karran Harper Royal, a descendant of slaves sold in 1838, said that Georgetown, which has an endowment of $1.45 billion, should have offered scholarships to descendants. And she said that she and others “felt the sting” of not being formally invited to Dr. DeGioia’s speech.

“It has to go much farther,” said Ms. Harper Royal, who is also an organizer of the group of descendants. “They’re calling us family. Well, I’m from New Orleans and when we have a gathering, family’s invited.”
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franci kwarteng 9 years ago

Dear Namesake,

Thanks for the article. At best your essay is a high school piece. Not a serious one.

First, John Henrik Clarke is a scholar whose works I have thoroughly read and studied. He is a largely a self-taught w ...
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Dear Namesake,

Thanks for the article. At best your essay is a high school piece. Not a serious one.

First, John Henrik Clarke is a scholar whose works I have thoroughly read and studied. He is a largely a self-taught writer and historian and not a trained historian (the latter does not mean much though because a trained historian does not make one an authority per se in an area of historical research). I saw/met him on a few occasions (courtesy of some my friends who were also his colleague professors, civil rights’ activists, historians, writers etc)

Then again some important aspects of his scholarship have come under fierce attack from historians even within the African-American community.

One of such is you mention here, "Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust, Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism" (I STILL HAVE A COPY OF THIS VERY BOOK FROM THE LATE 1990s) and the figure of enslaved Africans brought to Americans has been refuted over and over again by a combination of seasoned historians, scientists, geneticists, etc.

(Please as PhD candidate you need to check out your sources very well and think through your arguments before publishing them. Of course, Ghanaweb is not an academic journal but you also need to take that extra effort. I am a busy person but I do spent considerable time of my busy schedule vetting my sources. You have no idea the tens of sources I go through before publishing any article you see on Ghanaweb and elsewhere. You also need to do some more serious reading than what your your articles demonstrate. AND AS FOR GANDHI I HAVE LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF “ACADEMIC” SOURCES AND I USUALLY DO NOT KNOW WHERE TO START).

That figure you quote from the book has long since been discredited (Please go “wwww.slavevoyages.org” and check out “The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.” DAVID RICHARDSON/DAVID ELITS EDIT THIS COMPREHENSIVE DATABASE. Similar databases have been created in Cuba, etc. There is not adequate time on my side to get into all these). I will not go into this matter.

There are other flawed arguments you make but I will not get into that either (don’t have enough time on my side. One instance concerns Africans coming here to study. America’s embargo totally destroyed Cuba. America is also Cuba’s fiercest critic yet America allows some of its citizens to study medicine (and other healthcare-related programs under Cuban scholarship programs.

America also played an important role in tightening the rope of Apartheid around black South Africa, yet today Americans of all races study in South African universities. America dropped bombs on Japan (despite the fact the fact that Japan was the “first” the attack America) yet Americans go to Japan to study under various forms of Japanese scholarships. Yet there are also many Japanese who wants American soldiers kicked out of Japan.

American dropped more than 100 bombs on Japanese but only those ones dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima are well know. Please read Oliver Stone’s and Dr. Peter Kuznick’s book “The Untold History of the United States.” And you forget that African slaves literally built America (Please Maurice Mcinnis’ article “How the Slave Trade Built America” at the end of this brief rejoinder. I will not provide you a tall list of academic publications on the subject. I have already done so in some of my articles published on Ghanaweb)!

Of course, American money and technical expertise (read about the American statistician, management scientist, engineer, mathematician William Edwards Deming) helped rebuild Japan after the so-called Second World War. You can read Rafael Aguayo’s book “Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught The Japanese About Quality.” I will not even discuss Vietnam and the idea that American students are studying there. How many bombs did American drop on Vietnam? How many Vietnamese did Americans kill?).

Next read this:

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
How Many Slaves Landed in the US?
Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 1: How many Africans were taken to the United States during the entire history of the slave trade?
Perhaps you, like me, were raised essentially to think of the slave experience primarily in terms of our black ancestors here in the United States.

In other words, slavery was primarily about us, right, from Crispus Attucks and Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker and Richard Allen, all the way to Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Think of this as an instance of what we might think of as African-American exceptionalism. (In other words, if it’s in “the black Experience,” it’s got to be about black Americans.) Well, think again.

The most comprehensive analysis of shipping records over the course of the slave trade is the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, edited by professors David Eltis and David Richardson. (While the editors are careful to say that all of their figures are estimates, I believe that they are the best estimates that we have, the proverbial “gold standard” in the field of the study of the slave trade.) Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.

And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That’s right: a tiny percentage.
In fact, the overwhelming percentage of the African slaves were shipped directly to the Caribbean and South America; Brazil received 4.86 million Africans alone! Some scholars estimate that another 60,000 to 70,000 Africans ended up in the United States after touching down in the Caribbean first, so that would bring the total to approximately 450,000 Africans who arrived in the United States over the course of the slave trade.

Incredibly, most of the 42 million members of the African-American community descend from this tiny group of less than half a million Africans. And I, for one, find this amazing.

By the way, how did historian Joel A. Rogers—writer of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, and to whom this series is an homage—do on this question? Well, incredibly, in his “Amazing Fact #30,” Rogers says, “About 12,000,000 Negroes were brought to the New World!” Not even W.E.B. Du Bois got this close to the most accurate count of the number of Africans shipped across the Atlantic in the slave trade.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also editor-in-chief of The Root.
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"How the Slave Trade Built America"

We don’t know exactly when the last sale of enslaved persons occurred in Richmond, Va., known as “the great slave market of the South,” but it must have taken place before April 3, 1865. On the previous day, the order had come to evacuate in advance of the arrival of Union troops who liberated the city.

Amid the chaos, a slave trader named Robert Lumpkin still had a jail full of people he was hoping to sell. According to the journalist Charles Carleton Coffin, who was there to witness the fall of Richmond, after learning of the order to evacuate, Lumpkin “quickly handcuffed his human chattels,” about 50 men, women and children, and marched them four blocks south to the Danville-Richmond Railroad depot on the banks of the James River. He was hoping to whisk them away, and find buyers for them in another city.

When they arrived, however, “there was no room for them on the train which whirled the Confederate Government from the capital. Soldiers with fixed bayonets forced them back. It was the last slave gang seen in this Western world.” Lumpkin was angry, but there was nothing he could do. So, “with oaths and curses loud and deep,” Coffin reported, Lumpkin was forced “to unlock their handcuffs and allow them to go free.” These 50 people were worth about $50,000, according to Coffin, “but on that Sunday morning were of less value than the mule and the wagon which had drawn the slave-trader’s trunk to the station.”

Even though Lumpkin’s coffle was not, as Coffin so colorfully pronounced it, “the last slave gang seen in this Western world,” his comment points to the way that the slave trade had become the iconic symbol of the institution of slavery. And with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox only a few days later, the reporter’s prophetic statement became true for the United States. It was the end of the slave traders and slave gangs.
Richmond had long been the epicenter of the northern end of the American slave trade.

In the preceding decades, tens of thousands of people had been brought to the city from the surrounding regions, where they were held in jails, sold at auction and sent to labor in the sugar and cotton fields of the Deep South. From the end of America’s participation in the Atlantic slave trade in 1808 until the opening of the Civil War, at least two-thirds of a million people were forcibly relocated through the internal American slave trade from the Upper South (Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina) to the Lower (especially Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama).

This massive movement of people populated what was then considered the American Southwest and resulted in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of families as husbands and wives, parents and children were sold away.

The economic engine of the slave trade helped to fuel America’s prosperity. The profits from the trade in enslaved people flowed to many places. Traders were not the only ones to profit from America’s internal slave trade. Slave owners in the Upper South profited because they received cash for the people they sold. Slave owners in the Lower South profited because the people they purchased were forced to labor in the immensely productive cotton and sugar fields. The merchants who supplied clothing and food to the slave traders profited, as did steamboat, railroad and shipowners who carried enslaved people.

Capitalists in the North profited by investing in banks that handled the exchange of money for people, or in insurance companies that provided insurance for the owners’ investments in enslaved people. So did foreign investors in Southern securities, some of which were issued on mortgaged slaves. The hotbed of American abolitionism — New England — was also the home of America’s cotton textile industry, which grew rich on the backs of the enslaved people forced to pick cotton. The story of America’s domestic slave trade is not just a story about Richmond or New Orleans, but about America.

The slave trade is not merely a footnote or a side story in the history of American slavery, but was central to its modernization and continuation. That was well understood by the Boston artist David Claypool Johnston, who used it to powerful illustrative effect in his satirical work “The House That Jeff Built.” Playing off the English nursery rhyme “This is the House That Jack Built,” Johnston wrote and illustrated a series of 12 verses, beginning with the simple statement, “This is the house that Jeff built.” “Jeff” is, of course, Jefferson Davis, and his “house” is shown as a slave pen with a sign announcing a slave auction to the left of the door.

Three scenes later, the image shows the inside of a slave auction room, with two men seated on a bench and two women and children standing. “These are the chattels,” the poem tells us, “To be sold by the head, in the slave pen: A part of the house that Jeff built.”

Other images show slave dealers, slave buyers, slave breeders, manacles and whips. The final image displays the paraphernalia of the slave trade: manacles, an auction hammer, a “slave auction” sign, advertisements and bills of sale. For this artist, like so many Americans, the slave trade stood at the center of the Confederacy and was the reason they had continued to fight the war.

The last stanza reads:

But Jeff’s infamous house is doom’d to come down. So says Uncle Sam and so said John Brown. —With slave pen, and auction, shackles, driver, and cat, Together with seller, and buyer, and breeder for that Most loathsome of bipeds by some call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span,
In and out of the house that Jeff built.

On that day in Richmond in 1865, when Jeff’s house finally came down, thousands of people no longer had to fear that at any moment they could be sold away. As the city was abandoned, chaos reigned. Fires set to warehouses grew out of control and burned much of the city. On April 4, Abraham Lincoln arrived and was thronged by African-Americans, who had lived their entire lives with an auction hammer hanging over their head. As a former slave named William Wells Brown explained: “None … can estimate the suffering their victims undergo. If there is one feature of American slavery more abominable than another, it is that which sanctions the buying and selling of human beings.”

After decades of steady business along Wall Street in Richmond, the auction rooms were silent. The detritus of the business of human trafficking littered the floor: shackles, bills of sale, advertisements, receipts and ledgers. On April 8, 1865, as the city still smoldered, two Massachusetts abolitionists, Sarah and Lucy Chase, who were in Virginia to help educate emancipated African-Americans, entered Richard H. Dickinson’s slave-trading house on the corner of Franklin and Wall Streets. Wanting something to document the atrocities of slavery, they scooped up two ledger books and a stack of correspondence documenting the sale of thousands of men, women and children.

When they first saw Richmond from its docks a few days earlier, they had been struck by the symbolic image of the burned out city. Sarah wrote that nothing was left of the warehouses “but the brick walls ragged and jagged pointing their threatening fingers to heaven,” concluding, “as if saying there is justice.” She noted that inside the ledger books Dickinson had recorded the sales of several slaves on March 31, but for April 1 — one day before the Confederate retreat — only the date was written. There were no sales. “Thank God — no more was written or will ever be in that bloody register.”

As Union troops filled the streets, as Lincoln toured the city, as the auction rooms fell silent, thousands rejoiced that they would never have to fear the slave market again.

At the end of the war, abolitionists like the Chase sisters collected documents and artifacts to preserve the memory of the slave trade and document why the sacrifices of the war had been necessary. But with the resurgence of white supremacy in the late 19th century, much of that history was deliberately removed from public memory.

In Richmond, for example, slave-trader offices were quickly repurposed or destroyed. First the railroad and then I-95 forever altered the landscape where most of the trade took place.
But the story of the slave trade lived on in the family histories of African-Americans, and in the last decade of so, its memory has returned to the broader public consciousness as well. Current exhibitions on the slave trade in Richmond and New Orleans have led to new discoveries of histories long buried. This new research into the slave trade will give all of us an opportunity to make sure that it is never forgotten again.
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Ghanaman 9 years ago

The writer raised a very important issue. Will you say because of colonization an Trans-Atlantic Slave trade that bedeviled Africa you never attend any college in hitherto slave masters' country now? Allow your issues to spea ...
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The writer raised a very important issue. Will you say because of colonization an Trans-Atlantic Slave trade that bedeviled Africa you never attend any college in hitherto slave masters' country now? Allow your issues to speak for themselves rather than speaking for them. History that you boast of paragon of knowledge teaches valuable lesson such as learning from unfortunate happenings in the past to direct the present. The writer did not aim at presenting history but evaluated the wisdom behind the destruction of Gandhi's effigy. Gandhi is dead so what is the point? It is unfortunate you describe this brilliant philosophical write-up as high school standard while yours has virtually deviated from the issue on board.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Government will move the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the University of Ghana campus to ensure its safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

This comes a day after Citi News reported the statue had been defaced by some ...
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Government will move the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the University of Ghana campus to ensure its safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

This comes a day after Citi News reported the statue had been defaced by some unknown persons who were incensed by its presence in the academic community.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration on Wednesday [October 5] described as “unfortunate verbal attacks”, allegations of Mahatma Gandhi being a racist not worth honoring with a statue.

It said the comments are an “attack on an Indian Nationalist Hero and icon who is revered and cherished by over one billion people who are either citizens of India or persons of Indian decent.”

The Ministry lamented the comments and agitations against the situation of the statue on the University had the potential of creating disaffection for Ghana at the level of Government relations and among Ghanaians across the world.

The Ministry also emphasized that government erected the statue on the University of Ghana campus with the consent of the University’s authorities saying “The University was not compelled by government to accept the statue.”

It added that, “While acknowledging that human as he was, Mahatma Gandhi may have had his flaws, we must remember that people evolve. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.”

“The government would, therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy on the Legon Campus being a distraction of our strong ties of friendship that has existed over the years.

To this end, the Ministry is urging Ghanaians to look beyond the comments attributed to Mahatma Gandhi and acknowledge his role as one of the most outstanding personalities of the last century who demonstrated that non-violent,” the statement concluded.

‘Remove ‘racist’ Gandhi’s statue from Legon’

A former Director of the Institute of African Studies, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, in September started a campaign demanding the removal of the statue of Indian independence icon, Mahatma Gandhi, from the University of Ghana campus.

Prof Adomako Ampofo together with another academic at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr. Obadéle Kambon, urged members of the University of Ghana Council to heed to the petition arguing among other things that, Gandhi was racist against black people and honoring him sets the wrong example for students.

‘Pulling down Gandhi’s statue unnecessary’

But, Ghana’s former High Commissioner to India, Professor Mike Ocquaye, has described as unnecessary demands for the demolition of the statue.

According to the professor of political science and lawyer, a decision to demolish the statue might have implications on diplomatic ties between Ghana and India.

So far, the university authorities have not commented on the matter, and have also not responded to the petitioners.

But it appears some unknown persons in support of the call, may want to take the law into their hands, by gradually destroying the statue.
Ghanaman 9 years ago

The article complemented the position of Prof. Ocquaye. Pulling the image down is needless. I agree with the writer that Legon is an international
university and must embrace multiculturalism.Thank you.

The article complemented the position of Prof. Ocquaye. Pulling the image down is needless. I agree with the writer that Legon is an international
university and must embrace multiculturalism.Thank you.
Awaala 9 years ago

RELOCATE GANDHI AND REPLACE WITH DR. KWEGYIR AGGREY'S

RELOCATE GANDHI AND REPLACE WITH DR. KWEGYIR AGGREY'S
BERNARD 9 years ago

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Yaw 9 years ago

This is utter bs. So it's better to stay uneducated ( or half educated in this case) because of colonialism? Did they not use our forefathers' sweat to build those institutions? Why must we not benefit from it? Its two differ ...
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This is utter bs. So it's better to stay uneducated ( or half educated in this case) because of colonialism? Did they not use our forefathers' sweat to build those institutions? Why must we not benefit from it? Its two different things here. We can benefit from the system they forced us to create because we deserve it but we can abhor the system and everything that stands for it or it stands for. And on Indian relations, bullshit!!!!
I guess because Germany pays reparations to Israel for the holocaust and they have ties between them now, they should also erect a statue of Adolf Hitler because they benefit from Germany somehow.
joe 9 years ago

You have nothing sensible to say Yaw. When your brain is matured you will understand the writer.England became industrialized way before July 1874 when southern Ghana became British colony. Don't be delusional about your reso ...
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You have nothing sensible to say Yaw. When your brain is matured you will understand the writer.England became industrialized way before July 1874 when southern Ghana became British colony. Don't be delusional about your resources and the development of Europe.Read very before you write this gibberish next time.
Afua Sikaba 9 years ago

i guess we are all brainless without Gandhi. You point out that all our heroes were inspired by him therefore we must accept his statue on the campus of our most highest institution of learning and bow to it every morning ev ...
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i guess we are all brainless without Gandhi. You point out that all our heroes were inspired by him therefore we must accept his statue on the campus of our most highest institution of learning and bow to it every morning even including worshiping. This is an Indian statue of dominance their hero they intentional help to elect this on our university campus to prove that they are Superior
Ghaja 9 years ago

See there is a cultural difference here. Can you wipe out supeiority and inferiority in this world? To dominate Ghana a statue of Gandhi is not needed and Ghana is a small country in terms of trade and size of India relativel ...
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See there is a cultural difference here. Can you wipe out supeiority and inferiority in this world? To dominate Ghana a statue of Gandhi is not needed and Ghana is a small country in terms of trade and size of India relatively. There are common interests we can pursue in betterment on each other. Whether there is a statue of Gandhi is there or not, his respect in terms of the non-violent attitude he created was good for us to show enormous restraint in times of adversity. Half-baked minds don't understand anything holistically.

Emmanuel Amevor 9 years ago

Where on page 369 in Long Walk to Freedom did Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo express admiration for Gandhi. As a Ph D candidate I expect you to specific with your references.

Where on page 369 in Long Walk to Freedom did Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo express admiration for Gandhi. As a Ph D candidate I expect you to specific with your references.
Yaw, USA 9 years ago

Nelson Mandela was talking and he said
he and his colleagues wanted to use hunger strike as used by Gandhi.This was traditionally acceptable method used by many freedom fighters such as Gandhi. His colleagues names were men ...
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Nelson Mandela was talking and he said
he and his colleagues wanted to use hunger strike as used by Gandhi.This was traditionally acceptable method used by many freedom fighters such as Gandhi. His colleagues names were mentioned in the previous page. Patience, don't be quick
to condemn
Eric 9 years ago

Go to the page where Mandela talked about Gandhi's fight against the ghetto Act.
Mandela's colleague names were mentioned.

Go to the page where Mandela talked about Gandhi's fight against the ghetto Act.
Mandela's colleague names were mentioned.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

I forgot to mention that Mandela's "Long Walk To Freedom" is too dry.

There are so many questions it does not answer. I read the book in the 1990s and realized that the book did not answer many, many questions about Mande ...
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I forgot to mention that Mandela's "Long Walk To Freedom" is too dry.

There are so many questions it does not answer. I read the book in the 1990s and realized that the book did not answer many, many questions about Mandela, Apartheid and South.

In fact, I met the Pulitzer-winning photographer (in Manhattan, New York, 11th Street) who did put together the photographs in the book. We briefly discussed the dryness of the book.

For your information, just before he died it was announced to the world that a new book written by an author (with his collaboration was almost done)and will be published.

I did discuss the book in one of my last articles last year. You can check that out by googling any of my article.

In addition to that, I have read some of the biographies on Mandela that attempt to answer some of the questions "Long Walk To Freedom" failed to answer. And Apartheid/South African scholarship has blossomed since Mandela's release from prison.

There is so much I can't discuss for now. As a matter of fact, South African scholars, historians, and researchers are bringing out many of the revisionist lies Mandela told about Gandhi, Cecil Rhodes and several others.

This is another topic for another day!
Nana Yaw Osei 9 years ago

Congratulation! You have a viable knowledge or resources on Gandhi and South African history. The article wants to know the merits of destroying Gandhi's effigy on international University Campus like UG especially when the d ...
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Congratulation! You have a viable knowledge or resources on Gandhi and South African history. The article wants to know the merits of destroying Gandhi's effigy on international University Campus like UG especially when the dead Gandhi cannot be remorseful of his actions now. You must also try to utilize the rich resources at your disposal to present a balanced history rather than making frantic effort to sink the good image of Gandhi into oblivion. My research recommendation for you is Edmund Husserl's phenomenological bracketing. Your personal convictions on Gandhi is keeping you captive, Professor Kwarteng Francis. You need a phenomenological reduction in order to benefit from Gandhi. Gandhi's conundrum that great historians like Kwarteng must respond is this: how come many in the world idolize Gandhi? You are dealing with historical documents and distance and proximity must be a concern. Please, eschew one-sided history. Thanks for your feedback. I enjoy reading your articles as well.
Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

Thank you too Prof. Nana Yaw Osei.

Well points taken. Anyway I am also Yaw.

Finally, I apologize for some of my language.

I read through the one where I made a reference to high school but I thought I removed it.
...
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Thank you too Prof. Nana Yaw Osei.

Well points taken. Anyway I am also Yaw.

Finally, I apologize for some of my language.

I read through the one where I made a reference to high school but I thought I removed it.

There other comments I erased before finally posting the final draft but I am still wondering how that one escaped my attention.

In fact I had wanted to remove that and another comment about John Henrik Clarke. I did go back to the posted draft again because one commentator drew my attention to the "high school." But then I realized I had removed the comment on Clarke while the "high-school" thing remained.

Of course, there is no way I will tell a PhD candidate he or she has written a high school essay.

I deeply apologize for my arrogance.

Thanks.
Desi 9 years ago

How will you feel if hundred years down the line, people judge you as an "arrogant" person based on some e-mails you have sent now? People may not be aware of the apology that you have sent or may care to ignore it. They will ...
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How will you feel if hundred years down the line, people judge you as an "arrogant" person based on some e-mails you have sent now? People may not be aware of the apology that you have sent or may care to ignore it. They will write scholarly articles quoting chapter and verse of your "arrogance" and you may not be around to defend yourself. That is the position Gandhi is in now.
francis kwarteng 9 years ago

That will be fine with me!

My arrogance did not kill thousands of people and enslaved millions of people as Gandhi did!

Moreover, Gandhi did not apologize or even acknowledge his sins. He lied about them and, once aga ...
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That will be fine with me!

My arrogance did not kill thousands of people and enslaved millions of people as Gandhi did!

Moreover, Gandhi did not apologize or even acknowledge his sins. He lied about them and, once again, this conclusion comes from his own writings.

I have told you I have literally hundreds of writings on the subject matter (including all his writings) and do not know where to start from. Gandhi was a racist, a sexual pervert, and a liar!

You see the difference?

Most of the criticism of Gandhi comes from his own writings. This is an issue I will revisit in the future if time is on my side.

Have a great weekend Brother Nana Yaw Osei!
human being 9 years ago

he killed thousands, as though he was responsible for the colonisation of all your people. you r just plain i dont have a word to say! and parading yourself as an intellectual.. ohhhh

he killed thousands, as though he was responsible for the colonisation of all your people. you r just plain i dont have a word to say! and parading yourself as an intellectual.. ohhhh
Plasma Kote 9 years ago

Please read on the Theory Of Enlightened Ignorance first the RESEARCH the RACIAL COMMENTS made by Ghandi the decide on what to call him.

Please read on the Theory Of Enlightened Ignorance first the RESEARCH the RACIAL COMMENTS made by Ghandi the decide on what to call him.

Plasma Kote 9 years ago

Please do not participate in Collective Ignorance !!!!!!!.

Please do not participate in Collective Ignorance !!!!!!!.
Kwabenna Mensah 9 years ago

It is sad to see the pursuit on this forum to tear down greatness of people we have learnt to revere, not because of their physical attributes but, because we are inspired by the change their actions brought to our collectiv ...
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It is sad to see the pursuit on this forum to tear down greatness of people we have learnt to revere, not because of their physical attributes but, because we are inspired by the change their actions brought to our collective humanity.
When we look at the the actions of people through the lenses of our present reality, their actions are unacceptable. Given the conditions and the choices they had, if we put ourselves in their places we have have done the same exact thing. Why? because we would be ignorant of the consequences of our actions, which we in the context of history understand today. We take a cocoa beans and discard the pod, because we do not know the value or have not yet discovered it's value. Likewise, we need to let go of the sins of the past, because those people did not know better, but we do.
To clamor about the actions of leaders like Nkrumah, Rawlings, Gandhi and others is to forget that they were human beings who were enslaved by their conditions, but they freed themselves in order to free others. They sacrificed their ambitions and families in order to obtain the greater good. Gandhi may have been ignorant of his role in the human family, that we are all human beings, that there is no race or tribe save one, the human tribe, the human race. Must we condemn all the good that was harvested for humanity, as a result of his efforts. In a way it is the reiteration of his efforts that has brought us to this debate and acceptance of human rights and equality. Condemn him all you want you cannot steer the winds of change and progress with backward thinking and looking into the rear-view mirror all the time. You do not like racism, work for equality, start with Ghana, abolish tribalism, no tribe is more superior to others, yet why do we have this notion that the Ashantis are superior to the Gas or Ewe's are superior than the Fantis. How do you think history will guage your tribalism
Harmesh lakha 9 years ago

Indians may not like this towering figure being branded a racist. I can tell the world that Gandhi's projection as a peace loving and a pious man is ill founded. Whilst in South Africa he actively campaigned against the racis ...
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Indians may not like this towering figure being branded a racist. I can tell the world that Gandhi's projection as a peace loving and a pious man is ill founded. Whilst in South Africa he actively campaigned against the racist apartheid system
because he didn't like the Indians being subjected to racist laws. And yet when he went back to India he actually believed in the India's racist system, called the caste system...a system of graded social inequality based on once's birth. 'In India's Gujrati publications he vehemently defends the caste system. However, when he is interviewed by the western press reporters he talks of equality and down plays the caste system'. So says Dr Ambedkar, Chief architect of Indian Constitution. He was not only a racist but also a hypocrite. Dr Ambedkar, India's Martin Luther King and hero of the downtrodden untouchables communities, had a constant issues with Gandhi who opposed the untouchable getting separate electorate designed to politically empower them, because they had been oppressed for thousands of years by the system subscribed to by casteists such as Gandhi. All other governments should follow the Ghanian Government and remove this awful man's statutes and his symbols. He is over projected.... It is long overdue. Gandhi's statutes must fall everywhere.
Patriot 9 years ago

Have you seen any statue of blacks in Indian universities? Go and live in India and leave us alone. You will be treated worse than a Dalit, you foolish niggger.

Have you seen any statue of blacks in Indian universities? Go and live in India and leave us alone. You will be treated worse than a Dalit, you foolish niggger.
Nitin Mehta 9 years ago

Dear Sir
So some professors at the University of Ghana have succeeded in their campaign to remove the statue of Gandhi from the campus. They have accused him of being a racist and a apologist for the Caste system. Gandhi ins ...
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Dear Sir
So some professors at the University of Ghana have succeeded in their campaign to remove the statue of Gandhi from the campus. They have accused him of being a racist and a apologist for the Caste system. Gandhi inspired and motivated some of the greatest black leaders. Former South African ambassador to India, Harris Majeke said, ' While Nelson Mandela was the father of South African nation, Gandhi is our grandparent'. Mandela was greatly influenced by Gandhi. Gandhi even left his eldest son Manilal back in South Africa to continue the freedom struggle. Desmond Tutu credits the success of the truth and reconciliation committee to the influence of Gandhian thought. A potential deadly conflict was avoided between the different races of South Africa. Martin Luther King jnr. too was greatly influenced by Gandhi. Surely these leaders understood Gandhi better then the professors at Ghana University? By further accusing Gandhi of perpetuating the Caste system the professors have betrayed an altogether different agenda that has driven them to vilify Gandhi. No one has done more to right the wrongs of the Caste system. I would also like to pose a question to the professors. Have they acknowledged the role of Ghanaian's in selling tens of thousands of their own countrymen to the slave trade? Is there a word for this horror that was perpetuated?
Nitin Mehta

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The destruction of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue and prisoner’s dilemma.

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