Black Power

by Richard Wright

  There existed a widespread system of kidnaping men, women, and children and spiriting them aboard ships bound for the colonies of the New World. England’s feudal laws recognized three hundred capital crimes, and an Englishman could be hanged for picking a pocket of more than three shillings. Guided more by a sharp eye for the needs of the colonies than by humanitarian motives, many Englishmen, from 1664 to 1667, prayed for transportation to the colonies instead of death for those who stole more than four shillings’ worth of goods, a silver spoon, or a gold watch. So vast and steady was the spawn that Newgate and Bridewell dumped upon the shores of the New World, especially in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, etc., that even Benjamin Franklin protested.

  But whence the ascendancy of Liverpool in this trade? With Spain and Portugal advancing conflicting claims to the newly discovered territories, the Pope stepped in, in 1493, and issued a series of papal bulls which gave the East to Portugal and the West to Spain. But the always protesting Anglo-Saxons were in no mood to recognize the right of even a Pope to divide up the world as he wished, and the English, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Germans, and finally even the French would accept no such papal edicts as binding. Every son of Adam felt he had a God-given right to share in the human loot—and share he did.

  Slavery was not put into practice because of racial theories; racial theories sprang up in the wake of slavery, to justify it. It was impossible to milk the limited population of Europe of enough convicts and indentured white servants to cultivate, on a large and paying scale, colonial sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations. Either they had to find a labor force or abandon the colonies, and Europe’s eyes turned to Africa where the supply of human beings seemed inexhaustible. So the process of stealing or buying Africans to work the lands bought or stolen from the Indians got under way….

  If the Europeans were cruel to the infidel Africans, they were not much less cruel to their own Christian brothers. The African simply inherited a position already occupied by indentured white servants and criminals, and the nightmare called the Middle Passage—the voyage from Africa to the West Indies or America—had long been made by declassed Anglo-Saxons from England to America, and they’d been packed like herring in the holds of ships…. The tenure of the indentured servant was limited; for the African, this limitation was waived and he was bound for life. But, when the indentured white servant was eventually freed and settled on his own land, he found his lot doomed by the ever-increasing hordes of African slaves whose output reduced the conditions of his life to that of a debased class whose aims were feared by the slave-owning aristocracy. The plantation owners and the moneyed men of the mother country regarded these newly freed whites as constituting a threat in two directions: they didn’t want those poor whites to advance claims for democratic rights which no colonial society could possibly tolerate; and the budding manufacturing interests of England feared that the rootless whites would turn to manufacturing and become their competitors. Thanks to slavery, the poor whites of the New World were retarded for more than two centuries in their efforts to gain political and social recognition, and it was not until the Civil War in America abolished slavery, thereby enthroning industrial production as the new way of life, that it could be said that the New World had had any real need of poor white people at all….

  The kidnaping of poor whites, developed in England, had but to be extended to the African shoreline and the experience gained in subjugating the poor whites served admirably for the taming of the tribal blacks. A hungry cry for sugar rose from all Europe, and blacks were siphoned from Africa to grow the cane. The colonial plantation became an economic and political institution that augmented wealth and power for a few aristocrats, spread misery for countless blacks, and imperiled the democratic hopes of millions of whites.

  Eric Williams reports in his Capitalism and Slavery that the Stuart monarchy entrusted the slave trade to the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa, and these gentlemen, in 1663, incorporated themselves for a period of one thousand years! Hitler’s clumsy dreams were picayune when compared with the sanguine vision of these early English Christian gentlemen…. The African trading companies were regarded not only as commercial enterprises, but as training schools for all those who wished to deal in slaves and African matters. The scheme, bold in scope and daring in design, enabled the English to establish a monopoly to steal or buy slaves from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope, unload British-manufactured goods in Africa, sell the slaves to the planters in the West Indies or America; they then would load their empty ships with plantation produce to keep the growing mills of England busy. It was foolproof; you couldn’t lose…. The human bodies involved in this circular trade were incidental; it was just trade…. Of course, the colonial planters complained of the quality of the goods and the prices exacted by the English, just as the Africans complain today, but what could they do?

  In 1698, however, this monopoly was broken and the right of free trade in slaves was equated to the natural rights of all Englishmen, and the English not only stocked their own colonial plantations with slaves but managed to supply black human beings to their imperialist rivals as well.

  But Liverpool…? Though London and Bristol exceeded Liverpool in importance as a slave port in 1755, Liverpool quickly forged ahead and, between 1783 and 1793, 878 Liverpool ships carried 303,737 slaves whose sterling value has been estimated as being over fifteen million pounds. This trade was a sky-dropped bonanza to the English, for it was conducted in terms of exchanging English manufactured goods for slaves whose sale in the West Indies and America supplied England with raw materials. English bullion had not to be touched to keep this vast circular movement going. Until 1783 the whole of English society, the monarchy, church, state, and press backed and defended this trade in slaves.

  Out of the welter of this activity English mercantile ideas and practices grew up; a classic concept of a colony emerged and has endured more or less until this day: colonies are areas to be kept economically disciplined and dependent upon the mother country. Colonists were obliged to ship their produce to England in English bottoms, and they could buy no goods but English goods unless those goods had first been shipped to England. A colony, therefore, became a vast geographical prison whose inmates were presumably sentenced for all time to suffer the exploitation of their human, agricultural, and mineral resources. Then, as well as now, no native industry was tolerated; everything from sugar to shoes was shipped from the mother country, taxed by colony customs; and, after it had passed through many hands, it was sold to the native to enable him to enjoy the blessings of Christendom.

  Once slavery had become a vested interest in Liverpool, its importance stretched far beyond the mere buying and selling of slaves. Britain’s merchant navy was nursed and reared in the slave trade; her seamen were trained in it; shipbuilding in England was stimulated by this trade in flesh…. And Liverpool itself flourished. Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery relates that: “In 1565 Liverpool had 138 householders, seven streets only were inhabited, the port’s merchant marine amounted to twelve ships of 223 tons. Until the end of the 17th Century the only local event of importance was the sieging of the town during the English Civil War. In collecting ship money Strafford assessed Liverpool at fifteen pounds; Bristol paid two thousand. The shipping entering Liverpool increased four and one half times between 1709 and 1771; the outward tonnage six and a half times. The number of ships owned by the port multiplied four times during the same period, the tonnage and sailors over six times. Customs receipts soared from an average of £51,000 for the years 1757 to £648,000 in 1785…”

  In 1790 the abolition of the slave trade would have ruined Liverpool; her estimated loss from abolition was then computed at over seven and a half million pounds. Profits from the slave trade built Liverpool docks; the foundations of the city were built of human flesh and blood….

  Yet, how calm, innocent, how staid Liverpool looked in the June sunshine! What massive and sol
idly built buildings! From my train window I could catch glimpses of a few church spires punctuating the horizon. Along the sidewalks men and women moved unhurriedly. Did they ever think of their city’s history? I recalled once having asked a lower-class Englishwoman what she thought of the colonies, and she had sucked in her breath and had told me:

  “I’m sorry, but they’ll have to go it on their own. We’ve bled ourselves white to feed them, to lift them up; now they’ve got to stand on their own feet. We’ve had enough of carrying them on our shoulders.”

  I went through immigration, customs; I was the only American on board. Despite the sunny sky, it was cold. I stood on deck and stared at the city. What a drably respectable face on this city that had had such a past….

  At five o’clock I heard a long, dull blast and felt the ship easing out to sea, heading, as thousands of English ships before her, toward African waters…. In those days those ships had carried cotton and linen goods, silks, coarse blue and red woolen cloths for togas, guns, powder, shot, sabers, iron and lead bars, hardware of all kinds, copper kettles, glittering beads, masses of cheap ornaments, whiskey, and tobacco. The cargo in the hold was not terribly different even today. Only this time there were no handcuffs, chains, fetters, whips….

  The dogged English had lost thousands of men, as seamen and soldiers, seeking gold and slaves in the hot climate of West Africa, and yet they’d kept sending their boys. Was it imagination or lack of it? Now that mercantilism was dead and industrialization was the cock of the walk, what would the English do with their colonies? What would they do with a surplus of 20,000,000 too many Englishmen reared on the easy profits of selling manufactured goods to backward peoples? Even Argentina today was industrializing herself and had but little need for English goods. The art of manufacture was no longer a secret, and machines had a nigger-loving way of letting even black hands operate them. Africans were talking boldly of hydroelectric plants and the making of aluminum…. True, the British could help technically in all of this, but British aid was timed by the capacity of Africans to absorb techniques which the world today knew could be mastered by anybody….

  Three

  Next morning a steward seated me at a table at which sat a tall, slightly bald African. We exchanged greetings and he introduced himself as Justice Thomas of the Nigerian Supreme Court.

  “You’re American?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “First trip to Africa?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, my grandfather was a slave in the West Indies,” he told me. “He’d been stolen from Africa and sold. He managed to make his way back to Africa and he settled in Freetown. He was a Christian and gave his children an education.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said.

  “My ideas are Left,” he told me and waited.

  That sounded strange to me. If you are a Leftist, you act it, you don’t talk it. And I knew that I’d been farther Left than he’d ever dream of going. I nodded and waited.

  “I believe in doing things for the masses, but it must be done with dignity,” he told me. “I’m pro-British and pro-African. I’m for the United States.”

  “Uh hunh,” I said and waited.

  “You’re going to the Gold Coast?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think of Nkrumah?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know. I’m going down to find out,” I said.

  He launched into a description of one of his most recent cases; it seemed that he had presided at a trial of nineteen men and that he had sentenced them to long prison terms.

  “Who were these men and what had they done?” I asked.

  “They were Africans and they’d engaged in violent actions against the government,” he told me. “By the way, what do you do?”

  “I write,” I said.

  “What do you know about Communism?” he asked me.

  “I was a member of the Communist Party of the United States for twelve years,” I told him.

  He blinked, sighed, and shook his head.

  “Are you a Communist now?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I embraced Communism because I felt it was an instrumentality to help free the Negroes in America,” I explained to him. “But, in time, I found that instrumentality degrading. I dropped it of my own accord. I was not driven out; I was not frightened out of Communism by American government agents. I left under my own steam. I was prompted to leave by my love of freedom. My attitude toward Communism is a matter of public record.”

  As breakfast ended, he hauled from his pockets several bottles of garlic tablets, yeast pills, and vitamin capsules; he was an ardent follower of Gayelord Hauser, blackstrap molasses and all. He continued to talk ramblingly, leaping from subject to subject. I listened.

  “That Nkrumah’s done a great job,” he told me. “I know his secret. He embraced the masses. One neglects the masses at one’s peril…. What do you think?”

  “Embracing the masses seems to be a habit with politicians today,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t mind if I asked that you be assigned to my table, would you?” he asked me.

  “Not at all,” I said. “It’d be a pleasure.”

  After breakfast I sat on the cold deck, mulling over Justice Thomas as the ship rolled gently through a wind-swept, leaden sea. I’d been told that we’d not find any warm weather for three days. The deck was quiet; the ship seemed to be settling down for a long run. The passengers were restrained, English, and so was the food.

  At lunch, after we had greeted each other, Justice Thomas proclaimed:

  “You see, we Freetowners have been in contact with Europe for a long time. We are called Creoles. It’s from us that the English draw their best African leaders, teachers, doctors, lawyers. If we didn’t have the help of the English, we’d be swamped by the natives in Sierra Leone. We in the Colony are but a handful, about 100,000, and the tribal people number almost 2,000,000. Against such numbers, we few literates rule by prescriptive right. It’s not democratic; we don’t pretend it is. What happened in the Gold Coast will never happen in Sierra Leone. No, sir! No tribal rabble will sweep us out of our positions!”

  “Look, just what do you think of the tribal Africans?” I asked him.

  “I like to live well,” he said, grinning and looking at me frankly. “I love good food, good whiskey…. These natives running naked in the bush—” His nostrils wrinkled in disgust. “You don’t know Africa.” He lifted his right hand and cupped it to my ear and whispered: “There are men in Nigeria who still enjoy human flesh—”

  “Cannibals?” I asked.

  “God, yes,” he assured me solemnly. “They are not ready for freedom yet. This business of having five and six wives…It’s barbarous. I chose one wife and I stick to her. I can support more than one, but I want only one. I could have followed my people’s customs, but I wanted to rise out of the mire. The British did not make me a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria because they liked my black skin. They did it because of what I’ve got up here….” He tapped his balding skull. “When Thomas sits on a case, the British know that it’s useless to appeal against it. When a man appeals against a decision of mine, the British ask: ‘Who tried that case?’ If the answer is: ‘Thomas,’ the British will say: ‘The decision is sound, for Thomas is a sound man.’” He laughed with self-satisfaction. “I know my English law. The British are hard but fair, and they trust me.”

  “Do you ever think of developing your country?” I asked him.

  “No; my talent doesn’t run in that direction,” he said.

  “What professions will your children follow?”

  “Law and medicine,” he said promptly.

  “Suppose your son wanted to be a mining engineer….”

  “That would be difficult,” he admitted.

  “That’s why we drove the English out of America,” I told him. “Mr. Justice, it all depends upon how free you want to be.
I’m neither anti-nor pro-British, but if I lived under British rule and wanted to develop and exercise my natural and acquired powers and the British said no, I’d be anti-British. Tell me, do you believe that the American colonies were right in taking their independence?”

  He grinned at me.

  “It’s not the same thing,” he said. “We are different. These boys in Africa want to go too fast. You and I have been in touch with the Western world for two, three hundred years—”

  “Say, you know, if you were not black, I’d say that you were an Englishman. In fact, you are more English than many English I’ve met,” I told him.

  Reactions flickered across his face; then he decided to laugh.

  “I am English,” he said.

  “But you cannot live like the English,” I reminded him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have the British constitution in Sierra Leone?”

  “No; but—”

  “Why not?”

  “They are not ready!”

  “What do you call ready? Are people civilized and ready to govern themselves when they become so desperate that they put a knife at the throat of their rulers? Must the native rulers of all of Britain’s colonies be graduates from prisons?”

  He rubbed his chin and grinned at me. “But it mustn’t go too fast,” he mumbled stubbornly.