1. In ancient times, Africans in general were called Ethiopians.
2. In Medieval times, Africans in general were called Moors.
3. In Modern times, Africans in general are called Negroes.

Ethiopian means “burnt face”, ETHIO= burnt + face.  The Greeks attributed the dark complexion of these Africans to sunburn.

In European literature, Africans are identified into two groups:

1. Progressive:  which are the Hamites, Cushites, the Moors, etc. (see Definitions)
2. Backward:  which were called Negroes, which came from the Latin word “niger”, which means black.

Although Hamites, Cushites and Moors were also black, they’ve been conveniently “inducted’ into the “white race” because of their contribution to human civilization (see Definition of Caucasian).

The word “Negro” was manufactured during the Atlantic Slave Trade period.  It was the catchall name for all non-free Africans.  As an example, think of sardines.  There are many species of small fish in the ocean, but when they are put into cans, they are all called “sardines”.  Africans became “Negroes” when they were put into chains.  According American law, anyone with any African ancestry, however remote, is a “negro”.

Of course, evidence is overwhelming that the human race originated in Africa, so I guess that makes everyone in the world, Negroes.

A World History of Slavery

What is slavery?

            Definition: a person held in bondage to another.  The root word “slave” is derived from a national name, SLAV, which used to mean “glory” but was perverted to mean servitude when the Germanic barbarians supplied European slave markets with captured peoples of Slavic descent during the period after the fall of the Roman Empire. (Slavs are peoples who speak the Slavic language: Eastern Slavs are Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians; Southern Slavs are Serbs, Croats, Bulgars, etc; and Western Slavs are Czech, Poles Slovaks, etc.) 

            What is a slave?  A man or woman who is the property of another.

Property:  something owned (such as land, goods, money) that which a person has legal title.

            Legal Title: is when the owner has exclusive rights to possess, enjoy and dispose of his property.

            Chattel:  (used in connection with slavery)- capital or property, livestock (cattle), or a slave.

So what is slavery?  It is when a person (slave) is treated less than a person.  He, or she, is treated as a “thing” that can be bought, sold, hired out, exchanged, given as a gift or inherited.  The slave owner (in most cultures) have unlimited power over the slave and this power throughout history has always been used to compel the slave to work.

While a free laborer can stop working whenever he likes, a slave cannot.  The slave’s life is like a tool in the hands of his master.  The power of the master enables him to use that tool for his own purposes.  In the master’s eye, the slave has no will, no humanity, no sense of dignity and no personality.

The Effects of Slavery on: The Slave/ the Master

The effects of slavery on the slave are obvious.  Slavery denies a person from developing a sense of human dignity (the quality of being worthy of esteem or honor).  A person’s own sense of worth is the root of one’s morality, and when a person is enslaved, his self worth and eventually his morals are lost.

The effects on the master are less obvious.  The habit of domination (absolute control) over another person’s life tends to poison the humanity of the controller.  When a master’s whim controls every movement of his slave, the master’s power of self-control is weakened and eventually destroyed.  The master who recognizes no humanity in his slave loses it in himself.

The Common Denominators in Slavery throughout History:

The master always holds the right of complete ownership (control of the slave’s movements and labor).

In the eyes of the law and public opinion, the slave has no personality.  He is a tool (appendage) of the master.

Usually, the law does not recognize the male parent of the slave.  Children born from the union of a slave woman and a freeman are slaves as is their mother.

Who Were the Slaves in History?

            Practically every society in the world had been slaves to another society at sometime in history.  The institution of slavery was universal through much of history.  It was seemingly an essential part to the economic and social life of a community (society), and man’s conscience was seldom troubled by it.  Both master and slave looked upon it as inevitable.  People from all parts of the world were enslaved at one time or another.

In the Ancient Times: Europe, Asia, Africa, and countries all around the Mediterranean Sea area.

In Modern Times: Western Hemisphere, Africans (majority), Native Indians, and Europeans.

A slave might be any color: white, brown, yellow, or black.  Physical differences did not matter.  Pirates, warriors, and slave dealers were not concerned with the color of a person’s skin or the shape of his nose or the size of his lips, etc. when they captured someone.  In Ancient Greece and Rome there seems to have been no connection between race and slavery.  Captured whites and blacks were enslaved equally, and no one debated whether one race or the other was better suited to this condition, (although people from certain areas were thought to be better at certain tasks than others).  A slave’s social origins were just as diverse.  He could be from any class; a peasant, a king, illiterate and unskilled or a person of advanced professional or technical accomplishments.  Also, the work of the slave was as varied as his origins.

Source of this outline: SLAVERY: A World History, by Milton Meltzer; Da Capo Press, 1993

Definitions:

(Sources: Webster’s Dictionary; Microsoft Encarta; The Bible)

1. Semite– originated from Hebrew “Shem”…son of Noah (Genesis 7:13)

-A person regarded as descended from Shem.

-A member of any of the peoples speaking a Semitic language, including the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians, Phoenicians, etc. (note: All Jews are Semites, but not all semites are Jews!!…..Note that ARABS ARE SEMITIC PEOPLE also)

-A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and N Africa. Jew: a loose usage.

Semitic– (adj.) designating of or relating to the group of Semitic languages or cultures.

-(Noun) a major subfamily of the Afro Asiatic family of languages, which are usually, divided into Eastern Semitic (Akkadian), Northwestern Semitic (Canaanite, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc.), Central Semitic (Arabic), and Southwestern Semitic (South Arabic, Ethiopia) branches.

2. Hamite– a person regarded as descended from Ham…son of Noah (Genesis 7:13).

-A member of any of several usually dark-skinned Caucasoid peoples (??…you see how white historians twist history to give credit to whites??…What the hell is a ‘dark skinned Caucasoid’??) (See definition of Caucasian below) native of North and East Africa, including the Egyptians, Berbers, etc.

Hamitic– (adj.) an obsolete grouping within the Afro Asiatic language family, including the Berber, Cushitic, and Egyptian languages

Cushitic– (adj.) designating or of a group of languages spoken in Ethiopia and East Africa (Somalia), constituting a subfamily of the Afro Asiatic family of languages. (Afro Asiatic family- a large family of related languages spoken both in Asia and Africa…see below)

Indo- India or the East Indies 2) India and 3) Indo-European [Indo-Hittite]

Malay Archipelago; especially the islands of Indonesia. (Historical) India, Indochina (Burma, Laos Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia)

Hittite– any of an ancient people of Asia Minor and Syria (1700- 700B.C)

Asia Minor- large peninsula in West Asia, between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, including Asiatic Turkey west of an undefined line from the Gulf of Iskenderun to the Black Sea: Anatolia

The language of the Hittites, considered by most authorities to be associated with Indo-European.

Indo-Hittite– according to a recent theory, the language family comprising the Indo-European and Anatolian languages.  2) The hypothetical parent language from which the Indo-European and Hittite languages descended: most scholars now believe Hittite to be a branch of Indo-European

Indo-European– (adj.) designating or of a family of languages that includes most of those spoken in Europe and many spoken in Southwestern Asia and India. (Noun):  the Indo-European family of languages: its principal branches are Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Tocharian, Greek, Albanian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic: 2) the hypothetical language, reconstructed by modern linguists, from which these languages are thought to have descended.

Aryan– (adj.) [“noble” (used as tribal name to distinguish from indigenous races)] designating or of the Indo-European language family; 2) term for indo-Iranian; 3) of the Aryans. 4) in Nazi ideology, belonging to or characteristic of the supposed Aryan race (Noun): the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European family.  2) Person belonging to, or supposed to be a descendent of, the Pre-historic peoples who spoke this language: 3) in Nazi ideology, a Caucasian person of non-Semitic descent regarding as racially superior

            Aryan has no validity as an ethnological term, although it has been so used, notoriously and variously by the Nazis, to mean “a Caucasoid of non-Jewish descent, a “Nordic,” etc.

Indo-Aryan– a group of languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European language family, including Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and most of the other languages of North India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Afro-Asiatic Languages

Afro-Asiatic Languages, formerly known as Hamito-Semitic languages, principal language family of northern Africa and the Middle East, comprising about 250 languages. The Afro-Asiatic family has five branches, or subfamilies: Semitic, Berber, Egyptian, Cushitic, and Chadic. The Semitic languages include the Arabic language, the Hebrew language, and the Amharic language (the official language of Ethiopia), as well as ancient tongues such as the Assyro-Babylonian language, or Akkadian, the Aramaic language, and the Phoenician language. The Egyptian branch of Afro-Asiatic consists of the ancient Egyptian language, including its last phase, the Coptic language, which survived until about the 14th century. The Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family includes Tuareg and other languages of northern and northwestern Africa. Many Berber-speaking people also speak Arabic, and the Berber languages are written in the Arabic script. The Cushitic languages are spoken mostly in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. They include Orominga (spoken in Kenya and southern Ethiopia), which is written in the Ethiopic script, and Somali, written in the Latin alphabet. The Chadic languages are spoken in central and West Africa. The most important of these languages is Hausa, native to northern Nigeria and neighboring areas, but also serving as a regional lingua franca for millions of nonnative speakers. Traditionally written in the Arabic script, Hausa began to be written in the Latin alphabet during the 20th century.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Indo-European Languages

Indo-European Languages, the most widely spoken family of languages in the world, containing the following subfamilies: Albanian, Armenian, Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including the Romance languages), Slavic, and two extinct subfamilies, Anatolian (including Hittite) and Tocharian. About 1.6 billion people speak Indo-European languages today.

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Definitions of Caucasoid, Negroid and, Mongoloid (source: Webster’s Dictionary)

Caucasoid– (adj.) from the erroneous notion that the original home of the hypothetical Indo-Europeans was the Caucasus…the Caucasus is a region in Southeast European Russia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.  Caucasoid is a designating or of one of the major geographical varieties of human being, including peoples of Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, etc., who are generally characterized by tall stature, straight or wavy hair, etc: loosely called the white race although it embraces many peoples of dark skin color. (Uh, since when?); (noun) a member of the Caucasoid population.

Caucasian– (adj.) of the Caucasus, its people, or their culture.  2) Caucasoid 3) designating or of the two independent families of languages spoken in the area of the Caucasus:  North Caucasian includes Circassian (Northwest Caucasus), and South Caucasian includes Georgian area.  (noun) native of the Caucasus.  2) Caucasoid; 3) the Caucasian languages; Circassian, Georgian, etc.

Negroid– (adj.) designating or of one of the major traditional geographic groupings of human beings, including the majority of peoples of Africa, and peoples of Melanesia, New Guinea, etc, who are generally characterized by a dark skin, very curly hair, etc:  loosely called the Black race.  (noun) a member of the Negroid population.

Negro– (Spanish/ Portuguese) [negro, black, black person> niger, black].  A member of any indigenous, dark-skinned peoples of Africa, living chiefly south of the Sahara, or a person having some African ancestors; a black.  (adj.) designating or of Negroes.  Melanesia- [in reference to the dark skin of the inhabitants] one of the three major divisions of the Pacific Islands, south of the equator and including groups form the Bismarck Archipelago to the Fiji Islands.

Nigger– (noun) Negro.  USAGE- originally simply a dialectal variant of Negro, the term nigger is today acceptable only in black English; in all other contexts it is now generally regarded as virtually taboo because of the legacy of racial hatred that underlies the history of its use among whites, and its continuing use among a minority as a viciously hostile epithet.

Mongoloid– (adj.) designating or of one of the major geographical varieties of human beings, including most of the peoples of Asia, the Eskimos, the North American Indians, etc., who are generally characterized by straight black hair, dark eyes with epicanthic folds, and relatively small structure.