Read Comments Comments (20)

• Kwamebeba 10 years ago

  Elmina Castle was built by the Portoguese.

  Elmina Castle was built by the Portoguese.

  reply
• Danny 10 years ago

  Baidoo has been caught.

  Baidoo has been caught.

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  I bet you're having fun. Lol. Thank you.

  I bet you're having fun. Lol. Thank you.

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Abeba, thanks for the correction it is an oversight. Thank you.

  Abeba, thanks for the correction it is an oversight. Thank you.

  reply
• Kwame Anane 10 years ago

  You wrote a good piece, but you made a booboo on the Elmina Castle.

  You wrote a good piece, but you made a booboo on the Elmina Castle.

  reply
• YAW 10 years ago

  Baidoo, can you understand why some of us think your "series" are of as much use as a soluble drainpipe? By telling us the Dutch rather than the Portuguese built Elmina Castle.
  
  Do you have any credible info to back up your ...
  read full comment

  Baidoo, can you understand why some of us think your "series" are of as much use as a soluble drainpipe? By telling us the Dutch rather than the Portuguese built Elmina Castle.
  
  Do you have any credible info to back up your claim that the Africans brought by the Dutch to America in 1619 were treated as indentured workers rather than sold as slaves?
  
  The precedent was set by the English long before 1619. Read it.
  
  
  
  In 1562, John Hawkins set out on a voyage that would mark the beginning of the English slave trade. Documents reveal that he left Plymouth with the purpose of capturing Africans along the Guinea Coast. The travel writer Richard Hakluyt (c.1552-1616) says that Hawkins 'got into his possession partly by the sworde and partly by other meanes to the number of 300 negroes'. In Sierra Leone, he took a ship laden with ivory, wax and 500 Africans.
  Hawkins, commanding the ship Salomon, then made the voyage from the Guinea coast to the West Indies. He arrived at the port of Monte Christi, in what is now the Dominican Republic, where they 'did deposit 125 slaves at 100 ducats each' (about £25-30 in present-day terms). The Africans were offered for sale to estate owners in the Americas, who required a constant supply of cheap labour for their sugar and tobacco plantations.
  
  
  
  News of the slave merchants' success spread and they soon attracted wealthy, powerful backers, and additional support from Queen Elizabeth. In 1564 the queen sponsored Hawkins by lending him her very own 700-ton vessel, Jesus of Lubeck. Now John Hawkins, Glossary - opens new windowfreeman of the city of Plymouth, left Plymouth specifically for the purpose of capturing Africans on the West African coast.
  Hawkins, in his own words, as noted by Hakluyt, 'profited by the sale of slaves' - so much so that he included a bound slave wearing a necklace and earrings on the crest of his coat of arms. His final voyage turned out to be a disaster for Hawkins, as he lost his ships and men to the Spanish. This event precipitated hostilities between England and Spain.

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Hello Yaw, you are writing as if I'm denying the triangular trade. All that I want to debunk is that it is stupidity to dwell on the past. Africans were not the only people that were enslaved in history. We can occupy our tho ...
  read full comment

  Hello Yaw, you are writing as if I'm denying the triangular trade. All that I want to debunk is that it is stupidity to dwell on the past. Africans were not the only people that were enslaved in history. We can occupy our thoughts on that till thy kingdom come and nothing will change. The only result is that we keep ourselves in poverty. We can also abandon Western mode of medicine because it is also an outgrowth capitalism. Not to mention our educational system, and jettison our means of communication, the English language, because it is the language of the capitalism and many more. Bitterness is our demise. Thank you.

  reply
• YAW 10 years ago

  You cannot debunk reality or something that those affected feels passionate about. You cannot denounce people like AL Sharpton when he sets about exposing American "white" police discrimination and outright brutality. Unlike ...
  read full comment

  You cannot debunk reality or something that those affected feels passionate about. You cannot denounce people like AL Sharpton when he sets about exposing American "white" police discrimination and outright brutality. Unlike you who came to Britain willingly, the Africans in the West Indies did not choose to be transported over there.
  Where is the fairness when Britain,France,Spain,Portugal etc willingly allows Poles,Lithuanians,Bulgarians etc to come and settle in their seemingly rich countries without let or hindrance when the descendants of those they dumped on volcanic islands like Montserrat are barred. Between 2007 to 2013 Poland alone received more than £56 billion to prop up its economy. Were they colonized? were they sold as slaves?
  If you have anything to debunk it should be the "sham" democracy that the US has been propagating since 1776 when they wrote those "hypocritical" words of equality with no intention of enforcing. They talk about dictators yet they gave their tacit support to Pinochet who killed 40000 Chileans "proved and verified" under their watch. Can you tell us how many people Nkrumah Killed? Once more, Russians,Koreans,Chinese may have practised slavery but they did not come to our shores to enslave Africans. Take Nasser of Egypt,IMF and the US govt refused him a loan to build the Aswan Dam. He goes to USSR and they decided to build it for him.All of a sudden he becomes a communist/enemy in the eyes of America. What sort of nonsense is that?

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Hello Yaw, who is denying your preamble? I haven't denied that, but dwelling on it is not helping the black American neither we in Africa. This is the line of reasoning that is keeping us poor. You are perishing of an ailment ...
  read full comment

  Hello Yaw, who is denying your preamble? I haven't denied that, but dwelling on it is not helping the black American neither we in Africa. This is the line of reasoning that is keeping us poor. You are perishing of an ailment and the only person with the cure to help you is a rogue so you are not going to accept it. That is fine; you die and that is the end of the story. How much billions was poured into Africa, and what did our leaders do with it? And you want them to keep throwing money into a leaking vessel.
  Those that were caught in the battle between East and West is unfortunate, like what happened in Chile. The Americans looked the other way while their bastard Mobutu raped his country, but it was their kind of bastard.
  And mind you I have not said Nkrumah killed anybody, what I am against is his socialist policies that wrecked the economy before he was booted out. Thank you.

  reply
• Amanfo 10 years ago

  Dear Sir Baidoo, slavery in any form as it may appear is pure wickedness and abnormality whether to make profit or to race ahead poverty. The Europeans and Americans main reason was unequivocally to make profit from the slave ...
  read full comment

  Dear Sir Baidoo, slavery in any form as it may appear is pure wickedness and abnormality whether to make profit or to race ahead poverty. The Europeans and Americans main reason was unequivocally to make profit from the slave business and the blacks were found to be workaholic. No justification whatever. Thank you

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Hello Mr Amanfo, I don't justify slavery in any form. There is no where in my write up that I have made such submission. I want us to move forward; bitterness is not productive. It can only sustain your life for the day of re ...
  read full comment

  Hello Mr Amanfo, I don't justify slavery in any form. There is no where in my write up that I have made such submission. I want us to move forward; bitterness is not productive. It can only sustain your life for the day of revenge, which I know will never happen. Besides, the British who championed this evil, but eventually stamped it out were also once sold on the auction block. History is full of ironies, and that is what I want people to know. The problem is humanity. The way we are able to subject those who are slightly different from us through the mill is what needs to be questioned. Just over 70 years ago the atrocities that the Japanese visited on the Koreans were unimaginable. The South Koreans moved on, and they now engage in vigorous trade with each other, which initially the Koreans were the biggest beneficiaries. Thank you.

  reply
• YAW 10 years ago

  Bear in mind, the same Janus-Faced America who went about overthrowing dictators they did not like also built up the infrastructure for South Korea under the dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee. Your main problem is that,you do n ...
  read full comment

  Bear in mind, the same Janus-Faced America who went about overthrowing dictators they did not like also built up the infrastructure for South Korea under the dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee. Your main problem is that,you do not cut both ways as Kwarteng and others do. You are so one-sided in your opinion that some of us find it hard to understand why you even bother to use paragraphs.

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Hello Yaw again, We make choices in life, if Nkrumah had also stick with America instead of trying to have it both ways we would have also been accorded the same treatment as South Korea by the Americans. Mind you I don't bel ...
  read full comment

  Hello Yaw again, We make choices in life, if Nkrumah had also stick with America instead of trying to have it both ways we would have also been accorded the same treatment as South Korea by the Americans. Mind you I don't believe in halfway ideas. You are either hot or cold; I hate look warm. Thank you.

  reply
• MARCUS AMPADU 10 years ago

  It really hurt to know that Africans who were brought to America were considered "uncultivated Barbarians from Africa".
  
  Since the beginning of the 16th century, Europeans had wondered aloud whether or not the African "spec ...
  read full comment

  It really hurt to know that Africans who were brought to America were considered "uncultivated Barbarians from Africa".
  
  Since the beginning of the 16th century, Europeans had wondered aloud whether or not the African "species of men", as they were commonly called could think, read or write.
  
  There are many white folks, especially, the white supremacists, who still believe this.
  
  And anytime they read such twaddling treatises from our kind, we confirm their sentiments, unfortunately.

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  And they are idiots to believe that, because it is only an imbecile who cannot use his brains who will interpret the above essay as such.

  And they are idiots to believe that, because it is only an imbecile who cannot use his brains who will interpret the above essay as such.

  reply
• Kwame Joe 10 years ago

  Unfortunately there are many Africans who are under the psychological spell of the Europeans and white Americans.

  Unfortunately there are many Africans who are under the psychological spell of the Europeans and white Americans.

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Hello Kwame, you just hate the truth. Thank you.

  Hello Kwame, you just hate the truth. Thank you.

  reply
• Abra Kuma 10 years ago

  Mr. Baidoo,
  
  Please explain why you believe it would be patronizing of you were you to write about the Transatlantic Slave Trade. You left the reader curious.
  
  Thanks

  Mr. Baidoo,
  
  Please explain why you believe it would be patronizing of you were you to write about the Transatlantic Slave Trade. You left the reader curious.
  
  Thanks

  reply
• Philip Kobina Baidoo 10 years ago

  Hello Kuma, don't you think it is patronising to tell you that one plus one is two? Every educated Ghanaian knows about the triangular trade and I don't think I have to educate any such person on the topic. That is what I mea ...
  read full comment

  Hello Kuma, don't you think it is patronising to tell you that one plus one is two? Every educated Ghanaian knows about the triangular trade and I don't think I have to educate any such person on the topic. That is what I mean by patronising. Thank you, I appreciate It.

  reply
• francis kwarteng 10 years ago

  There is more to the Triangular Trade than meets the eye, your eye in particular.

  There is more to the Triangular Trade than meets the eye, your eye in particular.

  reply