Tag: Slavery
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The Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to obscene profits
Today we confront a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS of epic proportions! The so-called “minimum wage” has become a MAXIMUM INSULT to the dignity of American workers. And don’t even get me started on the FESTERING WOUND of modern slavery that continues to infect our great nation. It’s time to lance this boil and cauterize it with the…
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We’re not just tough on crime, we’re addicted to it
The 1980s and 1990s were a golden era for those who believe that the path to a just society is paved with prison cells and cheap labor. Let us embark on a journey through this misguided epoch, where the so-called “tough on crime” policies collided spectacularly with the age-old American tradition of exploiting captive labor.…
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One ‘n’ short of a unicorn
Welcome to the circus of UNICOR, where the government plays ringmaster and inmates are the unwilling performers! Picture this: It’s 1934, the Great Depression is in full swing, and FDR decides, “Hey, why not solve unemployment by enslaving prisoners?” And voila! Federal Prison Industries is born, later rebranding as UNICOR because nothing says “we’re totally…
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Reconstructing slavery again and again
The red flags indicate red flags. Any serious movement to abolish slavery must stand firm in its conviction that there can be no compromise when it comes to human freedom. All forms of slavery and involuntary servitude must be eradicated without exception. Throughout history, attempts to abolish slavery have been undermined by loopholes, exceptions, and…
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Human Branding
As with livestock, a mark burned into the skin for identification purposes. Human branding comes up routinely in slavery and crime and punishment so we will make some notes.
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Atlantes (architecture)
In European architectural sculpture, an atlas (also known as an atlant, or atlante or atlantid; plural atlantes) is a support sculpted in the form of a man, which may take the place of a column, a pier or a pilaster. The Roman term for such a sculptural support is telamon (plural telamones or telamons). The term atlantes is the Greek plural of the name Atlas—the Titan who was forced to hold the sky on his…
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Orphan Train Movement
The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating about 200,000 children.[1] The co-founders of the Orphan Train movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or…
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Home Children
Home Children was the child migration scheme founded by Annie MacPherson in 1869, under which more than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The programme was largely discontinued in the 1930s, but not entirely terminated until the 1970s. Later research, beginning in the 1980s, exposed abuse and hardships of the…
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Transportation
Penal transportation or transportation was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies became their destination. While the prisoners may have been released once the sentences were served, they generally did not have the resources to return home. Origin and implementation Banishment or forced exile from a polity or…
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Slavery in ancient Greece
Slavery was an accepted practice in ancient Greece, as in other societies of the time. Some Ancient Greek writers (including, most notably, Aristotle) described slavery as natural and even necessary.[2] This paradigm was notably questioned in Socratic dialogues; the Stoics produced the first recorded condemnation of slavery.[3] The principal use of slaves was in agriculture, but they were also used in stone…
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The mental illness where former slaves say get off my lawn
Picture this: It’s 1851, and Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, fresh off his groundbreaking discovery of drapetomania, has stumbled upon another “totally legit” medical condition. Behold, Dysaesthesia aethiopica – the malady that explains why those pesky slaves just won’t work hard enough! Cartwright, armed with his medical degree and a PhD in creative oppression, described this…
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the mental illness of refusing to submit to slavery
In the annals of medical history, there are few tales as delightfully absurd as drapetomania, the “mental illness” that made running away from slavery a diagnosable condition. Because, you know, wanting to escape a life of forced labor and brutal oppression is clearly a sign of insanity… or so thought Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright in…
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Samuel Adolphus Cartwright (“the most prominent physician, surgeon, and medical scientist in antebellum Mississippi”)
Samuel Adolphus Cartwright (November 3, 1793 – May 2, 1863) was an American physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States. Cartwright is best known as the inventor of the ‘mental illness’ of drapetomania, the desire of a slave for freedom, and an outspoken critic of germ theory.[1][2] Biography Cartwright married Mary Wren of Natchez, Mississippi, in 1825.[3] During the American Civil…
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Cochineal
The cochineal (Dactylopius coccus) is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America through North America (Mexico and the Southwest United States), this insect lives on cacti in the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and nutrients. The insects are found on the pads of prickly pear cacti, collected by brushing them off…
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Polish Cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica)
Polish cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica), also known as Polish carmine scales, is a scale insect formerly used to produce a crimson dye of the same name, colloquially known as “Saint John’s blood”. The larvae of P. polonica are sessile parasites living on the roots of various herbs—especially those of the perennial knawel—growing on the sandy soils of Central Europe and other parts of Eurasia. Before the development of aniline, alizarin, and other synthetic dyes, the insect was…
