Native Drums
Explore the powerful symbolism of drums in African American culture, once tools of communication and resistance during the darkest times of slavery. We confront the lingering shadows of economic exploitation and the pervasive influence of media and religion in controlling black narratives. Let’s reexamine the role of the black church and its mission to fight systemic injustices, urging a return to prophetic ministries that prioritize humanity and community over material wealth. This podcast episode is not just a reflection of the past but a call to action for the future, urging us to build a more just and liberated world.
Native Drums
The Chosen People Five Times Removed
Could Africa's rich history have been overshadowed by misconceptions? Join us as Dr. Harry Singleton from the University of South Carolina challenges the outdated myth of Africa as a "Dark Continent" and sheds light on its remarkable civilizations in regions like Libya, Mali, and present-day Ghana. Discover the truth behind the transatlantic slave trade and learn why West Africans were not the first choice for enslavement by European traders. This episode also tackles another historical misconception: the so-called "discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus, when indigenous peoples had already established their presence long before. Through examining these narratives, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of the complex forces that have shaped our world.
In "Native Drums," Dr. Singleton skillfully unravels the brutal realities of the Atlantic Slave Trade, emphasizing the harrowing conditions endured by enslaved Africans during their forced journey across the ocean. Explore the reasons why West Africans were targeted, from their immunity to certain diseases to the exploitation of their artisanal skills by European planters. Unearth the struggles faced by European colonists in enslaving Native Caribbeans and Native Americans, and understand the cultural and physical barriers that made these groups less suitable for enslavement. The episode paints a vivid picture of the past, aiming to redefine the narrative and expose the economic motivations that fueled such inhumane practices.
Hello everyone and welcome to this six segment podcast sponsored by Savannah Grove Baptist Church and its pastor, ralph Canty. I am Dr Harry Singleton. I teach in both the African American Studies and Religious Studies departments at the University of South Carolina, and this podcast is a brainchild of Dr Canty, who thought that black people always needed to know their history, but even more so during this day and time where there is an attack on black history even the federal attempt to remove black history as a federal observance that it becomes imperative that black people know their history. And, of course, as a religious leader and as a pastor, he thought it was imperative that pastors lead in this effort for African Americans to learn their history in their communities, even beyond academe and academic settings. And so I will be with you for the six segments that I hope you find informative and enlightening as we move forward with this podcast Native Drums that I'm proud of and I hope that you will be proud of as well.
Speaker 1:I want to dispel some myths in this first segment about African humanity and how European settlers have depicted African humanity throughout the centuries civilization that it possessed no civilization and was given the negative moniker, the Dark Continent, by particularly Dutch and Portuguese explorers. But what we're going to see is that Africa was well developed, and that's one of the reasons why West Africans are going to be chosen for the slave trade once European settlers begin to conceive the idea that creating the demand for cheap labor so that they can make maximum profits became operative in European life. And so you're going to see that not only was Africa not a dark continent, but you're also going to see that it was a continent of skilled artisans, particularly in North Africa. As we move through Libya, mali, present-day Egypt and, of course, down into Senegal and into what is present-day Ghana, you're going to see Africa flourish and, of course, commercially. That was one of the reasons why Africa became such a prime destination for European settlers looking to increase Europe's financial wealth. As we begin this segment tonight, one of the things you may not know is that we were not the first people chosen for the slave trade, that we were actually the fifth person, and so I titled this lecture the Chosen People Five Times Removed, namely because we were the fifth selection, which doesn't come out in many history books, that we were not selected primarily, but we were actually the fifth choice, and so, as we move through, we're going to see also, too, why Africa was chosen for the European slave trade.
Speaker 1:One of the things that's also a misnomer is that Christopher Columbus discovered America or the Americas. He could not have discovered it because people of color were already here. Number one and number two, of course, native Americans are in present-day United States of America. And so Christopher Columbus discovered an opportunity for European expansion, but he did not discover the Americas, as the Native Americans were already here. And so as the European discovery of the New World, particularly in the West Indies and America, emerged, world, particularly in the West Indies and America, emerged, it leads to the confiscation of land from the natives, namely those West Indians and Native Americans in America, and confiscating their lands, deciding to lay the foundation for the European slave trade and the European psychical trauma of both Native Americans and African Americans. More so than what European traders also discovered is that the Americas and what we call the present-day Caribbean West Indies, was ripe for growing crops and for European colonial expansion, particularly in terms of growing crops and for European colonial expansion, particularly in terms of growing crops. Very hard to grow them in Europe, where it was cloudy a lot, rainy a lot and not the best fertile soil with which to and fertile atmosphere with which to grow crops, and so the West Indies in America became a literal breeding ground for European colonial expansion as we move into the 17th century. And the land was ripe for the development of precious crops that were becoming more and more profitable on the international market.
Speaker 1:We see the emergence of cotton. Of course, cotton is needed to make clothes, cotton is used for medicinal purposes as well, and so, because of the multivalent uses of cotton, it was a prime crop. Sugarcane also became a prime crop, namely for the production of molasses of syrup. And of course you needed very strong laborers to till sugarcane, namely because sugarcane is hard to cultivate, you have to chop it continuously and you also have to make sure that you are extracting the pure essence from it as you broke it down into its bare essence. Rice along the South Carolina coast in particular, where I grew up and I remember growing up we had rice every night for dinner and growing up in Horry County, conway, south Carolina, same thing in Georgetown, charleston, south Carolina as well, of course. Of course you need water to grow rice. And of course, tobacco. Tobacco became a favorite use for smoking and for chewing later, as tobacco was preferred by European traders, and so it created the demand for cheap labor To have laborers come in and grow these crops and bring them to harvest so that they could be used by European traders to sell on the international market and make a profit.
Speaker 1:And so, as we move to which particular group would become that cheap labor, the quest for the ideal slave community, not only in terms of physical labor but in terms of acquiescence with the slave trade as well, and, of course, trial one. The first people that European colonialists decided to try enslaving in that demand for cheap labor was your, probably your obvious pick the native caribbeans in the caribbean islands and the native americans here in america. That makes the most amount of sense, logically, in the sense that they were already here, and so the attempt to enslave both of these groups in their native lands. Um period of over five decades, about 1600 to 1654, we see the attempt to try to enslave and, of course, create cheap labor among native caribs in the caribbean islands and native americans in what we call america today. They did not pass the test, fortunately for them, namely because neither one was tested to working excessive hours. Secondly, both of the groups were not immune to European diseases, particularly like chickenpox and like influenza. Neither group could stand a general mistreatment. There was rebellion every step of the way and even mutiny in some instances. And of course, in light of this going on for over five decades, many Native Caribs and Native Americans decided to commit suicide rather than continue to live life in bondage. And we're going to see that with the West African slave trade as well. And so in both instances Native Caribs and Native Americans these four particular deficiencies lead to deficit in population growth. And so what you want to do when you're growing cheap labor is that you want to grow the market. You don't want to shrink the market in terms of the number of laborers, but because of the suicides and less children being had, naturally it led to a deficit in population growth, and so European colonizers had to come off both native Caribs and Native Americans to select for bondage.
Speaker 1:Trial two they decided to go back to Europe and began the painstaking process of importing laborers, and they began in trial two with Irish and English indentured servants from about 1654 to 1690. 54 to 1690. So for about three and a half, four decades we see Irish and English indentured servants being selected and tried to be broken in for the slave trade, and we see in trial three, irish and English kidnapped children and in trial for Irish and English political prisoners and religious dissidents. Irish and English political prisoners and religious dissidents those who were not altogether down with Protestant Christianity as it had become to be known, were actually jailed for their so-called heretical views and as a result of that they were Trial Four. And so Trials Two, trials Three and Trial Four, irish and English indentured servants, irish and English kidnapped children and Irish and English political prisoners, religious dissidents all failed because each of them were unsuited for labor and the tropical humid climate that comes to characterize not only the southern part of what we now know as the United States, now humid summers, but also in the Caribbean islands as well. And so, as a result of that, none of the three of these categories the trial, the second trial, third trial and fourth trial were successful in having them acclimate fully to life as slaves.
Speaker 1:And so that brings us to trial five and trial five. Of course, since Irish and English people were unsuited for the tropical humid climate, they decided to try to find a people who are, who was more akin to the tropical and human and humid climate, and of course that would be West Africa. And of course West Africa has a geographical strategy to it as well. A geographical strategy to it as well. Strategically, of course, when you leave West Africa it's a straight shot in the Gulf of Ghanaia, as we call it, and then into the Atlantic Ocean, over to the Americas and to the Caribbean islands. And so Trial 5 ends up being West Africans from 1650 to approximately 1850, for 200 years. Even as we move toward the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 and the end of slavery as we knew it in 1865 with the passing of the 13th Amendment, even as late as 1850, even though it was outlawed in America in the early 1700s that even as late as 1850, ships of slaves were still coming in in the middle of the night trying to escape prosecution. And so trial five becomes our ancestors or West Africa. And of course there are five major reasons why we were chosen.
Speaker 1:Slavery and servitude existed in Africa, number one. But it was not the chattel slavery that we were coming into. It was more of a servant worker system. And it was. You were considered a servant, you were not considered a slave and certainly your human rights and dignity were not taken away from you and your civil rights taken away from you. In fact, if you were the servant of a king in Africa, he would consider it an honor for you to marry his daughter. That would not be the case of what we encountered with chattel, racial slavery. The second reason why West Africans were more suitable is because of the humid climate in Africa, particularly along Africa's west coast, which of course was compatible with the humidity in the southern United States and in the Caribbean islands.
Speaker 1:Back to the stereotype, because, as Lerone Bennett said, he who controls images controls minds. So it's not only the intent to enslave us but to control us mentally, so that they might be better able to control us physically. And so an industrious people we were in Africa. And of course we were inventors and creators and we were sustainers. We sustained civilization, we sustaineders, we sustained civilization, we sustained families, we sustained commerce, we sustained trade. And that was one of the reasons why West Africans were such an attractive people to bring into bondage, namely because of their knowledge of trade and commerce and productivity, not because of the opposite in the way that we have been portrayed by white political and religious leaders, who called us jungle bunnies and said when they found us in Africa, they found us running around with bones in our noses and swinging on vines. That is not the case, it has never been the case and it is the biggest theological and political and social lie in American history. But the intent was to make Africans feel inferior and create a complete sense of dependence on whites and slaveholders for the exigencies of life, and we'll talk about that more in the next segment.
Speaker 1:The fourth reason why West Africans were more suitable than the previous four groups of people, more immune to European diseases, that West Africans tend not to be immune to influenza, in particular chickenpox, like Europeans are and, of course, like Native Americans and Native Caribs were, and so that actually worked to our disadvantage to not be immune to European diseases more so than Native Americans and native caribs. And of course, the fifth reason West Africa was closer to Europe geographically. European slave traders Dutch, portuguese, english, french, irish slave traders can just take a northerly trip, trek down to West Africa from Western Europe and, of course, be able to acquire slaves as they move from the South down into West Africa, over to the Western shores in America and the Caribbean islands. And so these are the major five reasons why African-Americans ended up being more suitable for the slave trade than the previous four. And so we were the fifth selection by European planters, not the first.
Speaker 1:And, as I said, the real reasons why? Is not because they were trying to save us from a non-civilized society, but because we did come from a developed society, and all over Africa was developed. Even though European men could not understand the cultural expressions and the dance expressions of Africa the drum in Africa, expressions of Africa, the drum in Africa they did see a well-developed society and because of that knowledge knew that they could exploit it to bring their crops to harvest. And, of course, the other reason is because Africans were skilled artisans. We knew the art of the kill, we knew how to prime food, we knew how to prep food, we knew how to do all of the exigencies of life that were needed in order to live robust, meaningful and purposive lives. And that is the main reason why Africans were chosen for the slave trade because they came from developed societies, not undeveloped societies.
Speaker 1:And so the rigors of slavery created the need for frequent voyages to Africa, an investment, actually, that European colonizers did not want to invest. They really had their heart set on enslaving Native Americans and Native Caribs, since they were already there. But when they saw that that didn't work, they knew that the importation system had to begin, and of course this marks the beginning of what we now know today as the Atlantic slave trade. And so as we look at that slave trade, we take a look at that slave trade and of course there always and always have been three passages, major passages of the Atlantic slave trade featuring West Africans as the prime target.
Speaker 1:The first passage I mentioned just a few minutes ago. I mentioned it again. The first passage is referred to as the outward passage. This was the passage that began in Western Europe on ships and of course these European ships were made by ship merchants. In Europe Shipbuilding business became a prime business because you had to import slaves from West Africa, and so that made shipbuilding a prime business, one of the first major businesses in European life once the slave trade began, as many ships made the voyage on these three passages in the Atlantic slave trade. And so the first passage is the outward passage from Western Europe south to West Africa and of course the ship containment they had in the holds of ships at that time trading barter for slaves, which usually included some trinkets, gold, maybe some liquor, some gin, some cognac, as they would engage in trading barter for slaves in West African countries, and so they would come into Africa and, of course, bring that barter out and use it to entice African traders to sell Africans into slavery to Western European men.
Speaker 1:And, of course, they would pack them in the holes of ship, with its ships, with that same trading barter was that they came down from Europe, they would pack them in the holes of ships, where that same trading barter was that they came down from Europe with and packed them in the holes of ships. This is referred to, of course, as the Middle Passage that they would pack slaves in, of course, the holes of ships and move them on a westerly course. First of all, they would put them in slave castles that were previously used for fighting wars in Africa actually, and they had since been abandoned, since the chances of war were ever so remote for 100, 200 years, and so they were abandoned and they were used to house slaves that had been brought until the small boats came and got them and led them out of the slave castles into boats. And of course it's you know most of these doors. They have an open door that opens up to the Gulf and of course it's called the door of the passage of no return that, once separated as African men and women and children and brought together, they were put on ships, that boats rather, that took them out to the Atlantic Ocean, where they were then placed on ships and sent on the westerly trek to the Americas and the West Indies.
Speaker 1:This is referred to as the middle passage, and so I'm sure you've heard many historians refer to the middle passages and passage and speeches and in written texts, namely because this was the passage that contained African slaves, or what would become slaves as they were taken to the West Indies. And they were taken to the West Indies to be broken in as slaves and then they would be dispersed to the Caribbean islands, to what we now know as the United States of America, and even down in South America. Even more so, as quiet as the secret is kept, there are more people of African descent from the slave trade in Brazil than any place in the Western Hemisphere. There are 300 million people in Brazil, and Brazil was, along with Venezuela and other South American countries, peru and Chile, prime areas for the disbursement of slaves after they were taken to the West Indies and broken in, usually subjected to hard labor, usually force-fed particularly if they were trying to commit suicide through starvation, of course were beaten mercilessly if they did not conform to the process in which they were being imposed. And so this middle passage is always talked about by historians because it is the most grueling of the three passages. If you could select one, all three of them are grueling, but this one by far is the most grueling because it contains what became known as human cargo.
Speaker 1:And so this second passage is referred to as the middle passage. And so, after distributing the slaves to different areas, after they'd been broken in in the West Indies, the last passage was the return passage, where they would return from the East coast of what is now known today as America and to the Caribbean islands, and they would return back to Western Europe and, of course, in the holds of ships then would be the harvest from the crops that the previous slaves had brought to fruition. And so this rounds out the three passages the outward passage, the middle passage and the return passage. And this went on for almost 200 years, from about 1650 to 1850, even though it was outlawed in, as I said, in the early 18th century. And so you have the outward passage, the middle passage and the return passage. As you see, this system develop now in Western Europe relative to the slave trade and Economic gain.
Speaker 1:The voyage of the middle passage itself is also one of the more grueling aspects, even before we get to the West Indies. The voyage itself speaks of harrowing tales of what transpired on slave ships, not only in terms of the treatment of Africans, but also mutinies as well, or at least attempted mutinies, and we'll talk about one of those in a later segment, the Amistad Mutiny, one of the most successful mutinies, in fact it was the most successful mutiny of slaves uprising against their ship superiors, as they were called, and so we will look at that in the future segment. But the voyage itself slaves were taken from slave castles on the west coast of Africa and they were placed into canoes. These canoes, of course, were small canoes that held about nine, 10 people each, and that was one of the first stages of transporting the slaves. They didn't want to put them in large groups initially. They wanted to put them in small groups to be able to diminish their ability to be able to try to escape. In other words, the small number that they're packed into in each canoe meant that there was less of a chance of an uprising on the canoes, and if there weren't uprising it would be better able to be put down. And so they're placed in these canoes, right outside the door of no return of the slave castles themselves.
Speaker 1:The canoes met at ships further out where the slaves were then shackled in twos. And of course they were shackled in twos to prevent them from having the ability to run or to jump without being shackled to someone else, which made it more difficult if they wanted to jump off the ship, and of course it just made them easier to be able to contain it. It limits your mobility physically when you are shackled to someone else, and so they were shackled in twos. Children sometimes were, were not. Women were shackled in twos and the men were shackled in twos. Very seldom, if at all, were men and a man and a woman shackled together. Usually men were shackled with men and women were shackled with women. They were branded for ID purposes and of course this is their first brand. They're going to get a second brand once they get to auction and they end up going being purchased and going to a plantation. They're going to get another brand. We'll talk about that. And so they ended up with two brands. They were branded for ID purposes, namely because you wanted to give the shipbuilder and the ship company credit for transporting that slave, and so all of the slaves coming into the West Indies eventually would have a brand on them to denote the ship company that built the canoe that took them out to the slave ship and, of course, the company where the slave ship itself was built as well. And so they were branded for ID purposes and so that the slave, the ship company, could get credit for the transport.
Speaker 1:And of course, number three, they were stripped naked and placed in the holes of ships. Now, this also, this also makes sense. Number one the dehumanizing process had already begun and of course, when you strip someone naked, you dehumanize them publicly in a way that no other gesture probably does. And of course, the other reason why is because they did not want slaves to to find weapons and put weapons on that person that they could hide and close. So that was the other reason why and they were placed in the holes of ships.
Speaker 1:Usually there were two levels of placement barges in the holes of ships. There would be one long chain that went all the way across from one side to the other, that chain air all of them together, and then they each had separate chains on them as well, as they were laid down in the middle passage, laid down in the holes of ships, because they were not able to come up and use the bathroom as often as they needed to. They often urinated and defecated on each other, which is also one of the horrors of being transported in the sling in the holds of ships. Now, the other reason why they were stripped naked too is because most of the voyages took place during the summer months, and so it was over 100 degrees sometimes in the holds of ships, and by stripping them naked it made them feel cooler even in the midst of that heat, with no ventilation down there. The question then becomes would that not create problems relative to sanitary problems and with the death of the slaves you just purchased, which means you wouldn't get your money? And yes, that did create a problem.
Speaker 1:And so, on the voyage, as they made their way to the West Indies, men were allowed on deck only twice a day, and they were allowed on deck twice a day to eat and to be washed, and so they wanted to minimize the sanitary problems that could emerge from being in the holes of ships, and usually they would just take buckets of water that they would get from the ocean and pour it on the slaves, and they would also use this granular soap that feels more like detergent than the bar soap that we recognize today and use that as the basis for keeping the slaves as sanitary as they possibly could. The other reason why they were brought on deck is because they were made to dance or exercise so that they could maintain circulation. With a voyage as long as six weeks to three months, you could have circulation problems if you stayed in the holds of ships and stayed tied up all day. So what happened is that they were often made to dance and to exercise to maintain circulation. Of course, one of the sad stories that came out of this aspect of the voyage is that that was why some people would proffer that African-Americans tend to have more rhythm than other people, including European people, because they were made to dance so much on voyages, but that has no validity or no truth whatsoever. People, including European people, because they were made to dance so much on voyages, but that has no validity or no truth whatsoever. The rhythm that Africans had. They had long before they were enslaved. It didn't take a voyage into bondage for African Americans to develop rhythm, as well as the fact that dance was a huge aspect of African culture and that the drum and dance was a huge aspect of African culture and that the drum and dance was a way of expressing themselves not only existentially or historically, but expressing themselves in terms of their encounter with the divine and their sociocultural values and system as well. And so this notion that Africans develop rhythm dancing on slave voyages is absolutely untrue.
Speaker 1:Women and children were shackled, but not placed in holds like men. Of course. Now, this has to do more with patriarchy than it does anything else. White men, from day one, because they are men and because they are patriarchal in their outlook on life, feared women less than men, and in many ways one could make the argument that white men fear black men more today than any other group of people, any other gender of people. And so men were put in the holes of ships, but women and children were shackled but not placed in holes most times. There were those rare voyages where women and children were placed in holes of ships, but most times they were not. There was, as you might suspect, a high death toll. Now this becomes very important from an economic standpoint. After the purchase of these slaves and, of course, white planters wanting to quote make their money off of their slaves Disease became rampant. Even though West Africans were more immune to European diseases, disease became rampant. There were no toilet or wash areas and, of course, the temperatures were 100 degrees, particularly during the summers. And so that was the reason why there was a high death toll, irrespective of the immunity to European diseases.
Speaker 1:And that's why you have the emergent philosophy, divergent philosophy, of ship merchants. You had two different styles of ship packers. You had tight packers. Those were the slave merchants who packed a lot of slaves, as many slaves as they could, into holes of ships, going along the line that we're going to lose a lot of many way, and when we get to the West Indies we'll have more of them than if we had not packed them tightly in the holes of ships. And then you had other ship merchants who had a different philosophy. Theirs was the opposite. They were referred to as loose packers. That, with this logic, that if you gave them more air to breathe and there were less of them to wash and keep fed, then you would accomplish the same result in terms of the number of slaves who made it to the West Indies, and you would have done so placing less slaves in the holds of ships who made it to the West Indies. And you would have done so placing less slaves in the holds of ships when you left West Africa. And so you had the tight packers on the one hand and the loose packers on the other.
Speaker 1:So if we break this down mathematically, tight packers saying you know, I want to get 50 slaves to the West Indies, and so what I'm going to do is that I'm going to pack 100 in the holes of ships, seeing that in my mind there's going to be a 50 percent death rate and I'm going to end up with 50 when we get to the West Indies. 50 will survive, 50 will end up dying. To the West Indies, 50 will survive, 50 will end up dying. Well, the loose packer would say well, I too want to get 50 to the West Indies, but rather than packing 100 in the ship, I want to pack 80 or 75 in the ship, or maybe even 70. And that would decrease the death rate because there would be more room to breathe and to operate and there would be less of an opportunity for them to either try to commit suicide because by jumping off the ship, because we could watch them more readily, since it's less of them, and that they would be less immune to a disease that could kill them in those conditions, if there were greater circulation through less people. And so both of them ended up accomplishing their goals in the sense that the tight packer ended up with 50 when they got to the West Indies and the loose packer ended up with 50 when they got to the West Indies. And of course that's a hypothetical mathematical example, but that's the way that the math work.
Speaker 1:When it came to tight packers and loose Packers, the average time to the Americas or the West Indies six weeks to three months. That's a broad range and of course that range is broad because of weather concerns, time, time of year concerns. If there was a storm that they either had to let go by, or a storm that they had to get past quickly before it came and had to run into another storm, then as a result of that it took longer than six weeks to get there, but most voyages took about six weeks of time Generally. There are some extenuating circumstances when it took three months, but of course the ships were always packed for three to four months of food and supplies because you didn't know what was going to happen, particularly during the winter months when the temperature was lower and of course that could create more illnesses as well.
Speaker 1:The estimated number of Africans that made the voyage in that 250 year period, from approximately 1650 to 1850, nine to 11 million people in 200 years. That's a lot of transporting. That's 200 years of transporting several voyages a year per ship company and per slave trader. Several voyages a year per ship company and per slave trader. And so the estimated number of Africans that made the voyage nine to 11 million. And of course the estimated number that died en route, either through disease or suicide, as they found a way to maybe get a utensil and stab themselves or to find a way to break loose from the shackles of the person that they were bound to and jump overboard Again.
Speaker 1:Another misnomer that comes out of this is that sharks came behind the ships once they moved out of the Ghanaian coast and into the Atlantic, knowing that Africans were going to jump overboard to kill themselves and sharks would eat them. That has absolutely no validity to it whatsoever. But an estimated two million died en route through disease or sickness, and so that gives us about a seven to nine million African success rate and I use the term success, of course, sarcastically that made the voyage to the West Indies and subsequently to the Americas. And of course most historians, including the great WB Du Bois, would say that these are both conservative estimates, that they're actually lower estimates than what actually probably transpired in terms of number, and so we'll stay with that conservative estimate of nine to 11 million making a voyage, two million dying en route. Both of them are modest estimates, and so, now that the voyages have been completed and slaves have made it to the West Indies, the question then becomes now what happens next?
Speaker 1:And of course we began to look at the distributing of slaves to various parts of the Americas and to the Caribbean islands, and we'll look particularly at the movement of slaves from the West Indies to the United States of America, or what became the United States of America, of America as we look at a lecture I title a strange and hostile land, and we'll look take a look at the auction block and the movement from the auction block to plantation life, and we will deal with that in segment 2. This completes segment 1 of this podcast. I hope that it was informative and enlightening. As we move to segment two, we'll look at now a strange and hostile land as slaves move from the ships to plantation life. I'm Dr Harry Singleton. Thank you very much for listening. Good night.