How Britain ‘lost’ America. Really!

The Dutch Factory at Hougly, 1665 (Hendrick van Schuylenburgh). Image source & courtesy – rijksmuseum.nl | Click for larger image.

The making of the modern world

The modern world has been significantly shaped by four historic events, in the 35-year period of 1765-1800.

One – The most influential of the four was the French Revolution (1789–1799) that released a secular spirit across Europe. This French idea tried to unite Europe under a Republican banner, in the personages of Napoleon and Hitler. The French Revolution also, for the first time, united anti-Republican monarchies of Europe like Catholic Spain, Protestant Britain and Prussia against Republican-Catholic France. In spite of being a colossal failure, the French idea of Republican nations finds takers even today.

Two – The event that inspired the most fear was the war of freedom by African slaves in Haiti. Events of 200 years ago in Haiti trouble and worry the West even today.

Three – The British loss of colonies in North America (now USA) is easily the most well-known of the four events.

Four – Events in India, during this 35-years period, as British power in India grew, are the least understood of the four.

Modern history ignores the complex interplay between these four events. What linkage could Tipu Sultan have with War of American Independence?

‘Luigi’ van Beethoven had initially planned on dedicating the Eroica Symphony to Napoleon – till Napoleon crowned himself Emperor. Click for larger image.

Where did the US get their gunpowder

British supplies of gunpowder were assured as they controlled India’s saltpetre production, the largest in the world. Where did the American leadership get the gunpowder to fight a war against the British?

George Washington and the other leaders of the revolt “called upon all Americans to boycott East India Company products (except saltpeter and spices).” Saltpeter was the most crucial element.

As war began to appear inevitable in 1775, the Continental Congress launched an all-out drive to stimulate gunpowder making. Its main focus was on manufacturing adequate quantities of saltpeter. By January 1776 these efforts began to bear fruit as 50 tons of saltpeter poured into Philadelphia and many more tons to New York. While some new mills aided in this production, the bulk of the saltpeter appears to have been produced by farm families encouraged by government bounties and instructed by many “how to” articles printed in newspapers and other publications.

Limited natural deposits of saltpeter were found in the USA, but the Spanish and French contribution was significant.

Powder was often very scarce, especially at the beginning of the war. Much was later imported from France, but though great efforts were made to manufacture an adequate supply in America, there was often a shortage.

Another writer confirms

Imports of both gunpowder and saltpeter had to be depended upon, principally from the West Indies islands of St.Eustasia and Martinique. It is estimated that 115000 pounds of gunpowder were manufactured prior to 1777 in America from domestic saltpeter. An additional 2152000 pounds of gunpowder was imported, captured, or manufactured from imported saltpeter. Although this sounds like an impressive amount, gunpowder was to remain in comparatively short supply at Ticonderoga throughout 1776. It was not until the French entry into the war in 1778, that an adequate quantity of high quality gunpowder was available to the Continental army. (from The American northern theater army in 1776: the ruin and reconstruction of … By Douglas R. Cubbison.).

Frenchmen like Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, worked on a commercial arrangement through a front company Rodrigue Hortalez et Cie (Roderigue Hortalez & Co. in English) to route American tobacco to Europe and buy saltpeter from France and Spain for fighting this war.

A Haiti Anthology: Libete By Charles Arthur, J. Michael Dash; page 28. Click to read book extract.

The French go with Haiti

Why would France sell gunpowder?

Behind this stratagem was the French fear that the stretched British would not attempt conquest of Haiti, a prized French colony.

After The Seven Years War (French and Indian Wars in American History) ended in 1763, the French chose to keep its sugar colonies of Haiti (and Gaudeloupe, Martinique). The French agreed to give away their Canadian colonies, parts of America, and were left with little of their colonial possessions.

Except Haiti.

The purchase of Louisiana

Obtained from Spain, Louisiana was retained by the French to serve as “a granary for this empire and produced flour, salt, lumber, and food for the sugar islands” of Haiti (and Gaudeloupe, Martinique). After Haiti’s successful war of freedom, by the African Slaves, the territories of Louisiana were of little use to France.

The sale of the remnant American possessions by Napoleon, bought by USA (1803-Louisiana Purchase during Jefferson’s presidency), limited European possessions in North America to a still sizable Canada (Britain) and Mexico (Spain). It is the freedom fighters of Haiti, who the Americans must thank for Louisiana, and not “the foresight of Thomas Jefferson, who considered the purchase as one of his greatest achievements“.

Illustration shows burning of Le Cap, Haiti, and massacre of whites during Haitian War of Freedom. (Incendie du Cap. Révolte générale des Nègres. Massacre des Blancs. Frontispiece from the book Saint-Domingue, ou Histoire de Ses Révolutions. ca. 1815. Paris – Chez Tiger. ). Click for larger image.

What was the British reading of this situation

Not just the French thought that territories of North America were less valuable.

Even the British thought so.

A highly influential British writer of the time, who wrote of these affairs was David Hume, the historian-philosopher. Hume’s most successful work was History of England. Initially a 6-volume work, written and published over 1754-1762 period, it became a best seller, with more than 10 editions over the next 100 years, with the 1810 edition growing to 12 volumes. Written just before The Battle of Buxar, and the American War of Independence, concurrently, during The Seven Year War, Hume wrote how

by the restoration of her West India possessions[Haiti], we had given her [France] back the means of a most beneficial commerce; and thus had put her in the way of recovering her losses, and being again formidable on our own element. …

France, by possessing a much greater quantity of sugar land, had been long superior to us in this lucrative branch of commerce. She had thus enriched her merchants, increased her revenue, and strengthened her navy: why then, after we had in a just and necessary war deprived her of such valuable possessions, should we restore to her the means of again annoying ourselves ? The retention of the considerable French plantations, was necessary to the permanent security of a peace. Besides, after so expensive a war, our victories gave us a claim to some indemnification ; in that view, the islands would have been the most productive of our conquests.

Our acquisitions in America might tend to our security, but it would be very long before they could lead to our indemnification. They neither increased in any important degree our commerce, nor diminished the commerce of France; but the West India islands, if retained, would have been an immediate great gain to Britain, and loss to our rival. The retention of the West Indies was farther necessary to the improvement of our acquisitions in North America, and also to our commerce with Africa.

In that event, it was argued, the African trade would have been augmented by the demand for slaves, and the trade of North America would have all centred in Britain; whereas, the islands being restored, a great part of the northern colony trade must fall, as it had hitherto done, to those who had lately been our enemies, and would still he our rivals. For these reasons, either Martinico or Guadaloupe, or even both, should have been retained by Britain.

The cessions made in Africa and in the East Indies would have fully justified the reservation to ourselves of our West India conquests. Provident policy required that we should have reserved those possessions, and our resources and resistless naval strength would have enabled us to retain them, in defiance ol the enemy. If in the negotiation, availing ourselves of our advantages, we had decisively refused such cessions, the enemy would not have adhered to the requisition, with the alternative of the continued war; or, had they been so obstinate, British force would soon have reduced them to compliance. (from The history of England: from the invasion of Julius Cæsar, to …, Volume 12 By David Hume; text within […] supplied.).

This reading of French actions dilutes current historical assumptions of mishandling and bungling of the American possessions by the ‘visionary’ George-III.

A Jamaican slave revolt, 1759. From Histoire d’Angleterre by David Francois. (Courtesy – Bristol Radical History Group.). Click for larger image.

Spain fights for American colonies

Much before Spain declared war on England 21 June 1779, Spain started hostile actions and support to the American rebels. This continued, till peace was declared in September 1783. The Spanish contribution has been ignored (was it due to subsequent Spanish-American War over Cuba). The actions of Spanish General Bernardo Galvez at Pensacola are rarely recalled today.

How long would have Washington’s mutinous troops fought against the British, without Spanish monetary contributions and gun-powder supplies, arranged by uncle-nephew-Galvez-duo of Jose de Galvez and Bernardo de Galvez? Can America ignore Don Francisco de Saavedra de Sangronis?

India – prized and essential

Portrayed by modern history as an uncaring and bungling despot, George-III had few choices. For 18th century Britain, forced to choose between their American possessions and India, was a no-brainer. The Indian prize was essential for the ’emerging’ British imperial agenda – and more prestigious.

Essential because of India’s industrial capacity in shipbuilding, steel and gunpowder – all essential to Britain. Prestigious, no doubt, as India was the land that Semiramis, Cyrus The Great, Alexander, Rome, Abbasids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Ummayads, Genghis Khan had failed to conquer.

We have seen in earlier posts, how historical characters like Semiramis and Alexander were portrayed differently – as was India. For Britain, the ‘conquest’ of India was vastly more rewarding. Economically rewarding and definitely more challenging than defeating some upstart ‘freedom-fighters’.

The rest, as they say is history.

After Buxar

Britain were still not in a strong position, even after cornering the saltpetre trade and the diwani of Bengal. In 1764, after Buxar, the British gained their first sense of the Indian ‘opportunity’, after 150 years in India. British rule through the East India Company, immediately sparked conflict across India.

The company, informed of the wars that had broken out in India, sent over lord Clive, with powers to act as commander in chief, president, and governor of Bengal. His’lordship arrived at Calcutta, on the 3rd of May 1765.

To deal with this, the East India Company turned to Robert Clive. To work with Clive a council of four empowered members was created.

An unlimited power was also committed to a select committee, consisting of his lordship and four gentlemen, to act and determine every thing themselves, without dependence on the council. It was, however, recommended in their instruction«, to consult the council in general as often as it could be done conveniently ; but the sole power of determining in all cases was left with them, until the troubles of Bengal should be entirely ended. (from Encyclopaedia Britannica: or, A dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature, enlarged and improved, Volume 11; Publisher A. Constable, 1823 edition).

This was the very same Robert Clive, who had earlier faced a prolonged investigation with his reputation in tatters. For the EEIC to turn to this very Robert Clive, whom they had hounded a few years earlier, must have been a bitter pill.

But, then the situation in India was grave.

Helmet taken from Tipu Sultan’s palace at the capture of Seringapatam in 1799 | Source & courtesy – nam.ac.uk | Click for image.

Tiger, tiger … burning bright

First came the Mysore Wars.

Tipu Sultan was one of the first Indian rulers to see the irreversible decline of the Mughals and the rise of the Marathas.

The First Mysore War (1766-1769), saw the tripartite alliance of Marathas, Nizam and the British against Hyder Ali, the King of Mysore. Yet to recover from the enormous Seven Years War, the British and their Indian allies were dealt a significant defeat – just 7 years before the American Declaration of Independence.

The Second Mysore War (1780-1784) ran concurrent to the American War Of Independence. A Wikipedia entry enthusiastically writes how Mysore armies, “decimated British armies in the east, repelled a joint Maratha-Hyderabad invasion from the north and captured territories in the south”.

Surprisingly, there is an overlap between the First Maratha Wars (1775-1782) and the Second Mysore War. It seems strange that the Marathas were battling the English in part of the country and collaborating with them in another theatre. This colonial classifications of War and battles probably needs re-examination of the battles in these wars.

The British fighting a wars on two fronts at the opposite sides of the world, lost both the wars.

The Third Mysore War (1789-1792) On the eve of this war, we are told, “Cornwallis saw danger near and far, to all British interests in India, and in the wider international spheres of Europe and America. His experience had accustomed his mind to world-wide maps.” I am willing to believe that such a danger to the British Empire existed.

The end of the War in America had an impact in India. Relieved from pressures of waging a war in America, the British concentrated their military resources on Tipu Sultan. This 3-year war went badly for Tipu Sultan – and he lost half his kingdom. His sons were taken hostage by the British.

The Fourth Mysore War (1799) – A truncated Mysore kingdom, faced a resurgent Britain. Rid of their American War, with the French in disarray, the British were poised at the edge of initiating their imperial ambitions.

Tipu’s European allies, the French were in disarray. The Catholic Bourbons of France were out of power. The French Republic had became a danger to European monarchies. Catholic Bourbons of Spain allied themselves with a Protestant Britain to fight against a Republican France under Napoleon. The Marathas and the Nizam, the two major military powers were allied with the British.

Tipu’s Mysore kingdom came to an end.

Compare

The challenge in North America, was tame in comparison to action in India. At the Battle of Yorktown, where Cornwallis finally surrendered to the French-Americans troops, the total number of soldiers on both sides were 25,000. 17,000 French and American troops surrounded 8,000 of Cornwallis troops.

On the other hand, it has been estimated that “Tipu Sultan deployed as many as six thousand jurzail-burdars, or “rocket-men” during the battles of Seringapatam (1792 and 1799) against the armies of the English East India Company”.

The machinery for Tipu demonizing and British self-glorification worked very well: the London stage between 1791 and 1793 saw three full-scale shows produced on Tippoo Sultawn or British Valour in India, with subsidiary productions (usually with official sponsorship) offered in all the major cities of England, Ireland and Scotland. Countless satiric skits, newspaper caricatures, and crude engravings and prints (of Tipu clothed like a tiger and in a cage, feasting on raw meat, beating a young English boy, standing over a group of scantily clad and cowering Indian women) helped further establish the notion that an alien and illegitimate ruler in a distant, exotic land could be the British public’s Enemy Number One (from Indian Renaissance: British romantic art and the prospect of India By Hermione De Almeida, George H. Gilpin.).

Like Robert Clive in 1765, the British this time turned to Charles Cornwallis, the loser at Yorktown. The selection of Cornwallis by the EEIC to head its India operations, “by the singular caprice of circumstances, the man who had lost America was sent out to govern India.” After much persuasion, Cornwallis accepted.

Neither the government nor the English people blamed Cornwallis. His schemes had been admirable in a political as well as in a military aspect, and had it not been for the arrival of the French troops they might have succeeded. As early as May 1782, when Cornwallis was still a prisoner on ‘parole’ he was asked to go to India as governor-general and commander-in-chief …

Both Pitt and Dundas thought him the only man capable of restoring the military and civil services of India to an efficient state and of repairing the bad effect upon English prestige of the defeat experienced in the second Mysore war.

A subsequent British account points out how,

Lord Cornwallis was making the greatest efforts … It was the first time the British armies in India had been led by a Governor-General in person, who enjoyed the undivided exercise of all the civil and military powers of the state, and commanded the resources of all the Presidencies (from The history of India By John Clark Marshman.).

The British put everything they had, behind their military campaign against Tipu Sultan. Clive’s extraction and loot, or the loss of American colonies did not occupy their minds. Cornwallis defeat did not mark him out to be loser.

India – continuing wars

British problems did not cease after Tipu’s death. In 1799, Dhondia Wagh continued the war against British across Shimoga, Chitradurg, Dharwad and Bellary districts (soon after the defeat of Tipu Sultan). By 1824, it was the turn of the Kittur region, where Rani Chennamma spread the fire. Five years later, Sangoli Rayanna’s started his guerrilla war. Peasant revolts continued in Karnataka up to 1833.

Coinciding with the War in America and the Mysore wars was also a series of battles between the British and the Marathas – known as First Maratha War (1775-1782). Frequently, involving tens of thousands of troops, British energies were divided. After the end of the First Maratha War in 1782, the British held their peace with the Marathas for the next 20 years.

Till Tipu Sultan was dealt with.

From all sides

A significant opposition to the British misrule came from Indian forest-dwellers and migratory peoples. The Chotanagpur area (Surguja, Ranchi and Hazaribagh areas) passed to the British from Mughals in 1765. War and famine followed. The Bengal Famine of 1770 (1769-1773) was much written and analysed. The Jharkhand area remained on the boil for nearly 150 years after Buxar.

On the conflict side, the Paharia Revolt (1766-1778), by the hill-dwellers of Rajmahal Hills, soon followed. Santhals, opened a wide front against the British. One of the first of many such campaigns, started operations from the Tilapore forest against the British from 1781-1785 – led by Tilka Manjhi (also spelt Majhi). The dates of Tilkha Majhi’s revolt, vary widely – some continuing till 1799. The Tamar revolt (1783-1789) was another revolt in the modern Jharkhand area which occupied British attention in India – while they were fighting the American colonies. The Anglo-Santhal battles continued for the next 100 years. The Kol (also Khol, Khole) continued these insurrections in early 19th century.

Immediately after Buxar, in 1764 Major Hector Munro, who took charge of “the Company’s army, found the sepoys in a state of open revolt. There is no instinct of obedience in native armies in India …” complains the English ‘historian’. In 1780, the East India Company faced revolt in Benares from Raja ‘Cheyt Sing’ who was appointed to “furnish the company with three regular battalions of Seapoys” who instead ‘massacred , in cold blood, thirteen of Capt.Wade’s men, who fell into his hands in the Hospital at Mirzapoor’.

If this was not enough, there were the Sannyasi rebellions (1763-1800)

When the levee breaks

The Anglo-Maratha Wars, the Sikh Wars continued to plague British rule in India. This was apart from suppressing nearly another 200 revolts in India.

From the Sikh Empire, Britain could retain only the southwest areas. Having failed in capturing Sikh Empire’s north-east Afghan areas, Britain declared Afghan areas as separate from India. Britain could declare their conquest of India as complete only after declaring Afghan areas as separate from India. This break of Afghanistan from India remains till date, ‘official’ Indian history.

With the ‘conquest’ of India complete in 1840, Britain’s reign over India was short-lived. From 1840-1947. Slightly longer than the foreign rule by the Slave Dynasty-Tughlaq rule (1206-1290). With the end of African slavery between 1830 (Britain)-1865 (USA), the focus of slavery shifted. India’s indentured labour fed the sugar colonies and the building of colonial infrastructure across Africa (railways, telegraph networks).

An estimated 10-15 million Indians were shipped out of India by Britain. This transshipment of Indians picked up steam in 1830,and continued till 1917 – but most were shipped out during 1850-1900 period. This, from a population of some 3 crore men of prime working age of 20-35 (from a total population of 25 crores). The supply of Indian indentured labour dried up under the kaala-paani campaign, an ingenious ploy devised by Indian Brahmins. As the supply of Indian labour dried up, so began the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

No longer able to build imperial networks (railway, telegraph) on the backs of cheap coolie labour, British grip on their Empire weakened. A 100 years after Napoleon, Britain was challenged on European mainland again, this time by Germany. As the German challenge ended, in 1945, so did the British Empire.

The American response

The rich and landed American leadership, sensed the European stretch and exploited the ready-made opportunity to take-over Britain’s American possessions. They found a ready-made supporters in the European Bourbon royal family (Catholic rulers of France and Spain).

Adams went to work right away in drafting what would be known as the Plan of Treaties. He ensured the document was primarily a commercial agreement. Offering any nation the right to trade with the newly formed United States was thought to be sufficient for any foreign aid … The calculated maneuver by Congress to declare independence as a means to gain foreign assistance was risky. They had no assurance of knowing their calculated maneuver would be successful.(from Irreconcilable Grievances: The Events That Shaped American Independence By Patrick J. Charles.).

With this support, America could win against a stretched Protestant British Government – fighting many wars in India. Much like how Romans had taken over Alexander’s Mediterranean territories and expanded into Europe and Asia Minor.

Spain, France and Britain, the three main European powers derived significant benefits from the West Indies (the Caribbean), including Cuba, Haiti et al. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, the French supporter of America’s cause, spelt out the rationale of French interest in this war. A worried de Beaumarchais wrote to the French king that the French “sugar islands have, since the last peace, been the constant object of the regrets and hopes of the English“.

The Catholic Franco-Spanish rulers from the Bourbon dynasty saw benefits of keeping a Protestant Britain engaged in North America to buffer their Caribbean territories from British expansion. Spain saw benefit when it loaned the American leadership, 8 million reales for food and supplies (military and medical).

The end of the Bourbons in France, overthrow of French rule by African slaves in Haiti changed this calculus. Modern narratives of King George-III as a blundering king, ignore the realities of 18th century, as also the other ‘achievements’ of King George -III.

Front Cover – Irreconcilable Grievances: The Events That Shaped American Independence Front Cover Patrick J. Charles

The king who lost America was also the king who triumphed over Napoleon, oversaw the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and saw the birth of the successful expansion of the British Empire into India and Canada. (from Colonialism: an international social, cultural, and political encyclopedia By Melvin E. Page, Penny M. Sonnenburg.).

An interesting book on this period in American history is Irreconcilable Grievances:The Events That Shaped American Independence by Patrick J. Charles. Gushes a reviewer, “rare to come across a groundbreaking piece of scholarship about the nation’s founding”. The paperback version has 346 pages. How many times does this book mention India at all!

Nil.

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Rise of the British Empire – A 2ndlook

Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, May 23, 1908. An early colour photography example in Russia Photo - By Yevgeny Kassin. Courtesy - http://www.guardian.co.uk

Indian history fails

Indian history’s biggest failing is in understanding and explaining the rise of English imperial power in the Indian subcontinent.

Facing foreign conquest for the first time in 12th century AD, Indians have difficulties in understanding invasion, conquests, territorial expansion and the motive power behind such imperial actions.

Equally for the British, the ‘gain’ and ‘loss’ of India happened so quickly, that they cannot accept the loss and they still cannot believe their luck.

The central question of how India could ever have fallen under British rule continues to engage almost obsessive attention. How so few Britons, as servants of a private business enterprise, could have conquered so huge an area and so many people, so far away, has never ceased to amaze or embarrass. Neither British nor national historiography has proven satisfactory. (From The Oxford history of the British Empire: Historiography By Robin W. Winks, Alaine M. Low).

Modern Indian historians have not been of much help.

The perplexed Indian

The question of Indian subjugation by Islamic and English invasions has rarely been answered with any balance.

For instance, with reluctant admiration, some Indians ‘acknowledge’ that the British must have had something special. After all, how could Robert Clive with 400 English soldiers, defeat Siraj-ud-Dowla’s armies of 60,000? This left the ordinary, disbelieving Indian with the second assumption. Indians must have been fighting with bows and arrows, while the English had guns and cannons.

Now both these answers are wrong – because in 1857, Indian had equally good ship-building docks (if not better) and gun smiths. The best steel in the world came from India – as did the raw material for gun-powder, saltpetre.

A hundred years ago, a perplexed Indian, Taraknath Das, sought to understand the cause of Indian subjugation. He wrote to Tolstoy, the 19th Russian writer. Tolstoy’s very ‘insightful’ answer on Indian independence was

What does it mean that 30,000 people, not athletes, but rather weak and ill-looking, have enslaved 200 millions of vigourous, clever, strong, freedom loving people? Do not the figures alone make it clear that not the English, but the Hindus themselves are the cause of their slavery?’ For the Hindus to complain that the English had enslaved them was like villagers addicted to drink complaining that that the winesellers who had settled in their midst were the cause of their drinking habit. ‘Is that not the case with all the people, the millions of people, who submit to thousands or even hundreds of individuals of their own nation or those of foreign nations?’ If the Hindus had been enslaved by violence, it was ‘because they themselves have lived, and continue to live by violence, and fail to recognize the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.

Gandhiji, made 20,000 copies of this waffling and rambling narrative – and distributed it among the Indian population in South Africa. Tolstoy’s ‘explanation’ is today repeated in Indian schools as a defeatist question, ‘How could a few thousand people conquer a nation of crores?’

Tinged with ‘admiration’ for the English ‘character’!

Modern parallels

What was behind the rise of English power – especially, in the Indian sub-continent? After 60 years and a few hundred-crores (or a few billions) of tax-payer funds, Indian academia and historians have failed to answer this question – satisfactorily.

The usual answers trotted out are:-

• Military superiority (better trained and motivated English soldiers)
• Technological superiority (Indians had bows and arrows versus English guns and cannons)
• Political unity (united English vs a divided India)

Historical evidence completely contradicts these three constructs during the 1600-1850 period, the phase of English ascent. For real answers we will need to look somewhere else.

Later in the post, we will use two widely syndicated posts, that appeared on the same day, originating in the USA. These two reports are an excellent parallel of what happened some 300 years ago.

But before that let us look at the key events and developments.

The coup at Plassey - became a 'military' victory for the English!

Cut to India in 1757

Robert Clive’s ‘genius’ lay in cobbling exactly one such cabal. This cabal consisted of Armenian, Indian and English merchants.

The Armenians were represented by Khojah Petrus Nicholas, and Indians were represented by the Jagat Seths, Seth Mahtab Chand,and Seth Swarup Chand, and other seths like Raja Janki Ram, Rai Durlabh, Raja Ramnarain and Raja Manik Chand. The Armenians, and the ill-fated Omichund, a “notorious Calcutta merchant who was later to engineer the Plassey Revolution” played an important part in the Bengal/Bihar saltpetre trade. They were all significant players in the export of saltpetre (potassium nitrate). Also known as niter, saltpetre was a necessary ingredient for gunpowder.

Increasing demand for Indian saltpetre from Europe increased prices in India. Indian traders benefited. Was this Plassey-nexus between Armenian, English and Indian traders, a result of restrictions on saltpetre trade itself by the Nawab of Oudh.

As a battle, observes Panikkar, “Plassey was ridiculous. Mir Jafar, who vacillated during the engagement, came timidly round with congratulations and he was told he was now Nawab.” Plassey thus, was “a transaction, not a battle.

The ‘importance’ of Plassey is a colonial invention. It is the Battle of Buxar which started off the East India Company. It is conveniently ignored that the East India Company recruited some 18000 sepoys in the next 6 years (1757-1763). It is these 18000 sepoys which clinched the Battle of Buxar for the East India Company.

The coup of Plassey was not a military success, but industrial and economic. Industrially, the English gained global control over saltpetre, an essential component in gunpowder. With Bihar and Bengal being production centres of saltpetre, control over the global gunpowder production system, passed into English hands. Rest of India and the world were cut-off from saltpetre supplies.

Economically, till the grant of Bengal diwani to the East India Company in 1765, after the battle of Buxar (1764) England used to export bullion to make investments in purchase of Indians goods. After the 1765, diwani, the excess revenue was used to make the purchases – and the English bullion was used to fund expansion, grow armies, et al. It was the battle of Buxar (1764) which created the roots of the English Empire in India via the East India Company.

Such exclusive companies, therefore, are nuisances in every respect ; always more or less inconvenient to the countries in which they are established, and. destructive to those which have the misfortune to fall under their government. (An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations By Adam Smith).

Such was Clive’s legacy. A troubled Robert Clive committed suicide in 1774.

The colonial Indian army was used against the civilian population - e.g. Jallianwala bagh.

The oppressive army of the colonial Raj

The growth in the Colonial Raj’s army to maintain its authority is the simple reason why the Raj was able to maintain its rule for nearly 200 years.

The 18000 sepoys enrolled in 1763 grew in the early years of the nineteenth century to 150,000 and to nearly 350,000 by about 1820. (from Neighbors & strangers: the fundamentals of foreign affairs By William Roe Polk).

In 1820, Britain ruled less than half of modern India. The population of India at that time has been estimated at 25 crore- and the possible population under the Colonial Raj was less than 12 crore.

To sustain an army of 350,000 on a population of 12 crores is an oppressive burden beyond imagination. In a population of 12 crores, the number of able-bodied men would be around Rs.3.0 crore – and army of 350,000 would have meant 1 in every hundred was a soldier. Another writer on the British Empire confirms

the East India Company’s own army, especially its sepoy regiments, grew rapidly. This created a new demand for officers. By 1772 the Company’s officer corps in India was about 1560 strong, more than half the number of regular British army officers at that time. Regular officers were encouraged to transfer to the Company, but most of the increase was accounted for by the recruitment of very young men straight into the Company’s army as cadets. (from The making and unmaking of empires – Britain, India, and America c.1750-1783 By Peter James Marshall).

A proportionate army in India today would be close to 35 lakhs – twice the size the 16 lakhs that India, defence forces (army, air-force and navy) have today. Not only did the East India Company pay better, they also made timely payments.

The East India Company had a justified reputation for not only paying better but for being a more reliable paymaster for its Indian sepoys than any Indian ruler was likely to be.

Many Indians soldiering communities joined the armies of the British Raj as the

Company sepoys’ pay was high; infantry received about Rs.80 per annum, several times the pay of a specialist field worker. The regularity of pay … distinguished British from indigenous Indian armies.

The other reason why the British Raj military size was greater was that instead of police,

many civil duties, which in this country (England) are performed by the police, are in India discharged by the military force.

The small size of Indian police force was a historical trend, predating the English and continues till date. The small police force was derived from the economic habits of the Indian population which did not depend on crime for a livelihood (unlike say, piracy or slave trade in Europe). The constant warfare against Indian polity in India was essential for imperial English objectives. It was the large size of the Colonial Indian Army, consisting of Indian sepoys that was behind the might of the British Empire.

But during WW2, the situation changed. As Indian armies were sent to various theatres of war, and the Quit India movement exploded – as did various other movements across India, the British hold on India seemed to be hanging by a thread. The British response was interesting.

In 1932 there were 215,004 policemen in India (for a population in excess of 300 million) of whom 32,596 (15.16 per cent) were armed. By the end of 1938, the figure had fallen slightly to 193,118 with 28,703 men (14.86 per cent) under arms. But in December 1943, as political and administrative responsibilities of the police grew, the total reached 300,656 (an increase of over 60 per cent since the outbreak of the war) with 137, 222 (45.64 per cent of the total) under arms. (from Policing and decolonisation: politics, nationalism, and the police, 1917-65 By David Anderson, David Killingray.).

The Royal Indian Navy decided to raise to flag of Independence in Bombay in 1946, after which the Indian Army saw a mutiny in Jabalpur. (Photo courtesy - http://www.outloook.com).

The day the worm turned, the British Raj ended. On February 18th 1946, the Indian Naval force, then the Royal Indian Navy raised the flag of independence. Colonial history calls it the Naval Ratings Mutiny – on February 18th 1946. Within 1 week, Britain decided to evacuate from India.

On February 18th, the ‘lowly’ Naval Ratings from the Royal Indian Navy rained on the British parade – by raising the flag of Indian Independence. Britain did not have the stomach to take on the Indian Colonial Army, battle hardened and exposed to warfare in all the global theatres of WW2. Penderel Moon, a much quoted British Civil servant, felt that the Raj was on “the edge of a volcano.” As did Nehru and Pethick Lawrence. The INA trials had created serious ruptures in British control over India.

On February 19th, 1946, PM Clement Attlee announced that a British Cabinet delegation of three ministers would visit India. He followed this up, on 20th February, 1946, with a statement in the British House of Commons,

His Majesty’s Government desires to hand over their responsibility to authorities established by a constitution approved by all parties in India … His Majesty’s Government wish to make it clear that it is their definite intention to take necessary steps to effect the transference of power to responsible Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948 … His Majesty’s Government will have to consider to whom the powers of the Central Government in British India should be handed over on the due date

On 15th March, 1946, Attlee announced in the British House of Commons that Britain was leaving India. 23rd March, 1946, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Secretary of State for India, A. V. Alexander, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade came to India for consultations on modalities for power transfer. The British acquiesced and 18 months later the British were out.

It took nearly 200 years for the The Indian sepoy to decide that he was no longer willing to be a loyal soldier of the Company Bahadur. And the British Raj crumbled.

Noiselessly.

The seed capital of the British Raj

In all this, the important thing was funding!

The recruitment and expansion of the standing army, the purchase and stockpiling of gunpowder, needed exceptional financial resources that only the English seemed to have. Where did this ‘liquidity’ come from?And that is where the English secret lies.

Apart from the Indian loot, it was the loot from the rest of the world that enabled the English to fund the acquisition of these power sources. The surge in English financial capital can be explained by a succession of English ‘adventures’ which created the seed capital for Indian subjugation.

Of which, the most celebrated is the piracy.

A captive bows before Welsh pirate Sir Henry Morgan as Morgan and his men sack the city of Panama in the 1670s. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/21/f-pirates-whoswho.html#ixzz0stPqRYn3

Britain – a pirate power

The explicit use of pirates in the Caribbean brought great riches to the Britain. Keynes famously linked all British foreign investment to the single act of looting of the Spanish Armada.

For a good part of 300 years (1550-1850), the English crown gave permits for pirates to operate on high seas – through, what were known as, letters of marque. With the sanction of the English State, high seas piracy became a national pastime in Britain.

Pirates like Sir John Hawkins made money on slave trade and piracy – targeting Spanish ships. Queen Elizabeth, apart from knighting him, also participated in these criminal enterprises. In a modern context, imagine the Italian government giving legal sanction to the Mafia, or Colombians to the Cali cartel.

The Spanish Armada was assembled by Spain to end British piracy. Further on, British propaganda made these pirates and privateers into heroes – and the Spanish Armada into an instrument of Catholic repression.

John Maynard Keynes, famously and honestly, tracked the source of British capital – and computed the compounded value of this loot. Keynes wrote: –

I trace the beginnings of British foreign investment to the treasure which Drake stole from Spain in 1580. In that year he returned to England bringing with him the prodigious spoils of the Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth was a considerable shareholder in the syndicate which had financed the expedition. Out of her share she paid off the whole of England’s foreign debt, balanced her Budget, and found herself with about £40,000 in hand. This she invested in the Levant Company –which prospered. Out of the profits of the Levant Company, the East India Company was founded; and the profits of this great enterprise were the foundation of England’s subsequent foreign investment. Now it happens that £40,ooo accumulating at 3f per cent compound interest approximately corresponds to the actual volume of England’s foreign investments at various dates, and would actually amount to-day to the total of £4,000,000,000 which I have already quoted as being what our foreign investments now are. Thus, every £1 which Drake brought home in 1580 has now become £100,000. Such is the power of compound interest!

Now we all know where the Spaniards got their gold from!

English Chartered Companies – monopoly public-sector trading houses

The next major source for English capital were English corporations, in which the British ruling classes were the prime promoters and beneficiaries. English use of corporations was ‘pioneering’. It allowed the State to hide behind the veil of an artificial person. The EEIC could be blamed as the tyrant – and Queen Victoria could be displayed as a saviour.

The earliest English experiences with corporations started with the Muscovy Company (formed during 1550-155), the Spanish Company (1577), giving rise, in turn to the Levant Company (1581). Precursors to the East India Company, the Levant Company for instance was a mostly successful English monopoly of trade with the Turkey, Venice, Genoa and Middle East. English royalty became shareholders in these English corporations like the Muscovy Company or the Russia Merchants Companies in the 1550s, Levant Company, The Royal African Company – and later also the East India Company.

James Lancaster, John Eldred (Treasurer of the Levant Company) and Alderman Thomas Smythe and his assistant Richard Wright were common to both the Levant company and the East India Company. The English Queen contributed to the slave trading enterprise of Jack Hawkins the pirate, with her own ships, the Jesus of Lubeck and the Minion.

These trading houses, set up with royal patronage, controlled wealth, power and trade. Controlled by a few people, these corporations were extensions of the State.

English Slave Trade (Data source - Table from 'The Oxford history of the British Empire: The eighteenth century By P. J. Marshall, Alaine M. Low'; page 446)

Britain – prime slave trader

Britain and US were the largest users of African slaves – which gave these economies a 20% labour cost advantage. It also ‘freed’ its unemployed youth to go to the colonies and join the military.

The Royal African Company, a slaving trading ‘enterprise’, branded slaves with the letters ‘DY’, after its benefactor and promoter, the Duke of York, (better known as King James-II) and later the company’s initials, RAC. The Royal African Company, formed as the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa, was created to exploit the ‘opportunity’ for slavery in general – and the trans-Atlantic slave trade specifically.

Between 1699-1807 alone, there were more than 12100 slave voyages from the English ports of London, Bristol, Liverpool, Newport and others. Britain was the prime slave-trading European power. More than 20 million slaves were captured from West Africa and sold into slavery. The overall number of slaves from Africa to Europe and Americas are much higher than 20 million. Wealthy slave traders built grand edifices across Britain, donated to universities, museums, charities.

Britain – sugar and spice

Based on slavery, was Britain’s chain of sugar production colonies across the Caribbean. With the collapse of slavery in Haiti, sugar prices zoomed. Places in the West Indies, like Barbados, Jamaica competed to become the ‘richest spote of ground in the worlde.’ Between 1793-1798, sugar prices trebled. For a few years, English territories imported more slaves than Cuba.

As slavery became impossible due to revolts and mutinies, Britain turned to India again. This time for indentured labour. Slavery diluted and called by another name, India became a source to fall back on for indentured labour. How could the British afford to buy indentured labour? Bought with new gold discoveries in Canada and Australia. Nearly 1 crore (10 million) indentured labourers were shipped out from India alone to various parts of the world – and continued till about 1917. As is to be expected, the UK Government grossly underestimates these figures.

By the time the indentured labour scheme was finally brought to an end in 1917, it is estimated that 2.5 million East Indians had been shipped to British colonies around the world. (From Empire’ Children – Channel 4).

After the finally abolishing slavery in 1833, indentured labour replaced slavery with indentured labour. Upfront, indentured labour was only slightly more expensive, but was cheaper in the long run. Indentured labour also came fewer issues related to capture, transport, trade and maintenance of slaves – with a veneer of respectability that was needed for propaganda purposes.

Indentured labour – Slavery by another name

In the late and middle 19th century, capture of Indians by British agents indentured labour, (slave traders and slavery by another name) was also the reason, that possibly, the myth of ‘kaal-paani’ became prevalent and Indian traders preferred buyers to come to them. Intrepid Indians, suddenly discovered kaala paani – a defensive response to indentured labour, which was a close parallel to slavery.

The West re-invented slavery (in the 20th century again) and renamed it as apartheid which made native populations into slaves. They could, of course, truthfully claim that great Anglo-Saxon frontiersmen discovered gold and settled empty continents – in ‘hostile conditions.’

As sugar prices climbed, Cuban plantation owners expanded plantations – and increased slave labour. From 1840, rumblings among Cubans slaves increased – which would continue for many decades.

Cuban sugar industry was itself kick-started, with English import of 5000 slaves in 1762, during their brief occupation of Cuba. In 1844 Cuban slaves revolted unsuccessfully. 10th, October 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspesdes released his slaves and El Grito de Yara War, (a 10 year campaign) against Spain started. General Valeriano Weyler, “The Butcher,” was sent to stamp out the independence movement. He created modern history’s first concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of men women and children were put into concentration camps.

And English sugar colonies gained another second wind.

But what do the Portuguese call their ocean-going ships? Nau. Yes, nau as in Hindi, for boat. Vasco da Gama’s ship, was illustrated in the Libro das Armadas in 1497. (ACADEMIA DAS CIENCIAS DE LISBOA / GIRAUDON / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY). Picture saudiaramcoworld.com

Indian shipping

50 years before Independence, a 100 years ago, India was one of the largest ship building countries in the world. The “modern era” began with the building of a dry dock at Bombay about 1750; a second was erected in Calcutta about 1780.

During Shivaji’s reign, as per estimates, more than 300 ships of 300 tons capacity were launched. The Wadias alone built more than 350 ships – during 1735-1863 170 war vessels for the East India Company, 34 man-of-war defence vessels for the British Navy, 87 merchant vessels for private firms, and three vessels for the Queen of Muscat at Bombay docks.

In 1872, Jamshedji Wadia, from a Parsi ship-building family, constructed the “Cornwallis”, a frigate with 50 guns, bought by the East India Company. This led to several orders from the English Navy.

Bengal was the other major port where ship building was for global markets. Chittagong was the center for shipbuilding (now in Bangladesh). The Turkish Navy (a major world power till WWI) was a major customer.

Ma Huan, the famous chronicler and interpreter of Zheng He (also called Cheng Ho) voyages, during the Ming dynasty, studied boat building in Bengal during the early 15th century (1400-1410).

The third major center for ship building was Narsapurpeta (near Masulipatnam) port – which was a major center of exports of steel, diamonds, saltpetre (potassium nitrate, for gunpowder, to kill Indians, Negroes, Aborigines and Red Indians with) from the Deccan plateau.

Sixteenth century painting of the Calicut port - showing shipbuilding yards. (Courtesy - http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com; BRAUN AND HOGENBERG, CIVITATES ORBIS TERRARUM, 1572 (2)) Click for larger image.

These buyers preferred Indian ships, because of better jointing technology and elimination of metal sheeting. Indian shipbuilders had a special system where wood was seasoned in partial vacuum, with oils for timber improvement. British shipbuilders, colonialists ensured through tariff and other barriers, that Indian shipbuilding “was prevented from continuing to develop, even though it had a proven ability to adapt to changing technological needs” – and thus finally killing it. English naval superiority rested on Indian ships – and paid for by exploitation of Indian resources.

In 1498, Vasco da Gama’s ocean-going ship, the Sao Gabriel came to India. The Portuguese caravel are well-known. But what do the Portuguese call their ocean-going ships? Nau. Yes, nau as in Hindi, for boat. Few of these Indian built ships have been recovered in various parts of the world. Indian shipbuilding expertise ruled the world – till colonialism killed it.

History repeats itself

On June 6th, two posts appeared in the Indian newspapers. These two posts were remarkable, as these mirrored events and behaviour some 200-400 years ago.

One report dealt with the American War in Afghanistan. To smoothen logistics in Afghanistan, the US ‘recruited’ an Afghan warlord, Matiullah Khan. Much like the English recruited many Indian kings, chieftains to fight their wars.

His main effort — and his biggest money maker — is securing the chaotic highway linking Kandahar to Tirin Kot for NATO convoys. One day each week, Matiullah declares the 100-mile highway open and deploys his gunmen up and down it. The highway cuts through an area thick with Taliban insurgents.

Matiullah keep the highway safe, and he is paid well to do it. His company charges each NATO cargo truck $1,200 for safe passage, or $800 for smaller ones, his aides say. His income, according to one of his aides, is $2.5 million a month, an astronomical sum in a country as impoverished as this one. (via With U.S. Aid, Warlord Builds Afghan Empire).

Matiullah Khan, yet another report reveals, is one of the

… eight trucking contractors who share the US military’s $2.16bn (€1.68bn, £1.45bn) two-year host nation trucking contract. The companies include NCL Holdings, run by Hamed Wardak, the US-educated son of Afghanistan’s defence minister, and others founded by investors in the US and the Gulf.

The system relies on an opaque network of sub-contractors who pay Afghan security companies to escort their trucks. Investigators suspect these companies in turn pay tolls to militia leaders with groups of hundreds of gunmen.

Prominent militia commanders in southern Afghanistan include Matiullah Khan and Ruhullah. Although some hold ranks in the Afghan security forces, such commanders exercise considerable autonomy and often field better forces than the army or police. Industry insiders say militias run what amount to protection rackets on convoys passing through their territory.

Two aspects of this stand out. One is the figure US$2.16 billion over two years – i.e. US$1.08  billion per annum. Now that is a lot of money for the 1500 Matiullah Khan’s militia – and the other 10,000-15,000 members of the other militias.

Are these private militias a problem for the local Afghans? Yes, say the local people. But, like this reports says, “But as long as the Americans are behind him, there is nothing I can do. They are the ones with the money.”

And that pretty much was what happened in India from 1757 to 1947.

The day we decided to invest in 'Desert Bloc' is the day that evil started becoming so awesome!

Indian history according to Dilbert

All this still does not explain how the English could become ascendant in Indian – without Indian collaboration. For understanding this collaboration, let us turn to another column by Scott Adams – the creator of Dilbert.

When I heard that BP was destroying a big portion of Earth, with no serious discussion of cutting their dividend, I had two thoughts: 1) I hate them, and 2) This would be an excellent time to buy their stock. And so I did. Although I should have waited a week.

People ask me how it feels to take the side of moral bankruptcy. Answer: Pretty good! Thanks for asking. How’s it feel to be a disgruntled victim?

I have a theory that you should invest in the companies that you hate the most.

If there’s oil on the moon, BP will be the first to send a hose into space and suck on the moon until it’s the size of a grapefruit. As an investor, that’s the side I want to be on, with BP, not the loser moon.

Perhaps you think it’s absurd to invest in companies just because you hate them. But let’s compare my method to all of the other ways you could decide where to invest.

Perhaps you can safely invest in companies that have a long track record of being profitable. That sounds safe and reasonable, right? The problem is that every investment expert knows two truths about investing: 1) Past performance is no indication of future performance. 2) You need to consider a company’s track record.

Right, yes, those are opposites. An investment professional can argue for any sort of investment decision by selectively ignoring either point 1 or 2. And for that you will pay the investment professional 1% to 2% of your portfolio value annually, no matter the performance.

I’m not saying that the companies you love are automatically bad investments. I’m saying that investing in companies you love is riskier than investing in companies you hate.

If you buy stock in a despicable company, it means some of the previous owners of that company sold it to you. If the stock then rises more than the market average, you successfully screwed the previous owners of the hated company. That’s exactly like justice, only better because you made a profit. Then you can sell your stocks for a gain and donate all of your earnings to good causes, such as education for your own kids.

My point is that I hate Apple. I hate that I irrationally crave their products, I hate their emotional control over my entire family, I hate the time I waste trying to make iTunes work, I hate how they manipulate my desires, I hate their closed systems, I hate Steve Jobs’s black turtlenecks, and I hate that they call their store employees Geniuses which, as far as I can tell, is actually true. My point is that I wish I had bought stock in Apple five years ago when I first started hating them. But I hate them more every day, which is a positive sign for investing, so I’ll probably buy some shares.

Looking back at how the Rajputs, like General Mansingh et al, collaborated with the Mughals (Mughals were better than the Khiljis, right?) Indians also justified alliances with the colonial Raj. It took some time for the reality of English rule to sink into Indian minds.

Reluctant admirers

Thus, at historical crossroads, in the 18th century, Indian industrial technology (shipping and gunpowder), wealth (Indian gold reserves) and Indian manpower (Indian sepoys and indentured labour) powered the rise of Britain.

The Indian military market was completely dominated by the private sector. Elements of the Indian military mix – soldiers, elephants, horse traders and trainers, saltpetre production, shipping, wootz steel production, was supplied to the various kingdoms. Operating on a commercial basis, across borders, these production and recruitment systems were technology leaders with high production capacity. In such a military system, standing armies were rare. Production capacities catered to the entire Indic area – and limited export markets.

As the linkage between Indian intellectual and industrial centres (Takshashila against Alexander; Nalanda and saltpetre) broke, after Indian polity fell under the spell of ‘Desert Bloc’ ideology, from 1200 (Qutubuddin Aibak onwards) till date, Indian military production also  lost discretion and propriety. From being market-oriented, and end-use sensitive, India’s military production became mercenary.

Using their ill-gotten gains, from slavery, piracy, crime, loot, et al Islamic rulers and the English outbid Indian rulers. For military elements like saltpetre, elephants, sepoys, horses, armies et al. The first time in Indian history, defence production became public sector monopoly, under Nehru’s ‘commanding heights’ and ‘temples of modern India’ socialistic policy.

To marginally ethical people, without recourse to loot, piracy and slavery under the Indic values system of shubh labh, ‘Desert Bloc’ ethics were an ‘attractive’ alternative. Economically affected by shrinkage in Indian exports due to slave raids and piracy, land grab by the colonial Indian State, some took the easy way of embracing English practices and values – giving the British Empire a leg up in India.

Pirates and slave traders as vectors of the insidious Desert Bloc ethic are usually not factored, analysed or discussed. Indian ship manufacturing centres were world leaders. Hence, ‘traders’ (especially slave traders) from the world over came to India shipyards – centred around Kerala, Gujarat and Chittagong. But slavery and loot are the two elephants in the Desert Bloc room which needs to be recognized, examined – and understood.

Sandwiched between buying Indian collaborators (like Americans are today buying Matiullah Khan) or obtaining cooperation (like Scott Adams is suggesting) from ‘reluctant’ Indian admirers lies the story of the rise of Britain and the British Raj in India.

Not a great mystery this. If you can cut out all the ‘White’ noise.

Dating agenda in ‘modern’ history

Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti: una cum rerum asiaticarum et aegyptiacarum chronico, a temporis historici principio usque ad Maccabaicorum initia producto. Jacobo Usserio Armachano, Digestore

09:00 hr, 23rd October, 4004

Western history and historians, then and even now, have tried to fit Indian civilization into a Biblical calendar frame.

Western historians needed a Day-zero date, the date of creation, to build their historical narrative. Various Western ‘scholars’ and ‘historians’ worked backwards and arrived at a date. The date was 4004 BC.

For all those, to whom the year 4004, was not precise enough for the beginning of mankind, Earth, history, further refinement was supplied – Monday, October, 09:00 hr. This chronology estimated that God created Earth in 4004 – based on Ussher-Lightfoot chronology. A situation where

each generation of Orientalists accepting almost without question or examination the dates handed down to them by the first pioneers, whose thoughts and imaginations were cramped with the limits set by the archbishop Ussher. (1906, from The theosophical quarterly, Volume 4, By Theosophical Society in America).

Max Muller, the ‘Orientalist’, whose template for Indian historiography is followed till date, significantly, had no choice but to use the Ussher-Lightfoot chronology. Till 1857, Britain through the East India Company, followed Spain and Portugal, who had planted ‘the banner of Christ in heathen and pagan lands’. The Chairman of the Directors of the East India Company, Ross Donnelly Mangles, piously declared in the British House Of Commons –

“Providence has entrusted the extensive empire of Hindustan to England, in order that the banner of Christ should wave triumphant from one end of India to the other. Everyone must exert all his strength that there may be no dilatoriness on any account in continuing in the country the grand work of making India Christian.”.

It took a revolution in Haiti to start the end of the Spanish Empire – and the 1857 Anglo-Indian War to end the English campaign to ‘convert the heathen’ and ‘civilize pagan Hindoos.’

His 'calculations' were followed even in the 20th century

Egypt rules

In all this, Egyptian history was the hub, around which the spokes of Western historical constructs rotated. Hence, there has been resistance to changing Egyptian dates. Even with

“helpful data such as the record of a solar eclipse recorded in an Assyrian document that can be equated by modern astronomers with the one that took place on 15 June 763 … Before 1400, chronologies are much less precise, largely reflecting the poorer survival of useful evidence. As a result the debates over an absolute chronology for both Egypt and Babylonia are much fiercer.” (from From Egypt to Babylon: the international age 1550-500 BC; By Paul Collins; pages 10-14)

Traditional Western historians from both the schools don’t want to change – as whole libraries of history based on theories of Western superiority will become irrelevant. At least the dates will.

This resistance to change is an especially important consideration for dating of the Egyptian artefacts and history. Radio carbon dates for Egyptian history were dismissed as “errors have recently been revealed by comparing carbon-14 dates with known Egyptian Dynastic dates … carbon-14 estimates for Egypt are from several hundred to a thousand years too late …”

The Greek miracle

Change in sources

From around 500 BC, sources also change. After the Greek Dark Age, modern Western history assigns greatest weight to Greek ‘sources’.

After 150 BC, as the Greeks disappear, entire races, nations and dynasties mysteriously vanish. History becomes speculation. The fact that the Greeks themselves disappear after 150 BC, is not important, as per Western historiography.

For instance, instead of the disappearing Mittanis, it has been suggested that the Mittanis and the Medes were the same. Phoenicians make an entry and the Canaanites disappear – even though they are both the same.

In the Canaanite avataar, from being a race of Semitic people, Phoenicians become a trading and sea-faring people of unknown origins. Similarly, a hypothesis that instead of disappearing, Hittites became Lydians, is ignored. Another study proposes that Cyrus and Tiglath-Pileser III were the same.

The Dating Imbroglio

Historical dating till the 1960’s was based on a matrix of theology, politics, colonialism, archaeology, books, records, events, cross-indexing, astronomy. In most cases, all these factors were NOT present, resulting in a significant element of guess–work – and a major element of vested interests.

In 1960s, came new tools to assist archaeological dating system – the the Carbon-14 and the Bristlecone Pine tree-ring system – as well as others. Even this has been distorted by calibration, aberrant data and acceptable readings – all the time maintaining a veneer of secular and objective history.

Indian chronology – Deconstructing Indian dates

Behind this dating ‘logic’, is a man who is much admired (wrongly) in India today – Max Mueller. For instance in Max Muller’s colonial propagandist history, when it comes to Indian triumphs over Semiramis, she becomes half-legendary. Yet in another book, the same Semiramis becomes one of ‘the great conquerors of antiquity.’ In a matter of a few pages, he dismisses Indian history completely, in a half-Hegelian manner.

All these theories rest on the axle of philological dating. Based on imprecise evidence, tools and estimates, of when various texts were ‘composed’ and ‘reduced’ to writing, and ‘frozen for ever’, which are based on stylistic changes in Sanskrit language. Looking at construction of Sanskrit language and texts, the logic of oral ‘composition’, ‘reduction’ to writing, ‘frozen for ever’ is a wrong model – and creates these false debates and models.

Sanskritic compositions were team-based effort, (picture Sage Durvasa travelling with his 1000’s of disciples), a vast body of argument and debate  (Kahoda-Vandin-Ashtavakra debate) over many hundreds – if not thousands, of years. Vishwamitra, Vyasa, Vashishtha, Narada were the most well-known of the wandering monks of many Indian texts and scriptures. Appearing and disappearing at various points of time and events.

They could not have been the same person, because they appear at the (near) beginning of Rahgukul (Vishwamitra at the Trishanku incident) and at the (near) end of Raghukul (the marriage of Sita and Ram) – spanning more than 30 generations of kings. Was Vashisht, Vishwamitra and Vyasa, a titular  system, decided by a collegium of peer rishis. The ascension of Vishwamitra from a rishi-to-rajrishi-to-brahmarishi supports this.

The difficulty that Western historians have is the internal consistency across the vast body of texts and scriptures. For instance, Western historians trace Indian own significant achievements in astronomy to ‘import’ from Babylon – via Greece! David Brown, an ‘expert’, on Mesopotamian astronomy and astrology, goes further and asserts that the “evidence for transmission to Greece and thence to India in the Hellenistic period was overwhelming.” (from Learned antiquity By Alasdair A. MacDonald, Michael W. Twomey, G. J. Reinink).

What is this ‘overwhelming’ evidence that he presents? Nothing, but the usual dating mix ups. Considering “it unlikely that it was the work of one person’, analysts are surprised, ‘considering its internal consistency”.

Worried? There is more, where this from, Mr.Brown.

The fallacy of the Vedic age

There never was a Vedic age. Not in the sense that Western historiographers slot and exclude various developments. This presupposes linear, directional, phased, and centralized development of the Vedas. Assuming a command and control system, it has a non-empirical base.

For instance, this assumes that the Vedic age was dedicated to the Vedas – and all other texts developed after that.

Fact is that the Vedas depend on the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh; along with the Devatas and Asuras. The structure of the Devas, Asuras, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh can really be understood through the Upanishads,  the epics and the Puranas.  And we have not even begun on development of an ‘artificial’ language like Sanskrit  (as opposed to Prakrit).

Pauranik structures, Upanishadic debates, technical compendiums, the twin epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata were parallel developments and coeval – albeit at different stages of evolution, structure, style, pace and direction.

While other cultures struggle with low or high double digits of ancient texts, India has lakhs of them. This vast body of textual creation, has not happened anywhere else in the ancient world. The very assumption that it happened in India, in a matter of a few centuries – while the Aryans, Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Tocharians, Huns, were conquering India.

During these ‘invasions’, the conquerors were kind enough to leave Indian seers, sages, munis and rishis alone so that they could carry on with the composition of these texts. Massacre of the males, raping of the women and enslaving the rest, in the meanwhile continued in the parallel. And after these massacres and conversions, these invaders were of course kind enough to convert  to an Indian way of life – and melt away from the centre stage of Indian history.

To pass of these caricatures as attempts to phase Indian culture are artificial and unproductive. and simply not history.

Alexander, Porus, Takshashila and Gymnosophists

At the time of Takshashila’s decline in the 5th century, a significant Gupta king was Purugupta – successor of Skandagupta. Written records from Purugupta’s reign are few and far in between. He has been variously named as Vikramaditya, Prakashaditya and of course as Puru /Pura Gupta.

The most authentic link to his reign is the Bhitari seal inscription, (near Ghazipur, in modern UP). The Bhitari seal provided proof of an elongated Gupta reign – than the Skandagupta-was-the-end-of-Gupta dynasty dating. Currently dated between 467 AD, Purugupta’s reign saw many border wars.

Purugupta’s reign saw Vasubandhu, a known teacher of logic and debate, become famous and Huien Tsang reported on the debates based on Vasubandhu’s texts. Today Vasubandhu’s texts exist in Chinese and Tibetan languages – the original Sanskrit volumes remain untraceable. Purugupta also restored the gold grammage in the ‘suvarna’ coins, probably debased in Skandagupta’s time, possibly due to the cost of the fighting the Hunas.

Alexander and the Indian 'Gymnosophists' - Medieval European drawing

Alexander’s ‘debates’ with Indian Gymnosophists was possibly with Vasubandhu’s disciples. Is it that the Porus identified by the Greeks, Purugupta? Were the marauding soldiers, mentioned in Chinese texts, and in Indian texts during Purugupta’s times, mercenary Huna soldiers hired by Alexander to replace the ‘deserting’ Greek’ soldiers, on the eve of his Indian ‘campaign’? The 8000 Brahmans that Alexander massacred were possibly teachers at Takshashila. The dating of the Gupta dynasty to end of the 5th century AD, is probably off by about 800 years.

State propaganda as history

The two point agenda was the maintenance of the Greek Miracle – motivated by desire to use history as a colonial and exploitative tool. And the other item on the agenda was the proving of the ‘correctness’ of Biblical events – which was motivated by a racial agenda to prove Western racial superiority.

By the time Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was officially announced, (interestingly, to coincide, with Boghazkoi decipherment), colonial history was set – and IVC at that time, was force-fitted into these datelines and ‘structures’.

Modern history, is now caught between the Greek Miracle History School, which has stuck to the Sumer->Turkey->Egypt->Greece->Rome->Europe–>West-Is-The-Greatest Axis and the Velikovsky School which is stuck to proving that the Bible is indeed the Last & Only Word.

Understanding Western history and agenda becomes impossible unless these motivations are remembered.

Reviving Phoenicia: in search of identity in Lebanon

By Asher Kaufman

Tribute to Haiti – in their hour of tragedy

Haiti in Happier times!

What Haiti needs

Haiti was stuck by an earthquake measuring “7.0-magnitude quake, Haiti’s worst in two centuries, struck at 1653 local time (2153 GMT) on Tuesday, just 15km (10 miles) south-west of Port-au-Prince and close to the surface.” More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been affected. Haiti has been through worse – and the Haitians have always pulled through. What Haiti needs is non-interference.

Sordid reactions

During an earlier segment with a reporter for Robertson’s CBN News, the televangelist had questioned whether the earthquake in Haiti was a “blessing in disguise.”

“They need to have … a great turning to God,” he concluded, adding that the earthquake may have been a direct consequence of their “Satanic pact”.

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it,” Robertson said during a broadcast of The 700 Club on the Christian Broadcasting Network. (via US televangelist claims Haiti earthquake ‘a blessing in disguise’ | The Daily Telegraph).

What is it that Haiti did a ‘long time ago’ that made Pat Robertson, do rah-rah for this ‘divine wrath’!

I know what Haiti did

Haiti was the world’s first republic, set up by slaves – after a war of freedom. Haiti’s, support for Simon Bolivar ended the Spanish Empire in South America. Most importantly, it forced the West to free all African slaves across the Europe and Americas. The second major ‘crime’ that the Haitians committed was that they rejected a ‘liberating’ Christianity – and continued with their voudou religion.

For all this, the West has not forgiven Haiti!

Messianic Rev.Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson, more than 40 years ago, founded the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN), which according to “Nielsen Media Research, The 700 Club, aired each weekday, has averaged 863,000 viewers in the last year” in the US alone. Some time earlier, Pat Robertson, had called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela – for which he later duly apologized. I wonder if the West would forgive if any Iranian Ayatollah issued a fatwa against a Western leader, and later apologized! Even earlier, when the Israeli Prime Minister suffered a stroke, he pronounced that as ‘punishment from God!’ Especially malevolent, Rev.Robertson’s God is, I must say!

Voudou religion has been tarnished in Western eyes!

In 1999, he signed a deal with Bank of Scotland, part of the  Lloyd’s Banking Group, later the HBOS, for a Internet-telephone-banking venture. When the deal was called off, Pat Robertson launched a scathing attack. “In Scotland, you can’t believe how strong the homosexuals are,” Mr Robertson said on his Virginia-based Christian Broadcasting Network and his 700 Club television show. Pat Robertson, coming in at NO.2, defeated George Bush in the 1988 Republican Party’s US Presidential nomination race, at the Iowa caucuses. Robertson’s ‘message of moral regeneration‘ appealed to the Americans.

The Magna Carta sanctioned slavery. In various judgments, US Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of the US Constitution, upheld slavery. Vatican’s, Council of Gangra, re-affirmed its faith in slavery. The administrators of the teachings of the “Lord of lords, and King of kings.” (Revelation 17: 14) at the Council Of Gangra, 325 AD, issued edicts approving slavery – as did many other Vatican edicts. Pat Robertson, is just one in a long line of such Christian leaders, to support slavery.

In a twisted way, Pat Robertson maybe right.

Talking of money, rich foreigners and expats, who are keeping Haiti in misery, have lost a lot more than Haitians have.

Voodoo priestess, Gro Mambo

Tell Haiti you care

Send Haiti your best wishes, your moral support. If you live in a less exploitative society than before, or a more exploitative society, remember, it was Haiti that stuck the first blow. A blow that en-slaver’s have not forgotten 200 years later. To Haiti, we owe whatever liberty, freedom we have – or aspire to.

I don’t know how your money will help them. They may not need your money (I guess), but you should give them your moral support (I strongly suggest). Just send a <ding> to this post. Or ping it. Whatever you do, just make it loud enough that your voice can reach Haiti.

In their hour of tragedy.

Haiti Must Succeed

Good Job, Dinesh

I dont see Haiti mentioned in most discussions about the abolition of slavery – and I am intrigued by this whitewash. These two blogs possibly best represent attempts this ‘white wash.’

One is from a member of the US Conservative Right, part of the Republican propaganda team – aapla, our own, Dinesh DeSouza. He tries, speciously and very hard, to show how it is the White, Christian, Americans who actually freed the slaves – after the slaves were sold into slavery by their Black Brothers.

Of course, he cannot see the long history of trade in slaves, the laws and might of the State which enforced this trade. There is no mention of the continuing attempts (under disenfranchisement laws) to deny Blacks, their voting rights. He does not see the more than 200 slave uprisings in USA (alone). Dinesh does a fabulous hatchet job on why I should volunteer to become a colonial subject (if not a slave) of the West or the Raj again. Bro.Dinesh DeSouza does not publish dissenting comments.

The second blog, by an academic, celebrates a pseudo-anniversary. This post, by ‘a professor at a large state university,’ abandons academic integrity, to promote propaganda, instead of academic excellence. At least, he published dissenting comments.

Or for this matter this book review in The Times about slavery – which doesn’t once mention the one reason, why slavery was abolished – Haiti and slave revolts.

What most of these mainline and popular press fail to mention is the determined Black struggle for overthrow of slavery. Between 1789-1833, more than 20 slave rebellions occured in the Caribbean – one every 2 years. It were these slave revolts that ‘persuaded’ the West to abolish slavery. In the USA, about 200 slave uprising and revolts occurred in the USA before the Civil War.

In the beginning

14th August 1791. St Dominque. A black slave overseer killed a pig. And that signaled the world’s first successful slave uprising in modern times.

Boukman Dutty, a Voudou N’Gan (oungan, houngan, voodoo priest), killed a pig as a part of an African tribal ritual Bwa Kayiman, dedicated to his ancestors and Ogoun, God of fire, iron and war. Ogoun and Erzulie Dantor (Ezili Dantor), a Vodou l’wha (loa) a warrior spirit, responded to this call to protect these slave warriors.

25th August. Night of Fire

50,000 slaves rose in revolt. More than 1000 sugar and coffee plantations were put to fire. Flames could be seen as far as Bahamas. From 31st December 1803, to 1st January, 1804, liberation brought about by vengeance was celebrated, and independence was declared.

St. Dominque, now called Haiti, was a French colony with 800 sugar plantations and 4,00,000 slaves from Niger and Dahomey (now Benin) in West Africa. Haiti, the jewel of French colonies, accounting for 40% of French GDP in 1700s, was the largest market for slaves in Atlantic trade. It was the largest producer of sugar in the world and competed with British colonies (like India) for indigo production and had thousands of coffee plantations.

Christopher Columbus was the first European who came to Haiti and started the exploitation of Haiti. What happened to the original population of Haiti? An estimated 1.3 million, may have been 3-4 million (admittedly not white, but nevertheless) people. Done to death by forced labour in silver mines over 10 years.

Birth Of Haiti

The Haitian Revolution earned the displeasure of Napoleon Bonaparte. The threat of a politically-free Haiti (then Saint-Domingue) with a freed black slave population challenged Euro-American imperial ‘needs’.

This created a “terrified consciousness” (Anthony Maingot) among slave masters. To restore slavery (the local population and its leaders were, of course, not consulted), and Napoleon sent General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc (his brother-in-law) with about 10,000 French troops, the finest, in 1802 to accomplish this aim. A futile effort. “Napoleon lost the colony, his brother-in-law, and most of the 44,000 troops eventually sent out to conduct the savage and bitter campaign of reconquest”.

On January 1st, 1804, Haiti declared themselves free and a republic. It was world’s first black republic.

Imperial Opportunism

After the revolution in Haiti, Spaniards and the British rushed in to take advantage of this opportunity and to re-enslave the rebels. The newly freed slaves time and again beat back the new British and Spanish enslavers.

“The army failed. Five years and more than 12,000 British deaths later, the redcoats withdrew. An army of rebel enslaved Africans had defeated the army of the world’s superpower, and the largest slave-trading nation. The humiliation of this defeat sent a shock wave through the British establishment and, indirectly, strengthened the forces in parliament that voted to abolish the slave trade in 1807.” (from William Wilberforce: The Real Abolitionist? By Adam Hochschild)

The Haitians, initially led by Boukman Douty, re-grouped under Toussaint Louverture, Georges Biassou, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe.

Shivas dun mai spoiwne

Haiti’s developments stampeded Europe and USA. Afraid that US slaves will follow the Haiti example, US did not recognise Haiti, till November 1864 – 60 years after Haiti declared Independence.

Jefferson (possibly while dining alone), was afraid that Haiti would create a “great disposition to insurgency among American slaves.” He imagined that

“dull, tasteless and anomalous” Blacks would have “ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained, new provocations, the real distinctions which nature has made, and many other circumstances will divide us into parties and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.“

Controlled Onshore Slavery

Restrictions on slavery were discussed all over Europe and USA. The US placed restriction on import of slaves – which increased the price of existing slaves in the trade market. But slave traders like Jean Laffitte soon ran rings round this by smuggling slaves from Cuba. Merchants and traders protested against Jean Laffitte’s smuggling of other products. Planters did not like slave traders because the slave traders made slaves ‘expensive’. The planters pressured Government’s into passing various laws restricting ‘trade’ in slaves.

Jean Laffitte’s smuggling operations stopped in 1821. After 14 years of successful slave smuggling. Jean Laffitte became a ‘folk hero’ in New Orleans for flouting restrictions against import of slaves (slaves that white southerners needed). It was his ‘patriot outlaw’ image which got him his following. He was ostensibly seen as aiding the government during the 1812 war with the British – which was decided on the basis of his business interests.

Europe, Britain & Abolition Of Slavery

Britain technically abolished slavery in 1807, after the Haiti experience – and replaced slavery with indentured labour. Upfront, indentured labour was only slightly more expensive but was far more cheaper in the long run. Indentured labour also came fewer issues related to capture, transport, trade and maintenance of slaves – with a veneer of respectability that was needed for propaganda purposes. Also, Britain had India – a huge colony to fall back on for indentured labour.

British trade and agriculture brought pressure to stop slavery by other European kingdoms. Paid labour had made French products uncompetitive – which made Napoleon re-introduce slavery. This re-introduction of slavery by the French (circa 1804) diluted British resolve to end slavery.

While slavery was supposedly abolished in 1807, trade in slaves continued. Slave ships and traders had to pay a fine of GBP100 per slave, if caught. The law was not seriously implemented. In the few cases where slave ships and traders were caught, slaves were simply thrown overboard.

Other Slave Rebellions

Finally, further rebellions in Barbados (1816), Demerra or Demerara (1823) and Jamaica (1831-32) forced the British hand. Off shore British slaves finally became free in 1833 after the British Government passed yet another law, to outlaw slavery, Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 – and paid ‘compensation’ to slave owners. An egregious and glaring example was the ‘compensation’ to the Bishop of Exeter and his partners of GBP12,700 to ‘compensate’ them for the ‘loss’ of 665 slaves in 1833.

How could the British afford to buy indentured labour? Bought with new gold discoveries in Canada and Australia.

Beggar Thy Neighbour

It was also economic warfare. Based on immediate colonial interests, promises were made to American slaves by Britain. During the American War Of Independence, British Colonial forces, promised Black slaves to run away from their White masters. Property was promised to them in Canada and Sierra Leone. Some were sent to London. Based on these promises, an estimated 75,000-100,000 slaves abandoned their White American owners.

The key to Haiti’s wealth – slave labour. Hence, the British efforts to ban slavery – as a part of their beggar-thy-neighbour strategy. Haiti was contributing major surplus to the French – and Britain had to undercut French economic gains from Haiti. The French efforts to get back into India against Britain through Tipu Sultan (during the Mysore Wars) had made life difficult for Britain – and hence they needed to undermine French economic resources.

It had little to do with human rights. While slavery was being abolished, the same Britons were committing genocide in Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.

Black Freedom

In America, opposition to slavery was about race. What if the Black slave population in the American South became like Haiti? Just before independence, against a population of 400,000-500,000 Black Haitians, there were about 25,000 whites and 40,000 mulattos.

What if the Black Population in the American South (nearly 80% at the start of the Civil War) rose to say, 150%. 4 million Blacks compared to 5 million whites in the American South at the start of the Civil War.

Another Haiti would have very well happened in Southern American South too. A truncated USA was a real fear – if not a certainty. None other than “Benjamin Franklin said with alarm that importing slaves had “blacken’d half America” …

Great White Chief In The Sky

So, what did the white fathers do? They set up Liberia, in Africa, (another land of the free?) and the successor of the British black deportation to Sierra Leone and the Israel’s predecessor. Behind this idea was Jefferson again, (dining alone again, Thomas?), who suggested that US should

“take measures for procuring on the coast of Africa, an establishment to which the people of color of these States might, from time to time, be colonized.”

Such racist concepts also were also tried by Germany – in Paraguay. Germany decided to breed a race of superior White Germans, in the colony of Nueva Germania. Heading the Nueva Germania project was Elizabeth Nietzsche – brother of Frederick Nietzsche.

In 1816, the USA decided to follow Jefferson’s idea and colonise Africa (Africa had to pay the price of Jefferson’s dining alone). An artificial situation was created, where escaped, freed Blacks were sent to Liberia. The local population were of no consequence – like latter day Palestine. With the setting up of Liberia, slavery was moved off shore. Large parts of Liberia were leased out to Firestone – for rubber plantations. Even in Africa, these ‘freed ‘slaves were enslaved again – which continues to this day.

A significant reason why slavery was not popular in the North was the depressing effect of slavery on wages and employment. Poor (free) whites had to compete with slave labour for employment – and that was a non-starter.

Haiti’s Contribution To Other Freedom Movements

Haiti, (unlike today’s Israeli Jews) supported liberation movements. Haiti’s successful revolt and the defeat of the Spanish and British armies encouraged other colonies of South America to demand and fight for Independence. This fight was led by Simon Bolivar – after whom Bolivia is named.

After being expelled from Venezuela, it was Alexandre Petion, the Haitian President sheltered Simon Bolivar in 1815, who supported Simon Bolivar with arms, ammunition , a printing press and other aid – after a clear promise that all the freed countries of the South America would abolish slavery.

This was a promise that Simon Bolivar did not keep – until significant pressure was put on him. In spite of winning freedom with the help of Black people, the newly freed countries of South America discriminated against the very Blacks who helped them get freedom. Moreover, in 1826, at the Congress of American States, under US pressure, Simon Bolivar did not invite Haiti.

Splendid Isolation

Fear of success or opposition, in country after country of the Americas and Pacific, the USA has been involved in destabilisation and intervention. One time USA allies are now hot beds of terrorism. Afraid that US slaves will follow the Haiti example, US did not recognise Haiti, till November 1864 – 60 years after Haiti declared Independence. Moreover, in 1826, at the Congress of American States, under US pressure, Simon Bolivar did not invite Haiti.

The US record against the growth and stabilisation of Cuba does not bear repitition. Having ‘bought’ Cuba from Spain (like Puerto Rico, Guam and Philippines), USA believes and feels that they ‘own’ Cuba.

In 1904, the US pressured Tomas Estrada Palma, a ‘puppet’ Cuban President, to sign the Platt Amendment. This allowed US intervention in Cuban affairs, if ‘vital’ US  interests were at risk (meaning at at US will) – finally modified only in 1934. Under this ‘new deal’ ‘Cuba would be allowed to export 22% of the sugar the US imported, by paying 0.09¢, a pound tariff duty. In return, little or no duty would be levied by Cuba on goods imported from the USA.’

Oppression – And Its Many Avatars

Legal support for slavery is a feature of the Western and Levantine societies. Trade of human beings in market place, had the support of the State.

In Europe and USA, laws and courts were enforced slavery (Kishore Mahbubani, please note that the West follows the law). In Indic legal systems, such a feature has not been seen for the last 3000 years. The last Indic system which had explicit slavery laws were the Hittites around 1000BC. To cover up this aspect, and to shore up their image as champions of human rights, Western powers have tried to fuzzy the definition of slavery through the ILO – an creation of the Western powers after WW1.

The Desert Religions

Judaism, Christianity, Islam were all born within 500 miles of each other and share a common culture and history. Judaism was (probably) born when Moses led the Hebrew slaves from the Pharoah (across the Red Sea) to freedom – possibly around 500 BC at the latest to 1500 BC at the earliest. His earliest followers were the Hebrews and they were a significant part of the Middle Eastern history all through till today.

The next major religious reformer in the Middle East was Jesus Christ. For the first 300 years, Roman slaves were the major believers in his teachings. Emperor Constantine earned the loyalty of his Christian troops and won the war for Roman throne by his win over Maxentius at Milvan Bridge. Prior to Maxentius, for the previous 30-40 years, Christians had been persecuted by “rule of four’ Tetrarchy reformists in Rome, headed by Diocletan. Hence, the Christian slave soldiers of Constantine were eager for victory – as the persecution under Maxentius would have been worse.

Liberated slaves were the founders and rulers of Islamic dynasties, (in India, the Slave dynasty – builders of Qutub minar). Thus all the three “desert religions” were first adopted by the slaves and only after gaining significant numbers of adherents, these religions became mainstream and commenced aggressive proselytising and conversions.

Slavery – and other Labour contracts

Slavery was different – and a distinctive feature, promoted (largely) by the Western and Middle Eastern powers. It had state sanction, state protection, laws passed by the kings, emirs, emperors, parliaments and legislating authorities.

The US Supreme Court (Dredd Scott Case) prohibited slaves from even approaching courts for any redress. There was an organised, legal, sponsored industry involved in the kidnap, sequestration, transport, trade and transfer (and might I add re-capture) of slaves – with the might of the state behind it. The West has now partially succeeded equalising slavery with the caste system – to ‘whitewash’ their own history.

Why Must Haiti Succeed

The USA and the West has been at war (or by proxy) with the Black Republics of Haiti, Cuba, Greneda for the last 200 years. Fuelled by a desperate desire to show White superiority. By a need to white wash history. To hide the origins of their misbegotten wealth – built on the foundation of the skeletons of dead and surviving slaves.

Haiti gave the world freedom. Not America – which claims itself to be a land of the free (as long as you are white).

It is for the same reasons why Haiti must now be protected – by the rest of the world. Make Haiti a UN protectorate. All the superpowers to be forced to declare Haiti as off limits.

Haiti must succeed.