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History See other History Articles Title: The Forgotten Passage "It's so hot down here, and my legs are aching with pain, unbearable pain. I have been on this ship for weeks; my neck chained to others just like me. I am no better than the horses I groomed back home. There are 300 of us waiting to arrive at our masters' homes in America. "Oh God, the pain. The collar on my neck ... so tight and tearing into my muscles. If only I would go numb ... if only I could sleep, sleep forever. "My stomach is swelling from starvation. I haven't eaten in days. None of us have. What I would give for some hot soup and a nice bed to lie in. I do not want to live any longer, and as each day passes, I know I it may be my last. If only the blessings of death would deliver me from my new life ... a life I did not ask for. "Colin was the first to go. It was sad. He was my best friend, and 10 years old just like me. I knew he wouldn't make it ... so thin and fragile. "The sweat dripping from his brow ravaged by fever, his body shook for days ... oh, how he would moan from the pain. His body lay beside me for a long time before they discovered he was dead. They don't come down here to the bottom of the ship very often. There's no need. We're not human... "There isn't much room in this small hole, so many of us sleep on top of one another in large piles. Oh God, I am so thirsty ... but, sometimes my mind wanders, and I think of my family. Their memory relieves me from the pain and agony. I cannot stop thinking about them, and I do not want to. My mother's sweet caress and the laughter of my father gets me through each day, but I know I will never see them again. "I am so tired ... help me, please? Somebody? Anybody? I just want to go home ... I just want to go home." The above story would have been a common experience to the slaves aboard ships traveling to America. Some estimates say as many as 100,000 young boys and girls were kidnapped and brought here to work in their masters' homes and on their plantations. But there is a part to this story that you haven't been told. The slaves were not black, nor were they African; these were white children ripped from their mothers' arms at terribly young ages. Irish and Scottish boys and girls, living in poverty on the streets of England, sold into perpetual slavery. Most of you have never heard their story. Hardly any books, no movies like "Amistad" (ironically, of which the main character, Cinque, was a slave trader himself), no long history classes in school reminding them yearly of the evils of slavery, but most importantly no billion-dollar reparations case. No civil-rights attorney preparing class-action lawsuits and screaming in a feverish pitch, "THEY WERE VICTIMS!!!" ... as is occurring as I write this. The reparations class-action lawsuit for African-Americans currently being prepared by attorney Edward Fagan (famous for his squeeze of Swiss banks, netting billions of dollars to alleged Jewish holocaust survivors) will target Lloyd's of London, Barclays Bank and the U.S. government. They are requesting $1 million for each recipient and billions of dollars in contributions to a general education fund. Tragically, you'll never see a reparations lawsuit for white slaves that were stolen from their families and brought to colonial America in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are reasons for this, and Edward Fagan and his cohorts understand the consequences. If America recognizes or at least remembers the slave trade of white Europeans to American shores, the reparations case is bust. African-Americans and, more importantly, Edward Fagan, won't get paid. The reparations business is eerily similar to the violent liquor-store holdups and armed robberies that occur in urban areas around the country. Instead of armed weapons, they use the language and services of silver-tongued, greedy lawyers as their weapon of choice, but the philosophy is still the same. One group robs another of their money, but instead of criminals dressed in doo-rags, football jerseys and oversized trousers, they wear $1,000 Armani suits and an expensive Rolex. However, the words of urban street thugs or high-priced shakedown artists are still the same - "Stick 'em up!" I used to get angry when news of the latest reparations scam was brought to my attention. Now I just shake my head in disgust as I think about the tens of thousands of white European children who died on the forgotten passage. Some accounts estimate that as many as 50 percent of the white children died from starvation, disease and torture. But what disgusts me more are the lives and stories of the children erased from our memories today. When we forget them, they die in vain and remain in the garbage pails of history behind the shadows of a privileged minority. Hopefully, Irish residents in the Boston enclaves and the Scottish descendents that live in the Appalachian foothills will remember their past and the lives of their ancestors that went before them. I know I will not forget the white European children and their sufferings, beatings, whippings, tortures and deaths. I also know I won't hide behind their tragedy and blame my failures or my circumstances on the sins of others. David Mullenax resides in Fishersville, Virginia. His column, "Dave's Diatribe - Unfair and Unbalanced," appears every Friday in The Augusta Free Press.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#1. To: Diana, Red Jones, Brian S, robin, Itisa1mosttoolate, christine, mugwort, lodwick, Don (#0)
Some history they may have forgotten to mention in school.
Were these not called 'indentured servants'?
Yes the umentionables in the school system today.
#6. To: 1776, Zipporah (#5)
And orphaned Colonial/American children were "bound out" to a family for 7 - 10 years. This happened to one of my ancestors when her parents & grandparents died of in one of the epidemics of fever that came infrequently with the sailing ships (along with the sugar, rum and slaves up from the Caribbean). Her husband-to-be paid $100 (in KY ~1820, that was a lot of $$), to release her early from her servitude. She and her parents were American (Virginia) born.
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