The Slave trade began with the Portuguese and the Spanish, history books record shows that in 1502, a man named Juan de cordoba from Seville was the first merchant to send an African slave to the new world.>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE....CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE
In the early stages of the slave trade, the Spanish authorities only permitted its merchants to sell a limit of three slaves, by 1504, several Africans were captured from a Portuguese vessel. Then they made their way to the court of King James IV in Scotland. When the English joined the slave trade in 1562, almost about sixty years after the Spanish, they scaled up the human trade. This was shattering to Africa, Human trafficking has never been pretty.
John Hawkins of Plymouth in October 1562 became the first English sailor to get slaves to sell in the West Indies, He got about 300 Africans from Sierra Leone. He traded the slaves illegally in the Spanish colonies and made a lot of profit and so, other opportunists join him. This led to strains in the relations between England and Spain.
The true story of Jesus of Lubeck
John Hawkins was from a famous shipping family. His father William Hawkins was the man who made the first expeditions to West Africa in 1527.
When John Hawkins went on his first expedition, he had gone in search of commercial materials such as dyewoods on the Guinea coast. After sailing to the Gulf of Guinea, he ventured into the region which is present-day Sierra Leone and captured between 300 to 500 Africans. He did this by pillaging Portuguese ships.
Africans Forcefully Lured With False Promises
He used forcefulness and artifice to lure Africans to go along with him. John Hawkins promised them free land and riches in the new world. He was responsible for selling most of the slaves in the Dominican Republic. He returned home in a ship full of ivory, hides, sugar. After selling the goods and slaves, he made a lot of profit. This helped kick start the slave trade.
An account of the story that claims that Hawkins used to say to everyone that he was a devout Christian and missionary. When he came off his ship and found the Sierra Leoneans harvesting their crops, he told them of a God named Jesus and asked who wanted Jesus to be their savior. The hundreds who indicated yes were then led to the ship. The name of the ship was ‘Jesus of Lubeck’. It was also known as ‘The Good Ship Jesus’.
He asked the naïve Africans to enter the ship to be saved. As many as entered the ship were not allowed to disembark. The ship sailed away and the deceived Africans were sold to merchants in the West Indies.
This charlatan used the name of Jesus to deceive naïve African into being sold as slaves>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE
