Sunday, August 07, 2005

John Hardy Hawkins

The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls by Nick Hazlewood

FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Throughout history, blame for the introduction of slavery to America has been squarely placed upon the male slave traders who ravaged African villages, the merchants who auctioned off humans as if they were cattle, and the male slave owners who ruthlessly beat both the spirits and the bodies of their helpless victims. There is, however, above all these men, another person who has seemingly been able to avoid the blame that is due her." "The origins of the English slave trade - the result of which is often described as America's shame - can actually be traced back to a woman, England's Queen Elizabeth I." "In The Queen's Slave Trade, historian Nick Hazlewood examines one of the roots of slavery that until now has been overlooked. It was not just the money-hungry Dutch businessmen who traded lives for gold, forever changing the course of American and world history, but the Virgin Queen, praised for her love of music, art, and literature, who put hundreds of African men, women, and children onto American soil." "During the 1560s, on direct orders from Her Majesty, John Hawkyns set sail from England. His destination: West Africa. His mission: to capture humans. At the time, Elizabeth was encouraging a Renaissance in her kingdom. Yet, being the intelligent monarch that she was, the queen knew her country's economy could not finance the dreams she had for it. An early entrepreneur, she saw an open market before her and sent one of her most trusted naval commanders, Hawkyns, to ensure a steady stream of wealth to sustain all the beauty that was her passion." "Like his fellow Englishmen, Hawkyns believed the African people's dark skin stood for evil, filth, barbarity - the complete opposite of the English notion of beauty, a lily white complexion and a virtuous soul, as exemplified by the queen. To him it was simple. If the white English were civilized and pure, the dark Africans must be savage. It was a moral license for Hawkyns to capture Africans." John Hawkyns was
SYNOPSIS
Journalist Hazlewood examines the career of a man who made the English the winners in the fight with the Spanish and Portuguese over the slave trade out of western Africa. Hazlewood also examines the reasons why Elizabeth I set Hawkyns up in trade, which included funding her preoccupation with high (and expensive) culture, acquiring wealth and power through empire, promoting Protestantism, and securing the gratitude of the rising merchant class. In his narrative Hazlewood examines the contexts that allowed the slave trade to commence and continue in England, including the reasons for the historical rivalry with other imperialist nations, religious precepts and conflicts, and internal political struggles that could only be resolved by cash generated by the sale of people in chains. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Peace,
This is a well written book on John Hawkins. Though we Knowledge that the Porteguese, Spanish and Dutch were instrumental in the slave trade John Hawkins is important as it is primarialy the English ideology (from Protestanism, to language, etc.) that took root in the Wilderness of North America.

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