Our Historical New Afrikan Origins

BY MUTOPE DUGUMA

First and foremost, I want to embrace you all with a revolutionary salute/greetings and may the work that you all do toward the liberation of all humanity, come to its realization in its purest form throughout our progressive struggle.

So, I say to all progressors: continue to educate the masses away from the monopolized capitalist structures and their functions that exist throughout this nation and the international community that leaves the majority of humanity living in conflict with one another, while living half-butchered lives…and toward our scientific practices/principles that will provide humanity with a ‘blueprint’ that allows them to evolve alongside one another without the current emotional, dividing factors that put humankind against one another (i.e. education, politics, religion, class culture demographics and race).

It is only through a progressive educational re-orientation of the masses that we can revolutionize our societies toward their ‘true’ humanity and interests.

As a New Afrikan nationalist, guided by the principles of revolutionary practice, it is important that those who classify themselves as New Afrikans (i.e. Blacks or Afrikans) understand that the education of our New Afrikan masses to their New Afrikan historical origins is key.

As a colonized people, we have to deal with that which has caused an identity crisis amongst our masses. New Afrikans lack political/ideological development, whereas culture and demographics play a significant role in the psychology of our identity-formation.

Most people disregard the fact that we’re a New Afrikan colonized nation inside the United States. Instead, we represent territories/cultures, believing that New Afrikans in Texas are different from those in California or Georgia or New York – or worse, focus on divisions between New Afrikans even within the same state.

For example, in the State of California, we have culture tenets that are different from one another, like in LA and Oakland. In Los Angeles, gang culture is the principle subculture, where you have a lifestyle (i.e. cliquism, tribalism, mobs, groups, gangs) predicated on dress code, hairstyle, slang language, colors, graffiti and hand signs that become the ideology/politics manifest and culminate in a culture of violence. On the other hand, in the Bay area (Oakland), you have a subculture also predicated on cliquism, where pimping, prostitution and drug dealing have a style unique to them, which is totally different from Los Angeles.

In Oakland or LA, it doesn’t matter if they don’t think or talk or live in the same area or share the same social functions: they’re still all New Afrikans. In the past, these two subcultures went through a struggle of unity of opposites, when an emerging revolutionary, progressive ideology – the Black Panther Party/New Afrikan ideology – challenged the backward ideology in Oakland (i.e. sidewalk escapism), transformed that city, and later Los Angeles, and spread its seed throughout the United States.

New Afrikans throughout this nation were embracing the progressive New Afrikan ideology and had begun to be responsible for guiding and self-determining the New Arikan Nation’s livelihood. This new phenomenon was seen as a threat to the U.S. government, who was responsible for colonizing the New Afrikan Nation within the borders of the United States. The U.S. government has used every attempt possible – chattel, slavery, psychological warfare, class war, internal racial war conflict, demoralization and miseducation – to continue that repression.

We New Afrikans have been identified by others as niggers, negros, coloreds, Afro-Americans, Black, African Americans. We have always been a nation of New Afrikan people, unlike any other ethnic group in the United States.

We have been named various ethnic classifications over the past 363 years of our New Afrikan existence here in Amerikkka. We as New Afrikans must now put to rest this miseducation of our ethnic classification: we are a New Afrikan Nation within the borders of the U.S., knowing that in the tradition of our ancestors, a free New Afrikan People, not withstanding the consequences, called themselves as they see fit, and are not defined as others would have us.

We call ourselves New Afrikans for 3 reasons

1. The name gives recognition to our historical Afrikan heritage.
2. When we use the name, it is a rejection of attempts by the U.S. government (our colonizers) to Amerikanize us to the rest of the world (i.e. to capitalist, imperialist, fascist principles).
3. When we call ourselves New Afrikans, we identify ourselves as a historically-evolved and legitimate nation of people in the community of Afrikan Nations.

Yet millions of us do not know our historical New Afrikan origins, outside saying we’re ‘descendants of slaves.’

Our origins begin with the arrival of our ancestors – Isabella-X, Antonio-X and eighteen other Afrikan women and men – onto the shores of Amerikkka in August of 1619 in Jamestown VA. During Amerikka’s era of chattel slavery, slaves were descendents of the Afrikan human race, consisting of different tribes and countries throughout the continent of Africa, such as The Zulu, Yoruba, Cameroon, Mandingo, Ashanti and the Caribbean, such as Belize, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Bahamas etc. They coalesced to form an Afrikan ethnic group of peoples, creating our New Afrikan ethnic group here in the 13 colonies of Great Britain (later titled the United States in 1776). As our New Afrikan nation fought against chattel slavery, our women folks were being raped by their captors during the years of 1619 to 1630 and throughout chattel slavery up to June 19 1865. We realized that the child of that vicious rape produced a beautiful new member to our New Afrikan nation. Even though those children had that dirty rapist blood flowing through their veins, that child was born to our New Afrikan nation and we welcome them all.

We must realize as a people, during the years of 1619 to 1630, our New Afrikan Nation developed and continued to evolve socially, culturally, politically, and we resisted the bondage and oppression brought by chattel slavery. The system of chattel slavery had been in effect for 22 years prior to Massachusetts becoming the first of Great Britain’s colonies to give statutory recognition to chattel slavery in 1641. This was followed by the slave colonies of Connecticut, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

There were a recorded 250 major campaigns of New Afrikan resistance to the slave system of chattel slavery. This included acts in August of 1619, Jamestown Virginia, and an even greater number of lesser-known courageous acts by the New Afrikan nationalist resistance movement for the survival of our New Afrikan Nation – throughout chattel slavery, until Juneteenth 1865, and to the turn of the century in racist Amerikkka.

In 1657, New Afrikan and Native people joined forces, thereby increasing the power and potential of these two nations in their protracted liberation struggle for total freedom, justice, retribution and their rights to an independent nation from their oppressors.

We (Afrikan and Indian/natives) nations understand the cause and effect of the Coco theory and how it can be effective only when these two nations do not allow themselves to be isolated from their perspective class of people, thus exposing themselves to the vastly superior fire power of the oppressors (i.e. slave owners).

Our combined resistance movements guided the liberation struggle’s military and political objectives, thereby mounting a vigorous campaign for our struggle and resistance in Hartford Connecticut that grew in force and depth to create the atmosphere of panic and fear that ended in the deaths of many slave owners and the Nat Turner Revolt that affected the whole entire state of Connecticut.

The 1700s would mark the advancement in the campaign efforts of the New Afrikan nationalist resistance movement in all spheres of our liberation:

1. Our New Afrikan nation uncovered our new humanity.
2. We as a New Afrikan nation discovered new initiatives that redirected and advanced our New Afrikan revolt mentalities.
3. We as a New Afrikan nation constructed the new progressive Nat Turner’s revolt mentality’s strategic methods.
4. We, as a New Afrikan nation realized that our developed consciousness has a built-in scientific-social (family) orientation to survive this phase of our liberation struggle against chattel slavery.

Yet, our New Afrikan nation continued to rise and resist the social construction of chattel slavery.

In 1708, the New Afrikan and Native slaves in Long Island, New York organized a major campaign of protracted war and resistance to chattel slavery in which numerous slave owners and government troops were killed, thus creating fear and panic throughout the state of New York.

On August 21 1831, the Nat Turner Revolt organized and formulated a plan to seize control of slave plantations throughout Virginia. The nationalist campaign was brought to a premature conclusion with the betrayal of a New Afrikan Nation slave (rat, turncoat, snitch, informer, debriefer etc), who had exposed the plan to some slave owners, which resulted in the death of several New Afrikan nationalist fighters.

Our New Afrikan people have been forced to struggle through feudalism, chattel slavery, the industrial revolution (more slavery), the Black Code, Jim Crow, white supremacy, neo-colonialism and presently institutionalized racism. We shall fight against institutionalized racism, wherever we are faced with it, for we know that our ancestors have opened doors for us through their sacrifice, and it is our responsibility to handle present and future challenges, so that the generations behind us will be better equipped to address the challenges of their generation.

One Love/one struggle

Mutope Duguma
s/n James Crawford
D-05996 D1’117 UP
PBSP – SHU
P.O. Box 7500
Crescent City CA
95532 USA