They Were White and They Were Slaves is a thoroughly researched challenge to the conventional historiography of colonial and industrial labor, a stunning journey into a hidden epoch, the slave trade of Whites, hundreds of thousands of whom were kidnapped, chained, whipped and worked to death in the American colonies and during the Industrial Revolution. This is a chronicle that has never been fully told, part of a vital heritage that has until now comprised the dustiest shelf in the darkest corner of suppressed history.
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Michael Hoffman is a New York native and a former reporter for the Associated Press. He studied under Faiz Abu-Jaber and Richard Funk at the State University of New York at Oswego. Hoffman is the author of seven books of history. In addition, he has written the introductions to modern reprints of "The Traditions of the Jews" by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, and "The Talmud Tested" by Alexander McCaul, D.D.
Hoffman is the executive editor of the bulletin, "Revisionist History," which is published six times a year. He is married and resides in north Idaho.
Hoffman writes:
The gatekeepers are determined to demonize this writer with stigmas such as "holocaust denier" and "anti-semite." These scurrilous libels are devices for intimidating potential readers, colleagues and supporters, and limiting the exchange of knowledge between a scholar and fellow truth-seekers. My authentic views are as follows: Judaic people suffered severe and unconscionable persecution during World War II, including mass murder at the hands of the Nazis. I deplore these crimes and the criminal Nazi ideology which inspired and directed them. At the same time, it is necessary to have the courage to point out the many parallels between Nazi ideology and the Israeli Zionist ideology which is engaged in the on-going dispossession and murder of Palestinians.
Concerning "anti-semitism": this phrase is supposed to denote racial loathing of Judaic persons, but is often employed to stigmatize those who dare to offer a narrative of Judaism which challenges the rabbinic narrative, or who dissent from the received opinion concerning Israeli actions in Palestine. Radical Judaic dissent from Talmudism and Zionism has largely been excluded from consideration. Consider that Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky are routinely accused of being "anti-semitic." This pseudo-scientific phrase is employed in many cases merely in order to gain advantage over political rivals. My work is based on love and not hatred. My targets are ideologies and theologies, not people.
I will not be silenced. I have as much right to question and investigate Judaism, or any other "ism," as anyone has to question Catholicism. Knowledge is not advanced by submitting to special immunities for one particular media-favored creed. It is not anti-Italian to point out iniquity in Renaissance or modern Catholicism; nor is it anti-Judaic to discover turpitude in the rabbinic Talmudic theology. If contemporary Catholicism is a form of oppression, then it is a liberating act to free Italians from its grasp. If contemporary Orthodox Judaism is a form of oppression, then it is a liberating act to free Judaic persons from Talmudic supremacy and tyrannical micro-management of their daily lives.
My work transcends tribal atavisms and resentments. For example, in "Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare" I sought to deconstruct the command ideology of the Cryptocracy, while exploring an epistemology capable of inspiring higher consciousness by decoding the esoteric manipulation of thought patterns and the 'group mind' which impede our ability to transcend humanity's perpetual squabbles and simian warfare.
In the book "They Were White and They Were Slaves" I studied anew the circumstances surrounding so-called 'white indentured servitude' and discovered the prevalence of a far more onerous chattel enslavement of seventeenth century whites in America, and the dehumanized status of poor whites over the next two centuries.
In my latest work, "Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not," I argue that during the Renaissance, gentile usurers gained firm purchase inside the Roman Church by scapegoating rival Judaic usurers. I also demonstrate that early Puritans, far from being the stereotypical skinflints and shylocks of legend, denounced and opposed usury, even as Renaissance Catholic popes and prelates were granting permission for it and benefiting from its proceeds.
My non-conforming research and writing do not fit simplistic Left/Right political or denominational categories, and because I violate taboos enforced by hysterical partisans, my name and reputation have been unfairly blackened. Truth-seekers with the curiosity and good will to look beyond the libelous opprobrium put forth by self-appointed thought police, will encounter in my writing, challenges to the consensus across a broad spectrum of revisionist history, Christian exegesis and Fortean epistemology.
As other reviewers have noted, this book is a barrage of facts that are a little rambling and disorganized, but this in NO WAY takes away from the interest of the subject matter that is presented in this volume.
Mr. Hoffman presents a rough outline of the history of the enslavement of whites in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the Carribean and finally in America from Roman times to the begining of the 20th century. Documented are such details as:
-Slavery in ancient Greece and attitudes towards slaves there -Arab traffic in white slave to the Middle East -The Vikings' massive involvement in the slave trade during the middle ages -White slavery and ethnic-cleansing in Ireland and Barbados under Oliver Cromwell -Kidnapping of whites in Britain to bring to the Americas -Child labor and gross working conditions in the mines and factories in America and Britain during the industrial revoloution. -One of the most disturbing events documented here: the use of "human brooms" as chimney sweeps in England during the 1800's. These might be able to claim the worst status. The orphans who had to climb up chimneys filled with toxic dirt and soot weren't even paid to do so, they were forced to do that work and then BEG for a living. -White slavery and white slave trade in colonial America. These whites were treated as more expendable then the African slaves because the slave ships had to go out of their way to pick up Africans. -"Redneck," because whites had to work out in the fields in the sun so their skin would get tanned and burned. -"Hillbilly," because when they were freed or escaped, the slaves had nowhere to live except in remote places in the backwoods and especially APPALACIA.
... -The race politics presented here explain and elucidate the animostiy between blacks, lower class whites and the white slave-and-plantation owning aristocracy in the South. -This one's the kicker: the word SLAVE actually comes from SLAV, the white peoples of Eastern Europe who were often raided and held in bondage by invaders.
This book is well worth getting a hand on and reading, because it proves that slavery is a universal condition that has been practiced against all races and nations of people, even against those traditionally portrayed (i.e. Anglo Saxons/whites) as being the slavemasters and oppressors.
I purchased this book, with great reluctance, as I thought it might be "racist" in nature. However, I found it most enlighting. It reveals, that slavery was never about race, but rather about labor. Labor was looked upon as a commodity to be bought and sold. My interest was from a genealogical and historical point. It alowed me to locate lines of my family both white, Irish and English that were sold on the auction block, in Barbados in the 1600's, along with other slaves who were black. It will further give great insight in the abusive child labor of 1800 England. For any and all it is a great read.
Not particularly well-written but the effort, the research and the stones to put it out there rate 5 stars. Modern Americans believe slavery to be an American sin and only a Southern sin at that. Well, The Negro in New England by Greene challnges that on the back end but the scope and sweep of slavery goes far beyond the development of the Western Hemisphere. It is a human scourge which is not only ancient but contemporary.It has impacted all times and all races. What this volume trys to accomplish is to assemble facts and records to explain a story yet untold...white slavery. Was a slave less a slave because they were white or because it will send someone into roid rages if we even bring it up? "Indentured servitude" was NOT some enlighted apprenticeship program whereby people were redeemed, freed and released with land, tools, skills and a wide open future. A few of the more shocking facts: * The "Slavs" of eastern Europe were thus named for the millinium of slavery they were subjected to by every conqueror that swept through the region; Celts, Greeks, Roman, Barbarians. * Death rates on the Atlantic passage of white slaves exceeded that of African slaves * The reason that only 6% of the African slaves brought to the Western Hemisphere ended up in what became the US is because there were enough white slaves to supply demand. * The very word "kidnapping" has its roots in the colonial period when British children were stolen ("kidnabbed") and sent to the New World Round out your understanding of this underplayed and ignored historical development by reading "Bound Over" by John Van Der Zee.(also VERY hard to find) An excellent book remains to be written by someone who can write well and using some of the sources mentioned here.... If we could see the full historical scope of slavery much of the modern vitriol and victimology could be set aside. Perhaps we could even focus on the real tragedy....25 million people are STILL in slavery today.Read more ›
Mention slavery in American history and no doubt you will conjure up visions of middle passage slave ships feeding the rotting black bodies to the sharks, abusive slave owners on southern plantations and perhaps even Kunta Kinta being whipped at the stake for refusing his newly assigned name. Few people would even entertain the notion of white slaves in American history, but Michael Hoffman's 1993 book, THEY WERE WHITE AND THEY WERE SLAVES exposes little known facts about the abhorrent practice of slave owning in America.
Hoffman's books goes far beyond slavery in the United States, however, giving an indepth chronicle of white slavery throughout history. The book begins with the Greeks and continues on with white slavery by the Romans, the Arabs, who also implemented the practice of slave castration, the Franks, Vikings, African Kings, and yes, American colonials and eventually, American Indians.
Hoffman also gives an indepth explanation as to why white slavery in American history has been all but swept under the rug. The book is well written, very well researched and lends critical understanding to anyone who truly wants to have an informed and balanced view of our slavery history.
