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Black Mumsnetters
Did you know cornrows/canerows were used to escape slavery? What!!!
Dastardlythefriendlymutt · 23/09/2020 20:09
Did you know Cornrows were used to help slaves escape slavery?
Slaves used cornrows to transfer and create maps to leave plantations.
It is most documented in Colombia where Benkos Bioho, came up with the idea to have women create maps & deliver messages through their cornrows.
t.co/3qMxvMBtW4
I honestly didn't.
I knew slaves could sometimes go days without eating if their master decided to punish them or just be even more cruel, so the women took to braiding in grains of rice with their hair so they always had food but I didn't know about the maps.
This gives a whole new meaning to responses like "it's just hair", "noone owns a hairstyle" etc when people talk about cultural appropriation.
Who knew? I am inspired.
Ablackrussian · 23/09/2020 20:19
Dastardlythefriendlymutt slightly off-topic but I'm sure there was a name used for when slaves escaped...so, it was almost seen as a disorder to want to escape from cruelty 
. I can't find it online, but I remember learning about it at school and thinking wtf.
Dastardlythefriendlymutt · 23/09/2020 20:39
I think I heard about that Ablackrussian, I will look for it or I hope it comes to me.
TeamGhanaJollof · 23/09/2020 21:08
I also read that slaves used to braid rice seeds in their hair as a means for survival. If true, it’s genius! blurredbylines.com/blog/west-african-slaves-rice-hair-maroon-french-guiana-colonialism/
ThinSlicePizza · 23/09/2020 21:18
I have had of this before. They also used it to stored grain for replanting after an escape.
Most slaves were made to cut off their hair because of this. I remember reading somewhere, that it was what gave birth to the church hats/facinators in the American South.
Dastardlythefriendlymutt · 23/09/2020 21:40
Yes I knew about the grains of rice.
That with the maps, feel like dang my people have been through it, and that's not even half of it. It makes hair and my crown seem like so much more. So when I get clowned or made fun of for wearing braids in the office (or the disciplinary issued by my white male boss for wearing neat cornrows to work one week in my first year of work) and others are labelled trendy for doing the same - I get annoyed. And yes cultural appropriation is a thing
twitter.com/playgalbrook/status/1308092697996152832?s=09
EchoCardioGran · 23/09/2020 21:59
Was the word drapetomania? To describe some kind of mental illness and the desire to escape?
EchoCardioGran · 23/09/2020 22:04
I think it is.
Here's an article which talks about this "mental illness",
NB trigger warning here as it contains some awful racist terms.
This is a University which has a racist memorabilia museum. who knew? Not I.
www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm
EchoCardioGran · 23/09/2020 22:08
Blimey, read this from above article.
^Cartwright also described another mental disorder, Dysaethesia Aethiopica, to explain the apparent lack of work ethic exhibited by many slaves. The diagnosable symptoms included disobedience, insolence, and refusing to work -- and physical lesions. What treatment did Cartwright suggest? "Put the patient to some hard kind of work in the open air and sunshine," under the watchful eye of a White man.*
Dastardlythefriendlymutt · 23/09/2020 22:12
I can't even read it, it's so vile. Thank you for linking though Echo.
And then people justify slavery simply saying it was an economic model. 🙄🤔
Ablackrussian · 23/09/2020 22:23
EchoCardioGran and Dastardlythefriendlymutt, thank you the link.
If ever I were to describe Evil, it would be this. I feel sick.
SandyY2K · 24/09/2020 23:12
You know...reading this reminds me of something Boris J said when talking about the new restrictions.
He said something about Britain being a nation who loves freedom...yet they had no problem taking freedom away from innocent men, women and children to sell into slavery.
People complain about lockdown and have no idea what losing freedom means...prison was a better place than slavery.
Coming up with invented names for people who didn't want to obey. It sickens me too. It sickens me that they felt it acceptable to punish pregnant slaves by digging holes in the ground that they had to lie in to protect their stomachs, while they were whipped... Because they didn't want any harm to come to the baby who was going to become a slave...having paid college boys to rape them for the purposes of breeding.
What annoys me even more is white people who say that was over 200 years ago... like "get over it"
Knowing that descendants of slave traders were still being compensated up to just 5 years ago for loss of income when the slave trade ended, just shows how systemic the racism is and continues to be.
Sorry...I went on a rant there, because the whole slavery issue is so emotive for me.
Dastardlythefriendlymutt · 24/09/2020 23:23
You are absolutely right SandyY2K
Ablackrussian · 25/09/2020 07:31
Coming up with invented names for people who didn't want to obey. It sickens me too. It sickens me that they felt it acceptable to punish pregnant slaves by digging holes in the ground that they had to lie in to protect their stomachs, while they were whipped... Because they didn't want any harm to come to the baby who was going to become a slave
Yes, I'd heard about that, too 
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