00:00.69 alifeinruins Welcome back to episode one sixty five of a life ruins podcast David and I are here. We did start talk start off talking about lord of the rings and tattoos. But we are going to do something talk about something anthropological today. Um little bit bit mix of anthropology and archeology. So David do you want to set the set the stage and and start start driving ah driving this 00:26.45 David Howe Yeah I mean I can't name the specifics of who I'm writing this for like the specific site. Um, but the ah the gist of it is um that it has to do with ah rice cultivation and. Like a plantation in the south. Um, and what I had to read about is the background on you know the history of rice and rice cultivation and then of course like the Atlantic slave trade. Um and all of that. And it's just ah and and I said like an atrocity at the beginning of the the episode talking about a nature valley bar but like this is obviously like a literal atrocity. Um, and I just want to preface this and like you as well. We're not black americans um, nor are we african americans. So it is just I want I want to throw that out there if you're not watching the video version and this is the first time you're hearing us. But um I think it's like you know this is stuff that as white people we need to know of out because it's something we need to correct and you know be aware of. 01:37.47 alifeinruins Yeah, and we're where we're trying to best represent based on what people have studied and what has been published in in the world. Best represent those experiences knowing that. 01:39.55 David Howe Um. 01:53.80 alifeinruins That we are coming from a place of Bias So we'll just we just want to acknowledge that and upfront and just be be straight about that. 02:01.28 David Howe Yeah, so if you have any issues or you know want to make up some points that us we need to correct in the next episode please email us and let us know. Um, yeah so um I guess I'll just start with this. 02:07.72 alifeinruins Yeah. 02:17.38 David Howe We normally would imagine cotton being like the most or tobacco the most exported thing in the United States or at least in the colonies. Um, but actually it was like by far rice and I didn't know that um. Rice isn't really a staple american food anymore I would say corn. Um, and I mean another cultures rice is the main course of the me like the staple but in in southern food. There's like wild rice and like rice and beans and things like that. But um. 02:41.80 alifeinruins Um. 02:51.88 David Howe That largely has to do with what we're going to talk about but I would just say it's It's interesting that it was such an exported crop but we don't I mean I'm not exported but it was such a the most like lucrative crop I'd say um I think. 03:08.57 alifeinruins It's like a staple of the south like a staple crop of down there. 03:10.47 David Howe Yeah I have the notes right here I could find the word for it but it is like yeah rice was by far the most like labor intense herb. It was the biggest crop yet at the time. Um, before I mean I think Cotton might have taken it over later but I assume it was rice. Um, still and the way like the interesting thing about this is that ah the enslaved people that worked the swamps and islands and like inland rivers that where the rice marshes are. In Coastal Georgia and South Carolina ah were from West Africa where there's a huge rice cultivation culture already so it ended up that the slave traders um, or I guess human traffickers we should say at this point were. Selecting for ah people who had that you know that knowledge of rice cultivation because they noticed that some were way better at it than others. Unfortunately, that's how it says it in the in the text here. Um, and that there's more to that later. But yes, it's just that from these specific places in Africa. They knew those people would make for better rice cultivators on their plantations. Um, and the slave traders knew that because they would make more money selling to people in the south for that reason does that make sense. 04:39.45 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah, so there's there's a focus on selecting folk or us people from West Africa with certain skills specifically around rice to to ultimately get. Back to the south to sell because they will make more money as part of that process. 05:01.94 David Howe Yeah, no exactly and um, this more comes in later but I just want to say this too on that note. Um, obviously today like we wouldn't classify people based on their ability to. Ah, or their physical appearance and correlate that with how they are going to cultivate Rice. Um, but the portuguese the dutch and the british um had like I can't remember the word here that they used in the text but it was like um, ah colloquialism is the thing. I would go with but they knew that like this type of person would be better at like you know from this area. They're more slender from this area. They're more that it's just it's just terrible and um, it's it's something like a european construct. Um, so I'm getting I'm getting ahead of myself. But um, we. I guess I need to start with the slave trade starts ah in well before the slave trade let me talk about rice sorry I'm all over the place but rice is the main point of this ah it was debated as to where rice is from. Normally we would associate it with Asia. Or the Middle East um and they thought or in India as well and there's like um, a rose sativa I think it's a species name and then arose asiatica um, and like just. 06:29.48 David Howe There's asian rice. There's indian rice there's and then that stuff was brought to Europe um, but there was a debate as to why there were so many there's so much rice cultivation in Western Africa and the. Common thought at the time was like oh the portuguese brought it to them and that's when they got good at it. The portuguese taught them how to do it. Um or the muslims taught them when they had the kingdom of Mali but really archeologically when you look at it and through historical texts rice is kind of one of those things that was independently. Um, not independently invented but independently domesticated in multiple places. Um about the same time. Ah and in western africa there's a specific type of red rice is what it's called ah and it grows there and like there's massive. Rice cultivation cultures all throughout like um Nigeria Tanzania um, there's a country at the time that they named Sira Leone is a big one I can't remember the name of it's a country that doesn't exist anymore because it's now 2 different countries. Um. 07:41.85 David Howe It doesn't matter I'm getting too bogged down um hang on Chris if you can cut this out while I look for the word. 07:55.00 David Howe Ah, um. 08:02.80 alifeinruins s not sierra alone Leo and that's a still. 08:07.62 David Howe I have't written because I okay found it. Okay Chris 3 2 ah 1 so. There's ah was a place called Sene Gambia which is now Senegal and Gambia. Um, and at the time that's where they. Um, so there's the woloaf of the so of Senegambia the mon day speakers in Sierra Leone the acon um or the koremani which are from the gold and ivory coasts the guier from the Gold Coast and Benin the Uruba which is ah I think a more well-known group of people. Um come from Southwestern Nigeria and the chamba or the kamba are from the bite of biefra biafphra. Um, apparently it's now a Northern Northwestern nigeria in Cameroon. Anyway, all these culture groups in the past like what but their their ancestors had domesticated rice. Um and it was a big culture there. So ah, like that debate as to whether the portuguese did it or brought it there or not. Is kind of now archeologically confirmed that it was independently cultivated by these people already. Um and it's just one of those things for europeans were like there's no way they possibly did this by themselves and that was really buming like it was a bummer to read that like that was the thought at the time. Um. 09:31.96 alifeinruins Yeah. 09:35.46 David Howe And yeah, it was even like well the portuguese probably brought asian rice from portugal down the west coast or maybe like da gama brought it back from India and that's how they got it or even that it floated to Africa that was like back then even a thing. Yeah, um. 09:47.94 alifeinruins Yeah. 09:53.26 David Howe But yeah, cultivating rice is very labor intensive. You have to be in like swampy water you get prunes on your feet constantly. There's bleaches and all sorts of stuff in the water. But um, these people in Western Africa were very good at it because they had already. Um, no one had to cultivate rice for centuries. Um, and it also just so happens that West Africa is a lot closer to the caribbean and North America than like the North Atlantic slave trade happened to coincide with that whereas the South Atlantic Slave Trade mostly went to Brazil and I also want to say that. I would say only 20% of the enslaved people might be less than that of the enslaved people during the slave trade went to the United States most of it went to Brazil I would say like I think it's upwards of 70% and then the caribbean I might be wrong. The numbers are usually different but the point being Brazil is the number one like place where slaves are enslaved. People were imported to um, not to say that gives America a pass that we were better at it. It's just like or like less. 11:03.80 alifeinruins That's just the reality of it is that the the numbers were there is kind of a perception that like we were the ah like the United States is the most egregious of that but there seems to be there's it's more complicated than that and that that the portuguese were taking people and. Kidnapping them and taking them to Brazil. 11:22.96 David Howe Yeah, and um, it's why Brazil is so mixed today, especially like mostly a black ancestry because it's a bummer. They're all just trafficked here against their will and they live here now and are still oppressed in the caribbean and here. And of course that's why the caribbean is extremely black as well and the the Southern United States is because of this rice and cotton cultivation. Um I want to talk about the gullah gechi that might save that for the next segment. Um, because that's a big thing if you guys are familiar with guac gula island that was a show and we were kids. Um. The gullag gechis a specific culture that derives from this but um, yeah, so I guess am I are you tracking here. Am I going off to 2 on the deep end. 12:09.54 alifeinruins No, that makes sense so it's in summary, you have independently domesticated rice and in West Africa and and a culture surrounding rice cultivation and then a. An abuse by europeans of those people and dispersing them into places that they were not taking too willing to willingly essentially good. 12:40.26 David Howe Yes, that is as correct. Um, and yeah, the caribbean ah was initially for the british and the dutch. Um and the spanish too. But the british and the dutch were the more intensive sugar cane. Um. Croper sharecropper I don't know what the word would be plantation owners whites um and a lot of people were brought to the caribbean to do this labor-intensive work that the indigenous used to do but they died from disease and were seen as less strong as african slaves. Um, and that is also a major bummer. Um I know that's a fast understatement. But um, the reason I bring this up is a lot of these enslaved people that were brought to South Carolina and Georgia came from the caribbean. Um, not just Africa directly because once the caribbean got like completely overpopulated with enslaved people and there wasn't any more room to cultivate sugarcane they were then brought up to the british specifically brought them from barbados. 13:36.88 alifeinruins Um. 13:50.51 David Howe Barbados was like 1 of the most brutal sugarcane producing places um and brought them to North America well the caribbean is North America but Southern United States um and another interesting thing too is when the british landed and started their. 14:09.40 David Howe Colony in Jamestown. Um, that Virginia was like where they were at was kind of marshy and not great and they deemed like all the land south of that really to like South Carolina and Georgia to be like her North Carolina South Carolina Georgia was just. 14:29.35 David Howe Um, how would you describe the word I know the word they use in the text is specific but like Shitty is the word I I would go to. Ah yeah, not so much inhospitable. It just wasn't like pleasant nice land. It was marshy and like full of Mosquitoes and gross. 14:37.67 alifeinruins Inhospitable or. 14:47.27 David Howe Um, so they were like I leave that to the spanish and then of course later on they're like we're going to take that from the spanish um, and because of that shitty marshy environment rice thrived there. Um, so that's why they were like in droves shipping um or again trafficking enslaved people from the caribbean. Into the Southern United States and people were still being trafficked from Africa to the United States as well up until like the eighteen hundreds it kind of died down I believe in the eighteen hundreds. Um, as opposed to the 16 and seventeen hundreds. Because there was already established slave population that could you know like it was they didn't need to get more from Africa there was enough here. Unfortunately, um, that also is a much more complex topic that I'm oversimplifying. It. But um, the I'll get like. What I want to get at in the next segment is like how this rice cultivation culture led to a lot of southern culture and like what we would think of um I what we would think of I mean just gullag Gula Island was something I was so I was aware of the gullag gechie before this but anthropologically it's fascinating. How all this stuff played out. But yeah I just to to hammer this in rice was the like biggest crop at the time. Um I think either before tobacco and cotton took over like in terms of price but rice was the most intensively cultivated thing because it was a staple food. Um. 16:19.35 David Howe Down there for not just white people but also to feed all the enslaved um and ah yeah, so they had to bring the portuguese initially started it um, well there was the muslim slave trade from Africa the portuguese then also started it. Spanish then shipped them from Africa to Europe and then earth portuguese did and then spanish spanish brought them to the Americas and then the british immediately were like oh wow this is a great I'm not going to do the x and this is too heavy. Um, it is this is a thriving market that we could take over. 16:55.75 alifeinruins Yeah. 16:57.31 David Howe Like as the british do everything so that's why like the North Atlantic slave trade um and the dutch slave trade became so but the most known one. Um, and yeah, so in the next segment let's get into the the other stuff and if this is like boring. Yet heavy for you guys I'm sorry but this the next part will be cool. Um. 17:19.41 alifeinruins Yeah, and I do I do want to mention that um we might not be using the most current terms and the most accurate representation of terms for enslaved people. The slave trade and all of that. Um, and we we do apologize for that. We are not well versed on the exact terminology that is used today. So um, knowing knowing that we take this very seriously and that that people's lives were absolutely ruined and it was a horrible horrible thing for for. 17:41.32 David Howe Yeah, you know. 17:54.18 alifeinruins The the slave trade in general. So I just want to I Just want to hammer that home and that this is a very serious topic and we and we do apologize in advance if we are not using the terms um in the correct sort of fashion. But. 17:54.46 David Howe Yeah. 18:08.20 David Howe And I'm glad you brought that up too because I know it's now more proper to say enslaved person instead a slave. So if I slip and say slave I'm terribly sorry it's just force of habit from how we were taught in school. But um I will do my best. Yeah. 18:21.21 alifeinruins Yeah, and with that we will be rebec.