On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 23:26:18 -0800, Steve Jackson wrote:
> "Craig Bergren" > wrote in message
> news
>
>> Rice originates from somewhere near Thailand. It was first grown in the
>> United States on large plantations in the Carolinas (Carolina Golden).
>> The North American slave trade was based on acquisition of labor to
>> cultivate rice, Africans having natural immunity to malaria that white
>> endentured servants from Europe lacked.
>
> I'm wondering where you got the info. Isn't malaria still more than a
> little problematic in sub-Saharan Africa? And I was under the impression
> that cotton supplied more of the demand for slave labor than anything
> else. But I'm far from an expert on either point, so my impressions could
> be way off.
Where did I say Africans were immune to malaria? I said they were the
basis of the slave trade, imported to work the swamps in the Carlolinas
because they were more resistant to malaria. They were also more resistant
to yellow fever. These beliefs may not be real, but the importers of the
slaves certainly thought they were true at the time. Cotton was also a
demand for slaves, but the trade was already well established by the
earlier rice plantations. It wasn't until introduction of the cotton
gin that cotton began to replace rice and rice cultivation moved to
Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Certainly when this country was founded,
rice was king in the deep south with indigo a close second.
http://www.mariner.org/captivepassag...al/arr014.html
"Africans in South Carolina did have greater resistance to some of the
diseases such as yellow fever and malaria, however, because both diseases
were endemic in Africa and thus many slaves were immune to them."
http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/scri...m=m&letter=yes
"Malaria: A protozoal disease transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito, it is
one of the oldest in human history. It derives its name from the Italian
word for bad air, mal'aria, because early Romans associated the sickness
with the foul smelling vapors from nearby swamps. It probably originated
in Africa, and it was commonly believed during the era of the slave trade
that certain West Africans carried a resistance to the disease in their
blood."
http://www.richland2.org/rce/slavery.htm
"Slavery had been important to South Carolina since the first English
settlement in 1670. Slave labor was first used in the Lowcountry for the
cultivation of rice. Planters knew very little about growing rice and
depended upon slaves from West Africa's rice growing areas for the
knowledge to raise the crop. By the early 1700's, the labor of thousands
of slaves made rice the most important crop in the Lowcountry.
"
"With the spread of the cotton gin after 1793, cotton became the dominant
crop throughout the South."
>
>> Corn is a new world grain, a post-columbian import to Asia and Europe.
>> Thus Miller is more American because it uses American ingredients.
>
> Bah. If it's grown or produced in America, it's America. We don't call
Please speak for yourself. I didn't say that Bud is un-American, only
that Miller is more American than Bud. Not only does Miller use
ingredients that are grown in the US, they use ingredients that are
indigenous to the US. Bud not only uses foreign grown hops, their grain
bill is completely of imported varieties of grain. After all, what could
be more Irish than the potato. The answer is Guinness!
> pasta Chinese, because they came up with the noodle long before the
> Italians. We don't say that hamburgers aren't very American because
> cattle aren't native to the Western Hemisphere. We don't say that
> Hershey's is
I would never say that hamburgers, or for that matter, hot dogs are not
American. However, I would say that corn flakes are more American than
either. Nothing is more American than the BATF.
> really more Mexican than anything, since that's where Europeans discovered
> chocolate, or that Starbucks is more Colombian than American.
>
Every educated American knows that the best chocolate is Belgian or Swiss
and Starbucks is communist, the worst thing an American can be.
> -Steve
CB