Throwing Slaves Overboard to Drown and Other Dark Moments From History

1. The Twentieth Century’s First Genocide

The Germans pursued the survivors into the desert, and prevented them from accessing water by placing armed guards on water sources, or poisoning the wells. As a result, thousands died from thirst. Things went from dark to darker. On October 4^th, Trotha wrote his superiors: “I believe that this [Herero] nation as a nation must be exterminated… I prefer for the nation to disappear entirely rather than allow them to infect our troops with their diseases“.

As to the Nama, the German settlers called for their extermination. Those who did not flee were sent to concentration camps, with one-third of the captives dying en route before reaching the camps. Once in the camps, many more died of epidemics and mistreatment. The captives were subjected to forced labor, beaten, whipped, and tortured, while many of the women were raped or made into concubines. In total, about 65,000 Herero, 80% of their total population, perished in the genocide. 10,000 Nama, 50% of that people, were also killed.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Alliance for Human Research Protection – Operation Paperclip Nazi Rogues

All That is Interesting – Why Isn’t Belgium’s King Leopold II As Reviled As Hitler or Stalin?

American Historical Association – The Conquest of Mexico

Anstey, Roger – The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760 – 1810 (1975)

BBC – How Churchill Starved India

Black Past – The Zong Massacre

Daily Mail, September 8^th, 2017 – The Nazi Monster Who Was Allowed to Get Away

Daily Mail, October 3^rd, 2018 – The Hunt For the Monstrous Nazi That’s Got the Nation Hooked: Untold Story of the ‘Lost’ SS General Responsible for the Deaths of Half a Million Jews

Encyclopedia Britannica – Great Famine

Encyclopedia Britannica – Josef Mengele

Encyclopedia Britannica – Massacre of Amritsar

Ferguson, Niall – Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons For Global Powers (2004)

Guardian, The, December 9^th, 2001 – ‘Spin’ on Boer Atrocities

History Place – Irish Potato Famine

Jacobsen, Annie – Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America (2014)

PBS – Africans in America: Living Africans Thrown Overboard

Ranker – The Most Devastating Atrocities Committed by Every European Colonial Empire

Smithsonian Magazine, October 28^th, 2015 – A Brutal Genocide in Colonial Africa Finally Gets its Deserved Recognition

Time Magazine, November 29^th, 2010 – The Ugly Briton

Understanding Slavery Initiative – The Zong Case Study

Wikipedia – Atrocities in the Congo Free State

Wikipedia – British Concentration Camps

Wikipedia – Zong Massacre