When
I read Haley's Roots book in 1976 I was impressed with the clear
writing style but paid very little attention to the details. I was not
paying attention to political correctness at the time, I worked for a
black church and enjoyed a leadership role in the hippy movement.
What
now gives me some authority on the subject is that in 1963 while in
graduate school of economics at U.C. Berkeley I was hired to do a
comprehensive reading of all books and texts on sub-Saharan Africa written
before 1850. There were only 160 and I read 140 in English, French and
German (using cognates in economics is not hard). I was creating a map
of all trade and commerce across Africa. My research for a professor
at U. Wisconsin became the seminal work on African economic
history that everyone else uses.
(Aside: When I gave a talk on my findings in 1965 at the Commonwealth Club and said that West Africa was more technologically advanced in 1800 than all of Europe, I was laughed at.)
Now back to Haley and Roots. What I knew at the time when I read the book was that all slave trade in West Africa in the 1700's was conducted as part of existing black African slavery. The Africans sold their fellow African slaves to the few Portuguese, Spanish and English shippers with trading posts on the coast. Haley, never mentions this for two reasons:
He was being PC and trying to suggest that white traders were enslaving Africans. And because he made up most of the book... it was an act of plagiarism from a book of fiction by Harold Courlander. Haley lost a plagerism trial and was forced to pay more than a-half million dollars.
Haley was a complete fraud. It doesn't matter to me because he had no influence on me. But anyone who thinks the pervasive and successful PBS series on Roots was non-fiction needs a head correction.
(Aside: When I gave a talk on my findings in 1965 at the Commonwealth Club and said that West Africa was more technologically advanced in 1800 than all of Europe, I was laughed at.)
Now back to Haley and Roots. What I knew at the time when I read the book was that all slave trade in West Africa in the 1700's was conducted as part of existing black African slavery. The Africans sold their fellow African slaves to the few Portuguese, Spanish and English shippers with trading posts on the coast. Haley, never mentions this for two reasons:
He was being PC and trying to suggest that white traders were enslaving Africans. And because he made up most of the book... it was an act of plagiarism from a book of fiction by Harold Courlander. Haley lost a plagerism trial and was forced to pay more than a-half million dollars.
Haley was a complete fraud. It doesn't matter to me because he had no influence on me. But anyone who thinks the pervasive and successful PBS series on Roots was non-fiction needs a head correction.