[HN Gopher] Bolivia's little-known African tribal kingdom (2021)
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Bolivia's little-known African tribal kingdom (2021)
Author : stareatgoats
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-06-16 08:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| jajko wrote:
| Potosi is well worth the visit, if anybody had ever doubts how
| brutal slavery could be, look no more. Slaves lasted 6 weeks
| before dying horribly in some of the jobs they had, mostly in ore
| processing parts. Or if you want to see why its really not a good
| idea to be pregnant in >4000m altitude, look at their local
| church.
|
| Mines themselves are surprisingly still open and locals work
| there, even if they know very well within 15-20 years most of
| them will develop aggressive lung cancer. IIRC its from fine
| silica dust that is all over those mines in form of thick dust
| (and sometimes even raw crystals form on the walls). The hill in
| which the mines are is pure emmental, around 5000 entries IIRC
| from various directions and ages.
|
| Visited them with my wife/fiancee few years ago, local woman
| whose husband died from what I described above guided us quite
| deep inside. Never saw actual red sticks of dynamite with the
| burning string till that day. We offered very strong alcohol and
| coca leaves to Pachamama, had some leaves with 'activator'
| ourselves (and then went blabbing for half an hour due to mouth
| and tongue anesthesia). Those silica in the air are not benign,
| so there are warnings everywhere (and good modern masks should
| definitely help, we didn't have those unfortunately this was well
| before covid).
|
| A powerful experience, as backpacking around whole Bolivia is, to
| us its the most interesting country in South America to visit for
| intense adventure and lifelong memories. Yungas death road on a
| rented bike is another very memorable experience, from snowed
| plains and glaciers 4700m high into jungle in few hours.
| rendall wrote:
| I do not know much about Bolivia. The little I know comes from
| this series by the travel vlogger _Bald and Bankrupt_ :
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqWdYjn21PdFLL0gOBMRf3Hmy...
|
| The impression this series gives is that Bolivia can be
| somewhat dangerous.
|
| For instance, from his Wikipedia article, the _... video about
| a trip to Patamanta in Bolivia was reported by_ Gizmodo Espanol
| _as "more scary than entering Chernobyl". In the video, he
| informed a local woman that he was a tourist, prompting her to
| warn him that "they burn people" in the area. Two men later
| approached Rich, inspected his passport, and gave him 30
| minutes to explore and leave the area._
|
| And that video actually is terrifying.
|
| But, given that you backpacked around Bolivia with your fiance,
| your experience must have been different? Was _Bald_ unfair to
| Bolivia? Is it relatively safe?
| lukan wrote:
| "Is it relatively safe?"
|
| I have not been to Bolivia myself, but this question is
| always relative.
|
| It depends what you count as save and where do you want to
| go, but also on your experience.
|
| "for intense adventure and lifelong memories. Yungas death
| road on a rented bike is another very memorable experience"
|
| Parent seems to have a higher risk tolerance.
|
| Also it matters a lot, if you can speak spanish and can act
| like a local. But if you look and act like a helpless gringo
| tourist, then you will likely get robbed or worse on the
| first day.
|
| But I know people who hitchhiked there without serious
| trouble as white gringos. So the answer is probably, it
| depends.
| jajko wrote:
| I have more than a year of cumulative backpacking
| experience all around the world when its just you, guide
| book ie Lonely planet and a loose plan for maybe next 2-4
| days, mostly India but also other places. I don't know if
| that makes me one with 'higher risk tolerance', definitely
| higher than 0 to actually experience anything interesting.
| But I do some more intense sports like climbing or
| paragliding where some risk is unavoidable and you do your
| best to minimize your exposure to it, and this mindset then
| permeates rest of your persona.
|
| As for Bolivia, what parent described sounds like some
| extreme case of 'I walk randomly into favela with gold
| chain around the neck and rolex watches and shit happened'
| kind of foolish beginner behavior. Backpacking gives you
| some instincts what not to do. Did I feel safe in Bolivia
| in those few places we've done? Absolutely. Is the whole
| country completely safe in any situation? Most probably
| not, or it wasn't in 2018, no idea about current affairs.
| Btw neither me nor my fiancee/wife speak spanish, you can
| get by with 20 words if you have to.
|
| I've gone to Iran in cca 2015 (Mont Damavand, a bit of
| culture), an amazing experience and one of my best.
| Wouldn't go there currently, not because common people got
| bad (no, they were amazing and everybody spoke english
| well) but politics made it unsafe.
| lukan wrote:
| "I don't know if that makes me one with 'higher risk
| tolerance'"
|
| Compared to an average human, I would say yes.
|
| And yes, speaking the local language is not a must, I
| also got by in poor and potential dangerous places by
| communicating with hand and feat. Eye contact.
|
| The way one treats the people matters. Do they perceive
| you as a arrogant, bored rich westener who has come to
| visit the poor people zoo? That might end bad. But
| showing genuine interest yields different results.
| alemanek wrote:
| Death road on a mountain bike isn't all that dangerous. It
| got its name because it used to be the only route to and
| from Brasil. So you would get 2 way traffic of like box
| trucks on a smallish dirt road with a sheer cliff drop off
| on one side and a mountain on the other. Lots of them went
| off the cliff.
|
| Now you can book a tour and they provide nice bikes and
| follow the group in a minivan. There is still some cars and
| such but it is mostly locals or tour groups. They built a
| modern highway so that route isn't used for trucks anymore.
|
| It is super beautiful and not really dangerous unless you
| want it to be. Totally worth it.
| user070223 wrote:
| It only takes one mistake to fall off, it could be
| mechanical failure, hole in the ground after rain,
| someone in front of you stopping / looking back which
| cause them to drift (that what happened to me had to
| break hard and fell) I saw a video from helmet go pro of
| some girl hanging on shrubs on her life Nevertheless 40
| km downhill with beautiful scenery would do it again :)
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| One mistake won't cause you to fall of unless you put
| yourself in a position where one mistake would lead to
| this: aka riding right next to the edge.
| notahacker wrote:
| there are a few places where riding relatively close to
| the edge is inevitable, although you can probably bring
| yourself to slow down and concentrate for those moments.
| Still the cycle tour operators (who operate with
| considerably better than average equipment and
| professionalism) have non-zero death tolls, so it's not
| just drunk drivers trying to pass each other.
|
| Still, I reckon Death Road is probably a fair bit safer
| than the mines in Potosi, or Potosi/Sucre taxi ride at
| the speed the locals like to drive at, Andes night buses
| in the less reliable bus companies or deciding to visit a
| mountaintype viewpoint by wandering through one of the
| local districts with a camera (Bolivia definitely didn't
| feel like the worst part of Latin America for that
| though...). Roads being blocked by angry protestors is a
| characteristically Bolivian thing too, although they're
| not at all interested in tourists so unless you're
| determined to pass the only real danger is to your
| schedule.
|
| now the time I actually _did_ ride a bike off a cliff was
| a nice smooth road in Ecuador (I went a little too close
| to a drain which wasn 't particularly close to the edge,
| went over the handlebars, landed inelegantly on the road
| and was a little surprised to find no bike behind me...
| had fun retrieving it from the tree it was caught in a
| couple of feet below the edge)
| ponector wrote:
| Entering Chernobyl is not scary unless you go digging in a
| few highly radioactive places like ruzzian soldiers did in
| 2022.
|
| Prior that, you could go to Chernobyl with a tour and it was
| absolutely safe. Much safer than walking around random US
| city, actually.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| Yeah, that one confused me too. Visiting Chernobyl was
| mostly a walk in a park, as no other people around and
| forrest slowly taking over everything. Honestly, it felt
| way safer than big cities in Ukraine to me - hell, even
| safer than big cities in my own country :)
| laszlojamf wrote:
| Like with a lot of countries in South America, there are
| certainly places you shouldn't just wander about in. VRAEM in
| Peru is another example. But there is a lot of tourism in
| Bolivia. Most places are perfectly safe. Lonely Planet can be
| a good place to start if you're unsure.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| It's definitely not "relatively safe" in what I as a European
| would consider a safe place - although I was told it got a
| lot better in the last decade. If you look like a rich
| tourist than you need to be careful, like pretty much
| anywhere in S. America. However if you present yourself as a
| nomad hippie looser with nothing worth the trouble of messing
| with you, you can go around and probably you'll have no big
| problems, but still requires a bit of common sense in
| interaction with people. And speaking at least some Spanish.
| It's not that people are not friendly, they're just poor, and
| the line between being friendly and hustling you is very
| thin.
| rendall wrote:
| Downvote, really? Why? Explain.
| sillystuff wrote:
| Bolivia was a high point in my trekking around S. America. I
| felt perfectly safe, and had no negative experiences.
| Beautiful kind people. In La Paz, I asked directions from a
| random passerby to their electronics market (I wanted to
| replace a pair of lost headphones), and the man cautioned me
| that some sellers might try to take advantage of me. He asked
| me what I was after, and told me what he would expect to pay.
| But, I had no issues, the price offered, by the first seller
| I approached, for a pair of Sony ear buds was less than $4--
| the headphones only differed in color from the pair I had
| lost-- I had paid $16 at Target in the US for them.
|
| I was alone, and, when in urban areas, mostly stayed in the
| hotels in the spaces above street-level businesses that are
| not geared toward foreign tourists (Spanish required). Except
| for La Paz, it was less than $10/night and usually between a
| few dollars to $5. Food was inexpensive and excellent too.
|
| There were amazing historical sites. And, really interesting
| "hmmmmmm" contemporary things to encounter, if paying
| attention-- e.g., there was a tribe near Rurrenabaque that
| spoke Quechua?! (A language you would expect to encounter in
| central Peru, not there).
|
| The Bolivian high desert is so high that the low hills are
| topped in ice (14000ft/4000m at the valley floor) and in the
| low-lands are tropical jungles and pampas. While trekking in
| the jungle, I saw Tapirs, sloth, jaguar scat/tracks, caiman
| (alligator/crocodile type animal), spider monkeys, howler
| monkeys, so many birds... It was amazing!
|
| You will need some level of proficiency in Spanish, unless
| sticking to tourist places, but even then Spanish will be
| helpful though not required.
|
| Highly recommend.
|
| (for those unaccustomed to seeing men with guns, you will
| encounter men with rifles e.g., outside banks, in large
| cities like La Paz-- so, yes crime exists, but I didn't ever
| feel that sketch feeling where you decide it is time to leave
| a place, or not enter it, in the first place-- Bolivia felt
| very safe to me)
| mkl wrote:
| > there was a tribe near Rurrenabaque that spoke Quechua?!
| (A language you would expect to encounter in central Peru,
| not there).
|
| Quechuan languages are quite widespread, including over
| large areas of Bolivia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quechuan_languages
| richardlblair wrote:
| Everywhere has their bad parts. I arrived in La Paz in rough
| shape, as I hadn't slept on the red eye on the way in. I
| could have easily been taken advantage of. Instead the taxi
| driver took me right where I was going, helped me unload and
| communicate with the front desk of the building where my
| airbnb was.
|
| The people are really friendly, generous, and happy.
|
| I can't wait to go back
| user070223 wrote:
| Kris Lane[0] has excellent work on potosi
|
| Potosi - "the first global city" [1] Potosi: The Silver City
| That Changed the World by Kris Lane[2]
|
| I've encountered Kris's work during the pandemic; He released a
| book "Pandemic in Potosi: Fear, Loathing, and Public Piety in a
| Colonial Mining Metropolis" [3] about the pandemic in 1719
| which killed third of the city
|
| Potosi as a silver hotspot had a coin mint, and of course it
| had a fraud[4]
|
| https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/history/people/faculty-staff-...
| https://aeon.co/essays/potosi-the-mountain-of-silver-that-wa...
| https://www.amazon.com/Potosi-Changed-California-History-Lib...
| https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09198-3.html
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Potos%C3%AD_Mint_Fraud_o...
| mharig wrote:
| There are a lot more places worth the visit in Bolivia, apart
| from the Yungas and Potosi. Salar de Uyuni, Sucre (especially the
| Indigenous Art and Textiles Museum), National Reserve Torotoro,
| Pantanal (the Bolivian part is better than the Brasilian part),
| Tarija, and a lot more.
|
| Bolivia is at least as safe as the USofA. Just stay out of
| Chapare and keep an eye on your money and passport when traveling
| with bus (and of course in crowded places, but this is true for
| near the whole planet).
| mattbruv wrote:
| Also, if you're interested in History and enjoy "off the beaten
| path" type of tourism, it's 100% worth the ~8 hour ride from
| Santa Cruz to visit La Higuera, the little pueblo where the
| Bolivian Government captured and executed Che Guevara. The
| schoolhouse that they executed him in is now converted into a
| tiny little museum, and the whole town has art and statues of
| him, it's a super interesting place.
| mc32 wrote:
| Par for the course. They may as well have one for Butch
| Cassidy too.
| nativeit wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're suggesting Che Guavara wasn't
| assassinated, wasn't assassinated in La Higuera, or that
| the museum dedicated to memorializing this historical event
| is either insincere or simply trading on Guevara's memory
| as a cynical cash grab...so tldr; WTF are you on about?
| titanomachy wrote:
| I think they're suggesting Guevara was a criminal and
| murderer and we shouldn't idolize or memorialize him.
| America has strong and deeply ingrained anti-communist
| sentiment.
|
| I think that regardless of your political leaning, he is
| an interesting piece of history.
| mattbruv wrote:
| I don't understand what he's on about either. They're
| hardly even making any money from it. I signed the guest
| book and there were only like one or two visitors every
| couple of days (or week). The woman who gives tours of
| the museum can't read or write, she's probably in her
| 80s. Only elderly people live in the town nowadays, all
| of the youth left. It can't be more than 30-50 people
| living there. I don't even remember paying anything to
| enter, and if I did, it couldn't have been more than a
| couple of dollars.
| hobs wrote:
| https://visitidaho.org/things-to-do/museums-
| exhibits/butch-c...
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Seeing other countries from the reductionist lens of tourism is
| the McDonalization of humanity. Now the human condition has
| been reduced to a list of superficial and trivialized
| activities on Tripadvisor.
|
| Take a selfie next to a statue, eat at a restaurant, buy some
| souvenir made in China... now you can check a country in your
| country list and say "I have been to n+1 countries". What was
| the cost? burning a massive amount of plane fuel to get you
| there that is equivalent to you burning your trash for a full
| year, something that in a planet governed by a rational species
| would be illegal to do.
|
| The article talks about something much more profound. Long
| distance tourism is at our current technological level a
| planet-killing industry and should be outlawed.
| user070223 wrote:
| McDonalds flopped in Bolivia :)
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Car dependent suburban sprawl necessitating 3 hours a day
| commutes by car 5 days a week,50 weeks a year is a much
| heavier load on the planet than an annual plane trip .
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Good thing I don't have a car.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Yes, also don't do that if you can avoid it. You can always
| avoid tourism.
| user070223 wrote:
| Cochabamba(Chapare) indeed known for gangs and drugs, and also
| for the water war against privatization of water
| company(influenced James bond Quantom of solace)
|
| In 2019 there were protests after alleged election fraud, Evo
| morales the president fled out of the country
|
| In La Paz was a hotspot for tourists abduction in the early
| 2000s, there is also a known market of stolen goods
|
| I had a visit from Interpol in a hostel in Sucre couple of
| years ago
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_protests
| teruakohatu wrote:
| The Kingdom of Kongo had a civil war resulting two factions
| claiming the throne and a lot of victims being enslaved and being
| sent to South America. The monarchy was only disestablished in
| 1914. The ancestral story mentioned in the article is quite
| plausible.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongo_Civil_War
|
| I am not sure where Uganda comes in, possibly the king has other
| relatives from there.
| alexandroqc wrote:
| Just to add something interesting about them. Many of our
| favorite dances and music in Bolivia have being originated and
| developed from that zone, like Morenada or Caporales. It is a mix
| of african and andean sounds, which I think is wonderful. And yes
| I'm Bolivian :) Here some Saya I randomly found in YT
| (https://youtu.be/WbI1ncuyWbk)
| prmoustache wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks for sharing!
| user070223 wrote:
| The Charango and the Siku are Iconic in my opinion
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kQZHYbZkLs
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnqXtz3sxjU
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charango
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siku_(instrument)
| emmanueloga_ wrote:
| You'll probably like Markama :-)
|
| --
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNZD5buXlmY
| melenaboija wrote:
| > the mines are notorious for claiming the lives of roughly 8
| million enslaved indigenous South Americans and Africans over a
| 300-year period
|
| As Spaniard this is disgusting to me and I don't understand how
| talking about this still raises anger and some weird historic
| justifications.
|
| Wether we like it or not these are the pillars of the western
| world and why today we have privileges over most of the planet.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > Wether we like it or not these are the pillars of the western
| world
|
| Not sure I understand you correctly, but I strongly disagree
| that colonialism was a necessary foundation for todays wealthy
| western democracies.
|
| I would consider it more another _symptom_ -- once the
| perpetrators realized how outmatched the rest of the world was
| in military/logistics (especially compared to their direct
| neighbors).
|
| Older cultures acted exactly the same way, compare e.g. Romans,
| Huns, Egyptians, Persians (European colonialism just had the
| naval logistics to make this work on a bigger scale).
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| Industrialization is what brought prosperity to the masses.
|
| Colonialism and slavery benefited the reigning elite, but the
| average person almost didn't see any benefit.
|
| Unfortunately that won't stop people from lying that slavery is
| the foundation of wealthy western democracies.
|
| Brazil had 10x more slaves than the USA [1]. They would have
| been the richest country in Latin America per capita if slavery
| was the foundation of rich modern democracies, but that's far
| from the case
|
| I say this as a Nigerian whose country was colonized by the
| British.
|
| 1- https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/comparative-
| histori....
| cryptonector wrote:
| Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-holding
| America was much poorer than non-slave-holding America, and
| why, and it's not the climate because there were cases where
| simply crossing a river border was crossing from wealth to
| poverty. Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters,
| except in so far as it helped them _feel better about
| themselves_. "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that
| continues unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that
| feeling as if it was a mind-altering drug hit.
| linearrust wrote:
| > Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-
| holding America was much poorer than non-slave-holding
| America
|
| That's because the north, in particular new england,
| started industrializing in the late 1700s. While the south,
| due to a variety reasons, didn't.
|
| > Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters
|
| If it didn't, the civil war wouldn't have happened. The
| wealthy elite who owned slaves benefited immensely. Just
| visit a plantation turned historical museum in the south.
| Most southerners didn't own slaves.
|
| > "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that continues
| unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that feeling
| as if it was a mind-altering drug hit.
|
| Indeed.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yup. It's important to note that while slavery was bad
| economically for the South _as a whole_ , it was
| certainly good for the tiny minority of rich white elite.
|
| Interestingly enough, a virulent white supremacist at the
| time [1] pointed this out, and the South banned his book.
| He hated black people, but at the same time made the
| economic analysis that slavery was a tool for white elite
| to oppress not just black people _but also poor white
| people_. He wanted to end slavery not to benefit blacks
| (he wanted to build a railroad to send black people to
| South America), but to benefit poorer whites.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_Rowan_Helper
| cryptonector wrote:
| I had never heard of him. Thanks for the pointer!
| cryptonector wrote:
| > That's because the north, in particular new england,
| started industrializing in the late 1700s. While the
| south, due to a variety reasons, didn't.
|
| Among those reasons was this: that slavery made the
| capitalists in the South lazy.
|
| > > Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters
|
| > If it didn't, the civil war wouldn't have happened. The
| wealthy elite who owned slaves benefited immensely. Just
| visit a plantation turned historical museum in the south.
| Most southerners didn't own slaves.
|
| It's a matter of perception: the masters didn't perceive
| that industrializing would have benefited them much more
| than slavery ever could, nor did they perceive that
| slavery held them back. So of course they saw abolition
| as a threat to their status.
| linearrust wrote:
| > Industrialization is what brought prosperity to the masses.
|
| Industrialization brought prosperity to the elites, just like
| colonialism and slavery did. You act like the poor masses
| were the biggest beneficiaries of industrialization. Most of
| the benefits of industrializations has gone to the elites.
| Just like colonialism and slavery.
|
| > Colonialism and slavery benefited the reigning elite, but
| the average person almost didn't see any benefit.
|
| Simply false. Tens of millions of europeans crowded in the
| smallest continent on earth were able to migrate to other
| parts of the world and gain land ( which is one of the
| primary sources of wealth ). And the ability to offload
| excess population allowed european elite to invest in
| production rather than waste resources on their excess
| population. A win-win situation.
|
| > Unfortunately that won't stop people from lying that
| slavery is the foundation of wealthy western democracies.
|
| Slavery and colonialism were the foundations of
| industrialization. Industrializaton requires two things -
| excess capital and excess resources. How do you think europe
| was able to procure excess capital and resources?
|
| > Brazil had 10x more slaves than the USA [1]. They would
| have been the richest country in Latin America per capita if
| slavery was the foundation of rich modern democracies, but
| that's far from the case
|
| And one of the most industrialized nations ( North Korea ) is
| one of the poorest in the world. What's your point? Brazil
| ended slavery in the 1800s and industrialized. It still isn't
| 'one of the richest in Latin America per capita'? Obviously
| you need something more than industrialization. Like
| political safety and stability and competent leadership.
|
| You seem to think people are saying you need slavery and
| colonialism to industrialize. That's not the case. The point
| is that europe industrialized due to slavery and colonialism.
|
| It remarkable how many here watch silly youtube videos to get
| their understanding of history and economics.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| > Most of the benefits of industrializations has gone to
| the elites. Just like colonialism and slavery.
|
| The average individual is much better off economically and
| has a higher quality of life in an industrialized economy
| than one built on slavery.
|
| I'm not arguing that slavery was good, but that it was
| orthogonal to industrialization. Virtually all countries
| practiced slavery at some point, but most didn't
| industrialize.
|
| Industrialization began with Britain running out of
| firewood and switching to coal as an alternative energy
| source. Steam engines were fine tuned to pump water out of
| coal mines, and people gradually began using steam engines
| to power other things, kickstarting the revolution.
|
| My point is that Europe would have industrialized with or
| without slavery.
|
| Thanks for picking North Korea as an example...a country
| where 43.5% works in agriculture and only a mere 14% in
| industry [1], compared to the much richer South Korea where
| only 5% work in agriculture [2]. It remains obvious that
| any economy built mainly on manual labor (slavery included)
| will be as mediocre as North Korea's.
|
| 1-https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/north-korea/economy
|
| 2- https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/south-korea/economy
| ikety wrote:
| I understand your point, but not sure I would accuse
| those that misinterpret these things of lying. Many
| people are educated enough to know that the massive
| explosion in human advancement was heavily fueled by
| exploitation of some kind. They simply don't understand
| exactly what those exploitations are and the resulting
| effects they've had.
| tomdell wrote:
| Industrialization relied heavily upon raw materials generated
| cheaply with slavery - cotton picked in the American South
| was exported and was a necessity to fuel the
| industrialization of textile production in England, for
| example. There is a reason that industrializing and
| industrialized countries that relied on slavery and other
| exploitative economic relationships have achieved greater
| wealth than more newly industrializing countries have.
| America's wealth is largely supported by cheap labor and raw
| materials in other countries, opened up for the use of
| international corporations by state-sponsored violence - see
| America's history of interfering in South American politics
| or Chiquita's recent guilty verdict for sponsoring
| paramilitary forces in Colombia.
| hollerith wrote:
| It is not true that "cotton . . . was a necessity to fuel
| the industrialization of textile production in England".
|
| England produced so much wool that it exported most of it
| (to other European countries). Flax was also very common.
|
| Factories full of steam-powered machines were going to
| replace the existing arrangement in which most households
| on farms and in villages manually _spun their own yarn_ and
| _wove their own cloth_ with or without access to cheap
| cotton.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I had a number of cringes moment in spain with my latin
| american partner when overhearring some spanish people
| justifying colonization with webroughtthemcivilization
| bullshit. Also reading plain insults with similar colonization
| justification bullshit aimed at latin american workers who
| clean the facilities in the restrooms of a Corte Ingles in
| Madrid center. Made me want to burn the whole place.
|
| In a way colonization hasn't stopped and should still be talked
| about and denounced.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| He is very humble for a king. Many are prone to vulgar and
| ostentatious displays of wealth. However he has the dignity of a
| hard worker. Many could learn from his example.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Would prefer to simply get rid of the idea of kings entirely,
| personally.
| tdeck wrote:
| This is fascinating. If you're interested in African communities
| in South America, you might also like to read about San Basilio
| de Palenque. A community of escaped slaves that managed to fight
| off the Spanish so effectively the king gave up and granted the
| city freedom. Many people there speak the only Spanish-based
| creole language in South America
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Basilio_de_Palenque
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XkOlzCoNstM
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