Bill Bryson: Not Only Cotton, But Also Sugar Played a Major Role in Slavery
Bill Bryson, British-American author and journalist
[Scroll down for the English]
KISWAHILI
"Sukari pia ilichukua jukumu kubwa katika maendeleo yasiyo na heshima: biashara ya utumwa. Takriban sukari yote Waingereza wanatumiwa ilikuzwa katika mashamba ya Magharibi mwa Indies [visiwa vya Karibiani] na yaliyofanywa kazi na [tabaka la watumwa]. Tuna mwelekeo finyu wa kuhusisha utumwa na uchumi wa mashamba [pamba] ya Marekani ya Kusini [U.S.] tu, lakini kwa kweli watu wengine wengi walitajirika kutoka kwa utumwa, hasa wanabiashara hao wanaowapeleka angalau milioni 3.1 Waafrika ng’ambo ya bahari kabla Uingereza ilikomesha biashara ya wanadamu mnamo 1807.”
- Bill Bryson, mwandishi wa Uingereza-Marekani na mwanahabari anayejulikana kwa uandishi wake wa maarifa yenye ukweli kuhusu sayansi, historia, na lugha ya Kiingereza.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
“Sugar also played a big role in a less commendable development: the slave trade. Nearly all the sugar Britons consumed was grown on West Indian estates worked by [the enslaved class]. We have a narrow tendency to associate slavery exclusively with the plantation economy [cotton] of the southern United States, but in fact plenty of other people got rich from slavery, not least the traders who shipped 3.1 million Africans across the ocean before the United Kingdom abolished the trade in humans in 1807.”
- Bill Bryson, British-American author and journalist known for his insightful non-fiction writing on science, history, and the English language.
Chanzo (source): Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010, pages 182.