In August 1619, a ship called the White Lion arrives in Virginia, a year before the Mayflower, the ship that was transporting the first English Puritans. It carries with it the first load of African slaves, captured in West Africa, starting the enslavement of Africans in the North American colonies. On 23 December 1865, the Ku Klux Klan is founded by six former officers in the Confederate army, unleashing a reign of terror across the south against the newly freed African slaves.
On 1 February 1893, an African American man, named Henry Smith is handed over to an angry mob to be lynched. He confessed, under duress, to the murder of a three-year-old white girl. Smith is tortured for 50 minutes, before being murdered by the mob. On 28 August 1955, a fourteen-year-old African American boy who was visiting family in Mississippi from Chicago is lynched. He was accused of making advances towards a white woman. He is abducted from his relatives’ home, tortured, beaten, and shot. His body was found floating in the river. The men responsible for his death were never indicted. On 22 May 2020, an African American man, called George Floyd is arrested in Minnesota under suspicion of using a counterfeit bill for buying cigarettes. During his arrest, a police officer has his knee on his neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. Floyd pleads for his life and at one-point calls for his mother. He dies from asphyxiation, and his death sparks widespread protests against police brutality.
The holy mission
Berlin, 1895, the conference for the partition of Africa concludes. At the conclusion of the conference, King Leopold of Belgium convinces the European powers to grant him personal control over a large chunk of land in the Congo Basin. He would rule over it as his personal estate, with no control or oversight from the Belgian state, where he reigns as a constitutional monarch with ceremonial powers.
