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Look at the paternal lineage on this family tree, using my paternal lineage as an example. What's the thing that is constant? In every generation, it is the "Balanta" which is passed down. This is your LINEAGE or ETHNICITY. The different colored XX are part of your genetic profile but it is not the same as the CONSTANT thing that is passed down from fathers to sons or, on the other side, from mothers to daughters. Now, if either of your paternal or maternal lineage ancestor survived the middle passage, then you are directly related to the LINEAGE and ETHNICITY of that place and people. THAT is the PRIMARY culture which the LINEAGE RESTORATION MOVEMENT is helping people to RESTORE because that is the thing that was severed by the middle passage. The yellow XX in the chart, for example, is not the thing that you lost in the middle passage. In fact, if that was contributed after the middle passage, then we are not even having the same conversation. So, while we acknowledge the dna contributed to the ROOT BRANCH OF THE LINEAGE ANCESTRY, it is you maternal and paternal lineage ancestry that is of concern to those who want to reclaim what was lost because of the criminal trans-Atlantic trafficking of people of African lineage and heritage. That is where you will find the language that was taken from you and the culture that was taken from you.
Lineage Restoration Movement Declaration
1. AWARE that the criminal Trans-Atlantic Trafficking of People with African Lineage and Heritage consisted of a minimum of 36,000 voyages that are documented in Davis Eltis’ Trans-Atlantic Slate Trade Database;
2. NOTING that Thomas Cooper, in the Supplement to Mr. Cooper’s Letter on the Slave Trade , suggests that for every 100 people with African lineage and heritage who were kidnapped, trafficked and enslaved, 1,000 were murdered in European inspired or exacerbated warfare on the African continent, 20 were murdered on the “way of death” on the African continent and the Middle Passage, and 70 were murdered during the “seasoning” process, for a total of 170 million deaths;
3. FURTHER NOTING that Joseph Miller, in The Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730-1830, suggests that for every 100 people with African lineage and heritage who were seized, 74 reached the marketplace in the interior, 64 arrived at the slave forts and the holding pens on the coast, 57 stepped onto soil across the Atlantic, 48 lived to behold their first master or mistress, and only 28 to 30 of the original people with African lineage and heritage seized were alive three to four years later;
4. CLAIMING that Portugal and Brazil were and are responsible for at least 7,300 slave voyages (26.8%) and at least 5,074,900 (45.9%) of the people who were forcibly, illegally, and immorally transported from the African continent and, using Cooper’s order of magnitude, were and are responsible for the murder, kidnapping and enslavement of more than 73 million people of African lineage and heritage;
5. CLAIMING that Britain was and is responsible for at least 11,632 slave voyages (42.7%), and that least 3,112,300 (28.1%) of the people who were forcibly, illegally and immorally transported from the African continent, thereby being responsible for the murder, kidnapping and enslavement of 52.2 million people of African lineage and heritage;
6. CLAIMING that France was and is responsible for at least 4,038 voyages (14.8%) and at least 1,456,000 (13.2%) of the people who were forcibly, illegally and immorally transported from the African continent, thereby being responsible for the murder, kidnapping and
enslavement of 21.6 million people of African lineage and heritage;
7. CLAIMING that Spain was and is responsible for at least 1,116 slave voyages (4.1%), and at least 517,000 (4.7%) of the people who were forcibly, illegally and immorally transported from the African continent, thereby being responsible for the murder, kidnapping and enslavement of 8.5 million people of African lineage and heritage;
8. EMPHASIZING that almost every country of the Western Hemisphere, and especially the British Mainland of North America, the British Leewards, the British Windwards and Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, the Spanish American Mainland, the Spanish Caribbean, Northeast Brazil, Bahia, Southeast Brazil and other areas, participated in some degree, in the criminal Trans-Atlantic Trafficking of people with African lineage and heritage;
9. FURTHER EMPHASIZING that 40.6% of all kidnapped and trafficked people of African lineage and heritage were shipped to Brazil, 29 % to the British colonies in the Caribbean and North America, 14.3% to the Spanish colonies in the Americas, 12% to the French colonies, and 2.7% to the Dutch Americas;
10. LAMENTING that untold numbers of families, clans, tribes, societies, villages, nations and civilizations on the African continent were invaded, disrupted, disorganized, pillaged, raped and destroyed as a result of the criminal Trans-Atlantic Trafficking of people with African lineage and heritage;
11. COGNIZANT that for more than 6 centuries and 30 generations, the theft of the fruit of labor of the people of African lineage and heritage on both sides of the Atlantic, and the nearly incalculable wealth that it produced, has redistributed income and wealth earned by the people of African lineage and heritage on both sides of the Atlantic to generations of people of European lineage and heritage on both sides of the Atlantic, leaving the former impoverished as a group and the latter relatively privileged as a group;
12. INFORMED that Joe R. Feagin in Documenting the Costs of Slavery, Segregation and Contemporary Discrimination: Are Reparations in Order for African Americans? calculates that the value of the slave labor expropriated by whites in the United States from 1620 to 1865 ranges from about $1 trillion to as much as $97 trillion, depending on the rate of interest chosen;
13. INFORMED that the cost of labor market discrimination for 1929-1969 (in 1983 dollars) was $1.6 trillion and that the cost of anti-black discrimination from the end of slavery in 1865 to the year 1965, the end of legal segregation would likely increase that wage-loss estimate to several trillion dollars;
14. INFORMED that the estimate of the cost of continuing racial discrimination in employment has been put in the range of $94-$123 billion dollars;
15. CONCLUDING that, since the 47.5 million people of African lineage and heritage in the United States represents less than 4% of all the people of African lineage and heritage in the world today, the sum total of the wealth transfer by means of slavery, segregation and contemporary discrimination from more than 1 billion people of African lineage and heritage to people of European lineage and heritage amounts to more than $600 trillion dollars (taking into consideration lost interest over time and putting it in today’s dollars) and does not count the value of the wealth that this stolen labor created;
NOW therefore, we the undersigned, hereby declare:
1. The economic damage to and condition of the victims of the criminal Trans-Atlantic Trafficking of people with African Lineage and Heritage (CTATOPWALAH) has been well studied, identified, and calculated.
2. Less studied and understood is the damage to and condition of the IDENTITY of victims of CTATOPWALAH.
3. Identity locates an individual as a part of a family, a community, a region, a culture, and a historical period.
4. On the African continent prior to CTATOPWALAH, identity was formed by the knowledge and preservation of one’s maternal lineage, transmitted from mother to daughter and paternal lineage, transmitted from father to son. Depending on each family’s village tradition, identity, and all that it included – language, culture, spirituality, land, and one’s place in the world and universe (history), was determined either by maternal or paternal lineage.
5. Health and well-being, therefore, required the preservation of one’s lineage. If you did not preserve your lineage, you lost your location or place in the world.
6. In the same way that CTATOPWALAH caused severe and devastating economic damage, it also created severe and devastating LINEAGE DAMAGE.
7. By using violence and terrorism, people of European lineage and heritage prevented the victims of CTATOPWALAH from speaking their native language, using their native names, and returning to their families living in their ancestral homelands.
8. Consequently, the descendants of the victims of CTATOPWALAH no longer retained knowledge of their lineage identities resulting in an IDENTITY CRISIS.
9. New identities such as Guinea-man, slave, negro, colored, mulatto, nigger, black, African American, New Afrikan replaced the lineage identities.
10. The strong existential yearning to reconnect with one’s family, community, region, culture and natural place in the word inspired noble attempts to reclaim one’s lineage identity and resulted in the appropriation of fictitious or place-holder identities such as African (a European construct and designation), Christian, Muslim, Jew, Moor, Hebrew Israelite, Kemetian, New Afrikan, Rastafarian, Pan African, Aboriginal, Native American, Blood, Crip, Black P Stone Ranger, Black Gangster Disciple, Nation of 5% and so many others. These man-made identities can and do change.
11. However, lineage is unchangeable – the descent from fathers to sons and mothers to daughters, is permanent. Thus, who you are, your identity, will always be determined by lineage. At the most fundamental level, you are your ancestral lineage.
12. Our most ancient ancestors admonished, “Man, know thyself.” One’s greatest duty on earth was to honor one’s ancestors. Not knowing who you are and who your ancestors are was considered the greatest tragedy that can befall someone.
13. Because health and well-being are dependent on the preservation of one’s lineage, the attempts to appropriate identities that are not based on one’s actual ancestors have failed to repair the LINEAGE DAMAGE.
14. THE CURRENT CONDITION OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THE VICTIMS OF THE CRIMINAL TRANS-ATLANTIC TRAFFICKING OF PEOPLE WITH AFRICAN LINEAGE AND HERITAGE REMAINS ONE OF IDENTITY CRISIS.
15. The identity crisis is now the main internal obstacle preventing the repair and advancement of the descendants of CTATOPWALAH.
16. The system of white supremacy remains the main external obstacle preventing the repair and advancement of the descendants of the victims of CTATOPWALAH.
17. The Lineage Restoration Movement is the response to the IDENTITY CRISIS just described.
18. The objective of the Lineage Restoration Movement is to demonstrate that repair and healing for the descendants of the victims of CTATOPWALAH will remain incomplete until such people RESOLVE ONCE AND FOR ALL THE IDENTITY CRISIS BY REDISCOVERING THEIR MATERNAL OR PATERNAL ANCESTRY.
19. Knowledge of one’s ancestral lineage is the foundation for answering all of the questions and solving all of the problems that people of African lineage and heritage face today. It reconnects the victims of CTATOPWALAH on both sides of the Atlantic. It identifies the natural organizing units needed for a United Front against the common enemy of those Europeans who today, still use a refined system of white supremacy.
20. The natural ordering and organizing of humanity is observable. Trillions of cells and several biological systems are organized and united into what is called an individual human being. That human being is part of a family, which is the product of previous family members or ancestors. This is permanent and unchangeable. Thus, the natural order of humanity is ancestors, family, individual. People of different families with common ancestors form a community. Communities form the highest unit of human organization which are nations.
21. Nations are the biggest unit which can organize the behavior and resources of a people through what is called government. Since there is no single planetary government, then the highest level of human organization at this time is a nation. Natural nations existed prior to CTATOPWALAH and were based on ancestral lineage and not on arbitrary designated territorial boundaries indicated by cartography.
22. The lessons of history teach that the natural nations of people with African lineage and heritage MUST FORM A UNITED FRONT to defeat the systems of white supremacy, colonialism, neocolonialism and any forms of exploitation and injustice committed against people of African lineage and heritage.
23. The stronger the natural nations of people with African lineage and heritage, the stronger the UNITED FRONT.
24. Until now differences in class, religion, culture, economics, geography, politics, education, music, fashion, language, skin tone, hair, noses, and even sports, were used to divide and conquer people with African lineage and heritage.
25. The Lineage Restoration Movement has observed that people who share lineage ancestry have the firmest foundation for uniting on both sides of the Atlantic.
26. When such unification happens for each group or nation of shared ancestry, communication and shared resources increase that group or nation’s strength, as the saying goes, “Strength in Unity”
27. A UNITED FRONT of all people of people of African lineage and history so organized by ancestry and strengthened, can be achieved PROVIDED that the necessity of such a UNITED FRONT is well understood.
28. Only in this way will the division and disunity between people of African lineage and heritage on both sides of the Atlantic be overcome and the dream of the previous generation’s Pan African ideal achieved.
THEREFORE , the Lineage Restoration Movement
1. DECLARES that for wealth to translate into well-being, people must have a spiritual element within them. Without that, “success” will work against the people;
2. DECLARES that the proper spiritual element needed by the victims of CTATOPWALAH can only be developed through restoring their ancestral lineage since their health and well-being, including their spiritual health and well-being, depend upon restoring and preserving their ancestral lineages;
3. ENCOURAGES the current Reparations movement to prioritize solving the IDENTITY CRISIS of the victims of CTATOPWALAH by using proprietary genetic testing from African Ancestry to restore knowledge of one’s maternal and paternal ancestral lineages;
4. REMINDS the international community that any Reparations must include the following: right of each person to choose among and receive the remedy of one of the four natural options: (1) US citizenship, (2) return to the African continent, (3) emigration to another country and (4) the creation of a new nation on American soil by and for the victims of CTATOPWALAH ;
5. RESOLVES that FOR THE MOST EFFECTIVE USE OF REPARATIONS RESOURCES, THE PRIORITY FOR THE REPARATIONS MOVEMENT is to train and develop a professional class of genealogy researchers from among the victims of CTATOPWALAH and deploy them as part of a modern day
government Workers Project that will go throughout the United States and determine the genetic ancestry lineage and family history of every person claiming to be the descendants of the victims of CTATOPWALAH;
6. DEMANDS that every college and university establish a special program for training this class of genealogy researchers and all students entering the program should be granted free tuition and a living stipend for four years of study.
7. DEMANDS that guaranteed employment (through the government program) is provided for the program graduates for the next fifteen years so that every descendant of the victims of CTATOPWALAH can have their ancestral lineage identity restored;
8. STRONGLY RECOMMENDS that each lineage ancestry group or nation form a centralized body in each country such as the Temne Abara Nation and the Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society in America to whom Reparations resources can be transferred and managed;
9. FURTHER RECOMMENDS that all such centralized ancestry lineage groups in each country form an umbrella organization that serves as the UNITED FRONT for each country;
10. FURTHER RECOMMENDS that all such UNITED FRONTS in each country form an umbrella organization that serves as the highest UNITED FRONT for the LINEAGE RESTORATION MOVEMENT internationally;
11. WARNS that failure to restore the lineage of the victims of CTATOPWALAH severely threatens their future health and well-being;
12. WARNS that failure to restore the lineage of the victims of CTATOPWALAH is continued injustice;13. REPEATS that where there is NO JUSTICE there is NO PEACE.
Signed:
1. Foday K. Conteh (Jul 26, 2020 22:10 EDT)
2. Siphiwe Baleka (Jul 26, 2020 23:03 EDT)
3. Sânsáu Tchimna (Jul 27, 2020 11:47 EDT)
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE LINEAGE RESTORATION MOVEMENT
1. The Lineage Restoration Movement (LRM) is a response by the descendants of the people who were trafficked from the African continent, carried across the Atlantic ocean, and enslaved.
2. The LRM recognizes and understands that in addition to the theft of land, people, and labor, IDENTITIES were also stolen creating the current IDENTITY CRISIS experienced by black people in the Americas today.
3. Justice and healing, therefore require the return of that which was stolen.
4. In order to return the land and people, the stolen identities must (first) be restored.
5. The principal aim of LRM is to restore the ancestral lineages that were severed as a result of the criminal Trans-Atlantic trafficking and enslavement of people from the African continent.
6. This can be achieved by taking proprietary genetic tests from African Ancestry which uses technology that enables the identification of one’s maternal and paternal lineage.
7. LRM is trans-national since people of the same lineage were trafficked by people from multiple nations and enslaved in multiple nations.
8. LRM aims to organize the various ethnic lineages in a Lineage United Front to more effectively achieve Justice due to the victims of the criminal Trans-Atlantic Trafficking of People with African Lineage and Heritage (CTATOPWALAH).
9. LRM believes that at this time, FOR THE MOST EFFECTIVE USE OF REPARATIONS RESOURCES, THE PRIORITY FOR THE REPARATIONS MOVEMENT is to train and develop a professional class of genealogy researchers from among the victims of
CTATOPWALAH and deploy them as part of a modern day government Workers Project that will go throughout the United States and determine the genetic ancestry lineage and family history of every person claiming to be the descendants of the victims of CTATOPWALAH.
10. LRM demands any Reparations must include the following: right of each person to choose among and receive the remedy of one of the four natural options: (1) US citizenship, (2) return to the African continent, (3) emigration to another country and (4) the creation of a new nation on American soil by and for the victims of CTATOPWALAH.
