AMENDMENT IN THE NATURE OF A SUBSTITUTE

TO H. RES. 272

OFFERED BY MR. LANTOS OF CALIFORNIA

Strike the preamble and insert the following:

Whereas the United Kingdom outlawed the African slave

trade and slavery in 1807 by passing the Slave Trade Abolition Act which recognized that "the African Slave Trade, and all manner of dealing and trading in the Purchase, Sale, Barter, or Transfer of Slaves, or of Persons intended to be sold, transferred, used, or dealt with as Slaves, practiced or carried on, in, at, to or from any Part of the Coast or Countries of Africa, shall be, and the same is hereby utterly abolished, prohibited, and declared to be unlawful”;

Whereas the transatlantic slave trade entailed the kidnap

ping, purchase and commercial export of Africans, mostly from West and Central Africa, to the European colonies and new nations in the Americas, including the United States, where they were enslaved in forced labor between the 15th and late 19th centuries;

Whereas the term "Middle Passage” refers to the horrific

part of the transatlantic slave trade when millions of Africans were chained together and stowed by the hundreds in overcrowded ships where they were forced to live in months

A small spaces for woods without relief as they were trans

Africa but scholars estimate that, at minimum, between 10,000,000 and 15,000,000 Africa's survived the Middle Passage, were imported as obattle through customs houses and ports across the Americas, and were sold into slavery;

Whereas historians agree that many slaves arrived in the

Americas ill with infections and diseases, or disabled from the iron chains that bound them or from physical abuse, and historians estimate that 10 to 50 percent of the Africans who were shipped from the continent perished during the Middle Passage as a result of physical abuses, torture, malnutrition, disease, infection, suicide

or repercussions from their resistance to their bondage; Whereas Africans' resistance to the transatlantic slave trade

culminated in revolts collective acts of rebellionagainst slave ships and their crews during the Middle Passage, and rebellions against slavery occurred frequently on colonial and post-colonial plantations through

out the Americas; Whereas historians estimate that 1,200,000 men, women, and

children were later separated from their families and displaced from their communities by being sold to slaveholders in other regions, colonies, States, and nations in the inter- American and domestic slave trade that took place through

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19th century;

A Whereas the transatlantic slave trade is recognized by histo

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the largest population of persons of African descent outside of Africa;

Whereas the institution of slavery, which enslaved Africans,

their progeny and later generations for life, was legally sanctioned by the colonial governments and later the nations and States engaged in slavery, including the Government of the United States, through most of the 19th

century; Whereas slavery in the United States, during and after Brit

ish colonial rule, included the sale and acquisition of Africans and African Americans as chattel property in interstate and intrastate commerce;

Whereas enslaved Africans and African Americans were de

fined as property that passed to heirs under inheritance laws of the British colonial rule and later under the laws of the States;

Whereas enslaved Africans adapted to their environment and

created a new, rich culture that marked the development of the African American community and continues to strongly impact culture and society in the United States today;

Whereas the slavery that flourished in the United States con

stituted an immoral and inhumane dispossession of human life, liberty, and citizenship rights and denied Africans and African Americans the fruits of their own labor;

Whereas the treatment of enslaved Africans and African

Americans in the colonies and the United States included the deprivation of their freedom, exploitation of their labor, psychological and physical abuse, separation of families, and the targeted efforts to repress their culture,

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language, and religion through legal and social restrictive measures;

Whereas the slave trade and the legacy of slavery continue

to have a profound impact on social and economic dis-
parity, hatred, bias, racism, and discrimination, and con-
tinue to affect people of African descent throughout the

Americas today; and
Whereas March 25, 2007, marked the 200th anniversary of

the Slave Trade Abolition Act enacted by the British
Parliament: Now, therefore, be it

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(1) recognizes the historical significance of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade to the people of the United

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States and to the world;

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(2) respects the memory of those who died as

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a result of slavery, including through exposure to the
horrors of the Middle Passage and in revolt against

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and resistance to enslavement;

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(3) supports the preservation of historical records and documents in private collections, local and State governments, shipping ports, and corporations in the United States and throughout the Americas relating to the transatlantic slave trade and the

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centuries of slavery that followed; and

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(4) urges increased education of current and fu

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ture generations about this horrific crime against humanity by honoring its significance in United

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States history and the history of other nations of the
Americas with appropriate research, scholarship,

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curriculum, textbooks, museum exhibits and pro

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grams, library resources and programs, and cultural

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programs and activities.