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Tips on how to promote your small business

Running a small business can sometimes feel like a juggling act. No matter the size of your team, you need all the help you can get to run sales, marketing, operations, finance and human resources. And this is just to keep the status quo. How can a business owner find the time to grow their business with all this activity going on?

Having the right technology in place can help answer that question. This will help any small business do what they do best – but even better and with more profit – and free up time to focus on growth.

Think about your current systems and processes with the following six ideas in mind.

1. Make Processes as Efficient as Possible

Efficiency is not just a buzzword from consultants. It is an idea that should always be in the back of your mind when developing new business processes or review existing ones. Take a lesson from manufacturing and look for scalable, repeatable processes in your business that keep your team in mind. Don’t treat your staff like robots, but keep them from doing tasks in ways that don’t make logical sense.

2. Get All Your Data In One System

Small businesses frequently grow in fits and starts and their systems often follow that pattern. Some activities even exist outside those systems. It used to be called paper, but now it is impractical to look up customer invoices on a paper report, because no one accesses to the billing system. The customer record lives somewhere else. And don’t forget about those business cards from the last trade show gathering dust on the corner of your desk.

3. Communicate Across Teams

Unless your small business is so small that everyone is in the same room (and I’m not talking about a loft with an open floor plan), you need simple ways to communicate with each other. Sure, email works, but it is an interruptive process. And what happens when you need to add someone to the message thread? Now they have read back through a thread with strange indents and lots of email signature lines. And what happens when you need to dig that information out of your email? Who was it from? What customer was it about? Teams need to communicate in a way that captures that information and connects it to the right customer or vendor.

4. Everyone Needs to Be Accountable

Do you or your boss walk around the office checking in on everyone’s progress toward their goals? The sales team might have a leader board on the wall, but what about the human resources team? Are they meeting their hiring goals? Managers need more than anecdotal data to know that the business is on track. Centralized reporting is needed to understand all aspects of your business, especially growth. If you could have one screen with a series of dashboards tracking key metrics, what are the ones that show that your business is achieving its vision?

5. Working Together is Better Than Working Apart

Some people like to put headphones on, focus on their own projects and leave at 5:00 on the dot. Small business managers wear many hats, and very often the best workers in a fast-growing environment operate the same way. This means ad hoc project teams form for short periods to get things done. The people on those projects go back to their regular tasks afterwards. Collaboration systems need to support regular and temporary teams in ways that make sense.

6. Customize Your Tools to Work for You

Not everyone has the luxury for a fully customized, large-scale computer system implementation. Even if budget were no object (which it always is), this is not always the best solution for your business needs. Some would even say it never is. Regardless of budget or scope, nearly any system you choose allows for some level of customization. Make sure you consider how even small changes can make a big difference in operations.

To explore these six ideas in more depth, so you can focus on the other activities required to grow your business, download this free ebook, Six Keys to Small Business Success.

The only way evil  people prevail is when the good people do nothing

5 Keys to success in Business

The 5 Key Success Factors Of Business

Success is a key thing everyone look forward to inLife even in business and it is not just an event which happens abruptly it is a hidden thing needed to be discovered and vaccums needed to be filled w ith our great qualities

(1) Managing and developing people - People today want some direction and structure, but they also want freedom and encouragement to develop their skills and knowledge. Effectively managing people requires balancing constraining forces (providing direction, structure, organization, some rules) with liberating forces (encourage personal growth, development and creativity). If you as manager/leader err too much in one direction or the other, your organization will be either too rigid or too chaotic. To make it more complicated, each person has a different set of needs for structure vs. freedom, order vs. opportunity, logic vs. personal values, factual information vs. meaning and connections, and so on. Effective managers do not manage all people the same, except for some basic rules. They manage each person according to what he or she needs, what motivates them to do their best. This can be complicated but is essential for success.

(2) Strategic focus - In today’s rapidly changing world, it’s not just enough to have a purpose for existing. Leaders have to focus the organization’s resources on the greatest opportunities, which shift with each new day. Just run through your mind what has happened in the world or your organization in the past year or two, and you’ll understand what we mean by the reality of constant change. Doors open and doors close. Major customers or income sources can change or even go out of business at any time. So it’s necessary for leaders to keep focused on the desired end results such as increased sales and profits, or more satisfied customers, while constantly steering the organization across the stormy waters of the marketplace. As the illustration shows, the job of focused leaders is to connect and align all the Success Factors for optimum performance.

(3) Operations, or what people do all day - What the people in your organization do day in and day out to create value for customers, to earn or justify income, strongly determines whether you succeed or fail. Like the other Top 5 Success Factors, you can’t separate operations from strategic focus which gives direction, people which do the work, customers who pay the money and physical resources to do the work. Effective operations ensure that customers get exactly what they want at the right time, the right price and the right quality. Thus effective operations management focuses on what is called cycle time (producing a product or service from start to finish), cost control, and quality control (which requires some form of measurement). Strategic focus is largely externally oriented, operations largely internally oriented. Both need to be totally in sync with each other – not something that happens automatically but rather requiring constant effort. This is why communication is the true lifeblood of a successful organization – a high flow of information so everyone and everything is connected. Easy to say, hard to do.

(4) Physical resources - Finances, facilities and equipment are the big 3 physical resources. If you don’t have enough money, you can’t start or sustain an organization. And one of the biggest expenses is providing adequate facilities and equipment for people to work in and with. Experienced managers learn that cash flow is king. It doesn’t matter how much customers owe you, it’s when their money enters your bank account so you can use it to sustain the organization. Failing to manage cash flow is the No. 1 reason for business failure. Too many business owners leave the money up to someone else and can easily get blind-sided when suddenly the money isn’t there to keep the doors open. And in a few rare, unfortunate cases, the person tracking the money embezzles or cooks the books, then you really are in trouble. Likewise nice facilities can be energizing, something to feel proud about, but also very expensive. The economy is always cyclical, and if you buy or lease really nice facilities when times are good, paying for them can be difficult or impossible in a downturn.

(5) Customer relations - Customers are where the money comes from, so in many ways this is the most important success factor. As the famous business guru Peter Drucker said years ago, The purpose of a business is to get and keep customers. Getting customers involves marketing – indeed this success factor includes all kinds of marketing and sales. The key to successful customer relations is to give them what they need, not just what you want to sell. Effective sales and marketing begins with asking existing and potential customers what they need, what problem they want solved or deficiency filled. By keeping in touch with customers and asking these questions often, you’ll do a better job of developing customer loyalty and keeping competitors away. In the broadest sense customer relations can be considered the organization’s relationships with the external world. It involves tracking competitor actions, analyzing changes in the market environment, and adapting according. This is closely linked to Strategic Focus.

The only way evil  people prevail is when the good people do nothing

Top 10 Executions of the 2000s

10. Dhananjoy Chatterjee, 2004

Although the world’s second-most populous country retains the death penalty and has dozens of death row denizens, an entire generation of Indians has come of age having never known an actual execution … never, except for the 2004 hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee (Update: Not any more). That made this otherwise ordinary criminal a worldwide controversy, and his archaic colonial-era hangman a temporary celebrity.

9. Aileen Wuornos, 2002

Two years after the magnetic prostitute/serial killer was given a lethal injection in Florida, Charlize Theron won an Oscar for portraying her in Monster.

8. Wang Binyu, 2005

This migrant laborer was just grist for the mill of China’s helter-skelter industrialization in the neoliberal economic machine … until, in a fury over wages stolen by his employer, he slew a foreman. Chinese media that picked up his story inadvertently made him an emblematic figure for the untold millions of his countrymen and -women who could sympathize with his sentiment: “I want to die. When I am dead, nobody can exploit me anymore. Right?” Internet buzz about Wang had to be forcibly squelched.

7. Timothy McVeigh, 2001

The Gulf War veteran was the face of terrorism in the U.S. from the time of his arrest for the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City’s Murrah Federal Building, until three months after his June 11, 2001, execution.

6. Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, 2005

 Worrisome photos  of these teenagers hanging in Iran were a worldwide Internet sensation and made them an instant symbol of Iranian anti-gay persecution.

5. Mamoru Takuma, 2004

“I want others to know the unreasonableness that high-achieving children could be killed at any time,” said the author of perhaps the most infamous crime spree in modern Japanese history. The usually glacial Japanese capital system got the former janitor into a noose barely three years after he’d knifed eight children to death in the “Osaka school massacre”.

4. Cameron Todd Willingham, 2004

Something tells us that the ornery Texan — he took his leave of the world throwing an obscene gesture at his former wife from his execution gurney — would have been but pleasantly surprised to discover himself a major posthumous headache for Gov. Rick Perry (who signed his death warrant) and like-minded partisans of pseudoscience arson convictions. The sad part is that the evidence of Willingham’s potential innocence in  was basically all available at the time of his execution.

Rediscovery (with touching, or feigned, naivete) of the timeless problematic of executing innocents has characterized the 2000s not only in America but around the globe

3. The Bali Bombers, 2008

These islamists  orchestrated the 2002 coordinated triple bombing on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed 202, most of them western tourists. (88 were Australians, the predominant nationality affected, as against only 38 Indonesians.) Then they spent six years gleefully milking their notoriety.

2. Zheng Xiaoyu, 2007

While proletarians like Wang Binyu died for pennies and many like Fu Xinrong died for their organs, the more privileged in China’s gangster capitalism played for higher stakes. For a decade the state’s Food and Drugs Minister, Zheng Xiaoyu took payola to rubber-stamp products that turned out to be dangerous to man and beast. His high-profile execution was Beijing’s response to a wave of concern about the safety of Chinese exports abroad … and a pledge, one year in advance of the 2008 Olympics, of China’s readiness for the world stage.

Zheng aside, elites behaving as gangsters (and vice versa) have been a recurring phenomenon on China’s execution grounds of late.

1. Saddam Hussein, 2006

Undoubtedly the decade’s signature execution the 2006 hanging by America’s Iraqi puppet government of America’s longtime foreign policy bete noir was purchased for trillions that would have been better spent just buying the guy off … especially since cell phone video soon to circle the globe revealed the old rattle snake taking command of a distinctly undignified scene.

The only way evil  people prevail is when the good people do nothing

10 Fearless black women in history

Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa – Manhyia Palace Museum, Kumasi

Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa (c. 1840–October 17, 1921)
 

Yaa Asantewaa was the queen mother of the Edweso tribe of the Asante (Ashanti) in what is modern Ghana.  She was an exceptionally brave fighter who, in March 1900, raised and led an army of thousands against the British colonial forces in Ghana and their efforts to subjugate the Asante and seize the Golden Stool, the Asante nation’s spiritual symbol of unity and sovereignty.

Yaa Asantewaa mobilized the Asante troops and for three months laid siege to the British fort of Kumasi. The British colonizers had to bring in several thousand troops and artillery to break the siege, exiling Queen Yaa Asantewaa and 15 of her closest advisers to the Seychelles. She lived in exile until her death in October 1921. Yaa Asantewaa’s War, as it is presently known in

Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa (c. 1840–October 17, 1921)
 

Yaa Asantewaa was the queen mother of the Edweso tribe of the Asante (Ashanti) in what is modern Ghana.  She was an exceptionally brave fighter who, in March 1900, raised and led an army of thousands against the British colonial forces in Ghana and their efforts to subjugate the Asante and seize the Golden Stool, the Asante nation’s spiritual symbol of unity and sovereignty.

Yaa Asantewaa mobilized the Asante troops and for three months laid siege to the British fort of Kumasi. The British colonizers had to bring in several thousand troops and artillery to break the siege, exiling Queen Yaa Asantewaa and 15 of her closest advisers to the Seychelles. She lived in exile until her death in October 1921. Yaa Asantewaa’s War, as it is presently known in Ghana, was one of the last major wars on the continent of Africa to be led by a woman.

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; 1820 – March 10, 1913)

Harriet Tubman was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia in 1849, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family.

She subsequently made more than 19 missions to rescue more than 300 slaves with the help of the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped recruit men for John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry October 16-18, 1859, to free enslaved Blacks.

In June 1863, Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the Civil War. She guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 enslaved Blacks in South Carolina: the largest liberation of enslaved Black people in American history.

Queen Nanny or Nanny (c. 1685 – c. 1755)

Queen Nanny, a Jamaican national hero,was a well-known leader of the Jamaican Maroons in the 18th century. Nanny was kidnapped from Ghana, West Africa, as a child, and was forced into slavery in Jamaica. Growing up, she was influenced by the Maroons and other leaders of the enslaved Africans. The Maroon people were enslaved Blacks who fled the oppressive plantations and formed their own communities in Jamaica’s interior.

Nanny and her brothers ran away from the plantation and hid in the Blue Mountains area. From there, they led several revolts across Jamaica. Queen Nanny was a well-respected, intelligent spiritual leader who was instrumental in organizing the plans to free slaves.

For over 30 years she freed more than 800 slaves and helped them settle into Maroon communities. She defeated the British in many battles and despite repeated attacks from the British soldiers, Grandy Nanny’s settlement, called Nanny Town, remained under Maroon control for several years.

Queen Nanny or Nanny (c. 1685 – c. 1755)

Queen Nanny, a Jamaican national hero,was a well-known leader of the Jamaican Maroons in the 18th century. Nanny was kidnapped from Ghana, West Africa, as a child, and was forced into slavery in Jamaica. Growing up, she was influenced by the Maroons and other leaders of the enslaved Africans. The Maroon people were enslaved Blacks who fled the oppressive plantations and formed their own communities in Jamaica’s interior.

Nanny and her brothers ran away from the plantation and hid in the Blue Mountains area. From there, they led several revolts across Jamaica. Queen Nanny was a well-respected, intelligent spiritual leader who was instrumental in organizing the plans to free slaves.

For over 30 years she freed more than 800 slaves and helped them settle into Maroon communities. She defeated the British in many battles and despite repeated attacks from the British soldiers, Grandy Nanny’s settlement, called Nanny Town, remained under Maroon control for several years.

Ahosi or Mino (Dahomey Amazons)

The Dahomey Amazons or Mino was an all-female military regiment of the Fon people of the Kingdom of Dahomey in the present-day Republic of Benin. They existed from the 17th century to the end of the 19th century. While European narratives refer to the women soldiers as “Amazons,” because of their similarity to the semi-mythical Amazons of ancient Anatolia, they called themselves Ahosi (king’s wives) or Mino (our mothers) in the Fon language.

The Ahosi were extremely well trained, and inculcated with a very aggressive attitude. They were ferocious fighters with a reputation for decapitating soldiers in the middle of battle, as well as those who were unfortunate to become their captives.

Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh was one of the great leaders of the Mino. In 1851 she led an army of 6,000 women against the Egba fortress of Abeokuta. Because the Mino were armed with spears, bows and swords while the Egba had European cannons, only about 1,200 survived the extended battle.

European encroachment into West Africa gained pace during the latter half of the 19th century. In 1890, King Behanzin used his Mino fighters alongside the male soldiers to battle the French forces during the First Franco-Dahomean War. The French army lost several battles to them because of the female warriors’ skill in battle.

Assata Olugbala Shakur (born July 16, 1947)

s an African-American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army  between 1971 and 1973. Assata worked through the BPP and the BLA to fight racial, social, and economic oppression, but became the target of U.S. government’s counter-revolutionary COINTELPRO program. This program used a wide range of tactics, including framing, false imprisonments and assassinations of leaders, to disrupt the radical movement.

Between 1973 and 1977 in New York and New Jersey, Shakur was indicted ten times, resulting in seven separate criminal trials. Shakur’s charges ranged from bank robberies; attempted murder of two police officers; and eight other felonies related to the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Of these trials, three resulted in acquittals; one in a hung jury; one in a change of venue; one resulted in a mistrial due to her pregnancy; and one in a conviction. Three indictments were dismissed without trial. Shakur escaped prison and fled to Cuba after her conviction for the death of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.

On May 2, 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that they had raised the bounty on Shakur’s head to $2 million and placed her on its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, making her the first woman to be so designated and effectively criminalizing the Black freedom struggle of that era.

For people wondering if Shakur was guilty, the Huffington Post reported that at the trial, three neurologists would testify that the first gunshot shattered her clavicle and the second shattered the median nerve in her right hand. That testimony proved that she was sitting with her hands raised when she was fired on by police.

According to Wikipedia, further testimony proved that no gun residue was found on either of her hands, nor were her fingerprints found on any of the weapons located at the scene. Nevertheless, Shakur was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to life in prison.

Amanirenas (died c. 10 B.C.)

Amanirenas (also spelled Amanirena) was one of the greatest kandakes, or queen mothers, who ruled over the Meroitic Kingdom of Kush in northeast Africa. She reigned over the kingdom between c. 40 B.C.-10 B.C.  When Roman emperor Augustus levied a tax on the Kushites in 24 B.C., Amanirenas and her son, Akinidad,  led an army of 30,000 men to sack the Roman fort in the Egyptian city of Aswan.They also destroyed the statues of Caesar in Elephantine.

Under orders from Augustus, the Roman general Petronius retaliated, but met strong resistance from Amanirenas and her troops. After over three years of harsh fighting, the two parties agreed to negotiate a peace treaty. The Romans agreed to return their army to Egypt, withdraw their fort, give the land back to the Kushites and rescind the tax.

The brave warrior queen, Amanirenas is remembered for her loyal combat, side-by-side, with her own soldiers. She was blinded in one eye after she was wounded by a Roman. However, the full extent of the Roman humiliation has yet to be disclosed since the Kushite account of the war, written in the Meroïtic script, has not been fully decoded.

Amanirenas and her son, Akinidad destroy the roman fort.

 

Carlota Leading the Slaves in Matanzas, Cuba, 1843, Lili Bernard

Carlota Lukumí (died 1844)

Carlota was kidnapped from her Yoruba tribe, brought in chains to Cuba as a child and forced into slavery in the city of Matanzas, working to harvest and process sugar cane under the most brutal of conditions.

She was bright, musical, determined and clever. In 1843, she and another enslaved woman named Fermina led an organized rebellion at the Triumvarato sugar plantation. Fermina was locked up after her plans for the rebellion were discovered. Using talking drums to secretly communicate, Carlota and her fellow warriors freed Fermina and dozens of others, and went on to wage a well-organized armed uprising against at least five brutal slave plantation operations in the area. Carlota’s brave battle went on for one year before she was captured, tortured and executed by Spanish landowners.

Queen Nzinga Mbande (c. 1583 – December 17, 1663)
Queen Nzinga Mbande was a highly intelligent and powerful 17th-century ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms (modern-day Angola). Around the turn of the 17th century, Nzinga fearlessly and cleverly fought for the freedom of her kingdoms against the Portuguese, who were colonizing  the Central African coast at the time to control the trade of African human beings.

To build up her kingdom’s military might, Nzinga offered sanctuary to runaway slaves and Portuguese-trained African soldiers. She stirred up rebellion among the people still left in Ndongo, by then ruled by the Portuguese. Nzinga also formed an alliance with the Dutch against the Portuguese. However, their combined forces were not enough to drive the Portuguese out. After retreating to Matamba again, Nzinga started to focus on developing the kingdom as a trading power and the gateway to the Central African interior. At the time of Nzinga’s death in 1661 at the age of 81, Matamba had become a powerful kingdom that managed to resist Portuguese colonization attempts for an extended period of time. Her kingdom was only integrated into Angola in the late 19th century.

Nyabingi Priestesses Muhumusa (died 1945) and Kaigirwa (unknown)

Muhumusa and Kaigirwa were feared leaders of the East African Nyabingi priestesses group that was influential in Rwanda and Uganda from 1850 to 1950. In 1911 Muhumusa proclaimed “she would drive out the Europeans” and “that the bullets of the Wazungu would turn to water against her.”

She organized armed resistance against German colonialists and was eventually detained by the British in Kampala, Uganda, from 1913 to her death in 1945. She became the first in a line of rebel priestesses fighting colonial domination in the name of Nyabingi, and even after being imprisoned she inspired a vast popular following. The British passed its 1912 Witchcraft Act in direct response to the political effectiveness of this spiritually based resistance movement.

In August 1917, the “Nyabinga” Kaigirwa followed in Muhumusa’s footsteps, and engineered the Nyakishenyi revolt, with unanimous public support. British officials placed a high price on her head, but no one would claim it. After the British attacked the Congo camp of Kaigirwa in January 1919, killing most of the men, Kaigirwa and the main body of fighters managed to evade the army and escape.

However, the British captured the sacred white sheep and burned it to dust before a convocation of leading chiefs. After this deed, a series of disasters afflicted the district commissioner who killed the sheep. His  herds were wiped out, his roof caved in and a mysterious fire broke out in his house. Kaigirwa attempted another uprising, then went into the hills, where she was never captured.

Tarenorerer (c.1800-1831)

Tarenorerer of Emu Bay in northern Tasmania was an indigenous Australian leader of the Tommeginne people. In her teens, she was abducted by Aborigines of the Port Sorell region and sold to white sealers on the Bass Strait Islands, where they called her Walyer.

She became proficient in speaking English and took particular notice of the use and operation of firearms. In 1828, Tarenorerer returned to her country in the north of Tasmania, where she gathered a group of men and women from many bands to initiate warfare against the invading Europeans. Training her warriors in the use of firearms, she ordered them to strike the luta tawin (white men) when they were at their most vulnerable, between the time that their guns were discharged and before they were able to reload.

She also instructed them to kill the Europeans’ sheep and bullocks. G. A. Robinson, who was charged with rounding up the Aborigines, was told by sealers that Tarenorerer would stand on a hill to organize the attack, abuse the settlers and dare them to come and be speared.

When you dreams dream big as big as the occean

Words that destroy relationships

Words are powerful. They can cut you, heal you, inspire you, and stop you from certain actions. Learning the language of a strong, healthy relationship or marriage takes time and diligence, but saying some words regularly may cause irreparable damage.

Here are five words that are destined to cause damage to your relationship or marriage.

1.  “Never.”

“Never” implies a sense of hopelessness and finality. When you use “never,” you’re telling your spouse that they are no good, will never be any good and that there’s no hope for change. It’s an all-or-nothing phrase that does not lend itself to listening, compromising and creating good will.

2. ”Always.” 

“Always” implies a sense of rigidity and righteousness. When you use “always,” you’re telling your spouse that they are wrong, you are right, and that there’s nothing that can be done about it. It’s also an all-or-nothing phrase, and it does not lend itself to understanding, learning, or healing.

3. ”But.”

“But” implies a sense of manipulation and a lack of integrity. When you use “but,” you negate whatever was said before. It invalidates your message and turns a positive statement into a negative one. It’s a conjunction that does not lend itself to building trust, credibility and intimacy. Similar words to avoid include “however” and “although.”

4. I hate your friends

It is not a good thing to always tell your partner bad things about his or her friends.It sends the wrong message to them because those things you condemn in their friends are probably the things to bind them together it is good to be moderate when trying to talk about your partners friends .It is a harmful thing to relationship because everyone looks forward to people who will love them and their way of life which also includes their friends .

5. ”Divorce” or “Breakup.”

Threatening to divorce or break-up, suggesting divorce as an option, or accusing your spouse of destroying the marriage will lead to just that. A divorce is a very serious decision, and using it as a weapon or method of control creates anxiety and despair. It’s not conducive for effective communication,  resolution, problem solving, or intimacy.

The only way evil  people prevail is when the good people do nothing

10 Black Uprisings against their oppressors

1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation

In 1842, the largest assembly of escaped enslaved Africans ripped through the Cherokee Nation, where in present day is called the midwestern United States.

November 15, 1842, a group of enslaved Blacks owned by the Cherokee Indians escaped and tried to reach Mexico–where slavery had been abolished. During their migration to Mexico, the revolutionaries had threatened the security of established labor forces. A militia was formed to capture the run-a-ways.  The enslaved Blacks, who were on the run, were able to overtake members of the militia and kill them.

Even though these enslaved Africans-Americans never made it to Mexico, the revolution inspired subsequent slave rebellions throughout all of North America

Baptist War or The Christmas Uprising

The Christmas Uprising of 1831–32, which was led by Jamaican Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, was a 10-day revolt in which 60,000 of Jamaica’s 300,000 enslaved population engaged in the conflict.

During the Christmas holiday of 1831, Sharpe recited a speech to tens of thousands of his followers, persuading them to stop working unless they receive pay for the labor. When the demands weren’t met, the protest escalated into a full-scale revolt across the western part of Jamaica. The 60,000 men killed several plantation owners and burned several estates, with the Kensington estate being the most popular. The uprising caused $1,865,815.82 in damage, which equals an estimated $84,032,000 in modern terms.

Samuel Sharpe’s Baptist War was the largest slave uprising in British West Indies history.

The Mau Mau – Kenya’s Freedom Fighters

The Mau Mau rebellion was an uprising of landless, slave-wage laborers in Kenya, who were frustrated with the racist colonial system that was established by the British to steal land and resources from Blacks to give to white colonizers. It was led by leaders such as Jomo Kenyata, Dedan Kimathi, Waruhiu Itote or General China, and Tom Mboya.

The movement began with overt passive resistance in 1946, but erupted in an all out rebellion in 1952 with a force numbering roughly 30,000 to a million Kenyans, mostly from the Kikuyu ethnic group.

The Mau Mau organized a secret society and a fighting force that had to take an oath to remove British rule and European settlers from the country. Wings of the movement began armed guerrilla attacks on white settler holdings and on Africans who supported the British regime.

By late 1952, the colonial governor of Kenya declared a state of emergency, and employed brutal methods to put down the rebellion, including brutal torture tactics, lynchings, forced migrations, and detention and labor camps. Although the British quelled the uprising four years later, the seeds of Kenya’s Independence, had already been sown.

The Palmares Quilombo

During slavery in Brazil, the enslaved Africans, or Maroons, who fought and escaped captivity, formed several sustainable states called Quilombos.

The most famous Quilombo was Palmares, an independent, self-sustaining republic near Recife, which was established in 1600 and survived for 100 years. Palmares was massive, consisting of several settlements with a combined population of over 30,000 blacks who fought and escaped from slavery.

Over the course of the century, Quilombo dos Palmares had armies which rescued other enslaved Africans from the plantations and brought them to Palmares territory. The most popular Palmares warriors-leaders were Ganga Zumba and Zumbi. When the Dutch and the Portuguese repeatedly attacked the Palmares trying to enslave the Black people again, Zumba, Zumbi and the Palmares warriors killed thousands of white soldiers, defeating the Europeans several times within that century.

The only way evil  people prevail is when the good people do nothing

Re: Ladies These are good qualities you need in men

All these qualities abound in many men but it takes a wise lady  to figure them out  and stick to such men

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

The Atrocities of Christopher Columbus

On the second Monday of October each year, Native Americans cringe at the thought of honoring a man who committed atrocities against Indigenous Peoples.

Columbus Day was conceived by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic Fraternal organization, in the 1930s because they wanted a Catholic hero. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the day into law as a federal holiday in 1937, the rest has been history.

In an attempt to further thwart the celebration of this “holiday,” we at ICTMN have outlined eight misnomers and bloody, greedy, sexually perverse and horrendous atrocities committed by Columbus and his men.

On the Way—Columbus Stole a Sailor’s Reward

After obtaining funding for his explorations to reach Asia from the seizure and sale of properties from Spanish Jews and Muslims by order of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Columbus headed out to explore a new world with money and ships.

Brimming with the excitement of discovering new land, Columbus offered a reward of 10,000 maravedis or about $540 (a sailor’s yearly salary) for the first person to discover such land. Though another sailor saw the land in October 1492, Columbus retracted the reward he had previously offered because he claimed he had seen a dim light in the west.

Replicas of the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria in the North River, New York. They crossed from Spain to be present at the World's Fair at Chicago. (Andrews, E. Benjamin. History of the United States, volume V. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. 1912/Wikimedia)

Columbus Never Landed on American Soil—Not in 1492, Not Ever

We’re not talking about the Leif Ericson Viking explorer story.  We mean Columbus didn’t land on the higher 48—ever. Columbus quite literally landed in what is now known as the Bahamas and later Hispaniola, present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Upon arrival, Columbus and his expedition of weapon laden Spaniards met the Arawaks, Tainos and Lucayans—all friendly, according to Columbus’ writings. Soon after arriving, Columbus wrecked the Santa Maria and the Arawaks worked for hours to save the crew and cargo.

Impressed with the friendliness of the native people, Columbus seized control of the land in the name of Spain. He also helped himself to some locals. In his journal he wrote:

“As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.”

Columbus Painted a Horrible Picture of Peaceful Natives

When Columbus first saw the Native Arawaks that came to greet him and his crew he spoke with a peaceful and admiring tone.

“They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things... They willingly traded everything they owned...  They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

After several months in the Caribbean, on January 13, 1493 two Natives were murdered during trading. Columbus, who had otherwise described the Natives as gentle people wrote “(they are) evil and I believe they are from the island of Caribe, and that they eat men.” He also described them as “savage cannibals, with dog-like noses that drink the blood of their victims.”

The cannibal story is taught as fact in some of today’s schools.

Columbus’ Men Were Rapists and Murderers

On Columbus’s first trip to the Caribbean, he later returned to Spain and left behind 39 men who went ahead and helped themselves to Native women. Upon his return the men were all dead.

This painting of Christopher Columbus was done in 1519 by Sebastiano del Piombo. (Wikimedia Commons)

With 1,200 more soldiers at his disposal, rape and pillaging became rampant as well as tolerated by Columbus.

This is supported by a reported close friend of Columbus, Michele de Cuneo who wrote the first disturbing account of a relation between himself and a Native female gift given to him by Columbus.

“While I was in the boat I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me, and with whom, having taken her into my cabin, she being naked according to their custom, I conceived desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that I wished I had never begun. But seeing that (to tell you the end of it all), I took a rope and thrashed her well, for which she raised such unheard of screams that you would not have believed your ears. Finally we came to an agreement in such manner that I can tell you that she seemed to have been brought up in a school of harlots.”

Several accounts of cruelty and murder include Spaniards testing the sharpness of blades on Native people by cutting them in half, beheading them in contests and throwing Natives into vats of boiling soap. There are also accounts of suckling infants being lifted from their mother’s breasts by Spaniards, only to be dashed headfirst into large rocks.

Bartolome De Las Casas, a former slave owner who became Bishop of Chiapas, described these exploits. “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,” he wrote. “My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”

Columbus Enslaved the Native People for Gold

Because Columbus reported a plethora of Natives for slaves, rivers of gold and fertile pastures to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Columbus was given 17 ships and more than 1,200 men on his next expedition. However, Columbus had to deliver. In the next few years, Columbus was desperate to fulfill those promises—hundreds of Native slaves died on their way back to Spain and gold was not as bountiful as expected.

Christopher Columbus presents Native Americans to Queen Isabella.

Columbus forced the Natives to work in gold mines until exhaustion. Those who opposed were beheaded or had their ears cut off.

In the provinces of Cicao all persons over 14 had to supply at least a thimble of gold dust every three months and were given copper necklaces as proof of their compliance. Those who did not fulfill their obligation had their hands cut off, which were tied around their necks while they bled to death—some 10,000 died handless.

In two years’ time, approximately 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead. Many deaths included mass suicides or intentional poisonings or mothers killing their babies to avoid persecution.

According to Columbus, in a few years before his death, “Gold is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in the world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.”

Columbus Provided Native Sex Slaves to His Men

In addition to putting the Natives to work as slaves in his gold mines, Columbus also sold sex slaves to his men—some as young as 9. Columbus and his men also raided villages for sex and sport.

In the year 1500, Columbus wrote: “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”

Columbus’ Men Used Native People as Dog Food

In the early years of Columbus’ conquests there were butcher shops throughout the Caribbean where Indian bodies were sold as dog food. There was also a practice known as the montería infernal, the infernal chase, or manhunt, in which Indians were hunted by war-dogs.

These dogs—who also wore armor and had been fed human flesh, were a fierce match for the Indians. Live babies were also fed to these war dogs as sport, sometimes in front of horrified parents.

Columbus Returned to Spain in Shackles—But Was Pardoned

After a multitude of complaints against Columbus about his mismanagement of the island of Hispaniola, a royal commissioner arrested Columbus in 1500 and brought him back to Spain in chains.

Though he was stripped of his governor title, he was pardoned by King Ferdinand, who then subsidized a fourth voyage.

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

Ladies These are good qualities you need in men

1. Honest
Dishonesty is such a big, big deal breaker. No one wants to deal with a guy who constantly lies about his feelings, whereabouts, friends or anything else important. And, yes, that includes little white lies too, because if he lies about liking your outfit, there’s no telling whether he feels he can lie about something else! I (and I assume you ladies too) value the truth, in all situations. It’s always the number one determining quality that I look for in someone I’m dating when deciding if he has all the right traits to be perfect boyfriend material!

It pays to be good and It is more blessed to give than to recieve

6 Nations who benefitted heavily on slavery

The United States of America

Slavery transformed America into an economic power. The exploitation of black people for free labor made the South the richest and most politically powerful region in the country. British demand for American cotton made the southern stretch of the Mississippi River the Silicon Valley of its era, boasting the single largest concentration of the nation’s millionaires.

But slavery was a national enterprise. Many firms on Wall Street such as JPMorgan Chase, New York Life and now-defunct Lehman Brothers made fortunes from investing in the slave trade the most profitable economic activity in New York’s 350 year history. Slavery was so important to the city that New York was one of the most pro-slavery urban municipalities in the North.

According to Harper’s magazine (November 2000), the United States stole an estimated $100 trillion for 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and 1865, with a compounded interest of 6 percent.America is now the world's third black dominant nation on earth.

England

Between 1761 and 1808, British traders hauled 1,428,000 African captives across the Atlantic and pocketed $96.5 million – about $13 billion in value today – from selling them as slaves.

From 1500 to 1860, by very modest estimations, around 12 million Africans were traded into slavery in the Americas. In British vessels alone, 3.25 million Africans were shipped. These voyages were often very profitable. For instance, in the 17th century, the Royal Africa Company could buy an enslaved African with trade goods worth $5 and sell that person in the Americas for $32, making an average net profit of 38 percent per voyage.

Slave-owning planters and merchants who dealt in slaves and slave produce were among the richest people in 18th-century Britain, but many other British citizens benefited from the human trafficking industry.

Profits from slavery were used to endow All Souls College, Oxford, with a splendid library; to build a score of banks, including the Bank of London and Barclays; and to finance the experiments of James Watt, inventor of the first efficient steam engine.

As the primary catalyst for the Industrial Revolution, the transatlantic slave trade provided factory owners who dealt in textiles, iron, glass and gun-making a mega-market in West Africa, where their goods were traded for slaves. Birmingham had over 4,000 gun-makers, with 100,000 guns a year going to slave-traders. The boom in manufacturing provided many jobs for ordinary people in Britain who, in addition to  working in factories, could be employed to build roads and bridges, and in whaling, mining, etc.s:

The only way evil  people prevail is when the good people do nothing