Who is strong? –
what is the yardstick !! - Mark Henry is a two-time Olympian and a
champion powerlifter, who still has the all-time world record in squat and
deadlift. Henry was a guest on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Broken Skulls Session
and during the rapid-fire questions regarding WWE Superstars, Henry was asked
to name the strongest WWE wrestler. Henry took the name of the ‘Swiss Superman’
Cesaro. Henry also named Cesaro as the hardest trainer in the gym. Henry was
also asked the hardest wrestler to lift off his feet and he named The Great
Khali as the one. The 7 feet 1-inch behemoth weighed around 340 pounds (150
kgs) and Henry’s answer is relatable. – this post is far away from WWE
It is really a
mystery ! - a country with such a great
tradition and culture, We read little of our own history but the British
invaders, who colonized and ruled us for few centuries were shown as most
intelligent, caring and merciful people ! – their crime records in their own
country, their brutalities in their country as also their crushing India’s
first uprising, crime and merciless acts like Jallianwalabagh were all
conveniently brushed aside ! – Britishers were only colonisers, invaders, never
kind or right or fair to people !
.. .. and what
is in a name – one may ask ‘Jonathan Strong’ who has some recorded history was
by no yardstick a strong man, but most persecuted!!
William Sharp was an English physician reported to have
acted as surgeon to King George III. He commissioned a well-known painting of
his extended family playing music on a barge.In February 1755, Sharp became an
assistant-surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in the City of London, and he
resigned from the hospital in 1779. He published some medical papers, including
one advocating the use of paste board as a material for splinting fractured
limbs,and another concerning a stone removed from the bladder .. .. he has a place in History not exactly
for his Medical skills but .. ………. .. .. imagine !!
In the land
of much painted kind colonisers –
slavery did exist – it infact dates back to
the Roman occupation and until
the 11th century, when the Norman conquest of England resulted in the gradual
merger of the pre-conquest institution of slavery into serfdom, and all slaves
were no longer recognised separately in English law or custom. British
merchants were a significant force behind the Atlantic slave trade between the
sixteenth and nineteenth centuries,but no legislation was ever passed in
England that legalised slavery. In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield
ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a
slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly
sent to Jamaica for sale, and he was set free.
Strangely as it may sound, Britons had been enslaved in large numbers, typically by rich merchants and warlords who exported indigenous slaves from pre-Roman times,and by foreign invaders from the Roman Empire during the Roman Conquest of Britain.A thousand years later, British merchants became major participants in the Atlantic slave trade in the early modern period. Then wealthy people living within the British Isles, as well as in British colonies, might own African slaves. In a triangular trade-system, ship-owners transported enslaved West Africans to the New World (especially to the Caribbean) to be sold there. The ships brought commodities back to Britain then exported goods to Africa.
Jonathan
Strong was an enslaved person and subject of one of the earliest legal cases
relating to slavery in Britain and the British abolitionist movement.
It is not known where
Strong was born, but he was brought to Britain from the British colony of
Barbados by a Barbadian lawyer and slave trader, David Lisle. On 22 July 1765,
when he was fifteen or sixteen years old, Strong
was baptised. Many enslaved black people at this time thought that they became
free upon baptism, and it is possibly this fact that prompted his enslaver to
severely assault him and leave Strong on the street.Strong could barely
see or walk as a result of his injuries, but he made his way to the house of
William Sharp, a surgeon who treated poor Londoners at his house free of
charge. There, he was seen by William's brother Granville. William said that
Strong "seemed ready to die" when he first arrived, and he and his
brother both gave Strong money for clothes and food. William arranged for him
to be treated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where Strong received over four
months of treatment.
The Sharps
paid for his treatment and, when he was fit enough, found him employment as an
errand runner with a Quaker. Strong
worked there until Lisle saw Strong serving as a footman on the pharmacist's
coach. Viewing Strong as his property, Lisle sold him to a Jamaican slave
trader, James Kerr, and had him kidnapped and placed in a city jail. Strong got
a message to Granville Sharp, who immediately took the legality of his
detention up with the Lord Mayor of London who in turn convened those laying
claim to Strong. In court, Kerr's attorney produced the bill of sales from when
Lisle sold Strong to Kerr. That was not enough to convince the Lord Mayor
because Strong was imprisoned without habeas corpus or a clear cause, and so he
liberated Strong. Afterwards, a West India captain named David Laird grabbed
Strong's arm and claimed he would take him as Kerr's property. Sharp, at the
suggestion of Thomas Beech, the Coroner of London, threatened to charge Laird
with assault should he attempt to take Strong by force. Laird let go of Strong
and everyone who had been summoned departed without further dispute.
Lisle
challenged Granville Sharp to a duel, but he declined, telling Lisle that he
could expect satisfaction from the law. Kerr started a lawsuit against Sharp,
claiming that he unlawfully had deprived him of Strong, his property. However,
as a result of Sharp's legal arguments claiming that the laws of England did
not sanction slavery, Kerr's lawyers decided against pursuing the case, and
Kerr had to pay treble costs in 1774, after Strong's death, for wasting the
court's time.
How sad, in
countries where people campaign for animals, a human being called Strong was so ill-treated,
maimed, became subject matter as property in Court, was let free and died in
London aged 25. For sure not the age to
death but brought about by the injuries sustained from his owners ! Cruel, barbaric ! – the tragic story of
Strong, a scar on mankind and unkind acts of British
13th Dec 2021.
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