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In West Africa most of the land was owned by the state often literally the king himself.this contrasts with Western Europe where we know many nobles and lords had vast landholdings and used them as a measure of status. In west Africa slaves were the main form of personal property a wealthy person could own. Thus the incentive between plantation slavery and that of west Africa is different.
In plantation slavery the slave is similar to livestock, only kept as long as they can be physically productive. In African slavery the slave is a status symbol in and of itself entirely separate from their economic productivity. With this in mind, an African slave owner would be directly damaging their wealth and prestige by behaving in a way that was overwhelmingly detrimental to that of their slaves (for example working them to death). There's more to this...I can add specifics later but I can't remember off the top of my head.
Charles C Mann's 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created devotes a pretty decently sized chapter to talking about the different conditions that helped slavery take the form it did in the Americas.
After leaving office, he led a dangerous expedition into the uncharted Amazon to find and map one of the sources of the Amazon river. It's an amazing story, and very well told: The River of Doubt.
Everyone should read the book about this when they can. It's an extremely enjoyable and sometimes gritty true account of a group of men who went into the jungle in search of a lost city and simply vanished from the face of the earth.
They based their hunt on a rare Portuguese document written by a friar in Brazil after one surviving man from an expedition emerged from the jungle in 1753 after 10 years and gave his account as to what they saw. It's a real document known as Manuscript 512 and it's in the Brazilian state archives.
The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins > In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA’s secret interventions were so successful.
>In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it’s been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington’s final triumph in the Cold War.
If anyone wants a more specific case study, The Jakarta Method, by Vincent Bevins is a really good (and horrifying) historical account on the US/CIA's intervention in the affairs of another nation.
Read the reviews for it on amazon or just visit his website (which has a lot of very specific information). He's put a lot of thought into it and makes the argument that you'd be better off in a city during a serious economic collapse.
I'm a sucker for ruins. A couple other ideas:
Part of a civilization in decline secured some of their sacred relics but didn't have the resources to continue to occupy the city containing a major temple. They leave with every intention of coming back at the next high holy day but... don't. Maybe they were killed by disease or starvation, maybe the intervening country became occupied and they didn't dare risk a journey that could lead an enemy to a sacred site.
Placing ruins in difficult and inhospitable places also helps. Look at the jungle ruins we are still finding to this day only thanks to new technology. A place can be carved out and livable and then quickly disappear back into "nature" in our own world. Adding the chance of magic / divine intervention in the mix makes this even more likely. The book The Lost City of Z really cemented this idea for me when I read it a couple years ago. I highly recommend it!
Sometimes the ruins are simply occupied - an army or some creatures moved in and chased off the original inhabitants. They either don't know about or don't care about what the players find valuable and thus the PCs have to sneak in and get it.
Sometimes nature just surprises you, like what happened over time in Dunwich.
Anyway, I hope at least some of that helps!
A little different than what OP said but I’d recommend reading The River Of Doubt. It’s really cool, if I’m remembering right, it’s in a way his suicide march
We literally have committed more genocide and industrialized murder in the 20th century than anyone else in the world previously.
https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommunist-Crusade/dp/1541742400
Candice Millard has a killer book about Roosevelt exploring an unmapped tributary of the Amazon after losing the 1912 election. It's fascinating stuff, highly recommended.
This person seems more interested in insulting you than having a conversation, but these sentiments don't come from nowhere. I'd encourage you to familiarize yourself with the history of the agency if you are seriously interested in it.
There's a new book out called The Jakarta Method that details some of the CIA's activities during the Cold War that I'd recommend. It's hard to get more recent histories due to document classification, but it will give you a perspective that will help explain why people feel so strongly about this issue.
Not Venezuela, but "Ferfal" wrote extensively about his personal experiences in Argentina. He had some interesting observations about precious metals in a Kunstler-style Long Emergency, grindingly slow decline scenario.
Remember as we descend into this, the longest economic calamity in the modern industrial and post-industrial era (19th century onwards) was less than 6 years, say 12 years for "normal folk" to be generous. It will feel like a new normal, but after sufficient asset repricing, there will be buyers and builders creating from the ashes.
This book makes the case that Hitler escaped rather than be killed, wether you believe that the book does a great job of showing how money was being transferred and stockpiled.
https://www.amazon.com/Grey-Wolf-Escape-Adolf-Hitler/dp/1402796196
Not sure how interested you are in non-fiction, but I highly recommend The Lost City of Z by David Grann. It's the true story of the explorer Percy Fawcett, who set out in 1925 in search of a lost civilization in the Amazon. I won't give away too much more than that, but it's an outstanding book. And while it is non-fiction, it definitely reads like a novel.
Theodore Roosevelt did a bit of river exploration himself. After failing to secure a third term, he co-commanded a scientific expedition which was the first to descend the Rio da Dúvida (River of Doubt, renamed Rio Roosevelt), a major tributary in the Amazon rain forest.
Candice Millard wrote an excellent book about it called River of Doubt.
Yes, the book is called "The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon" by David Grann. Below is a link to it on Amazon. This is one of the best books I've ever read.
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Deadly-Obsession-Amazon/dp/1400078458
If you're looking for similar jungle adventure/endurance books I would highly recommend:
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
The River oF Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
Both books are extremely readable and cover similar true stories of journeys into the jungle in search of something undiscovered.
Anyone interested in reading a great true story about his should pick up The River of Doubt. It's a wonderful recounting about his expedition into the Amazon.
Sounds really fun!
I don't know what books / resources you're using, but if you're looking for a big-picture context of the political, social, and economic forces in the colonial era, I hear that1493 is great book.
For a more focused view on colonial life, Alan Taylor's work has received praise as a good history that takes into account both European and Native peoples.
To be clear, I haven't read these books - I only mention them as popular sources. If you're looking for something more detailed, I bet r/AmericanHistory or r/history would have all sorts of great resources and people with much better recommendations.
You can think I'm wrong all you want or you can pick up the book 1493
http://www.amazon.com/1493-Uncovering-World-Columbus-Created/dp/0307278247
And get a good handle on the last thirty years of research about the consequences of the Colombian exchange.
My point wasn't that 90% of the native didn't die from disease. I understand that fact. My point was that this was unintentional and unavoidable from the first journey of Colombus to the Caribbean. Because it is well documented through physical evidence that the waves of diseases left the Caribbean and made it to Peru-Bolivia and Massachusetts well before any Europeans set foot in those lands.
The idea that the Indians were intentionally genocided through disease is wrong. It would require people like Colombus having your understanding of disease, its origin and transmission. There are some examples of possible intentional genocide (through disease) in the 1700s with the French & Indian Wars.
I read "The River of Doubt" about his journey with President Theodore Roosevelt down the uncharted river now named Rio Roosevelt. If I remember correctly it portrayed Colonel Rondon as a tough but competent leader and a champion of Indigenous rights. On that expedition, however, several people died, including one who was murdered. Roosevelt got so ill and hungry he begged his son to leave him to die and he began reciting poetry in a trance-like state. He did survive however, and returned to the US looking much thinner and weaker.
Look a good channel is Prep Aussie. He is down near Gold Coast on the border. I would say some people are prepared, but 90% bury their heads in the sand. Ask yourself, if country goes broke, how many people are on welfare? How many people are employed by government? How many people are employed or rely on construction/building industry?
All these people are leveraged to the shithouse. They will go down in a blaze of glory very quickly, and crime and viilence will rise expodentially. Check out.also Ferfal's surviving economic collapse in Argentina 2001. Will give tips living in city. Also has you tuve channel. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Survival-Manual-Surviving-Economic/dp/9870563457
My #1 favorite book of all time. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
Hm, the Jakarta method, rhe example I gave is awesome. he blends personal accounts with the history of the CIAs strategy of violent meddling specifically in Indonesia with US strategy globally like in a way that reads like good, very sad literature
There's an interesting book called "The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse" Often refered to as Survival ArgentinaHe recommends hoarding old gold and silver jewelry. That way anyone you might barter with will think "ah, he's trading his wedding rings for food." If word gets out that you've been trading gold coins/bars you might find yourself the target of a home invasion.
That said, my husband has been buying small gold bars for many years.
You've just posted absolutely gibberish propaganda. If you want to know about Che (though your source tells me you've made your mind up), you should read Che: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson.
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
I would also recommend anyone looking for a more detailed source material read The Jakarta Method (written by the author of that article). It's sources are quite detailed and extensive, and include how this methodology influenced CIA operations in numerous other countries.
have you heard of the cold war? backing horrible rightwing groups was US foreign policy for decades.