by Comrade Anjana and Comrade Gabby
Imagine a city filled with the colonized masses in a flourishing, warm area with a rich history of revolutions led by colonized people. A city with jobs, housing, food, and healthcare. A city that has no cops, no rent, no white people, and no coronavirus.
A city free of any kind of discrimination, where colonized people could do more than just survive, but actually thrive!
This might sound impossible, but Black Hammer is making this city a reality with Hammer City, our latest and largest project!
In August 2020, the Land Liberators of Black Hammer announced that Hammer City will be built in the state of Florida! But what’s special about this location?
1. Florida is home to rich biodiversity
In the words of Chief Xiuh, one of the Land Liberators who will help govern Hammer City,
“The Land Liberators chose Florida because, with rising homelessness all throughout the country, we wanted to ensure we could provide stable food production from the land to help further the struggle for self-determination of the micronation.“
Florida is rich in biodiversity, having been declared a global biodiversity hotspot in 2016.
In Hammer City, residents will have a peaceful and balanced relationship with the land, while growing food native to the region.
2. There’s a rich history of fighting Colonialism
In addition, according to Chief Xiuh,
“Florida also offers a history of successful struggle against the US empire that can serve as a historical example for how as revolutionaries we can anticipate the struggle for land back.”
Florida is home to many colonized rebellions. For example, Eatonville, the oldest Black-incorporated city in the US was put on the map by famed author Zora Neale Hurston. In 1887, the town was founded by African freed men who were able to build self-determination and freedom for themselves.
And before that, Florida’s lasting tradition of anti-colonial resistance started with the Seminole wars.
Following the 1830 Indian Removal Act, existing alliances deepened between freed Africans, Black Seminoles, and the Mvskoke Cree people, and this led to the freedom of thousands of Africans across the region.
As a result of the continued wars, colonizers worked to cause disunity between Africans and Indigenous people:
In Oklahoma, the Government put them under the authority of the [Mvskoke Cree] Indians, slave owners who tried to curb their freedom; and white slave traders came at night to kidnap their women and children.
Joseph A. Opala in Black Seminoles—Gullahs Who Escaped From Slavery
During this displacement of the Mvskoke Cree and free Africans, Seminole leadership received pressure to return the enslaved Africans to their colonial captors.
A group of these Seminoles united with the colonizer class but some like Chief Halpuda Mikko “Billy Bowlegs”, himself an elder of the Black Seminoles, sarcastically rejected the colonizers in a radical act of unity with the Africans,
“I know that you think hard of your [Africans], but I did not fetch them here they came here by the persuasion of the British…”
After this, even more enslaved Africans around the St. Mary’s river were freed by Billy Bowlegs and escaped south to Black Seminole safety.
During this time, one cracker, General Thomas Jesup, highlighted the anxiety that colonizers had due to the Black Seminoles,
“The two races, the Negro and the Indian are rapidly approximating; they are identified in interests and feelings.”
The only thing that white power fears is the unity of Indigenous, African, and all colonized people.
photo credits: robbiesaurus and LA District USACE
3. Saving the environment means ending Colonialism
Florida exposes the link of colonialism and extreme weather, with tropical storms and hurricanes becoming more intense in the past 20 years. As ocean temperature and sea levels rise, the land’s needs will be kept up in Hammer City. Black Hammer’s committees will handle climate issues and all residents will live in hurricane proof housing.
As revolutionaries we must keep up with our colonized masses and colonized mother earth. The moment that we can’t meet the masses is the moment we are selling out.
A large number of savage colonizers regularly put Florida in the news. Florida represents colonialism perfectly. Colonized people are brutalized by the settler militias and pig forces of the state. We are brutalized by colonization through climate change. Finally, Florida’s Looting of Indigenous land colonizes us against building our own systems of life.
With your help, Hammer City will more quickly become a reality! The project has already raised more than $37,000 in under two months. Join today or donate to $BuildHammerCity on GoFundme, CashApp, and Venmo.
We uplift the struggle of the Black Seminoles, and Cree, as shining examples of resistance against colonialism, and, in camaraderie, we take up their torch with Hammer City.
Land back!
Feature image credit: Rafał Próchniak
