From my Father’s line I have a 5th Great Grandfather John Cooke. He along with Nellie (his future wife) were kidnapped from London, as young teens. Both were promised a fun day aboard a ship sailing down and back again on the Thames River. They never saw London or their families ever again. They were sold into slavery. Servitude some like to call it, these days, because they were not black.

John worked out his “Servitude” and helped Nellie pay off hers. They married had four sons and became not just pioneers of this new country, but fought for it’s freedom from England. They were very instrumental in the growth of West Virginia. Please read through, to see the ‘The Cook Family of Wyoming County By ROY LEE HARMON Poet-Laureate of West Virginia’.

There were many others of many cultures who were brought to the “Americas” in this fashion. Bodies were needed to clear the forests, build communities, plow and plant crops, farms to raise beasts for food, clothing and more. Not to mention for increasing the population, to expand the growth and continue developing this ‘Brand New World’, which now is Canada, the USA, Mexico and South America.

There was also many out lying islands, the Caribbean and/or the Dominican Republic, Hispaniola, Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Caribbean, Bermuda and many many more. The tropical weather was utilized to create sugar cane and fruit crops. Which required considerable labor intensive work. These New Territories were discovered and appropriated by the Spanish, French, English and Portuguese. ALL were major players in the abduction and redirection of young folks from all over the globe. There was no race or culture untouched. When the political nature became to heated over this method of populating the new lands, many other avenues were explored. Therefore, removing young people because of their misadventures, whether guilty or not, became a popular action.

At some point, it was determined that there was profit in many countries that were considered uncivilized, as were the inhabitants. Although, many of those who captured these young people of color, were of the same color, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t race it was ‘Class’, AND it was easy AND it was extremely profitable. It was WRONG in it’s entirety. BUT, it happened, we CAN’T change that.

The entire world has made many strides to change. For the most part, the efforts have created a slave free world. NOT entirely however, slavery still exists, in China, in India and the Middle East and many of the Third World countries. Yet, it still isn’t race based. It’s power and profit based. It’s a class system. The tasks these slaves are required to perform are somewhat more directed. In that there are many who are sex slaves. Many others are forced into labor camps at either farms or manufacturing plants all over the world. Here in the USA, they are brought in illegally over our Southern border and used as VERY cheap labor on the farms, chicken and meat packing plants all over the country. They live in rented homes, sometimes as many as twenty or more bodies in a two or three bedroom house. They are transported from place to place on a seasonal basis in vans or semi-trucks. Packed in, worse than sardines, in very dangerous circumstances.

They become slaves to the Cartels (who are the same skin color) who bring them here. They either pay an enormous amount of money to begin with or they pay by their labor or sexually, sometimes it’s all of the above. It’s never really been racism. It’s exploitation in it’s most evil form. It is a bi-partisan problem. That needs a bi-partisan cure, but has been turned into partisan, political crapola. For what good reason…. Well… It comes back to garnering riches, making the rich, even richer.

My first Father in Law, used to say “Money is the root of all evil”, he thought he was quoting the Bible. Almost, not quite. The Bible… “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Timothy 6:10

I’m trying to correct some completely out of this world theories and educate some who are willing to get it figured out. There are and will always be a number of fruitcakes no matter what their skin color, who will try to deceive the rest into believing black is white and the Emperor isn’t really naked (The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen).
We need to get back to what has always been prevalent among the majority of people…. That being ‘Common Sense’.

Most of those folks who were ripped from their families arms, back in the day, did not live their lives in perpetual victimhood. They made lives for themselves, found a moral high ground and passed those virtues on to their children, who passed it on to theirs. What happened??? Hard to say??? Not Really!!! ‘Chicken Little’ took on several different guises, infiltrated the spaces our children have been regulated to and used their vulnerable minds to create a profitable future for their own greedy and power hungry needs.

The Cook Family of Wyoming County By ROY LEE HARMON

Read at a Cook Reunion and appearing in the Princeton Observer Newspaper. Probably written late 1930’s or early 1940’s. Definitely during the ‘Hitler’ era.

God must have smiled long, long ago and called this valley good, This land of scenic splendor where the oaks and poplars stood, Oh I can picture long gone days when Red men came this way To hunt and fish and pitch their tents near where we stand today.

No white man save a roving stray called Milam then had seen, this land of fertile valleys and of hillsides lush and green. But John Cooke, Prince of Pioneers, his rifle on his arm, came forth to build a cabin and clear out a little farm.

Now John Cooke left the quiet life and took a long, long chance, to settle in Wyoming, land of promise and romance. He didn’t walk a well-chopped trail some other man had made, he was a Cook, remember, so he led the big parade.

It took a lot of doing to get settled in the hills, It took a lot of chopping, building homes and water mills. It took a lot of nerve and grit and courage and hard work, but Cooks have never been the kind who chose to loaf or shirk.

John built a home – made an empire where the mountain skies looked down, where men wore buckskin breeches – and there wasn’t any town. But he lived on and prospered and his children prospered, too, where God smiled on Wyoming – and the skies were mighty blue.

And Cooks were up the creek and down the creek and everywhere, and they were good Americans, the kind who do and dare, American as ham and eggs, as dauntless as could be, The kind of mountaineers, my friends, who always shall be free.

The dim gray years went sliding by, the country growing up, this family quaffed the bitter or the sweet within life’s cup. Yes, quaffed it well and asked no odds from this strange thing called fate, and never dealt in evil ways, dishonestly or hate.

They helped to build the churches and they furnished preachers, too, a Cook could always grub or hoe or plow or preach or hew. They built the schools and highways, yes they kept the modern pace, And I’m proud to visit with them any time or any place.

In olden times when wars came on the Cooks were right and ready, Their eyes were clear, their hearts were true, their hands were always steady. Oh, when duty’s trumpet sounded no one ever had to look, the second time to locate anyone whose name was Cook.

The Cooks are running stores or farms or sawmills or they’re teaching, or dabbling some in politics or real estate, or preaching. John Cook is dead – his spirit lives and is an inspiration, for brawny men like modern Cooks who helped to build this nation. And now we face the future which is just a mystic haze, When our Uncle Sam is threatened with some very trying days.

But we’d be calm and happy, we would wear no worried looks, if the whole United States was just about filled up with Cooks. No, we’d just relax and say, just that fellow Hitler rave, no American will ever be a foolish Nazi slave.

For the Cooks will fight injustice and we know that they will win, if oppressors want a battle let them simply buckle in.
Cooks are honest friends and neighbors, they’re the kind I like to praise, they’re Americans. . . who’ll figure in the news in future days. If I wrote down all their virtues I would fill a dozen books, May God bless this noble family – the old Wyoming Cooks.

Oceana And The Cook Family Number 6 – Folk Studies AUGUST, 1940