Western Values Photo Gallery

Teaching the world about Western Values

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It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to twenty million people were shipped as slaves from Africa by European traders, of whom some 15 percent died during the terrible voyage, many during the arduous journey through the Middle Passage. The great majority were shipped to the Americas, but also went to Europe and the south of Africa.

Up to one million Irish people starved to death during the "Potato Famine" in 1845-1849 and two million more became refugees at a time when Ireland was a net exporter of food to England. At least half a million poor tenants were evicted from their land during this period, many of them in the bitter winter of 1846-47, at British army gunpoint.

Famine victims, India, late nineteenth century. The staggering death toll from famine in Victorian India – about 7 million in the 1876-78 famine alone – was the result of the British policy of exporting food from India and collecting harsh taxes even in times of serious drought. The grain imports in Britain were to improve British diets and simultaneously keep grain prices stable. (Photo courtesy Mike Davis)

In 1885, King Leopold II declared the Congo Free State (as large as the whole of Europe) to be his personal fiefdom and set about enriching himself and Belgium in earnest. Leopold issued a decree in 1891 giving himself the monopoly on the trade in rubber and ivory. The same decree obliged natives to supply these products without payment. Those who refused or failed to supply enough had their villages burned down, their children murdered and their hands cut off, even if dead as proof to the Belgian masters.

In the southern Philippines the US colonial army was at war with Muslim Filipinos, known as Moros. In 1906 what came to be known as the Moro Massacre was carried out by US troops when at least nine hundred Filipinos, including women and children, armed mainly with knives and clubs, were trapped in a volcanic crater and shot at and bombarded for days. Mark Twain responded to early reports with bitter satire: "With six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded. The enemy numbered six hundred including women and children – and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States."
President Theodore Roosevelt immediately commended his good friend General Leonard Wood, who had carried out the Moro Massacre, writing: "I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag."

On June 15, 1920, in Duluth, Minnesota, police arrest several young black men accused of raping a white woman. That evening, three of them – Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie – are taken from jail by a mob and lynched. Three of the whites were convicted for rioting. Each served less than fifteen months in prison. No one was convicted of murder.

Durham, North Carolina. May 1940. Jack Delano, photographer.
"A cafe near the tobacco market." [Signs: Separate doors for "White" and for "Colored."]

Auschwitz 1941-1945, where as many as as three million human beings were killed through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting, and burning.

During three waves of attacks over 1,300 British and U.S. bombers dropped more than 3,300 tons of bombs on Dresden. Many of the bombs were incendiaries.
The incendiaries dropped on the old city center started a firestorm – a huge blaze that sucked the oxygen from the air. Temperatures soared as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. This had not been seen before in Europe, although U.S. bombing started a firestorm in Tokyo and the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki also set off firestorms.
Low-flying planes machine-gunned the fleeing population along the banks of the Elbe river. A fourth attack on Dresden concentrated its bomb load on the roads used by the fleeing population.
The cultural center of the city was totally destroyed. Meanwhile, the only possible military or economic targets – the barracks in the city's north and the train station where trains carrying reserves for the Eastern Front might depart – were left untouched.
Dresden was a center of cultural and architectural wonders, including the famous Zwinger Museum and Palace and the cathedral, the Frauenkirche. There were no military objectives of any consequence in the city.

The city of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.

Phan Thi Kim Phuc flees after a misdirected aerial napalm attack on a suspected Viet Cong hiding place.

A woman lies dead beside a bag of carrots Friday after a NATO daylight air raid near a market over the town of Nis south of Belgrade. Two residential areas and a hospital were hit by what appears to be cluster bombs killing 15 people, injuring scores with shrapnel and destroying some 30 homes. Photo by Desmond Boylan

12-06-01: An Israeli soldier reinforces the siege on the Ramallah-Jerusalem road.

A message from the west for the Iraqi people

US-led air strikes over Basra, March 22, 2003.
"The children seem to be the most openly enthused. They are getting a chance at a future the likes of which would never have been possible under the oppressive regime..." – April 22, 2003, Marine Corps News, Story by Staff Sgt. Bryan P. Reed.

Abu Ghraib, 2004.

London newspaper, 21 July 2006.

	It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to twenty million people were shipped as slaves from Africa by European traders, of whom some 15 percent died during the terrible voyage, many during the arduous journey through the Middle Passage. The great majority were shipped to the Americas, but also went to Europe and the south of Africa.
	Up to one million Irish people starved to death during the "Potato Famine" in 1845-1849 and two million more became refugees at a time when Ireland was a net exporter of food to England. At least half a million poor tenants were evicted from their land during this period, many of them in the bitter winter of 1846-47, at British army gunpoint.
	Famine victims, India, late nineteenth century. The staggering death toll from famine in Victorian India – about 7 million in the 1876-78 famine alone – was the result of the British policy of exporting food from India and collecting harsh taxes even in times of serious drought. The grain imports in Britain were to improve British diets and simultaneously keep grain prices stable. (Photo courtesy Mike Davis)
	In 1885, King Leopold II declared the Congo Free State (as large as the whole of Europe) to be his personal fiefdom and set about enriching himself and Belgium in earnest. Leopold issued a decree in 1891 giving himself the monopoly on the trade in rubber and ivory. The same decree obliged natives to supply these products without payment. Those who refused or failed to supply enough had their villages burned down, their children murdered and their hands cut off, even if dead as proof to the Belgian masters.
	In the southern Philippines the US colonial army was at war with Muslim Filipinos, known as Moros. In 1906 what came to be known as the Moro Massacre was carried out by US troops when at least nine hundred Filipinos, including women and children, armed mainly with knives and clubs, were trapped in a volcanic crater and shot at and bombarded for days. Mark Twain responded to early reports with bitter satire: "With six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded. The enemy numbered six hundred including women and children – and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States." President Theodore Roosevelt immediately commended his good friend General Leonard Wood, who had carried out the Moro Massacre, writing: "I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag."
	On June 15, 1920, in Duluth, Minnesota, police arrest several young black men accused of raping a white woman. That evening, three of them – Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie – are taken from jail by a mob and lynched. Three of the whites were convicted for rioting. Each served less than fifteen months in prison. No one was convicted of murder.
	Durham, North Carolina. May 1940. Jack Delano, photographer. "A cafe near the tobacco market." [Signs: Separate doors for "White" and for "Colored."]
	Auschwitz 1941-1945, where as many as as three million human beings were killed through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting, and burning.
	During three waves of attacks over 1,300 British and U.S. bombers dropped more than 3,300 tons of bombs on Dresden. Many of the bombs were incendiaries. The incendiaries dropped on the old city center started a firestorm – a huge blaze that sucked the oxygen from the air. Temperatures soared as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. This had not been seen before in Europe, although U.S. bombing started a firestorm in Tokyo and the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki also set off firestorms. Low-flying planes machine-gunned the fleeing population along the banks of the Elbe river. A fourth attack on Dresden concentrated its bomb load on the roads used by the fleeing population. The cultural center of the city was totally destroyed. Meanwhile, the only possible military or economic targets – the barracks in the city's north and the train station where trains carrying reserves for the Eastern Front might depart – were left untouched. Dresden was a center of cultural and architectural wonders, including the famous Zwinger Museum and Palace and the cathedral, the Frauenkirche. There were no military objectives of any consequence in the city.
	The city of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.
	Phan Thi Kim Phuc flees after a misdirected aerial napalm attack on a suspected Viet Cong hiding place.
	A woman lies dead beside a bag of carrots Friday after a NATO daylight air raid near a market over the town of Nis south of Belgrade. Two residential areas and a hospital were hit by what appears to be cluster bombs killing 15 people, injuring scores with shrapnel and destroying some 30 homes. Photo by Desmond Boylan
	12-06-01: An Israeli soldier reinforces the siege on the Ramallah-Jerusalem road.
	A message from the west for the Iraqi people
	US-led air strikes over Basra, March 22, 2003. "The children seem to be the most openly enthused. They are getting a chance at a future the likes of which would never have been possible under the oppressive regime..." – April 22, 2003, Marine Corps News, Story by Staff Sgt. Bryan P. Reed.
	Abu Ghraib, 2004.
	London newspaper, 21 July 2006.