Sinister Camels … No, I’m not crazy (well, maybe a little), but on this Hump Day my devotion is going to let you in a crazy idea that was actually a pre-meditated sinister action using camels and the slave trade! I recently read an article from the Smithsonian by Kevin Waite, and it really hit my heart, so I asked permission to use this—so you know I’m not making this stuff up. Why this camel episode? Because it is one of the sad roots of slavery and racism in America and if we don’t learn from history, we’ll repeat it, good or bad. Pack up your saddle bags, hop on your camel and let’s do a history-dive that few people even know about!

“In the spring of 1851, Jefferson Davis, a U.S. senator and the future president of the Confederacy, proposed to import 50 African and Asian camels, “the ship of the desert” he called them—into the American Southwest. He wanted federal funding to support his globetrotting project; he got only derision. For Davis, however, camels were no laughing matter. And as whimsical as his pet project may appear today, camels in fact belong to a dark chapter in American history when they were used as instruments of colonial conquest and slaveholding expansion.

Rebuffed in 1851, Davis continued advocating for his camel project. He argued that the animals would become a staple in military operations in the American Southwest, used by soldiers to hunt down Indigenous people in the region, thus asserting U.S. control across the continent. Once safe passage could be secured from Texas to Southern California, he expected white Southerners to begin moving west in large numbers, bringing their slaves with them. Although he denied it, camels were part of his broader fantasies for the westward extension of slavery. After four years of lobbying, Davis finally won funding for his camel operation in 1855—at which point he was Secretary of War and could oversee the project.

Nevertheless, camels never became a fixture in the U.S. military, as Davis had hoped…but damaging rumors circulated that the camel corps was part of Davis’s thinly veiled pro-slavery plot. Congress refused to appropriate funds for the animals in 1858, 1859, and again in 1860. At that point, more than 80 camels were scattered across forts in Texas and California.

And…what started as a military project soon caught the eye of deep-pocketed civilians. Once again, slaveholders led the way. The relationship between camels and slaveholders runs even deeper. As historian Michael Woods has convincingly argued, camels were likely used as a smokescreen to help smuggle African captives to North America, and after investigations, Woods was right.”

What do you make of this story? I know we are living in a different century, but daily we see racism raise its ugly head, and not just African Americans, the battle is on between whites, brown, yellow, etc. It’s like the Tower of Babel all over again and God must be shedding tears over hatred of another ethnicity. Think–what would racism have to say about Jesus who was Jewish and his skin was not white?

We do well to remember that even though the Israelites were God’s chosen people, God’s love and care was extended to every nation. Remember how God instructed Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach repentance so that the people there would be saved from destruction? God doesn’t prefer one ethnicity or nation over another, period.

In Genesis 1:26-27 [The Voice], we hear the voice of God say “Now let Us conceive a new creation—humanity—made in Our image, fashioned according to Our likeness. And let Us grant them authority over all the earth—the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, the domesticated animals and the small creeping creatures on the earth. So God did just that.”

If we are all made in God’s image, how can we be racist? If God said it and God said it was good, then the color of our skin makes no difference to God, and it shouldn’t to us. Yet, the battle continues still today. It’s almost like the Civil War has never ended. Many folks don’t want to hear the stories of the past in our history here in America, they don’t like what they hear. But, like the Holocaust, we are doomed to repeat what we do not remember. Oh that this awful sin should be so embedded in our hearts and minds!

My mom’s dad had several grocery stores in Joliet, Ill. They were in neighborhoods with many ‘people of color’ and he loved them all. He was also ostracized by hiring them, and chastised that he would “have company with ‘n–ers’” (sorry I just cannot spell that horrible name), but you get it. Grandpa stood his ground, and because of it, many families had good jobs and were well-loved at their jobs.

We can do this today, can’t we? I believe we need to ask God to soften our hard-hearts, and we also need to ask God this very risky prayer: “God help me to see and love others like you do.” Go ahead, do it, it will change your life, some may not like your change on this issue, but remember this: the risk is worth every time your heart beats for another with kindness rather than racism, hatred and indifference, AMEN.