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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Slavery: What They Didn't Teach in My High School |
| 2018-07-13 |
| [Townhall] A man I have known since grade school changed his name, years ago, to an Arabic one. He told me he rejected Christianity as "the white man's religion that justified slavery." He argued Africans taken out of that continent were owed reparations. "From whom?" I asked. Arab slavers took more Africans out of Africa and transported them to the Middle East and to South America than European slavers took out of Africa and brought to North America. Arab slavers began taking slaves out of Africa beginning in the ninth century -- centuries before the European slave trade -- and continued well after. In "Prisons & Slavery," John Dewar Gleissner writes: "The Arabs' treatment of black Africans can aptly be termed an African Holocaust. Arabs killed more Africans in transit, especially when crossing the Sahara Desert, than Europeans and Americans, and over more centuries, both before and after the years of the Atlantic slave trade. Arab Muslims began extracting millions of black African slaves centuries before Christian nations did. Arab slave traders removed slaves from Africa for about 13 centuries, compared to three centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. African slaves transported by Arabs across the Sahara Desert died more often than slaves making the Middle Passage to the New World by ship. Slaves invariably died within five years if they worked in the Ottoman Empire's Sahara salt mines." My name-changing friend did not know that slavery occurred on every continent except Antarctica. Europeans enslaved other Europeans. Asians enslaved Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans. Arabs enslaved other Arabs. Native Americans even enslaved other Native Americans. ...The region of West Africa ... was one of the great slave-trading regions of the continent -- before, during, and after the white man arrived. It was the Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs and keeping others for themselves. Even at the peak of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than they sent to the Western Hemisphere. ...Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That's right: a tiny percentage. In fact, the overwhelming percentage of the African slaves were shipped directly to the Caribbean and South America; Brazil received 4.86 million Africans alone! Of course, you'll never hear about it in school |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #8 And weren't there Irish and Scots as slaves in the Caribbean? |
| Posted by: Clem 2018-07-13 18:06 |
| #7 "Slave" may have come from "Slav". There's some scholarly debate about that. Even if it's proven to be the case, it doesn't fit the narrative of how only evil white people can be racists or enslavers; so it will be studiously ignored. |
| Posted by: charger 2018-07-13 14:33 |
| #6 and where did the term "Slavs" come from..... seriously |
| Posted by: 746 2018-07-13 14:04 |
| #5 As a historian I have a couple of comments: 1) Arab slavers began taking slaves out of Africa beginning in the ninth century - centuries before the European slave trade - and continued well after. It is still continuing today. 2) Arab slave traders were primarily interested black women for the harems. Male slaves were a "special order item." Excess males were killed, and "special order" males were castrated and frequently died on the march north. 3)The Atlantic slave trade was a godsend for black slaves, as Western buyers mostly wanted men to work the plantations. Instead of being executed, males were sent to the West African ports to be sold. 4) The North American slave trade had 2 unusual characteristics: 4a)American slaves lived at least 4 times as long as slaves in other places. 4b)American slaves formed families. Something almost impossible in other countries. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2018-07-13 13:25 |
| #4 And now let's discuss the enslavement of Slavs by the Turks, Arabs, Germans, Mongols etc. A phenomenon which continued well into the Twentieth Century. The same people who are now stereotyped as mafiya and democracy hackers. |
| Posted by: charger 2018-07-13 12:12 |
| #3 One big difference is that non-African slave trade is forgotten because skin colors blend in with the native population. Not so quickly with African slaves. Therefore it's easier to forget. All this is another reason the left prefers a filtered, approved education. |
| Posted by: gorb 2018-07-13 10:01 |
| #2 and Brazilian women also seem to have that nice rump. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2018-07-13 09:25 |
| #1 Yep and Brazil ended slavery without killing 750,000 of their fellow citizens |
| Posted by: Flilet Omeremble3846 2018-07-13 06:53 |