[Downside]

Slavery

http://www.economist.com/world/internat ... id=8749406


Breaking the chains

Feb 22nd 2007 | CAPE COAST, GHANA
From The Economist print edition

Britain abolished the slave trade 200 years ago this week. Its landmarks are an abiding legacy of cruelty


Most European states have tried to face up to the past, but slavery's legacy is in some ways even more poisonous in places like modern Ghana. A smokescreen still covers the African role in this pernicious trade. It is an awkward fact that the traffic could not have existed without African chiefs and traders. Europeans rarely went far from their forts; slaves were brought to them. Indeed, when the Europeans arrived the slave trade and slavery were already integral parts of local tribal economies. One of the few Ghanaian historians to touch these issues, Akosua Adoma Perbi, writes that “slavery became an important part of the Asante state [the Gold Coast's most powerful] right from its inception. For three centuries, Asante became the largest slave-trading, slave-owning and slave-dealing state in Ghana.”

When the Portuguese arrived on the scene in 1471, they were intermediaries, bringing slaves (and other goods) from Senegal and Benin along the coast to Ghana to sell them in exchange for gold to the Asante and other local peoples. The Asante then mounted slave-trading expeditions to get labour for gold mines.

The forts themselves were not owned by the Europeans; the land on which Cape Coast Castle was built was rented to the British by the local chief for a monthly sum. It was in the interests of the Europeans to respect local customs and laws, as that included the institution of slavery. This meant that they could take slaves but not, for instance, kill animals for amusement; when one officer, James Swanzy, shot a crocodile there was a huge fuss and compensation was paid.

Most of the slaves sold to Europeans in later centuries were men and women captured in battles between tribes like the Asante and the Acan. Many of the captives were kept as slaves by the victors, where they were treated relatively well and could gain some social standing within their new families. Still, the proliferation of wars between the tribes was, as Ms Perbi writes, “mostly aimed at acquiring slaves for sale to the European companies and individual European merchants”. So integral did the slave trade become to the local chiefs' welfare that its abolition hit hard. In 1872, long after abolition, Zey, the king of Asante, wrote to the British monarch asking for the slave trade to be renewed.

Yaw Bedwa of the University of Ghana says there has been a “general amnesia in Ghana about slavery”. The role of the chiefs is particularly sensitive, as they still play a big role in Ghana. “We don't discuss slavery,” says Barima Kwame Nkye XII, a paramount chief in the town of Assin Mauso. He defends domestic slavery in the past as a generally benevolent institution, and insists that the chiefs had little to do with the slave trade.

The wounds of slavery are still too raw to be exposed in public, even more so as the stigma of slavery remains attached to slave descendants who, in some cases, still cannot inherit property. Mr Bedwa faces anger from African-Americans who come to Ghana looking for roots, only to be confronted with the role of Africans in the slave trade. Mr Bedwa tells them that Africans who did not suffer from slavery were still victims of colonialism, poverty and disease. But, as in every exploitative system, some had it worse than others.

[redstarline]

I have heard africans say that although slavery was bad it was part of their culture at the time and the benefits from the association with European powers balanced these negatives.
You still hear people saying that all white British people are guilty and all black people are victims. an attitude that helps no one.

[Figlio di Moros]

It is interesting, here in America it's very common in the black community to perpetuate racial divides. For instance, many of us argue, and do truely believe, that African slavery was more justified because it was more benign and that the destruction of African empires and perpetuation of the slave trade falls solely on the hands of the Europeans.

[Shade2]

more benign and that the destruction of African empires and perpetuation of the slave trade falls solely on the hands of the Europeans.

What do Slovaks, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles have to do with African slavery ?

[Ombrageux]

Shade - Just as not all African nations were victims of the slave trade (principally on the Atlantic coast), no all European nations have a mercantilist, slave trading or colonial past (which is mainly England, France, Portugal, Spain and Holland).

[Shade2]

no all European nations have a mercantilist, slave trading or colonial past

But that is what I wrote. I see no reason to blame mythical "Europeans" if only a few countries were involved.

[Red Star]

I think this is nitpicking, Shade. We often say the "African slave trade" when obviously not all of Africa was subjected to it - as DT pointed out, it was areas close to the Atlantic that were mostly participating in the slave trade. It is a term of convinience rather than rattling off a list of countries. By the same logic, I do not think when people say "Europeans" in the context of the slave trade, they imagine that Albanians were active participants in it.

[M-Mann]

I have heard africans say that although slavery was bad it was part of their culture at the time and the benefits from the association with European powers balanced these negatives.

And slavery was a part of the culture of the southern United States and was supporting their economy for quite some years.

They're both wrong or they're both right, these attempts to justify the slavery Africans helped fuel are wrong if they try to demonize the ways other countries helped fuel slavery that are similar.

It’s fucking disgraceful when any Black person tries to make another person feel guilty about slavery for no real reason.

[Figlio di Moros]

I find it to be ridiculous, but it did create a racist social structure that demeaned blacks unnecessesarily and severely limited our capabilities to contribute to the world.

[Gletkin]

I think the Africans themselves have always been very aware of their nobles' role in the sale of their countrymen. Which is a big reason why they were not restored to power when the various African nations gained their independence.
Even that "mockumentary", C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, had a part in which some international organization of slave traders was founded, and a large part of their members were African nobles.

Basil Davidson posited that African resistance to European invasion was minimal because as far as the African masses were concerned, they had already lost their freedom. The people who were supposed to be responsible for their well-being, their aristocracy, deserved the knives-in-the-back they were getting from their White ex-business partners.

[Zyx]

The issue is being avoided completely when we speak about slavery as a fault of the Africans.

The issue with slavery is not that slavery existed.

The statement that slavery was good under Africans and Bad under Europeans is false. Slavery is bad no matter what. Of course when the definition of slavery is culturally defined differently then the degree of badness is somewhat more complex.

If it were the case that slavery were synonymous with modern day child raising (like a child lives in your house under you without no chance to vote but an opportunity to eventually leave your stronghold while being educated and treated humanely throughout the child's development) then the term slavery is no longer so terrible (although still bad) but slavery in the south was absolutely horrible and legally very terrible. I mean illegal to educate and the like. But even though this is terrible, the after effects is what's worse.

Racism is what invents this binary of Africans vs Europeans.

What do Slovaks, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles have to do with African slavery ?

I think this example is stupid it would have better been shown stupid by saying "What does John Brown have to do with the slave trade?" or "What does John Brown have to do with slavery?" . . . the generalization is VERY inaccurate indeed but it shows a common trend.

It's like me saying that representations of students are either of stupid kids or smart kids and then you complaining that the representation of "Steven" from some show is an example of a pretty middle of the road kid--doesn't mean anything since there is a more prevalent example of the two binaries.

As far as slavery goes it was European and African, the only more specific, and all engrossing, would be to name everyone involved ever, even to say Englishman would be unfair.

If slavery happened and Blacks in America were on equal, or greater*, footing with Whites in America then slavery would not be much of a historical aspect but that the situation is not so there is much history following slavery and showing it in a culturally generating regard--that of fighting for black equality.

*just to be sure that they are not on lesser footing.

[Shade2]

I think this example is stupid it would have better been shown stupid by saying "What does John Brown have to do with the slave trade?" or "What does John Brown have to do with slavery?" . . . the generalization is VERY inaccurate indeed but it shows a common trend.

Like it or not, by my country's position and my birth I am classified as European(disregarding for a moment what I feel about the term)-and I feel insulted by trying to blame my country and people for faults of others, especially since my countrymen were subject to apartheid themselfs in the past three centuries. Why should I or anybody else not involved in any historical way be blamed for misdeeds of few countries that I don't belong to ? Especially since I would bet that more European countries weren't involved with African slave trade then they were.

[Zyx]

You simply misunderstand the racial connotations of the slave trade. The reason why Europeans enslaved Africans and not Europeans is because of this "classification" as Europeans.

You do not realize that England had just as much power to enslave your nation as it did these African nations but there was a "racial" aspect to its game of trade.

There WAS an agreement among the European nations that linked with the idea of racial superiority for ALL Europeans and racial inferiority for all African nations. Just because your country did not participate it does not mean that it was not involved.

Who knows, maybe there was an influential scholar from your nation that regarded your people as Europeans and saved your hides from working in the Americas and, severe*, racial discrimination.

*acknowledged that some "Europeans" were seperated as not being of the "greatest"--American/Englishman Europeans.

[Potemkin]

The institution of slavery is not unusual in human societies; in fact, it is endemic. In the ancient world, Europeans were cheerfully enslaving each other on a massive scale - it's been estimated that up to a third of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves. Even in 19th century America, many whites were subject to bonded labour, a form of effective slavery. Why should African societies be any different? After all, the endemic warfare of the ancient world made slavery almost inevitable: if you win a battle, what do you do with the surviving enemy troops? Either you (a) let them go, in which case they will fight against you again, and perhaps win the next time; (b) kill them all, which is inhumane and wasteful; or (c) enslave them and use their labour power to increase the strength and wealth of your own civilisation. There weren't really any other options. Enslaving them was actually the least dangerous and the least inhumane option. Throughout most of human history, slaves were actually reasonably well treated: they were property, and therefore of monetary value. Mistreating or killing them would have been stupid. But this is where the slave trade of early modern times differs from the slave trade of all earlier periods - it was uniquely cruel and wasteful of human life. There was a very high turnover of African slaves, and they were relatively cheap, so profits on the plantations could be maximised by literally working the slaves to death rather than preserving their labour power. This led to a centuries-long holocaust of African slaves, without parallel in all of history. It also had the effect of creating the deranged racism which has dominated European and American societies in modern times. In the ancient world, and in Africa, slavery was not a racial issue - anyone could become a slave, black or white. It is the fact that most Blacks in America were slaves or were descended from slaves which created modern racism, with all its pseudo-scientific underpinnings, as a way of morally justifying the unjustifiable. Racism did not create slavery; slavery created racism.

[Shade2]

The reason why Europeans enslaved Africans and not Europeans is because of this "classification" as Europeans.

A lot of Europeans weren't involved with slave trade. A serf in Russia was no better then a slave.

There WAS an agreement among the European nations that linked with the idea of racial superiority for ALL Europeans

UTTER BS. Already in XVIII century they were ideas how certain nations in Europe were animals and inferior to others.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cg ... 4846635492

Chapter Two, "Possessing Eastern Europe: Sexuality, Slavery, and Corporal Punishment," explores specific aspects of barbarism used to distinguish West from East--the association of the East with slavery. Wolff opens the chapter with a discussion of Casanova's purchase of a thirteen-year-old Russian girl. Uncomfortable, as a Westerner, with the idea that he is buying a slave, he justifies his purchase by describing how he civilizes her by changing her name, her clothes, and her language. That he beats and uses her sexually are merely the burdens of a dominant civilization forced to take harsh measures with savagery. Examples from other travelers develop the image of Eastern Europe, and particularly Russia, as a place of Oriental despotism.

. In describing Charles's conquests across the Baltic, Voltaire distinguishes between a Europe that "'knew' things" and a Europe (less civilized) that was itself lost and "waited to become 'known'" (p. 90). In typical Enlightenment fashion, "knowing" meant classifying and contrasting; an east-west axis was added to the existing north-south axis.

In an interesting footnote to the current debates about whether a unified Europe is possible, Rousseau seems to suggest that, at the time he was writing, the national differences among Western Europeans were insignificant; that they were all "Europeans" (p. 239). Nations in Eastern Europe, however, had distinctive national characters.

More dangerous than an entertaining, if somewhat condescending, fascination with quaint folkloric customs was the tendency to link customs with biological characteristics, a topic explored in Chapter Eight, "Peopling Eastern Europe, Part II: The Evidence of Manners and the Measurements of Race." While Herder was reflecting on the Slavs, Fichte was teaching in Poland and writing negative, racist comments about the Poles. Polish women were slovenly and with a stronger sex drive than Germans (p. 335); Poland was full of wild animals, wild people, and Jews. A racist diatribe published in 1793 (Joachim Christoph Friedrich Schulz's Journey of a Livonian from Riga to Warsaw) was republished in 1941 after the Nazis had conquered Poland, reflecting a trend among German scholars from the eighteenth into the twentieth century to perceive, in the difference between Germany and Poland, a boundary between civilization and barbarism, high German Kultur and "primitive Slavdom" (p. 336).

In other writings, the black/white distinction was grafted onto the barbaric/civilized distinction in Europe itself, appearing in such extreme statements as Ledyard's claim that there were "no white Savages." Eastern Europeans, as barbarian, were therefore not white. (In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, Ledyard interpreted the Tartars--a broad category that included, on occasion, Jews, Poles, and Russians--to be American Indians [p. 348].)

Learn history.

Who knows, maybe there was an influential scholar from your nation that regarded your people as Europeans and saved your hides from working in the Americas and, severe*, racial discrimination

In case you don't know Poles were racially discriminated for the past 3 centuries by other "Europeans".

[Ombrageux]

Racism did not create slavery; slavery created racism.

I think we need to be very specific on what type of racism we mean. There is a degree of racism, stemming from the physically or culturally different, the novelty of recent immigrants, the competition for jobs, or a racial-cultural conception of the nation (Black British, but no Black English), which is endemic and almost "natural". Natural in the sense that doesn't stem from colonialism or slavery or capitalism or anything like that, but seems like a knee-jerk reaction most societies have to (apparently) different newcomers.

Then there is New World racism, where the oppressed are not significantly culturally different from the oppressor and have as much claim to "nativeness" as Whites, which I think stems from slavery.

[Potemkin]

I think we need to be very specific on what type of racism we mean. There is a degree of racism, stemming from the physically or culturally different, the novelty of recent immigrants, the competition for jobs, or a racial-cultural conception of the nation (Black British, but no Black English), which is endemic and almost "natural". Natural in the sense that doesn't stem from colonialism or slavery or capitalism or anything like that, but seems like a knee-jerk reaction most societies have to (apparently) different newcomers.

Then there is New World racism, where the oppressed are not significantly culturally different from the oppressor and have as much claim to "nativeness" as Whites, which I think stems from slavery.

That's a good point. However, I would draw a distinction between xenophobia and racism. What you describe as "natural" racism is what I would call xenophobia; I regard modern Western racism as something qualitatively different. Xenophobia, as you pointed out, has been around in every society at all historical periods. It probably even existed in the Stone Age. But this xenophobia is not racial in the way that modern racism definitely is; for example, the British tend to be distrustful of the French and the Germans. Does this mean the French and the Germans belong to a different 'race' than the British? Do the British even constitute an homogenous 'race' that can be distinguished from the French 'race' or the German 'race'? I think not. Having a fear or hatred of other cultures is not the same as having a fear or hatred of other races. In that sense, modern Western racism - which is the most virulent form of racism which has ever existed in history - is a direct product of the slave trade.

[Shade2]

In that sense, modern Western racism - which is the most virulent form of racism which has ever existed in history - is a direct product of the slave trade.

Poles have been victim of racism from Western European people-Germans, without being slaves or without Germany engaging in slave trade.
Thus your point is flawed.

[Figlio di Moros]

Poles are victim to ethnocentric xenophobia, not at all the same.

And yes, the term European can be broken down to western European and the term African to West African.

[Shade2]

Poles are victim to ethnocentric xenophobia

Oh really, so when German authors wrote that Poles aren't humans but animals and different race that was "ethnocentric xenophobia" not racism ?