Slavery in Context

At the height of slavery in the U.S. in 1860, what percentage of white people owned slaves?
74.6%
55.2%
37.5%
15.3%
01.4%

At the height of slavery in the U.S. in 1860, what percentage of black Southerners owned slaves?
28.2%
21.7%
13.2%
8.3%
0%

Slave Owners in U.S. in 1860

Relative to their numbers in the population (27 million according to the 1860 census), a
miniscule number of whites owned slaves.  Eight million whites lived in the South, but of these,
fewer than 325,000 owned slaves.  What this means is that only 1.4 percent of the total white
population consisted of slave owners, and only 4.8 percent of the white Southern population did
so.
In glaring contrast, in this same year, there were 4.5 million blacks living in America, and nearly
500,000 of these were free blacks. Over half of these—261,988—lived in the South.  In the city
of New Orleans alone, there were 10,689 free blacks, and more than 3,000 of these owned
slaves.  That is, 28 percent of the free black population consisted of slave holders.

Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture.
These ethnic distinctions and subdivisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural
identity. Ethnocentrism…is considered a natural proclivity of human psychology, (though) it has
developed a generally negative connotation. Ethnocentric individuals judge other groups relative
to their own ethnic group or culture, especially with concern for language, behavior, customs,
and religion.

Ethnocentrism
Carsten K. W. De Dreu and others, “Oxytocin Promotes Human Ethnocentrism,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 4 (Jan. 25, 2011), 1262-1266.
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. It regulates social
interaction and sexual reproduction, playing a role in behaviors from maternal-infant bonding
and milk release to empathy, generosity, and orgasm.
“Oxytocin engenders trust toward members of the in-group, together with feelings of
defensiveness toward outsiders.” “Oxytocin does not seem to promote positive aggression
toward outsiders, but rather it heightens the willingness to defend the in-group.”

Ancient Slavery

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Slavery and ethnocentrism have existed throughout history

Ancient Slavery
Population pressure on limited resources
Demand for labor and assimilation of war captives
Forced peasant labor
Slave labor
Chattel slavery and debt slavery

Slavery in Sumer
“The treatment of slaves in Mesopotamia seems to have been generally more humane than at
other times and places in human history.”
Edgar, Hackett, and others, World History: Civilizations Past and Present, Vol.1, 12th ed., 12.
“Mesopotamian slavery appears to have been enlightened compared with other slave systems in
history.”
Craig, Graham, Kagan, and others, The Heritage of World Civilizations, Vol.1, 9th ed., 14.
“Ancient slavery may not have been quite so horrible as more modern examples (such as that
practiced in the New World)…”
Coffin and Stacey, Western Civilizations, Vol. 1, 16th ed., 18.
But are these claims true?

Slavery in Sumer (cont.)

Slavery was widespread, as evidenced by the law codes’ extensive regulations of slaves and
slavery. Chattel slaves in Sumer were bought like any other piece of property and had no legal
rights. They were often non-Mesopotamians bought from slave merchants. Some were born into
slavery. Slaves could be beaten, punished, branded like animals, and bought and sold on their
owners’ whim. They had to wear their hair in a certain way and were sometimes tattooed on their
hands. In slave raids into the mountainous regions above the river valley, male captives were
killed or enslaved and blinded; women and children were enslaved to serve as domestic laborers.
Slave women were kept as concubines (which gets disguised as “domestic service” in some
textbooks). The Sumerian word for slave means “mountain woman.

Jacqueline Morley, You Wouldn’t Want to be a Sumerian Slave

Slavery in Ancient Egypt

Why are textbooks silent?

Slavery in Ancient Egypt

Early Dynastic Period
Human sacrifices
Middle Kingdom
Black African and Asian slaves
Slavery increased during New Kingdom
Included Hebrews
Field work, artisans, domestic servants
Branded for identification and to prevent escape

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Manumission was rare

Slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa

Textbooks say little about slavery in Africa.
They always, without exception, present it as being benign compared with slavery involving
Europeans.
Map of Africa’s Vegetation

African Slavery (cont.)

Kingdoms of the Sudan
Ghana c.700-1100:
Mali c.1100-1400
Benin c.1100-1500
Songhay c.1300-1600
Ashanti 18th c.
Dahomey 18th c.
The Empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai: These ancient empires, each in their turn, controlled
vast areas of West Africa

African Slavery (cont.)

Existed for thousands of years
“Slave” from the root “slav” (Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe)
Europeans were sold into slavery into Africa and Asia in large numbers
1816 illustration of Christian slaves in Algiers
Christian slaves in Algiers, early 19th century
Christian Slavery in Barbary
The Slave Market (c. 1884), painting by Jean-Léon Gérmôme
Redemption of Christian slaves by Catholic monks in Algiers in 1661

African Slavery (cont.)

Ali Bitchin (born circa 1560 and assassinated in 1645) was a “renegade” (Christian converted to
Islam) who made his fortune in Algiers through privateering.
He owned a palace in the city, a home in the countryside, several galleys and thousands of
slaves. His large slave holdings did not prevent him from feeding them a simple piece of bread or
biscuit, yet not every day.
This statue on Charles Bridge in Prague depicts Christians, imprisoned by Muslims, and the
saints who founded the Trinitarian Order that was established to free Christian slaves

African Slavery (cont.)

The Spread of Islam
Driven by elites
Forcible conversion
Requirimiento’s Muslim origins
Ethnocentric attitudes of cultural superiority
Enslavement of other Muslims as well as non-Muslim “heathens”

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Spread of Islam, ca. 1500
The main slave routes in Africa during the Middle Ages
Arab slave traders and their captives along the Ruvuma River in Mozambique
The Transportation of Slaves in Africa
A Slave Coffle
This eighteenth-century print shows bound African captives being forced to a slaving port. It was
largely African middlemen who captured slaves in the interior and marched them to the coast
19th-century engraving of Arab slave-trading caravan transporting African slaves across the
Sahara. Note the wrist stocks.
Slave trade along the Senegal River, kingdom of Cayor
A slave market in Khartoum, Sudan, c. 1876
Egyptian slave master and Waswahili slave
A Bantu slave woman in Mogadishu (1882–1883)
Slaves in Ethiopia, 19th century
Arab captors and Zanzibar workers
A Zanj slave gang in Zanzibar (1889)
Slaves in the streets of Zanzibar, (19th c.).
Slaving was part of East African trade for centuries.
A Slave Boy in Zanzibar. 'An Arab Master's Punishment for a Slight Offence. '
Dhows were used to transport goods to Oman
Tippu Tip, a notorious slave trader, plantation owner and governor, who worked for a succession
of sultans of Zanzibar, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, involving the slave
trade and ivory trade. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central
Africa.
Tippu Tip owned 10,000 slaves
Men with ivory tusks from the African elephant, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
A Rhinoceros Butchered for its Horn
King of Dahomey cuts off 127 heads to complete the ornamentation of his wall. 1793
Depiction of an Ethiopian Emperor executing a number of people, 18th century
Bayanzi Ritual Execution Congo 1885

Tangena Ordeal
Tangena is the name given in the highland (official) dialect of the Malagasy language to an
indigenous tree (Tanghinia venenifera) distinguished by the high toxicity of the nuts it produces,
which have been used historically on the island of Madagascar for trials by ordeal to determine
the guilt or innocence of an accused party. The tradition of the tangena ordeal, which has taken
various forms over time, dates to at least the 16th century in Imerina, the central highland
kingdom that would eventually come to rule the population of nearly the entire island four
hundred years later. It has been estimated that the poison may have been responsible for the
death of as much as 2% of the population of the central province of Madagascar each year on
average, with much higher mortality rates at specific periods, such as during the reign of Queen
Ranavalona I (1828–1861), when the ordeal was heavily used. The belief in the genuineness and
accuracy of the tangena ordeal was so strongly held among all that innocent people suspected of
an offense did not hesitate to subject themselves to it; some even showed eagerness to be tested.
The use of ritual poison in Madagascar was abolished in 1863 by King Radama II, but its use
persisted for at least several decades after being officially banned.

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African Slavery (cont.)
Society in Kingdoms of the Sudan
Absolutism
Gold, ivory, and slaves exported
Class hierarchy
Tributary peoples
Peasants throwing dust on themselves as homage to elites when they passed by
Mali:
Women made to appear naked in public
Diet included vultures, dogs, and asses
In the equatorial region, women were no more than beasts of burden
Polygyny
Royal incest
Prince Manga Bell and his Favorite Wives

African Slavery (cont.)

An indigenous, large-scale slave trading industry
Black Africans raided less powerful neighboring peoples
Specialized cavalry were used
Slaves were prisoners of war, but war was conducted for the purpose of procuring slaves
Two-way slave trade in some places
Black African slave traders sent slaves to the Arab world, Persia, India, and China
Slavery as an economic institution: a means of getting labor from where it is not wanted to
where it is wanted

African Slavery (cont.)

The slaves that were forced to march across the Sahara were mostly women and children, since
black Africans typically killed all the men when they raided a village of a weaker neighbor.
Countless slaves died in the trek across the Sahara
Benin Bronze Plaque with Chief and Two Attendants

African Slavery (cont.)

Large-scale plantations existed where slaves had little chance of ever obtaining freedom
Bananas, kola nuts (an addictive aphrodisiac), cotton, and sugar
Places where slaves outnumbered the free and where slaves were “entirely without rights”
Coffles
Overseers
Beatings
Mutilation
Castration

African Slavery (cont.)

Human sacrifice of slaves
Sacrificial burials; slaves trussed and gagged and slaughtered
400 humans sacrificed at one site in Kush

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Slaves for sacrifice at the Annual Customs of Dahomey - from The History of Dahomy, and
Inland Kingdom of Africa, 1793

African Slavery (cont.)

African slavery was no less brutal than slavery in the Americas; perhaps more so
Was African slavery exported to the American colonies?
Caste system survives in parts of Africa to this day
Slavery exists today

African Slavery (cont.)

Intense racism in Arab society
Intense ethnocentrism among blacks also
Including anti-Semitism
See Leo Africanus’s account of treatment of Jews in Timbuktu

South Africa
Expansion of Bantu tribes
Zulu Empire
Shaka
1815-1840: Mfecane (forced migration, crushing, or scattering)
Murderous campaign against other blacks
Genocide
Shaka murdered by other blacks
All of the royal kin were executed, along with many supporters
An early painting of the first migration of the Fengu, one of the affected peoples of the Mfecane

Sugar
First domesticated in New Guinea
First processed in India
Black slaves in Tigris-Euphrates delta
The Portuguese didn’t invent the sugar plantation
The plantation system was fully developed by Arabs and Africans
The westward diffusion of sugarcane in pre-Islamic times (shown in red), in the medieval Arab
world (green) and by Europeans in the 1400s (violet)

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

With the decline of the Roman Empire, slavery died out in most of Europe and was replaced by
feudalism, though slavery continued in other parts of the world
When Europeans began exploring the world in the 15th century, they encountered slavery nearly
everywhere they went, and many forms of barbarism as well

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

Europeans’ experience with Asian and African conquest of Europe
“Christendom in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries had been ringed round by foes encroaching upon
her from east, from south, and from north. Europe had been, not the attacker, but the attacked;
not the explorer, but the explored. If her enemies no longer, after the days of Charlemagne,

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threatened her very life, they bade fair to deny her the use of the sea, the possession of her own
coasts, and therewith the prospect of…commerce....” G.M. Trevelyan, History of England,
vol.1, pp.218-219.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

Mercantilism: trade instead of war
The first Europeans to sail around the coast of Africa were offered slaves by local rulers, who set
the terms of trade and controlled the destinies of the humans they enslaved
Slaves offered to Europeans by Blacks

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

Limited to coastal regions
High death rate among Europeans due to African diseases

“European Diseases”?
Smallpox
Bubonic Plague
Malaria
Yellow fever
Dengue Fever
Leprosy
Tuberculosis
Polio
HIV
Ebola
Zika Virus
Lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis)
Onchocerciasis (river blindness): Africa
Schistosomiasis
Typhus
Measles
Influenza
Cholera
Beriberi

Afro-Asian Diseases
Smallpox: Africa
Bubonic Plague: Africa
Malaria: Africa
Yellow fever: Africa
Dengue Fever: Africa
Leprosy: Africa
Tuberculosis: Africa
Polio: Africa
HIV: Africa
Ebola: Africa

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Zika Virus: Africa
Lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis): Africa
Onchocerciasis (river blindness): Africa
Schistosomiasis: Africa and Asia
Typhus: Africa or Asia
Measles: Asia
Influenza: Asia
Cholera: Asia
Beriberi: Asia

Afro-Asian Diseases
Originated with livestock domestication and agriculture
Native American agriculture and livestock
The genocide debate:
Europeans, Asians, and Africans died from them too
Plant v. Animal
Non-contagious diseases are those associated with agriculture and the consumption of grains
Contagious diseases are those associated with livestock production and consumption of meat
If Native Americans had had domestic livestock, would the same would have happed here?
Jared Diamond—Guns, Germs, and Steel
Smallpox

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

African rulers controlled the terms of the slave trade with the Europeans.
Black rulers played Europeans off against each other
Joint stock companies
Forerunners of the modern corporation
“Factories”
Enslavement of whites continued

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

Slavery was a source of wealth for African merchants and power for African kings
African rulers wanted liquor and weapons to fight their traditional neighbors, failing to develop
their economies to benefit their people
King Affonso I of the Kongo holds an audience with European ambassadors who kneel before
him.
Queen Nzinga of Ndongo, who ruled from 1615 to 1660. This contemporary engraving shows
her negotiating a treaty with the Portuguese. She is seated on the back of a slave.
The Transportation of Slaves in Africa

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

How were Europeans’ understanding of slavery shaped by witnessing scenes such as these?
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)
What is the main difference between African slavery and the trans-Atlantic trade?

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

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“Only one characteristic of the Atlantic trade differentiated it sharply from the rest of the slave
trade within Africa, which is that two-thirds of those transported were male…. For Africa, the
first consequence was that not so many men were killed at the scene of enslavement as occurred
elsewhere.” pp. 135 & 146 Roland Oliver

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

“The mother continent” didn’t want them.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

Conquest of the Americas
Black conquistadors in Spanish America
Did African rulers know about the conditions slaves faced in the New World?
Rulers and their sons sailed to Europe and the Americas and witnessed first-hand
The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, 1460-1770
Slaves Packed on a Slave Ship
European Immigrants Packed on a Ship

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)

Slave ships
The average life expectancy of the average sailor was 2-1/2 years
Slave ship crews were multi-racial, consisting of Africans and Europeans
Slaves included criminals
Indentured Servitude in North America
European peasants and African slaves had similar experiences crossing the Atlantic
Compare accounts by Falconbridge and Mittelberger
The Triangular Trades

Slavery in the English Colonies of North America

The first slave owner in what would become the United States was a black man
Anthony Johnson

Slavery in the English Colonies of North America (cont.)

Black Slaveowners
Though a comprehensive study of black slaveowning in the South has not been conducted,
studies of various cities indicate that the percentage of blacks who owned slaves in those cities
was around 28%.

Jewish Slave Traders

Debate over how many and how much influence
Jewish Control Over American Slavery

Slavery in the English Colonies of North America (cont.)

Gradual divergence in status of blacks and whites
Race ideology did not exist in early Virginia, but was encoded in law by 1710
Ethnic antagonisms among blacks that had existed in Africa were brought to the Americas

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Was Virginia a Slave Society?
The following arbitrary distinction has been contrived to supposedly differentiate slavery in the
U.S. from slavery elsewhere in the world:
A SLAVE SOCIETY: Is a society in which slavery is central to its economic, social and political
existence of the society/colony/state.
A SOCIETY WITH SLAVES: Is a society in which slavery is present but it is not central to the
economic, social and political well-being of the society/colony/state. Slavery was one system of
labor among others.

Was Virginia a Slave Society?

In the American colonies, slavery was only one system of labor among others, albeit an
important one. Indentured servitude was another. However, most production was achieved by
means of the household economy of independent yeomen farmers and craftsmen.

What About Africa?

Recall the plantation system in Africa.
Recall the mass exportation of blacks by black rulers and merchants in the Indian Ocean trade.
Recall Tippu Tip with 10,000 slaves.
Recall the millions that were transported across the Sahara
Recall the millions of women who were enslaved as concubines.

Dinesh D’Souza
“Although the institution of slavery was oppressive for the slaves, paradoxically it benefited their
descendants because slavery was the transmission belt that brought African-Americans into the
orbit of Western freedom. And the same is true of colonialism: against the intentions of the
European powers (???)…colonialism proved to be the mechanism by which Western ideas like
democracy, self-determination, and unalienable human rights came to the peoples of Asia,
Africa, and South America.
The descendants of those who endured servitude and foreign rule are vastly better off than they
would have been had their ancestors not endured captivity and European rule.”

European Slavery in the Context of World History

In terms of the larger scope of world history, European colonization and slavery were relatively
short-lived.

Slavery Today
Today, slavery exists throughout Africa and Asia
http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/
Today, slavery exists even in the U.S., but it is conducted mostly by people from Africa, Asia,
and Latin America
See article entitled “Slavery’s New Face,” Newsweek (December 18, 2000)

Breaking Through the Censorship

Stereotype of Evil White Man: “[W]hites, driven by lust for material possession and armed with
firearms, gin, and a bag full of tricks, subjugated innocent Africans who were living blissfully
close to nature.”

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Slave trade: a root of contemporary African Crisis, by Tunde Obadina

Stereotyping all Whites as Racist is Racist

In the September 14 issue of 2009, Newsweek published the most notorious magazine cover of
the past decade. The “Is Your Baby Racist” edition

White Guilt
The Lifeline Expedition is a reconciliation initiative which is a Christian response to the legacy
of the Atlantic Slave Trade. It brings together teams of Africans, descendants of enslaved
Africans and white people from the three former corners of the slave triangle and over a period
of seven years has visited many significant slavery sites around the Atlantic world. Controversy
has emerged over the fact that white people on the teams wore replica yokes and chains to
express apology for the role of their ancestors in the slave trade.
http://www.lifelineexpedition.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_guilt

“Ending the Slavery Blame-Game”

An argument against reparations by one of the nation’s leading Afro American scholars
Henry Louis Gates
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html\
Gates called Afrocentrism “voodoo methodology”

Thomas Sowell
Intellectuals and Race
Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Racism Today
Kamau Kambon
Exterminate White People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGv8PQr8Uo4
Dr. Kamau Kambon, an affiliated faculty instructor at NC State University.
Tommy Curry is an associate professor at Texas A&M. He is black, and specializes in Critical
Race Theory. In this brief interview, he discusses when it is appropriate to kill white people: “In
order to be equal, in order to be liberated, some white people might have to die,” he says.

Racism Today
http://toprightnews.com/black-men-shout-death-to-all-you-crackers-to-whites-on-the-street-
media-silent/

World Context
Slavery, ethnocentrism, cannibalism, human sacrifice, torture, rape, genocide, submission of
women, etc. everywhere
Corruption Perceptions Index
(Lower numbers indicate higher corruption)
Murder Rate (Darkest=Highest)

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Map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries
Women's Suffrage in the World in 1908

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