Regarding slavery.

[Himster]

Why does slavery only ever concern African slaves in America?
Slavery existed before the start of recorded time, continues to this day and will likely continue until the second-last human draws their final breath.

[Axalon]

"Only black slaves matter... And, only whites are to blame for it all - didn't you know?!?" *Leftist moron PC-mode switched off.*

It just does not matter to the PC-crowd that EVERY high-culture in history have had slavery in one form or another. Or the fact that the American slavery (while totally vile) is a relatively insignificant, small and short chapter in the long history of slavery. Probably every people on the planet have been slaves somehow at one point or another in history. Its a global and universal thing (just like war). But none of that matters of course (supposedly)....

- A

[conon394]

"Only black slaves matter... And, only whites are to blame for it all - didn't you know?!?" *Leftist moron PC-mode switched off.*

It just does not matter to the PC-crowd that EVERY high-culture in history have had slavery in one form or another. Or the fact that the American slavery (while totally vile) is a relatively insignificant, small and short chapter in the long history of slavery. Probably every people on the planet have been slaves somehow at one point or another in history. Its a global and universal thing (just like war). But none of that matters of course (supposedly)....

- A

Err no Axalon you are making false equivalences. The reason Black slavery (at the hands of Europeans) is important is that at least in the America is was sustained by a fairly unprecedented racist ideology based on something you could never escape (no matter if the system allowed you to to be freed or buy your freedom unlike many other systems of slavery across time it by in large did not) and that ideology did not just vanish after the civil war or abolition in other countries.

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Why does slavery only ever concern African slaves in America?
Slavery existed before the start of recorded time, continues to this day and will likely continue until the second-last human draws their final breath.

Because the nature of slavery in Rome has rather nothing to due with the current political environment nor does serfdom in Czarist Russia, or bonded servitude in Ancient Babylon.
The residual effects of the racism needed to create and sustain the African slave trade to the Americas, and the rather tepid to non existent effort to deal the economics of it after the great hey you free now good luck thing do matter in the current world.


Yes the world has always had and still had forced labor of some kind since at least the days of Sargon and the Sumerians. But it rarely produced such a predatory version of it foisted on one 'race' identified in a way they could never escape the stigma of the superiority narrative that sustained it and willing to accept such a level of imposed mortality to get and keep it.

[Common Soldier]

Err no Axalon you are making false equivalences. The reason Black slavery (at the hands of Europeans) is important is that at least in the America is was sustained by a fairly unprecedented racist ideology based on something you could never escape (no matter if the system allowed you to to be freed or buy your freedom unlike many other systems of slavery across time it by in large did not) and that ideology did not just vanish after the civil war or abolition in other countries.

Arab slavery is not as completely race free as is portrayed, but it was not exclusively based on race as the European system. The ironic fact that the racist attitude arose from the need to morally justify slavery, a need.other socieities like the Islam world never felt. Only by making Africans out as inferior beings could slavery be justified. That seem need eventually led to the end of slavery when the delusion Africans were not really people could not be maintained
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The residual effects of the racism needed to create and sustain the African slave trade to the Americas, and the rather tepid to non existent effort to deal the economics of it after the great hey you free now good luck thing do matter in the current world.

Not all the problems were do to slavery or racism, and ascribing go them all as some do is incorrect. It was the poverty of Sub Sahars Africsn thst attracted Arsb slavers many centuries before Europeans became involved in African slavery. Illiteracy was widespread in Africa and would havs existed with or without the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. Labor slaving machinery, such as watermills and windmills, precursors to the machines needed for the Industrial Revolution, were absent in Sub Sahara Africa.

And the fact remains the average descendent of slaves brought over from Africa enjoy a signifcantly higher living standards than the Africans left behind in Africa. Why is the comparison of African Americans made with whites and not with other blacks in Africa? By most standards, African Americans are much better off. In contrast, in many cases whites in the US are not significsntly better off than many of the European countries they came from - living standards in Germany, Netherlands, Sweden are comparable to that in the US.

[conon394]

I will wait for the Edit on that common soldier.

I think I get what your reply was but...

[Common Soldier]

I do believe you are spinning here. Dahomey it seems to me very much exits only because of the slave trade. The demand made a centralized conquest state possible and the supply of guns from Europe was critical to its professional army.

That Dahomey greatly profited by thr slave trade does not mean it would have not existed without it. There were other empires in the area, and there was a quite active Arab slave trade in the area thst long preceded the Atlantic Slave trade. Male African slaves would often be castrated, a fate that did not befall those of thr Atlantic Slave Trade. Africans were being sent off with Arab slaver for centuries and the deaths and losses exceeded those of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

The exact nature of Dahomey human sacrifice and scale is a bit hard to pin down since it became a bit of foot ball for propaganda by those in Europe/England to use as both a reason to keep or oppose the slave trade - and later Europeans to defend colonialism.

And downplaying the level of human sacrifice has been by those who try to paint a rosey picture of African slavery and try to dimish the responsibility of Africans' role in the Atlantic Slave trade. Slaves were sacrificed, that cannot be denied, and in large numbers, even if the exact numbers are debated. But if large numbers of slaves were sacrificed were kings, what about lesser chiefs? If a few slaves were sacrificed for even minor chiefs, then the deaths could be underestimated. When reading reports about African slavery, you only hear about them being treated like members of the family and such, not about the human sacrifices. If these human sacrifices were not part of such well reported historicsl events, I doubt it would have been reported. Which makes one wonder what other less savory aspects of African slavery are not being reported as well in a desire to whitewash the Africans.

Regardless of whether African slavery was really as benign as it is made out to be, Africans knew they were sending off their African brothers to a terrible fate when they sold them, they could sed how badly they were being treated in the holding pins, and for all they knew the slaves were being sent off for human sacrifices. And the Africans who sold the slaves did not care about the slaves fate, which makes them just as culpable in the slave trade.

[wanderwegger]

Europeans invented White Slavery and were the greatest practitioners of non race based slavery in history. No one else even comes close. Also probably the greatest practitioners of race based slavery.

[Common Soldier]

Europeans invented White Slavery

Not true. People from the Middle East were enslaving people long before Europans became invovled in slavery

and were the greatest practitioners of non race based slavery in history. No one else even comes close.¬

You said a true thing for once, a rare occaission. And Europeans were good at ending slavery also, nobody came close to ending slavery over a global scale as well.

Also probably the greatest practitioners of race based slavery.

And the Europeans were the greatest abolitionist too. The Europeans were crazy good at it, slavery was flourishing world wide until they put a stop to slavery. Slavery is just a shadow of itself and nowhwere legal, and that is due to Europeans

[Cyclops]

Why does slavery only ever concern African slaves in America?
Slavery existed before the start of recorded time, continues to this day and will likely continue until the second-last human draws their final breath.

Conon covered it pretty well, but there's this: the very loud political clamour from the US that fills our ears is dominated by talk about racism.

The US does have a problem with race (like many countries). One element is the embarrassing persistence of slavery, its racial definition, the harsh way it was defended and the legacy of punishing black people for not being slaves anymore.

Our Yank friends (and they are all Yankees now, the North won remember) do like to over talk things, so this gets brought up all the time. In political contexts it gets twisted, and bizarre counterffactual scenarios are offerered such as "US slavery did not have a racial element" and "the Civil War was not about slavery" and "the CSA were somehow heroes for wanting slaves, losing the war and taking vicious illegal and cowardly revenge on black people".

Its boring and every time the subject comes up the usual nonsense get rehashed. Its part of present politics of course so the truth doesn't mater, its mostly emotional calls to action to get lazy Yanks out of their recliners to vote for some frontman or other (sometimes they elect terrible actors, its like they don't even believe in it themselves), so they can pretend to have had a choice in government.

[wanderwegger]

White* Slavery


To be clear, you are saying what I said is true and Europeans did the most to solve the vile institution they were the greatest, by far, practitioners of.

Not true. People from the Middle East were enslaving people long before Europans became invovled in slavery



You said a true thing for once, a rare occaission. And Europeans were good at ending slavery also, nobody came close to ending slavery over a global scale as well.



And the Europeans were the greatest abolitionist too. The Europeans were crazy good at it, slavery was flourishing world wide until they put a stop to slavery. Slavery is just a shadow of itself and nowhwere legal, and that is due to Europeans

[Common Soldier]

White* Slavery


To be clear, you are saying what I said is true and Europeans did the most to solve the vile institution they were the greatest, by far, practitioners of.

You.got it partly right. Europeans did do the most to solve the vile of institution of slavery, you got that right.


But they were not the greatest practicers of slavery, that honor would go to Muslims. Not only did they obtain their slaves from Africa, in similar numbers to the Europeans, but they also obtained large number of slaves from Europe and Asia as well. and the Muslims were the last holdouts against the anti-slavery movement. Muslims were the greatest practioners of slavery.

Europeans were the greatest praftioners of one particular subset of slavery, but in terms of length of time and scope of area, thr Muslims overall rsnk at the top practicers of slavery.


However, the slavery the Europeans practiced was the most vilest form of slavey, so if you said the Europeans were the greatest practioners of the vilest form of slavery, that is true. If that is what you meant, you are correct.

[Muizer]

Arab slavery is not as completely race free as is portrayed, but it was not exclusively based on race as the European system. The ironic fact that the racist attitude arose from the need to morally justify slavery, a need.other socieities like the Islam world never felt. Only by making Africans out as inferior beings could slavery be justified. That seem need eventually led to the end of slavery when the delusion Africans were not really people could not be maintained

Though I've not been able to find much scholarly work to support this, it does seem an effective explanation of race based slavery. Apparently, in the Netherlands, there were moral qualms about slave trading and labour from the get go, not as something evolving over time. "We" hot involved in this business in a time when slavery in Europe had effectively disappeared and when the ideas that would eventually end up to be "human rights" were starting to be formulated. Yet, greed and power politics (there was an existential war going on at the time) caused these to be cast aside and for a brief window the Netherlands was at the very top of the slave trading industry. It would make sense that this required a moral 'band aid' in the form of dehumanizing the people that were being enslaved/exploited. And so, could it indeed be that the very aversion of slavery in general caused the emergence of race based slavery?

And yes, that makes the discussions about BLM now somewhat ... weird, because it would mean this is an excercise in facing past hypocrisy: that is, an aspect of white European culture being deemed to fall short of the moral standards of... white European culture.

[wanderwegger]

Common in one post you agree Europeans were the greatest practitioners of non race based slavery. While also compliment how crazy good they were at it. In the next post you say they weren’t, it was Muslims.

Between the Greeks, the Romans and than Europe there is just no way a religion started in the AD can compare in sheer numbers or time enslaving.

[Common Soldier]

Common in one post you agree Europeans were the greatest practitioners of non race based slavery. While also compliment how crazy good they were at it. In the next post you say they weren’t, it was Muslims.

Between the Greeks, the Romans and than Europe there is just no way a religion started in the AD can compare in sheer numbers or time enslaving.

Sure it could Isla spread over vast areas, Cental Asia, Africa, Asia Minor, Europe, and wherever Islam went, slavery went with it. Plus the Muslim world held on to slavery longer than anybody else.

But I did not think about Roman and Greek slavery. Still, the Muslims practiced making eunuchs on a larger scale than anybody else, which is another mark against Muslims. Plus, Islam specifically gives the official OK to rape your slaves, which the Europeans never did with their African slaves. It happened, but it was never given the official OK. Since no other sacred work gives the unlimited right to rape your slaves, it makes Islam the greatest in slavery.

(*I know what you are. thinking - but the Old Testament does not allow you to rape a slave. If you had sex with a.csptive woman, you had to treat her as your wife, not a slave. Islam allows you to rape a slave and keep her a slave. Plus OT commands onlu applied to a specific time.and place, while the Koran's okay to rape slaves was not limited)

[wanderwegger]

Where is the relevant law saying raping slaves was illegal in the Americas? I think you mistake that Islam
had some rules concerning slavery while Europeans could do pretty much anything.

I see, your argument is you can’t rape your wife. You just killed her entire family, destroyed her city, and he is young enough not to have had sex yet and be described as a little girl or female children, but as long as you marry her first than her. Not rape.

Focus on the wife part, is it your argument you can’t rape your wife? Women are property and all that.

[conon394]

which the Europeans never did with their African slaves

Jefferson begs to differ. Slave owners in the South had absolute sexual rights over their slaves female of male or child.

[Common Soldier]

Jefferson begs to differ. Slave owners in the South had absolute sexual rights over their slaves female of male or child.

I beg to differ. Show me in writing where it said it was ok to rape your slave. In writing.

In Christianity, you are not supposed to have sex outside of marriage with anyone slave as well as servants or other mens wives or free independent women. By the very fact it was outside marriage it would be wrong.

Also, in Thomas Jefferson's case there is every evidence that his relationshio with Sally was entirely consentual, not rape. Sally travelled with Jefferson to France ans she had to do to become free was simply refuse to leave France, where slavery was illegal since.thr middle ages. but she voluntarily returned to Virginia.

In addition Jefferso travelled with John Adam and his wife and they closely observed Sally, and there is no hint of rape in their observations. Jefferson was indeed guilth of a moral failing but it was not rape..


The Koran gives explicit ok to rape women - you can have sex with those you posses, which includes slaves and captives. No concent is required making it rape. For the Holiest of Muslim books to give divine sanction rape. There is a hadith that explains the Koran verse. There was some Muslim men who had been away from their wives who wanted to rape some captive wives they were holding to ransom them back to their husbands. They asked it was ok to rape them and Muhammad got a divine revelation from Allah saying yes, rape away. Note this Koran verse still applies today and ISIS are in axcordance with the Koran when they rape their captives.

[Common Soldier]

Where is the relevant law saying raping slaves was illegal in the Americas? I think you mistake that Islam
had some rules concerning slavery while Europeans could do pretty much anything.

English Common Law against rape would and since Common Law makes no distinction between a free peeson or slave, technically rape against a slave would be illegal unless there was a law specifically superceding that, and there was not.

While chances of enforcing a judgement for rape against a slave was nil. But rape was still not officially approved by law - only indirectly by virtue that slaves were property and you can do what you want with property coukd you consider sex with a slave.

But a counter factor is that in thr Christian world you were not supposed to havd sex with anyone outisde of marriage. maids, girl friends, slaves. That standard was not always enforced but it was the standard. That is not the same in Islam where its holiest book gave specific ok to rape, a practice Muslims.followed for 3 times as long as the Atlantic slave trade.

Give explicit ok is far worse than mere implied ok.

I see, your argument is you can’t rape your wife. You just killed her entire family, destroyed her city, and he is young enough not to have had sex yet and be described as a little girl or female children, but as long as you marry her first than her. Not rape.

Muslims could and did do exactly the same thing only in Islam the girl would remain a slave, making Islam far, far worse. And the OT. Muhammad did everything you described, killed a woman's family, destroyed her city yet say. is ok.

And another huge difference is those commands.applied only to a specific time and place, conquest of Canaan. The Koran's commands.still apply and being ahered to today by Muslims like ISIS members, a huge difference with Muslims being far worse.

Focus on the wife part, is it your argument you can’t rape your wife? Women are property and all that.

Islam.says you csn't rape your wife. Trditionally, in the West you could not rape your wife not because she is property, but because she gave her consent for sex when shd said "I do". A rape is sex without consent, but since sex is an integral part marriage, by agreeing to the marriage you agreed to have sex, now and in the future, hence no rape. Understanding has changed in the West, so marriage is no longer considered some blank check to automaticallu have sex anytime time you want without your partners consent for that psrticular instant.

[Lifthrasir]

This is enough! Stay on topic and avoid personal reference. Any further rule breach will automatically lead to an infraction straight away.