Slavery in Africa and Americaby Rit Nosotro
Slavery has been very important in the formation of modern cultures. Trace the development of the African slave trade from Arab incursions to European trade routes. Focus on the treatment and justification for the African Diaspora and the participation of African slave traders.
Slavery is a very old business. In Exodus in the Bible, we read that the Hebrews, or the Children of God, were enslaved in the land of Goshen, Egypt. Ancient Egypt acquired a million slaves over 400 years as Pharaohs came to suppress the Hebrews (forgetting that God had used Joseph, a former slave, to save Egypt from seven years of famine). The Mayans and Aztecs in the Americas and the Sumerians and Babylonians in the Middle East all kept slaves in the past. The Egyptians not only enslaved Hebrews, but also Europeans and Ethiopians. The Africans, meanwhile, were also enslaved, first by their own people, then by the Arabs, then by the Europeans. The slavery of African people in the last millennium was one of, of not the greatest tragedies in human history. It is also known as the African diaspora. (Diaspora literally means “A dispersion of a people from their original homeland”.) Thousands of people died, and it started racial tension that still exists today. Millions of people were forced to migrate to foreign countries far away. What caused this great “diaspora”? What was the reason for of the magnitude of this tragedy? And why did God allow such a horrible thing to happen? Well, let us look deeper at the history of the African slavery.
Before the Arabs arrived, the Africans had enslaved their own people. When African farmers needed more laborers, they bought slaves, that way they increased production, at a reduced cost. The triangle trade routes would not have been possible without the cooperation of African slave traders who raided villages to capture the commodity in demand. The slaves were cut off from their kin. It was common that when slaves were kept close to their homes, they might escape. Therefore, they were often sold and transported to distant lands. Islamic Arab slave traders enslaved Africans from about the 9th to the 19th century, primarily before traders from Europe arrived. The Arabian enslavement was extensive and cruel as many of the male slaves were castrated and made eunuchs so they could not reproduce. This was despite the fact that castrating went against the Koran (the scriptures of the Islamic religion) and other Islamic laws. The Arab slave trade to the east was said to involve about 14 million blacks from the time of Muslim conquest. The Koran elevates virgins and polygamy to such a status that thousands of virgin girls were kidnapped for Arab harems. According to dogma, free men could not be enslaved, and people who were faithful to foreign religions could live under some protection. However, the spread of the Islamic empire caused the people to be more brutal and interpret the Koran in harsher ways. The Arabs began to use slaves mainly as body guards and soldiers as they competed against African slave traders who supplied European ships. Slavery grew in sub-Saharan Africa through war captives.
Although the first few workers the Portuese sought to hire, they were sold slaves as part of the African labor system. Trading for slaves was accepted in 1444 by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. Some European slavers threatened that if African's would not trade with the Europeans for slaves then they would be taken by force. Therefore, the African people had little choice but to sell the slaves for money. Even King Alfonso, who was an African Christian, rejected the trade publically but participated privately as a way of producing wealth. In the end, at least twelve million people were taken out of their homeland and forced to North and South America, and the Caribbean.
Slavery grew throughout Africa as it became a worldwide trade meeting the demands of the triangle trade route. The triangle trade route was a system of trading slaves for commodities. Slaves were traded to North America and the Caribbean Islands for supplies, such as sugar, cotton and tobacco. From the Caribbean Islands they were exchanged for weapons and rum in Europe. The profits they made were used to buy more slaves from Africa. Since many believed slaves to be animals, they were treated as merchandise. A Christian minister named Wilberforce pushed the British parliment to outlaw the slave trade long before the USA Civil War.
The Haitian slave revolt set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to freedom for slaves in the USA. As the American Abolitionist society contained 2/3 Christian pastors, Christians were instrumental in the cause for freedom. Slavery was abolished in most countries by 1870.
Bitterness however, resulted between African Americans and Europeans, even though slavery was mainly over. The damage was permanent. A form of slavery is still practiced in some countries to this very day, like Mauritania and Sudan. African slavery still affects millions of people through its affect on society by causing many racial and social tensions.
So what are the main differences between these two mostly separate enslavements? Even though the Arab enslaving was much longer (by six centuries) and was directed slavery to both blacks and whites, the European triangular trade of the Atlantic is definitely more well- known, probably because it is better documented and more recent. Generations of blacks could pass stories to their children. Eunuchs could not procreate and thus no generational tales could be passed on. Arab slaves died as soldiers and body guards and needed replacement unlike the slaves of Europeans who were used mainly for manual labor.
The European slave-traders took refuge in the fact that the Arabs and even the Africans themselves had already sold slaves before them. However, slavery differed in magnitude from types of vasselship or indentured servitude to chattel slavery. It is not clear that slavery is against the Bible. Although there isn’t a Bible verse that says, “Slavery is wrong”, the Bible calls people to be like God in love, compassion, kindness, and mercy for all. Slavery does not seem to demonstrate or encourage those character traits. However, God allows slavery to happen. The example of Joseph being sold by the Midianites to the Egyptians is instructive in how God even works what man intends for evil, to the good of them that love the Creator.
Slavery was initiated on the plantations of the southern United States through battles that happened across the Atlantic. Slave populations increased in the USA much like the Hebrews had increased in Goshen of Egypt. After the Hebrews were miraculously released they remembered their captivity and celebrated the year of Jubilee every 50 years by releasing their slaves. A similar law was practiced in some African cultures. Slaves could get rid of their slave status after four generations of serving as slaves. Nothing of the sort was practiced in the USA. Plantation owners established and increased their property through pregnancy, generation after generation. Slaves experience nearly 200 years of suffering in North America before events such as the Haitian slave revolt, the force of the American Abolitionist Society (two thirds Protestant Christian pastors), and heroes like Harriet Tubman, increased the call for freedom. Only the tragic event of the USA civil war could finally set the captives free.
True freedom was still elusive even more than a century later. Prejudices passed on to children's children on both continents still exist. Tribe wars against tribe in Africa. Why is Islam rather than Christrianity endorsed by and for African-Americans? Black Muslims push Islam as if their ancestors had not been enslaved for centuries by Arab Muslims. "Abed" means "black" or "slave" in Arabic. US prisons are full with a disproportionate amount of African Americans. Christianity is not a white man's religion. When Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free," it was for anyone who would accept His sacrifice as payment for their sin. Although the horrible slaves ships no longer plow the sea, as long as His truth is suppressed, the wake the ships created will still erode across the continents.
1. Where in the Bible is the slavery of God’s people written about?
2. What word means “a dispersion of a people from their original homeland”?
3. Which statement about the Arabic slave traders is NOT true?
a. The Arab slave-traders took refuge in the fact that the Europeans and even the Africans themselves had already sold slaves before them.
b. Arab slave traders enslaved Africans from about the 9th to the 19th century.
c. Castrating was against the Koran.
d. The Arabs used slaves mainly as body guards and soldiers.
4. True or false: The Bible is against slavery.
5. Which statement about European slave traders is NOT false?
a. The Arabs traded slaves after the Europeans.
b. European slave traders castrated their slaves.
c. The Europeans only took their slaves by force, never through trading.
d. The Europeans buying slaves from Africa around the mid- 1400s.
"As for your male and female slaves who may belong to you, you may buy male and female slaves from the nations all around you. Also you may buy slaves from the children of the foreigners who reside with you, and from their families that are with you, whom they have fathered in your land, they may become your property. You may give them as inheritance to your children after you to possess as property. You may enslave them perpetually. However, as for your brothers the Israelites, no man may rule over his brother harshly."
"After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him."
Slavery in Africa
The Roots of Slavery
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Origins of the Black-Atlantic World
This is great map of the African Diaspora:
The Slave Trade
Islam’s Black Slaves
Sub-Saharan Africa, Slavery, and European Trade
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