Slavery on the African Continent in the “Post-Classical” era
World Slavery
Did the world use Africa as a source for slaves during the “Post –classical” period? What I was initially interested in finding out was whether the continent of Africa had a disproportionate amount of its inhabitants forced into slavery after 1500 C.E., but not during the “post-classical” period between (500-1500). I say yes and here is why.
My issue with Strayer regarding Chapter 8 of his book was how little he wrote about slavery during the “post –classical” era.
After considerable thought I knew my indignation came from “white guilt” and “human being guilt” because of my disappointment in humanity’s ability to easily exploit one another, and specifically regarding the European and American slave trade.
As an amateur historian with many semester credits in Ancient and International history, I thought I was somewhat qualified to criticize Strayer for not “beating up” western civilization and casually describing “slave trade” as if he was talking about the world-wide coffee or sugar trade.
After reading for a couple of hours on-line and reading many articles written by scholars and historians, I realized how little I knew about the entire body of research on African slavery. My own knowledge was limited to a “Euro-centric” world view and was focused almost entirely with the American slave trade and the cotton plantations of the old south in early American History. Also I was aware of the European responsibility for initiating the slave trade as the Dutch, Spanish, French and British had done.
Their Empires all participated and flourished from the riches of trading slaves. I now understand why Strayer perhaps only scratches the surface of slavery and limited his comments to the contents of his chapter on Commerce in third-wave civilizations.
Throughout history there is evidence of slavery on the major continents, and in all civilizations. Warring societies routinely made slaves of their conquered people. It didn’t matter if it was on the Eurasian continent or in the East Asian or African continent.
Slavery necessarily depends on a system of social stratifications; therefore, it was rare among “gather-hunter” societies of ancient man, these societies were more egalitarian as we have seen in Strayer’s Book. Slavery is documented as far back as the [1]code of Hammurabi, in 1750 B.C. Slavery existed in ancient civilization such as the Sumer and Ancient Egypt, ancient Nubia, and Akkadian Empire, Assyria and Ancient Greece.
In fact, during the Roman’s peak of influence, [2]almost 25% of the empire’s populations were slaves.
Renowned philosophers such [3]Aristotle, Plato and Socrates accepted the theory of “natural slavery” in America. We’ve heard the expression, in the twentieth century, by an American President “two chickens in every pot” to describe the typical household as its “mantra”. Well, in 500 B.C.E. in Greece it was[4] “majority of citizens owned at least one slave”in every pot, (house); and wealthy, with huge crop bearing estates, had hundreds.
Slavery existed in ancient [5]Celtic society, as witnessed by the Romans. There is evidence of German and British slaves and Latin slaves around 793 A.C.E. More examples of the existence of slavery between warring Empires states are during the middle-ages or, as Strayer would say, “Post Classical” civilizations. The [6]Vikings raided the northern part of the Eurasian continent and conquered and enslaved English, Irish, Scottish, and Slavic people.
One of the reasons [7]Islam in the 8th century A.C.E. both as a religion, and as a culture of Arabia, expanded so quickly, and over large tracts of territory, was captured people would convert to Islam to avoid a painful death, or Slavery. There were Jewish [8]Radhanites , who were European merchants, who engaged in slave trading and brokering between Muslim and Christian between 900-1200..
The city-states of [9]Genoa, Venice and Pisa, between 1100-1500, saw a continuation of the slave trade as Genoa and Venice thrived. However, the European enslaved by Europeans pretty much ended as Christianity beginning expanded its control around 1500.
In the Russian territories the inhabitants of Moscow were raided for slaves by the
“Golden Horde” Tokhtamysh Khan in 1382. The [10]Byzantium-Ottoman wars brought 1000’s of Christian slaves into the Islamic world.
Africans too participated greatly in slavery. Often warring with rival ethnic groups or neighbors, which resulted in losers being sold to European Traders, bound for European or Arabic societies during the “post classical” era?
The continent of the South East Asia and China saw its own experiences with slavery. A Elite Indian’s in the 8th century would acquire “un-paid” labor. A euphuism for slavery was “debt bondage”. This was the fate of peasants who could not pay their bills. A son could be sold for”bonded labor”, for life, to be pay off a family’s debt, much the same way as Mexican immigrants are sometimes treated to pay the debts of the “coyote”. Many women ended up in prostitution, and young men end up running drugs for the cartels in border towns like California, Arizona and Texas. The [11]Indian peninsula has a long history of Arab invaders in India, and also Arab slave traders brought slaves from Africa as early as 100 A.D.
In [12]China during the Tang Dynasty 618-907, they sold captured Koreans as slaves. During the Han Dynasty (200 B.C.E. To 220 C.E), China castrated young men and used them as slaves in the Harems along the “silk road”.
As I continued my research I was surprised to find out that slavery was an accepted Legal form of Law in Africa.
[13]Africans participated in the African slave trade by supplying criminals or captured rival tribes and selling them to European slave traders. It was rare for slavers to trek in the “interior” of Africa for fear of disease and unfriendly Africans who could harm them.
The so called plunder of African slaves happened later, mainly between the 16th and 18th centuries’. My focus is primarily from 500-1500 C.E., the “post-classical” era that I referenced earlier on the chapter 8 Blog. I had mistakenly condemned Strayer for something that didn’t exist.
Were there slaves kidnapped from Africa, by the world’s civilizations, to build empires between 500-1500 C.E.?
Not really, all the major continents were busy for a millennium warring and enslaving each other. Taking turns, depending on the ebb ad flow of a civilization. The Eurasian continent had territories enslaving each other, as mentioned earlier, there were endless Christian, Muslim battles, enslaving each other. We have seen in the Indus Valley Region, Indians and Chinese societies enslaving their respective captives. These were the workers and servants of these empires- slaves resulting from their conquests.
Finally, we see African nations raiding and enslaving their neighbors or rivals ethnic tribes. Yes, there was slave trading in North Africa, and slaves were transported to European or Arab elite. But the vast rape of the East-West Coast of Africa and “interior” of the continent, occurred in the later part of the [14]15th-16th-17th and18th centuries, with estimates between 9-4 and 13 million slaves arriving in the New World and several millions more who died during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
Professors, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, of Harvard University, as well as two leading historians from Boston University, John Thorton and Linda Heywood, contend that 90% of slaves coming over during the middle – passage period, were enslaved and sold to Europeans salve traders by African Chiefdoms, and that only on the margins, or coast, were Europeans directly involved in kidnapping Africans for the slave trade.
There is much more I could write about slavery in the modern era, and the debate that [15]Professor Gates has sparked regarding “reparations” to descendents of African slaves; however, this essay limits its critique to the “Post-Classical” era.
My research validates my abhorrence to all forms of slavery, whether it’s black on black, yellow on yellow, brown on brown, or white on white.
I was enlightened however; to learn that during the period I questioned Strayer about, that, the African continent was pre-occupied “feeding” on itself primarily as the other continents were doing.
Bibliography
[1] http://public.wsu.edu/”dee/Meso/Code.HTM, Translated by L.W. King (1910) Edited By Richard Hooker Code# 7,15,16,17,18
3 http://www.jstor.org/pss/1087451, Aristotle’s Theory of Natural Slavery, Nicholas D. Smith
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/slavery_slavery_in_ancient_Greece , From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia 5 http://www.essortment.com/ancient-celtic-history-2861.htm,
Ancient Celtic History
6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/swedish_slave_tradeVikingandpre-Vikingsave2/Swedishslavetrade, From Wikipedia, The free Encyclopedia
9 http://pages.pomona.edu/”gig04747/genoa/index.htm ,Medieval Genoa, Professor Stephen A Epstein, University of Colorado, Boulder
10 http://books.google.com/books?id=P2422N, Medieval Slavery in the New Geopolitical Space
13 http://www.tracingcenter.org/blog/2010/04/reparations-and-Africa-complicity-in-the-slave-trade, Posted April 23, 2010 by Professor James Dewolf Perry
[14] http://en.wikipedia-org/wiki/middle_Passage , Middle Passage, Free Wikipedia Encyclopedia
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