African Slavery Vs. English Slavery

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dopestats

Active Member
So I'm taking a Race & Ethnicity class and my teacher saids that West Africans (where most slaves came from) also owned, sold, and traded slaves. The difference lies in what they called 'slavery'.

Let me layout some notes i took in class:


  • African slavery != English Slavery
  • Slaves could move or get out of the slave class, which implies slavery was not life long or based on skin color
  • 3 types of slaves in W. African culture:

  1. POW - Prisoner of War - Enemies not killed, instead sold in Trans-Saharan Trade for other goods. POWs can also buy themselves out of slavery
  2. Criminals - W. Africans did not have or believe in feeding and sheltering their criminals (what a concept!). They had courts, judges, jury, etc. You are sentenced to the person who you committed the crime against. You must repay the lost/destroyed items, on top of serving your sentence. Murder = enslaved for life to victims family, and you cannot buy yourself out of slavery. (Most were sold since hanging out with the person who murders your sister is not a good idea) If you murdered someone, you are also tattooed for life (branding!!!) Serial killers were sentenced to death, so they did believe in capitol punishment. The more time on your sentence, the more you could be sold or traded for
  3. Debtors - W. Africans enslaved debtors for money. You are sentenced to work off your debt. If you were not wanted or needed for slave work, then you could be sold for the specified time period


  • Also African slaves usually maintained themselves - they took care of their own shelter, food, etc, not the owners. If you were sold then it usually was to somewhere in the country and you'd have to find your way back once the sentence was over or your owner freed you

The English on the other hand, considered slaves to be animals which cannot comprehend anything or have any rights. (Yet they raped many of them so technically they had sex with animals) They justified the animal-like treatment of slaves by saying that the bible saids you can have "animals of burden". This was primarily due to severely misinformed stereotypes of Africans. Five of them include:


  1. "Blackness" (black = evil basically)
  2. Savagery - uncivilized, wild barbaric Africans ran around with no clothes on
  3. Sexuality - tremendous amount of literature dedicated to the African male penis (jealous). English believed that Africans had sex all the time and that they were always erect due to its size. Surprisingly, they also believed this because the English considered being naked a big NO-NO! They did not even take showers naked, nor did they have sex naked! In fact, if you even saw a woman's stockings you were supposed to faint from embarrassment (lol). An English wife back in the day was strictly for making babies, there were whores for that other stuff
  4. Heathenism - no religion in W. Africa (when in fact the Africans practiced basically the same thing as the English). The English would walk into an African church, look at a christ statue and say "hmm, what's this?" when it was clearly obvious the Africans also practiced some form of Christianity
  5. Animality - Africans were animals, not humans. This was inspired by the fact that the English had never seen so much as a squirrel in their country, let alone an elephant. They came to Africa, saw the ape, and when as far as calling black folks the "missing link" between animals and humans
 
Johnnyorganic

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
Interesting. Is your professor also discussing indentured servitude, or is he ignoring it because it was white on white?

Did he also mention that slaves could purchase their freedom under the English system as well? Hence surnames like Freeman which were derivative of the term Freedmen.

One key distinction between English slavery and African Slavery: England abolished slavery in the early-to-mid 19th century. Conversely, slavery is still tolerated on the African Continent.
 
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dopestats

Active Member
Johnnyorganic said:
One key distinction between English slavery and African Slavery: England abolished slavery in the early-to-mid 19th century. Conversely, slavery is still tolerated on the African Continent.
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The important thing to note is the type of slavery. Slave holders (which is what i should have said) did not own their slaves (unless you fell under certain categories). Therefore they could not mistreat them as did the English, or else they were subject to sentencing by the courts as well
 
shnkrmn

shnkrmn

Well-Known Member
By 'English' do you mean 'European? The French, the Spanish and the Portugese were all big slavers too. Does your teacher generalize slavery customs for all these groups?

The English were very active in suppressing and eliminating slavery from about the 1820s onward.

Likewise, Africa is a mighty big place. Were the details of slavery identical throughout that vast continent? Different in Islamic regions as opposed to more 'tribal' areas? Sounds like the curriculum is a little lacking in depth and nuance; more like brainwashing.
 
Johnnyorganic

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
dopestats said:
The important thing to note is the type of slavery. Slave holders (which is what i should have said) did not own their slaves (unless you fell under certain categories). Therefore they could not mistreat them as did the English, or else they were subject to sentencing by the courts as well
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It's interesting that you selected only one portion of my post, yet you did not address it at all.

Slavery continues to exist on the African Continent even as I write this.
 
kingpapawawa

kingpapawawa

Well-Known Member
did you have a point to all of this? - i'm not taking the class, slavery was abolished, why do i care?

my slave is getting really tired of reading these meaningless posts to me and typing these worthless replies.
 
D

dopestats

Active Member
kingpapawawa said:
did you have a point to all of this? - i'm not taking the class, slavery was abolished, why do i care?

my slave is getting really tired of reading these meaningless posts to me and typing these worthless replies.
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I wanted to point out how cool of an idea it was to enslave people for periods of time for committing crimes, rather than imprisoning them as we do today, and paying to feed and take care of them in jail where they are likely to end up again, or worse, in the hospital, where we pay even more for their health care needs. Unless that's your fetish, I don't think anyone actually wants to be a slave. It just seems like a better punishment that will make sure you've learned your lesson. In today's world we put people in jail, where the first thing they will think about when they leave is the last thing they thought about when they came in. I've seen people who've literally done this (ie- a friend of a friend who was sentenced to 12 months, and the first thing he did when he got out was go to a party and start binging again)


Obviously I did not write everything we learn in class, that would take too long. Perhaps I should give more info:

The specific group we refer to in class are called the WASPS - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. They were more of a melting pot of peoples, I should have pointed it out since Europe covers a lot. While "British" is the political term for them, they included an array of people - Anglos, Saxons, Gaelic tribes, Celts - Ireland, Scotland, Normans, Romans, Vikings, etc etc. For the purposes of slave talk in Africa, I am only referring to West Africa

We started with the WASPS since they were the first group to come to the Americas during the Formulative Wave (1607-1830). After the Formulative Wave comes the 1st Wave (1830-1880, Irish, German, Chinese), and the 2nd Wave (1880-1920, Italians, East Europeans, Jews, Japanese) After 1920 the US passed its first immigration laws. Note the first wave of immigration is not actually called the first, since the WASPS claimed to have "discovered" this new land. (which we all know is not true)

Colonization of British N. America:

England 1600 - Spain in 'control' of colonization. They called the English the "Retards of Colonization". Queen Elizabeth decides to colonize, she wants to prove England's badass status, basically. So she sends someone to map the new world, but she has no money to pay for this expedition. (They actually did a trial run for colonization in Ireleand which did not go too well) So the queen plays her hand extremely well, and decides to give up the right to ownership of the new land (since most of time a discovered land was owned by country who finds it). She will send people over, and its up to them to colonize.

Anyways, by the 1820s WASPS are no longer the majority, and this scares them since they are no longer at the top of the social ladder. They came to this new land because of several push & pull factors, among them were:

1. Primogeniture in England (all estate/worth goes to first born son, then their first born, etc)
2. The fact that you had to be upper class in order to own land (so not even the rich, middle class could own land)
3. Those middle class which came needed workers (the indentured servants mentioned earlier), since members of the upper class were defined generally as royalty, or people who did not do work with their hands
4. Ability to practice their own religion

WASPS had the power in the new land. WASPS were so fearful of losing their majority, that they began to pass laws to retain their status (such as Sedition Acts of 1798, Naturalization Act, Alien Enemies & Friends Act). They were not the only group who came during the Formulative wave. There was also the Germans, Dutch & Quakers in Pennsylvania area, the Spanish & North Italians in Florida/California area, and the Africans in the southern colonies. So they had to do something to keep their status. Some of the more radical things they did included requiring people to be Protestant to live in State, and requiring you to pay taxes to the church even if you were of different religion. So there was this inherent English-American Protestant dominance in the new land, which can be reflected in the language (English only laws at the time), Religion, Education, political & legal institions (English common law - WASPS called it a president, British called it King/Queen), and their economic institutions (since we adopted capitalism)

In fact, even today 90% of wealth in US is controlled by 10% of the population, of which 99.9% is WASP. That's what she (my professor) said. I beg to differ on the 99.9%, but I agree it is a majority WASP

My intention was for others to join in the conversation (not argument), posting any relevant information they may know of. If you feel something is wrong, please say so without offending other people
 
D

dopestats

Active Member
Johnnyorganic said:
One key distinction between English slavery and African Slavery: England abolished slavery in the early-to-mid 19th century. Conversely, slavery is still tolerated on the African Continent.
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This is more of a difference between the English & Africans, not their systems of slavery
 
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serendipitysearching

Member
Are you attending a liberal arts school? From the title of the course and the notes you wrote, I would be highly skeptical as to whether or not your professor has an agenda. The amount of white guilt in most colleges and universities is so pervasive and intrinsic within the teaching circles, that one hardly realizes that the very experts maybe jaded by their own predilections. You are aware that there are more slaves today in the good old 21st century than in any of the era's you mention. I would love to see a course entitled "Civil Society vs. Uncivil Society" because that's essentially what it boils down to or, "Why western values are superior to the rest of the world." I highly doubt that your professor or any of their ilk would approve of such courses because it clashes with their fragile world view. Bottom line is that the west abandoned slavery while the practice is ubiquitous in Africa still to this day, unfortunately.
 
Johnnyorganic

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
TrynaGroSumShyt said:
if u ever been to prison.. and worked an industry.. u'd know its slavery ..
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I might agree with prison, but prisoners voluntarily surrender their rights when they commit the crime - and they get paid.

But industry? Poppycock.

You can walk away anytime you wish.

But this is all academic unless we are talking about British prisons or African industry (LOL!).
 
D

dopestats

Active Member
serendipitysearching said:
You are aware that there are more slaves today in the good old 21st century than in any of the era's you mention.
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To be honest, I am learning about this here. In my major (Computer Science) we basically have no lives. Being drained from all the programming, parallelism, algorithms, and math, I unfortunately have not taken a lot of courses like this one. Perhaps that's why I am so interested.

serendipitysearching said:
I would love to see a course entitled "Civil Society vs. Uncivil Society" because that's essentially what it boils down to or, "Why western values are superior to the rest of the world." I highly doubt that your professor or any of their ilk would approve of such courses because it clashes with their fragile world view. Bottom line is that the west abandoned slavery while the practice is ubiquitous in Africa still to this day, unfortunately.
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I agree with you on this. My professor continues to point out majority and minority groups in the United States. She has talked about how the majority groups often have more power to change people's lives drastically. These are the people at the top of the social ladder. In her defense, I will give some background info on the terms in the class:

race - the assumption of differences based on real or imagined physical characteristics
racism - taking the assumption, and believe someone is inferior/superior because of those attributes

She gave a pretty good example -- Say you go to a party with some friends. The first thing the girls will probably do when they enter the room is check out the guys and which ones they think are cute, which to stay away from, etc. The guys would do something similar to the people in the room. Now, take the same room a few hours later. You've had a couple of drinks and talked to some people. Now that guy you thought was cute originally turns out to be a complete idiot, or the people you stayed away from initially turned out to have great personalities... And so your social hierarchy has changed drastically

Back to the discussion, western values were not always superior (if this is what we assume). Her argument i guess, is that WASPS took a hold of and still maintain power today, though things have drastically changed. For example, today we have our first black president. We also just recently got our first Hispanic associated justice of the supreme court (Sotomayor). As for the rest of the elected officials, the majority are WASP. There's also the citizenship test, which today can actually be taken in ANY language if you simply request it (as opposed to the english-only way of the past). Even still there remains a majority of WASP ideals in our country -- in political/economic institutions and our education system. Why do you think we are required to take an English class every year in high school? Or history/civics classes for that matter (besides the obvious reasons)

But I would definitely agree that she thinks Western values are superior. I don't agree that she backs this ideology though. She often stresses how Hispanic is not even an ethnicity, it was just made up by WASPS, who at one point had Jew as one of the choices on the census.. And going back to slavery, the wasps thought because they were civilized and the West Africans were so different in their cultures (ie - woman equal), they could just treat black people as not even lower class, instead just animals. They often tried to use "science" to promote this idea. Notices the quotes
 
D

dopestats

Active Member
Johnnyorganic said:
I might agree with prison, but prisoners voluntarily surrender their rights when they commit the crime - and they get paid.

But industry? Poppycock.

You can walk away anytime you wish.
.
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ditto. Capitalism is the engine that drives the boat in industry. At least in the US it does
 
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serendipitysearching

Member
Sounds like Sociology 101. As to why students are required to take English, could it have anything to do with living in a literate society? And to have a career debating whether Hispanic is an ethnicity is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. This might be a good diversion for you, but sounds like you need to keep geeking out in your computer classes because you are learning something infinitely more valuable than the drivel in this class.
 
S

serendipitysearching

Member
Johnny O, If you're still reading this thread, hit me up in email as I don't have your contact info anymore. You told me to join this site at work about 8 months ago. I'm not too far away and will be visiting your area (home) within a few weeks - John H
 
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