InfamousOne said:
Gohan: Read a history book.
Now, now, let us not make assumptions. I've read into history rather copiously. I have nothing better to do.
The cruelest forms of slavery existed long ago. At that point a slave could be killed or tortured by a master with no repercussions. By the time of the Romans slaves had certain "rights". A slave owner could not kill his slaves, but he could punish them as he saw fit. At times in the past slave owners castrated, mutilated, and murdered thier slaves with impunity. At the time of American slavery Blacks were treated far better then the slaves of previous eras.ÂÂ
Well, it could actually be argued otherwise. Slavery in the caribbean, I know for a fact, was about as bad as any other type of slavery known to have existed. There have been documented cases of slave murder-while en route to the west, slaves could often be tossed overboard to save weight without repercussions, and when they go to the islands they could be worked to death quite easily-the life expectancies for caribbean slaves were, if I recall corectly, even a bit lower than those in America. Stories persist of carribean masters burying their slaves up to their heads, pouring honey onto them, and then leaving them to be devoured by ants(and in Jamaica, those bite pretty hard, trust me).
Carribean planters had intense debates about which doctrine to adhere to: should they work their slaves harder for maximum productivity while sacrificing longevity, or keep them around longer and take slightly lower production numbers?
Ultimately, the former strategy won out. In any case, it is most definitely a stretch to some how imply that castration, and mutilation(and the like) were somehow absent when it came to the Atlantic trade, and that the Atlantic trade was somehow "better".
False accusations about lack of hardships aside, the fact remains that Atlantic slaves were one of the very few types of slaves who had no way out. That was not true among Germanic tribesmen, Muslims, Africans, the Irish, and the Romans. Marriage and religion could act as segues into freedom.
Such was not the case with Atlantic slavery. This is a key difference we should be careful not to forget. It is what helped to make the Atlantic trade such a big deal.
My Germanic ancestors experienced the same enslavement and suffering from the Romans that the Africans did from America.
...But they had a way out. And in many cases, intermarriage became common. Germanic people became a major contributring portion of Roman society, because eventually they were allowed to.
That didn't happen with African-Atlantic slavery, so that is a false comparison.
You can more accurately compare Germanic-Roman slavery with the slavery among indigenous Africans, muslims, and other european groups.
You don't see me picketing in Rome, demanding concessions from Italians, because they enslaved my Germanic ancestors hundreds of years ago.
I'm not trying to justify the victimist mentality-I disagree with it about as much as you do.
However, at the same time, I must be objective in my historical analysis, and in doing so I'm afraid I will have to conclude that when we speak about slavery over time and its different forms, the Atlantic trade was a whole new animal.
Why was it so different between every one else and blacks? The difference was that we freed blacks and let them attempt to live as free men in this country.
The difference comes long before that, as i already pointed out.
As for freedom...well, I suppose you could say that, although this freedom was really wuite restricted until the mid 20th century.