After listening to the Parliamentary proceedings o reparations today I am made aware that so few truly understand slavery, NOR speak accurately on its history. Slavery continues TODAY in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Yet NOBODY is speaking out against it. Slavery was used by blacks and whites long before the Atlantic Slave Trade. We do not seek justice we seek financial gain NOT right actions, when we seek to collect money and yet not speak out against ALL responsible for these actions. Including Africa ! ~~African participation in the slave trade.~~ African states played a role in the slave trade. Slavery was a common practice among Africans. There were three types: those who were slaves through conquest, those who were slaves due to unpaid debts or those whose parents gave them as slaves to tribal chiefs. Chieftains would barter their slaves to European buyers for rum, spices, cloth or other goods. Selling captives or prisoners was common practice among Africans and Arabs during that era. However, as the Atlantic slave trade increased its demand, local systems which primarily serviced indentured servitude became corrupted and started to supply the European slave traders, changing social dynamics. It also ultimately undermined local economies and political stability as villages vital labor forces were shipped overseas as slave raids and civil wars became commonplace. Crimes which were previously punishable by some other punishment became punishable by enslavement. The prisoners and captives that were sold were usually from neighboring or enemy ethnic groups. These captive slaves were not considered as part of the ethnic group or tribe and kings did not have a particular loyalty to them. At times, kings and chiefs would sell criminals into slavery so that they could no longer commit crimes in that area. Most other slaves were obtained from kidnappings, or through raids that occurred at gunpoint working together with Europeans. Some African kings refused to sell any of their captives or criminals. King Jaja of Opobo, a former slave himself, completely refused to do business with slavers Ashanti King Agyeman Prempeh (Ashanti king, b. 1872) also sacrificed his own freedom so that his people would not face collective slavery. The inspection and sale of a slave Before the arrival of the Portuguese, slavery had already existed in Kingdom of Kongo. Despite its establishment within his kingdom, Afonso I of Kongo believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally enslaved persons to sell, he wrote letters to the King João III of Portugal in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise would have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africas principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples. Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A familys status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africas west coast, particularly the French. Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benins shore soon came to be known as the Slave Coast. In the 1840s, King Gezo of Dahomey said: The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery… 200th anniversary of the British act of parliament abolishing slave trading, commemorated on a British two pound coin. In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Bill that abolished the trading of slaves. The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice: We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself. Some historians conclude that the total loss in persons removed, those who died on the arduous march to coastal slave marts and those killed in slave raids, far exceeded the 65–75 million inhabitants remaining in Sub-Saharan Africa at the trades end.[citation needed] Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas (cassava, maize) would have limited general population decline to particular regions of western Africa around 1760–1810, and in Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa, females were most often captured as brides, with their male protectors being a bycatch who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them. Scottish explorer Mungo Park encountered a group of slaves when traveling through Mandinka country: They were all very inquisitive, but they viewed me at first with looks of horror, and repeatedly asked if my countrymen were cannibals. They were very desirous to know what became of the slaves after they had crossed the salt water. I told them that they were employed in cultivation the land; but they would not believe me ... A deeply-rooted idea that the whites purchase negroes for the purpose of devouring them, or of selling them to others that they may be devoured hereafter, naturally makes the slaves contemplate a journey towards the coast with great terror, insomuch that the slatees are forced to keep them constantly in irons, and watch them very closely, to prevent their escape. During the period from late 19th century and early 20th century, demand for the labor-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and forced labor. The personal monarchy of Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo Free State saw mass killings and slavery to extract rubber. ~~The History of slavery: The history of slavery traces the history of the slave trade from ancient times to the present. Slavery was a legally recognized system in which people were legally considered the property or chattel of another
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:19:38 +0000
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