The other color of slavery
31/10/16 10:43![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsYou see, Iceland abolished slavery as early as the 12th century. Ironically, thousands of Icelanders became part of the huge wave of Europeans who were enslaved by Muslim pirates in the centuries that followed.
The Arabs of the Middle Ages were a main force in the early use of slaves from Africa, long before the European imperialists ever thought of doing it. However, little has been written and said about white slavery, whether it was a result of the slave trade by the Golden Horde in the lands that later became Russia, or the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who were kidnapped from their homes by Arab pirates (the Maghreb used to be called the Barbary Coast back then). Only in recent times have some historians started to bring this issue into the light.
In order to have the full context of African slavery in the New World, we'd have to first understand the millennium of warfare between Christians and Muslims that engulfed the entire Mediterranean and much of the European section of the Atlantic, and the piracy, looting and kidnapping that took place. In 1627 pirates from the Barbary Coast raided a place as distant as Iceland, enslaving several hundred shocked residents. At the time, Muslim pirates had long been carrying out raids along the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian coasts, reaching even Ireland, capturing thousands of people from those lands. There were many more English slaves in Muslim North Africa at the time than African slaves under English control in the Caribbean. Indeed, a British parliamentary proclamation estimated that the Barbary states held 1,500 English slaves, mostly sailors captured at sea.
Millions of European Christians were enslaved by Muslims from North Africa in the 16th to 18th century, and the numbers far exceed previous estimates. One Prof. Robert Davis, in his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters estimated that between 1.0 and 1.2 million Europeans were enslaved in the period.
It's curious that much of the public, including scholars, have tended to take it as a given that slavery was always racial in nature, whites enslaving blacks. Turns out this couldn't be any further from the truth. The thing is, the systematic enslavement of Europeans doesn't quite fit into the general narrative of our time, and the story of the European world conquest and colonialism that's central to scholarship of the modern era. In fact, many of the countries that fell victim to Barbary enslavement (France and Spain most prominently) would later go on and colonize the very areas of North Africa that generated those slavers. Hence their picturing as evil colonizers (which they were), without the context of prior times that may've largely contributed and/or led to that.
Given the data, even by most conservative estimates, at least 1 million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims from North Africa during that period. Enslavement was a very real threat, and part of everyday life for anyone who lived anywhere near the Mediterranean coastline. In fact, entire regions of Italy, France, Spain and Portugal were almost completely depopulated for some periods in the 16th and 17th century because of that threat. Places as far north as England, Ireland and even Iceland also suffered from this - and that, at a time when trans-Atlantic slavery was still in its infancy.
The slave trade allowed cities on the Barbary Coast in North Africa to thrive - cities like Tunis and Algiers became huge centers because of this, and piracy provided income for significant portions of the local population. Meanwhile, the impact of these raids on Europe was devastating. France, England and Spain each lost thousands of ships, long stretches of coast land remained empty and abandoned despite being fertile, and the whole thing hugely suffocated European economies. At its peak, the destruction became so severe that it paled what the European slavers would later inflict on the African interior.
Those times were largely forgotten in the centuries that followed, especially in the 20th century when European colonialism collapsed, slavery was abolished, and racial discrimination became one of the greatest sins. In result, the public lost insight in the greater context of the history of slavery, and started almost automatically associating slavery with European colonialism, losing sense of how large enslavement could loom for those who live under the threat of control from more powerful neighbors. Even though slavery persists even nowadays in many forms and places. Slaves are still slaves, whether they're black or white, and whether they suffer in America, Europe, or North Africa.
The Arabs of the Middle Ages were a main force in the early use of slaves from Africa, long before the European imperialists ever thought of doing it. However, little has been written and said about white slavery, whether it was a result of the slave trade by the Golden Horde in the lands that later became Russia, or the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who were kidnapped from their homes by Arab pirates (the Maghreb used to be called the Barbary Coast back then). Only in recent times have some historians started to bring this issue into the light.
In order to have the full context of African slavery in the New World, we'd have to first understand the millennium of warfare between Christians and Muslims that engulfed the entire Mediterranean and much of the European section of the Atlantic, and the piracy, looting and kidnapping that took place. In 1627 pirates from the Barbary Coast raided a place as distant as Iceland, enslaving several hundred shocked residents. At the time, Muslim pirates had long been carrying out raids along the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian coasts, reaching even Ireland, capturing thousands of people from those lands. There were many more English slaves in Muslim North Africa at the time than African slaves under English control in the Caribbean. Indeed, a British parliamentary proclamation estimated that the Barbary states held 1,500 English slaves, mostly sailors captured at sea.
Millions of European Christians were enslaved by Muslims from North Africa in the 16th to 18th century, and the numbers far exceed previous estimates. One Prof. Robert Davis, in his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters estimated that between 1.0 and 1.2 million Europeans were enslaved in the period.
It's curious that much of the public, including scholars, have tended to take it as a given that slavery was always racial in nature, whites enslaving blacks. Turns out this couldn't be any further from the truth. The thing is, the systematic enslavement of Europeans doesn't quite fit into the general narrative of our time, and the story of the European world conquest and colonialism that's central to scholarship of the modern era. In fact, many of the countries that fell victim to Barbary enslavement (France and Spain most prominently) would later go on and colonize the very areas of North Africa that generated those slavers. Hence their picturing as evil colonizers (which they were), without the context of prior times that may've largely contributed and/or led to that.
Given the data, even by most conservative estimates, at least 1 million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims from North Africa during that period. Enslavement was a very real threat, and part of everyday life for anyone who lived anywhere near the Mediterranean coastline. In fact, entire regions of Italy, France, Spain and Portugal were almost completely depopulated for some periods in the 16th and 17th century because of that threat. Places as far north as England, Ireland and even Iceland also suffered from this - and that, at a time when trans-Atlantic slavery was still in its infancy.
The slave trade allowed cities on the Barbary Coast in North Africa to thrive - cities like Tunis and Algiers became huge centers because of this, and piracy provided income for significant portions of the local population. Meanwhile, the impact of these raids on Europe was devastating. France, England and Spain each lost thousands of ships, long stretches of coast land remained empty and abandoned despite being fertile, and the whole thing hugely suffocated European economies. At its peak, the destruction became so severe that it paled what the European slavers would later inflict on the African interior.
Those times were largely forgotten in the centuries that followed, especially in the 20th century when European colonialism collapsed, slavery was abolished, and racial discrimination became one of the greatest sins. In result, the public lost insight in the greater context of the history of slavery, and started almost automatically associating slavery with European colonialism, losing sense of how large enslavement could loom for those who live under the threat of control from more powerful neighbors. Even though slavery persists even nowadays in many forms and places. Slaves are still slaves, whether they're black or white, and whether they suffer in America, Europe, or North Africa.
(no subject)
Date: 31/10/16 08:47 (UTC)By the way, my ancestors and yours, the Vikings were very good at enslaving people from the coastal areas of Europe as well.
Bottom-line: slavery knows no colour. It's all about power and profit.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/16 02:24 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/16 11:14 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/16 15:22 (UTC)How would the history of slavery you've cited here alter this?
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/16 18:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/16 22:11 (UTC)Well in the United States it most certainly was about race, so much so that even well-off and famous black men -- like Alexandre Dumas -- hesitated about coming here for fear of being enslaved. The "natural inferiority" of the black man to the white man and slavery as his "natural condition" was considered the cornerstone of the confederacy. I don't really see what dimension talking about the Muslim enslavement of Christians would add to a discussion of American slavery and the damage that "peculiar institution" left in its wake.
The only way it would be relevant would be if someone claimed slavery in general were a unique sin of whites against blacks, and I have not encountered that in many (or in fact any) conversations about slavery as a practice.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 07:10 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 09:54 (UTC)The problem with the US is that its vast cultural hegemony, which stems from its domination of world media and its economic expansiveness, means it exports its opinions to the rest of the world, especially the English logosphere.
Britain was less racist than almost all of it's European neighbours. The post-Darwin second half of the 19th Century and the development of eugenics changed that for a time, but nevertheless, the UK had a tradition of accepting folk of all nations, and being dirty mongrel Brits and given half a chance, shagging them or being shagged by them. We always had our racists though, just they were understood to be ungenerous, unchristian (at the time), and unconcerned with justice and rightness.
However, US imports don't only include Harley Davidsons. Over here both black folk and white folk, Americanised by television, the internet, and social media, have become far less accepting of difference, and toleration is an alien old-fashioned word. And no-one cares about the morality of their position or prejudices.
And after the Anglosphere, then Africa, and bits of Europe. Cultural colonialisation has been the US's major export since WWII.
They sell their racism to us along with their love of guns. And the American narrative dominates the world, and will for another decade or two.
America's experience of race may not be universal, but they will bloody well make sure it becomes so.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 11:16 (UTC)America's experience of race may be an important part of the global discourse on the issue, but it is not the entire, not even necessarily the central standpoint on the issue. That's the impression that I've been getting from most US interlocutors: they almost invariably seem to come from the notion that the US perspective is the only one that matters in the world - which couldn't be any further away from the truth.
This post is not about the US.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 11:55 (UTC)Slavery still exists and needs eradicating completely and utterly. Whether it is the enslaved working girls paying off unimaginable people-smuggling debts in major Western metropolises, or the indentured-servant-with-passport-removed-by-employer of a privileged Middle-Eastern Royal.
These outrages are still waiting be abolished. Traditional slavery still exists in some areas in Africa. It has to stop.
http://www.antislavery.org/english/who_we_are/ (http://www.antislavery.org/english/who_we_are/)
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 15:32 (UTC)The fact is, 21st century slavery is markedly different from the form it took centuries ago, when the emphasis tended to be on buying and selling individual slaves. Today slavery tends to involve buying large lots of human beings, working them to death or disability in mines or factories, discarding them, and buying up another lot. Do you see a rise in religious-based slavery? Are slave raids akin to what happened centuries ago taking place?
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 17:55 (UTC)I already did say slavery isn't about race (or religion). This is starting to smell of a trap question.
Deep down, the core essence of slavery hasn't changed, even if 21st century slavery is different from 16th century slavery. It's about power and privilege, and control. Slavery could take many forms. One could argue that entire countries are essentially slaves to others - but that's an even broader topic.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 18:17 (UTC)You seem to feel this early history of slavery is relevant. I'm not convinced it is in modern discussions of slavery unless it's a debate between historians about the history of slavery.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 18:35 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 19:52 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/11/16 22:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 06:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 15:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 16:29 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 16:49 (UTC)No, I don't think they just sprang out of nowhere. Nothing iin today's world did.
American slavery, for instance, orginally included the indentured servitude of white convicts. That does not make, however, the indentured servitude of whites relevant in a discussion of American slavery and how its legacy has affected 21st century African Americans. In the same way, I don't see how the 17th century Muslim enslavement of Christians is relevant in a discussion of modern slavery, unless someone is making an argument based on the assumption this never happened.
(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 18:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 18:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 19:27 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 20:53 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/11/16 07:11 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/11/16 15:17 (UTC)The fact that history is a continuum does not make every fact of history several centuries ago relevant when you are talking about current events. I've already explained why.
(no subject)
Date: 4/11/16 21:04 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/11/16 21:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 08:10 (UTC)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafala_system
(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 08:35 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3/11/16 15:59 (UTC)