Slavery Was a Global Phenomenon

American slavery was horrible—and far from unique.

Today people are taught, when it comes to slavery, America was the worst.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D–Va.) actually said, "The United States didn't inherit slavery from anybody; we created it."

An MSNBC "expert" claims "American slavery was worse because slaves were treated as property."

"That's complete nonsense," replies political science professor Wilfred Reilly in my new video. "Generational slavery, [where] if you're the son of a slave, you're a slave…that was extraordinarily common."

Reilly's new book, Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me, rebuts anti-American propaganda that dominates many American schoolbooks today.

Partly thanks to The New York Times' 1619 Project, students are taught that "America's slavery [was] unlike anything that had existed before."

"There's nothing wrong with acknowledging your historical mistakes," Reilly responds. "I'm black, Irish, a bit Native American….Those are three peoples who have experienced a great deal historically. Nothing wrong with acknowledging that. But it's extremely odd to focus only on the negatives of your society. And to exaggerate those!"

Kids are now taught that slavers bought people in Africa and shipped them to the United States. Few are taught that most were shipped elsewhere.

"Between 10.7 million and 12 million slaves from Africa went to the New World—we got a little under 400,000," says Reilly. That's less than 4 percent.

"The extreme focus on slavery in the United States, why did that happen?" asks Reilly. "One reason is that a lot of black people survived here. Slavery was harsh, but a lot less harsh than clearing the Brazilian jungle."

"But American blacks are at a disadvantage," I push back. "They have less capital, financial and educational capital. What's the harm in pointing out how abusive white people were?"

"The harm," he replies, "is that pointing out how abusive white people were is not going to get black Americans any more capital. Most problems in the modern black community don't have anything to do with historical ethnic conflict 160 years ago."

Reilly says today's problems began when government welfare began.

"Crime in the black community," he says, "increased about 800 percent between [around] 1963 and 1993. Racism didn't increase between 1960 and the modern era. You're looking at the impacts of the Great Society, the welfare programs."

It's better to teach the truth, says Reilly—almost every society had slavery.

"The Arabs were history's premier slave traders. Muslims took so many blonde slaves out of the [Slavic] region, they gave the world the name 'Slav,' [for] 'slave,' to the global slave population."

Arabs captured and enslaved more than a million Europeans.

Years later, the first people who seriously tried to abolish slavery were white Westerners: The British and then Americans. They called slavery immoral.

"Yeah, the British Navy," Reilly explains, "in a story almost no one now knows, sank 1,600 slave ships. They freed 150,000 people that were enslaved at the time."

By contrast, Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1962. And even now, the Global Slavery Index estimates that there are still 700,000 slaves in Saudi Arabia.

"Where there were no westerners," Reilly notes, "you'd have a lot of slavery for a long time."

American slavery was horrible. But it wasn't unique. And we didn't "create it." Our culture would be healthier if we learned about that.

Schools dwelling on early America's evils hasn't helped Americans get over them.

Gallup polls show that since schools started focusing on racism, race relations got worse.

"The idea of generational slavery, the idea of slave trading," Reilly says, "none of that was unique to America. You don't need radicalism to critique the worst excess of an existing system. All you need is incrementalism and honesty."

Next week, I'll report on another myth: the claim that, before Christopher Columbus, the natives were "kind stewards of the environment."

Kids believe it. After all, it's what Disney movies teach.

But that's not true either.

COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Comments

[Rick James]

The fact that we still have to make this case in 2024 is proof about the sad state of our country and education system.

[Mike Parsons]

It failed as an education system, but enjoyed massive success as an indoctrination system

[Overt]

I have heard my kids regurgitate this nonsense to me constantly- “Oh but the US was the first Chattel Slavery nation!” As I talked with them about it, you can tell all the mental gymnastics people have gone through to distinguish american slavery as something different- “It’s the only slavery system where slaves were bought under a lunar waning gibbus while tides were rolling out.”

There was nothing uniquely evil about US Slavery. It was an evil practice ubiquitous to human existence for time immemorial. What is unique is that we were willing to fight a civil war costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of free men to end it. That isn’t to diminish the moral clarity and sacrifices of the British in their crusade against slavery, but it is something wholly unique about our nation.

[Mickey Rat]

The only thing uniquely evil about American slavery is that it existed in tension with our revolutionary ideals about liberty and universal rights. Ideals previous societies did not tend to espouse, so slavery was not so contradictory.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Ideals previous societies did not tend to espouse,

How many societies prior to the US had a written Constitution?

[n00bdragon]

Well, the Magna Carta had been around for 500 years at that point. It depends on what you consider to be a "constitution". The Code of Hammurabi has been gracing the deserts of Syria for almost 4000 years. While calling the document a "constitution" started with the United States, the idea of writing down the rules of how government works in a semi permanent fashion is pretty old and widespread.

[Jim Logajan]

A constitution generally defines the scope and limits of the government, while the government laws define the scope and limits of personal actions. The Magna Carta and the U.S. constitution are similar in dictating limits of power, but as I understand it the Code of Hammurabi (and later on the Ten Commandments) define the scope and limits of personal actions. Hammurabi, the Hebrew and Christian gods, and most royalty weren't constrained to act within any written code.

[Ajsloss]

“It’s the only slavery system where slaves were bought under a lunar waning gibbus while tides were rolling out.”

Still true.

[A Thinking Mind]

"It's the first time slavery was uniquely applied to an ethnic group," is one I've often heard. Or that it was uniquely about race.

But then, let me tell you about Sparta and helots, thousands upon thousands of years earlier.

[Zeb]

And I'm pretty sure the people in Africa (who were also black Africans) who captured the slaves were pretty selective about which ethnic groups became slaves.

[Overt]

Right, that is what I mean about focusing on differences without significance.

This distinction only exists if you define ethnicity and race in a specific way. Ways that are actually quite insulting to the history of blacks.

The fact is that the colonies imported many different ethnicities of Africans and kept them as slaves. They later justified this practice by insisting that being black made you somehow inferior. But this wasn't terribly different from countless other civilizations- including the arabs and greeks- who made all sorts of justifications of why they were fit to rule over an inferior slave caste of some manner.

Rendering inferiority down to the color of ones' skin may have been unique for the US, and it definitely caused problems for the future, but it wasn't some unique intractable evil.

[A Thinking Mind]

Rendering inferiority down to the color of ones’ skin may have been unique for the US, and it definitely caused problems for the future, but it wasn’t some unique intractable evil.

That much still isn’t even true, though. Austrians and Germans going back to the middle ages were always convinced of the inferiority of the Slavs and Turks in ways that could be defined by facial features and skin color. The same of Italians over Moors and Bedouins, or Turks and Armenians, or Mongols and Tatars. Nothing about it is uniquely American.

The worst argument I ever heard was that guy who wrote a guest column for Reason about how race was invented in America. The man had a fucking PhD in history and somehow had the gall to make that claim. The truth is that the word “race” used to have a lot more general usage, but there was a shift in usage that made it more narrow starting in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, applying more to the difference between black and white skin tones.

It’s a gross example of American exceptionalism to claim we somehow invented a concept that definitely pre-existed the usage of that specific term in that specific manner. But it’s what highly educated people have the audacity to claim, when even someone who merely studies history as a hobby, rather than a profession, can easily disprove it. We’ve gone so horribly wrong.

[A Thinking Mind]

https://reason.com/2020/05/31/i-got-tear-gassed-at-baltimores-city-hall/

The link to the story where a guy claimed that "race" was invented in America, in case people have forgotten how shitty this publication is.

[Overt]

Yeah I am in agreement, and perhaps I was hasty in my generalization. My point was that by justifying slavery on racial lines, the US has some unique problems as it tries to incorporate those freed slaves into the country. To my knowledge, the US was the only country with racially-based slavery that didn't expel its slaves, and instead made them full citizens. This creates unique problems we need to grapple with.

Nevertheless, the marxist attempt to cast all of slavery about race is wrong. Even in the south, it was recognized that you could be Black and free. From the founding of the colonies up through the civil war, it was a fact of life that people of the "black race" could be both freemen and slaves, which is why I note that their attempt to make this solely about race is a meaningless distinction.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

“It’s the first time slavery was uniquely applied to an ethnic group,” is one I’ve often heard. Or that it was uniquely about race.

A shocking display of ignorance when the most widely read book in all of history documents multiple ethnic enslavements of groups far larger than the groups of Africans sent to America.

Slavery has been and always will be the prerogative of any group that holds military or numerical superiority over another. The Soviets, the 3rd Reich, the Japanese Empire, the PRC, the Khmer Rouge, they all instituted forced labor among ethnic groups under their control. How do they classify what is still happening to the Uighur as I write this?

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

They are in fun summer camps

[mad.casual]

Half or more of our country and education system needs it to be this way. Otherwise, when you look at a tax burden unable to be resolved within a generation, it looks an awful lot like the creeping, insidious underpinnings of generational slavery.

As long as slavery remains something white people did to black people, you don't have to worry about evil, populist slaves uprisings and casting off the shackles of their elite oppressors. They're too busy burning down black-owned businesses and chasing black police chiefs out of town in order to protest whitey.

[mad.casual]

I hear that sex trafficking doesn't and may never have existed and that work as a concubine is the same as regular work.

To say nothing about how, with the whole "Gender is a social construct; and I'm totally not just saying this overtly to disrupt some of the most equitable and harmonious social norms the world has ever known." narrative, details like "In 2023, UNFPA estimated that nearly 4.3 million girls were at risk of female genital mutilation that year, up from 4.1 million girls in 2019." get omitted.

[mad.casual]

details like “In 2023, UNFPA estimated that nearly 4.3 million girls were at risk of female genital mutilation that year, up from 4.1 million girls in 2019.” get omitted.

I mean, sure, more girls have their genitals forcibly mutilated, if not their bodies sterilized or lives lost, in some of the most ancient, backwards, destructive, and barbaric practices human kind has ever known but at least women’s rights in this country have progressed to the point that Pete Buttigieg gets to take a bunch of endearing family photos with his partner on their paternity leave and Lia Thomas can compete, in and out of the women's locker room, as his true self.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

If you don't need ovaries to be a woman, why would you need a clitoris?

[A Thinking Mind]

Breaking News!

[Mickey Rat]

Muslim countries also took a lot of Sub-Saharan African slaves. They di not develop a substantial black population in their societies because they had a policy of castrating black male slaves.

[Chipper Chunked Chile Con Congress (ex NCW)]

America came up with Planned Parenthood, instead.

[Longtobefree]

I notice that when the talk turns to reparations for slavery, no one mentions Egypt will owe Israel for 400 years worth.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

If only this perspective were picked up by some oft quoted legacy publication with a significant subscription.

That will never happen, of course.

[Spiritus Mundi]

I am Spartacus!

[MWAocdoc]

In culture wars truth is the first casualty.

[swillfredo pareto]

What's the harm in pointing out how abusive white people were?

In the first place, it ignores the other races active in the chattel slavery supply chain. But the real harm is using the state to punish people who share a superficial attribute of skin tone and were not abusive, and reward people who share a superficial attribute of skin tone and were not abused. It's the antithesis of equal protection and it is immortal.

[Zeb]

And that should be the end of it. Even if it were true that slavery in the US was somehow uniquely horrible, it's over and no one alive today bears any moral responsibility for it. Reparations would only punish innocent people and wouldn't make anything better long term.

[Rick James]

Michael Malice goes beastmode on Kamala.

"Criticizing Harris is racist, sexist and ableist."

"Ableist?"

"Yeah, she's a retard."

[Don't look at me!]

*joan rivers voice*. Oh, it’s true, it’s true!

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Wilfred Reilly and John Stossel are weird!

[Quo Usque Tandem]

That you, M4E?

[JohnStossel]

I am, at least.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Slavery was not unique to America, no. However, different places and different peoples had different rationales for why they practiced slavery.

In ancient times, slavery was simply just a part of war and conquest. It is what happened to the losing side. There wasn't a racial element to it per se - didn't matter if the losing team was white or black or brown, if they lost, they became slaves.

Aristotle thought slaves were just naturally born that way, they didn't have a "soul" that was conducive to freedom. Again, no racial component per se.

Arabs/Muslims justified slavery as 'benevolent' in that it was a way for non-Muslims to be converted and 'saved' by Allah, even if coercively. Not necessarily racist, but definitely theocratic.

It was modern Western concepts of slavery that brought a racial element to it - the blacks were inferior therefore their slavery was justified. That was the difference.

[Rick James]

It was modern Western concepts of slavery that brought a racial element to it – the blacks were inferior therefore their slavery was justified. That was the difference.

That is correct, and that was almost entirely because of Darwinism. Scientific knowledge in the realm of evolution was informing many and various ways of thinking, and right along side it, Darwinism was used to justify racialization of slavery, castration and abortion of undesirables and general eugenics.

Racialized slavery was an outgrowth of progressive politics and “trusting the science”.

Darwinism itself was not an evil, but it was used as a justification to see the world in the way that it increasingly was seeing in the 18th and 19th century. The practice in the west was entirely stopped by Christians. Slavery continued and continues in the rest of the world– the Ottoman empire being one of the largest slave empires in human history.

Arabs/Muslims justified slavery as ‘benevolent’ in that it was a way for non-Muslims to be converted and ‘saved’ by Allah, even if coercively. Not necessarily racist, but definitely theocratic.

Arabs castrated their slaves.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

It’s a little more complicated than that.

The defense of slavery on racial grounds was occurring even before Darwin and progressivism.

Jefferson himself, even though he was against the slave trade, believed that blacks were inferior. So did Lincoln, for that matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_State_of_Virginia

Moreover, many Southerners justified slavery on Biblical grounds, most notably a corruption of the “Curse of Ham”: in the corrupted version of the story, Noah cursed Ham and turned his skin black, and Ham’s descendants became the black Africans destined to become slaves due to the curse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

Moreover, the abolitionists were the "progressives" of their day, compared to the southern plantation owners who were the "conservatives" defending the status quo.

[Rick James]

Jefferson himself, even though he was against the slave trade, believed that blacks were inferior. So did Lincoln, for that matter.

That is because the twinklings of "darwinism" and "evolution" had already been percolating for over a century prior.

"Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) proposed his theory of the transmutation of species, the first fully formed theory of evolution."

Darwin was the first scientist to produce a well-described theory that we now consider the modern theory of evolution. But other scientists and natural philosophers had been on that beat for quite some time-- mainly because the enlightenment was starting to challenge the older ideas of "essentialism".

And again, the idea of the superiority or inferiority of species with the human realm was an area of serious scientific thought. It was not seen at the time as an 'evil' (defined as a bunch of people rubbing their hands together and twirling their mustaches, knowing that what they were doing was sinister but doing it anyway), it was a hotly debated topic within scientific circles.

Moreover, the abolitionists were the “progressives” of their day, compared to the southern plantation owners who were the “conservatives” defending the status quo.

Indeed they were. The abolitionists were from a particularly protestant Christian tradition was which seen as a very progressive way of looking at the world- which differed markedly from Catholicism or Islam.

[Arn1]

Lamarckism and Darwinism are not the same thing, and neither had anything to do with the racial element of black slavery (because of how time works).

Are you a creationist?

[Rick James]

Who said they were "the same". Lamarckism was and early theory of evolution which, over time was worked out in the modern iteration we call "Darwinism". That's like saying Blues and Rock are two different forms of music and therefore have no relation to each other.

And no, I'm an atheist.

[Arn1]

- Usually, the reason Darwinism is accused of justifying racism is due to the centrality of "natural selection" in Darwin's theory, which is not the case in Lamarck's work.
- Lamarck's work on evolution was largely rejected, and its influence on intellectuals of the time was very limited.
- Lamarck's "Zoological Philosophy" was published in 1809; by this point, the justification of the slavery of black people based on their so-called racial inferiority was already several centuries old.

[mad.casual]

the justification of the slavery of black people based on their so-called racial inferiority was already several centuries old.

Do you have a cite for this, retard? And, to be clear, I'm calling you a retard because of your disingenuous 1619-style oxymoron that is laid bare by the question:

Do you have a work of Natural Philosophy or of Scientific Repute or peer review categorically enshrining racial inferiority on par with Lamarck, or are you just taking piecemeal, bullshit observations by British explorers and extrapolating that as some sort of formal social, racial theory that predates Lamarckism?

[Arn1]

– Don’t be rude
– I am not aware of any quote of Lamarck “categorically enshrining racial inferiority”. Could you provide a source?
– In this thread there is already a reference to “Notes on the State of Virginia” by Jefferson (1785), which predates the work of Lamarck on evolution (1800 and after)
– Linnaeus in 1758 divided humanity if four varieties, with black people arguably at the bottom. He had a better “Scientific Repute” than Lamarck and was a creationist (like everybody else at his time)
– Once again you seems to think that Lamarck works on evolution was highly influential but his theory was largely rejected by biologists of his time and mostly ignored by the general public, especially outside of France.

[Rick James]

Deeply racialized slavery rose with the enlightenment, as did the theorie(s) of evolution. It was no accident.

[Arn1]

"Deeply racialized slavery rose with the enlightenment, as did the theorie(s) of evolution. It was no accident."

- The theory of evolution is posterior to the Enlightenment (yes precursors can be found here and there, but this is true since antiquity).
- Racialized slavery is anterior to the Enlightenment.

[mad.casual]

Racialized slavery is anterior to the Enlightenment.

Hey, retard, you know that this is like saying internal combustion is anterior to steam locomotion, right?

GTFO with your dirt-stupid, 1619, revisionist history, anti-Science, asshat sealion bullshit.

[Arn1]

"GTFO with your dirt-stupid, 1619, revisionist history, anti-Science, asshat sealion bullshit." Are you twelve? This is kind of pathetic.

Anyway : is it anti-science to contest the role of Darwinism (and Enlightenment) in the racialized slavery of black people? I would argue that it is kind of the exact contrary.

[Arn1]

Racialized slavery of black people actually started with Muslims.

“Therefore, the black nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because Blacks have little that is essentially human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals”

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)

While slavery in Islam was originally not race based, and Muslims did enslave people of all races, Africa became the first source of slaves and for this reason Arabs start to see black people as particularly suited for slavery and as inferior. To this day the racial slur for black people in Arab means slave. This started almost one millennia before the enlightenment and the theory of evolution.

When European started to import slaves from Africa to the America (the Spanish and Portuguese first) they also rapidly started to see Black people as inferior. By the 16th century this idea was already common, so before the enlightenment (and long before Darwin).

The enlightenment did encouraged people to use more “scientific” arguments to justify black inferiority, but they were used to justify something that at this point was considered common sense.

And once the the idea of evolution by natural selection became accepted it was used to justify racism, but slavery was already on this way out in the western world.

[Arn1]

“That is correct, and that was almost entirely because of Darwinism."
On the Origin of Species was published at the end of 1859, and The Descent of Man in 1871.

[Rick James]

And Henry Ford "invented the automobile".

[Zeb]

I thought the Muslim slavers also took pains to prevent the slaves from converting because you couldn't enslave a fellow Muslim.

[Arn1]

"I thought the Muslim slavers also took pains to prevent the slaves from converting because you couldn’t enslave a fellow Muslim."

Not exactly: you could not (legally) enslave a free Muslim and Muslim leaders did avoid conquering some non-Muslim lands that were a source of slaves for this reason. But a Muslim could be a slave if he or she was born into slavery or was enslaved before conversion.

Since a slave conversion to Islam was not a way to gain freedom those conversions were often encouraged.

[Overt]

This is fundamentally untrue unless you only define “race” by skin tone. Aristotle’s belief that slaves were born that way was racial by its definition. You are the child of these inferior people, therefore you are a slave. Any attempt to distinguish this “birthright slavery” from American slavery of blacks becomes a distinction without a difference. The entire “jewish race” was enslaved under the Pharroes because they were jewish. The Moguls’ slaves were racially motivated- anyone who was not a Mogul was an inferior race that could be pressed into slavery.

Rendering slavery to a “people” does have unique problems that the US has to grapple with- specifically with the followon racial tensions that need to be healed. But it wasn’t unique to the US, and it isn’t any more uniquely evil than nations that enslaved people under different justifications. And that is a case that the marxists in the education system fail to make. And in fact, the focus on race as the problem, rather than slavery as the evil, is the reason that racial relations have started cratering in our youth.

[Rick James]

This is fundamentally untrue unless you only define “race” by skin tone. Aristotle’s belief that slaves were born that way was racial by its definition. You are the child of these inferior people, therefore you are a slave.

Hinduism is on line 2, it wants to talk about "untouchables".

[Overt]

The caste system has its own problems. And at the least, the Hindus still agreed these people were part of their "people"...they just believed some were inferior to others.

But again, there is no need to try and get into this evil pissing match.

The reason marxists in education have attempted to define racial slavery as some sort of unique evil is so that they can tar the entirety of the American system as an evil. The entire premise of the 1619 project was to not just redefine American Slavery as uniquely evil, but to redefine it as Racism, and to re-write the history of the USA as being the systematic development of Racism as a policy.

Instead of a country grappling to live up to its founders' ideals, they attempt to rewrite history as a series of acts to keep the blacks down. The Constitution and Revolution were thus retold as a method for the US to avoid British abolitionists. This view has been soundly rejected by even leftist historians, but even if those little details fall, the marxists still win. Because their purpose is to undermine the entire founding- the entire founding is based on an Original Sin, and unless we completely convert to the marxist class-upheaval, we will never be free of it.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

It was modern Western concepts of slavery that brought a racial element to it – the blacks were inferior therefore their slavery was justified. That was the difference.

Leave it to Jeffy to grossly oversimplify.

"Modern Western concepts of slavery'" is a phrase constructed of profound ignorance. To argue any consensus ever existed on slavery, you have to reconcile millennia of feudalism, treatises on the rights of royalty, and numerous religious edicts. There are centuries of jurisprudence to be considered, something that the founding fathers actually took seriously. All of that also has to be weighed against property rights and an individual's right to contract when considering indentured servitude.

You don't get to blame "the blacks were inferior therefore their slavery was justified" on Western civilization today. Place that where it rightly belongs: trust in experts and scientific consensus at the time. "Because we have the guns and we say so" would have been the only honest way to address it.

[Mickey Rat]

"Arabs/Muslims justified slavery as ‘benevolent’ in that it was a way for non-Muslims to be converted and ‘saved’ by Allah, even if coercively. Not necessarily racist, but definitely theocratic."

And the rationalizations for keeping black African animists as slaves by nations in Christendom were for similarly "benevolent" reasons. By the 16th Century, Christian theology had made enslaving other European Christians unacceptable. Leaving sub-Saharan Africans open to slavery was highly motivated utilitarian thinking with a veneer of theological moral justification for importing a labor force into colonies throughout the Americas, especially ones with sub-tropical to tropical climates.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

'American slavery was horrible. But it wasn't unique. And we didn't "create it." Our culture would be healthier if we learned about that.'

And whitey was not the first slaver in the Americas. Just about every native/indigenous/first nation group included some type of slavery, and many institutionalized human sacrifice.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Don't contradict the Noble Savage fallacy. You will be shamed.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Not another fucking drum circle.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

OK, here's a (semi-)serious question: would you rather be a slave or be dead? In many regions and eras, including North America before and after Columbus, slaves were the losers in battles of conquest. Of course, the other loser option was death. When the hordes came over the ridge and stomped your tribe into submission, which would you choose?

[Idaho-Bob]

Death.

I base my response on the American progressive movement I see unfolding in real time. Options are slavery, imprisonment, or death.

If everything goes as expected, I won’t be going to the clearing at the end of the path alone.

[mad.casual]

I base my response on the American progressive movement I see unfolding in real time. Options are slavery, imprisonment, or death.

I was actually going to say I need more details about "my tribe" and any hordes marching over the hill doing the stomping. More of a Markov Chain-style analysis rather than a one-and-done decision.

If my tribe says "Get vaxxed or die.", I choose death. If the horde marching over the hill is there to obliterate the vaccinated elitists and offer us plebs regular jobs where we don't have to get vaccinated... I'm inclined to at least hear out the entirety of their proposal.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

This comment makes me want to hug you. Is that wrong?

[mtrueman]

"would you rather be a slave or be dead?"

This might be a good question for a job interview. My own version is the question: Which person, living or dead, would you like to meet, and why?
The answer came: The living. Because you can talk to them.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

You are freakishly stupid.

But congrats if you are a deep parody account.

[mtrueman]

Keep reading. I've never asked anything else from you. I'll try to have more freakishly stupid comments for you tomorrow, all things going well. Meanwhile, please have a look at my other contributions. I write about the Jesse James gang, slavery, Haiti, Spartacus, and environmental stewardship. Enjoy, and feel free to add any comments that come to mind.

[Uncle Jay]

I find it fascinating the same liberal vermin indoctrinating our kids about the evils of slavery in the US fail to mention it was the democrats who fought to the death to keep involuntary servitude a way of life.
Gee, I wonder why they don't bring that fact up in our schools today?

[Overt]

That is why the terms "systematic racism" were created. Lots of dead people created this system, and we are just trying to break it down. Anyone defending the system are the real bad guys- not the actual party that built it!

[mtrueman]

"it was the democrats who fought to the death to keep involuntary servitude a way of life."

No, the problem was they were trying to not keep the system, but expand it into newly settled territories. Kansas is probably the best example. The most vicious fighting of the civil war took place in and around Kansas City, replete with mutilations, corpse desecration, scalping, and torture. It's fair to say the Democrats like Jesse James and his crew started it, but Radical Republicans weren't long in following suit.

And it's not schools that treat the James Gang as romantic heroes. That's popular culture in general. Movies, comics, TV, you name it.

[markm23]

It might be more to the point that the Democrats _now_ advocate making all us us slaves of the government - except the elite, from which they try to exclude everyone with diversity of opinion. Worse, there's only one politician I know of that argued in court for keeping prisoners past their release date because the state needed slave labor - and the Democrats nominated her for Vice President in 2020 after she came in last in the primaries, then nominated her for President without any primaries.

[Homple]

American slavery was horrible—and far from unique.

Poor response. The proper answer is "It's been gone for a century and a half so it's time to shut up about it".

[mtrueman]

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

[Diarrheality]

Obviously, given the raft of victims whose grift depends upon it.

[mtrueman]

It's not even past.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Then free your slaves, you idiot.

[mtrueman]

It's not even past. Really.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

Shut up Nazi

[Zeb]

Maybe better to focus on how amazing it was that the US actually ended it, after thousands of years of it being a normal part of just about all human civilizations.

[mtrueman]

"Years later, the first people who seriously tried to abolish slavery were white Westerners: The British and then Americans. They called slavery immoral."

The enslaved Haitians preceded white westerners.

[Idaho-Bob]

The French freed the colored slaves in Haiti in 1792, after a failed slave rebellion.

[mtrueman]

The slave rebellion was hardly a failure. The Haitians managed to defeat the French and declare themselves an independent republic. The second one in the western hemisphere after the US. It's interesting to note that the Poles played a role in Haiti, just as they did in the American revolution. The French Army had many Poles and when the faced the Haitians in battle, they heard the Haitians singing Le Marseilles. They defected to the Haitian side.

“Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny’s
Bloody banner is raised!”

The notion that slavers took a dislike to slavery before the slaves did is absurdly euro-centric and dim witted. Stossel needs an editor.

[Idaho-Bob]

You have embraced the Disney version of Haitian independence. The French were in the middle of their revolution and did not really engage the rebels until Bonaparte engaged. What you omit is the self-declared emperors, kings and dictators, hundreds of political assassinations, the Dominican genocide, 1804 massacre, etc.

Haiti is a 4th world failed state. Using it as an example of virtue is laughable.

[mtrueman]

"Using it as an example of virtue is laughable."

It was a successful slave revolt, not a failure as you bizarrely claimed, and the Haitians' distaste of slavery preceded that of their slavers, contrary to what Stossel claimed. It was an extremely violent affair, as are most wars. I don't see how this is a Disney version.

"What you omit is the self-declared emperors, kings and dictators, hundreds of political assassinations, the Dominican genocide, 1804 massacre, etc."

There are books written about it. I never thought of trying to offer a full account of the rebellion. My original comment was one sentence, six words in length. You are silly to have expected a more comprehensive account in the space of a short comment.

You might enjoy Ben Fountain's latest novel, Devil Makes Three.
https://libgen.is/fiction/074573DC09EB3A5307567BC42BFC14BA
It's set in the 1990s in Haiti around the time of the coup in Haiti against Aristide and the Clinton election. Lot's of interesting back ground information for the casual observer.

[Mickey Rat]

The Haitian's distaste for slavery was primarily distaste for themselves, personally, being slaves, not necessarily a rejection of other people being slaves. The early history of Haiti is a contradictory mess, being the politics of a partially race based class system of white French, who had been on top, mixed race in the middle, and black slaves on the bottom, with shifting alliances after the various phases of the revolution. At various points, the revolutionary leaders effectively brought back slavery with themseves as the masters, with some success.

[mtrueman]

"The Haitian’s distaste for slavery was primarily distaste for themselves, personally, being slaves, not necessarily a rejection of other people being slaves."

I don't think white westerners are much different in this regard. They didn't want to become slaves themselves, yet fought to preserve slavery for others.

But as you say, the abolishment of slavery in Haiti was a long, violent and contradictory process.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

"took a dislike" does not equal "abolished"

However...

"mtrueman" does equal "jagoff"

[mtrueman]

The enslaved Haitians tried to abolish slavery. White westerner slavers fought to preserve it. Sorry if history doesn't comport with your hare brained ideas.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Project 1619 2.0!

[mtrueman]

You can't bring yourself to recognize the efforts of Haitians in abolishing slavery. Just like Stossel. Read your history. Haitians fought like wild cats to rid themselves of slavery. White westerners fought to preserve it.

[Overt]

And Spartacus preceded the Haitians, so what? Slave revolts have been recorded since the beginning of time. Haitians should be praised for rebelling against their immoral owners and gaining their freedom. They did nothing to stop the international slave trade.

Britain was unique in that they waged war on other nations to stop slavery in other nations. And the US was unique in that it almost destroyed itself trying to abolish the act.

Neither of these facts excuse the conduct of the slavers of their nation that preceded them, but neither does the example of a slave revolt dimminish

[mtrueman]

"And Spartacus preceded the Haitians, so what?"

The Spartacus revolt eventually failed. The Haitians were successful. There have been many slave revolts over the years, and Haiti was perhaps the only successful one. Why denigrate this achievement instead of celebrating it?

"They did nothing to stop the international slave trade. "

That's not what Stossel is claiming. He claimed that white westerners were the first to try to abolish slavery. In fact the Haitian revolution fought against slavery and white westerners fought to preserve it.

"Britain was unique in that they waged war on other nations to stop slavery in other nations. "

The British did nothing to help the Haitians in their fight against slavery and refused to officially recognize the new republic until decades after the fact.

[Overt]

"Why denigrate this achievement instead of celebrating it?"

I didn't denigrate it. Differentiation is not denigration.

"The British did nothing to help the Haitians in their fight against slavery and refused to officially recognize the new republic until decades after the fact."

And yet they fought other nations to stop the international slave trade, freeing thousands of slaves. But you don't want to praise that...we might even say you want to denigrate them. Why is that?

(Don't worry, we don't care about your answer. We know the truth- little marxists can't handle it when classical western civilizations get any praise. It is incompatible with their delusions of overthrowing the entire system and starting it over again in their graven image. Surely after 100 million more deaths they will get it right at some point.)

[A Thinking Mind]

Most marxists aren't even aware that Marx himself actually praised American slavery and thought it was a necessary element of the world economy. Marx was a specific and extremely special type of evil, who only viewed morality in terms of the utility it had to his own goals.

[mtrueman]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm

[A Thinking Mind]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm

Let us leave alone the bad side and talk about the good side of slavery. Needless to say, we are dealing only with direct slavery, with Negro slavery in Surinam, in Brazil, in the Southern States of North America.

Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that gave the colonies their value; it is the colonies that created world trade, and it is world trade that is the precondition of large-scale industry. Thus slavery is an economic category of the greatest importance. Without slavery North America, the most progressive of countries, would be transformed into a patriarchal country. Wipe North America off the map of the world, and you will have anarchy – the complete decay of modern commerce and civilization. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off the map of nations.

Thus slavery, because it is an economic category, has always existed among the institutions of the peoples. Modern nations have been able only to disguise slavery in their own countries, but they have imposed it without disguise upon the New World.

Also, good job outing yourself by very quickly jumping to the defense of Karl Marx.

[mtrueman]

I'm not sure what your point is. Marx opposed slavery yet believed it was an essential step in the development of bourgeois society. Nothing new here.

If you prefer me to quickly jump to the defense of people other than Marx, let me know, and I will try to accommodate you. Thanks for your attention.

[mtrueman]

"And yet they fought other nations to stop the international slave trade, freeing thousands of slaves."

I was discussing Haiti - the most significant example of a successful slave revolt. Stossel claimed that white westerners were the first to try to abolish slavery, ignoring the valiant efforts of Haitians against Stossel's white westerners. The British did nothing to assist Haiti's revolt. The Poles did help out, but you don't want to praise that, focusing instead on the British, for some reason.

"Don’t worry, we don’t care about your answer. "

Because you're an intellectual coward. It's nothing to boast about.

[Overt]

You are full of shit, mtrueman, and it is plain to see. You quoted the assertion that white westerners were the ones who fought to abolish slavery. The Haitians, didn't fight to abolish the practice- they fought to free them. That's laudable, but if you are going to say any slave revolt was an attempt to "abolish" slavery, then the Haitians were not the first either.

"Because you’re an intellectual coward. It’s nothing to boast about."

It is quaint to see communist bitches like yourself- acolytes of a dead and discredited ideology with the blood of hundreds of millions on its hands and not an ounce of introspection to show for it- call other people intellectual cowards.

[mtrueman]

"That’s laudable, but if you are going to say any slave revolt was an attempt to “abolish” slavery, then the Haitians were not the first either. "

Haitians surely were the first to attempt to abolish slavery in Haiti, weren't they? Or was it white westerners, or someone altogether different? You're not expressing yourself clearly.

"call other people intellectual cowards."

I calls them as I sees them. If you don't want your cowardice exposed, man up and present your argument. If it amounts to anything more than name calling and red baiting, it might be worth the read.

[A Thinking Mind]

The Spartacus revolt eventually failed. The Haitians were successful. There have been many slave revolts over the years, and Haiti was perhaps the only successful one. Why denigrate this achievement instead of celebrating it?

That's certainly dependent on your definition of "failed." The reason there were no more slave revolts in Italy after Spartacus is that the Italian peninsula entirely restructured slavery after the Third Servile War. They switched from an agricultural base of large estates handled by slave to a focus on sharecropping. Slaves began to earn legal rights. Slavery became much less prominent in the Roman Empire following it, certainly at least in the Roman heartlands.

If you think Spartacus' goal was to abolish slavery, then it was a failure-but then, that was likely never his actual goal. It had a significant effect on Roman society and changed the manner and extent of slavery, certainly. Spartacus didn't escape Rome, but based on what we limited information we have, it might not have been his goal to leave Italy.

[mtrueman]

"If you think Spartacus’ goal was to abolish slavery"

I think his goal was to die a free man. On those terms I doubt you could say he was successful. Some stirring words from Kubrick's movie:

Pirate captain:
Let me put it differently.
If you looked into a magic crystal...
and you saw your army destroyed and yourself dead...
if you saw that in the future...
as I'm sure you're seeing it now...
would you continue to fight?
Spartacus:
- Yes.
Pirate captain:
- Knowing that you must lose?
Spartacus:
Knowing we can.
All men lose when they die and all men die.
But a slave and a free man lose different things.
They both lose life.
When a free man dies, he loses the pleasure of life.
A slave loses his pain.
Death is the only freedom a slave knows.
That's why he's not afraid of it.
That's why we'll win.

I quoted the same lines a while back at the beginning of the kerfuffle in Gaza, if you recall.

[A Thinking Mind]

I think his goal was to die a free man. On those terms I doubt you could say he was successful.

If you think that was his goal I'd call it an overwhelming success.

Why quote Kubrick on Spartacus, though? It's not a documentary. It's latching onto a historical event to erect his own narrative.

We actually know very little of Spartacus' goals from the historical sources since they're all Roman in origin. Some say he was trying to escape Italy (which creates some confusion, since he seemingly defeated two legions at Ravenna and Rome had nothing left to stop him from leaving Italy to the East), some say he wanted to march on Rome and burn it (not the most likely), and some say he just wanted to be a bandit and plunder the wealthiest region in the known world. We won't have the sources necessary to come to any final conclusions until we invent time travel.

[mtrueman]

"Why quote Kubrick on Spartacus, though? "

It's a film I've recently seen. Although Kubrick disavowed it, I think it's still very good. Getting up there with Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai or Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. Like those, the action sequences and acting is superb, as is the script.

" It’s not a documentary."

It's a historical drama covering the life of Spartacus from the moment he's sold to a gladiatorial impresario till (spoiler alert) his crucifixion on the road to Rome.

[A Thinking Mind]

It's not historical. It's intentionally dramatized.

You think Spartacus was crucified, and that's not correct. His ultimate fate is unknown. Before his final battle, he is said to have beheaded his own horse and say "There can be no retreat, only victory or death." It's likely he died in the battle. They would have crucified his corpse if they found it and could recognize it, but whether that happened is only a matter for speculation since no records cover it.

This is why you don't get history from movies because it means you end up believing a lot of shit that is blatantly untrue. You probably think he fought against Julius Caesar, too, since he was in the movie.

[mtrueman]

“You think Spartacus was crucified, and that’s not correct. ”

The character was crucified, even had a chat with his girlfriend and son while nailed to the cross. Whether the Spartacus the man was crucified is not certain. One of the most famous scenes of the movie was at the end when the Roman officer asked the assembled prisoners to deliver their leader. Tony Curtis stood up and said “I am Spartacus” and the rest of the rebel army followed. Probably didn’t happen but we can infer that the Romans were never successful at identifying Spartacus.

“This is why you don’t get history from movies because it means you end up believing a lot of shit that is blatantly untrue. “

It's a mixture of history and fiction. Hence historical fiction. Have you ever read any history? It tends to be extremely dry and repetitive and overladen with detail. Great for scholarship but hell when it comes to weaving a dramatic narrative. Hence all the deviations, like conflating characters and events, inventing scenes and dialog, ignoring context and nuance etc.

[SIV]

TEACH the TRUTH

[mtrueman]

"By contrast, Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1962. And even now, the Global Slavery Index estimates that there are still 700,000 slaves in Saudi Arabia."

Slavery still exists in other outposts of the American empire besides Saudi Arabia. How about Taiwan? I've actually met a slave in Taiwan. A woman who worked as a domestic servant for a family. Her father was a gambler who gave his daughter to pay his debts. By the time I met her she had been receiving a small stipend from the family but remained in her unenviable position. Debt and slavery have been intertwined since the beginning of history. America's slaves from Africa were debt pawns to the local rulers until being handed over to transatlantic slavers.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

You are a fucking retard. And annoying. So if that is your goal, congrats.

[mtrueman]

I'm simply relating my experience. I didn't mean to annoy you. It was the last thing on my mind.

[CE]

The indigenous (really Siberian immigrant) early Americans were such "kind stewards of the environment" that they wiped out most large mammalian species in North America within 2,000 years of crossing over here.

[mtrueman]

“kind stewards of the environment”

Part of the job of a good steward is to remove nuisance animals from the grounds they are entrusted with. If my estate were infested with man eating tigers, for example, I would expect my steward to work night and day to get rid of them. If they refused on environmental grounds, I would fire them and replace them with another, preferably someone who wasn't Siberian.

[Overt]

This is hilarious rationalization. It is also untrue. The giant sloth was not the same as a man-eating tiger. By and large the animal populations depopulated by hunting were not predators. They were prey.

But to be clear, does that mean you don't support the reintroduction of wolves into north america?

[mtrueman]

"By and large the animal populations depopulated by hunting were not predators. "

I believe it shows that mankind is not equipped to act as steward of the environment, whether they come originate from Siberia or anywhere else in the world. Nature is too large and chaotic for mankind to wrap its mind around let alone control or manage. It also shows that mankind can be an invasive species wreaking havoc on his adopted territory. It's notable that in Africa, where man and large mammals developed together, simultaneously, large mammals, even extremely dangerous ones, have coexisted for millennia.

"But to be clear, does that mean you don’t support the reintroduction of wolves into north america?"

There are plenty of wolves already in North America. They don't have to be re-introduced. I am more concerned with coyotes and the possibility of them evolving into man eaters. They have already been acclimatized to urban settings for a thousand years or so. It's a short step from a diet of human garbage to human flesh.

[IceTrey]

The commonality of slavery precludes it from being the defining characteristic of the country.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

American slavery and Jim Crow give people a cause they can bravely crusade against in the 21st century, without having to exhibit any actual courage – the risky stuff was already done by brave men and women of prior generations, to such an extent that these practices have scarcely any *open* defenders today.

I mean, heck, even the neo-Confederates today don’t try to justify slavery as such, they merely shift the blame to the Yankees. If there are people who think American slavery was good, they’re usually wise enough to keep their mouths shut.

Confronting actual slavers today would probably mean facing off against the government of China, which would need a whole lot of courage.

Note – studying slavery in the U. S. can be a warning about how generations of people can accept evil so long as it’s part of a social consensus which you challenge at your own risk. Not that this would apply to any modern-day situation, of course.

[TJJ2000]

And yet those who cry about the horrors of slavery 300+ years ago vote for the party-of-slavery and insist TAKING-LABORS from others that they never earned is somehow not still supporting slavery.

Leftard self-projection 101. No; They don't make any sense at all.

[arpiniant1]

But everyone was doing it
OK, yeah that is an excuse
Defend the indefensible
Again
The US south was the last holdout in what the western world.
I mean Saudi Arabia as an excuse
Really
Embarrassing

[AT]

Slavery Was a Global Phenomenon

IS, John. Slavery IS a global phenomenon. To this day.

But let's ignore all that and focus on 200 years ago because self-loathing malcontents who seek the destruction of western civilization can't accept the fact that the US and Europe are now the most non-racist countries on the planet.

Except for the Jews. They seem to really hate the Jews.

[John Gall]

My father was a slave of the Japanese, and I am not moved by others extended tail of woe.

If you can't identify the slave you're descended from, then you're not descended from a slave. And if you can, get over it.

Schick happens, you know.

[markm23]

Slavery in America and other British colonies was nearly unique in one way – only people who looked quite different than the majority were enslaved. That’s partly because Africans could be bought cheaply, but mainly because in the USA and in the North American colonies before the Revolution enslaved Irish people or indentured servants from Great Britain could nearly always run away and never get caught. Without photography, DNA testing, or fingerprinting, it was impossible for the owners to send experts to catch runaways if those runaways could blend into the large population of free whites - who could claim full legal rights under US law, and English law before the Revolution. Only in the USA (and to some extent other societies descended from the English) was grabbing the first poorly dressed man that fit a vague printed description of a runaway slave likely to get you into serious legal trouble when it turned out he was a free man.

Most other slave societies not only took slaves in war from neighboring countries with similar genetics, but enslaved their own people for debt. Any impoverished free man had to be ready to prove he wasn’t a runaway slave, because they could not tell slaves from free men by looking, and only the middle and upper classes had any rights.