Centuries ago, when slavery was legal, who was responsible for that practice?

Question

As the civilizations evolved, today we look back and condemn slavery as the most horrific abuse of human rights, judging from today's human standards. But if we put ourselves back into the 17nth century, what could we have said? It's all because of African families' greed that they sold their family members for money?

Answer 1

slavery has been going on for more than 7000 years, no one know for sure who started it

Answer 2

It isn't known how slavery began but it is certain that slavery had been practiced centuries before the United States ever did: even in Africa, there were Africans who enslaved their own people. The only difference between the United states and elsewhere was that Americans justified their actions by demeaning the African Americans and claiming they were below Anglo Saxons because of the color of their skin. People realized it wasn't morally correct but in most southern states, slaves were needed to keep the plantations going so they claimed that slavery was "the necessary evil".

Answer 3

Slavery has always been opposed. Just ask the slaves. In many cases slave traders from one village raided another village to capture people to sell. The need for money, lack of morals, lack of the basics of human understanding were the root causes.
As long as there were white people in America, there were people who opposed slavery and worked against it. It took a bloody civil war to stop it in the US.
Slavery goes on today, in Africa. Ask the Christians in southern Sudan. Ancient civilizations: Egypt, Greece, Rome used slaves.
Arabs raided black Africa for slaves, for thousands of years.
Everyone in the slave trading business (except the slaves) was at fault. The two main reasons: cheap labor, and the Africans have not been able to stop it.

Answer 4

Slavery had been a regular practice of human societies and cultures for longer than a few hundred years - you find it in the Bible and you find it in even older literature. Whole classes of people were of a slave class, and you could be cast into slavery by dint of committing a crime, by being captured in a war, going into debt, being sold by your family or by your enemies kidnapping you and selling you, etc.

The slave trade by Europeans was nothing new really, and it was aided and abetted by the fact that Europeans lived a long time in a kind of "splendid isolation" from non-Europe and had therefore the self-centered idea that less technologically advanced people must be backward and "sub-standard" and so not really fully human, so it was ok to enslave them like cattle.

Not everyone felt that way, even during the peak of slavery. James Oglethorpe, founder of the colony of Georgia, forbade what he called "this horrid crime." Of course, as soon as he was dead, they went for it....

And I just noticed the horrid slur against the Jews above. What a load of horsecrap - few if any Jews were in that trade, and any that were were doing just exactly what Christians everywhere were and had been doing, and furthermore, who broke anybody's arm to force them to BUY slaves?

Answer 5

hell yeah blacks sold each other into slavery ...then wanna blame the white man.
matter of fact some came over on there own boats looking for good slave masters
hell if we didn't bring them over then .
they would be cramming our boarders like the Mexicans.
them Africans sailed there boats to America and ask the white hey you buy some slaves?
the white man ain't never tricked nobody we brought this land from the Indians.
you guys just don't want to admit it but the white man is just more innovative and civilized.
stop making us out to be villains.....when you know we don't lye about history.
we aint never lyed ,we the most honorable respectible race of people on the planet.
you black people dont know what your talking about .

Answer 6

Africans and Europeans both practiced slavery. I blame those Africans for helping Europeans take us away from our native land.

I blame whites for the following:
Europeans kept blacks in servitude for hundreds of years even though they considered themselves more civilized that the Africans who sold us as slaves. They were not civilized enough!

I blame whites for keeping my ancestors in bondage for 400 years (Africans did not do that), for separating families when they sold children without their parents, for preventling marriage between slaves, for hanging black men for holding their heads up instead of downcast, for creating mix-breed children with slave women who could not refuse sex, for whipping us as punishment, for segregation after slavery was abolished and for being racist towards us to this day - all because our skin is black. Can you see how ridiculas that bias is?

They would not give us equal opportunity until laws being passed and then for the last 40 years they criticize us for benefiting from these laws.
And they even criticize those who did not benefit from the new laws. They think they are lazy. So it's damned it you do or dont!.

Do you see the same dichotomy that we see?

I do not blame long ago Africans for anything whites did to us for 400 years after my ancestors left Africa.

Answer 7

Slavery is old, and not just a black n white thing. The word comes from "Slav", and the slavs are white people, and there have been more white slaves historically than black.

Who's responsible? Many different peoples.

Answer 8

In the united states just pryor to the civil war jews in Mass. were the most prominant slave sellers. The ships came in to Newyork harbor and they were sent to Charleston S.C. The manifests are availabel in the harbormasters office in Charleston. The jews auctioned them off in Charleston.

Answer 9

Yes, and most of the early slave owners were Jews.