Why did the founders of the U.S. choose the Africans to enslave?

Question

The african had a different form of slavery totally different from how the founders brutilized and mutilated their slaves.

although they have phsysically been set free, mentally the offspring are still enslaved.

Answer 1

It was not all of the founding fathers who wanted slavery.
It was a neccessarycomprimise needed to appease the southern states in order to form the union.

Since representation in the House of Representatives was to be based on population, a debate arose over whether slaves should be counted in a state’s population. According to James Madison’s diary, the issue of slavery was the most divisive subject at the convention. While many of the Founding Fathers including George Washington viewed slavery as inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, they knew that there was little chance of abolishing slavery at the time. After all, if those opposed to slavery insisted on its abolition, slave states could have walked out of the convention and formed their own nation with a pro-slavery constitution. So the issue of slavery would require compromise if the United States were to survive. Washington and the other Founders hoped that slavery could be eliminated from the United States once a strong union was formed.

The delegates also disagreed over the slave trade. By the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1789, some northern states had already outlawed slavery within their state borders. These states wanted a ban on the slave trade included in the Constitution. Southern slave states objected to a ban claiming that the slave trade was important to their agricultural economy. Finally, the two sides compromised agreeing to allow the slave trade to continue for twenty years after which time the Congress could regulate it. After 1808, Congress could abolish the slave trade and it did. In fact, by 1798 every state had already outlawed the slave trade on its own anyway (although South Carolina reinstated it in 1803) and eight of the thirteen states abolished slavery during the founding era.

Answer 2

Africans have been enslaving their own kind long before the USA got involved with slavery.

The early Americans got involved because that slavery already existed and it was an easy way to get cheap labor. Try to remember that the other countries of the world also bought slaves from the African Slave Dealers.

Answer 3

Because it was morally acceptable and even supported by the Bible of the Christians. Slavery has been around since many centuries ago to the present day, child labor too, all of this is wrong today but it was ok before. Africans at the time of the founding fathers were the easiest targets for slave trades because they weren't that socially developed to defend themselves against foreing aggresion, they always lived in peace and never knew no cruelty of such magnitud or thought that could happen, Africa wasn't like Europe where many empires rose and fell, slaying entire populaces, people in Europe and Asia began to organize more quicker and effective because they learned the hard way. Hope my point of view helps.

Answer 4

You have totally simplified the matter, Slavery thorough the world was (and, now,is) despicable. There is no such thing as good slavery although you seem to think that it was (is) O.K. in Africa, but bad in the Americas (Please note that I did not single out the US.)
Practitioners of slavery included those African who captured other tribes for that purpose; typically, English and other European slave traders, and, finally, those who exploited them thorough the Americas. the principle trading route was to the Caribbean where slaves were exchanged for molasses.
Do do additional research and study. An additional thought that just occurred to me: compare slavery with the Holocaust?

Answer 5

The Africans had so much experience in slavery already. Even in Roman times, the slave market of Morocco was the most famous in all the world. I would not assume that all African slave owners were as friendly as you believe, the history you describe is a romanticism and nothing more.

Answer 6

"This is Business, Sonny!" - The Godfather (Michael to Sonny)
The same business you see today is the same as before.

There was a war declared upon Moors by Ferdinand of Spain. The same meanness of the Inquistions and feudal serfdom was easily transferred to the new enemy, by all of the colonial powers. It allowed them to set upon thsoe whom had done nothing to them. Not much different today when we hear of a person with an Arabic name being attacked for suspicion that he is amuslim and it turns out that he is not. Similar to the present when people allow themselves to be lead by the nose into killing people that they might otherwise be amicable.

Slavery though profitable was a by product of the acquistion of other natural resources such as gold, iron, timber, art, etc. Greed, sloth, and vanity are recurring themes in Human history. The 7 deadly sins are still trademarks of Human in the present.

Human slavery was the modern machine for its time. Some people today use their children is similar fashion.

Anglo/American enslavement of Africans was the most brutal of all types recorded. There are recorded cases of a slaver whom sired children from his slave, her daughter, her daughter's daughter. African slavery allowed the individuals to emancipate themselves and rise to positions of authority. It was a result of captured Humans in wars. Today the influence on slavery is from the colonial powers culture.

U.S. and British citizens were taken by Africans (Barabary Coast Pirates ) as slaves in the 1800's. Hence the words in the U S Marine Hymn "to the shores of Tripoli."

Slavery in the USA was intended to be perpetual. So far Common men are slaves and do not know it.

According to J.A. Rogers the first slaves brought to America by the British were British. He also states that Europeans who could not pay debts, gambling debts, would sell their wives and children into the African Slave market. First they would darken them with a dye.

Just as it was a minority, of a minoity that owned slaves, the same is true for the controllers of commerce.
We on this planet are all at risk regardless of ethnicity.
Some men cut off the heads of other men to make themselves seem taller.

Some Humans have a God Complex that is why the planet has problems. - paraphrased -The Last Poets

Answer 7

People in this country seem to think that slavery was invented by plantation owners in the southern US. Do a little research. Slavery between the barbary pirates and the knights of malta was commonplace, slavery in egypt 2000 years before Christ was born was commonplace, everywhere in the world there was slavery. It just happened to have ended here and that is why it is so spoken about. By the way, the only place in the world where slavery is still prevalent is in Africa - black on black.

Answer 8

Indians refused to cooperate, Asia was too far away, and there was a ready supply of African slaves for sale by other Africans who captured and enslaved them.

By the way, our founding fathers did not engage in enslaving Africans. They did business with those that purchased and transported slaves offered for sale by those that captured free African tribesmen..........other Africans.

Answer 9

You must be a product of the public school system.

Now lets try and get this straight.
The African captured his fellow Africans and sold them to the Dutch.
The Dutch put them in ships and auctioned them to anyone who would pay for them. That means there were slaves sold in almost every country in the world.
Lincoln freed the slave to help the North win the war between the states. It worked.

America banned the owning of another human in the 1860's.
On the other hand, slaves were still sold in many other countries and are still (notice "still") sold, tortured, mutilated and murdered in many parts of Africa. Who is selling them, their fellow African.

Now stop complaining about something that was wrong and corrected over 100 years ago. America fixed its mistake, there are no more slaves in America. Yet I hear no voices complaining about their brothers in Africa that being in-slaved as we speak.

There is a word for those like you, "Hypocrite"

Answer 10

Actually slavery from Africa in colonial times was instituted by the British. When the States won their Independence it just carried on and Britain had fallen away from the practice.