A People's History of the united states by Howard Zinn?

Question

In this book he talks about the slave trade, what are you feelings abotu the slavetrade and what do you think? please be as spacific as possible, i want to get other point of views across thanks :)

Answer 1

I read Howard Zinn's book cover to cover two or three years ago, and I was really impressed with the guy. He certainly has a different point of view from most other historians, and he's making his presence felt in the history business. I should've bought the paperback edition because I'd like to have it on my bookshelf.

To properly answer your question, I think it's necessary to look at it from several different perspectives. I know your question deals with the slave trade, and I'll get to that, but first we must deal with the issue of slavery itself (as opposed to the slave trade).

Today we look back and say that human slavery is evil, and should not be tolerated anywhere in society. Slavery still exists in parts of the world, but hopefully it's in decline everywhere. In the modern world, it's harder to keep slaves than in the past. Most modern societies deplore the practice.

From ancient times, however, slavery has been accepted in many places and in many times. Often, slaves were acquired as a result of conquest. The Greeks, the Romans, the Babylonians, and other ancient civilizations kept slaves.

But generally, the practice then was not as institutionalized as it was in the case of African slavery. Children of slaves did not automatically become slaves. And slaves were not bought and sold in such an organized way as they were in African slavery.

Also, slavery in ancient times did not generally cross racial lines, and it was not the case that an entire racial stock was subjected to the practice.

Now let's look at African slavery specifically, and let's try to look at it from the point of view of the participants. Most slaves exported from Africa were shipped to the Caribbean and to South America. But I'll restrict myself to slavery in the American South.

To begin with, the people (other than the slaves themselves) who participated in the trade, and the society in which they lived, must have tolerated or even approved the practice, for if they did not, the practice would not have flourished as it did.

Even if, in their hearts they knew it was morally wrong, they invented devices to justify what was going on. The attitude of European racial superiority was pervasive back in colonial and imperialistic times. That helped justify slavery on the ground that Africans were an inferior race destined to serve white masters. (There were similar attitudes on the part of the British in India, for example.)

Another device was used by pious Christians, who found justifications in the Bible. Not only did the Bible justify African slavery, but by Christianizing the slaves, the whites were helping save their souls.

A third device was to consider slaves as chattel, or property. This legal device dehumanizes the slaves, who could be bought and sold like cattle. If people internalize the notion that slaves were less than human, they could justify treating them as less than human.

(The same thing goes on, by the way, in wartime propaganda. Enemies are portrayed as demons, less than human, and that makes it easier for people to hate and to kill.)

All of these devices were used by the participants. Not including the slaves themselves, these participants included slave masters; others in slave masters' society who did not own slaves themselves; slave traders; and merchants who funded, participated in, or profited from, the slave trade.

In the last case, money was the motive.

By the way, lest I forget, we must remember that it's not just whites who were active in the slave trade. Slave ships anchored at trading ports along the West African coast. Slaves were brought to the coast from inland villages where they'd been kidnapped by African slavers, who themselves were making huge profits.

Another "lest I forget" is the "poor white" in the Deep South and in border states, who owned no slaves, barely got by himself, but who supported the institution of slavery because it meant that he, himself, was not at the bottom of the totem pole.

In the last several paragraphs, I've written of the justifications invented by those involved in slavery and in the slave trade. But even during that era, there were large segments of the population -- indeed, a majority of the population -- that believed slavery to be morally wrong; and ultimately this majority felt strongly enough about it to fight for their principles in the Civil War.

As to the slave trade in particular, the only thing I'd add is that the conditions of the trade were brutal and inhumane -- even for the times when they occurred.

I hope this little essay contains some of the points you're looking for.

Answer 2

It was evil, and an example of how dark human nature can be.