Slavery: besides the extreme inhumanity or violence and...?

Question

Europeans beliving themselves the superior race. What else could you say was wrong (or still is wrong) about slavery?

Thanks for the answers. Heart I dont think that Frosty is that far away from the truth. Maybe what she said isnt "fact" but still they could have happened.

Answer 1

Slavery is not unique to Europeans. Obviously it was (and still is) practiced in Africa, Africans did capture and sell other Africans to Europeans, and later Americans. Asia (and it still does) and the pre-Columbian Americas had slavery. So slavery may be as old as mankind and clearly cross-cultural. To educate one self about history without bias or prejudice is a way to end the slavery of your intellect.

Answer 2

African-American slaves were put in slave house which were usually a one or two room house that were lined up in rows on the property. They had a quota to meet each week. If they met their quota early, they could would have free time. Slaves all had a particular duty like harvesting. If the owner thought a slave was sick, the slave was forbidden to work until the owner thought he was all better. Many slaves worked in the house and were close like family. Several rich slave owners even had children with their slaves and raised them as their children and inherited their estate. Also most slaves were sold to Europeans by their own tribe or family. The idea that Europeans went into remote villages guns blazing and taking everyone hostage is incorrect.
Not that slavery was a good thing but many African-Americans nowadays benefit from it. They learned to read and write, start businesses, ect.
I don't really know anything else about slavery in other parts of the world.

Edit: Frosty, your answer is so far off from the truth, it's scary. Is that what they're teaching kids in school nowadays? America's worse off than I thought.

Edit: Slaves did indeed marry. The whole concept of "jumping over a broom" was a legal ceremony. I think it still is in a few countires.

Answer 3

the things you listed are the most obvious, but also, in ancient cultures (Europe was not the first to invents slavery & the blacks were not the only group to be slaves) slaves did not have the same rights to marry or be involved in government & were often forced into military service. The difference between ancient forms of slavery such as in the Roman & Greek states and the slavery of the black Africans by Europeans was that in the older cultures a slave could earn his way to citizenship or even hold positions of high esteem while they were slaves. but in the more recent form of slavery that most people think of when you ask the question, a slave could theoretically buy his freedom, it was pretty much impossible.

Answer 4

To find out about what slavery was really like, and why slavery was really wrong, take a few minutes and read the famous essay, "Thoughts Upon Slavery", published in 1774 by the great Methodist preacher, John Wesley.

This essay was written by someone who was alive at the time that slavery was still in full force in the United States and elsewhere, and each of his powerful arguments is backed up by published eyewitness accounts which he quotes.

Answer 5

Slavery is a study in contradictions. Virtually anything that you can say about it in general can be contradicted with evidence supporting the contradiction.

In the case of the enslavement of Africans by Europeans there are really only two things that can be said without question.

It was immoral. To say that I am better than you and to reduce you to bondage because of that belief is something that no sane and reasonable person could uphold.

It was racial. In certain parts of America particularly Louisiana many free blacks owned slaves. But no white person was held as a slave. Although it should be said that some whites particularly immigrants to America were held in indenture-meaning they were compelled by debt or obligation to serve the person to whom they were obligated for a specified period of time. But the indentured white was guaranteed certain protections by the contract. The slave was not. There were ostensibly some laws in place to safe guard the slave, but they were frequently left unenforced.

Answer 6

The Middle Passage resulted in the deaths of about 10 million Africans.

This was a result of Africans dying in horrible conditions during transport to slave colonies.

The slavery that Europeans commited against Africans robbed them of human lives, valuable labor for Africa, and centuries of dignty.

Answer 7

Economically (I know, this sounds harsh), slavery is terrible. What you have is a large class that has no motivation to work and be efficient. With wages and people able to be mobile the entire economy can be more efficient and the standard of living rises. People will leave if the wages aren't proper; people will get fired if they don't work. No wages, what is the point of working harder? No motivation, no efficiency. The economy falters.

There was a book written on this. I just forget what it was called. I believe an English fellow wrote it.

Answer 8

Anyone can give you an out of the textbook answer, but that is in the box thinking. I am not all about that, I think critically and on my own. Many blacks died, over 5 million in the slave trade but over 5 million survived. Many parts of Africa is turning into desert and is inhospitble for a high populous. But just think of what the slave trade did do to them, it allowed them to branch out and multiply into the hundreds of millions in the New World. They have a future here something many do not have over there.

Answer 9

They treated these people as less than human and robbed them of their dignity. Cruelty breeds cruelty and violence begets violence. When you beat an entire people down it will come back like the plague! It takes generations for them to rise again, and society is the worse off for it. What happens is you have an entire group of people who question their self worth and are angry, and justifiably bitter. How easy is it to talk to someone like that, and how can you if you have never suffered like they have?

Answer 10

They treated them like animals. They gave them room and board as payment sometimes. Expected them to work extended hours with little compensation. Did not allow rest breaks. Sometimes the men used the slave women for sex or to bear children if his wife couldn't. So he would have more workers.