A thing my teacher said?

Question

In class my history teacher said that the very first slaves were sold to the whites by other rival African tribes that captured and enslaved them so it really the Blacks fault that slavery in America existed. Even if he only meant it as a class lesson I feel his way is quite offensive. I don't even one second think its the fault of any one living today and no one today should have to pay people today for it considering neither side was even remotely involved. Any way sorry for the side track. My question basically is this.....Was my teacher wrong? For not only teaching this(unless its true) and also for the way it was said. You cant help but sense the racism in his voice.

Answer 1

Sorry if this is a little long, but it's a very complex (and very good) question- this is actually "the short answer" believe it or not.

It is true that most African slaves were slaves in Africa (usually they were prisoners taken in battle). However, before Europeans started buying the slaves, it was not a business- tribes didn't raid other tribes specifically for slaves, at least not on a big level- and it was not extremely common. It was because the Europeans started buying slaves that African tribes started intentionally raiding other tribes for NO OTHER PURPOSE than to sell them to the Europeans. Where a tribe may have taken a few dozen prisoners and turned them into slaves over the course of a few years (if they won) before the Europeans, once they started trading with Europeans they were taking not dozens but THOUSANDS each year. Whole tribes were enslaved or massacred by other Africans supplied with European weapons and being made richer than their wilder dreams by European trade goods and gold and distilled liquors and cloth and the like. Plus, the Europeans giving them guns and steel swords made it a very uneven conflict- the tribes on the coast that they dealt with were soon able to completely overrun the interior tribes, who were crushed.
I wonder if your teacher knows that before Africans the American Indians were used as slaves. (Africans worked out better because they had already been exposed to European diseases and were a lot healthier, plus the men were accustomed to agriculture where most Indian men weren't [agriculture was women's work to the natives and they were rigid about gender roles].) In other words, the Europeans were determined to use slave labor in the New World. Certainly there were Africans who were in on the game as well, but Europe was an incredibly enthusiastic buyer of slaves and there never would have been the carnage of Africans on Africans for slaves if there hadn't been the demand and the incentives.
Many people don't know that more than 1 million African slaves were taken to South America and Cuba before the first slave ship sailed into Jamestown in 1619. That means that over a century, more than 1 million people were hauled in ships that could only carry about 20 to 50 slaves at a time and in voyages that could take months. That's tens of thousands of slave ships over the course of a century, and that's before what's now the United States was even settled- THAT'S just how much demand there was and how much money was to be made in slave trading, and it's why European merchants bribed the west coast chiefs into capturing their fellow Africans in unprecedented numbers and encouraged them to slaughter the other tribes to do it. Even though it was mostly Africans who captured the other Africans, Europe was up to their eyeballs and then some in the slave trade in Africa, on the sea, and in the New World.
Your teacher probably also says the Civil War wasn't about slavery but was about state's rights (neglecting to mention that it was state's rights TO OWN SLAVES). I hate the simplification of history, especially by teachers.

Your teacher is an imbecile. And I'm glad you were able to recognize the smell of BS.

Answer 2

As to it's being Africans' fault that slavery came to the Americas, he is wrong. They were brought by European slavers to the Americas.

On the original capture, yes there were Africans capturing other Africans and selling them as slaves. The institution had existed in the Old World for centuries.

Another factor in selling enemies to someone who will take them far away is that you are also reducing the military potential of those enemies. A slave kept somewhere where it's possible to return home by land is someone who could come back to fight you again.

So there was a thriving slave trade in Africa, even between Africa and both Asia and Europe, across the Sahara from the central areas and over to the Mediterranean ports on the other continents.

I'd be sure I knew my teacher before I called them on something, I ended up with my only D in college and it was partly because I made the mistake of pointing out a teacher's mistake in class.

From what you have told us, I think the presentation was not as well thought out as it might be, but there was a slave trade in Africa long before the Age of Exploration expanded the markets.

Answer 3

Sorry if you find it racist but your teacher was not making that up. Many Africans were sold into slavery by other black people in Africa. Just as white people had white slaves in ancient times.
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This does not mean that slavery was somehow started by black people but slavery existed on the African continent long before slave traders sought them out for export to American. It really was the English that began the slave trade into America. It started in the west Indies and moved north into the continent as labor was needed to produce the products like cotton was needed by English factories.
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Slavery as an institution was around before the Roman Empire and was usually the result of conquest. Slavery still exists today in the twenty first century. It was not irraticated by the American Civil War.
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If you look for racism, surely you will find it.
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Answer 4

On the point of fact, your teacher is correct. Native Africans actively participated in the slave trade. They captured people and sold them to Europeans. But to go on from that fact to conclude that they are at fault for the American institution of slavery is both racist and wrong. Even if native Africans participated in creation of slavery in the Americas, it by no means absolves or even mitigates the actions of the other side. His argument is akin to saying that since the United States sold Saddam Hussein's regime weapons, they are at fault for the atrocities committed in Iraq by that regime using those weapons. Does that make sense? I don't think so. People have to take responsibility for their actions, and this is as true in historical scholarship as it is in our day-to-day lives.

Answer 5

He was correct, but perhaps a bit insensitive for saying that the Native Africans are at fault for putting themselves into slavery.

Don't be offended, though. I'm sure he didn't mean to cause any trouble. I'm a native African myself, and I received my degree there, where half of my teachers were Native Africans who never once worried about "politically correct".

I know that I've said things before in front of a class that I had immediately retract, as it was said during a coffee-fueled tirade, and it really wasn't proper. Afterwards though, I get a reaction as though they had preferred me to not apologize, as anyone who loves to learn will agree that education has become far too "politically correct".

I've found that what my students like most about my classes is that I talk with them one on one, as if I'm not trying to teach them something, but trying to make a point. In order to make that point, I should be able to say what ever I feel needs to be said.

Answer 6

His opinion is misguided. There were Africans who sold other Africans into slavery, but they were not responsible for the creation of the system of slavery in Americas. You know how slavery in the Americas was sometimes referred to as "the peculiar institution"? It was - American slavery was unlike any system of slavery that had happened before because (I hope I remember all the reasons) it was racially based, it was inherited, and it was intended to be perpetual. No other form of slavery in history was like that. Slavery on the African continent was not like that, so how could African slavers foresee how slavery would be changed in the Americas? They were complicit, but it's a hard case to make them fully responsible.

Answer 7

I wouldn't say it was the African's "fault" that American's owned slaves, nobody forced them to buy them. Beyond that, it is absolutely true that some slaves were sold by other blacks (and some African tribes kept slaves themselves). It's also true that white slave traders raided the continent for slaves. Nobody's hands are clean.

Answer 8

So yeah right! They used high pressure tactics to bring Europeans over to Africa and force them to pay for black slaves and ship them all the way to America.

That trivia does sound racist to me. Just look at the lesson. Africans felt that they could take their rival Africans as slaves and sell them to Europeans. So did Europeans then decide to continue to practice keeping their rival Europeans as slaves. Hell no, they only took Africans and North Americans as slaves.

Answer 9

Forgive them they are after all just human. My brother was a teacher in the good subjects maths and computing. While he was teaching he was no fun at all. He was always marking papers or planning tests. Thank goodness he gave it up to do more interesting things. He is now a bit more human and a lot less stressed.

Answer 10

Without checking, I believe it is historically accurate that African tribes sold slaves. But to assign blame to them, but not to the Americans that wanted to buy people and make slavery a large part of the American institution for hundreds of years is ridiculous. It sounds like he could have made his statement a bit better.