Bob wrote:
On 2 Nov 2005 08:18:12 -0800, wrote:
I once read an interesting statistic concerning ships transporting
slaves through the "Middle Passage". I believe the book was "The Slave
Trade". It said that the death rate among the sailors on these ships
was about 15-20% whereas the death rate of the slaves being transported
was normally lower than that. The reason was that slaves were
valueable cargo whereas seamen were considered expendable.
too bad all the sailors didn't die. maybe they would have learned a
lesson.
It would be pretty tough to lay more than a portion the moral blame for
the slave trade at the feet of the sailors working the ships. In some
cases, these ships recruited a "crew" among natives on the Ivory Coast,
and after sailing to the West Indies these so-called "crewmen" were
sold into slavery as well.
Blame for slave trade must be shared, IMO, by:
Arab and African slavers who raided farms and villages to gather
prisoners to sell into slavery. (Forget the opening scenes of "Roots"
where a bunch of overweight Europeans are running alongside hounds to
catch the natives on their own turf.)
European "factory" traders who established trading posts and holding
pens
on the E coast of Africa and traded cheap muskets, fabrics, trinkets,
and tiny amounts of currency for captives.
European governments which profited from the trade.
European churches and other social agencies which failed to adequately
condemn it.
Colonial planters who depended upon it.
Consumers of cheap goods and agricultural produce that resulted from a
slave economy.
While the US gets the majority of attention for slavery in the American
SE, slavery was also common in the north during the earliest years of
the Republic. Slavery was legal in most corners of the British Empire
until some time around 1830, (or so). We now quite often mistakenly
view it as a particularly American disgrace, almost 150 years after the
Emancipation, but it was a world-wide economic model- and problem.