This a very dry, almost academic, summary of slavery that points out that slavery has been part of the human experience since before recorded time. It is mentioned in the Old Testament and was part of life in Ancient Egypt, Israel, Japan, China, Greece and Rome. Agrarian societies needed labor and right up until the Industrial Revolution, there was slavery almost everywhere on earth. Because there is so little information available on slavery in Asia and Africa, this book focuses on the trans-Atlantic slave trade over the 400 years between 1500 and 1900. During that time, an estimated 12.5 million Africans were transported to the New World in approximately 35,000 voyages. Nonetheless, it is believed that the Arab-driven trans-Sahara, trans-Red Sea and trans-Indian Ocean slave trade exceeded that number. All of this was done with the connivance of those Africans who sold their brethren to the foreigners. In Eastern Europe, serfdom, a system of forced labor based on hereditary bondage, prevailed.
The Portuguese initiated the first trans-Atlantic traffic from the west coast of Africa to Brazil. The Spanish quickly followed as their presence in the hemisphere wreaked havoc on the native populations and created a demand for slaves. In the 18th Century, the success of the plantation systems, which provided tobacco, sugar and coffee to Europe hastened the trans-Atlantic activity. The inability of the white indentured servant to provide the requisite labor pool in the Chesapeake region led to the introduction of African slaves to British North America. Between, 1700 and 1763, the number grew from 20,000 to 300,000 in what became the US.
In London in 1787, The Society For The Abolition of Slavery was started by Quakers, who began the moral crusade that brought down the "peculiar institution". The British banned the slave trade and in 1833, abolished slavery in the Empire. They vigorously tried to remove it from the high seas and by the middle of the century, the Royal Navy had 35 ships cruising off the African coast. When the states of Latin America threw off their Spanish yoke, they too abolished slavery. America followed and the last major slave economy to abolish it was Brazil in 1888. Although banned and abolished, slavery exists in different forms today. The author points out that indentured bondage and horrible living conditions exist throughout the world. He even suggests that it is possible to characterize the N. Korean state as a perpetuator of slavery. The legacy of slavery challenges the world still.
No comments:
Post a Comment