OK, I had another debate the other day with the usual suspects and this time we were debating slavery. I talked about how bad Africans, African-Americans, and Native Americans were treated during the slave days. My advesary said that all races have been enslaved at one point or another, and this is a point that I do not deny because it is true. The thing that bothered me was that she tried to compare what slaves in America went through to indentured servants. Now please correct me if I am wrong but these two things are nowhere alike. I believe indentured servitude was volunatary wasn't it? I believe it worked like this: I will do this for you but in return your owe me this amount of work and after that workload is done you are free to go. Isn't that how it worked? Sure slaves could be free but they had to earn their freedom at extreme prices usually like they were so crippled or old or something that they couldn't provided their owners with any beneficial work. I do realize that indentured servitudes were asked to do more work than the service they asked for was actually worth but like I said it was voluntary, right?
In my understanding of indentured servitude, it was voluntary in name only. Exploiters would establish a system in which people would have to borrow in order to survive and then would make sure the indentured servant would continue to run at a deficit to make freedom a possibility in theory only. I don't see how it much matters though. What made American slavery particularly egregious, imo, was not its permanence but its completeness. In most examples in history you'll find slaves still in possession of some rights. American slaves had some protection, but very little. Of course, the sugar plantation slaves of Brazil and the Carribean had it worse yet. In this sense anyway, it could be construed that an indentured servant was better off because some protections were maintained. But, I think that depends on the time and place and transcends slavery even. There are many examples in history where people were subjected to the evil caprices of others to a much greater extent than American slaves though they were never enslaved themselves. The Jews of the Holocaust is what immediately comes to mind, though I'd say they were actually enslaved as well.
I cannot say the Concentration Camps were slavery as much Prisons I could be wrong. . but they did not have the WORK component Slavery is about Forced Labor The conditions around it are heinous. IMO it is the worse situation in human history . . but i'm sure a billion folx will say I'm biased. Rocket River
i don't think that's true...i could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure there was forced labor in concentration camps.
You're saying that concentration camps did NOT have a work component? Oh my word you know less that I even gave you credit for. Please read a history book instead of blabbing your nonsense.
why do you have to respond that way? that was RR's first post in here. i'm guessing there are a few things you don't know, too...and you might make a faulty assumption at some point, as well. no need to be a jackass.
Lil Pun I don't know why you bother with these people who bring up these idiotic points but here's what I think is a fair explanation of how American slavery was so different. I found this on the net some while ago, not sure if it's from a book or what CHAPTER 3 Slavery as Capitalism The Shape of American Slavery The slave system in America was unique in human history. Sometimes slaves were treated cruelly; at other times with kindness. They were more often used as a sign of affluence, a way of displaying one's wealth and of enjoying luxury, rather than as the means for the systematic accumulation of wealth. Previously, slavery had existed in hierarchical societies in which the slave was at the bottom of a social ladder, the most inferior in a society of unequals. While each society normally preferred to choose its slaves from alien people, it did not limit its selection exclusively to the members of any one race. Slave inferiority did not lead necessarily to racial inferiority. In contrast to this, slavery in America was set apart by three characteristics: capitalism, individualism, and racism. Capitalism increased the degree of dehumanization and depersonalization implicit in the institution of slavery. While it had been normal in other forms of slavery for the slave to be legally defined as a thing, a piece of property, in America he also became a form of capital. Here his life was regimented to fill the needs of a highly organized productive system sensitively attuned to the driving forces of competitive free enterprise. American masters were probably no more cruel and no more sadistic than others, and, in fact, the spread of humanitarianism in the modern world may have made the opposite true. Nevertheless, their capitalistic mentality firmly fixed their eyes on minimizing expenses and maximizing profits. Besides being a piece of property, the American slave was transformed into part of the plantation machine, a part of the ever-growing investment in the master' mushrooming wealth. The development of slavery in America resulted from the working of economic forces and not from climatic or geographic conditions. When the first twenty Africans reached Virginia in 1619, the colony was comprised of small plantations dependent on free white labor. While some historians believe that these immigrants were held in slavery from the beginning, most think they were given the status of indentured servants. English law contained no such category as slavery, and the institution did not receive legal justification in the colony until early in the 1660s. Although the fact of slavery had undoubtedly preceded its legal definition, there was a period of forty years within which the Africans had some room for personal freedom and individual opportunity. Rumors of deplorable working conditions and of indefinite servitude were reaching England and discouraging the flow of free white labor. To counter this, a series of acts were passed which legally established the rights of white labor, but they did nothing to improve the status of the African. In fact, their passage pushed them relentlessly towards the status of slave. The price of tobacco declined sharply in the 1660s and drove the small white farmer to the wall. Only those with enough capital to engage in large-scale operations could continue to make a profit. In order to fill the need for the huge labor supply required large-scale agriculture, the colonial legislature passed laws giving legal justification to slavery. At the same time, Charles II granted a royal charter establishing a company to transport African slaves across the ocean and thereby increasing the supply of slaves available to the colonial planter. Until this time, the number of Africans in the colony had been very small, but thereafter their numbers grew rapidly. The African slaves provided the large, dependable, and permanent supply of labor which these plantations required. The small white planter and the free white laborer found the road to economic success had become much more difficult. To be a successful planter meant that he had to begin with substantial capital investments. Capitalist agriculture substantially altered the social structure of the colony. On one hand, it created a small class of rich and powerful white planters. On the other, it victimized the small white planters, or white laborers, and the ever-growing mass of African slaves. The second unique factor in American slavery was the growth of individualism. While this democratic spirit attracted many European immigrants, it only served to increase the burden of slavery for the African. Instead of being at the bottom of the social ladder, the slave in America was an inferior among equals. A society which represented itself as recognizing individual worth and providing room for the development of talent, rigidly organized the entire life of the slave and gave him little opportunity to develop his skills. In America, a person's worth became identified with economic achievement. To be a success in Virginia was to be a prosperous planter, and white individualism could easily become white oppression leaving no room for black individualism. The existence of slavery in a society which maintained its belief in equality was a contradiction which men strove diligently to ignore. Perhaps this contradiction can be partly understood by seeing the way in which individual rights had come into being in English society. Instead of springing from a belief in abstract human rights, they were an accumulation of concrete legal and political privileges which had developed since Magna Charta. Viewing it in this light, it may have been easier for the white colonists to insist on their rights while denying them to the slaves. Nevertheless, the existence of slavery in the midst of a society believing in individualism increased its dehumanizing effects. The third characteristic which set American slavery apart was its racial basis. In America, with only a few early and insignificant exceptions, all slaves were Africans, and almost all Africans were slaves. This placed the label of inferiority on black skin and on African culture. In other societies, it had been possible for a slave who obtained his freedom to take his place in his society with relative ease. In America, however, when a slave became free, he was still obviously an African. The taint of inferiority clung to him. Not only did white America become convinced of white superiority and black inferiority, but it strove to impose these racial beliefs on the Africans themselves. Slave masters gave a great deal of attention to the education and training of the ideal slave, In general, there were five steps in molding the character of such a slave: strict discipline, a sense of his own inferiority, belief in the master's superior power, acceptance of the master's standards, and, finally, a deep sense of his own helplessness and dependence. At every point this education was built on the belief in white superiority and black inferiority. Besides teaching the slave to despise his own history and culture, the master strove to inculcate his own value system into the African's outlook. The white man's belief in the African's inferiority paralleled African self hate. Slavery has always been an evil institution, and being a slave has always been undesirable. However, the slave in America was systematically exploited for the accumulation of wealth. Being a slave in a democracy, he was put outside of the bounds of society. Finally, because his slavery was racially defined, his plight was incurable. Although he might flee from slavery, he could not escape his race.
What is the point of an argument such as this, Lil Pun? Nobody denies slavery was a bad thing. What's the point here? Are we supposed to feel sorry for all the current African-Americans in the US due to what happened to their ancestors 150 years ago? Are white people (many of whose ancestors never had slaves) supposed to be overwhelmed with "White Guilt"? What point are you trying to make?
you're too funny!!! i'm less concerned with the church than I am with God. He told me it was ok. But He did have some concern for you, however.
Even if it is texxx's fault, I feel like I led us down a wrong turn by mentioning the Holocaust. Rocket River, yes there was forced labor in the concentration camps -- the Nazis were always oh so efficient about everything. The point I was trying to make though was this though: 1. The greatest evil of American slavery is the slave's defenselessness. 2. There are historical examples of even greater defenselessness than what the American slave experienced, most notably the victims of genocide: Jews, Armenians, Rwandans, etc.
I think that the most egregious thing about the African-American slave trade wasn't the actual slavery, but the slave TRADE itself. Cramping Millions of Africans on top of each other on boats like they were mere cargo is something that definitely sets apart the African-American slave trade from indentured servitude. The number of Africans that died coming over to America greatly outnumbers those killed in the Holocaust or indentured servitude (maybe even combined), so I'm not sure if there is a fair comparison when taking all of this into account.
That is a very good point (thanks for coming out of lurk mode to contribute). I don't think the number of deaths was actually as bad as you suggest -- I'm seeing numbers of about 12 million Africans transported altogether (for North and South America) and 1 to 2 million dying en route. That compared to about 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. But the point is well-taken anyway (I think). US (and 13 colony) slavery had some pity on slaves -- even if driven mostly by economics -- but it relied on and supported a trans-Atlantic slave trade industry that was utterly brutal. Most of that trade was going to Brazil and the Carribean, but it isn't something the US can wash its hands of. All first generation US slaves did go through that experience to get here and I doubt any other slave trade had conditions so bad.
Well your friend is wrong in saying that all people were enslaved. You should have argued that point. All people may have had representatives that were enslaved but even that's a stretch. Many groups encluding the Mongols, Welsh, Normans, etc weren't wholly enslaved as a group. African slaves brought to the new world had families involuntarily, in large quanities, which is unique and different than other instances. The people your girlfriend's friend is lacking in knowledge about the topics she's debating.
A certain poster who formats his text in the form of haiku went off on a racially-charged insult spree which was beyond inappropriate. It was one of the worst things I have ever read on this BBS. Thank you admins for removing that. I lost quite a bit of respect for that poster upon reading that racist filth.
Was it the post in which he attacked bigtexx or did he add another one after that? Because my post after his post to bigtexx was also removed. My post only contained a quote of that poster and then a , so I do not know why my post was removed, unless that person also attacked me personally, like he did with bigtexx before. So, anyway, the post was just removed without further consequences for that poster? There was a recent incident where this was handled a little bit differently... Anyway, just being curious (nosy ) since that poster has attacked me before as well - that's all, I am not doing more than asking a question since I have not seen the post in question. BTW...haiku .
6 million Jews and 5 million other minorities (blacks, turks, homosexuals, gypsies, etc) were killed by Nazi Germany. about 6 times the number of Africans lost onthe voyage from Africa to the America's for the slave trade. I think something like 20 million Soviets were killed, many after a period of forced labor in Gulags, under the rule of Stalin.
