I just had a quick thought about the debates that just took place last week. I thought that it would be silly to think that the slave trade was simply racial. I believe the whole thing had to do with capitalism. I have seen in my own lifetime the heartlessness of businessmen in our country. I've seen it with the outsourcing of jobs, which leave Americans without jobs, and the use of illegal immigrants to get cheap labor. With the use of outsourced labor we get products like the ones in past months made with led paint, harmful food products, and drugs made of drywall. My point is that in the American slave trade, plantation owners and slave traders did not look at africans with racial tensions. They saw them as cheap labor, and simply did not care about the fact that they were people. The horrible treatment they recieved was not because of their race. It was because they were the slave class in that society, and in past civilizations, the slave class is the one that recieves the least amount of respect, if any.
-Julia
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It seems silly because you are misunderstanding the premise of the debate, business was a major part of the creation of the edifice of slavery on a global scale. but the question was "did racism cause the enslavement of Africans in America?" The arguments focused on why Africans were selected and exported in mass for enslavement. If it was purely economic it seems to me that would have proven economically viable for the English to merely institutionally enslave the Celtic and Scotch population to the north already in loose bondage. Your statement
ReplyDelete"slave traders did not look at africans with racial tensions. They saw them as cheap labor, and simply did not care about the fact that they were people."
is not only false but it is also irresponsible because the labor that Africans provided was neither cheap, nor was it easy to obtain. The institutionalization of racialized enslavement was based on the assumption that Africans made "good slaves." The conventions that were coming about at the beginning of the 17th century in all honesty was based in a warped belief in ethnic inequity; and to say that slave traders mere did not care about the humanity of captive Africans leaves out a massive part of the reality of the time. The prevailing mindset of the time justified the enslavement and general mistreatment of entire segments of the global community by creating artificial criteria defining who and who isn't civilized. They were fully aware of their humanity but still believed in a misguided superiority that was the basis for much of what we are studying in this class.
I apologize if I seem agitated, but this topic has been discussed at length before.
I read the book American slavery, American Freedom by, Edmund Morgan; in this book Morgan dose an excellent job of depicting the transition of slavery in to slavery based on race. He has an interesting perspective, which I agree with. He is more or less suggesting demographics was what shaped slavery into a race based institution. Honestly this is one of the best history books I have ever read, it is very well written, and engaging. If anyone has time I would strongly suggest reading this book, even if it is after the semester. (Yes it is that good) lol
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