Is Chattel Slavery The Greatest Crime In Human History?

[DrFunkenstein]

With all this talk about Confederate flags, I want to put things in perspective. I believe that the Nazi holocaust was one of the lowest points in the history of man, and I find the Nazi flag repugnant. I would be seriously pissed if someone brought a flag to a public event.

That said, I don't think that the Nazi holocaust is anywhere near the scale of brutality done by the African slave trade. Why should I feel less enraged by people flying the flag of those that would treasonously split the United States just so they could keep their slaves?

(I could bring up the "state's rights" connection to gun control, but I won't.)

[Maddy McCall]

1. Yes, and the holocaust of American Indians.

Both are equally as horrible.

[noiretextatique]

15. so in general, americans

have been worse than the nazis? i agree. let's not forget the mengele type "experiments" our government conducted (is conducting) on its own citizens.

[maggrwaggr]

19. what about South Africa?

Just wondering how their history stacks up against ours.

Let's not forget the Arab slave traders throughout history. They were pretty nasty.

[noiretextatique]

23. they were pretty nasty too...still

i think we are in the top three...funny how simular apartheid was to american apartheid.

[Maddy McCall]

60. Not just "Americans," but the Spanish, French, and British...

and finally, Americans.

[4323Lopez]

33. Thank You.

Right on buddy, don't let that little tidbit EVER slip thru the cracks

[Maddy McCall]

59. It won't on my watch...

Welcome to DU, Lopez :hi:

[The Magistrate]

2. It Is Perhaps The Oldest And Most Universal, Sir

The only real competition in either regard is the serial murder practiced in religious guise as human sacrifice.

[maggrwaggr]

3. you mean here in America, or in general?

"all human history" is pretty broad.

Just because of that, I'd have to say there are probably other crimes that we barely know anything about that might just be worse.

I mean, look at how the Aztecs treated people. Might that not be worse?

[DrFunkenstein]

8. Human Sacrifice Or Making A Whole People Into "Things"

Sacrifice is horrible, as are acts like genital mutilation. But you have to put the global slave trade into perspective. Millions upon millions of people stolen from their country, robbed of their languages, their cultures, their Gods, and robbed of their very names. Physical mutilations of every variety, but also psychic mutilations. Then you take into account that bloodlines were established and races were strictly forbidden to cross because Africans carried polluted blood.

[maggrwaggr]

18. the aztecs didn't just sacrifice people, they enslaved them as well

they were pretty horrible, which is why Cortez was able to make it all the way to Mexico City. He picked up the surrounding people as allied, with promises they'd all take on the Aztecs together.

The Aztecs were about as bad as it gets as far as treating people. They'd keep their human sacrifices in cages for weeks, fattening them up. Montezuma would go sacrifice a whole ton of people just as a way to help him think. Really some f**ked up shit.

[Maple]

4. How about women

burned at the stake as witches?

Or the Inquisition?

[Bucky]

5. How can you measure "worst" ?

And isn't "chattel slavery" redundant? Chattel property (my lawyer friends tell me) is property that you can transport--like a car, a precious Ming vase, or a field hand. It's as opposed to "real" property, such as a house where you store your Ming vase or a mansion where you whip and rape your field hand.

Clearly it's bad. But I'm pretty sure there's not a competition between genocide and slavery to see which is worst.

[DrFunkenstein]

9. Slavery Existed For Centuries, But They Were Still People

Chattel slavery changed everything by turning the enslaved into objects. Marriages could be torn apart, children could be sold off because it was just a matter of objects, not people. That was a radically new step in slavery. Actually, the very fact that your children were born slaves was a new step introduced by America.

[Yupster]

32. No argument from me

I agree completely.

[noiretextatique]

14. the slave trade = genocide

when you consider how many africans died in route to becoming chattel for american progress.

[Solomon]

68. It has been reported that as many as 100 million slaves died just

on the way over here. 100 million. I don't think you're gonna find anything as bad as that. The scale of it is unbelievable.

Secondly, to those who want to somehow say that American slavery was no worse than other people's slavery, you need to actually study the issue and not think that the word slavery means the same in all cultures. For example I hear it all the time that Romans had slaves etc. etc. However, if you study the form of Roman slavery you will be shocked to learn that it was nowhere near to the type of slavery we had here. Slaves were not treated hatefully as they were here in america. They had rights, they were not torn from their families. They had a right to buy their freedom ... etc. A totally different kind of slavery.

It's the same in some african societies. I hate it when people throw up that thing about africans participating by selling slaves. In their culture, slave didn't mean the same thing that it meant in white cultures. They didn't have a clue as to what type of slavery they were sending people to.

It's one of the most embarrassing aspects of america that we were so hateful and mean to the slaves here. And what really hurts is americans assume that slavery in other countries was the same. IT WAS NOT.

And there is simply no excuse whatsoever for the genocide committed on Native Americans. I'm sorry. I don't see how america is not number 1 in the world. We are the only culture that dropped atomic bombs on people. Even now, people refuse to see that we are murdering Arabs and stealing their oil. Its disgusting and despicable.

Other countries are not even close to America. We are number 1 and by the looks of it, doing everything to make sure we stay number 1.

[weirdmo]

6. first post

I think it would be an incorrect comparison to view one flag, that began toward the road towards the final solution, and another that was defending an institution that another flag had already began.

[Maddy McCall]

7. Huh?

[weirdmo]

10. strive for clarity

Sorry for the unclear post. What I was essentially saying that while I do believe the Confederate Flag is a racist symbol I don't believe you can compare it to the same level as the Nazi flag. The Nazis implemented and carried out the final solution on the jews and other groups in Europe. Therefore to tie it to the Final Solution is quite clear. Meanwhile the Confederate flag can not be looked at in the same manner because the Confederacy wasn't trying to create slavery it was merely trying continue it. Meanwhile you had states fighting for the Union who held slaves.(Missouri etc)

[jobycom]

13. Welcome aboard, and good point.

We tend to forget that the current US flag sans a few stars and stripes flew over slavery a lot longer than the Confederate one. Not that that affects the current debate on what the Confederate Flag stands for NOW when people wave it, as you say, but it's a good point.

[maggrwaggr]

16. and plenty of northerners were absentee landlords/slaveowners

that's another thing people overlook.

Pierce Butler was a man who lived in Philadelphia who, when his aunts died, inherited a slave plantation on the South Georgia Sea Islands with 800 slaves (that's BIG). It was a big family secret in Philadelphia. His own wife didn't even know until the aunts died.

[jobycom]

11. Nah, Columbus was worse

He enslaved the inhabitants of Haiti, using the men to work the fields and the women as rewards for his men. His men preferred women under the age of ten (yes, for that), so Columbus instructed slavers to look out for that age group, especially.

Problem was that the inhabitants of the island knew it better than he did, so they kept escaping. He tried all the normal stuff-- cutting off their ears and noses as a warning to others, cutting off their feet, killing them, going to war and annihilating villages. Nothing worked. Even though he reduced the population of Hispanola from 8 million to 3 million in around three years the darned slaves kept escaping.

So he came up with a clever solution. He would pack the inhabitants of the island into slave ships, take them to the Canary Islands and the Azores, and trade them for African slaves who did not know the territory, and therefore wouldn't be as likely to escape. There was a natural loss to this plan-- many died in the hulls of the ships. They were dumped overboard. Other ship captains commented that you could sail from the Canaries to Hispanola without a compass by following the dead bodies.

But ultimately it worked, mostly. African slaves were less likely to escape. Many did, and went to live with the original inhabitants. But that type of slaver stuck.

So here's my question-- which is worse, to breed generations of people as slaves based upon their race, or to capture, enslave and slaughter an entire free population for slavery. Keep in mind that when you have to buy the slave, you at least (and this is very small credit) have to keep the slave alive or you are out some money. When all you have to do is grab someone off the street, put them in chains, and crack them with a whip, you tend to not care if you have to kill a few of them-- they are free for the taking.

See why we celebrate Columbus Day? American values, eh? (answer, no.)

[DrFunkenstein]

24. Nothing Columbus Did Was Alien To The Slave Trade of Millions

We think about slavery very distantly, but the human stories told would make your weep for days.

[PinkTiger]

12. I won't defend the Confederate flag, but

there is no comparison between it and the Nazi swastika.
The Yankees burned our courthouse down, they raped our women and stole our lifestock, killed us or left us for dead. They were no better than the Confederates.
And the war was not just fought over slavery. Slavery was the reason given by the Yankees to galvanize public opinion. What was really at stake was our land, and our raw goods.
The Yankees were horrible, and the carpetbaggers were worse.
While I don't condone the use of the flag today, as it is used by white supremacists, let us not forget the great wrongs done the South by the Yankees.
I'm a proud Southerner, who realizes that we are a conquered people. The South was once much richer and much more important, politically, than the North. After the War Between the States, that was forever altered.

[maggrwaggr]

17. I would take issue with "richer and more politically important" but

hey, have it your way.

The north was pretty rich. The south was largely agricultural and that's why they got their butts whupped.

Industry always wins, whoever can make the most metal to throw at the other guy.

[weirdmo]

20. yes but....

Have you considered the fact that the reason that the South was richer was the fact that they had a large un-paid labor force cultivating the products that created such wealth?

[DrFunkenstein]

26. Thank You

Minimum wage didn't exist, because you can't get more minimum than nothing.

[Yupster]

27. Livestock super important

The fact that the livestock had pretty much disappeared by the end of the war was a true disaster.

It just couldn't be replaced in just a few years. It took a generation.

Plus, in 1861, there were approx. 1 million adult white men in the south capable of serving in the army.

The Confederacy put an astounding 75 % of its eligible men in its armed forces, a truly remarkable figure.

By the end of the war, 250,000 of them or 1/4 of the entire adult white population had died and another 250,000 had been wounded. The loss of manpower alone crippled the economy so that it was 1900 before production had again reached pre-war levels.

It didn't help of course that the railroads and factories had been torn up and burnt down too.

Also, the losses were most severe among the most educated and influential. Confederate generals were expected to lead from the front and were killed in large numbers, much larger than federal generals. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had two corps commanders, Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet. Whern Jackson was killed, Lee divided his army into three corps run by Longstreet, Richard Ewell and AP Hill. Longstreet was seriously wounded in 1864, Ewell had a leg amputated before he was even promoted, and Hill was killed in 1865.

[fujiyama]

49. Your post disgusts me

I can't believe I'm hearing such things as defending the confederacy and bashing "damn yankees" on DU of all places. Regardless of what you say, that is EXACTLY what you posted.

Why the hell are people defending the confederacy on this site? They were on the wrong side of history. The south lost the war. GET OVER IT!

The south refused to give up slavery, and because they were not willing to give up the institution, they seceeded. This may seem simplistic, but this was the primary basis for it. They divided the nation and were responsible for the death of millions of Americans. They had their homes destroyed, their livestock killed, and their courthouses burned, because such things happen in war. The North was pissed and rightfully so. Your region also kept Jim Crow Laws intact for over a hundred years after.

[Yupster]

53. Yes you're correct

It is simplistic.

[beanball]

57. The north wanted our land

what a crock,both north and south were and are thieves,this land was stolen from the original people(Indians to you thieves).

[Lexingtonian]

65. Well,

they raped our women

I've never heard of this one. I would be surprised if it happened on any significant scale anywhere other than southern Appalachia, where when it happened it was usually locals doing horrible things to each other under pretense of fighting for one or the other side. And you may want to inform yourself about William Quantrill, Wild Bill Anderson, and the like. Northerners never made war that depraved.

What was really at stake was our land, and our raw goods.

William Sherman lived in the South- Louisiana- for a long time before the War. He was the one who decided that if people could not be personally punished for their abuses against Union troops passing through, that there was a need for "the hard hand of war" to be impressed upon them. That meant destroying their property.

Compared to the way other people have waged war, Sherman's March and such were nothings. The way the Red Army went through Eastern Europe people were everywhere plundered of their jewelry and everything else worth taking, most public and almost all large private buildings got burned, and they raped over 2 million German and Hungarian women and girls.

The real reason Southerners are so pained by this destruction of material stuff, and Northerners like Sherman chose to hit them in that spot, is that property is in Confederate-ish thinking the essential fact conveying status and identity. The Commissioners of Secession (see http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/causes.html and http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/commish.htm ) pointed this out again and again- stressing the essential need for 'property' in the Southern selfdefinition to the point of saying "Without slavery, there is no freedom."

Here is the clearest statement I can find of the dilemma:
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/preston.htm

No community of laws, no community of language, of religion, can amalgamate, according to -our faith, people whose severance is proclaimed by the most rigid requisitions of universal necessity. African slavery cannot exist at the North. The South cannot exist without African slavery. None but an equal race can labor at the North; none but a subject race will labor at the South.

Now, for these reasons and for others, perhaps, we believe that the political socialisms of these two systems, of these two sections, have
assumed shapes so diverse, that their continuity of action is an absolute impossibility. Only to cite one or two instances, gentlemen, for I am only making these suggestions for your consideration: At the North, in the free States, the pure, the simple, the isolated, the exclusive, the absolute principle upon which all political and social organism is constructed, is that of a pure Democracy, saving a scarcely reconcilable modification in the shape of a vague and indefinite system of representation. There can be no other principle introduced into the Northern socialisms, save this, in its utmost and extremest intensity. It is the vitalizing principle; it is the breath of life to the Northern institution. The almighty power of numbers, of simple physical numbers, from one to countless millions, is the sole basis of political and social agreement in the Northern States. Now, a fearful manifestation exists at this moment. Here is the Government of the United States, as we all I-,now, established for the protection of all parties equally, and yet, by the accession of this number, that Government has limited a section of the parties territorially. That Government has unduly taxed a section of the parties. That Government has threatened with immenent peril, if not with instant destruction, parts and sections of the parties to it, and the people and the States North are at this moment consulting together whether, by the mere power of numbers, they shall not subjugate parties to this Government. Now, the modification of this principle at the South is so essential, that it cannot co-exist with the same principle in its unrestricted form as I have exhibited at the North. At the South it is modified, it is controlled, it is made absolutely subject. The recognition of a specific property is essential to the vitalization of the political organism. Now, this indicates that the instant you engraft one of these rules into the forms of the other section, that instant the section which you have invaded perishes. If you institute property as an element of Northern political or social organism, you destroy the
whole system which exists at the North. If you exclude it from the South, you subvert the whole system on which the Southern civilization
exists.

That's what they really thought was at stake.

The South was once much richer and much more important, politically, than the North.

This is not true. Well, perhaps if you count in the $2.5 billion or $4 billion that the slaves were considered worth, and their 3/5 votes cast for them by their owners. Sherman says that Southerners in Lousiana said that it was their decline in power, their inability to dominate the North via the Presidency and the Supreme Court anymore that was their real reason to secede. (http://www.sonshi.com/sherman25.html)

For a clear statement of what the Northern view of the Southern predicament was, have a look at Sherman's September 17, 1863 message to Henry Halleck. (http://www.sonshi.com/sherman13.html about 80% of the way down)

I'm a proud Southerner, who realizes that we are a conquered people....After the War Between the States, that was forever altered.

http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=34&cid=71

Notice how he points out that the Civil War ended/defeated a lot of provincialism, which the label 'the War Between the States' somehow raises to a virtue.

There is a hugh amount of ex post facto Confederate propaganda/justifications out there. If you want honest understandings for why Confederates decided upon Secession, and how and why they chose force, stick to pre-War documents rather than the perverse alternate universe that is Heartland oral mythology.

Those are the things- selfrighteous provincialism, a class system based on knavery and insistent on slavery, religion that doesn't find equality within the notion of justice- the Confederate Battle Flag really represents to the rest of the world. The emotions about it among white Americans- sympathy and violent abhorrence- depend on whether they are aware that the Confederacy was a rerun of the social arrangements of Medieval Europe, and whether repetition of pre-Enlightenment history is excusable.

[Yupster]

21. Slavery awful, but

why pick on the Confederates?

Slavery has been around for thousands of years.

The African slave trade was around for at least 300 years.

The Confederacy was around for four years and its Constitution forbade the importing of slaves from anywhere except the United States.

Heck, the USA had the actual slave trade from Africa legal until 1808. The Confederate States never did.

Anyway, I'm not defending slavery in the Confederacy. I'm just asking why out of all the slave trading and slave holding nations throughout history, they get singled out?

PS - The day Jeff Davis was inaugurated first President of the Confederate States of America, there were seven slaveholding states in the Confederacy and eight slaveholding states in the United States. And President Lincoln assured the southerners, especially in the border states that he had no intention of taking anyone's slaves away.

[noiretextatique]

25. american chattel slavery was one of the more vicious

forms in human history. and it was followed by another hundred years of apartheid.

[Yupster]

31. Of course it was

I think that's something we can all agree on.

[DrFunkenstein]

28. See Post #9

I'm not sure the point you're making about picking on the Confederates. That's like saying "Why come down on the people who killed Mathew Shepard, people have been killing each other since Cain and Abel."

They get singled out because the Confederates would rather dissolve the the United States before they recognize the humanity of African-Americans. Think about that phrase: "recognize the humanity." Think about just how f*cked up that is.

[Yupster]

30. But the Confederates didn't start slavery, or

bring the slaves over from Africa in the horrible trade.

They inherited their system and kept it intact for four years. Meanwhile the USA actually did participate in the actual bringing of the slaves over here, and kept the system from 1776 to Dec 31 1865, and it seems like there's more grief lumped onto the Confederacy than the USA. Maybe it's the blame it on the dead guy idea.

[maggrwaggr]

36. I think it's the "winners get to write the history books"

In the early days of the colonies, people were shanghaied off the streets in England and elsewhere and brought to be slaves to the New World.

However, most of them were white and could easily escape and assimilate elsewhere.

Blacks didn't have this advantage. This is why blacks started being used. Their skin color branded them as slaves.

Slave labor was used in, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) all the colonies in the early days.

[noiretextatique]

37. why was segregation more persistent and vicious in the south

than anyplace else in america? and tell me what is the "way of life" that southerners, perhaps some condererates, were so eager to preserve? not saying that racism didn't exist all over america...it did. the battles over integration in places like south boston were equally as horrifying as the were in the south. segregation was literally the law of the land, all over america. but clearly the definfing isse of the war WAS in fact slavery. the southern states wanted it because it was beneficial to economics in the region...and the notherners didn't for the same reason.

[Yupster]

44. I don't want to get into a fight about Civil Rights

over the last 300 years.

My only point on this thread was that everyone seems to come down on the Confederacy, a country alive for four years which never really even had a chance to organize itself since it was at war its entire existance.

The Confederacy never imported slaves yet America seems to get much lighter treatment when it had slaves much longer, had a functioning government, and actually imported the slaves.

Why the different treatment?

[noiretextatique]

48. i agree the fixation on the confederacy ignores a lot

but i disagree about its innocence...even if it was only formed for four years.

[Yupster]

51. Innocence??

Who said anything about innocence?

[noiretextatique]

54. saying it was only formed for four years

the confederacy, that is, after 350 years of slavery...sounds like an axcuse to me.

[Yupster]

56. Yes, out of all the countries to go after

people pick one that was around for four years and was at war its entire existence. The Confederacy deserves its maligning, but certainly the United States deserves many times worse.

Not only did it exist in the US far longer, but the US actually imported the slaves. The Confederacy never did that.

Also, slavery was legal in the USA until December 31, 1865. That's eight months after the Confederacy died.

[fujiyama]

55. No it's not a

matter of blaming the dead guy. It's a matter of blaming the wrong guy.

Why are you implicitly defending secession?

You're taking a cop-out. You're seemingly unable to condemn slavery in the US for all its horrors. Your seemingly saying "it's not just heir fault". Of course not, but they had kept continuing the insitution longer than the north. You fail to note that.

[Yupster]

58. Speak against slavery everywhere

but while the Confederacy is guilty on slavery, certainly the USA's guilt is far deeper. I'm not defending slavery in the USA. I'm asking why America gets a free pass and people go after the Confederacy? I see far more guilt on the issue with the USA.

I think it's just uncomfortable to go after your own country. Easier to throw the blame onto the Confederacy since it doesn't exist anymore.

As far as secession goes, whether it was constitutional or not is a fascinating discussion, but it needs to be discussed outside of slavery and the Civil War just as a constitutional question.

I'm happy just to say that when General Lee surrendered the ANV to General Grant, that settled the Constitutional argument on the battlefield.

[fujiyama]

62. Slavery everywhere must be condemned...

That's definetely true. I personally don't have anything against the South or Southerners. When I was down there I was treated with kindness and hospitality.

I'm just annoyed by posts claiming that the Civil War was due to Northern agression. I simply can't agree with that. And I think that the reason the Confederacy is given a lot of blame is because of the fact that they still were insistant upon keeping the institution going, even after much of the north had abolished it. It's the stubborness, and the unwillingness of many to admit this. Also, the post Civil War phase of lynching and Jim Crow, while existant all over the nation, were much more prevelant in the South, and more brutally enforced.

Of course it's difficult to seperate the issue of slavery and that of the forming of the nation itself. After all New York and many northern states were profitting off the institution. The two are inescapable and it's a stain upon the nation as a whole, but as a matter of severity, I still believe the South deserves (rightly) more of the blame.

[Lexingtonian]

66. Because pro-slavery men ran the federal government until 1860

http://www.sonshi.com/sherman25.html

That civil war, by reason of the existence of slavery, was apprehended by most of the leading statesmen of the half-century preceding its outbreak, is a matter of notoriety. General Scott told me on my arrival at New York, as early as 1850, that the country was on the eve of civil war; and the Southern politicians openly asserted that it was their purpose to accept as a casus belli the election of General Fremont in 1856; but, fortunately or unfortunately, he was beaten by Mr. Buchanan, which simply postponed its occurrence for four years.

http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=34&cid=71

Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution.

This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South in the protection of this particular institution.

[slaveplanet]

22. No

Just the most overlooked...the security systems that have been quietly moved into place over the recent years,then greatly accelerated after 9/11
have one purpose. An elite class, and a chattle slave class...this is much farther along than most people believe...first they need to enact worldwide depression, then cull the population down to managable levels

[kodi]

29. yes, worse than death because one who lives in slavery dies each day

.

[Yupster]

34. Easy for rich Americans to say

that hardships are worse than death, but they're not.

Societies have existed throughout history under horrific conditions for generations, and few people chose death.

American slaves were treated horribly, but slaves lived, loved, worked, ate, drank, celebrated, worshipped, had friends and relations that they enjoyed, and had hope, not just for themselves, but especially for their children.

I don't believe that slavery was worse than death. There's value in every life.

[maggrwaggr]

35. hope you're wearing flame-proof clothes! :)

You might want to do a little more research before you talk about "the happy slave". That was a myth, propaganda from the South.

Some did in fact choose death. Some mothers killed their babies rather than have them live in slavery. In some areas the slaves were deliberately worked to death as a matter of economic practicality.

Whether it was your intention or not, you make it sound like they were living in a black version of a Norman Rockwell painting.

[Yupster]

39. Oh please

I'm saying that even under the most dreadful conditions, a human being can live a worthwhile life. Where there is life, there is hope.

Many slaves were born, had wonderful parents, grew up with wonderful friends, were decent, honest people, had great children who they got great pleasure from, and then they died. I would argue that this is a valuable life, slave or not.

[noiretextatique]

41. you need to read "beloved"

to really understand the impact of slavery. what did slaveowners fear most? slave uprisings...hence the added cruelty of american slavery. i wonder if slaves would agree with you about how valuable their lives were...i don't know...and neither do you.

[Yupster]

50. Nope, none of us know

I just know that all life has value.

I believe children played and enjoyed. People get value and enjoyment from their friends and family even under the worst of conditions. Children bring joy to their parents.

I think it's easy for us with our fat bellies and incredible freedoms to say their lives weren't worth living. I believe all life has value.

[maggrwaggr]

46. well that's easy for you to say, sir

since I would wager you've never been a slave yourself.

I would suggest doing some more research into this notion of the "happy slave". It's hard to find true accounts, but one that's particularly fascinating is Frances Kemble's "Journal of a Residence on a Southern Plantation."

Also Frederick Law Olmstead's journals of his travels through the South might prove enlightening.

[kodi]

38. they were oh so very happy in slavery that they risked death to escape

aren't to well read about the slavery ships of the 18-19th century, eh?

[Yupster]

42. No, I'm not "to well read"

Maybe you can help me out. After all, I quit teaching college history 13 years ago.

If I say that there is joy and hope within every human life, it doesn't mean that slaves were happy to be slaves.

[maggrwaggr]

47. well okay, I'll agree with you there.

:)

[noiretextatique]

45. there is value in every life

there was NO value in the life of a slave. NONE recognized by any laws, or legal body, none that slaveowners had to recognize. perhaps this is why lynching happened as long as it did. love...what is that when someone controls your very body? children were taken from their mothers...families were torn apart at the whim of the slaveowners. slaves were considered little more than animals...subhuman, if that. i'm sure some slaveowners were kinder than others...i don't think that made them any less or more loved by the people whose very existence they controlled.

[MrPrax]

40. Why no poll question? I vote Yes

[QC]

43. Wage slavery sucks, too,

but we're not supposed to talk about that in America, lest people start asking too many questions.

But while we're on the subject of chattel slavery, I do think there's a tendency to act as though it is something uniquely American. In truth, about 5% of slaves brought to the New World ended up in the U.S. Fully 38% were sent to Brazil. Add in the other sugar colonies, like Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba, and they account for fully 65%.

Also, it's interesting to note that between half and two thirds of the Europeans who came to this country during the Colonial Era came in some form of bondage. Slavery is not always a matter of race, but it is always a matter of class, a subject that is not discussed nearly enough.

[9215]

52. Compared to what for Christ's sake??!!!

Son-of-bitch!! You set the parameters and all any of the respondents do is wallow in colloquial jibberish.

Compared to the Ttolemiac enslavement of captives for the duration of the empire?

Or Ramses and the children of Abraham. Or Samson and the jawbone of an ass!!

Jesus Christ!! When are you people going to learn how to construct a criticism????????????

[Jack Rabbit]

61. Apples and oranges, but both poison

Frankly, I don't like handing out all-time Oscars. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Final Solution both rank as among history's greatest crimes. I'll toss in European colonialism of the nineteenth century, the brutal displacement of Native Americans and Stalin's deliberate starvation of Ukranian peasant farmers as other great crimes.

Those are the nominees. It doesn't matter who the winner. That would mean little to the victims of these crimes.

[DrFunkenstein]

63. My Point Wasn't An Actual Contest

Which is pretty tasteless, IMO. My point was that the Nazi flag is loaded with meaning (especially for Jews), and that we should recognize that the Confederate flag is also loaded with meaning for very important reasons. I find chattel slavery one of the most shameful chapters in American, if not human history. I don't take it lightly when people want to pretend that those meanings can somehow be removed from it.

[fujiyama]

64. Honestly, what is the point...

of different groups trying to compete for "being most oppressed"?

The important thing is learning what did happen and making sure more people will not live through (or in many cases die) in similar circumstances again.

Genocide is part of human history. If we were to get down to it, just about every group is responsible for some atrocity or the other.Some are more identifiable than others. Some are not so. Slavery, as an institution, is as old as time itself, but what frustrates many is that the US was the final industrial power to formally ban and abolish it. Slavery did indeed destroy peoples' lives, cultures, religion, customs, etc. It broke up families. I don't know how we can even talk about it now, because the idea of buying and selling people like an object, and then having control of their destinies is so abhorrent.

The Holocaust is a testament to cruelty in another way, by finding extremely efficient ways of eliminating certain ethnic groups. It also stands, most probably, as the greatest mass execution in the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, this is part of human history. Ethnic cleansing still occurs on a daily basis around the world. However, this does not mean we have to let it happen, though sometimes as in the case of the Congo, it seems almost impossible to do so. Slavery too, is still practiced in some parts of Africa.

[Classical_Liberal]

67. You support Lieberman or one of the other dlcers

If they had said this you would back them up. You are phony.