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“Africans sold their own people as slaves”

Wed 22 Sep 2010 by abagond https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/africans-sold-their-own-people-as-slaves/

“Africans sold their own people as slaves” is a stock argument White Americans use when the subject of slavery comes up.

First, simply as an argument of fact it fails:

Africa was not a country. Africans were not selling “their own”, they were selling their enemies, just as the Greeks and Romans once did. Africa, then as now, was made up of different countries. They were no more selling “their own” than, say, “Europeans” were killing “their own” during the Holocaust.

And it overlooks a few other things:

Most African countries did not sell slaves and some even fought against it. But because Europeans back then could control the supply of guns there was little Africans could do to stop it.
The Transatlantic slave trade was on a much greater scale than anything the Africans or anyone else ever did in the history of slavery. Countries were destroyed and millions died. Over 12 million were sold in less than 400 years, something so huge that it changed the genetic map of the world.
The Transatlantic slave trade was racist. The African slave trade, for all of its other ills, was not that. Neither was the Greek and Roman slave trade. So slavery in places like Haiti, Barbados and America was much more cruel.

As a moral argument it fails too:

It uses what I call the Arab Trader argument: it excuses an evil of one’s own past by finding the same sort of evil done by others. Whites sold slaves, but Africans and Arab traders did too! Which, morally speaking, is at the same level as an eight-year-old saying, “He did it too!” when caught doing something bad. We do not accept this argument from eight-year-olds, nor from bank robbers or wife beaters. “Africans did it too!” is no better.

But it is as a derailing argument that it comes into its own:

Its main purpose is to draw attention away from what whites did by turning the tables.
That part of their past makes White Americans uncomfortable. But instead of facing up
to it, they have built up defences against it:

Africans sold their own people as slaves.
Africans are still selling slaves.
Arab traders sold slaves too.
Slavery goes back thousands of years.
All races have practised slavery.
Whites stopped slavery.
My family never owned slaves.
That was Ancient History.
You are living in the past.
Get over it!
It was the times.
Slavery did not make economic sense.
Whites got to where they are by their own hard work
Blacks are better off in America than in Africa
Africans were savages.

And on and on.

Why not just face up to it? Because part of their sense of self worth is built on being white and how whites are better than everyone
else, particularly blacks. But it is a huge lie, a lie that can only be maintained by not looking at their past – and present – squarely and
honestly.

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231 Responses

on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 21:44:21 Thaddeus

Let’s take these points one at a time:

1) Africa was not a country. Africans were not selling “their own”, they were selling their enemies, just as the Greeks and Romans once did.

Sure, no doubt. And yet it was a sin for white people to sell folks who weren’t “their people”. If the argument is that you can sell political, religious and social “Others” as slaves, then that’s valid for both Europeans and Africans, isn’t it? And if it’s not valid for the one, it isn’t valid for the other.

Secondly, both Europeans and Africans did indeed “sell their own”: criminals were routinely sold into slavery on both continents.

Most African countries did not sell slaves and some even fought against it. But because Europeans back then could control the supply of guns there was little Africans could do to stop it.

“Most”? Source, please. Slavery was VERY common throughout sub-saharan Africa, as it was in every single human civilization before the industrial revolution. Those few African peoples who DIDN’T have slaves mostly didn’t have cities or agriculture. The San peoples spring to mind.

The Transatlantic slave trade was on a much greater scale than anything the Africans or anyone else ever did in the history of slavery.

Actually, no. More slaves died enroute to slave ports than got shipped. The proper way to argue this is to say that without European buyers, the massive AFRICAN chattel slave trade simply would not have existed.

The Transatlantic slave trade was racist. The African slave trade, for all of its other ills, was not that. Neither was the Greek and Roman slave trade.

This is a bit of a red herring as “racism”, in the strict sense, only came about halfway through the slave trade’s existence. It’s also a bit of a nit to pick. African’s didn’t have a concept of race, but they most CERTAINLY had the concept of the degraded Other and the sense that they could do just as they pleased with the degraded other. I don’t think that slaves sacrificed by the King of Dahomé got any moral or emotional sustenance from the fact that the guy doing the killing saw them as impure scum, but not as a different subspecies.

It uses what I call the Arab Trader argument: it excuses an evil of one’s own past by finding the same sort of evil done by others.

But isn’t that what this whole attempt to recover African slavery as somehow “not as bad” as other forms of slavery is PRECISELY doing, Abagond?
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 21:54:01 Mira

Nice post, I just have to note something about this:

The Transatlantic slave trade was racist. The African slave trade, for all of its other ills, was not that. Neither was the Greek and Roman slave trade. So slavery in places like Haiti, Barbados and America was much more cruel.

I am not sure if slavery being more cruel is a consequence of this type of slavery being racist. What I’m saying is, other reasons for slavery
(ethnic difference, religious difference, seeing enslaved as barbarians, etc.) are no better (or worse) than race as a reason for slavery.

So if this type of slavery was more cruel it wasn’t because the oppressors used (invented, in fact) race as a reason behind it. Using any other reason (ethnic difference, religion, etc.) would be the same.
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 22:26:16 Natasha W

“If the argument is that you can sell political, religious and social “Others” as slaves, then that’s valid for both Europeans and Africans, isn’t it? And if it’s not valid for the one, it isn’t valid for the other.”

Did I miss something or did abagond state that slavery on the continent of Africa wasn’t bad/awful/etc?

“Secondly, both Europeans and Africans did indeed “sell their own”: criminals were routinely sold into slavery on both continents.”

I read that as meaning they weren’t selling their those of their own ethnic groups. Of course, since there was no “African” or even “Ghanaian/Angolan/Senegalese” at the time, they weren’t selling their “own”. Either way, you’re right that criminals (even of the same ethnic group) were sold as well.
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 22:28:36 Natasha W

To Thad^

To the topic: I’d just tell the person to look up the origin of the word slave, if they want to play the tit-for-tat game.
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 22:30:16 Victoria

It was fairly common for Africans to keep other Africans (as in prisoners of war) as slaves, but this was nothing like the slavery that took place in the US, Caribbean, West Indies, South America. Slavery in Africa was more of an indentured servitude with a beginning and an end. Many slaves ended up marrying into the families they served. What’s important to note here is that slaves maintained their humanity and were not “born into” slavery. The child of a slave was born free.

So flash over to the British, Americans, French and Portuguese coming to buy slaves. The slavery Africans know of has not included vicious brutality and dehumanization. The captives have the same idea of slavery and believe they’re going to be treated the same way they’ve treated their slaves. They will serve their time, and then they’ll get on with their lives. They believe they will go wherever they’re going, and they’ll work and live there. But that is not what happens, as we know.

This information is something I’ve heard in my Black literature class, my African-American literature class, and I’ve recently read it again in a book called Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture by Howard Dodson, Amiri Baraka, Gail Lumet Buckley, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Annette Gordon-Reed.
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 23:02:14 Claude

I don’t think what Abagond is saying that it is a sin for one race or people to sell folks who weren’t “their people” and not for another. I think he is saying that the white argument is always that, if Africans sold each other to the whites, then the slave trade in America was justified.

But the outcome of that operation, which scale and magnitude has gone unsurpassed, has had a profound effect on 38 million people in America. Not just because of slavery, that was just the starting point. But because white supremecy would not allow themselves to see blacks as humans and it carried on long after the slave trade was abolished.

Although the slave trade was abolished, slavery was not. So, those whites who wanted to do the “cool” thing at the time and be “progressive” said ” Sure, we’ll stop bringing slaves over from Africa, but I’ll be damned if I give up the ones raising my children and tending my land.”

Had slavery been just slavery and halted when it was said to have been, i think the outcome would have been much different. But we all know how that story goes. Slavery ended in 1865. The oldest man alive is 114 ears old. He was born in 1896. Only a mere 31 years before that man was born were black people still “legally” considered slaves. I bet his memory is ful of amazingly shocking things.
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 23:32:31 Witchsistah

But the outcome of that operation, which scale and magnitude has gone unsurpassed, has had a profound effect on 38 million people in America. Not just because of slavery, that was just the starting point. But because white supremecy would not allow themselves to see blacks as humans and it carried on long after the slave trade was abolished.

Although the slave trade was abolished, slavery was not. So, those whites who wanted to do the “cool” thing at the time and be “progressive” said ” Sure, we’ll stop bringing slaves over from Africa, but I’ll be damned if I give up the ones raising my children and tending my land.” (and don’t forget “the ones I serially rape and then call sluts and wh*res afterward even if she was only 11 or 12 at the time and I was 30 or 40″)

Had slavery been just slavery and halted when it was said to have been, i think the outcome would have been much different. But we all know how that story goes.

THIS. Interesting how many wish to obfuscate this.
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 23:45:12 Hathor

I think the retort to “Africans sold their own people as slaves!” is that “Africans didn’t write slavery into the US Constitution.”
on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 23:48:44 Ankhesen

@ Claude.

Word. Also, black people are over 50 million in America. And in 2008 the oldest man in the world recorded up until then died @ age 137. So when white people whine about slavery being over a hundred years ago, it’s really annoying.

*sigh* ’tis why I developed fashion tips.
on Sat 2 Oct 2010 at 01:27:10 Aiyo

Great post Abagond

Nobody seems to ever mention how hard Africans fought to get white slave traders of their land, but who had the guns?

As for the whole slavery was such a long time a go. puh-leezeee. Slavery was about 400 year give or take (depending where you lived and when your town/ country started acting right) Afro Americans/Carribean/Latinos have only been out of slavery for 100+ years not even half the time.

It may seem so long ago becasue how far we have come but it is really not.
on Sat 2 Oct 2010 at 02:17:50 BlackButterfly

Excellent Post.

“Why not just face up to it? Because part of their sense of self worth is built on being white and how whites are better than everyone else, particularly blacks. But it is a huge lie, a lie that can only be maintained by not looking at their past – and present – squarely and honestly.”

Truth!

https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/africans-sold-their-own-people-as-slaves/

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