It's all OUR fault...

This is a rather long post – for which I am sorry. What follows is for a current writing project, and is a work in progress, so check back for changes & additions.

Everybody knows that White people are to blame for every problem in history, right? It was the White man that invented slavery, caused the holocaust, nuked the Japanese, stole America from the Indians, killed Muslims in the Crusades, unleashed David Hasselhoff on the free world, and invented Internet porn. Oh yeah, and George Bush - the supreme cracker himself - single-handedly caused hurricane Katrina to hit New Orleans because he reportedly "hates Black people".
Some of the other horrific atrocities that can be attributed to White people include inventing electricity, indoor plumbing, cars, airplanes, computers, the internet, modern medicine, television, satellites, photography, air conditioning, freeways, GPS, trains, Oreo cookies, baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet - just to name a few. Yeah, that’s right, Whitey is definitely the scourge of the earth.
Once again, I'm not trying to sound like a Grand Pooh-Bah of the KKK or anything, but it would be nice if people could see history as a whole instead of the fractured, cleansed, immunized and repackaged version that they have been trying to get us to swallow for years. Take the story of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. I grew up learning in school that the Pilgrims were the first Europeans to set foot in America in 1620. We learned that they were the first to have contact with the Indians, the whole Thanksgiving thing, they settled the colony at Plymouth- the first in America, etc. I especially like the whole part about how they came here to start a "Christian nation", and were entitled to do so as the "first settlers in America". Of course, once I got out of Catholic school and was exposed to somewhat less-biased history classes, the truth told a different story. It seems that their history conveniently forgot about Jamestown, Virginia - which was settled in 1606 by a group representing the Virginia Company (sometimes referred to as the London Company). This venture was formed on a charter by King Charles the 1st that he granted to a group of hungry entrepreneurs eager to cash in on the easy money to be made in sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations. The newly established plantations of the British colonies in the West Indies were proving to be very lucrative so establishing colonies in North America was hoped to be every bit as much – if not more – profitable. The entire purpose of this business was colonizing Virginia and , if possible, find gold and a water passage to the South Seas. That's right folks - America was founded on a business deal! The whole Pilgrim bullshit story that Greg Brady and I so fondly remember was just that - a bullshit story. I don't doubt that things went pretty much as described in history in regard to the Plymouth colony and all, but the whole 'they were here first' routine was a lie. I guess its just a little bit more romantic to think of an oppressed people's struggle under tyranny who set out into uncharted territory to form a brave new world instead of corporate raiders in search of gold and other exploitable resources. The point is that history isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Educate yourself from as many sources as you can find so that you get the whole story - and that brings me to one of the biggest manipulations in modern history - slavery.
I know that I'm going to be crucified for this, but as long as we are talking about Political Correctness, this one really needs to be discussed. I mean in no way to belittle the horrific abuses that Africans suffered in this country (or any other for that matter) as a result of slavery, but I think its pretty important to set the record straight given this current trend of PC baloney.
Slavery has been around in one form or another for as long as there have been human civilizations. As far as the African slave trade is concerned, black Africans themselves, along with the Arab/Muslim world were responsible for initiating the slave trade out of the continent long before the Europeans even showed up. Then, finally, when they did appear, they only had access to the slaves they came for through a mutual relationship with the Africans that controlled the ports and the supply. Sorry if that puts a crimp in the 'blame Whitey for everything' mantra of the PC crowd, but it’s the truth, like it or not.
Africans, like everybody else, engaged in warfare. Whether it was two local tribes or two kingdoms, war was just as prevalent in Africa as it was everywhere else in the world, and as is always the case with war - to the victor go the spoils. In the case of Africa, one of the main spoils of war was the taking of the losing party's population as slaves. It happened all over the continent, and when the more powerful kingdoms or tribes realized the potential of this 'resource', they exploited it by creating a system of supply chains that fed the Arab and Mediterranean markets in the east, and eventually the west coast traders when they arrived. The more land and people they conquered, the more power and influence they gained, and the more wealth they could harvest from the selling of the vanquished.
So, by the time the Europeans arrived in Africa a well established system of slavery complete with a supply network, distribution system, and customer base was already in place - and had been for quite sometime. The Trans-Saharan trade route supplied slaves to the Muslim world, along with markets in the Mediterranean, and as far away as India and China. The arrival of the Europeans and their thirst for 'commodities' to trade was a windfall for the Africans who saw the potential and benefits to be gained from establishing a business relationship with these new customers.
As I have just illustrated, the Portuguese, French, English, Spanish and Dutch slave traders did not work in the world of African slavery alone. A deeper look into the true history of Africa shows that several pre-colonial empires (Dahomey and Ashanti are two prime examples) had important - if not dominant - roles in the trading of their fellow Africans into slavery. These empires not only benefited from the trading of their Africans brothers they actually garnered huge fortunes and power from doing so. Something else to consider is the fact that when the European slave traders came to Africa there were many obstacles preventing them from just showing up and grabbing whatever they wanted as they are so often mistakenly thought to have done.
The first obstacle was disease. As is often the case, when one population that has spent generations overcoming certain local diseases is suddenly introduced to a foreign population, a mutual exchange of disease can wreak havoc on both. Populations all over the world have suffered greatly from this shared exchange, and the situation in Africa was no different.
For the Europeans who ended up doing business in Africa diseases like yellow fever, dysentery and malaria kept their presence on the west African coast to a minimum as they had no way of combating these ailments. It is believed that this is the reason for the nickname "White Man's Grave" which was given to Africa by the European traders (and would have been a good time for someone to have said “too bad we can’t stay!”). It was simply too hostile an environment for the Europeans, and the majority that did attempt to stay for extended periods suffered for it regularly with chronic health problems, the ravages of disease, and often death.
The second major obstacle was the extremely rugged and unforgiving coastline of Western Africa. Unlike the coasts of Europe and the Americas, the West African coast had very few natural harbors. Add to this a myriad of off-shore reefs, sandbars, vicious crosscurrents that were difficult to navigate in the large trading ships, and seasonal winds along the coast that stirred up heavy surf further complicating matters for the traders. When deals were made with local Africans to supply the traders with products whether it was gold, palm oil or slaves the cargo needed to get to the ships if a profit on both sides was to be made. In a case where there was nowhere to safely anchor near the coast the traders would need to moor two to five miles off shore. The cargo then had to be delivered by the local Africans who were skilled at navigating the treacherous obstacles that kept the traders away.
All of these factors, combined with the limited military ability of the day, created a situation where the traders were dependent on the Africans and kept them from a position of power when it came to dealing with the locals. If the Europeans were going to be able to get their hands on what the Africans had to offer then they were going to have to do so at the mercy of their new partners. As I said before, it also prevented the traders from just hopping ashore, taking whatever or whomever they pleased, and then sailing off to profit on their cargo. When they were able to find suitable harbor trading settlements were established and trade between the Europeans and Africans thrived as a mutually beneficial business arrangement.
So, Africans routinely sold their fellow Africans to the European and Arab slave traders, but were they the only victims of the slave trade? Not even close.
It is an oft-ignored fact in history that White people were taken into slavery all over Europe in the exact same way that Africans were at the hands of other White races. Don't believe me? Just look at the origins of the word slave: it originated from the word 'Slav', which refers to the Slavic people (Russians, Ukrainians, Croatians, etc.) who were routinely taken and sold into slavery (origin in Latin).
The English routinely nabbed children off the streets, which were then sold into slavery (some argue that this was a way of controlling the poor population), and it is this kid nabbing that is considered to be the origin of the word 'kidnap'. In Aberdeen Scotland the situation was so dire at one point that parents refused to allow their children to go into town for fear that they would be stolen. These children were sold into slavery to either the American or West Indies plantations, or to work in local factories as a source of cheap labor. Children as young as 6 years of age were enslaved in English mines and factories throughout the industrial age. Even the prisoners that were being banished to the penal colony in Australia were often sold into slavery, never making it to their intended destination.
Irish citizens were kidnapped and sold into slavery in Barbados and Jamaica (they also had been sold to work on the new plantations in America at that time as well) in the early days of the colonies to work the sugar plantations owned by wealthy British settlers. While they also brought African slaves to the island for the same purpose (and represented the bulk of the total), history proves that Irish slaves stood right alongside their African counterparts in slave revolts.
Then there's the argument that all whites that came to America did so of their own freewill. They either bought passage outright and set out for the New World, or gambled for something better by selling themselves into Indentured Servitude. This 'voluntary' service contract would obligate the individual with between 4 and 7 years of labor in exchange for the cost of transport and room & board. At the end of this service, the individual would be free to buy their own land along with just about every other freedom enjoyed by everyone else. This scenario, however, rarely played out so ideally. Most who entered into this arrangement died before they ever attained their freedom.
White slaves from Scotland were pulled from the hulls of slave ships in chains, and sold at market as well, as in the case of Alexander Stewart in 1747. Stewart was brought to America aboard a slave ship called the Gildart (sailing from Liverpool, England). When the ship arrived, Stewart (along with 88 other Scots), was hauled off the ship bound in chains and sold at auction in Wecomica, Maryland for about 10 Pounds Sterling. I don't know, somehow being bound in chains, crammed into the bowls of a slave ship for 7 weeks, then herded off to the auction block and sold to the highest bidder doesn't sound very voluntary to me.
Then there's the other side of the Indentured Servitude issue that so often goes unmentioned in the history books. Like any good modern corporation would, slave traders and ruthless entrepreneurial ship's captains lied, cheated, and stole. Case in point being the so-called 'indentured servitude' contracts. When citizens from England, Ireland and Scotland, etc. were caught stealing, begging, or just generally annoying the British aristocracy they were often arrested or swept away by gangs. These unlucky folks ended up being sold to these dirty ship captains, who in turn forged indentured service contracts, and then sold the captives at auction once they arrived in the American colonies. The difference between these contracts and those of the true volunteers was that the forged contracts had provisions that allowed the purchaser to extend the length of the servitude for any reason (and often did for the most minor of offenses like looking at someone funny). Again, that doesn't sound very voluntary to me.
Viking culture relied on slavery, and for quite a while made a good living off of the trade. Their victims were Russian, German, English, Scottish, Irish, and even their own people. The French operated slave trade ports out of Rouen, La Rochelle and Bordeaux aiding in the trade of both white and black slaves to the Mediterranean and Arab countries. The Egyptians were involved in slavery, and the practice was also approved in the Bible (Old Testament, Leviticus 25).
The Romans routinely engaged in slavery in all aspects of the trade. They owned them, gathered them (mainly from conquests), and trafficked them - White, Black, Arab, and every race in between.
Don't forget the pirates of the Barbary Coast! They were responsible for raiding coastal villages all over the Mediterranean, England, Scotland, France, Spain, Iceland, and some think Greenland as well. They also took slaves from sub Saharan Africa as part of that previously mentioned trade route as well. They were routinely taking white Christians and other white Europeans into slavery and selling them as a main source of profit. And just who were these Barbary pirates? Arabs from North Africa mostly. The Barbary Coast is the name given to the Mediterranean coastal areas of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and it was the pirates favorite stomping ground. One of the most famous of these pirates was Barbarossa (Red Beard). His real name was Khair ad Din, and it was he who ended up making Algiers a major base of operations for the Barbary pirates. By 1805 the 'capitol' of Barbary was considered to be in Tripoli, which is the location of the first overseas military action of the United States. The Barbary pirates were wreaking havoc all over the Mediterranean, and had raided several American ships and taken many prisoners. So, the US Marines in an attempt to rescue the prisoners and put an end to the Barbary piracy attacked Tripoli - which is where the opening line of the Marine's Hymn "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli" comes from.
So as you can see, slavery was never really about racism, it was about business - big business. Whites enslaved Whites as well as Blacks, Africans enslaved other Africans, Arabs enslaved both and just about every combination in between, and the Romans enslaved – well, damn near everybody! Again, every culture in history participated in slavery and no one ethnicity can honestly claim exclusivity to being its victim.
Ultimately, the people responsible for slavery are defined by their actions involving the business of slavery, whether it was selling them, capturing them, transporting them, or owning them. In the case of the African slave trade, Africans exploited their fellow countrymen just as much as those who came to utilize slaves, and in the name of fairness, that fact should be written right alongside the rest of the story in our history books.As I said earlier, I mean in no way to make light of the dismal treatment that Africans suffered as a result of slavery. The crimes that humans can inflict on one another never ceases to amaze me, but I think that it is extremely important for us to educate or selves about them so that maybe - just maybe - we won't repeat them. If we are going to educate ourselves though, we need to learn the whole story. Leaving selected parts out whatever the motivation merely serves to confuse and corrupt the issue.