LEGO

‘Killarney, I was once an anti racist like your good self. What made me start thinking straight, was articles like this one, that presumes that white civilisation is the scourge of the world.’

While I used the term ‘white European’ on reflex, I was not making an argument about racism but about imperialism. The issue of imperialism has always been contentious – there will always be those who see imperialism as a force for good and others who will always see it as malevolent. I’ve also tried to point out to OLO posters in the past that criticism of European imperialism and its general history does not equate with portraying the West as ‘evil’. Many people like myself simply prefer to challenge and question many of the accepted tropes of Western history and its values. I am still proud of my white European heritage and have chosen to live there.

As for imperialism, to me, it’s is like having a wealthy family forcibly move in to your house, take over the title deed and force you and your family to become their low-paid servants and live in a squalid outhouse for which you have to pay them rent, while they gentrify your former house for their own comfort and capital gain.

Re technological advancement, having a technologically 'superior' status does not usually create a socially beneficial society. At the height of European technological advancement and imperial wealth, at least two-thirds of the population of Western Europe lived in abject squalor (arguably worse than the average African of the time) and their societies were riddled with a stringent class system that still controls much of Western culture and politics.

As for Africans butchering one another – compared to what? WWI cost 19 million lives and WWII 60 million. Has Africa ever come close to achieving a comparable statistic?

Mhaze

‘Well, given that the African slave trade existed for 500 yrs prior to the arrival of western traders and that in that period vastly greater numbers of slaves went east than went west, this assertion is utter rubbish.’

Yes, slavery in Africa existed long before the European slave trade, but it operated in a different form. Africa did not have prisons (and neither did the Old Europe societies) – these were introduced by the technologically advanced imperial powers. Slavery was mainly used as a means of working off a punishment for a crime or as the spoils of war. And yes, in earlier centuries, many sub-Saharan slaves were sold into Middle Eastern and North African Muslim markets.

Also, I’m not sure about your chronology – Portugal put down imperial roots in Africa from the 15th century and Britain, France and other European powers from the 17th and 18th centuries. So I don’t know what your point is.

The European slave trade not only restricted internal African trade, it also stripped the African civilisations of many of their most able-bodied men and women – a recipe for social collapse.

Smee Again and Is Mise

Agree with your points re the Boer War and American Civil War. Also, the US Indian reservations were a variant of the concentration camp, with a similarly catastrophic outcome for the native peoples.

Killarney,

When Mzilikazi broke away from Shaka Zulu, he fled with his army across the north of what is South Africa today. To stop the pursuing Zulu army, he employed a burnt earth policy of killing nearly every one in his path, burning the crops and killing the livestock. From what I've read the human death toll was nearly 500 000.

More recently, the Rwandan genocide was over 1000 000, and the following clashes have killed nearly as many. Then there's Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, etc all with death tolls in the 100 000s, and not a colonial in sight.

Hi Killarney,

Sorry, I have to disagree with you on one point:

"The European slave trade not only restricted internal African trade, it also stripped the African civilisations of many of their most able-bodied men and women – a recipe for social collapse."

First, a question: why did European slave stations occupy barely a few hundred yards (metres) on parts of the African coast-line ?

1. Muslim slave traders have been rounding up Africans and trading them across the Muslim world for more than a thousand years, and it hasn't stopped yet: slaves in Mauretania have recently been given the vote, so their rights are being slowly improved. During the dark days of the trans-Atlantic trade, traders would bring slaves to those coastal stations from far inland.

2. Slaves were traded for Western goods, guns, etc. The slave trade had a huge impact on the economic development of West Africa. Check out Hugh Thomas' massive book on the history of slavery.

And, as has been pointed out, who took the initiative to stop the trans-Atlantic trade in the early 1800s ? William Wilberforce and the Quakers. By the way, as I understand it, Captain Arthur Phillip was a friend of Wilberforce.

Saudi Arabia claims to have officially abolished slavery in about 1961.

Cheers,

Joe

I'm not sure what problems you have with my chronology, Killarney, unless you are unaware that the slave trade into the M-E had been going on since at least the 9th century.

My point is that the European trade didn't cause the disruption to African society that is alleged. The trade was already long established and the Europeans simply plugged into that trade. Europeans didn't venture into the dark continent to seek out slaves but simply took slaves who were bought to the west coast via a trade network that had been long since established.

________________________________________________________-

As to the artciles call for compensation, I think its perfectly valid that anyone involved in the massacres ought to compensate anyone who suffered during said massacres. If only we can find these 130 yr old folk.

Mhaze and Loudmouth

All your arguments are appreciated. Thanks.

African slavery is a huge, multi-faceted subject. European trans-Atlantic African slavery has been more studied than internal African slavery, but no historian on the subject denies the existence of an extensive slave trade within Africa before and during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade peaked at 70,000 per year in the mid-1700s, while the Arab slave trade peaked at 10,000 per year in the 1600s (Patrick Manning). Around 12.8 million people were transported by the Atlantic slave trade between 1450 and 1900 (roughly 450 years), while an estimated 6.2 million were sold into the Arab slave market between 600 and 1600 AD (roughly 1000 years). In the nineteenth century alone, an estimated 1.65 million slaves were transported to the US (Paul Lovejoy).

If these figures are correct, then given the agrarian, tribal-based socio-economic structure of the affected African societies, and the Atlantic slave trade preference for young males, this can’t possibly have been anything other than devastating to their societies and economies.

Ironically, the European and US abolition of slavery also contributed to the decline of the affected African societies, because African slavers could no longer reap the considerable economic benefits of their compliance with the European slavers.

Loudmouth

Re the abolition movement in Europe and US, much of this was propelled by morality, but the underlying motivation was economic. Industrial Europe no longer had any need for slavery as millions of disaffected peasants from the land flocked into the cities.

In addition, over 50 million people emigrated from Europe to the US during the nineteenth century, many through assisted passage. This indicates that the overheated European peasantry drift to the cities had become an economic liability to be got rid of, while the underpopulated US welcomed the influx of cheap migrant labour. The northern industrial US states no longer needed slavery, so they could afford to get all moralistic about it. But the agrarian-based southern states, who still needed slavery, continued to defend their right to own, buy and sell human beings.