Originally posted by rich23
To say that the US has made a complete recovery from a Eurpoean disease is inaccurate and perhaps a little unfair on Europeans. The institution of
slavery built America, it was central to its laws for many years, and when it was abolished, it was effectively replaced with indentured servitude -
which, btw, is not dead: it's alive and well and living (to my certain knowledge) in the cruise ship industry in which I worked for a while.
I didn't say
complete recovery, although I wish it were true. At least it's gone as an institution. Slavery goes so far back in time that
writing needed to be invented before we can see any evidence of it.
Regarding Europeans, I stand by what I said. Here's some comparisons related to
institutional slavery:
In America, 250 years:
From the beginnings of slavery in British North America around 1619, when a Dutch ship brought 20 enslaved Africans to the Virginia colony at
Jamestown, nearly 240 years passed until the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially ended slavery in 1865.
www.slaveryinamerica.org...
In the Ancient World, 2000 years:
Slavery after the Fall of the Roman Empire
The introduction of Christianity toward the end of the Roman Empire had no effect on the abolition of slavery, since the church at that time did not
oppose the institution.
www.infoplease.com...
In modern times, 600 years
A revolution in the institution of slavery came in the 15th and 16th cent. The explorations of the African coast by Portuguese navigators resulted in
the exploitation of the African as a slave, and for nearly five centuries the predations of slave raiders along the coasts of Africa were to be a
lucrative and important business conducted with appalling brutality. The British, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese all engaged in the African
slave trade. Although Africans were, as early as 1440, brought back to Portugal, and although subsequent importations were large enough to change
distinctly the ethnography of that country, it was not in Europe that African slavery was to be most profitable and widespread, but in the Americas,
where European exploitation began at the end of the 15th cent.
www.infoplease.com...
In the Americas, even before the Europeans came, slavery was a widespread practice. There is no point we can reference as the beginning and there is
no nation we can point to and say "They started it!"
The comparatively short time that the US used slavery in business enterprise was already under attack before, during and after the civil war. It takes
a long time if institutional slavery is profitable.
In some ways, it's still in existence the world over. The idea of whips and confinement have been somewhat discouraged, but cheap labour and back
breaking work seem to go hand-inhand. You alluded to it as well when you mentioned 'indentured servitude'.
In my simple logic, slavery and racism are the two children of man's inhumanity to man. Slavery has existed forever, but, as the world became
'enlightened', an excuse was required to make it good practice.
That excuse was racialization and expressed the ideology that certain people were less qualified as humans to govern their own lives. It was not
invented in America.
