Racism is as old as the human race and has been the cause of most of the world’s problems as well as inhumane treatment among humans. Slavery was one of the causes of racism and it affected the African ethnic group. Slavery, or involuntary human servitude, was a major practice across the United States from prehistoric era to the mid-modern era. In the United States, the subject of slavery is the least favored and people choose not to discuss the details and many have envisioned its existence before the American Civil War. Many societies recognized slaves as property. Traditionally, slavers served their owners by performing domestic labor, which enhanced the status of the slave owners. Slavery represented one of the few methods of producing wealth available to common people. Racism existed because blacks were viewed as un-human or inferior because of their dark complexion. Basically, people viewed race as a factor to decide who should be a slave owner and who would serve as slaves. Even in modern day United States, racial prejudice plays a very important role. In the era of slavery, Slave owners, mostly held racial prejudices against blacks presumably because of their race. Psychologist Jack[1] Brigham of Florida State University, an expert in racial attitudes research conducted a study involving students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and encompassed prejudice scores. Black participants had higher prejudice scores and were viewed as less Americans, in relation to Whites. He proceeded to conclude that, “the results strongly
support a role of racism [in the society].” Slavery can have many forms: forced labor, human trafficking, and child labor, among others. Nonetheless, slavery, regardless of form, shares a range of characteristics. For example, enslaved people are forced to work against their will via use of force. Slaves are also controlled by mental and physical abuse. Slaves can also be constrained and their freedom can be taken away. Slaves can also be enslaved from generation to generation. However, most importantly gender-specific forms of slavery are most central to the existence of slavery.
According to Slavery and Gender[2], “poverty, greed, and marginalization of women and girls and of minority groups,” were mostly obligated to work and perform services including but not limited to sexual favors. It is apparent that gender discrimination also played a vital role in slavery. For example, women were less valuable assets to slave owners than male slaves were because female slaves were unable to perform labor-intensive tasks due to the fact that they were physically unfit and couldn’t sustain long periods of labor. As indicated in Slavery and Gender, slaves were typically forced to “work long hours regardless of their age or health, sometimes for seven days a week, 365 days a year.” Slaves were also commonly traded as commodity for other luxuries of life. The mistreatment of slaves was directly correlated with the racial prejudices associated with an African decent. There is a popular proverb that states, “Until the lion writes its own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” In other words, the true nature of slavery will never be discovered, until the slaves themselves document their own mistreatment or someone else does so on their behalf. Since the Colonial Slavery, there have been numerous publications shedding light on the mistreatments of African slaves. Based on publications such as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass[3], some of the gruesome treatments of slaves were documented. Frederick Douglass was the son of an African-American woman and a white slaveholder. His dramatic autobiography was published in 1845, creating a sensation and spurring Douglass’s career as a militant, uncompromising leader of African-Americans.
Moreover, slaves received severe punishments for even the slightest offense. For instance, Frederick Douglass, who himself was an ex-slave, published his narrative during the colonial era of slavery noted that the act of raping an African slave was not only legal, but also a daily occurrence. The mere fact that Africans were not viewed as humans, but as property made it legal to commit the gruesome act of rape. Frederick Douglass also stated that slaves were beaten severely and would mostly sustain life-threatening injuries. Women made-up the majority of the slave population and participated in functions such as trading and cotton spinning, in addition to domestic chores such as preparing food, washing clothes and cleaning. In his narrative, Mr. Douglass continued to educate his audience by informing them that colonial slavery was not only physically abusive, but also mentally. Furthermore, according to the narrative, slave owners would order their slaves to be stripped naked, raped, beaten and as a direct consequence would die due to severe injuries. Furthermore, Inhumane treatment and racism were the direct consequences of slavery providing a source of cheap labor.
Mistreatment and racism were not only directed towards African slaves but have also been witnessed in other events across the world such as the Holocaust. According to Slavery in Africa[4], the article in Encarta, non-Africans, such as Jews were enslaved through channels such as warfare. In addition, after the 5th century BC, Romans were the dominant force in scavenging the African continent and acquiring massive numbers of slaves.
Ultimately, the practices of slavery expanded and were adapted by the Arabs and the Europeans. Slavery in Africa, points out that the Atlantic slave trade was developed in the west coast of Africa. This was a direct result of new explorations of trade lines by the Europeans who were the first major traders in Africa. The article also mentions that the Portuguese were the first group of Europeans to explore the African continent, followed by the British and the French. In Slavery in Africa, European colonial powers began to pursue agriculture and expand in the New World, which consisted of North, Central, and South America, as well as the Caribbean islands). Additionally, the article indicates that as European demand grew for products such as sugar, tobacco, rice, and cotton; the need for plantation labor increased.
The increased demand for plantation required an increased demand in the number of slaves supplied. According to Slavery in Africa, the West and Central African states already supplied the Europeans with African slaves for export. Also, enslaved men and women from Africa provided a source of reliable and inexpensive labor by European standards. Therefore, Africans became the major source, and eventually the only source of plantation labor in the New World, as indicated in Slavery in Africa.
Due to the abundant supply of slaves provided by the African continent, the different European powers set ground rules in partitioning Africa. As Mark Rosenberg, a European writer attested, “what ultimately resulted from the Berlin Conference was a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into 50 irregular countries. This new map was superimposed over the 1,000 indigenous cultures and regions of Africa.”
Moreover, according to Licence to Colonise[5] February 26, 2010 marked the 125 years from the end of the Berlin Conference that led to the partition of lands in the African continent. The Berlin Conference was held over a period of three months in a snowy Berlin, and attended by 14 European nations and the USA. The conference opened in Berlin on November 15, 1884 and officials from countries such as Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, Turkey, and the United States among others attended the conference. As the demand for agricultural products increased, Europeans deemed it necessary to divide Africa and exploit its resources strategically and to decrease hostility between the European nations.
As a Nigerian journalist points out, “the partition of Africa must not be seen as an isolated event. It was a continuation of previous policies of European exploitation and flowed naturally from the 400 years of transatlantic slavery. Having provided the wealth that created the basis for the Industrial Revolution in Europe, transatlantic slavery had outlined its main usefulness, the industries needed raw materials and these were to be found in Africa.” Clearly, the European nations viewed Africa as an important element in the creation of wealth and sought after it diligently.
Johann Blumenbach, a German professor of ethnology, has created a color-coded classification hierarchy of all races – whites, brown, yellow, black and red. Later on, a French ethnologist refined Blumenbach’s color classification. In Licence to Colonise, it is stated that the color-coding scheme, “included a complete racial hierarchy with white-skinned people of European origins at the top.” In the era of colonial slavery, this idea was widely accepted by the majority of the people in Europe. As Africa was being divided and partitioned among Europeans – not a single African was at the table at Berlin Conference. People from African blood were not even involved in the process of partitioning their continent.
The article, Licence to Colonise, indicated that, “over the three months that the Berlin Conference lasted, the Europeans powers similarly haggled over territories all over Africa, disregarding the cultural and linguistic boundaries established by the indigenous population, after the conference, the give-and take continued and by the 1920s, 90% of Africa had come under tight colonial bondage. The continent had been carved into 50 disparate countries, most of which cut across the logic nationality, geography, language, culture and other unifying factors.” The excerpt above indicates that European colonization had dominated Africa during the era of colonial slavery and the territories were strategically partitioned to that the demand for slaves are met in order to increase the production of rice, cotton, and tobacco in the European countries.
Most of the Africans who were enslaved were prisoners and captives resulting from slave raids. Slave raiding became an attractive and most efficient form of acquiring slaves because slave traders were now able to capture and export slaves by the hundreds to meet expected demands. The practice of slave raiding consisted of gathering, organizing, and collecting slaves by force and transporting them across coast mainly via ships. [6]A Portuguese official in 1724 had said, “ There is no difference between negroes and goods.” As usual, the arrival of the slaves in the fifteenth century in Portugal set the tone for what happened next. It was very systematic the way the slaves were brought in. Once a ship carrying slaves had anchored off Lisbon, in the old days, several officials would be carried out to the ship to inspect the cargo; the slaves would be assembled on the deck and listed. They would be taken to the Casa dos Escravos, where they would be divided into lots for the purpose of deciding the taxes due. The director and the treasurer would carefully examine each slave, who would be naked. A price would then be fixed and the price tag was hung around the slave’s neck. The slaves were treated like cattle or even furniture. Not given the right to speak or ask questions of their fate, the slaves would take their place on the dock and be examined.
Once the slaves arrived to their destination in Europe, they were not only stripped of their human title but they were denied the means to read and write. Europeans would not allow their slaves to be educated in fear of their growing wisdom and possibly revolting against the masters. [7]Anthony Tibbles believes that racist beliefs come from personal experience and familiarity with Africans as subordinates. This was the case throughout the Americas for slave masters and non-slave holding whites. Having forced Africans into slavery, having imposed inferiority by denying them means or motivation to read and write, and having established a system whereby all values, traditions, achievements and accomplishments were to be judged by European values and morality, there was little that the African could do not to be inferior, at least in the eyes of Europeans. This is clearly tied in with racism. Not only did Europeans view Africans as being “ape” like and thus they treated them like animals. [8]Willem Bosman reported of his fellow countrymen the Dutch, that some of their traders seemed “utterly ignorant of the manners of the people and don’t know how to treat them with that decency which they require. Racist ideas were leading to completely degrading the slaves of even their human rights. The way these slaves were treated was almost barbaric, especially considering the fact that most Europeans who were Christian were proud of themselves for being a civilized people. As a matter of fact, [9]Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban has said, “We acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade, including the Transatlantic slave trade, were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity not only because of their abhorrent barbarism but also in terms of their magnitude, organized nature and especially their negation of the essence of victims, and further acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should have always been so, especially the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and are among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and that Africans and people of African decent, Asians and people of Asian decent and indigenous peoples were victims of these and continue to be victims of their consequences.” With Europe’s economy thriving and their advancing technology, it is no wonder why they would choose Africans as slaves. The Africans did not have the means to retaliate and were not as strong and powerful as the Europeans were.
[1] Vergano, Dan. "Study: Racial Prejudice Plays Role in Obama Citizenship Views - Science Fair - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. USA TODAY, 05 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 July 2011. <http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1>.
[2] Herzfeld, Beth. "Slavery and Gender: Women's Double Exploitation." Gender and Development 10.1 (2002): 50-55. Print.
[3] "Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave." Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE. Web. 20 July 2011. <http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/>.
[4] "Slavery in Africa." Login Page. Web. 20 July 2011. <http://autocww.colorado.edu/~blackmon/E64ContentFiles/AfricanHistory/SlaveryInAfrica.html>.
[5] Licence to Colonise 492 (2010): 14-20. Print.
[6] Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: the Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Print
[7] Tibbles, Anthony. Transatlantic Slavery: against Human Dignity. London: HMSO, 1994. Print.
[8] Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: the Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Print
[9] Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Race and Racism: an Introduction. Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2006. Print.
