Re: Slavery,who was responsible?
Bruce McGuffin (mcguffin@ll.mit.edu)
15 Feb 1995 21:50:21 GMT
If you're interested in the history of slavery, I suggest you read
Orlando Patterson's books on the subject: _Slavery_ and _Freedom_.
An interesting point: slavery has meant different things at different
times. Since our historic experience was the antebellum southern US, we
think all slavery was like ours. In fact, the US had probably the
harshest form of slavery ever devised, except (maybe) for certain periods
in the Roman empire of large scale agricultural slavery. And then, this
did not apply to all Roman slaves; only those confined in latifundia.
Slavery meant a very different and far less cruel thing to Africans and
Arabs. Would the Africans still have sold peoples they conquered to
European slavers? I tend to think yes. But most didn't realize what
they were sending people off to.
Read the books. They're very interesting.
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Camilla Cracchiolo, RN camilla@primenet.com
Shrine of the Cybernetic Madonna BBS 213-766-1356
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Antoine de Saint-Exupury (yeah, I know I didn't spell it right) wrote
a bit about North African slavery in his book "Wind, Sand, and
Stars". He worked in North Africa as a mail pilot in the 1920's.
According to AdSE, the bedouin kept a slave until he was too old to
work, then turned him out. He would go from tent to tent asking to be
taken in, and would be refused at each. Shortly after this the elderly
former slave starved to death.
Bruce McGuffin
P.S. My uncle was in Saudi Arabia in the 1950's with the US
Army. According to him (admittedly not an entirely reliable source)
slavery was still practiced at that time.
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