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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 05:53 AM Jan 2013

10 Things You Need to Know About Slavery (That You Won't Learn from Django Unchained)

http://www.alternet.org/10-things-you-need-know-about-slavery-you-wont-learn-django-unchained

1) Slavery laid the foundation for the modern international economic system.
The massive infrastructure required to move 8 to 10 million Africans halfway around the world built entire cities in England and France, such as Liverpool, Manchester and Bordeaux. It was key to London’s emergence as a global capital of commerce, and spurred New York’s rise as a center of finance. The industry to construct, fund, staff, and administer the thousands of ships which made close to 50,000 individual voyages was alone a herculean task. The international financial and distribution networks required to coordinate, maintain and profit from slavery set the framework for the modern global economy.

2) Africans’ economic skills were a leading reason for their enslavement.
Africans possessed unique expertise which Europeans required to make their colonial ventures successful. Africans knew how to grow and cultivate crops in tropical and semi-tropical climates. African rice growers, for instance, were captured in order to bring their agricultural knowledge to America’s sea islands and those of the Caribbean. Many West African civilizations possessed goldsmiths and expert metal workers on a grand scale. These slaves were snatched to work in Spanish and Portuguese gold and silver mines throughout Central and South America. Contrary to the myth of unskilled labor, large numbers of Africans were anything but.

3) African know-how transformed slave economies into some of the wealthiest on the planet.
The fruits of the slave trade funded the growth of global empires. The greatest source of wealth for imperial France was the “white gold” of sugar produced by Africans in Haiti. More riches flowed to Britain from the slave economy of Jamaica than all of the original American 13 colonies combined. Those resources underwrote the Industrial Revolution and vast improvements in Western Europe’s economic infrastructure.

4) Until it was destroyed by the Civil War, slavery made the American South the richest and most powerful region in America.
Slavery was a national enterprise, but the economic and political center of gravity during the U.S.’s first incarnation as a slave republic was the South. This was true even during the colonial era. Virginia was its richest colony and George Washington was one of its wealthiest people because of his slaves. The majority of the new country’s presidents and Supreme Court justices were Southerners.
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HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
1. kr. Almost every great fortune in America was built on slavery, theft from the Indians, war
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 06:24 AM
Jan 2013

profiteering and government contracts, & drugs.

Nearly without exception you will find one or more of those things somewhere in the mix.

The Bush ancestors, for example:

1. stole land from the indians
2. slave-grown cotton:brokering & shipping, textiles
3. government contracts (multiple)
4. war profiteering/trading with the enemy (multiple)
5. possible slave trading (historical record unclear)
6. drugs & slave labor through the prescott bush connection to IG Farben

raouldukelives

(5,178 posts)
12. And they still are.
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 10:50 AM
Jan 2013

We did have a little run between 1930-1980 that wasn't too bad. We kept the greediest in a slight check for awhile. Now we are right back to the golden days for them.
The thing they figured out was they could never get away with the reimplementation of slavery and Triangle Shirtwaist companies in this country so they outsourced it.
Huge amounts of Americans it turned out were more than happy to share in the proceeds from those ends as long as they didn't have to see it first hand. Gleefully joining hands with Wall St and leading us into our corporate bondage.
Now we steal lands from other indigenous people who made the unfortunate choice of being born on our resources. We have slave made phones. We look the other way when banks launder money for drug cartels and trade with the enemy. The big difference these days is that it is with the assistance of millions of us. More than happy to lend money out for those ends, as long as its returned with interest. More than willing to trade any quaint notions they may have of liberty, justice and a love of the natural world for short term monetary security.

 

AverageJoe90

(10,745 posts)
2. Was a decent article overall.
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 06:35 AM
Jan 2013

There were a couple of exceptions, though: 1 was a bit dubious, and number 5 was, sadly, largely bullpocky. Other than that, though, this was a pretty good article......those two small flaws notwithstanding.

SemperEadem

(8,053 posts)
4. #11. It was a morally bankrupt system
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 07:11 AM
Jan 2013

that gave people who otherwise could not rise in caste and rank in Europe that temerity to act like minor dukes and princes in this country.

redgreenandblue

(2,088 posts)
5. 5) Defense of slavery, more than taxes, was pivotal to America’s declaration of independence.
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 07:33 AM
Jan 2013

That is interesting. So in other words, there is some legitimacy in associtaing the Southern secessionist movement with the independence movement.

lunatica

(53,410 posts)
7. Why else would there be slavery?
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 08:28 AM
Jan 2013

The Roman Empire was run by slaves. It's always for the benefit of the few who happily reap the riches built by their slaves.

johnnykooks

(12 posts)
8. Learned a lot from this article, thanks for posting.
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 08:41 AM
Jan 2013

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Honore de Balzac

 

baldguy

(36,649 posts)
9. 8) The desire to maintain economic oppression is why the South was one of the most anti-tax regions
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 08:42 AM
Jan 2013

"was"? Still is.

Separation

(1,975 posts)
10. The only thing I learned from Django Unchained is
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 08:50 AM
Jan 2013

the D is silent.....actually I havent seen it yet, will wait for it to come out on DVD.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
11. Slaves, drugs, and indian gold built European capitalism.
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 09:37 AM
Jan 2013

Tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, rum, cocaine, opium, and on and on ...

The stuff with the big markups, you can't get really rich without something cheap with really high markups like drugs or sex or the products of slave labor. Look at our drug corporations today, no particular connection between what it takes to make something and what they charge, and are they doing well? Oh my.

niyad

(112,426 posts)
13. k and r--thank you for that article--gathers things I have read from zinn, and speth and others
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 12:52 PM
Jan 2013

in one place.

 

guardian

(2,282 posts)
14. You won't learn that
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 01:04 PM
Jan 2013

Muslims enslaved more Africans during the 18th and 19th centuries than did Americans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

"Paul Bairoch suggests a figure of 25 million African people subjected to the Arab slave trade, as against 11 million that arrived in the Americas from the transatlantic slave trade.[29] Ronald Segal estimates between 11.5 and 14 million were enslaved by the Arab slave trade.[30][31][32]"

Glassunion

(10,201 posts)
15. 11) I don't expect Tarantino movies to teach me anything.
Tue Jan 15, 2013, 01:10 PM
Jan 2013

They are entertainment. I look to be entertained.

There may be historical references, but at the end of the day it is art, not a classroom.

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