Current Events > To this day, I still don't understand why the Europeans enslaved the Africans

(+) Yeah! (+)

Too lazy to work the plantations themselves? European society proved that they could make advanced civilizations without the need for slaves; why did they turn to enslaving other people? Transporting them across the Atlantic Ocean was remarkably expensive... wouldn't it have been easier to just pick the cotton themselves? We're still talking about slavery in 2020 and I still don't really understand why it happened.

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africans enslaved africans and then sold them off

Kaiganeer posted...

africans enslaved africans and then sold them off

Came to post this, blacks enslaved other blacks long before white people.

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They saw them as savages and subhuman I guess because their technology was way ahead of their's. So they struck deals with their leaders to enslave various villagers

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same reason the British tried to genocide the Irish if we didn't give up: people be scum

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They weren't allowed to use white labor to the extent deemed necessary:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

One hundred years later, the idea of slaves and poor whites joining forces would shock the senses, but in the early days of the English colonies, the two groups had much in common. English visitors to Virginia found that its masters abuse their servantes with intollerable oppression and hard usage. White servants were flogged, tricked into serving beyond their contracts, and traded in much the same manner as slaves.

This hard usage originated in a simple fact of the New Worldland was boundless but cheap labor was limited. As life spans increased in the colony, the Virginia planters found in the enslaved Africans an even more efficient source of cheap labor. Whereas indentured servants were still legal subjects of the English crown and thus entitled to certain protections, African slaves entered the colonies as aliens. Exempted from the protections of the crown, they became early Americas indispensable working classfit for maximum exploitation, capable of only minimal resistance.

It's not too dissimilar from the use of undocumented labor in our current agricultural industry.
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same reason every culture has ever enslaved another culture. defeated enemies and annoying indigenous people make great free labor.

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RiKuToTheMiGhtY posted...

Came to post this, blacks enslaved other blacks long before white people.

It's not as simplistic as that

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_8941.shtml

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Because slavery was a world tradition by then? It's not like the US invented slavery. Just ask the Egyptians.

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Tony_Biggie_Pun posted...

It's not as simplistic as that

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_8941.shtml

It's not as simple as whites enslaving blacks either.

Literally every race has been slaves at some point.

There's literally slavery going on today in Africa and the middle east but no noise is made about it

coh posted...

It's not as simple as whites enslaving blacks either.

Literally every race has been slaves at some point.

There's literally slavery going on today in Africa and the middle east but no noise is made about it

I know about what happened in Libya, Obama turned me off with what he did. I used to support him

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Slaves were so expensive that the plantation owners would hire Irish folk to do the really dangerous and hazardous work.

Was cheaper to mail the widow a sorry letter than to buy another slave

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Archer already did this joke.

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Well at least the Brits tried to use Irish indentured servants in the colonies back in the 1600s, but found that theyd wear out fast. Its still a sensitive topic in Ireland.

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