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Details of horrific first voyages in transatlantic slave trade revealed
- dylanz 8y agoI made it through 1/4 of the article and couldn’t take the reading experience. I’m on an iPhone and it was nonstop ads and odd breaks in content. Bummed!
- CharlesW 8y agoSafari's Reader Mode is ideal for this scenario. You won't see the associated media (at least not on this particular page), but you can read the story in peace.
- foxes 8y agoWhy should you have to use a "reader mode" in the first place? ++ As in it's a "workaround" for an issue that should never have been allowed to exist in the first place - bloat, ads etc. That aside, umatrix on firefox mobile has been the best improvement in mobile browsing.
- Bucephalus355 8y agoIn school, I used to wonder how people survived this voyage if they were shackled below the whole trip (3 weeks). Wouldn’t the stores they were in, which were only a few feet high (couldn’t stand up), fill up with feces? Apparently they were let up on deck for 2 hours a day. If anyone has any clarification to add to this / that wasn’t in the article, please add.
- aphextron 8y ago>In school, I used to wonder how people survived this voyage if they were shackled below the whole trip They didn't. You have to understand that African slaves were seen as cargo, not human beings. A good percentage would die every single time, and be thrown overboard. This was just accepted as part of the cost of doing business, the same way chicken breeders ship baby chickens in the mail today with the expectation that some will die in transit. The few that die off are more than made up for in profits by your ability to jam as many as possible into one shipment. It's one of those facts that really makes the transatlantic slave trade stand out as perhaps the worst genocide in human history. It wasn't just killing. It was the industrial scale treatment of millions of human beings as cattle for over 300 years.
- javiramos 8y agoYour comment reminded me of the famous J.M.W. Turner painting[1] which depicts the throwing overboard of hundreds of slaves so the captain of the ship could collect insurance payments. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship
- clarkmoody 8y ago> worst genocide in human history Yes, racial slavery was a terrible evil. But it wasn't genocide, which has a specific definition (intention to wipe out a specific people). Slave traders wanted enough people alive to sell at a profit. The scope of the death toll was large, but spread over a long period. From Wikipedia: > Approximately 1.2 – 2.4 million Africans died during their transport to the New World. More died soon upon their arrival.[1] Over 300 years. Compare to other genocides[2], which murdered similar numbers (or much more) but happened over just a few years. Maybe you meant "worst" in the sense of most injustice? It certainly stands out, but it doesn't hold a candle to the death inflicted on a colossal scale by the governments of the 20th century during both war and peace. Estimates place Stalin's body count between 3-9 million.[3] WWII civilian deaths are estimated at 50 million and included the genocide of the Halocaust.[4] Slavery is evil, but war is so much worse. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_tol... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_deaths_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_deaths_in_the_Soviet... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
- rags2riches 8y agoUgh. It just struck me how the tragedy of the commons could apply to a human population.
- Larrikin 8y agoThank you for well sourced minimization of the slave trade. It really helps to know that enslavement of millions of people shouldn't be thought of as all that bad.
- talonx 8y agoI would recommend James Michener's Chesapeake for a graphic account of how the slaves were treated right from the time they were shackled in chains in Africa and made to march hundreds of miles, dying along the way, dying on the voyage, and the lives -if you can call it that - they lived as slaves once they reached America. Although this is a work of fiction, it does a good job of portraying the horror.
- goatlover 8y agoI still wonder how anyone can do that to other human beings for three weeks. Even if you don't view them as the same status, they can clearly speak and think and come from societies with tools, clothing, art and shelter. Were the slave traders all sociopaths? I also wouldn't want to do that to any animal, although apparently it's seen as acceptable with factory farming.
- BadassFractal 8y agoContemporary Westerners constantly underestimate a human's ability to commit unthinkable atrocities under the right conditions. I don't know if it's our education's fault. Maybe we just don't bother to ever emphasize this point. Maybe it's too uncomfortable of a subject to deal with. This last century has presented a rich buffet of historical options to choose from when looking for examples of ideologies that allowed otherwise perfectly normal, God-fearing, salt of the earth folk to turn into horror-machines of rape, mutilation and slaughter. Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, you name it. Maybe even a relative or a next door neighbor in our very own US of A, sent to the wrong Vietnamese village at the wrong time. That seed of pure horror is in all of us, and it's ready to rear its ugly head when the conditions are right. I don't think as a species we've quite figured out how to suppress it.
- roadnottaken 8y agoPinker’s “Better Angels of our Nature” is a masterwork on the subject. It’s also a terrific read and will change your view of history and make you happy to be alive in the present! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nat...
- BadassFractal 8y agoI've been meaning to read it, however the criticism from historians about it has made me somewhat uncomfortable about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur... Is there anything conclusive about how cherry-picked the numbers in the book are?
- code_duck 8y agoOne has to eat food to create feces, especially food with fiber in it. If you’re starved nothing comes out because nothing is going in. I doubt the unfortunate human ‘cargo’ were fed very much or even at all.
- ComputerGuru 8y agoI’m not sure why you were downvoted, but it is true and certainly would have factored into the situation.
- backuptape8 8y ago> As the world ignores the ignominious 500th anniversary of the buying and selling of slaves between Africa and the Americas, historians uncover its first horrific voyages The word seems to ignore the Arab slave trade of Africans even more, despite it being twice as large. I wonder why.
- abvdasker 8y agoIs that rhetorical or do you actually wonder why? If it is rhetorical, what's the real reason you think the history of the American slave trade receives coverage while the Arab slave trade doesn't?
- backuptape8 8y agoPerhaps the details of the Arab slave trade are just too brutal. For example, virtually every African male child Arab slavers captured was castrated.
- dang 8y agoUsing HN for ideological flamewar will get you banned here, regardless of the ideology you're pushing. Please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- patrickg_zill 8y agoI find it hard to care, that a made up distinction about slavery, which has existed for millenia, has reached its 500th anniversary. The slave trade in Africa was continuous for thousands of years until mostly stopped by western countries. Kingdom of Dahomey (now known as Benin) : slavery was integral to their economy, well before contact with European traders. Mansa Musa, often billed as the richest man in history : dealt in slaves and gold. Died 1337, well before contact with European traders.
- dang 8y agoThis comment only makes sense in the context of ideological battles that HN is not the place for. Please don't post them here, and especially not with snarky flamebait like "Excuse me for not being able to care". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- forapurpose 8y agoSomehow this comment is still at the top of the page (with showdead=yes).
- sasaf5 8y agoAuto-loading video. RIP mobile data...
- jzl 8y ago"Almost completely ignored by the modern world, this month marks the 500th anniversary of one of history’s most tragic and significant events – the birth of the Africa to America transatlantic slave trade." A (relatively) small step in the right direction: The slave trade and its origins is one of the primary focuses of the incredible new museum in Washington DC: the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), steps away from the Washington Monument. This museum is a national treasure. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who might have an opportunity to visit. The subject matter, the incredibly detailed and thorough exhibits, the culturally infused architecture, the underground memorial, and many other factors all combine to create one of the most engrossing and memorable museum experiences in the US. It's a must-see if you're in DC.
- perfmode 8y agoas a black person, it is hurtful and alarming to read these comments and see how people in our industry feel about the slavery of my people. the callous, cold minimizations lack humanity.