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Strictly speaking you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person. Can you explain in more detail why you

Strictly speaking you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person. Can you explain in more detail why you think this fine distinction is needed?

afarrell 7y ago
Because it is important to understanding the economic structure of slavery, why the Scramble for Africa only happened in the 1880s, and to understand the context for some of the pro-imperialist rhetoric in Europe which led up to the Scramble for Africa.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
He's trying to say that over millenia whites enslaved whites, blacks enslaved blacks and viceversa. Nothing personal or racial
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Nothing personal or racial I don't think it's the case that there was nothing racial about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, at least in terms of justifying it to a public who would increasingly be inclined to think that society can tell people not to keep slaves. Though I would tend to agree that slavery was never only about race, not before the trans-Atlantic trade, and not during.
PeterisP 7y ago
"carried 12.5 million Africans to the Americas, where they were sold into slavery" implies that their enslavement happened in the Americas. However, as you say, "you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person", which was done in Africa by Africans; many of these people were later (sometimes much later) moved to the coastal areas and sold and transported to Americas, however many were not, and were kept in slavery in Africa. The original statement focuses solely on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and implies that the enslavement happened solely for that, which is untrue. Enslaving free people and trading them was a local endeavor done by local rulers and strongmen (the main source of slaves was 'prisoners of war' or robbery raids in local conflicts), though of course them becoming a profitable export commodity significantly increased the amount of "business".

Strictly speaking you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person. Can you explain in more detail why you think this fine distinction is needed?

afarrell 7y ago

Because it is important to understanding the economic structure of slavery, why the Scramble for Africa only happened in the 1880s, and to understand the context for some of the pro-imperialist rhetoric in Europe which led up to the Scramble for Africa.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

He's trying to say that over millenia whites enslaved whites, blacks enslaved blacks and viceversa. Nothing personal or racial

microcolonel 7y ago
> Nothing personal or racial I don't think it's the case that there was nothing racial about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, at least in terms of justifying it to a public who would increasingly be inclined to think that society can tell people not to keep slaves. Though I would tend to agree that slavery was never only about race, not before the trans-Atlantic trade, and not during.

PeterisP 7y ago

"carried 12.5 million Africans to the Americas, where they were sold into slavery" implies that their enslavement happened in the Americas. However, as you say, "you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person", which was done in Africa by Africans; many of these people were later (sometimes much later) moved to the coastal areas and sold and transported to Americas, however many were not, and were kept in slavery in Africa. The original statement focuses solely on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and implies that the enslavement happened solely for that, which is untrue. Enslaving free people and trading them was a local endeavor done by local rulers and strongmen (the main source of slaves was 'prisoners of war' or robbery raids in local conflicts), though of course them becoming a profitable export commodity significantly increased the amount of "business".