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The answer is "no"; slavery did not create a major share of the capital that financed the European industrial revolution. The combined profits of the slave trade and West Indian plantations did not add up to five percent of Britain's national income at the time of the industrial revolution.
Nevertheless, slavery was indispensable to European development of the New World. It is inconceivable that European colonists could have settled and developed North and South America and the Caribbean without slave labor. Moreover, slave labor did produce the major consumer goods that were the basis of world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco.
In the pre-Civil War United States, a stronger case can be made that slavery played a critical role in economic development. One crop, slave-grown cotton, provided over half of all US export earnings. By 1840, the South grew 60 percent of the world's cotton and provided some 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. Thus slavery paid for a substantial share of the capital, iron, and manufactured goods that laid the basis for American economic growth. In addition, precisely because the South specialized in cotton production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the slave South, including textile factories, a meat processing industry, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers.
The effects the Africans selling other Africans had on their society was that there was a demographic issue. Too many woman, not enough men. That lead to polygamy becoming even more popular and likely. That also created more war because the tribes would take over other tribes to get more "people to sell". It also created very wealthy African leaders.
I have no idea why someone above said this was racially motivated. It was NOT. Slavery was very common to Africa before European arrival. The Arab slave trade had many more people and lasted for much longer in other aspects is arguably worst. It was also not limited to just Africa. I'm am not sure why this was not taugh in schools too?
Last edited by Seattle4321; 06-19-2016 at 01:28 AM..
The answer is "no"; slavery did not create a major share of the capital that financed the European industrial revolution. The combined profits of the slave trade and West Indian plantations did not add up to five percent of Britain's national income at the time of the industrial revolution.
Nevertheless, slavery was indispensable to European development of the New World. It is inconceivable that European colonists could have settled and developed North and South America and the Caribbean without slave labor. Moreover, slave labor did produce the major consumer goods that were the basis of world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco.
In the pre-Civil War United States, a stronger case can be made that slavery played a critical role in economic development. One crop, slave-grown cotton, provided over half of all US export earnings. By 1840, the South grew 60 percent of the world's cotton and provided some 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. Thus slavery paid for a substantial share of the capital, iron, and manufactured goods that laid the basis for American economic growth. In addition, precisely because the South specialized in cotton production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the slave South, including textile factories, a meat processing industry, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers.
The effects the Africans selling other Africans had on their society was that there was a demographic issue. Too many woman, not enough men. That lead to polygamy becoming even more popular and likely. That also created more war because the tribes would take over other tribes to get more "people to sell". It also created very wealthy African leaders.
I have no idea why someone above said this was racially motivated. It was NOT. Slavery was very common to Africa before European arrival. The Arab slave trade had many more people and lasted for much longer in other aspects is arguably worst. It was also not limited to just Africa. I'm am not sure why this was not taugh in schools too?
Most of the above your wrote was simply nonsense. In the 18th century a full third of investment in the British economy came from funding derived from plantation economies in the west indies so what exactly are you talking about??
As for slavery, I already pointed out the differences between slavery in Africa and the European conception of it. Either you didnt bother to read my post or just ignorantly glossed over it. As for your points on demography or polygamy that is nonsensical conjecture.
The slave trade did have a racial component as its core, otherwise how can you justify the treatment of another human being as chattel? You can't, so you have to dehumanise them, you make such abuse acceptable. The Nazis did the same thing with the Jewish people depicting them as somehow alien, different and parasitic. This was a precursor to the Holocaust. It is a tried and tested formula..
The racial component of slavery was complemented by racialised pseudo science to back up the subjection of peoples in various imperial empires. Colonies which likewise proved very lucrative. In the case of Britain, colonial purchases of British goods were a major stimulus to the economy. Around 1770, 96.3% of British exports of nails and 70.5% of the export of wrought iron went to colonial and African markets. Around the same time, British exports of iron manufactures took 15-19% of domestic iron production.
Textile exports accounted for between a third and a half of total production, with colonial and African markets again taking a huge share. In the periods 1784-1786 and 1805-1807, the growth of exports accounted for no less than 87% of the growth of British output. Sorry please explain how colonial and african markets did not aid European economies like Britain's again..?
As for the Arab slave trade, why is it some individuals always resort to bringing up other periods of slavery? Many other populations from the Romans to the Egyptians had slaves, so what? Those periods are not being discussed here, the trans Atlantic slave trade is so why digress? The Arab slave trade may have lasted longer, but its impact was less pronounced as it wasnt on an industrial scale and unlike in America slaves in Arabia could as in Africa could likewise change status. This upward mobility within the ranks of Arab slaves was not rare. Tariq ibn Ziyad – who conquered Spain and whom Gibraltar was named after – was a slave of the emir of Ifriqiya, Musa bin Nusayr, who gave him his freedom and appointed him as a general in his army.
Son of an enslaved Ethiopian mother, Antarah ibn Shaddād, also known as Antar, was an Afro-Arabic man who was originally born into slavery. He eventually became a well-known poet and soldier. This kind of upward mobility did not occur in the European trans atlantic slave system.
Anymore half truths..? ..
Last edited by nograviti; 06-19-2016 at 02:01 PM..
Reason: grammar and spelling
This was a precursor to the Holocaust. It is a tried and tested formula..
Son of an enslaved Ethiopian mother, Antarah ibn Shaddād, also known as Antar, was an Afro-Arabic man who was originally born into slavery. He eventually became a well-known poet and soldier. This kind of upward mobility did not occur in the European trans atlantic slave system.
Anymore half truths..? ..
I see that for you there is no slavery other than the transatlantic one. When I talk about slavery I mean all the people treated as an estate and working for no pay. Slavery and the holocaust have only inhumanity in common. Jews were slaughtered for the simple fact of having been born jews, while slaves were a free workforce and harming them wasn't their owner's best interest. People were enslaved out of pecuniary interests.
Upward mobility occurred also in European transatlantic slavery, examples are Chica da Silva in Brasil, Henrique of Malacca, among many others.
Also, another half-truth, in regards to statement saying slavery in Africa wasn't as cruel as when perpetrated by "whites", I invite you to look at the case of Francis Bok, born in 1979 (yes, not centuries ago) in Sudan into slavery living in bondage for years before being able to escape. Enslaving people is a die-hard practice, shamelessly still a commonality in many areas of Africa. Unfortunately, no other race is more cruel to Africans than those of their own kind. Once we understand this understand that slavery isn't a crime against Black Africans, but a a crime against humanity by humanity.
I see that for you there is no slavery other than the transatlantic one. When I talk about slavery I mean all the people treated as an estate and working for no pay. Slavery and the holocaust have only inhumanity in common. Jews were slaughtered for the simple fact of having been born jews, while slaves were a free workforce and harming them wasn't their owner's best interest. People were enslaved out of pecuniary interests.
Upward mobility occurred also in European transatlantic slavery, examples are Chica da Silva in Brasil, Henrique of Malacca, among many others.
Also, another half-truth, in regards to statement saying slavery in Africa wasn't as cruel as when perpetrated by "whites", I invite you to look at the case of Francis Bok, born in 1979 (yes, not centuries ago) in Sudan into slavery living in bondage for years before being able to escape. Enslaving people is a die-hard practice, shamelessly still a commonality in many areas of Africa. Unfortunately, no other race is more cruel to Africans than those of their own kind. Once we understand this understand that slavery isn't a crime against Black Africans, but a a crime against humanity by humanity.
Nope, I said transatlantic slavery and the effects of that trade economically on European and America economies was being discussed here nothing more. Rambling on about other periods of slavery is going off topic and I pointed that out.
As for your position on the Holocaust, I am afraid you are very much at odds with the established narrative around this period. Borrowing from Karl Popper, to establish a common national tribal identity of people 'volk', the Nazis needed to define who were outsiders. Propaganda initially sowed the seeds of doubt through dehumanising the Jews (in the Eternal Jew, they were compared to rats and parasites), then this was backed in law with statutes like the Nuremberg laws. This process was then ramped up over time. In short the 'Shoah' was a slow process with the Nazis initially preparing the ground with propaganda and minor pogroms like the 'Kristallnacht', accompanied with discriminatory laws before eventually embarking on wholesale slaughter. Likewise to justify colonial oppression or a slave systems, the subjects of that system likewise needed to be dehumanised. Much like another poster, either you are choosing to misunderstand this point or it is beyond you.
As for the examples you gave of equivalent upward mobility in European slave systems, you have got to be kidding. Chica da Silva a woman who had to use sex rather than her intellect to get one over on the slave system. Ignoring the fact that she unlike the example I gave was also half white. Also she is a questionable example as she was used a propaganda piece to sell the myth of Brazilian racial democracy. Any walk around Rio de Janeiro even today will tell you how much of a myth that is. As areas like Leblon and Ipanema are overwhelming white and the Favelas are overwhelming black or brown. Now on to Henrique of Malacca, he wasn't even black he was Malaysian. He also remained an interpreter for all of the time he served Magellian and also went on to betray the Spanish. Hardly glowing examples of social mobility compared to African or Arabian slave systems. Where in African systems the slaves became Kings and in the Arabian system slaves became generals with whole regions named after them. I am not sure if you being serious...
Also what does an anecdotal example of slavery in 1979 have to do with the transatlantic slave trade? Nothing! As for statements like "Enslaving people is a die-hard practice, shamelessly still a commonality in many areas of Africa. Unfortunately, no other race is more cruel to Africans than those of their own kind." Pure unsubstantiated conjecture and without any proof. In short your myopic opinion and nothing more What we do know is that bar populations displaced by the Zulus, the biggest known losses of life in Africa can be attributed to European activity there from the Herrero Massacre to the conservative estimates of 9 million deaths in the Belgian Congo. I could cite many other examples, but those two will do..
A crime against humanity you say? True but also a crime perpetrated by Europeans against black Africans in the Americas, my apologies if you wish to avoid that point or if it makes you uncomfortable.
Go on have another go...
Last edited by nograviti; 06-20-2016 at 03:13 PM..
Reason: grammar
As for the examples you gave of equivalent upward mobility in European slave systems, you have got to be kidding. Chica da Silva a woman who had to use sex rather than her intellect to get one over on the slave system. Ignoring the fact that she unlike the example I gave was also half white. Also she is a questionable example as she was used a propaganda piece to sell the myth of Brazilian racial democracy. Any walk around Rio de Janeiro even today will tell you how much of a myth that is. As areas like Leblon and Ipanema are overwhelming white and the Favelas are overwhelming black or brown. Now on to Henrique of Malacca, he wasn't even black he was Malaysian. He also remained an interpreter for all of the time he served Magellian and also went on to betray the Spanish. Hardly glowing examples of social mobility compared to African or Arabian slave systems. Where in African systems the slaves became Kings and in the Arabian system slaves became generals with whole regions named after them. I am not sure if you being serious...
Also what does an anecdotal example of slavery in 1979 have to do with the transatlantic slave trade? Nothing! As for statements like "Enslaving people is a die-hard practice, shamelessly still a commonality in many areas of Africa. Unfortunately, no other race is more cruel to Africans than those of their own kind." Pure unsubstantiated conjecture and without any proof. In short your myopic opinion and nothing more What we do know is that bar populations displaced by the Zulus, the biggest known losses of life in Africa can be attributed to European activity there from the Herrero Massacre to the conservative estimates of 9 million deaths in the Belgian Congo. I could cite many other examples, but those two will do..
A crime against humanity you say? True but also a crime perpetrated by Europeans against black Africans in the Americas, my apologies if you wish to avoid that point or if it makes you uncomfortable.
Go on have another go...
So your example of the "well-renowned" African social mobility is massively significant but mine is anecdotal? I sense a little bit of bad faith there.
Actually and Black slavery have one thing in common. For instance occupied France actively participated and Jewish deportation though Germans get all the blame for it. Pretty much like West Africans countries provided Europeans with slaves in exchanges for goods and now demonize and dehumanize Whites for something they share half the responsibility. Some Africans should feel ashamed for what their ancients did to their own people and for dodging the responsibility while throwing it on other.
Lastly, if Europeans, or Whites across the board, are so mean and so unfair, why do so many Africans are desperate to move there? You're going to say "The Earth is for everyone", That's the kind of speech of those who want Africa for Africans but Europe for everyone.
How come they do not stay and take advantage of that wonderful social mobility you are talking about? You are going to say "Whites stole the wealth", Blacks also kicked Whites out sometimes committing massacres.
Aren't they taking advantage of the wealth created there at White slaves' expenses?
I think your views are very Manichean, things aren't all black nor all white, to say the least. You sound like someone that criticizes the dish with a full mouth.
So your example of the "well-renowned" African social mobility is massively significant but mine is anecdotal? I sense a little bit of bad faith there.
Actually and Black slavery have one thing in common. For instance occupied France actively participated and Jewish deportation though Germans get all the blame for it. Pretty much like West Africans countries provided Europeans with slaves in exchanges for goods and now demonize and dehumanize Whites for something they share half the responsibility. Some Africans should feel ashamed for what their ancients did to their own people and for dodging the responsibility while throwing it on other.
Lastly, if Europeans, or Whites across the board, are so mean and so unfair, why do so many Africans are desperate to move there? You're going to say "The Earth is for everyone", That's the kind of speech of those who want Africa for Africans but Europe for everyone.
How come they do not stay and take advantage of that wonderful social mobility you are talking about? You are going to say "Whites stole the wealth", Blacks also kicked Whites out sometimes committing massacres.
Aren't they taking advantage of the wealth created there at White slaves' expenses?
I think your views are very Manichean, things aren't all black nor all white, to say the least. You sound like someone that criticizes the dish with a full mouth.
/thread for me.
I think I am largely done here. Your posts are hard to follow as they meander all over the place. Your example of social mobility was poor and the best example you could find was a mixed race woman who used sex to achieve social mobility. Against a black african who was born a slave and eventually became a powerful king who became so dorminant over the palm oil trade in west africa the British actually had to take action against him. This was because he had actually blocked British access to the interior and created a powerful monopoly on trade in goods from that region. He also began to ship goods directly to Liverpool. When he was arrested he actually spent sometime with the Queen in Buckingham Palace. I will leave other posters to make their mind up on that one..
No where have I refuted that Africans engaged in slavery. But I did state that the two slave systems had core differences, which is something you niether acknowledged and could not refute. Also yes they sold them, but to the west's shame they bought them. Before you bring up arguments about emancipation of the slaves. As I pointed out some African kingdoms blocked trading slaves with European powrs well before the British tried to stop the trade and I think the ending of the slave trade had more to do with the successful Haitian slave revolt and later rebellions across the West Indies which made the system that much more uneconomic. Finally whether someone sold you the slaves is a mute point, because once in the Americas the treatment of slaves in the Americas rested on the shoulders of Europeans running plantations at the time. What we do know is grim, executions (lynching etc), mutilation, torture and beating all in an effort to maintain production. That coupled with a racist ideology and the deliberate under education of slave populations in the Americas which supported the system were a crime. Something you have only indirectly acknowledged.
As for your glib comment about Africans coming to Europe. Most African economies are a mess thats why. Unlike you I wont gloss over the failing of one group of people against another. I will acknowledge that African leadership has been lacking in recent history. But I will say they are trying to organise somewhat artifical nations, with countries like Nigeria that are really three nations for example (Hausa & Fulani Kingdoms, Yoruba and Igbo). Just look at the borders of some nations in Africa that run in sheer straight lines. In the case of Nigeria, you have the Hausa who want to go back to the Sokoto Caliphate a successful system of Emirates. While the Yoruba had a feudal system of city states, while the Igbo had a democratic system of government well before Europeans arrived. Making such disparate groups work together isnt easy. This combined with previous periods of colonial dominance, with thr mercantilist system which oftern structured economies to merely deliver goods to the imperial mother country than develop all need to be addressed. In Nigeria all railway lines largely go from north to south, why? because goods travelled that way out of the country. This combined with general resource theft and genocide explains why a lot of African countries look the way they do.
Almost all of the nations that experienced the least colonial interference are the most successful today. Japan was never colonised and became the first non white nation to Industrialise. China the world's current number two economy was only colonised on its coast. Borrowing from Henry Kissinger's tome "China". The Chinese waited for A. The invaders to become Chinese like the Mongols did or B. Leave which is what the European powers eventually did. South Korea was never colonised by European powers and interestingly niether was Saudi Arabia one of the more stable states in the middle east. Do you see a picture emerging? Less interference more growth. Parallels can even be found in Europe. Why is Eastern Europe now poorer than Western Europe? Countries like the Czech republic and Hungary had a GDP per capita comparable to western European nations in the past. The most likely explanation is the disruptive influence of the Russian empire in the guise of the USSR.
As for blacks committing massacres, please how many revolutions occurred without shedding blood. Especially in the case where people were fighting for self determination in their own ancestral lands. Also please compare the end of the apartheid system, with a truth and reconcilation commission where people merely admitted their crimes and were allowed to go free, with the German hounding of anyone involved in the SS. Currently a man of 94 being tried in the courts. With motto of strength through diversity I would argue black south africans had a more enlightened approach.
As for blacks taking advantage of former slave systems through coming to Europe, they would be no different to the Europeans already living there would they. Before I close, would you be able to condemn the abuses of the transatlantic slave trade and acknowledge the economic benefit to Europe and the Americas of that trade?
Never heard one word of thanks for the thousands of northerners that lost their lives to fight slavery including members of my own family.
Given the sordid conditions which blacks endured in northern cities, before, during, and after the Civil war, clearly helping blacks wasn't the prime motivation. Undermining the wealth of the southern elites was. The wealth of the South was based on slavery.
This was a battle between the industrial elites of the North, and the plantation elites of the South. So sorry. No thanks need to offered. I will not even getting into the frightening application of Jim Crow, after the Reconstruction Era, and how the Feds and the North did NOTHING to stop this. In fact blatant discrimination remained a tool of the Federal gov't many decades after the Civil War.
Son of an enslaved Ethiopian mother, Antarah ibn Shaddād, also known as Antar, was an Afro-Arabic man who was originally born into slavery. He eventually became a well-known poet and soldier. This kind of upward mobility did not occur in the European trans atlantic slave system.
Anymore half truths..? ..
In fact what is almost unique about the Transatlantic slavery systems were the systematic racialization, which was used to justify the continued existence into the 19th century. By then Europeans had ceased enslaving each other, but justified enslaving the black African, as he was seen as being sub human.
Systems developed in virtually every single slave society in the Americas, which aimed at dehumanizing the African. Contrary to popular belief, the one drop system of racial classification in the USA was only implemented AFTER slavery. Mulattos, the offspring of slave owners and overseers, were given privileges not available to those cast as "black". This to ensure that the more "African" one was, by phenotype and/or culture, the more degraded that person was perceived to be.
The result was the creation of a caste like group of people, deprived of self esteem, and bereft of opportunities for upward mobility until well into the mid 20th century. Ask any black person any where in the Americas as to what "good hair" is. Rest assured it isn't what most blacks have on their heads.
Transatlantic slavery was a very efficient mechanism to create whole societies of peoples who had nothing but self contempt for who they were, what they looked, like, and what cultural attributes that they possessed. Their notion of family units was destroyed, and their ability to mobilize as a group was undermined by the petty squabbling between the various skin shades of these peoples.
Slavery was by no means unique to the Americas, however the demonization of peoples on the basis of race, indeed was. And in 2016 the residual of this can be seen almost every where in the Americas.
So those who scream "get over it" really need to cease indicating how ignorant they are.
. Jews were slaughtered for the simple fact of having been born jews, while slaves were a free workforce and harming them wasn't their owner's best interest. People were enslaved out of pecuniary interests.
.
Jews were not treated as chattel. Transatlantic slaves were.
Jews were allowed to keep their religions, family structures, and institutions, thus enabling them to resist the worst aspects of their oppression, as well as to mobilize to quickly take advantage of opportunities, as they became available.
The descendants of Transatlantic slaves clearly weren't allowed these advantages. In fact all the they know about themselves are that their ancestors were slaves. It is the rare person from these groups who know anything about what they might have been in the pre slavery era. In fact until recently, their exposure to this was defined by Tarzan movies, with consequences that ought to be obvious.
Given that Europeans and their North American peers, paint themselves as being the most morally righteous, and progressive forces on their planet, the notion that their involvement in slavery can be justified because some Sudan warlord or Mauritanian nomadic group might still engage in it, is preposterous. I don't see any one from either holding their culture as being superior to others.
As for slavery, I already pointed out the differences between slavery in Africa and the European conception of it. Either you didnt bother to read my post or just ignorantly glossed over it. As for your points on demography or polygamy that is nonsensical conjecture.
The slave trade did have a racial component as its core, otherwise how can you justify the treatment of another human being as chattel? You can't, so you have to dehumanise them, you make such abuse acceptable. The Nazis did the same thing with the Jewish people depicting them as somehow alien, different and parasitic. This was a precursor to the Holocaust. It is a tried and tested formula..
The racial component of slavery was complemented by racialised pseudo science to back up the subjection of peoples..
There was no "African" conception of slavery. It varied from state to state, tribe to tribe. There was chattel slavery in Africa, it sometimes had a racial or "ethnic" component, and in West Africa, it could be unimaginably cruel. We have to be honest about these things.
In West Africa:
Slaves were given to cannibals to eat
Slavers were castrated en masse to create eunucs. They were left to bleed out, and most died.
Slaves were made into humna sacrifices, sometimed killed hundreds at a time, sometimes burned alive
Slaves were worked to death--the average lifespan of a slave in Kanem-Bornu was seven years
Sexual slavery was pervasive
Slaves were forced to fight in slave armies.
Some quotes from my researches:
Upon the order of the king, the prisoner designated for castration is siezed and a cord with a slip knot is places around his neck and tied to his right hand, thus preventing any resistance at the cost of strangling himself. The victim is laid on the ground where six stong men hold him down in such a way that that the operative area is level with a fairly large hole that has been previosuly dug in the ground. His head is covered with a sack. After having shaved the area, the operator puts a tight lashing both around the penis and the testicles at the root of the penis. Taking his curved, two edged knife and holding the genitles in his left hand, he cuts slolwy, beggining underneath and so up to the pubic hairs, making a veritble circular incision. He then proceeds with an acutal excision of the organ. No attempt is made to stop the bleeding: they wait for the hemorage to stop itself. For want of anything better, they turn the patient over on to his front so that the open wound is over the hole, while one of the attendents bends the right foot up towards the victim's back in order to increase the flow of blood.
Earlier, while Battuta was still at the capital, a group of African cannibals and their leader came to see sultan Mansa Suleiman. They wore large metal rings in their ears and wore silver mantles. they came from a region that possessed a gold mine, so the sultan was gracious to them, and gave them a slave woman as a hospitality gift. The cannibals killed and ate her, then smeared her blood on themselves and went to thank the sultan. As an aside, Battuta reported that he heard the tastiest meat came from the palms and the breasts. Ibn Battuta
it is recorded that that the death of the Ashanti queen in 1816, more than 3.500 slaves were murdered in her honor. Others--the healthies of the young males--were castrated and kept as eunuchs.
"Not only was slavery an established institution in West Africa before European traders arrived, but Africans were also involved in a trans-Saharan trade in slaves along these routes. African rulers and merchants were thus able to tap into preexisting methods and networks of enslavement to supply European demand for slaves. Enslavement was most often a byproduct of local warfare, kidnapping, or the manipulation of religious and judicial institutions. Military, political, and religious authority within West Africa determined who controlled access to the Atlantic slave trade. And some African elites, such as those in the Dahomey and Ashanti empires, took advantage of this control and used it to their profit by enslaving and selling other Africans to European traders." Zayde Antrim
In Africa, many societies recognized slaves merely as property, but others saw them as dependents who eventually might be integrated into the families of slave owners. http://autocww.colorado.edu/~blackmo...yInAfrica.html
Slaves were needed in pre-colonial Africa to provide labour in agriculture, trade and industry. Some slaves were employed in the administrative sectors of the state, kingdom or empire. Other slaves served in the military; some performed domestic chores, a few others were sacrificed and some satisfied the personal needs of individuals.
Some slaves were sacrificed in accordance with traditional beliefs and practices during festivals, ceremonial occasions, religious observances and the death of important personalities.
...One striking difference in the use of male and female slaves was in the area of procreation. Procreation did not only fulfil the needs of individuals but whole states. After war, disease or famine had decimated the population, the state would send officials to the slave markets to purchase female slaves to procreate and make up the dwindled population. Throughout the period of the slave trade, female slaves fetched higher prices than male slaves. Female slaves became the wives and concubines of individuals, chiefs and kings. Source: Dr. Akosua Perbi - Manchester College - USA
Since Dahomey was a significant military power involved in the slave trade, slaves and human sacrifice became crucial aspects of the ceremony. Captives from war and criminals were killed for the deceased kings of Dahomey.[5][6] Most of the victims were sacrificed through decapitation, a tradition widely used by Dahomean kings, and the literal translation for the Fon name for the ceremony Xwetanu is "yearly head business".[7] In later years this ceremony also included the spilling of human blood from the sacrificed.[4] Related with this, there was also a significant military parade in the ceremonies that further displayed the military might of the kingdom of Dahomey.[
According to R. J. Rummel, "Just consider the Grand Custom in Dahomey: When a ruler died, hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of prisoners would be slain. In one of these ceremonies in 1727
In various places in Africa, where human sacrifice was connected with ancestor worship, some of the slaves of the deceased were buried alive with him, or they were killed and laid beneath him in his grave. Encyclopedia Britanica
Among the African Asante, the victims sacrificed as first-fruit offerings during the Festival of New Yams were usually criminals, though slaves also were killed. Encyclopedia Britanica
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What we do know is that bar populations displaced by the Zulus, the biggest known losses of life in Africa can be attributed to European activity there from the Herrero Massacre to the conservative estimates of 9 million deaths in the Belgian Congo. I could cite many other examples, but those two will do..
