Transatlantic Slavery and Racism History Essay Example

How did the word slavery, the origin of which is the word “slav”, meaning someone from a Slavic nation, come to be wholly associated with people on an entirely different hemisphere?  Transatlantic slavery took place between Europe, Africa, and America during the 16th through 18th centuries.  Unlike the centuries before, in which slaves were often European, slavery was now focused almost entirely on sub-Saharan Africa.  Over time, slavery became conflated with the idea of “blackness” rather than the previously more common justification of religion, which lead to changes in terminology and perspective on race.

Slavery by Europeans and Arabs of Africans was not based on religion as was often claimed, but instead on race.  When slavery first began to be primarily based in Africa, many European Catholics justified the enslavement of people through religious differences, similar to the many “holy wars”, which are wars justified by and for the sake of Christianity, against Islam that took place prior.  Slavery of the African people was considered acceptable by Christians at the time because the Christians believed that Africans needed to be saved, even if being “saved” was to avoid being captured and enslaved.  However, as many Africans began to convert to Christianity their treatment did not change; they were still killed and enslaved as though they were non-Christians, because they were black. Papal authority also supported slavery for the sake of spreading Christianity.  The Pope commended the words of Prince Henry, who stated he: "’Had no other pleasure than in thinking that these lost souls would now be saved.’ Slavery was a small price for the African to pay for his christianization.”  They claimed that slavery was a tool used to spread the word of God, and was actively beneficial.  In reality, their Christianization changed nothing in how Africans were treated by Europeans. Despite the differences in and conflicts because of religion regarding Muslims and Christians, they had similar opinions concerning Sub-Saharan Africans.   Ibn Bolton, a Christian physician, described Black Africans as:

“At the markets --- were much in evidence; the darker the uglier and the more pointed their teeth. They are not up to much. They are fickle and careless. Dancing and beating time are engrained in their nature. They say: were the ---- to fall from heaven to the earth he would beat time in falling. They have the whitest teeth and this because they have much saliva. Unpleasant is the smell emitted from their armpits and coarse is their skin.”

This description closely resembles one by Muslim historian Sd'id al-Andalusi approximately 300 years prior:

 “In the deserts of Ethiopia there is a people who live without law like beasts and they have women without marriage and they are called Garamantes. And there are others there who curse the sun, when it rises and when it sets, because it burns the land so strongly. There are others who live in caves and they eat snakes and anything else that they are able to swallow, and these are called Trogloditas. Others walk nude and they do not work and these are called Grafasant”

These similarities clearly show the religious perspectives didn’t matter, only the race and racist beliefs.  A letter written from the king of Kongo to the king of Portugal requests a decrease in and stricter regulation on Portuguese merchants capturing Kongolese slaves, the king of Kongo states: “...many of those who had been already confirmed and instructed in the holy faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ perish and die.” This quote strongly contrasts with the idea of “holy wars”, which was a common justification for slavery, as it was considered acceptable to enslave non-Chritians.  “The common thread binding Muslim and later Christian racial imagery was as much a rejection of blackness as it was the outcome of the lighter-skinned ruling class's desire to protect its position of superiority by celebrating its civility.” As the ideas of slavery and “Blackness” began to merge, the terminology and language used to describe the two ideas reflected this shift. 

“By the ninth century, Muslims were making distinctions between black and white slaves. These invidious distinctions are best reflected in the two Arabic words for slave. The word 'abd … embodied its legal meaning, but in the popular dialect, European slaves came to be called mamluks. The white mamnuk commanded a higher price than the black 'abd.”

European slaves were considered separated from the traditional idea of slavery, namely Black slavery, and the language reflected that notion.   White slaves were also monetarily worth more than Black slaves, as they were considered more valuable, even though they were all considered slaves.  Another example of the idea of slavery being inherently tied to the idea of Blackness was the rebellion laws instituted after the attempted slave rebellion in Santo Dominigo in 1521.  

“Furthermore because the said Blacks and slaves in having carried and carrying weapons have become daring and dare to commit crimes we order and mandate that from here on none of the said Blacks nor slaves dare to carry nor do they carry offensive weapons either in a town or on the road, neither with their master nor without him nor in any other manner or place” “Also we order that each time justice by death is done to a Black for having wandered escaped, the master of such Black or White, of the ones arrived from Spain that is a slave, is paid thirty pesos of gold from the coffer except if [the slave] made a crime or crimes. ”

The repeated use of “Blacks and slaves” while making no real distinction between enslaved and free persons shows how Black people were automatically viewed and treated as slaves.  While it could be argued that the use of the words separately demonstrates a belief that the two were different, the text also uses only the word Black when describing an enslaved person escaping, showing that the technical distinction was nothing but a formality.   Another example of “Blackness” being directly tied to the idea of slavery is in the book Transatlantic Africa, which relays the story of Equiano, a man captured by Europeans and enslaved. “One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both, and without giving us time to cry out or make resistance they stopped our mouths and ran off with us into the nearest wood.” . They were automatically viewed as property of Europeans because they were Black and therefore captured, even when they weren’t prisoners of war, as was the usual African way slaves were captured.  

The concept of slavery when connecting to race changed significantly over the history of the Atlantic slave trade.  Its roots from the word ‘slav’, the denial of the importance of a person’s race when they were enslaved, and the treatment of people as chattel, all tell a tale of an enslaver view of Africans as deserving to be enslaved.  These ideas continue to harm us to this day.  More of American history (including pre-independace) has included slavery than has not.  Even after slavery was abolished, racism against Black Americans remains prevalent.