Enslavement of the Black by the White: 'The Bedrock of the West'?^[1]

by Drieu Godefridi
November 20, 2021 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17951/slavery

Translations of this item:

The "1619 Project" literature is characteristic of today's neo-racist movement, which reduces the West to slavery and slavery to the West. In this nursery rhyme, everyone born with white skin is wrong, if not satanic.
The Republic of Venice (697-1797 AD) made a specialty of transporting shiploads of white slaves from Northern and Eastern Europe to Constantinople and from the Black Sea to North Africa.
The origins of slavery are white. It is just a timely reminder that slavery is an integral part of human history components and that the practice of slavery is not the prerogative of any particular group. "Slavery", as Paul Louis reminds us, "is one of the few features that were common to all civilisations".
Slavery is not a moral choice, it is a financial one. Large US companies and pension funds rush to invest in China despite its reported use of Uyghurs there as slaves.
Regrettably, there was no movement in the Muslim world comparable to Western abolitionism. The West, led by a fiercely abolitionist British state, was the one stopping and then breaking the millennia-old and perfectly-oiled slavery mechanism of the Arab-Turkish-Muslim world.
In short, there is nothing specifically Western about slavery; but everything specifically Western about abolitionism.

The origins of slavery are white. Slavery is an integral part of human history, and the practice of slavery is not the prerogative of any particular group. The Republic of Venice (697-1797 AD) made a specialty of transporting shiploads of white slaves from Northern and Eastern Europe to Constantinople and from the Black Sea to North Africa. Pictured: "The way in which Christian prisoners are sold as slaves at the Algiers market," an engraving from 1684 by Jan Luyken. (Image source: Amsterdam Historic Museum/Wikimedia Commons)

In August 2019, The New York Times initiated The 1619 Project, consisting of a collection of articles designed to illustrate that slavery was "one primary reason the colonists fought the American Revolution". This project is directed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times staff reporter who is not a historian but an avowed "critical race theory" activist. ^[2]

When American historians denounced the obvious falsehood of this assertion, and its revisionist and negationist nature against proven, documented and source-based historical reality, The New York Times altered the original version of the articles in question to say "some" colonists fought to defend the practice of slavery. The New York Times stated:

"We recognise that our original language could be read to suggest that protecting slavery was a primary motivation for all of the colonists. The passage has been changed to make clear that this was a primary motivation for some of the colonists."^[3]

This modest "clarification", so superficial that The New York Times only bothered to make it after a large mobilisation of historians, destroys the essence of the 1619 Project, which is to show that slavery is supposedly the foundation of American society and the ideal in which American revolutionaries were macerating. Moreover, to say that "some colonists" thought this way is completely meaningless, in the same way that "some colonists" had brown eyes or had nightmares.^[4] It should be noted that many colonists, including Quakers^[5], vehemently opposed slavery and worked tirelessly on both sides of the Atlantic until they finally achieved its abolition.

The 1619 Project literature is characteristic of today's neo-racist movement, which reduces the West to slavery and slavery to the West. In this nursery rhyme, everyone born with white skin is wrong, if not satanic.

The meaning of the word slave, from the mediaeval Latin word sclavus, meaning "slavic" in the seventh century, shifted to "slave" in the 10th century^[6]. This was the great century of slavery that saw the Arabs of North Africa, the Byzantines and the Europeans enslave vast populations. French Historian Alexandre Skirda explains:

"These Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe, Orthodox Christians were considered heretics and devoid of 'soul', thus 'talking goods' were sold to the Muslim world from the 8th to the 18th century. Thus, today's Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, Moldavians, Bielorussians, Ukrainians and Russians were captured by the Franks and Scandinavians first, relayed then from the 12th to the 15th centuries by the Venetians and Genoese; finally, the Crimean Tatars would continue the trade on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, a phenomenon that will affect millions of victims in total".^[7]

The Republic of Venice (697-1797 AD) made a specialty of transporting shiploads of white slaves from Northern and Eastern Europe to Constantinople and from the Black Sea to North Africa. According to English Historian Peter Akroyd:

"The Venetians were greedy for this particular source of income since the profit on each item was said to be 1,000 per cent. They sold Russians and even Greek Christians to the Saracens. Men, women, and children were purchased or captured in the region of the Black Sea, Armenians and Georgians among them, before being despatched to Venice, where they were in turn sold to Egypt, Morocco, Crete and Cyprus. They sold boys and young women as concubines."^[8]

The origins of slavery are white. It is just a timely reminder that slavery is an integral part of human history and that the practice of slavery is not the prerogative of any particular group. "Slavery", as Paul Louis^[9] reminds us, "is one of the few features that were common to all civilisations". ^[10]

Slavery is not a moral choice; it is a financial one. Large US companies and pension funds rush to invest in China despite its reported use of Uyghurs there as slaves. Historically, slavery was everywhere. The realization of its inhumanity was not broached until its antithesis, the affluent society, appeared. ^[11] We are so accustomed to abundance that we have forgotten that it is a recent miracle, tiny in its historical extent. The tension of the "golden thread of civilisation"(Ernst Jünger^[12]) is preceded by thousands of years of need, reducing the current commendable revulsion against it to a historical footnote.

In many societies, especially in ancient times, slavery represented an improvement in the status quo ante. In these societies, the previous usual fate of the defeated had been extermination. Paul Louis writes:

"In the eyes of the Assyrians, Romans, and Egyptians, slavery was not a monstrous violation of the person but a mitigation of the fate of captives, a first reaction against the savage law of primitive warfare. This law (...) involved the massacre of the defeated, the total annihilation of the army that had suffered defeat. The kings of Egypt and Assyria took glory from the number of their victims. (...) Carnage was the final incident of any battle". ^[13]

Let us leave the possible financial and political motives of the American neo-racists for a moment and take a look at the worldwide situation of slavery in 1750.

In China, the Qing dynasty, in power since 1644, continued the practice of slavery, which had been inseparable from the birth of Chinese civilisation.^[14] The absolute number of slaves in China is striking, but according to Angela Schottenhammer, a historian at the University of Leuven, this number seems never to have exceeded 1% in relation to the total Chinese population.^[15]

In North Africa, Muslim regimes imported shiploads of white slaves, Slavs and Europeans. Prague long served as a sorting centre for the castration of white slaves ^[16] before they were transported to the Maghreb. These Slavic and European slaves were used for domestic and sexual slavery and sometimes for military duties. The Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire formed an elite military corps composed mainly of white slaves. ^[17]

In what is now India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Islamic conquerors imposed slavery from the eighth century and practised it on an unprecedented scale. Hindu women and children were forced into domestic and sexual slavery. Endless convoys of Hindu slaves were continually sent to what is now Syria and Iraq, and then to the Muslim-controlled international slave markets. The practice of slavery in this region extended, uninterrupted, from the eighth to the eighteenth century.^[18]

In the eighteenth century, throughout the world slavery was a normal institution, as normal as it was in ancient Greece^[19] and was practised on a large scale. There are recognisable nuances. "Compared to the European-organized slave trade, the Muslim world's slave trade started earlier, lasted longer, and, more importantly, involved a larger number of slaves", notes Economist Paul Bairoch.^[20] In his book, Le génocide voilé : enquête historique, the Franco-Senegalese Tidiane N'Diaye notes that, while millions of Black Americans can claim a slave heritage, there is almost nothing left of the millions of black slaves in Islamic lands. Indeed, they were often castrated.^[21] "The Arab-Muslim trade in black Africans involved 17 million victims who were killed, castrated or enslaved for more than 13 centuries without interruption", says N'Diaye, whose powerful and moving investigation completes the book The Slave Trade: A Global History Essay, published by Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau in 2006.

Is this "normality of slavery", until Western modernity put an end to it, deplorable and unacceptable? Absolutely. From the standpoint of our values, there is no doubt. We find the enslavement of men, women and children horrendous; however, we are not what Raymond Aron contemptuously called "beautiful souls" who judge the world as if they were handing out sweets.^[22] It is easy to hurl imprecations at the past. If we institute this tribunal of times, we should at least avoid arbitrarily selecting the periods and regions considered.

In the eighteenth century, slavery was not practised in the same way everywhere. While it was not contested in the Muslim world -- whose economic relationship to slavery, which was completely unrestrained, resembled that of the ancient Greeks -- it was already being moderated in the China of the Qing dynasty.^[23] The Europeans, following the British, sought to limit the practice when they could not abolish it.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, a movement arose, initially confined to the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere, called abolitionism.^[24] This movement, particularly under Christian influence, especially that of the Puritans and even the Quakers, and later the Methodists, ^[25] accurately regarded slavery as an abomination and demanded its abolition. Civil abolitionist societies were formed, carrying the abolitionist ideal throughout the British Empire to its very top. Once the Crown had embraced this moral imperative, it took only a few years for the abandonment of the slave trade to be decreed in the British Empire in 1807, followed the abolition of slavery in 1833.^[26] As early as 1807, London had launched an ambitious international abolition campaign, imposing the abandonment of the slave trade and then of slavery on both its defeated enemies and dependent allies. At the same time, the Royal Navy established a West Africa Squadron to assist in hunting slave ships off the African coast. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.

Regrettably, there was no movement in the Muslim world comparable to Western abolitionism. The West, led by a fiercely abolitionist British state, was the one stopping and then breaking the millennia-old and perfectly-oiled slavery mechanism of the Arab-Turkish-Muslim world. ^[27]

In short, there is nothing specifically Western about slavery; but everything specifically Western about abolitionism.

To consider slavery as the foundation of the West is a revisionist and negationist lie,^[28] a "conspiracy theory" ^[29] in the strict sense, whose evocative power is reminiscent of the formidable international career of that other crude forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. ^[30]

Drieu Godefridi, a classical-liberal Belgian author, is the founder of the l'Institut Hayek in Brussels. He has a PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne in Paris and also heads investments in European companies. He is also the author of Critical Race Theory.

^[1] Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility, Beacon Press: 2018, 29: "the racial contract is a tacit and sometimes explicit agreement among members of the peoples of Europe to assert, promote, and maintain the ideal of white supremacy in relation to all other people of the world. (...) White supremacy has shaped a system of global European domination: it brings into existence whites and nonwhites, full persons and subpersons" and page 129: "white people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview because it is the bedrock of our society and its institutions."

^[2] One of the official, self-styled 'academic' denominations of neo-racist doctrine.

^[3] "An Update to the 1619 Project"

^[4] The trouble is that the denialist version of The 1619 Project was translated into school materials and immediately distributed throughout the United States. No "doubt" The New York Times officials personally went to each of these classes to correct their "little mistake". See "The Fatal Flaw of the 1619 Project Curriculum."

^[5] The Quakers are one of the many figures of Anglo-Saxon Christian Protestantism. They are a dissent from the Anglican Church and are characterized, among other things, by their direct relationship with God and the absence of a creed and of any ecclesial hierarchy.

^[6] Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, Les traites négrières: Essai d'histoire globale, 2006.

^[7] A. Skirda, The Slavic trade from the 8th to the 18th century, 2016.

^[8] Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City, 2010.

^[9] Born Paul Lévi in 1872 in Paris and died in 1955 in Le Vésinet, Paul Louis was a French historian and journalist.

^[10] Paul Louis, Le travail dans le monde romain (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1912), 51; see also Simon Webb, The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam, 2020.

^[11] J. Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, 1926.

^[12] Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) was a philosopher, a highly decorated Imperial German soldier, author, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir Storm of Steel.

^[13] Paul Louis, Work in the Roman World, 51, italics added.

^[14] Richard B. Allen, Slavery and Bonded Labor in Asia, 1250–1900, 2021.

^[15] Angela Schottenhammer, "Slaves and Forms of Slavery in Late Imperial China (Seventeenth to Early Twentieth Centuries)", Slavery & Abolition, 2003, 24, 2, 143–154.

^[16] Christian Delacampagne, Histoire de l'esclavage. De l'Antiquité à nos jours, Paris, Le livre de poche, 2002.

^[17] Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, Da Capo Press, 2018; David Nicolle, The Janissaries, London, Osprey Publishing, 1995.

^[18] Andre Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. 1, Leiden, Brill Academic, 1991.

^[19] When Hannah Arendt raves about the Greek way of life and disposition to "work", in an intellectual sense, we must not forget that it is not "the Greek" who works. It is the free Greek, a minority in ancient Greece. In Athens, Sparta and all the cities of the Aegean basin, in Anatolia and in the Italian boot, the overwhelming majority of people were slaves. In the fourth century B.C., the tyrant Demetrios of Phalerus organised a general census of Attica, which yielded the following figures: 21,000 citizens, 10,000 métèques [foreigners] and 400,000 slaves. See. Raymond Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome, Paris, Hachette, 2006.

^[20] Paul Bairoch, Mythes et paradoxes de l'histoire économique, La Découverte, 1994, 204.

^[21] The castration of slaves throughout the millennium of Arab-Turkish-Muslim slavery is a constant, as the British scholar Simon Webb reminds us in his remarkable study of white European (non-Slavic) slaves captured in Europe by Arab-Muslim slavers (The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam, Pen & Sword History, 2020): "Castration, used very occasionally against black slaves taken across the Atlantic, was routinely carried out on an industrial scale on European boys who were exported to Africa and the Middle East. "

^[22] Raymond Aron, Memoirs, 621.

^[23] "Slavery in Early China: A Socio-Cultural Approach", January 2001, Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3(1-2):283-331

^[24] Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, The Abolitionist Revolution, Gallimard, 2017.

^[25] John Wesley, Thoughts on Slavery, 1774.

^[26] The difference of a few years is explained by the desire to give the economic world of the plantations time to adapt; it is the same gradual philosophy, already implemented in Denmark, that will be adopted by the American revolutionaries. See Nelly Schmidt, L'abolition de l'esclavage : cinq siècles de combats XVIe-XXe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 2005, 353.

^[27] In other words, it was the imperialist West that imposed the abolition of slavery on the Arab-Muslim world.

^[28] Before joining The New York Times, Nikole Hannah-Jones, seemingly innocent of historical rigor, had already defended the thesis that Africans explored the American continent long before Europeans: 'In Racist Screed NYT's 1619 Project Founder Calls "White Race" "Barbaric Devils" "Bloodsuckers" Columbus "No Different Than Hitler",' The Federalist; that these Africans were distinguished by their cordial contacts and relations with the Aztecs – the harmonious relations of which, unfortunately, no trace remains – and that the Aztec pyramids are a "testimony" of these friendly relations: Nikole Hannah-Jones, "Modern Savagery", The Observer: The term denialist is woefully inadequate to describe this "thesis" which appears based solely on the fantasies of its author.

^[29] "Complotism: trust the professionals!", Dreuz, 25 November 2020.

^[30] The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery created by the Russian Tsar's secret police in 1903, purports to describe the attempts of Jews and Freemasons to control the world. This forgery plagiarizes, among other things, a pastiche that humorously described Napoleon III's plan to conquer the world.

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59 Reader Comments

christine carr • Oct 4, 2022 at 07:25

Compare that to the Muslim conquest of India which killed 500m Indians. Arabs, Muslims, Chinese, Africans have been slaughtering and enslaving their own for 2000 years you tool. India was conquered by the Muslim Mughals and Hindus were slaves to them until the English arrived. The English didn't 'bring war', we brought trade
Probably the same amount murdered by Scottish raiders into Anglo Saxon lands.
The same amount murdered by Ottoman Empire; or the Spanish empire, or the Chinese empire, or the Americans manifest destiny.
So on and so forth

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Phil Kershner • Dec 13, 2021 at 18:05

This is a brilliant article, but can someone explain the following sentence (it appears at the start of a paragraph, a little less than halfway through the article): "The origins of slavery are white."

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cammo99 • Nov 27, 2021 at 11:49

The parameters of race slavery in the USA especially in Deep South was brutal and cruel to such an extent without outside pressure it was finally ended after 4 years of the most bloody conflict in the USA. But that did not end the Southern Democrats white supremacists from inventing the Lost Cause and Jim Crow in part to get reparations for the loss of their property. To me it seems totally inappropriate that the Democrats should be in leadership to advance the cause of former slave descendants and only confuses the issue of what reparations mean and what they are for, further compromised by the inherent racism of CRT, a theory. A bad theory. The solution is not some inane failed social justice system that is a breeding ground and incentive for crime but to double down on the idealism of freedoms and rights to be enjoyed by humanity in commonality. It is the absence of this even handed approach to solving this thorny issue that makes me cynical.
Worse, Islam was as great and perhaps a worse practitioner of slavery into the present. The Ottoman Empire was heavily dependent on slaves. Modern myths abound in American black communities about how better treated blacks were treated by Arab slavers. The Mahdi's revolt against the British in lower Egypt was largely supported by tribes that wished to continue the slave trade that their fortunes depended on. And that was in the 1890s. Conversion from pagan or other beliefs did not mean you would be freed another myth. The poverty Islam had already contributed to creating insured the slave trade would be harsh, and the average life span of a slave on a Sultan's Nile plantation was about 10 years.
So the question should be more universally applied on a global scale for the import of slavery is fully realized to the extent of its total inhumanity no matter who practices it. Darfur tribes practiced slavery into the 1970s largely sexual when the Lower Sudan broke with the northern Sudan approximately 35,000 largely black Dinka tribesman that practiced a form of pagan beliefs were still enslaved by Arab Muslims.

ISIS perhaps brought slavery to a new level in that it probably received the least amount of attention by the media. In one interview with a media outlet an Englishman who travelled to Syria to join the Jihad and was captured by USA allied forces only complaint was he did not get to capture a female and make her his sexual slave.
That is the real "complexion" of slavery, its global and Islam is not color blind either.

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RFritz • Nov 25, 2021 at 23:49

Many people have never felt rejection toward others on the basis of qualities that are passive, like color or physical features. Many people have supported social communities and individuals based on their practices and outcomes, just as people judge people based on their actions and stated intentions. 99.9% of people lack the power to effect the perception of supremacy by anyone. Those who hold either accepted governance or the wealth (big wealth, not relative wealth) only interact with their tier of "movers and shakers" and base the media upon their ideas. Of course they are not realistic, who has ever thought they were? We all have laughed at the angular view of the horizon they have held, albeit some laughed bitterly.
If you are a Bible reader you know the human race has not changed in thousands of years. So if we make certain to be compassionate ourselves, and make our social community among those who hold the same ideal we can be happy, respected, and free. The same tier of financial exponentially wealthy giants and power wielders want to change the way their wealth opportunities flow, and this is behind the social "haze" they are allowing to float before our eyes. In the end, they want to dominate still, but differently. And it must be quite awful because in order to accomplish this they are risking so much upheaval, truly fragmenting our reality so it is a brittle and broken pile of 'nothing fitting' any longer. They they will scoop up the "issue" and instill a "fix" in 3 days that will be the new law. There is nothing organic about these pressures and disruptions, but everything artificial and controlled.

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David • Nov 25, 2021 at 09:58

It would appear that nearly all races and countries have practiced slavery, but WHITE people abolished it! Muslims and black Africans still practice it. Not a lot of people know this: Muhammad was White! He had black African slaves, whom he called 'raisin heads'.

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Jeff Goldwater • Nov 23, 2021 at 14:38

We should not forget how the Nazis used slavery in their war effort. Even the definition of slavery could be debated. The serfs of Russia who were mere chattels to be restrained from free internal movement, had to have passports, and were traded between Lord masters, required for forced military service, provided their labour for only basic return, and had little protection from harsh discipline or even murder. It wasn't much different all over Europe for centuries. Then too we could mention the victims of the industrial revolution, later the victims of Stalin, and to a lesser extent Franco in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war.These numbers don't appear in the assessment above. Where to draw the line ? The ancient Jews denounced slavery (Mishnah) as morally wrong, (the point of the Jubilee, and the point of the Book of Estha) though in interpretation it may be said that that was in reference to co-nation. The Romans had no such qualms, long preceding Venice. With reference to the British 19th century, I understand that shipping of slavery was actively frowned upon end of the 18th century, and in 1807 slavery was abolished in the British dominions. 1833 completely.

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Jeff Goldwater

Jeff Goldwater • Nov 23, 2021 at 20:31

Esther was about not submitting to human indignity, and Ruth about not subjecting others to human indignity.

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Nemo of Erewhon

Jeff Goldwater • Nov 29, 2021 at 05:53

In 1808, about one year after passing the abolition act, Britain established the Royal Navy West Africa squadron. These ships patrolled the coasts of Africa stopping and confiscating slave ships and arresting crews. During the course of its existence many British sailors and marines lost their lives and several hundred of thousands of slave rescued. England spent a considerable sum of her income maintaining this enterprise.
Some ships stopped were American and if British sailors were found in the crew they were arrested and taken to be employed in the Royal Navy; Britain was fighting Napoleon at the time. These actions were used as an excuse to declare war on Britain in 1812. There were other reasons for this too. Britain was trying to blockade Napoleon's Europe and the US would not cooperate. The US also laid claim to,some territories in America that Britain still held.
No one really got anything from the 2 year conflict.

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Jeff Goldwater

Nemo of Erewhon • Nov 30, 2021 at 05:35

Adding to your very interesting comment. Regarding Britain's opposition to slavery, and particularly I presume black African, was the banning of slavery import to England since 1772, when Judge Mansfield declared that slaves who landed in England could claim freedom -- in effect banning slavery in England.

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Nemo of Erewhon

Jeff Goldwater • Nov 30, 2021 at 11:10

Thank you for your reply. The institution of slavery in England had ceased long before 1772 but it was legal in Britains colonies until the abolition act was passed when trading in slaves was totally banned. The ruling of 1772 did mean that once a slave set foot on British soil he could not be a slave owned by anyone. He was therefore a free man and the 'owner' could not compel him to return to the colony from whence he came; if he stayed he was free. He could voluntarily return.
Britain liberated the slaves over a period of time after borrowing a huge sum to compensate the plantation owners. They had bought the slaves and worked them quite legally so to free the slaves meant compensating the 'owners'.
Britain did not want the Industries to collapse. Most slaves were employed on the same plantations.
The debt incurred by Britain was so large that repayment was scheduled over a long period, it was finally paid off in 2015. British taxpayers had been paying this debt for nearly 200 years.

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Jeff Goldwater

Nemo of Erewhon • Nov 30, 2021 at 22:33

Reference the debt not paid off to 2015, you state this resulted from Britain compensating its slave owners. I was under the impression that the debt finally paid was the result of Britain's borrowing from the U.S. to help pay for its war costs in WW1.

Reading the comments of the readers, there seems to be general consensus that the black slave issue is over-stressed in relation to slavery targeting whites over millennia. I don't think anyone though is denying that taking Africans into slavery was a dreadful stain on humanity.

The unacceptable person-to-person slave condition, "I owe you" relationship however, has been universal since the dawn of human civilisation, involving all creeds, histories, races and colours. Eastern Asia we've not even touched on. History is full of people dominating others, of war, conquering, pillaging, murder and subjugation.

Of course slavery was (and is) heinous. If we are to compensate descendants of African slaves, let us say they deserve, then to be truly just, we should compensate the whole wide world. Probably nearly all of us living on this planet are descendants of slaves somewhere on the line. But who is to pay ? Surely not our nation states. The world we live in now is the result of the blood, toil, sweat, terrible wars, payment financially and physically, deprivation and suffering of all of our ancestors.

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Nemo of Erewhon

Jeff Goldwater • Dec 1, 2021 at 12:45

The debt incurred from the US in WW1 was for war material. Britain loaned France money to fight the war as her taking part was essential. America was quite happy to invest in the war needs of Britain and her Empire; one of the reasons Wilson finally dragged America off the fence in 1917 was to help in a victory and safeguard investments
Unfortunately Britain had to default on some of the loan. This was partly because France defaulted on her loans from Britain.
Wilson was anti British before the war so Britain's default did not improve relationships. Considering Britain and her Empire was trying to stop a militaristic and aggressive German power grab and domination of Europe with many repercussions, America should have stepped up from day one to make common cause with her closest relations in the world; America was still then a largely Anglo Saxon civilization.
When WW2 began America, shamefully in my view, decided to wait to see which side might win. We can only assume that America was happy to deal with a fascist Europe had Britain lost. The Battle of Britain changed Roosevelt's mind and together with the Pearl Harbor attack and Germany declaring war on her, America had no choice but to enter the conflict.
Roosevelt also saw that a war economy would drag America out of her long depression.
America made Britain pay for everything. Her Gold was shipped off to Canada as a guarantee of payment. It never came back.
In 2006 Britain finished paying her war debts to America . The final payment was 45.5 million pounds. The debt owed was 21 billion pounds.
As for black slavery; it was no better or worse than any other form of slavery; actually it might have been better than Islamic slavery, under which male blacks were normally castrated.
It is difficult to put oneself into the mindset of people who lived 200 years plus ago. Their world had very little resemblance to ours and their approach to the way they found the world was also different. There is always some who think differently of course which is why things change.

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Luigi Rivella • Nov 22, 2021 at 09:18

Slavery was very popular for old populations, Greeks and Romans used slaves, they were the most important business on the Mediterranean Sea.
Greeks created democracy in Athens, but only for 1 people over 4, the Citizens, the other 3 were slaves.
Romans used slaves for about 1,000 years, before the conversionto Christianity.
But the other pagan populations maintained the use of slaves, the Muslims used the slaves, only non believers in Allah.
When Europe colonized the Americas, they acquired slaves from Africa, but the slaves were keep by Africans and sold to Europeans.
Slaves were used by Protestant nations, like UK and Netherlands, and by Catholic nations like Portugal. In Africa the slave markets were very important.
Finally, in what measure has consumerism made masking a kind of slavery on the third world?

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bloc • Nov 21, 2021 at 13:20

I think I'm missing something. "The origins of slavery are white" seems to be an assertion of fact, but it's contradicted by the very next sentence (". . . the practice of slavery is not the prerogative of any particular group").

Can someone clarify to me?

Thanks.

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Andrew Boote

bloc • Nov 22, 2021 at 04:58

"The origins of slavery are white" is what the narrative is.
The article then sets out to show how this is not true.

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cammo99 • Nov 21, 2021 at 10:58

Let's be historically accurate .
The majority in the south wanted slavery; they were southern Democrats and created a form of slavery distinguished by race and white superiority. Not to say there were not sympathetic northern and western people who did not have objections and may even have been sympathetic with southerners who portrayed themselves as victims of slaver ownership burden.
But radical Republicans before and after the Civil War were abolitionist and pro freedmen education and voting rights.
The democrats ran General McClellan against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential elections he ran as a Democrat on a peace platform, peace for the full restoration of slavery with renewed interests in expanding slavery into the South Western states an issue that had contributed to the southern insurrection dubbed the Civil War.
Democratic majority states also were the state that invented the lost cause as a means to promote Jim Crow after their failed insurrection and into the 50s and even the 70s KKK and other Democratic party white supremacists opposed civil rights and were deemed radical Democrats.
The assumption that Republicans somehow absorbed and overnight became white supremacists is the biggest lie of all in any CRT propaganda. And they are merely prolonging white and black bias and prejudices by maintaining themselves as the victims of conservatism. Perhaps its just the incredulity that after 400 years of slavery and 150 years of Jim Crow they could be duped by the party of slavery and racial prejudices.
Or perhaps it is the promise of reparations a hope they must now realize is impossible for the impracticability and the fact it would increase the debt to such an extent any financial gain would be off set but the inflationary and other realities of having an economy something that has not dawned on the racists in the leadership DNC.
My Great Grandfather fought with the 12th and 30th Mass from Gettysburg to Appomattox. My Great Uncle was the Haskell that stood his ground and was the last mounted union officer on the line when it repelled and defeated Pickett's charge. We have always been against slavery and the notion blacks were somehow a people somehow much different than other human beings, and I still remember seeing a black woman for the first time and probably stared at her because I simply could not understand what the big deal was she looked as human as everyone else to me. Isn't that the point, it alarms me that some blacks want to be different now 24/7 and like the CSA after the Civil War now want reparations. The Southern Democrats wanted reparations for the loss of their slaves and seem to have devised a plan to make it happen by the freedmen who have not traded their freedoms for false promises.

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Jim M • Nov 21, 2021 at 10:41

Very good article. "The issue is not the issue. The issue is the revolution." I surmise that the whole denigration of whites is just a surrogate for Judeo-Christian civilization. When Muslims conquered North Africa and the near east, they effectively cut off Christians from penetrating further east or south. This sequestered Christianity into Europe which just happened to be white. It was there that our modern Judeo-Christian civilization matured with all of it's benefits. This civilization, however, is diametrically opposed by both the secularists/Marxists and Islam. An omission in this article that the author may not be aware of was the efforts of Christians, long before the abolitionist movements, to abolish slavery. St Patrick, a former slave himself, objected to the enslavement of fellow Christians. Also, for all their shortcomings, there were numerous Popes who objected to slavery though with little effect.

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John S • Nov 21, 2021 at 05:00

There is an agenda now to make you feel guilty for being born white. One wonders what is to be gained by all this anti-white rhetoriric. I fanyone has an answer please let us know. Personally I am sick and tired of being told that I have been privileged to be born white and working class. I had a very tough upbringing and in no way was I living the life of royalty. Times where hard and my parents both worked long hours to put food on the table. This whole issue is an absolute load of bollocks

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Hamish MacDonald

John S • Nov 21, 2021 at 20:19

Great stuff John.
[The Scots invented the world - and were white.
The Irish saved western civilisation - and were white.
As a result the golden rule went abroad, coupled by innovation.]

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Lawrence Weiswasser • Nov 21, 2021 at 01:45

This article is so amazing and educational it should be designated as a substitute for the Critical Race Theory in all schools.

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Bazz • Nov 21, 2021 at 01:22

The Africans ran the major recruiting organisations. It really is absurd to criticise white people for slavery.
Slavery is still legal in some Arab countries. The Koran has rules on how to treat your slaves.

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Judith • Nov 20, 2021 at 22:21

My distaff ancestors arrived in Massachusetts in 1636. We know everything about them. They introduced manufacturing to America, and endowed the first black university in I believe Norwalk CN. In the late 18th century they employed children, our cross to bear.

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Will Richards • Nov 20, 2021 at 19:42

"The origins of slavery are white"...what does that even mean? The origins of slavery are black and brown, because black and brown people were capturing and enslaving black and brown people, in black and brown countries, for thousands of years before whites be came embroiled in it. And after a relatively short time, whites brought it to an end in the West.

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Wesley Clark, M.D. • Nov 20, 2021 at 18:56

In this article, the statement is made that "The origins of slavery are white." This is utterly inaccurate historically. Slavery has been a feature of all cultures and races for many centuries -- until it was first outlawed by England.
Slavery of blacks, by blacks, existed and was widespread if not universal, in Africa for several centuries before the first European planted his foot on African soil. And it still exists there today!

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charles McEwan • Nov 20, 2021 at 16:50

"The realization of its inhumanity was not broached until its antithesis, the affluent society, appeared. [11] We are so accustomed to abundance that we have forgotten that it is a recent miracle.."

Not So. Stark mentions that from Patristic times, slave owners who were Christian were encouraged to release their slaves as a virtuous act and Chesterton tells us that by the Middle Ages, slavery AS AN INSTITUTION was gone (my emphasis). It was resurrected in Protestant administrations after it had been abolished under Catholicism. There is a price to be paid for slavery. Abraham had slaves and so his descendents were sent to Egypt to become slaves. If Abraham had not had slaves would his descendents have had to go into slavery? I suspect not. The slavery of the Jews in Egypt was a crime not because Jews were enslaved but because slavery itself is an abomination.

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Nemo of Erewhon

charles McEwan • Nov 22, 2021 at 05:48

I think the writer means that the origin of European slave ownership is enslavement of white people by white people. This is true. Whites were enslaving each other before they dealt in African slavery. The African tribes of course were also enslaving each other before the whites came along to trade for them.

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Sandduffer • Nov 20, 2021 at 15:19

An excellent article on the real history of slavery! History is about human evolution. I found the part about not killing all the people you conquered was a step up! Very informative! Thank you!

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Rebecca • Nov 20, 2021 at 14:14

Except for saying "the origins of slavery are white," I agree with much of the article. Southern Europeans enslaved Slavic peoples for their own use on islands in the Mediterranean to grow sugar, and also had Slavs as slaves in Central Europe at a later time than the Greeks and Romans. All the slaves in Europe were white until the Italians replaced the white slaves on the Mediterranean Islands with blacks. This was before any black slaves were in America. Plus, there were slaves all over the world before the word slave was invented, and the American Indians had slaves long before the whites arrived here.

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Mary Alafouzo • Nov 20, 2021 at 14:05

As regards Note 19: Slavery was not "considered normal" by all in ancient Greece. In the beginnings of democracy, Solon abolished debt slavery in Athens - which meant that if a person owed debt to another he could be sold into slavery to pay off the debt. And just as the Methodists and Quakers, slavery was fiercely condemned by the Stoics, among others, even before the advent of Christianity.

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Don Gaetano

Mary Alafouzo • Nov 21, 2021 at 18:21

Thanks for that Mary. Good info.

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Mary Alafouzo

Don Gaetano • Nov 25, 2021 at 05:26

As for Note 17: Raymond Ibrahim is a bit more precise and mentions the devshirme when "Christian families from the Balkan region - Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, Macedonians and others - were compelled on pain of death, to make an annual "blood tribute", payable in their own flesh, that is, their sons, some as young as eight...any father who dared offer resistance was executed on the spot..."(p.212).

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Don Gaetano

Mary Alafouzo • Nov 25, 2021 at 14:16

Thanks again Mary. Keep them coming.

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Mary Alafouzo

Mary Alafouzo • Nov 25, 2021 at 15:24

The sons of these Christian families were converted to Islam and enrolled in the Janissaries.

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Don Gaetano

Mary Alafouzo • Nov 25, 2021 at 20:09

I remember that from S&S and that they were among the fiercest fighters. Whether Muhammad himself or those caliphs following his death, the creation of a religion formed in a tribal culture, with practices ordained and commanded by their god, to subdue the entire earth into this super tribe or clan, has turned out to be brutally successful.

The actions allowed in the group's law allows capturing the defeated as slaves and taking slaves from any group that has not submitted or converted.
Multiples wives and concubines create a staggering birth rate that can out populate a stronger country that let's its guard down and imports the group into their society not realizing the progression of behaviors that will lead to the possible destruction of their society by the newcomers.

Big task to get this message through the corrupt media coverup Mary. But we can never give up.
Stay well.

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Mary Alafouzo

Don Gaetano • Nov 26, 2021 at 07:29

I could go on Don, although this article is a breath of fresh air, the author talks of "free Greeks", for example, as a minority free to do intellectual work. True every Athenian was duty bound to dedicate some time to democratic duties but a large part of these "free Greeks" were not free enough to dedicate even a day's work to the political duties of the democracy because they had to work for a living so in order to enable them to do so they were given compensation by the Athenian state for loss of income so they could perform their duties as citizens.
I would, also, like to add that it is very easy to apportion blame without realising that people learn and times get better one step at a time not all at once. I am not as learned in Christianity as Tershia is but I did study the Bible when in school and I would like to tell those destroyers of statues like Jefferson, etc. etc., that Jesus said to those who would throw stones to the woman who sinned: "Those who are without sin throw the first stone".

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Mary Alafouzo

Mary Alafouzo • Nov 28, 2021 at 14:37

PS. For anyone interested there are several authors to consult the latest one being Emmanouil Marios Economou and Nicholas Kyriazis 'DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMY: An Inseparable Relationship from Ancient Times to Today'(2019) in particular pp. 49 & 59 but the whole book is an up to date fascinating exploration of democracy up to modern times.

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Luis A. Recinos • Nov 20, 2021 at 12:00

Many thanks for this illustrative column by Mr. Godefridi. It sheds much needed light upon the history of slavery, and provides excellet footnotes and references.
Congratulations to the Gatestone Institute for sharing it.

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David ASHTON • Nov 20, 2021 at 11:58

Chattel slavery in principle is worse than forced labour, but in practice the latter was far worse in historical comparison. "Great African empires" relied on slavery, notably in mines.
One can understand the post-slavery humiliations of Jim Crow, but these do not excuse social misbehaviors by some black people (see Charles Murray and Byron Roth) or justify the coerced transfer of wealth to people who were never slaves from people who never owned them.
The latest twist in the argument (certainly noticeable in older nations like the UK) is that white people created not only colonies beyond Europe but also the industrial revolution which makes them (not China & co) guilty of "climate change" and "global pollution". We are all guilty even before and after slavery.

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Harvey Lithwick • Nov 20, 2021 at 10:59

And the ugly truth is that for the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade, those who ran the brutal supply end of the trade were Muslims in Africa. That the new woke partnership between black supremacists and Islamists conveniently deny this truth, while also being oblivious to the role played by Jews in the US in particular in working with leaders like Martin Luther King is simply airbrushed out of the story. How can anyone take these so called liberal ignoramuses seriously?

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Luisa Loredo • Nov 20, 2021 at 10:25

A very interesting article except for the fact that it does not mention Latin America, the Spanish vs. Portuguese policies regarding slavery, as well as those conducted by pre-Columbian societies.

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Peter Sammons • Nov 20, 2021 at 09:51

A valuable if little known study of Britain vs France in the suppression of the slave trade is Paul Kielstra's "The Politics of slave trade suppression in Britain and France, 1814-48"

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BSmith • Nov 20, 2021 at 09:51

"Slavery is not a moral choice, it is a financial one."

Choosing to exploit humans for financial profit is the very essence of moral choice.

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Stephen L Gorman • Nov 20, 2021 at 09:38

In thoughtfully addressing the world history of slavery, why omit the long history of brutal slavery in Africa, of Africans enslaving Africans, that preceded any contact with either Arabs or Europeans? This long practice was always complicit in the horrific slave trade. Slavery did indeed occur everywhere and unfortunately still exists in parts of the world.

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Charles Hooks • Nov 20, 2021 at 09:33

A very enlightening article. However, the following two sentences in the article seem contradictory:

"The origins of slavery are white. It is just a timely reminder that slavery is an integral part of human history and that the practice of slavery is not the prerogative of any particular group."

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Sidonie Lee • Nov 20, 2021 at 09:32

Thank you for this excellent and concise history of slavery. I will share it as much as possible!!

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Morris Givner • Nov 20, 2021 at 08:49

167 Nations still have slavery and the number of slaves are over 46 million. In many nations, the daily working conditions are those of a slave. Women all over the world are often trapped into prostitution and are ensnared by not only international crime syndicates but by their drug addictions. Female genital mutilation is still carried out in the millions by those holding barbaric, cruel and mind-destroying religious beliefs and practices. Children of all ages are often subjected to slave-labour working conditions that also destroys their health. The media studiously avoids all discussion of slavery in all its forms in order to protect their goals of profit and political acceptability.

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Don Gaetano • Nov 20, 2021 at 08:34

Thanks so much for this Mr (Dr) Godefridi for this brief but thorough refutation of the false narrative of systemic racism and it being described as the building block of Western society and here in the States, the greatest sin of all nations throughout history.

I've been looking for something like this to give to friends here in very left leaning Massachusetts, USA. I will send the link to friends and print out some with your permission, to hand out.

It is clear in its communications and easily readable to the average citizen, my opinion of course. It may help to dispel false charges and self loathing in our nation by many people around me, who are genuinely grieved and have a disparaging attitude towards our wonderful country and Western civilization in general.
And with this terrible attitude comes, I hate to say, a certain twisted pridefulness that they are morally superior and enlightened in their overly exorcised grief over our supposed terrible collective sin, as if we were the only society to ever have practiced it, while we were, I believe, here in the States, a country that has had it existing legally for one of the shortest periods of time.
It is a despicable attitude and suicidal for Western civilization as you know too well, allowing the entrance en masse, of a people group or groups into our countries who's single aim is to abolish Western civilization and implant their own draconian, totalitarian regimes. Tough battle ahead to defend democracy.

Thanks again for this well written essay.

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Anthony l. Rice • Nov 20, 2021 at 08:31

The FACTS in the article should be rammed down BLM's throats and be told to shove off for good.

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Hamish MacDonald • Nov 20, 2021 at 07:10

The white slave trade took one million souls from Spanish and British fishing villages by Muslim corsairs.
After considerable embarrassment in parliament eventually it was replied to with a flotilla of Spanish and British gunships facing Algiers led by Lord Exmouth, which convinced the Muslim Dey to cease operations, and three other Muslim-held coastal ports did the same.
Muslim trade in slaves is well known.
"The Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire formed an elite military corps composed mainly of white slaves..."
Castration was also widespread. The article posits that castration resulted in the absence of a certain racial culture: "The Arab-Muslim trade in black Africans involved 17 million victims who were killed, castrated or enslaved for more than 13 centuries without interruption..."
Other authors are quite graphic about the violence and barbaric practices that went on in North Africa, with both white and dark-skinned peoples, the basic intent being to enslave them.
Good article.

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hunterson7 • Nov 20, 2021 at 06:45

The 1619 is the equivalent of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", the demonizing mythical history of the Jewish people that served as justification for anti-Jewish hatred and bigotry.
1619 does to the West what Elders did to Jews: Demonize and stereotype with lies. Add to that CRT, a sort of Mein Kampf for the justification of bigotry and hate against "white" people, and the true aim of the woke becomes clear.

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Edith Conradie • Nov 20, 2021 at 06:29

Excellent article. Clear and erudite. Thank you for the historical perspective, which should be widely known.

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bolt • Nov 20, 2021 at 06:17

You may consider the NYT and Nicole Hannah-Jones series in 2019 to have been the source/root of the perversion of Virginia and US History re the significance of 1619. I would suggest you look at another source. In 2016, I treated a family of 6 (not from Virginia and largely without knowledge of Virginia History) to a week in Williamsburg. I helped them to join a tour group of other tourists. The group leader identified herself as a history teacher in a Tidewater Virginia high school. Almost as soon as she started her presentation, she introduced 1619 as a turning point year in Virginia: a Red-Letter Year. Three things, she continued, made 1619 important. One, women arrived in the colony for the first time. Two, the Virginia Council, the precursor of the longest continuously operating legislative body in the was was established. Last, Africans arrived. Yes, they were slaves in Africa, but the tour guide skipped the role of indentured servitude and went directly to "they were sold and continued their condition of slavery in 1619." That was the first time that I had heard the perversion of what became the "1619 Project." There are so many historical facts that pull the curtain back from this perversion of history that it is difficult to cancel all of them. You can do your own research for the incredible success story of an Angolan, Anthony Johnson, who became a successful planter in Virginia and Maryland. You can also visit "Freetown," the village where non-slaves lived who supported Middle Plantation, later Williamsburg, with their labor. These two major contradictions continued for decades after 1619. But, if you are interested in learning Virginia history, there is much more dealing with the moral and ethical dilemma of slavery. But for the source/roots of the "1619 Project," you might ask the Rockefeller Foundation. RF restored Colonial Williamsburg and runs its operations today, including its tours. And, if you wonder, did I let the tour guide skate with this revisionism? No way, Jose. I took her down my 20-question pathway so that she revealed the perversion, although she was not very pleased with having to acknowledge facts of history that conflicted, decimated, the attempt at revisionism.

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Nemo of Erewhon • Nov 20, 2021 at 06:03

Slavery, apart from its moral dimension, if anything about it can be held apart from that, led to the industrial and societal stagnation of the Muslim world and other places where it was kept s an institution.
Slavery in England had faded away by the 12th century and serfdom after the Black Death.
When there is no free labour it becomes far more necessary to develop mechanical industrial machinery to produce quickly and cheaply what slave labour would do. This is a large part of Britain's industrial revolution in advance of Europe . The same industrial stagnation was seen in the Southern states of America and in central and South America.
The English were exceptional in many ways and led the way into the modern world.

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Jack Klok • Nov 20, 2021 at 06:02

America must rue the day that the colonists in the Southern States decided to import slaves from Africa to work in the cotton fields. And the fact that these rich slave owners resisted abolition until 1864 is another black mark against the USA. Today it does not matter whether your forebears were empire builders or the victims of empire building, if your skin is melanin deficient you are automatically regarded as an oppressor by those better endowed with melanin. I personally reject all accusations that whites are oppressors and refuse to accept guilt for what happened in the past.

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Nemo of Erewhon

Jack Klok • Nov 21, 2021 at 13:01

If it wasn't for colonization half the world would be very retarded in development and the modern world would be centuries behind its current development if our ancestors hadn't got vital minerals, oil, precious metals and stones out of the ground.
The peoples of the whole world owe a debt of gratitude to Britain and the other European powers for giving them what they enjoy about the modern world. Everyone benefited from colonial empires.

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Nemo of Erewhon

Jack Klok • Nov 21, 2021 at 17:37

The US banned importation of slaves in 1808. Trade between states was not banned. But any new slaves were illegally imported.

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Jack Klok

Nemo of Erewhon • Nov 22, 2021 at 05:29

The United States paid a very steep price for its slavery. A civil war that lasted four years (1860-1864 with the biggest loss of lives in any war ever waged by the USA) and civil rights wars since then such as the Ku Klux Klan subsequent to the civil war and also the civil rights movements since the 1960s. To claim a credit for banning the import of slaves after 1808 is just a blip on the timeline.

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Nemo of Erewhon

Jack Klok • Nov 23, 2021 at 05:49

Banning the importation of slaves was a step in the right direction. When Dickens visited America in the 1840s he conversed with a few of the plantation owners about slavery. Quite a few were against the institution but could not envisage a way of ending it without serious financial repercussions.
The Federal government must take a lot of the responsibility for the war. There was no plan to assist the southern states to end slavery, no financial package and no suggestions as to how to assimilate about 4 million ex-slaves with nothing in common with the people and little or no education. The Northern states did not want several million ex slaves either so there was a lot of hypocrisy there.
If the Federal government really wanted to abolish slavery, and there was little discussion with the South about this before secession began, it would have set about planning it and opened discussion with the South.
Slavery, by white and black planters, was after all a financial tool and with some thought and assistance could have been replaced without a war. Until the South had been driven to secession by fear of removing its sovereign rights, the federal government had very little concern about slavery. One of the reasons that Lincoln emancipated the slaves was to embarrass Britain, the champion of abolishing slavery, out of giving overt support for the South.
Undoubtedly Britain had political reasons for supporting the South, part of which was trade and possibly, this is just an opinion, Britain would have liked to see a permanent split in the union and one which gave Britain a lot of influence over the Southern states. If that had happened and Lincoln had backed away, or lost, Britain would have insisted slavery was abolished but in a peaceful manner in due course.
Lincoln's main concern was maintaining the union; slavery was not even a second issue. To destroy the South, fellow Americans, out of a desire to punish, was cruel and unnecessary. The war could have been avoided with wisdom and good will from both sides.

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Jack Klok

Nemo of Erewhon • Nov 24, 2021 at 07:20

Thank you for your reply. As always there are undercurrents and issues that never catch the public eye or is kept away from it by the press. I reside in South Africa and although the original white settlers from mainly Dutch, French and German descent never enslaved blacks, the Dutch did bring a few Malay to the Cape from the then Dutch East India colony. And just like the American settlers had their differences with the British, which led to the 1776 war for Independence, in South Africa we also had to contend with British interference in our affairs. South Africans only managed to throw off the British colonial yoke after WW2. Keep well Nemo of Erewon.

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Enslavement of the Black by the White: 'The Bedrock of the West'?[1]

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Enslavement of the Black by the White: 'The Bedrock of the West'?^[1]