Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hey, kids, As we're continuing our look at European history,
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we're going to turn our attention today to slavery.
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Now. Slavery did not exist in large quantities in Europe
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itself, but by the 16 and 17 hundreds, the wealth
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and power of Europe was pouring in from the Asian
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spice treat trade and from the New World not just
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in the gold and silver brought back on Treasure galleons
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but on the products of the New World, many of
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which were now being produced in intensive, industrial scale farming
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that rested on the back of African slave labor.
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The issue of African slavery would hang over the head
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of Europe, which felt conflicted about the profits it was
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gaining on one hand and the nagging idea somewhere that
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this might be wrong.
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Most people suppressed this idea.
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Kingdom certainly did.
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Companies ignored it, and the people who ate the sugar
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and drank the tea and enjoy the cotton clothing really
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didn't want to think too much about what it had
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taken to produce this.
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Eventually there would be an abolitionist movement, but initially the
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slave trade was almost un protested in Europe itself.
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So let's look at how this slave trade developed and
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how all those slavery has existed in all times and
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places and cultures in the Atlantic slave trade.
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It developed, in some sense, a uniquely horrific form.
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So, as I said a moment ago, slavery has existed
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in all times and places Chinese, Aztecs, Africans, Europeans, Romans,
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Babylonians, Native Americans.
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Everybody has enslaved others at one point or the other.
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There are different kinds of slavery.
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Sometimes it's temporary.
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Sometimes it's permanent.
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Sometimes slaves are treated as extended, if inferior, members of
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the Klan.
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Other times they were treated brutally as mere property.
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Sometimes it was for debt.
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Often it was prisoners, but very rarely was it racial.
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One might capture one's neighbors in a war against the
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neighboring country.
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But white people enslaved white people and black people and
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say black people and so on and so forth.
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So it wasn't explicitly racial.
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That innovation came from the Atlantic slave trade.
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There had long been a thriving African slave trade to
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the Islamic world, going back to the time, at least
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of Mohammed, and certainly Europeans had been enslaved by raids
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from the Middle East and Africa during the early Middle
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Ages, and Europeans had enslaved prisoners of war from the
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Muslims that they captured in their wars.
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In other words, this has been going on for a
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long time.
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However, in late medieval Europe, Europeans generally saw slaves as
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human and had outlawed most forms of slavery, at least
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within Europe itself.
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However, in their ongoing war with Muslims, the Spanish and
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the Portuguese had enslaved Muslim prisoners of war, and this
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trend would develop in the direction of New World slavery.
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Because of sugar, Portuguese in the 14 hundreds had discovered
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the Azores Islands off the coast of Africa, where they
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could finally grow their own sugar.
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It's a tropical crop and also very labor intensive because
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of the harsh labor needed.
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The Portuguese themselves couldn't attract Portuguese labor to work there,
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and so they used Muslim prisoners of war.
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Now. At that time, the Portuguese were continuing their long
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700 year war with Islam, which goes back to the
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Muslim invasion of Spain and Portugal back in the seven
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hundreds. But by now, the Spanish and Portuguese were actually
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gaining territory along the coast of North Africa, and thus
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those were the prisoners the Portuguese use on the Azores
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over the next few decades, the Portuguese continued along the
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coast of Africa, and there they encountered Africans willing to
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sell them more slaves, as was common in the economy.
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At that time, the Portuguese also discovered Brazil in 1500
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and it now gave them a massive territory, which was
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ideal for growing sugar over the next few decades.
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The Portuguese, the Spanish and eventually others colonist Latin America,
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especially the Caribbean and South America, where sugar and other
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tropical products once imported from Asia could now be grown
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in colonies and sold at very high profits.
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In Europe, Europeans begin to acquire more and more of
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a taste for tea, coffee, sugar and other products from
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the New World.
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At this point, we need to mention that the Native
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Americans were also enslaved.
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But in the Spanish territories, which was most of the
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New World, this was eventually made illegal, thanks to Bartolomeo
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de las Casas.
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Las Casas had been an early conquistador himself, but he'd
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heard a sermon by a priest named Montesinos who had
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excoriated the Spanish for being so cruel to the Indians.
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These are your brothers, potential converts to Christianity and human.
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How dare you enslave them most of the Conquistadors mocked
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the foolish priest, but less.
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Kostas was convicted, sold or freed his own slaves and
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eventually himself became a monk and took up the cause
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of ending the enslavement of Indians or native Americans.
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In the 15 forties, he was able to stand before
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the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles, the fifth
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in the famous Valladolid debate.
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He debated with other philosophers whether or not Los Indios
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or Native Americans were human, because if they were, they
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should not be enslaved.
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And here less causes debuted a new term.
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Human rights.
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The idea that all humans are owed basic at least
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fundamental respect.
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Las Costas won the debate, and enslavement of Indians was
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outlawed in the New World.
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But at the time he said nothing about Africans Late
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in his life, he did begin to make the argument
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that Africans to deserve human rights.
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But this was something that he was not able to
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persuade people as his life ended.
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And frankly, even though Charles the fifth, outlawed enslaving Native
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Americans, it continued anyway.
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Madrid was a six months round trip voyage from the
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New World, and the Spanish laws were often ignored by
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the colonists on the ground.
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And as for Portugal, they never even had these laws,
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and they continue to enslave natives as well.
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But the fact was, natives were more capable of resisting
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since they were on their home turf.
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And on the downside, many of them were dying anyway
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because of the epidemics.
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By this time, sugar was absolutely going crazy as a
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money making crop.
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And so the hunger for African slavery only increased the
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average sugar slave field slave worker that is, could expect
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to live only five years before dying.
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And so there was a constant need to replace the
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slave population.
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It's during this time that the plantation system was developed,
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breaking the task of farming and processing sugar into a
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step by step process that one could even teach a
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slave who would do just one step of the process
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in an assembly line fashion and the use of intensive
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and even exploitative labor to produce a profitable crop.
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One might argue that this assembly line model would also
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be seen later on in the Industrial Revolution.
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By the 16 and 17 hundreds, every European country that
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could put ships to sea was capitalizing on the slave
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trade. Britain, France, the Netherlands, even the Danes and Swedes
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engaged in the slave trade.
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Typically, they would engage in what was known as the
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triangle trade were manufactured goods would sail from Europe to
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Africa, there to be traded for slaves, which were collected
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by African slave traders and held in large fortresses known
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as slave factories.
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Until the next ship arrive, then slaves would have to
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survive the voyage or middle passage from Africa to the
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New World.
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Many as 20% of the slaves on board died, but
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the profit margins were high enough so that this did
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not deter the trade itself.
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In the New World, they would be sold, and about
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90% were sold into the Caribbean and northern parts of
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South America or the tropical crops such as tea, coffee
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and sugar.
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Of course, as well as tobacco were being raised, then
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those crops would be sailed back on the ship to
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Europe to be sold at a profit, making the ship
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owner of profit on each leg of the triangle.
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So initially slaves or African POWs, it was common to
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enslave prisoners of war.
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Eventually, though, so much money could be made and the
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slave trade that some African kingdoms actually started wars simply
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to gather in more slaves to sell to the Europeans
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again. These were held in slave factories, which can still
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be seen on the West or slave coast of Africa.
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Today, the Dutch by the 16 hundreds were the dominant
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traders was the Dutch who would bring the first slaves
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to what today is the United States?
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But by the late 16 hundreds, the French and especially
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the British dominated the trade in human slavery, Of course,
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to justify this, Europeans had to ignore some of the
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aspects of Christian belief.
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All sorts of justification, some from Scripture and some from
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alleged science, were concocted to justify.
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It was essentially a dehumanizing treatment.
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And because of this, a special attention was given to
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claiming that Africans, black people were somehow less than fully
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human or not even human at all.
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And the legacy of this new, racially based labor, of
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course, is still plaguing us today in the tensions between
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races not just the United States but in all of
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Latin America and, of course, beyond even to Europe as
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well. And so slavery would leave a legacy of riches
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for Europe but a legacy of tragedy for Africa and
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a legacy of harsher divisions between Africans and Europeans as
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well. A few religious fanatics, piety, US, Quakers and Methodists
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objected in the 16 and 17 hundreds.
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But the abolition movement would not gain real strength until
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late in the 17 hundreds, when finally people begin to
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realize that there was a massive moral conflict between what
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they said they believed in the way they were treating.
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They're African fellow humans.
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Meanwhile, Africa itself suffered tremendous tragedy, and this is a
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part that's often neglected in the United States.
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We talk about slavery in American history, of slavery in
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colonial history.
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But let's not forget that Africa itself have wars that
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did not ever actually need to be fought over simply
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capturing slaves.
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It's estimated three million Africans died during the slave trade
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between 14 92 and the early 18 hundreds, and 10
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million Africans were transported as 10% of the continent's population.
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And so this tragic legacy of slavery is still with
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us today, and ironically, the wealth and power would eventually
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lead to the industrialization of Europe and its dominance over
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the world.
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Well, a lot of that wealth was created on the
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backs of slaves