Oliver H. This article was published in An updated version was published in Foundation essay : This article was part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look at key issues affecting society. Slavery has been in the news a lot lately. As a scholar of slavery at the University of Texas at Austin, I welcome the public debates and connections the American people are making with history.
However, there are still many misconceptions about slavery. Instead, we trace the history of slavery in all its forms to make sense of the origins of wealth inequality and the roots of discrimination today. The history of slavery provides deep context to contemporary conversations and counters the distorted facts, internet hoaxes and poor scholarship I caution my students against. The majority of enslaved Africans went to Brazil, followed by the Caribbean.
They spent months or years recovering from the harsh realities of the Middle Passage. Once they were forcibly accustomed to slave labor, many were then brought to plantations on American soil. Popular culture is rich with references to years of oppression. There seems to be confusion between the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the institution of slavery, confusion only reinforced by the Bible, Genesis :. The history of slavery provides vital context to contemporary conversations and counters the distorted facts, internet hoaxes and poor scholarship I caution my students against.
Truth: Only a little more than , captives, or percent, came to the United States. The majority of enslaved Africans went to Brazil, followed by the Caribbean. They spent months or years recovering from the harsh realities of the Middle Passage. Once they were forcibly accustomed to slave labor, many were then brought to plantations on American soil. Popular culture is rich with references to years of oppression.
There seems to be confusion between the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the institution of slavery, confusion only reinforced by the Bible, Genesis :. The American part of the story lasted fewer than years. How, then, do we calculate the timeline of slavery in America? Africans first arrived in America in the late 16th century not as slaves but as explorers together with Spanish and Portuguese explorers. As far as the institution of chattel slavery — the treatment of slaves as property — in the United States, if we use as the beginning and the 13th Amendment as its end, then it lasted years, not Truth : Roughly 25 percent of all Southerners owned slaves.
The fact that one-quarter of the southern population were slaveholders is still shocking to many. This truth brings historical insight to modern conversations about inequality and reparations. When it established statehood, the Lone Star State had a shorter period of Anglo-American chattel slavery than other southern states — only to — because Spain and Mexico had occupied the region for almost one-half of the 19th century with policies that either abolished or limited slavery.
Still, the number of people impacted by wealth and income inequality is staggering. Because, says the Times, that is the date of the arrival of the first slaves to the land that would a century-and-a-half later be called the United States. Of course, it is important to study the history of slavery in this country. But what if America was not unique in holding slaves? Reading it should be your first step toward learning the full facts about slavery worldwide.
In perusing the FreeTheSlaves website, the first fact that emerges is it was nearly 9, years ago that slavery first appeared , in Mesopotamia B. Enemies captured in war were commonly kept by the conquering country as slaves. And in the s B. Later, the pagan Greeks participated in slavery, for ancient Sparta as well as Athens relied fully on the slave labor of captives. But Greek slavery paled in comparison to that in ancient Rome. By the 8 th century A. By the year A. As for the Atlantic slave trade, this began in A.
Eighty-two years later , Spanish explorers brought the first African slaves to settlements in what would become the United States—a fact the Times gets wrong. But the antipathy of many Americans toward slavery became evident as early as , when Quakers in Pennsylvania set up the first abolitionist society.
Betsy Ross, whose American flag was deemed politically incorrect recently by Nike, was herself both a Quaker and an abolitionist. Five years later, Massachusetts became the first state to abolish slavery in its constitution.
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