Slavery is a black eye on America. This is indisputable. However, what is contestable is how Gavin Newsome’s proposal to pay $223,000 in reparations to each Black Californian even remotely relates to the injustices committed between 1619 and 1865 in America. Read the Newsweek article from December 2, 2022, here.
If you listen to legacy news channels you would think that the United States invented slavery and should be solely responsible for making amends to the entire world—yes, even two centuries later.
Ironically, the facts about slavery don’t even begin to match this narrative. Could it be that our politicians have their own agenda for pushing the slavery narrative and white supremacy myth?
Below are 7 facts that our public schools are not teaching about the roots and current propagation of slavery:
1. Slavery can be traced back to the start of civilization.
Slavery is not an American phenomenon, nor did it start with the African slave trade. The Code of Hammurabi is the most complete code of Babylonia laws dating back to 1760 B.C. and establishes slavery as a viable institution, according to Britannica.
Slavery was accepted as a part of many ancient civilizations including Greece, Assyria, and Egypt. At one point, slaves comprised 25% of the Roman Empire’s total population. According to an article entitled, History of Slavery Around the World:
“From the pre-Christian era up to colonization of the New World, slavery was an accepted part of daily life in countries and cultures across the globe, and whether or not a particular culture was enslaved was generally determined by their weakness in warfare.
“To the victors go the spoils, which in this case were the indigent peoples of the conquered lands. Slaves consisted of Irish, Turkish, Chinese, Arab, Persian, Greek, and many other cultures, and were not restricted to one particular race, ethnicity, culture, or country.” Read more of this article here.
2. The United States was not a key player in the African slave trade.
European nations, not America, drove the trans-Atlantic slave trade. According to Slavevoyges.com, nearly 11 million Africans were enslaved between 1514 and 1866. See the table here. The most active countries were Portugal with 3,894,056 slaves, the United Kingdom with 3,088,776 slaves, and France with 1,309,424.
The United States is ranked sixth on this list:
“Only 300,000 disembarked in the U.S. directly, while many more arrived via the inter-American slave trade from the Caribbean or Latin America (areas colonized by Portugal, the UK, and France). It is estimated that almost 4.5 million enslaved Africans arrived in the Caribbean and another 3.2 million in present-day Brazil.” Read more of this article here.
3. Contrary to popular belief, the first slaves in the American colonies were not just from Africa.
King James II wrote a proclamation in 1625 which required Irish political prisoners (i.e. individuals who disagreed with those in power) to be sold overseas. He sold 30,000 Irish slaves to the New World. Read more about the forgotten slaves here.
Why don’t our public schools teach about the Irish Slave Trade along with the African Slave Trade? This inconvenient truth sends mainstream media’s “fact checkers” into a frenzy. For example, an USA Today article claimed that the Irish were indentured servants, not slaves. Although the article agreed that these individuals were sold, horribly treated by their masters, and many died before being set free, it claimed that it was “different.”
Is it possible that white slaves don’t fit their narrative? Read the article here.
In fact, many researchers agree that the first legal slave owner in America was black, and his slave was white. See the article here.
4. In parts of the country, slave traders were prosecuted, and slaves liberated.
Have you ever wondered why slavery only took hold in the southern states even though it was legal in all thirteen colonies?
Slavery expanded in the South when colonists in Jamestown engaged in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In 1607, a group of merchants and traders occupied land in the New World given to them by the King of England. These settlers came as agents of the King to expand commerce for economic purposes.
In contrast, pilgrims who settled in America for the purpose of religious freedom did not engage in slave trading. According to Wall Builders' website,
“In fact, when a slave ship came to them in 1646, the Pilgrims prosecuted the slavers and liberated the slaves. Although far from perfect, those early beginnings of anti-slavery sentiment eventually led to the New England area being the first places in the modern world to abolish slavery, with Massachusetts specifically ending the institution in 1783—a full 50 years before England.”
It’s no wonder why the pilgrim’s descendants in the north fought to end the slavery that was commonly practiced in the southern colonies.
5. Many African nations were complicit in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Many discussions on slavery fail to recognize that the slave trade represents big business for both buyers and sellers.
“Slaves from Africa were slaves in Africa long before they were slaves anywhere else in the world. From 1300 to mid-1800, nearly all African countries had a slave population that comprised one-third of their total populations.” Read more here.
Like America, several African nations are also grappling with their complicity in the slave trade:
“For over 200 years, powerful kings in what is now the country of Benin captured and sold slaves to Portuguese, French and British merchants. The slaves were usually men, women and children from rival tribes—gagged and jammed into boats bound for Brazil, Haiti and the United States.” Read more here.
6. Slavery is still practiced in 167 Countries across the World
Far from being solely an African issue, slavery in some form or another is still legal and openly practiced in many countries throughout the world. Forced child marriages, for example, are another form and are still practiced in many Middle Eastern countries, including Pakistan.
The U.S. Department of State defines modern slavery as "the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion."
Slavery affects 46 million people worldwide. According to Global Slavery Index 2018, these are the top 10 countries with the highest prevalence of slavery:
India - 7,989,000
China - 3,864,000
North Korea - 2,640,000
Nigeria - 1,386,000
Iran - 1,289,000
Indonesia - 1,220,000
Congo (Democratic Republic of) - 1,045,000
Russia - 794,000
Philippines - 784,000
Afghanistan - 749,000
As you can see from the chart above China, the Earth's most populous country, has the second-highest number of slaves at more than 3.8 million. You can read more here.
7. Human Trafficking is modern slavery
Please don’t be fooled. Even though slavery isn’t legal doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening right here, within our own borders. According to the Washington Times:
“The U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline was contacted 48,258 times and reported 11,494 cases of human trafficking in 2019. In 2020, the Hotline was contacted over 51,600 times, with over 10,500 reported cases of human trafficking.”
Tragically, the policies of the Biden administration are contributing to the trafficking epidemic on our southern border. On average, 16,000 unaccompanied minors are trafficked across our southern border each month since January 2021. Read more of this article here. Human trafficking is a very complex issue that deserves more time than we can give it in this post.
The Wrap-Up
Slavery is not an American phenomenon, it’s an indictment of human nature in general.
Why, then, does Newsome insist on paying reparations to African Americans? This has nothing to do with fairness or restitution. I suspect this is yet another way for California lawmakers to launder money back to their party.
After all, if this was truly about righting wrongs, New York state would be paying reparations to the Irish.
Please share! The truth is the best way to contradict Critical Race Theory (CRT) and other media narratives. Thank you.