Today I read a blog that said Barack Obama was the descendant of both slaves and slave owners. That seems unlikely to me. His Mother's family may well have been slave owners some generations back. But, his black father was from Africa, and I would guess it to be more likely that they were also slave owners rather than slaves.
posted by James Williams | 9:13 PM
1 Comments:
Obama’s link to slavery should not be an issue. African Americans who research their family trees are likely to discover they have black as well as white ancestors who onwed slaves. In the United States, thousands of free blacks owned slaves. Some of them were simply purchasing relatives out of slavery, but others bought slaves for the same reason white plantation owners bought slaves. One of the South’s biggest slave owners was a free black man who was notorious for his harsh treatment of slaves.
Modern-day Americans may equate the world "slave" with the word "black," but that is true only because of a lack of historical knowledge. The word "slave" derives from the word "Slavic," or Eastern European. Eurpean slaves were still being sold in slave markets in the 1800s. There were also white slaves in colonial America. These are not to be confused with indentured servants (indentured servitude was actually a pretty good deal). These white slaves and their children were wholly owned by their masters the same way black slaves were owned. There were not nearly as many as white slaves as there were black saves because white slaves were in high demand in the Muslim world. This made them too expensive compared to black slaves that could be purchased relatively cheaply from the African slave markets.
Most Europeans are the descendants of slaves as well as slave owners. The fuedal system began replacing slavery in Norther Europe during the Middile Ages when landowners discovered collecting rents was easier than owning slaves. Even the Irish's beloved Saint Patrick was a fomer slave.
Native Americans also practiced slavery, before and after the European discover of American. The largest slave market that ever existed in the Americas was the one the Aztecs operated in pre-Colombian times. The Native Americans raided European settlements to capture white slaves, who were bartered between the tribes. The Spanish enslaved Native Americans as well as blacks. The American Civil War did not end slavery on tribal lands. The U.S. goverment ended slavery following the Civil War by buying slaves from the tribes. The Cherokee were the last to give up their slaves. The Cherokee Nation recent voted to ban the descendants of Cherokee slaves from the tribal rolls.
Post a Comment
<< Home