On Slavery

Via this post, an interesting table on where slaves transported from West Africa ended up:

A quote from the souce:

'The United States was a minor player in the African Slave Trade — only about 5% of the Africans imported to the New World came to the United States. Of the 10.7 million Africans who survived the ocean voyage, a mere 388,000 were shipped directly to North America. The largest recipients of imported African slaves were Brazil, Cuba. Jamaica, and the other Caribbean colonies. The lifespan of those brought into what is now the United States vastly exceeded those of the other 95%, and the United States was the only purchaser of African slaves where the population grew naturally in slavery – the death rate among the rest was higher than the birth rate'

The World Slave Trade

The Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean African slave trade, which began by Arabs as early as the 8th Century AD, dwarfed the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and continued up to the 20th Century. Between the start of the Atlantic Slave Trade and 1900, it is estimated that the eastern-bound Arab slave traders sold over 17 million Africans into slavery in the Middle East and India, compared to about 12 million to the new world – and the Eastern-bound slave trade had been ongoing for at least 600 years at the START of that period.

Indeed, the reason there is not a large African population in the Middle East is that they castrated their male slaves.

What struck me is not only how the Brazilians bought double the number of slaves of the UK and ten times the number of the USA. It's also interesting that the Dutch and Danes were also big players, something that is often overlooked. I decided to put these figures in a table and work out the percentages:

It's also quite sad to note how 16% died in transit. I also put these figures into a pie chart:

The linked post has some more interesting points and is well worth reading in full. 

It really annoys me how such talk of the slave trade dominates the contemporary discussion. My view is as follows:

• Slavery existed throughout history in many different locations and cultures,
• Slaves were captured and sold to Europeans by other Africans,
• The West (especially the UK) were the first to develp the idea that it is a great evil,
• The UK spent a fortune (in lives and treasure) to eradicate the trade,
• The descendants of slaves in the West have a better life expectancy and quality of life than the average West African today,
• We as individuals are not responsible for the actions of our ancestors (both good and bad),
• There is no moral case for reparations, 
• The current fury is not about historical wrongs but race grifters trying to shake down the West.

I'll end with this quote from the above linked post: 'the only true descriptive of the situation is that The United States was a footnote in slavery’s history'