(Please watch) how the slave trade really happened part 1

Bellow is from John Newton (ex slave trader and guy who wrote amazing grace) read 227-252 "Thoughts on the slave trade"

http://books.google.com/books?id=OjI3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA245

"I verily believe, that the far greater part of the wars, in Africa, would cease, if the Europeans would cease to tempt them, by offering goods for slaves"

Sorry I couldn't fit the whole thing on the descriptions box. This is for those who can't download the article the video shows pages 19-25

Dahomey and the Slave Trade: Reflections of the Historiography of the Rise of Dahomey 19-25

http://www.fiu.edu/~ogundira/Law_Historiography_of_the_Rise_of_Dahomey.pdf

The Abolitionist Riposte: The impact of the Slave Trade

The argument that the European demand for slaves was itself a cause of wars in Africa is already implicit in the work of John Atkins in 1735, though, as has been seen, he applied this interpretation to the cases of Allada and Wydah rather than to Dahomey. It was made more explicit, and given a clearer historical form, by William Smith (1744), who observed, apparently with specific reference to the Gold Coast, that

The discerning Natives account it their greatest Unhappiness, that they were ever visited by the Europeans. They say that we Christians introduced the Traffic of slaves, and that before our coming they lived in peace.

The argument was elaborated by the American Abolitionist Anthony Benezet, in a work published originally in 1771. Benezet claimed that Smiths remark is supported by a study of early European accounts of Africa, which show that the Africans then

Generally lived in peace amongst themselves; for I do not find, in the numerous publications I have perused on the subject, of there being wars on that coast, nor of any scale of captives taken in battle, who would have been otherwise sacrificed by the victors.

The subsequent prevalence of war, Benezet inferred, was due to the slave trade, the Africans having become corrupted by their intercourse with the Europeans and incited by warfare by drunkenness and avarice. The claim that African wars were caused by the European market for slaves thereafter became a commonplace of Abolitionist polemic, and the argument was soon applied to the specific case of Dahomey. Thus Forbes, in 1851 was in no doubt that his description of Dahomey served to illustrate the dreadful slave hunts and ravages, the annihilations and exterminations, consequent on the slave trade These wars are directly and instrumentally the acts of the slave-Merchants at Whydah and its neighboring ports.

Although not originally worked out with reference to the case of Dahomey, this Abolitionist argument clearly worried the Anti-Abolitionist historians of Dahomey, Norris and Dalzel. Norris insisted that according to his reading of the records, Africa had always been like this:

That the wars which have always existed in Africa, have no connection with the slave trade, is evident from the universality of the practice of it between communities in a savage state. The oldest writers, as Leo, and others, have represented the Africans as living in a continual state of war, and rapine, long before the commerce with Europeans was introduced among them.....

Among recent historians, the Abolitionist picture of an originally peaceful society corrupted into violence by the European slave trade has exercised considerable influence. It was, for example, adopted and elaborated by W.E.B. Du Bois in his pioneering study of Negro history published in 1915. Dub Bois asserted that the evidence showed the supersession in West Africa of early costal cultures characterized by city democracy and developed craft industries, by despotic militaristic empires such as Dahomey, and also Asante.) His picture of Dahomey is wholly negative a fierce and bloody tyranny with wholesale murder Dahomey was the last word in a series of human disasters: the origins of the change are attributed unequivocally to the slave trade, and to the warfare which it encouraged. From Du Bois, as well as directly from the earlier Abolitionist sources, the view that Dahomeys despotic and militarized character was a consequence of its involvements in the slave trade was transmitted to later historians, including especially Basil Davidson (1961). For historians such as Du Bois and Davidson, seeking to project a more sympathetic picture of pre-colonial African societies, part of the attraction of this interpretation was clearly that it served to externalize in some degree the responsibility for many of the unattractive featured which they found in these societies.

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[congobigp]

I agree with Debby that one of the things missing in the analysis of Du Bois is that they exclude the human factor. Craving for Power is something that is innate in human beings. I don't know about the rules of war in societies of the gold coast but war was a means in our regions to acquire land. exyterminating or enslaving other groupings were never the aims. wars could then be settled through negociations. That is in theory, this doesn't take into account deviant leaders who crave power.

[markellion]

The fact that many places in Africa are less populated than other places in the world comes from the slave trade. Africans were the greatest farmers in the world so there is no reason why they would have a smaller population

This goes into the far interior too like in the case with the Lunda who were involved in the slave trade

[congobigp]

And I think you include the transaharan/arab trade as well. The interior had it's limit. People such as mine not being affected.

[markellion]

"And I think you include the transaharan/arab trade as well"

No because Livingston and others said that the Arabs did not have the wealth to carry on the slave trade

[deborahbetty58]

Hmmm... two sides of the many coins in history. It's basically a human trait to romanticize the past. In order to hold on childlike sentiments of perfection and even because of an out of proportion, sense of guilt. None of us can change the past. And just as on a personal level, to deal with the pain of guilt out of inadequacy, we edit the stories and images in our minds. On a collective scale, it becomes media driven politics, politics become dubious accounts, stories, legends and finally

[markellion]

This is not out of proportion countless!

African rulers were complaining about the British attempts at abolition. They wanted to continue ravaging their neighbors selling them to the white man rather than developing their own country.

It is the fault of the European slave traders that this disgraceful situation happened in the first place.

[juuttuubi]

If we are sensible enough to assume that mankind originates ftom Africa namely up the river Nile from Ethiopia, THEN we may also say that one of the first sins ie. slavery was also invented in Africa, whereby we still have monuments of slavery called pyramids. If we may further in our assumption to say that we originate from the same father and mother ie. the first of mankind (there has to be first before second), THEN we ALL are responsible for the acts of enslavement.

[infox1000]

@w8p8 Slavery in African socities wasn't chattel slavery.

[szubanator]

I CANT LISTEN TO THIS COMPUTER VOICE. MAYBE I'LL READ IT SOME OTHER DAY. hOW ABOUT A REAL VOICE PLEASE

[Born2Flesh]

The false Jews and Arabs started the slave trade, not Europeans.

[barlog20]

Markellion are you aware of the Jewish invovlement in Slavery and how the fact that they funded it?

[MagicalWheelies]

@markellion But that is the question, no? The fact that Africans were intricately involved in maintaining and prolonging the slave trade brings about the notion of "black guilt," as opposed to "white guilt," in reference to African Americans today whose ancestors sanctioned slavery (like the ancestors of some American whites sanctioned slavery). The question of whether slavery/chronic warfare was already being practiced in Africa before the Europeans arrived remains to be categorically resolved.

[w8p8]

what about the arabs???/ they enslaved 10 times as many..... When you wake up and realize that blacks enslaved each other... People can stop telling me i owe them something

[necromanzee]

the boring computerised voice stopped me watching what could have been an interresting subject.

[billyslo87]

I have a question. If Africa was so good, as most Africans like to say, then why did European and American companies, like John Hancocks, have the policy that no slave could be deformed in any way? And if they were not deformed in any way then why would it be necessary for these shipping businesses to advertise their shipment as all of the slaves on board are in good health, strong etc.

[MultiSolucion]

@congobigp in the 1640 where arabic king wanne abolisme but europa not wanne hear this so what happen to the king and his nation they capture and selling them,,, , that are white ppll do dutch still have the power , like white power the klux klux bilderberg weird secrets dutch meetings ,, also white ppl is the economic shell oil department weir and remarkeble find information in wikipedai or google.. praise the lord..