Slavery Question: Please Help.

Electron1(Myself)

[electron1]

Hello Everyone,

I am having a discussion with an extremely liberal friend of mine, and he made the claim that only Christian white societies have ever been involved in slavery. I know this isn't true, but for the life of me, can't come up with any counter examples.

Can anybody here assist me in finding counter examples, and resources to back them up?

thanks.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

His own source mentions the use of conscripted laborers.

[airedale]

Good grief! Almost any one with the slightest knowledge of history would know that slavery has been around for almost as long as man has.

The word slavery comes from the word slav. It seems that the Turks and other countries took them as slaves to such an extent that the name of the people came to be synonymous with the institution. Look in the Old Testament you'll find lots of examples. The Greek City States like Sparta were slave states as was Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and any number of African tribes throughout the continent. In Asia it was practiced in most of the countries throughout history..

Brittan and later the United States were the ones to activel6y took efforts to end the practice. World wide. They didn’t accomplish since it still goes on officially today in Africa in several countries. It also exists in a lot of other counties where it’s officially illegal but it still exists. China’s state controlled factories which make a lot of those cheep goods we all love is really slavery in disguise. Here in Los Angeles they broke up a salve ring where the people were locked in an apartment complex and forced to make garments for no money and no chance of escape. They broke that Asian run slave operations a few years ago.

Any number of books on the history of slavery if you need information to show your friend.

In terms of African slavery it existed there long before the Western World and both the Africans and Arabs .were the major players in Africa. There were 3 main routes for African slaves. The first came to what the one that we in the US normally think of. That’s’ from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean and then on to what would become the United States. The second was from the west coast of Africa to the northern part of Brazil and finally the Arab slave traders had on the eastern side of Africa to Arab countries.

They all chose their slaves for different reasons. . The route to Brazil was the shortest and easiest trip to make. They principally took males and worked them to death. It was cheep enough and the access to replacements made this the best economic solution. In the US various laws as well as the pressure that the British put on us legally and with their warships made it economically feasible to follow the Brazilian model. Instead they took both men and women. which would allow them to replace the slaves as the reached the end of their usefulness locally. The slave here in the US had a far higher value to the slave owners than they did in Brazil. It was for that reason that the Irish were used when the job was excessively dangerous or stood a high probability of limb loss or loss of future work. The slave owners valued the Irsih far lower than they did our slaves.

The third main route was on the east side of Africa to the Arab countries. This route went across the Sahara Desert to the north. They took mostly women and children. In terms of losses during the crossing far more died who tread this route than any other. The eastern route lasted far longer than either for the western routes.

[B4Ranch]

Tennessee in June 1861 became the first in the South to legislate the use of free black soldiers. The governor was authorized to enroll those between the ages of fifteen and fifty, to be paid $18 a month and the same rations and clothing as white soldiers; the black men appeared in two black regiments in Memphis by September.
Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1995) pp. 218-219

Citing the official US Census of 1830, there were 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners.
-"Selling Poor Steven", American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90

Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a telling of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony:
Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers' Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378

"In 1650 there were only 300 negroes in Virginia, about one percent of the population. They weren't slaves any more than the approximately 4,000 white indentured servants working out their loans for passage money to Virginia, and who were granted 50 acres each when freed from their indentures, so they could raise their own tobacco.

Slavery was established in 1654 when Anthony Johnson, Northampton County, convinced the court that he was entitled to the lifetime services of John Casor, a negro. This was the first judicial approval of life servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

But who was Anthony Johnson, winner of this epoch-making decision? Anthony Johnson was a negro himself, one of the original 20 brought to Jamestown (1619) and 'sold' to the colonists. By 1623 he had earned his freedom and by 1651, was prosperous enough to import five 'servants' of his own, for which he received a grant of 250 acres as 'headrights.'

Anthony Johnson ought to be in a 'Book of Firsts.' As the most ambitious of the first 20, he could have been the first negro to set foot on Virginia soil. He was Virginia's first free negro and first to establish a negro community, first negro landowner, first negro slave owner and as the first, white or black, to secure slave status for a servant, he was actually the founder of slavery in Virginia. A remarkable man."

I found the reference, out of Michael A. Hoffman II's "They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America" : Joseph Cinque was himself a slave trader, selling his fellow blacks into this horror after he himself was set free by a US court.

Amistad producer Debbie Allen calls this destabilizing fact a "rumor." She'd better. If the thinking public, black and white, discover that "noble" Cinque later sold his own people in the very manner he condemned, then there will be a second mutiny, this time against Spielberg and his shameless hoaxing.

Here is Samuel Eliot Morrison, one of the most distinguished of American historians, writing in his "Oxford History of the American People,"
(New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1965), p. 520:

"The most famous case involving slavery, until eclipsed by Dred Scott's, was that of the Amistad in 1839. She was a Spanish slave ship carrying 53 newly imported Negroes who were being moved from Havana to another Cuban port. Under the leadership of an upstanding Negro named Cinqué, they mutinied and killed captain and crew. Then, ignorant of navigation, they had to rely on a white man whom they had spared to sail the ship.

"He stealthily steered north, the Amistad was picked up off Long Island by a United States warship, taken into New Haven, and with her cargo placed in charge of the federal marshal. Then what a legal hassle! Spain demanded that the slaves be given up to be tried for piracy, and President Van Buren attempted to do so but did not quite dare.

"Lewis Tappan and Roger Sherman Baldwin, a Connecticut abolitionist, undertook to free them by legal process, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. John Quincy Adams, persuaded to act as their attorney, argued that the Negroes be freed, on the ground that the slave trade was illegal both by American and Spanish law, and that mankind had a natural right to freedom.

"The court with a majority of Southerners, was so impressed by the old statesman's eloquence that it ordered Cinqué and the other Negroes set free, and they were returned to Africa. The ironic epilogue is that Cinqué, once home, set himself up as a slave trader."
(End quotation from historian Samuel Eliot Morrison)

"To pursue the concept of racial entitlement--even for the most admirable and benign of purposes--is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American."
--Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take it away from those who are willing to work and give it to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson

[Green Conservative]

An article relating to the U.S. State Department findings. It lists modern slavery in Sudan, Kazakhstan, Burma, and even Israel. It goes on to describe destinations to nearly every corner of the globe.

http://brian.carnell/articles/2001/07/000031.html

What's more, other report conclude that there are more slaves today than anytime before.

[Damagro]

Ask your stupid friend how many countries fought a civil war to end slavery and nearly stopped the practice world wide. (hint) it's a real short list

[Green Conservative]

An article relating to the U.S. State Department findings. It lists modern slavery in Sudan, Kazakhstan, Burma, and even Israel. It goes on to describe destinations to nearly every corner of the globe.

http://brian.carnell/articles/2001/07/000031.html

What's more, other report conclude that there are more slaves today than anytime before.

[SauronOfMordor]

Slavery thru history

Slavery throughout history

6800 B.C. - 1800 A.D.
c. 6800 B.C.	The world's first city grows up in Mesopotamia. With the ownership of land, and the beginnings of technology comes warfare in which enemies are captured and forced to work - slavery.
c. 2575 B.C.	Egyptians send expeditions down the Nile River to capture slaves. Temple art celebrates the capture of slaves in battle.
c. 550 B.C.	The mighty Greek city-state of Athens uses up to 30,000 slaves in the silver mines it controls.
c. 120	Slaves are taken by the thousands in Roman military campaigns, some estimates put the population of Rome at more than half slave.
c. 500	In England the native Britons are enslaved after invasion by Anglo-Saxons.
c. 1000	Slavery is normal practice in England's rural economy.
c. 1380	In the aftermath of the Black Plague, Europe's slave trade revives to deal with the labor shortage.
c. 1550	Renaissance art is peopled with slaves displayed as objects of conspicuous consumption.
1800 - 1900
1781	Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolishes serfdom in the Austrian Habsburg dominions.
1789	On August 26th, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man, one of the fundamental charters of human liberties. The first of 17 articles states: "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights."
1803	Denmark becomes the first country in Europe to ban African slave trade. A law passed in 1792 takes effect in 1803 to forbid trading in slaves by Danish subjects and to end the importation of slaves into Danish dominions.
1804	After a slave revolt expels the French from the island of Saint- Domingue, the island is declared independent under its original Arawak name, "Haiti."
1807	After prolonged lobbying by abolitionists in Britain, led by William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, the British Parliament makes it illegal for British ships to transport slaves and for British colonies to import them.
1811 to 1867	Operating off the Atlantic coast of Africa,160,000 slaves are liberated by the British Navy's Anti-Slavery Squadron between 1811 and 1867.
1813	Sweden, a nation that has never authorized slave traffic, consents to ban the African slave trade.
1814	The King of the Netherlands officially terminates Dutch participation in the African slave trade.
1814	During the Congress of Vienna, largely through the efforts of Britain, the assembled powers proclaim that the slave trade should be abolished as soon as possible. The Congress leaves the actual effective date of abolition to negotiation among the various nati
1820	The government of Spain, pursuant to a treaty with Britain, abolishes the slave trade south of the Equator. Slave trade in Cuba continues until 1888.
1825	Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia abolish legal slavery.
1833	The British Parliament's Factory Act of 1833 establishes a normal working day in textile manufacture. The act bans the employment of children under the age of 9 and limits the workday of children between the ages of 13 and 18 to twelve hours. The law also provides for government inspection of working conditions.
1834	In Britain the Abolition Act of 1833 abolishes slavery throughout the British Empire, including its colonies in North America. The bill emancipates the slaves in all British colonies and appropriates a sum equivalent to nearly 100 million dollars to compensate slave owners for their losses.
1837	Thomas F. Buxton begins a campaign to abolish Coolie labor in India. After the abolition of slavery, this type of labor has become a preferred source of cheap labor. Buxton argues that Coolie labor amounts to slavery, with workers often kidnapped, transported to the Caribbean and forced to toil in appalling conditions.
1840	The new British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society calls the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London to mobilize reformers to monitor and assist abolition and post-emancipation efforts throughout the world. A group of abolitionists from the United States travels to London to attend the Convention, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, as well as several male supporters, leave the meeting in protest when women are excluded from seating on the convention floor.
1845	36 British Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world
1848	After the revolution of 1848 in France, the new government abolishes slavery in all French colonies.
1850	The government of Brazil adopts the Queirós Law, which ends the country's participation in the slave trade. The law declares slave traffic to be a form of piracy, and it prohibits Brazilian citizens from taking part in the trade.
1861	By decree Alexander II, Czar of Russia, emancipates all Russian serfs, who number around 50 million. The act begins the time of the Great Reform in Russia and earns Alexander II the title of "Czar Liberator."
1863	In the United States, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation takes effect, freeing all slaves in the United States, except for those in states, or parts of states, that were no longer under Confederate control. The emancipation does not apply to the border states or to areas that are already under control of the Union army.
1863	The government of the Netherlands takes official action to abolish slavery in all Dutch colonies.
1888	Slavery ends in South America when the legislature of Brazil frees the country's 725,000 slaves by enacting the Lei Aurea (Golden Law).
1900 - 1950
1909	The campaign of the Congo Reform Association (CRA) to end forced labor in the Congo Free State succeeds. Set up in Great Britain in 1904 by E.D. Morel, the CRA has as its main objective the end of forced labor in the Congo Free State (later known as Zaire). King Leopold II of Belgium had undertaken personal administration of this huge territory and forced local people to produce rubber for sale in Europe, where an increasing number of cars and bicycles intensify demand for rubber tires. Workers who refused to labor for King Leopold's officials had their hands cut off and their houses burnt and pillaged. The "Red Rubber" campaign has sought to bring justice to the Congo.
1910	The International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade, signed in Paris May 4, 1910, is the first of its kind. The Convention obligates parties to punish anyone who recruits a woman, below the age of majority, into prostitution, even if she consents.
1913	Peoples' petition to the British Parliament shuts down the Peruvian Amazon Company. In 1909 W.E. Hardenburg, an American civil engineer, had arrived in London with accounts of the inhuman exploitation of indigenous Indians in Peru by the Peruvian Amazon Company, a British entity. In the ensuing four years the Indians have been trapped by debt and forced to work for the company, which has exploited the natives: "they flog them inhumanely until their bones are laid bare; . . . they torture them by means of fire, of water, and by tying them up, crucified head down." (The Truth, 1909). When journalists take up the story, there is a public outcry in Britain. The House of Commons mandates reports from both the company and the British Consul and establishes a Select Committee to investigate the allegations.
1915	The colonial government of Malaya officially abolishes slavery.
1918	The British governor of Hong Kong estimates that most households that can afford it keep a young child as a household slave.
1919	The League of Nations is founded. Its existence continues until the formation of the United Nations in 1946.
1919	The International Labor Organization (ILO) is founded to establish a code of international labor standards. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the ILO brings together government, labor, and management to solve problems and to make recommendations concerning pay, working conditions, trade union rights, safety, woman and child labor, and social security. The ILO will be brought into relationship with the United Nations in1946.
1920	Buxton's Campaign against Coolie Labor succeeds.
1923	British colonial government in Hong Kong passes a law banning the selling of little girls as domestic slaves.
1926	The League of Nations approves the Slavery Convention, and more than thirty governments sign the document, which defines slavery as "status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." The Convention charges member nations to work to suppress all forms of slavery.
1926	Burma abolishes legal slavery.
1927	Slavery is legally abolished in Sierra Leone, a country founded as a colony by the British in the 18th century to serve as a homeland for freed slaves.
1929	To achieve the abolition of slavery Burma begins to compensate slaveholders for their "losses".
1930	The Forced Labor Convention is issued due to the combined efforts of the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization. The Convention seeks to protect the rights of colonial laborers.
1930	The U.S. Tariff Act of 1930, title 19, section 307, prohibits the importation of products made with "forced or indentured labor" into the U.S. In 1997 the Sanders Amendment clarified that this applies to products made with "forced or indentured child labor".
1936	Pursuant to a treaty with Great Britain, Ibn Sa'ud, King of Saudi Arabia, issues a decree ending the importation of new slaves into his country, regulating the condition of existing slaves and providing for manumission under some conditions.
1938	The Japanese military establishes "Comfort Stations" (brothels) for Japanese troops. Thousands of Korean and Chinese women are forced into sexual slavery during the years of World War II as "military comfort women".
1939 - 1945	The German Nazi government uses slave labor throughout the war in farming and industry. Up to nine million are forced to work, when they are worn out workers are sent to concentration camps.
1941	The campaign to protect children in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from "adoption" succeeds with the passage of the Adoption of Children Ordinance Law, which ensures the registration of all children who are adopted and requires regular inspections to prevent adopted children from working as slaves.
1948	The United Nations produces the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 provides: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
1949	The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others prohibits any person from procuring, enticing, or leading away another person, for the purposes of prostitution, even with the other person's consent. The convention consolidates earlier laws and will form the legal basis for the international protection against traffic in people until the present day.
1950 - present
1952
1954	China passes the State Regulation on Reform through Labor allowing prisoners to be used for labor in the Laogai prison camps.
1956	The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery regulate practices involving the sale of wives, serfdom, debt bondage and child servitude.
1957	The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society changes its name to the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights, in the 1990's the name will be changed to Anti-Slavery.
1960	Harry Wu is sentenced to serve 19 years in the Laogai slave labor camp system.
1962	Abolition of slavery in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
1964	The sixth World Muslim Congress pledges global support for all anti-slavery movements. The oldest Muslim organization, founded in 1926, the Congress has Consultative Status with the United Nations and observer status with the Organization of Islamic Countries.
1973	The UN General Assembly adopts the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The Convention outlaws a number of inhuman acts committed for the purposes of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over another, including exploitation of the labor of members of a racial group or groups by submitting them to forced labor.
1974	Mauritania's emancipated slaves form the "El Hor" (freedom) movement to oppose slavery. Leaders of El Hor insist that emancipation is impossible without realistic means of enforcing the anti slavery laws and providing former slaves with the means of achieving economic independence. The movement demands land reform and encourages the formation of agricultural co operatives. The influence of El Hor was strongest between 1978 1982, and the organization still exists today.
1975	The United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery is formed to collect information and make recommendations on slavery and slavery-like practices around the world.
1976	India passes a law banning bonded labor.
1977	The ILO adopts a Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, a set of recommended standards with no means of enforcement.
1980	Slavery is abolished for the fourth time in the Islamic republic of Mauritania, but the situation is not fundamentally changed. Although the law decrees that "slavery" no longer exists, the ban does not address how masters are to be compensated or how slaves are to gain property.
1983	The civil war in Sudan breaks out again, pitting the Muslim north of the country against the Christian and Animist southern tribes.
1989	The National Islamic Front takes over the government of Sudan and begins to arm Baggara tribesmen to fight the Dinka and Nuer tribes in the south of the country. These new "militias" raid villages, capturing and enslaving the inhabitants.
1989	The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child seeks to promote the basic health care and education of the young, as well as their protection from abuse, exploitation or neglect, at home, at work, and in armed conflicts.
1992	The Pakistan National Assembly enacts the Bonded Labor Act, which abolishes indentured servitude and the peshgi (bonded money) system. Unfortunately, the government failed to provide for the implementation and enforcement of the law's provisions.
1993	Charles Jacobs, Mohamed Athie, and David Chand break the story in the American press about widespread slavery in the African countries of Mauritania and Sudan. They then found the American Anti-Slavery Group.
1994	OECD Declaration and Decisions on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises is adopted. The document recommends that companies observe guidelines approved by the OECD that address investment policy and practice in non-industrialized countries. Trade unions note that these guidelines are not an alternative to obligations that all enterprises have under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises adopted by governments.
1995	The United States government issues the Model Business Principles, a voluntary model business code (apparently to pacify human rights and labor activists in the U.S. who protest the renewal of China's trade status). The Principles urge all businesses to adopt and implement voluntary codes of conduct, including the avoidance of child and forced labor, as well as discrimination based on race, gender, national origin or religious beliefs. The Principles also promote respect for the right of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively.
1995	Christian Solidarity International, a Swiss based charity, begins the campaign to liberate slaves by buying them back in Southern Sudan.
1996	After representatives from the American Anti-Slavery Group testify before the US Congress about slavery in Mauritania, US foreign aid to that country is cut.
1996	The International Organization of Employers, a subsidiary of the ILO, calls on employers and employers' organizations immediately to end slave-like, bonded and dangerous forms of child labor and simultaneously to develop formal policies with a view toward the eventual elimination of child labor in all sectors. The resolution notes, however, that "attempts to link the issue of working children with international trade and to use it to impose trade sanctions on countries where the problem of child labor exists are counter-productive and jeopardize the welfare of children."
1996	Rugmark campaign established in Germany to ensure handwoven rugs were not made with illegal (slave) labor. The Rugmark seal guarantees that the entire production of the rug was made without slave or child labor.
1996	World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
1997	United Nations establishes a commission of inquiry to investigate reports of widespread enslavement of people by the Burmese government.
1997	A bill entitled the "International Child Labor Elimination Act" (H.R. 267) is introduced in the United States House of Representatives to prohibit U.S. assistance, except for humanitarian aid, to countries that utilize child labor.
1997	Imports to the U.S. made by child-bonded labors are banned.
1998	The Burmese government refuses to allow the United Nations commission of inquiry to enter Burma.
1998	Global March against Child Labor established. This organization plans and coordinates demonstrations against child labor worldwide. One aim is a new Convention in the UN on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.
1999	A consortium of non-governmental agencies calls for international aid and a cease-fire in Sudan to help end slavery there.
1999	Despite being barred from entering the Burma the United Nations collects sufficient evidence to condemn government-sponsored slavery in Burma. The official report states that the Burmese government "treat the civilian population as an unlimited pool of unpaid forced laborers and servants at their disposal as part of a political system built on the use of force and intimidation to deny the people of Myanmar democracy and the rule of law."
1999	The ILO passes the Convention against the Worst Forms of Child Labor. This convention establishes widely recognized international standards protecting children against forced or indentured labor, child prostitution/pornography, use of children in drug trafficking, and other work harmful to the health, safety, and morals of children.
2000	The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is signed into law. This legislation increases penalties for traffickers, provides social services for trafficking victims and provides for victims to remain in the United States while trafficking cases are investigated.
2003	Year that Pakistan has assured the United Nations that 'all bonded labor will stop' in their country

• Slavery Today facts
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[Held_to_Ransom]

BTW, there were a great many blacks who were not only slave holders but loyal confederates in the Old South.

I love how the defenders of the Old South love to point out how there were just tons of black slave owners, but then point out that only about 3% of the people in the south owned any slaves at all. Cracks me up.

Yes, there were freed Americans of African heritage who owned slaves, but there were either ih Louisiana where there families had been freed from slavery under the French, or they were likely blood relatives of white slave owners. In addition, after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it legal for a white southern to re-enslave a free black, a lot of free blacks sold themselves back into slavery under one of these white blood relative types so that they couldn't be taken off the street as a free man.

As for the question, it's actually rather hard to consider the ante bellum south's slave owners as Christians in any case, but christianity does accept sinners, so we must. God's judgement may be different. The greatest and most cruel slavers in history though are the secular states of Europe like Germany under Hitler and the Soviets under Stalin.

[Bonaparte]

"His own source mentions the use of conscripted laborers."

Well isn't that special?

[Bonaparte]

Wow, you've got issues.

[TomB]

OUCH! This will make for an interesting discussion.

Please let us know how he responds to this b*tch-slap.

[Nitro]

I bow under the weight of your evidence...

I was a fool to oppose you.

I think I have a genetic or mental thing whereby I just love to argue.

Maybe we can argue about the purpose of the wall.

If it was solely for defense, why did it continue over peaks unclimable for even an ancient army.

I am currently leaning toward a religious reason.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

This thread was quite interesting. But, alas, Lead Moderator decided to kill it. Darn.

[Bonaparte]

I think you're close to the truth. The emperors believed in ghosts. And keeping them out. Go on, argue with me. ;-)

[Phantom Lord]

Quite the response to being smacked down.

[henbane]

Inform your anti-Christian friend that Slavery is taking place right now--today--in the Islamic world of Sudan.

A ton of money is being made by black African slave-traders even as we post.

[Phantom Lord]

I guess the USA has a bigger piggy-bank to satisfy lawsuits.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

[TheMole]

Quite a few responses! Your friend has been leading a sheltered life. It might seem remarkable that somebody would never have heard of Ben Hur or Spartacus or the Hebrew slaves escaping Pharoah ("let my people go"). However, that's leftist brainwashing for you. BTW, in ancient Greece, the teaching of reading and writing was left to slaves, who were called pedagogues. They probably did a better job than today's academics.

One area of slavery that the responses on this thread haven't dealt with is slavery among native American Indians. This was widespread, often very brutal, and practiced some areas right up to the 20th century. Here are just a couple of many available sources:

Encyclopedia of North American Indians, entry for Tlingit

The Tlingits held slaves until American law banned slavery. A large number of slaves were owned by the Tlingits, with wealthy chiefs possessing as many as twenty to thirty. Slaves were captured in war or purchased from southern tribes and did much of the hard and tedious labor. They were sacrificed in ceremonial activities that validated the ownership of property and the transfer of office to new leaders.

Slavery Among the Indians of Northwest America

[Nitro]

With all due respect...

Up Yours!

[Nitro]

What happened to...

"Well Don Pardo, tell him what he's won!!"