Posted on 08/06/2022 7:05:28 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
In a joint initiative, African countries are renewing their efforts to obtain reparations from European countries for the transatlantic slave trade and other colonial-era wrongs committed centuries ago.
The slave trade — which affected millions of Africans — was the largest forced migration in history and one of the most inhumane.
Over 400 years, Africans were transported to many areas of the world, yet no reparations have as yet been paid. The process is proving much slower than many Africans expected.
This week Ghana's president, Nana Akufo-Addo, revived the push for slavery and colonial retribution.
"No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade — and its consequences — which has spanned many centuries, but nevertheless, it is now time to revive and intensify the discussions about reparation for Africa," Akufo-Addo said at a summit on reparations and racial healing in Accra, Ghana.
Ghana was one of the points of departure for many of those enslaved in West Africa and, for the Ghanaian leader, the time for reparations for colonial crimes and slavery is "long overdue."
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
Also note that under the government of the United States of America, the slave trade was active only between 1787 and 1805. A paltry 18 years for our participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade.
If they want money they should hit up the Spanish, the British, and the Muslims. Or other Africans.
On balance, what the descendants of the colonialists owe to the descendants of the Africans who were lifted out of the stone age is perhaps a "We actually had nothing to do with all that, but you're welcome".
How about you take them all back and we call it even....
Which is one the reasons I always say WWI was not our fight. Were the Germans really worse than the Belgians?
Sigh. OK, Sub-Sahara Africa was first explored by the Portuguese who were looking for an all-sea route to India. They needed natural harbors and places to safely and reliably get water and food for the voyage. Ghana was and is a source of gold which they happily traded for as well as slaves.
Africa was ‘protected’ from any sizable penetration by Europeans by the presence of tropical disease which killed Europeans who went much further than a day’s journey from the coast. So they traded with coastal Africans who were more than happy to capture their neighbors, whom they didn’t particularly like anyway.
Discoveries in the Americas where the cultivation of sugar required lots of year-round unskilled hard labor made the demand for more African slaves, native Indians dying off because of exposure to Old World diseases.
So if Africa is to get ‘reparations’ for the slave trade, they need to look to the Africans still in Africa itself, since it was their ancestors who sold the slaves in the first place. “You owe me money because your gggg grandfather didn’t pay my gggg grandfather enough for the slaves he bought.” Doesn’t quite sound so noble does it.
Once the Kaiser offered the Mexicans an alliance to recover the Southwest United States for them, it became our fight. So yes, as of 1917 that deformed little strutting Prussian was worse than his contemporary Belgian.
WWI happened because England and France couldn’t accept the fact that there was a new kid on the block.
They weren’t really serious about it, and the reason they did was because the US never really was “neutral” in WWI. Britain blockaded Germany, but Germany was just going to sit by and allow the US to send goods to Britain when Germany was cut off? Britain put our ships in peril with their blockade.
It was a little more complicated than that. The New Kid became a power 44 years, or two generations before WWI commenced. Who knew that a system of alliances intended to maintain peace and stability would function as trip wire dominoes? Worth considering since we’re in the midst of making exactly the same mistakes, but on a truly global and nuclear scale.
Right, but England and France’s reaction to German unification was a big part of it.
Don’t forget the Portugese, who started it.
The way slavery is taught in our schools is insane. There’s no habitable corner of the Earth where slavery never existed.
Christian Europe was the exception from the Middle Ages on. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the old custom of slavery was still intact among both the invading Germanic tribes and the descendants of the Roman citizens of old. As wild and wooly as the Merovingians were, the Christianized queens took pity and bought the freedom of Christian slaves. Eventually it was recognized as against Christ’s teaching and it had nearly disappeared by the time the Carolinians came around. Yes, this was as the feudal system was developing, but it was more of a protection racket, and while the serfs had it bad, they were not slaves.
Slavery was practiced in the Americas for centuries before Columbus arrived. It was common in Oceania as well.
China technically abolished slavery in 1909, but the decree never went into effect, so it persisted until the commie takeover in 1949.
In a number of Arab countries, slavery was not abolished until the 1960s. Same for some African countries.
In Thailand and Cambodia, between 60% and over 80% of the population were enslaved, depending on the area. Thailand gradually abolished slavery on a generational basis beginning in the latter 1800s, but did not disappear until the early 20th century as the last generation died out.
The French tried abolishing slavery in Cambodia in 1884, but met with little success and implementation of the abolition law did not go into effect until the opening decades of the 20th century. Although illegal, slavery still persists in both countries. (To this day, if one says “I work for the Red Cross” it is synonymous with saying “I am a slave of the Red Cross in Khmer. One must say “I am a member of the Red Cross” instead.)
In fact, the the worldwide abolition of slavery was predominantly carried out by colonial powers (Britain, France, Holland, etc.), often against the wishes and will of the locals, and the abolition of slave trading was enforced mainly by the British.
Back to Christian Europe. The Atlantic slave trade began with the Portuguese, who had become accustomed to slavery under Muslim rule, and who found slave markets run by Muslim Arabs already in place along the coast of Africa. The Spanish (also grown accustomed to slavery under Muslim rule) got in on it next. Finally, the British joined in. So much for Christian values, eh?
Well, not so fast. There was always some Christian opposition to slavery. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella opposed enslavement of native Amerindians on religious grounds. The faraway conquistadors had other ideas, but thanks to the Dominican friars, the Laws of Burgos in 1512 granted them protections. Abuses continued, however.
The most famous early opponent was Bartolomé de las Casas (a Spanish priest, often called “The Father of Human Rights”) who campaigned against the enslavement and ill treatment first of native Amerindians and later the newly imported Africans in the early 1500s. Sadly, it was not until the early 19th century that Christian lobbying for the abolition of slavery in Britain and other European countries finally gained enough force to effect the outlawing of that odious practice.
Agree!
There are too many people in this world. Half of them need to get off. This is how people living too close together act out. Fight or demand something from your neighbor. Would a pandemic solve the issue? How about nukes? Genocide has been tried but has never been 100% successful.
Will Barack Obama and his lineage be forced to pay reparations for their part in the Slave Trade?
“The Spanish did not kidnap slaves”
Oh Please. You can say that categorically?
They did both - buying them from slave markets run by predator tribes and Arabs (who of course started long before with the Trans-Saharan trade) and conducting their own operations when they could.
The Spanish were responsible for massive misery in Africa and the Americas in their never ending greed for more riches at the expense of pretty much everyone else.
The fact that they play the victim now as they invade the US is comical to anyone who takes a few minutes to re-acquaint themselves with their history, which used to be common knowledge. At least before Nixon turned them into Saintly Protected Class Victims.
“... they should forego any and all rights of Western Citizenship and be immediately repatriated to Africa.”
You imply that their relocation to Western Countries improved their lives and maybe they should be “giving back” rather than seeking to take.
So, gimme stuff is popular in Africa. Who knew.
Should Europeans get reparations from area of the mideast and North Africa for slavery? How about if Italy paid reparations to areas of Europe and the mideast for Roman slavery?
We can send them home where they can live in Castles by the Seashore...just as it was before they reached our shores.
Prior to colonization by Europeans, virtually all sub-Saharan Africans had a paleolithic existence. Their technologies and living standards were more than two millennia behind Western Europe’s. Absent invasions by the Belgians, Dutch, Portuguese, Germans, French, Spanish, Italians and English, they still would be living in mud huts, dressing in animal skins, cooking on wildebeast dung fires, and trading their daughters for cattle. Instead of carping about “reparations,” they should be grateful the Europeans aren’t still billing them for the modernization programs they brought to “The Dark Continent.”
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