The Black History Museum

Asking how bad slavery was: a very personal view by RDN

Slavery is so obviously very wrong that it might seem perverse to try to find less unkind things to say about it. But actually, revisionism is seldom all bad. There should be no no-go areas for challenge. The more important the issue, the more important it is to apply argument to it. That usually amounts to having a taste – even an over-developed taste – for the counter-intuitive. Here are some arguments which ought to be borne in mind. Some are more dreadful than others. We can always reject them.

Slavery was normal
Slavery has been pretty common and normal in many places for most of history. It is much more common now than might be supposed. It is often remarked, and true, that slavery was commonplace in and from Africa before 17th century Europeans decided that it was amongst the things which would make empire work well in their modern world. The Africans had routinely taken one another into slavery as the spoils of war. It was a small step – a step willingly made – to sell slaves to Arabs for shipment east and (a little later) to Europeans for shipment West.

Africans were suited to slavery
Here’s an argument you may find distasteful, but it comes from a very liberal-minded historian and geographer, Hendrik Van Loon. He noted in the 1930s that Africans were taken west to slave work on plantations in south America after the native indians were found to be unsuitable for the work. Africans were, he says, more biddable. The clear implication is that Africans were thought to be – found to be – better able to adjust to slavery.

You may think that is a wicked thought. But actually, it talks of African strength and stoicism, which one may say are important positives in a character. But there is a negative: I have heard it said by Africans that the greatest African curse is that they will put up with untold suffering with too much patience. Yes, I know: African courage does not go anywhere toward excusing African slavery. Anyway, there were plenty of slave uprisings. Some commentators, by the way, find it important to stress such slave dissidence, perhaps for fear that otherwise Africans and their descendents might be thought complicit in their bondage.   

The Europeans only industrialised the slave trade
One charge against the European slave trade is that it was always wrong in principle, but that it was made much worse in practice by its being conducted on what we would now call an industrial scale. Every increase in scale increased the numbers exposed to indignity, misery and risk of death. Besides, there was a new and dreadful thoroughness. This is a little like the argument that Hitler’s racism against the Jews was more awful than the very common anti-Semitism of all the earlier centuries because it resulted in a uniquely industrial scale of violence against them. This is to imply – probably rightly – that the underlying evil of “old” anti-Semitism (or slavery) became much worse when technological methods (and attitudes of mind) were brought to bear.

The evil of slavery was noted from the start
Throughout its history, there was limited (and ineffectual) campaigning against slavery, mostly by committed or professional Christians. They took the view that God had created all men, and Christ had died for all men, without regard to colour. They especially took the view that when slaves became Christians, that proposition became spikily undeniable. In the end, their view prevailed and the British parliament became the first to ban slavery in its territories and to fight against it nearly everywhere.

Slavery took place in more brutal times
Perhaps the worst period in a slave’s life of European bondage were the months spent in the hold of a ship taking him to the Americas. (Though the journey to the African coast took a terrible human toll, too.) It is worth noting that whilst this was by far the worst sea-faring that was routinely inflicted on anyone, any seafaring was a pretty desperate for most of the period of slavery. That’s to say that everyone on a slave ship was exposed to suffering and risk – crew included. The death rate amongst crew was pretty high though much lower than for slaves in the hold below.   

That sort of argument applies to life on plantations. But on land, the slave’s situation becomes even more difficult to calibrate against our own lives. There is ample evidence of brutality meted out to slaves on plantations. But there were beatings on every ship in every navy and in every regiment of any army in the world. Slaves doubtless suffered illness and disease, but their white masters died plentifully too. So life was much more brutal then. Of course it could usefully be argued now that this widespread brutality was used as a cover for the very much worse brutality on some plantations. Campaigners were more easily fobbed off or lied-to.

Was slavery uniformly awful?
What is perhaps more peculiar to wonder is whether slave plantations were always and everywhere brutal. There is, for instance, evidence of slaves in some places becoming entrepreneurs in their own right. In some places, slaves were able to use their spare time to tend plots of land for profit. This may not have been frequent or even normal, but it is a sign at least that the picture is mixed and complicated.

Lucky to be out of Africa?
There is a further odd thought, but one worth entertaining.  How much worse was slave life in the Americas than life for the African left behind? This depends on your view of a very hotly disputed argument on which there is scant evidence. If you think life in Africa was nasty, brutish and short (a life of regular starvation, skirmishes and home-grown slavery), then you may be prepared to think that slave life in the Americas sometimes or often offered better chances of health, longevity and procreation. This wasn’t a voluntary choice, of course. But it was a picture of a “what if?” that’s worth pondering. For my part, I incline to the view that African life was often truly horrendous (by our standards) and that slave labour was, by comparison, probably often rather better. Of course, objective criteria (heath standards, life expectancy, and so on) don’t capture the fact that slavery was a colossal outrage to human dignity.

Apologising for slavery
What should the descendants of slaves think of the white world which held their ancestors in bondage? What should whites feel about this legacy?

We can begin an answer by saying that whatever else, these are old sins with long-dead perpetrators and long-dead victims.

Why should any living white apologise for slavery to any living black? How does anyone know what side of the argument he or she might have been on centuries ago? This white man might have been the sort to campaign against slavery. Plenty of whites were. This black person might have been an African slaver. Plenty of Africans were.

Black resentment about slavery
In much rhetoric from black voices there is a feeling that black people have a right to be resentful and especially because of slavery. That is certainly true. But is resentment useful to black people? Or rather, one can suggest that each black person has to ask himself or herself whether resentment is useful in their own case.

Here’s a controversial possible thought. Many back Americans and black Britons ought to be grateful for slavery: it was the historical accident which brought them to be American or British. To be brutal, it got them out of Africa. Such people owe no gratitude to slavers – but could usefully spare a grateful thought for the suffering and dignity of their forebears. Most people of any race could usefully think similar thoughts about the ancestral shoulders they stand on. Anyone who thinks along those lines may quickly come to the conclusion that the best way to acknowledge that debt is to help build a great society, here and now.

Of course these are ticklish questions, to say the least. In many cases of strife (in South Africa, North Ireland, Chile and Cambodia to name a few) the same questions arise. To what extent is it necessary to pick over the past and apportion blame before people can “move on”? To what extent does picking over the past and apportioning blame make it impossible for them to do so?

It is at least reasonable to suggest that “victimhood” is bad personal psychology and bad politics. It’s best avoided where possible. Where it can’t be avoided, it needs to be put to serious work.