To the best of my ability to research virtually all people have at one time or another practiced a form of slavery of enforced servitude. From out and out subjugation of strangers of another color (our most prominent version here in the U.S.) to the practice of enslaving captured enemies (American Indian, African, and other tribal tradition).
My question is this (And I’m unsure if it can be answered directly but I’m hoping so): Has the U.S. shown the greatest level of advancement for a formerly subjugated people out of the other examples? Refined, do the ancestors of slaves here enjoy greater opportunity than the ancestors of slaves anywhere else? Obviously in many cases it must be nearly impossibly to answer because for one reason or another those ancestors are indistinguishable from those whose ancestry is not one of servitude and slavery.
Note: I’m not really looking for a debate on principle here. Slavery in any form is horrible and a shame virtually every culture and race has buried in it’s past. In reality we are all likely descended of slaves and slave owners in one manner or another.
I’m just wondering if as a society we are breaking new ground (Even a century plus later) in the treatment of those that were once considered property. While the treatment of blacks in the US (Not all of whom are descendants of freed slaves, obviously, but who are still a minority representation of a people once subjugated) still has a great deal of injustice and disparity are we doing a good job of moving forward compared to other historic examples? Were the Romans superior to us in this way? Were the Nubians? Is it a step forward that most Americans view all blacks as one race, while many (possibly most) continental Africans do not, or is that a flaw impeeding our progress?
I presume you mean descendants, rather than ancestors.
I’m not sure that you’re going to get a clear answer for a number of reasons. For one thing, the more prevalent form of slavery throughout history has been personal servant rather than as labor force. Slaves in such situations could often receive manumission, (in some cases they could earn it or buy it), and could, then, often integrate with society as citizens.
Certainly, the trans-Atlantic slave trade is not the first to use slaves as commodity labor, but that form has not been as prevalent in history. Is it “better” that one person (after 135 years) has finally become Secretary of State (and his ancestors were not slaves here) or was it better when a former slave actually became ruler of a nation (as has (rarely) happened)?
There are also no clear examples in ancient history of entire slave populations receiving emancipation in one act as occurred throughout the 19th century, so how does one compare the progress of events that did not occur in the same manner?
If you limit it to the 18th through 21st centuries and compare the U.S. to other places, the U.S. will not necessarily come out ahead, depending on what standard you use. There are a number of places in the world where freed slaves were more swiftly integrated into society and did not suffer the experience of Jim Crow and point systems in housing. In some cases, they have integrated fully with society, but the nation has not been as financially successful as the U.S. So who is better off? The relatively well-off descendant of slaves who has suffered personal abuse and discrimination or the person who has never been so abused, but shares the generally lower standard of living of their fellow countrymen?
I dont think your question is relevent, if I understand it correctly. The United States is unique, with unique problems, because it has such a varied population.
Most other societies, are pretty much homogenius. There are mostly japanese in japan, vietnamese in vietnam, french in france, english in england, ukranian in the ukrane, Italian in Italy, etc.
Therefore, most societies do not get much chance of interacting with fellow citizens of other races who were slaves, unless it was their own kind who were fellow slaves.
Of course, I mean living eating, drinking, working together, within the same country.
On the other hand, how one country treats another is based on many things, and past historical slavery is probably the least of the factors.
And part of the United States’ unique problems are (in my opinion) in part derived from the fact that it had the relatively rare practice of slavery mantained and justified partially through ethnic distinctions. The more historically common practice of enslavement-through-conquest has different effects.
I’m not sure what you mean by “advancement”, but here’s a case in point from Islamic history: the Memluks.
“Memluk” literally means “slave”; the Memluks were freed slaves who originally came from the Caucas region. Towards the end of the Abassid empire, they rose to power and influence and established a Monarchy in Egypt.
In fact, it was a Memluk king, Dhahir Qutuz, who halted the Mongol invasion of Islamic land, in the battle of Ain Jaloot in Palestine. Outnumbered, he defeated a mongol army set on invading Egypt, effectively saving the Islamic civilization from total annihlation by the Mongol hordes.
Qutuz is considered a great hero (of the order of Saladin) by Muslims. After the victory he went on to establish Memluk rule over other parts of the Middle East (Syria? Palestine?)
I thought the Memluks were mercenary slaves? I know the point is little different, but weren’t they trained and armed for the purpose of fighting primarily against the Mongols? It would seem that an armed and trained slave rave who has just experienced a major military victory against high odds has an advantage that American black slaves did not have. Or am i way off here?
You’ll permit me a couple of minor nitpicks, I hope :).
Memluks or Mamluks ( or Mamelukes ) weren’t freed slaves at all ( with an exception, I’ll get to in a moment ) - they were actual slaves, though obviously not in the manner commonly thought of in the west. Nor were they all from the Caucasus. The later Egyptian* Mamluks were largely Circassians from the Caucasus. However the Bahri Mamluk Sultanate ( c.1260-1382 ), is sometimes called the “Turkish Sultanate”, as the ruling cliques were mostly Kipchak Turks imported from the Russian steppes. The Burji Mamluk Sultanate ( 1382-1517 ) is the one commonly referred to as the “Circassian Sultanate.” But actually both descriptors are misnomers, as both Circassian and Turk cliques were active in both “dynastic” periods ( they weren’t true dynasties for the most part ).
At any rate Mamluk was a general term and applied to both the Egyptian variety and to Mamluk troops recruited throughout the Islamic world, from a variety of peoples and in a variety of periods ( but mostly Turks or one sort or another ). Another Mamluk dynasty of quite different origin, was the so-called “Slave Dynasty” that founded the Sultanate of Delhi in 1206 and ruled it until 1290.
In Egypt the term “Mamluk” came to have a dual meaning. In one respect it referred to the Mamluks per se, the slave troops. But it also referred to a “Mamluk class”, that included both those foreign troops and the manumitted slaves drawn from that corps that formed the ruling class ( the Emirs ) in Egypt. Once promoted to a leadership position, the Mamluk under the Egyptian system was freed ( and ceased to become Mamluks, strictly speaking ), in part to prevent the class from becoming hereditary. I suspect that is what you were referring to above.
It was a momentous victory, but recent scholarship seems to indicate he was not particularly outnumbered and in fact may have had a slight superiority. The Mongol force was little more than a skeleton garrison, as the main Imperial army had withdrawn to Azerbaijan and was shortly to disperse in the wake of the civil struggle that broke out over the Mongol succession. All reports seem to indicate that relative to available manpower in Egypt, the Mongol Imperial army under Hulegu was massive - If the full force of it had been brought to bear on Egypt, the Mamluks would have almost certainly would have been annhilated ( however I suspect that in the long run Mongol rule would have been transitory in Egypt - there were some major logistic issues working against them ).
Both of those, yes. Syria was the scene of conflict with the Il-Khans, a struggle usually won by the Mamluks. The Egyptian Mamluks also eventually worked their way south a bit, finally destroying the small Christian states of Nubia.
I’ll have to disagree just a bit there, Susanamm. While it’s true that many cultures are homogenous, some others are not. It’s worth noting that Islamic societies have historically been multi-racial, and by large continue to be so today.
What’s unique about the American experience is that slavery in the US was not by conquest but rather by slave trade, a point touched upon by Lilairen.
No, not mercenaries. That would kind of defeat the purpose of them being slaves ;).
As noted, they were slave-soldiers in a general sense recruited by a variety of dynasties for a number of security ( and even administrative ) functions. As private armies that were actually owned and beholden only to the ruler, they provided an exclusive military reservoir that reduced dependency on vassals. Unfortunately, as these units became entrenched in the political system, they generally became dangerously independent with time.
It’s not an idea unique to Islam - For example a number of African states also made use of “slave-soldiers”, most famously the Asante kingdom in what is today Ghana.
Indeed. Many Mamluk units eventually morphed into Praetorian Guards ( in the late Imperial sense of a poltically potent military unit ) of sorts that dominated, if not outright controlled, the state. Sometimes, as in Egypt or India, they usurped it altogether.
The Janissaries ( yeni ceri - “new troops” ) of Ottoman fame, despite the different name, were essentially Mamluks. They were formed in large part as a counter-weight to the sometimes fickle quasi-feudal Turcoman calvary host. And like most Mamluk institutions, over a series of generations they evolved to become an ossified, only weakly loyal edifice - a dominant internal political power that was more of a threat to the state than a defense of it. It was with some relief that Mahmud II managed to annhilate them in 1826.
Exactly how far back does one have to go before groups become “a people”?
Or rather, what exactly constitutes, “the English”, Susanann? The Saxons? The Jutes? Fresians? Angles? Normans? Celts? Vikings? Picts? Romans? Traces of all of these groups can be found throughout modern England (and Britain as a whole). The fact that they’re all roughly the same color, and today speak the same language- which it should be noted, African Americans do also- doesn’t make them one group.
Slavery was outlawed in the US nearly 30 years after it was outlawed through much of Europe. Id say that we are still further back than the UK when talking about equality regardless of race. To check my guess, I would look at a table of the percent of the people living below the poverty line in the US and the UK whom are black. Looking at the race percents of those people who attend college would also be a good idea. If everyone were truly given “equal opportunities,” these tables should be fairly balanced with respect to the population of the blacks/minorities in the given country.
No. In many parts of the ancient world, (I’m thinking Meospotamia, Greece), slavery wasn’t necessarily a permanent condition. A slave’s children weren’t automaticaly slaves themselves, slaves were allowed to own property and conduct business, etc etc. Under these kinds of systems, once you were no longer a slave, you were no longer a slave. Your status was determined the same way as it would be for any other freeman, (note that it’s not the same as any other freeman but determined the same way as).