AFRICAN HISTORY MONTH

[jamesd at echeque.com]

> > Most slaves were enslaved in black Africa by black African authorities for minor crimes.  

On 10/02/2018 22:59, John Newman wrote:
> Bullshit. There were massive profits and raiding parties 

There were raiding parties, but where we have data, which we generally 
don't, most slaves were purchased from the local authorities, not 
captured in raids.  So who were the local authorities selling?

Until recently, very few societies used imprisonment (and I would argue 
imprisonment is a very bad idea and we should not use it either.)  If 
someone caused problems, you beat him or killed him.  Suppose you beat 
him, and later he causes problems some more.  What are you going to do? 
You can kill him, or you can sell him into slavery.

Early colonialists and explorers report executions, lots of executions, 
lots and lots of executions, rather than enslavement.By and large, there 
seem to have been more executions than selling people into slavery. 
Black societies had more people that they did not want around, than they 
had purchasers for slaves.