Slave trade from West-Africa — true motivation?

Sidekick said:

The Spanish may well have seen it that way. In fact it's pretty well-known that such anti-African sentiments may have continued through the centuries and lasted far into the 20th century in a country such as Argentina, where indeed people of African descent are now almost completely absent. But my interest is more in the slave trade as conducted by the Netherlands, England, and Denmark (possibly France too but I don't know much about that), who appeared on the "colonial scene" after the Spanish and Portugues. The Dutch and English were responsible for the bulk of all the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and I don't believe they had the "reservations" about African slaves that you attribute to the Spanish.

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Well I am not the one attributing anything to the Spanish - this stuff is directly from contemporary sources, some of which were quoted in the post that I linked.

One can find English language writings from slave traders of English origin warning about the importation of specific African groups that were seen as particularly rebellious as well. That was not unique to the Spanish colonies.

But really the more important/relevant thing I was pointing out in that post is that some Europeans (and this is particularly true for South America, which is the region you emphasized in the opening post) actually saw the influx of "foreign blood" as creating a situation where more of these half-African, half-Native American people were becoming increasingly rebellious, joining the native peoples in rebellions, and sometimes even leading the challenges to their authority. This is pretty much the exact opposite of the theory you put forward in the opening post (where it was suggested that maybe Africans were imported as slave-soldiers to assist in waging war against the natives and thereby making colonization easier to carry out), but unlike what you suggested, this concern that they had about these mixed race people joining in or leading these rebellions is actually supported by contemporary written evidence from centuries ago.

You may be able to find examples here and there of some imported Africans being used as slave-soldiers if you look hard enough (although I can't think of any examples myself), but I'm skeptical of the idea that this was an especially common thing or the primary purpose of importing slaves but yet is somehow much more difficult to find contemporary evidence for when compared to how easily one can find evidence for Africans and mixed race people joining the the natives in rebellions against the colonial authorities.

Sidekick said:

The Spanish may well have seen it that way. In fact it's pretty well-known that anti-African sentiments have continued through the centuries and lasted far into the 20th century in a country such as Argentina, where indeed people of African descent are now almost completely absent. But my interest is more in the slave trade as conducted by the Netherlands, England, and Denmark (possibly France too but I don't know much about that), who appeared on the "colonial scene" after the Spanish and Portuguese. The Dutch and English were responsible for the bulk of all the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and I don't believe they had the "reservations" about African slaves that you attribute to the Spanish.

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Not sure what you are having difficulty accepting- the plantation owners wanted cheap labour and importing Africans as slaves was the cheapest way to get the large amounts of mostly pliable labour they wanted. Natives were susceptible to European diseases and the poor working and living conditions made that an even larger problem. Additionally, native tribes did take slaves but it was a much different social system and the slaves were not used en masse in native society and the natives had fairly high chances of simply walking away from a plantation and easily surviving in familiar terrain.

African slaves could be gotten from near the docks at ports in Africa (no slave-hunting expeditions that are expensive and dangerous as would be required to capture large numbers of natives in the Americas) loaded as many as could fit into a ship and arrive to sell those slaves in as little as a month but more typically 2-3 months later at relatively little risk. The availability of African slaves changed little over the centuries until European nations began to outlaw the trade while native tribes moved further from colonized regions due to conflicts with settlers and shrinking population as natives further away died of Old World diseases which opened more spaces for natives to retreat toward.

Keep in mind the vast majority of African slaves went to work on plantations in the tropical areas that were also particularly hostile to European settlement due to unfamiliarity with the conditions and local diseases like and malaria which was introduced earlier from Europe but were widespread locally by the 17th century and were more likely to kill northern Europeans and natives than many of the African slaves who were resistant for various reasons.

You might find it beneficial to educate yourself about the history of the Columbia exchange and how diseases have spread through the world since. It seems you are making sweeping statements without the education to back up your theories on how and why vaccines for travellers to some nations are recommended and not for other places.

Keep said:

There were political forces at play, but quite simply they weren't the only ones...

Most people might be surprised to know that the plantation-system prevalent throughout the Americas did not start in that continent at all, but in the islands of Scicily, Madeira and Canaries in the mid 15th century. Now, in that time, Portuguese peasants, already very free by European standards, were covered by various laws protecting them against abuse from their masters. Africans were not. Native american labour was used initially, but like other users have mentioned, they were difficult to work with because they would escape, among other difficulties. Africans were both cheaper to employ than free European labour and easier to control than American slaves.

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Christians were also not supposed to be enslaved by other Christians, and obviously once native Americans and Africans started converting the roots of racism were laid down...

Sidekick said:

I was "just askin'," as they say.

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Well no, you didn't start by asking, but by proposing your own theory. And if you are now asking then don't ignore the explanations that people have given you. I find it interesting that, for example, you selectively quoted post #40 to ignore the part where an answer was given, and have done this repeatedly here.

So this makes me think, are you really just asking, or were you hoping to be hailed as a revolutionary genius here for your "import slaves to secretly cause destabilisation" conspiracy theory, and are disappointed that its been comprehensively rejected?

Sidekick said:

It wasn't me who made that claim. User @Keep pointed out that the Jesuits pushed for a ban on enslaving local Indians. I have not investigated or verified that claim I just thought it was interesting. As for encomienda being commual "slavery", sure it's economic oppression, but that's not the same as taking a man away from his family and country and putting him to forced, unpaid, hard labor on another continent with no prospect of liberation or return.

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I think that calling the encomienda system merely "economic oppression" is quite a stretch and is massively euphemistic. You might want to read more about it.

Sidekick said:

The Dutch and English were responsible for the bulk of all the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and I don't believe they had the "reservations" about African slaves that you attribute to the Spanish.

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A note:

Actually, the Dutch slave trade was significantly lower than the Portuguese, the English, the Spanish and the French:

Estimates

My idea about this thread, as some here already pointed, is that you raised a “theory” without much information or with some confuse information.

Sidekick said:

I don't believe that

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And that an issue: it seems to me that You made up Your mind before exploring enough the multiple facetted slave trade and ownership. Bit let's pass that, I might be wrong in my assumption.

Sidekick said:

(a horrible term to use w.r.t. to humans btw)

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Actually is not an horrible term, nor a disgraceful approach. For understanding, it is the right approach, because it was like that in the period we're talking about: Black Africans were not humans but work animals. Having the advantage over mules or oxes that they could communicate verbally with the owner. It wasn't the case of the Amerindians. They were officially recognized as human beings, conquered people, "second class citizens" if You prefer. But still, people, not work animals. ¹



The second thing to understand is that slave ownership wasn't generalized, in the sense that relatively few Europeans owned slaves, the few ones owning the largest part of slaves. We are talking about large enterprises, were the efficiency prevailed. As in any enterprise, the "tools" (=slaves) are used at their maximum potential and has to be replaced "on the spot" once they broke.



And when You need to replace the broken tools, You do not hire miners, carpenters, forgers, engineers and send them to gather the materials, make the tools and bring them to You (=razzias on the local Amerindian communities) but You go to the dealer specialized in tools (=slave market) that has a constantly supplied stock of tools (=Black African slaves) were You can choose the type You need and You can start using it at full potential right away.



So yes, my friend, for the slave buyers it was economically interesting.



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It was already suggested, but until You go more in depth , You can quickly read a small introduction on that aspect: Valladolid debate

Sidekick said:

Furthermore, could it be that the Africans made, not so much for better laborers, but for better soldiers? Could it be that the reason the "plantation owners" (note the scarequotes) were well aware that even though it was possible to enslave locals to work the fields, it was much harder to force them to wage war against other locals?

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Excuseer, meheer, that's not only absurd but awfully unhistorical: one of the reasons Conquistadors, tho extremely few in numbers, had conquered so quickly an entire continent is precisely because they had locals fighting at their side against locals!

Also the colonial slave societies were seriously paranoid about armed slaves, uprisings, and being murdered in their beds. Some of the sheer brutality of the system was a kind of pre-emptive terror based on the slave owners' realizations.

Capoeira was invented by slaves, and the authorities certainly didn't approve of it.

Africans had resistance to European diseases including malaria, do I have to put in in CAPS?

Sidekick said:

You seem to be irritated at the way I phrased my opening post, so I went back and re-read it. But it really is full of questions, including very explicit question marks. Even the part where I propose my alternative explanation is phrased mostly as questions. Anyway, if my questions, my theory, or my subsequent replies irritate you, you are free to ignore them.

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You are getting close to trolling here!

Sidekick said:

How am I trolling when this is what happened:

1. Another user tells me I should have asked questions instead of launching a theory
2. I go back and re-read my opening post to check if I phrased things as questions
3. I note that I did phrase things as questions and point this out in response to the criticism
4. I conclude that apparently the other user doesn't like my "style" and therefore suggest that he ignore me

Besides, the typical thing about trolling is that it is totally off-topic and ad-hominem. But my question (in my opening post) is about the topic that fits the category of this (sub)forum, and neither my OP nor my later replies have been ad-hominem. I have at each stage addressed arguments made by others. Disagreement, or holding another opinion, does not equate to trolling.

I wonder: Is it trolling to tell another user he's trolling when he's not — like, at all? Methinks it might be.

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Your questions have all been addressed ad nauseum. So have your responses to the questions. You either refuse to accept them or are enjoying frustrating others, aka, trolling.