posted
We already have threads on slavery but something I would really like to know more about is non black slaves in Africa especially west Africa, I'm doing something in one of my classes on west African Civilizations.
Someone once told me that the British freed a large number of white slaves somewhere in Africa, is he lying?
posted
^ Also already have threads on non-black slaves of Africa as well! I suggest you look in the archives under white slaves of Berbers as well as the Mamluke Circassian and Slavic slaves by Arabs.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by markellion: We already have threads on slavery but something I would really like to know more about is non black slaves in Africa especially west Africa, I'm doing something in one of my classes on west African Civilizations.
Someone once told me that the British freed a large number of white slaves somewhere in Africa, is he lying?
please give sources
quote:Among Africans, the three powerful kingdoms of Ghana, Songhay, and Mali all relied on slave labor. Nor were these slaves exclusively blacks: The emperor Mansa Musa, for example, purchased Turkish slaves for his court in Mali. White Europeans who were shipwrecked off the west coast of Africa were also enslaved. The Ashanti of West Africa customarily enslaved all foreigners. African slavery was both widespread and uncontroversial. Historian Paul Lovejoy argues that "in the American context, slavery was introduced from the outside and always relied on the importation of slaves," while "in Africa slavery evolved from indigenous institutions."
posted
^ A history professor of mine taught us that Africans owned white slaves.
I wonder, were these white slaves absorbed into the population? If so, that could explain why very occasionally you would see light-skinned peoples in certain areas of West Africa.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
Your explanation of what you call "very light skinned people in West Africa" seems to be based on pure speculation. Here are the reasons.
With the exception of North Africa the least pigmented people in Africa are in Southern Africa. The physiognomic traits of Southern Africans(in the main Bantu speakers) are so varied that Hamitic theorist Seligman argued that all of Bantu-speaking Africa demonstrated varying degrees of--as he put it--"Hamitic admixture".
What you also seem to ignore is the fact that the Y and MtDNA haplotype evidence does not in any way support your explanation.
The point is that after approx. 3 generations of a few non-local gene inputs into a resident population phenotypical traces of such have already been absorbed into the population. For example, the descendants of the Russian poet, Pushkin are living Russians whose photographs I have seen. They look absolutely no different from other Russians.
Another refutation of the hypothesis that less pigmented Africans are necessarily the result of non-local genetic inputs is that the Twa people(pejoratively referred to as "Pygmies") of Congo area are generally reddish brown in pigmentation. Now here's a group of people that has been isolated from other African populations for millenia. Would you, therefore, explain their reddish brown pigmenation by other than genetic drift? And the same for the yellow-pigmented San of the Kalahari?
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
here are some other examples of non-black slaves in Africa:
The capitalist-driven early South African economy saw fit to import significant numbers of persons from South East Asia into South Africa. They were known as "Malay slaves". Their DNA forms part of the so-called "coloured" population of South Africa.
The same holds for South Asians(Indians) imported into South Africa by the British for labour purposes. Most were indentured labourerers but some were also categorised as slaves. They now form a separate ethnic group in South Africa and designate themselves only as "Indians".
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
here are some other examples of non-black slaves in Africa:
The capitalist-driven early South African economy saw fit to import significant numbers of persons from South East Asia into South Africa. They were known as "Malay slaves". Their DNA forms part of the so-called "coloured" population of South Africa.
The same holds for South Asians(Indians) imported into South Africa by the British for labour purposes. Most were indentured labourerers but some were also categorised as slaves. They now form a separate ethnic group in South Africa and designate themselves only as "Indians".
Your explanation of what you call "very light skinned people in West Africa" seems to be based on pure speculation. Here are the reasons.
With the exception of North Africa the least pigmented people in Africa are in Southern Africa. The physiognomic traits of Southern Africans(in the main Bantu speakers) are so varied that Hamitic theorist Seligman argued that all of Bantu-speaking Africa demonstrated varying degrees of--as he put it--"Hamitic admixture".
What you also seem to ignore is the fact that the Y and MtDNA haplotype evidence does not in any way support your explanation.
The point is that after approx. 3 generations of a few non-local gene inputs into a resident population phenotypical traces of such have already been absorbed into the population. For example, the descendants of the Russian poet, Pushkin are living Russians whose photographs I have seen. They look absolutely no different from other Russians.
Another refutation of the hypothesis that less pigmented Africans are necessarily the result of non-local genetic inputs is that the Twa people(pejoratively referred to as "Pygmies") of Congo area are generally reddish brown in pigmentation. Now here's a group of people that has been isolated from other African populations for millenia. Would you, therefore, explain their reddish brown pigmenation by other than genetic drift? And the same for the yellow-pigmented San of the Kalahari?
I never said that light skin was not indigenous to Africa. In fact I am very aware of the native diversity of complexions among Africans, and I have expressed that numerous times on this forum:
quote:Djehuti wrote on various occasions:
Skin color: Hum Biol. 2000 Oct;72(5):773-80. Related Articles, Links Human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan African populations. Relethford JH. Department of Anthropology, State University of New York College at Oneonta, 13820, USA. Previous studies of genetic and craniometric traits have found higher levels of within-population diversity in sub-Saharan Africa compared to other geographic regions. This study examines regional differences in within-population diversity of human skin color. Published data on skin reflectance were collected for 98 male samples from eight geographic regions: sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Europe, West Asia, Southwest Asia, South Asia, Australasia, and the New World. Regional differences in local within-population diversity were examined using two measures of variability: the sample variance and the sample coefficient of variation. For both measures, the average level of within-population diversity is higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in other geographic regions. This difference persists even after adjusting for a correlation between within-population diversity and distance from the equator. Though affected by natural selection, skin color variation shows the same pattern of higher African diversity as found with other traits.
African skin complexions range from almost jet-black along the equator to yellowish-brown just outside the tropical latitudes which are the sub-tropical zones. With some North African Berber groups living just north of the tropic of Cancer and South African Khoisan groups living just south of the tropic of Capricorn.
Khoisan
What I was referring to is when among local populations where the people are generally very dark that occasionally very light individuals stand out.
Are you saying there was no foreign genetic input to West Africa during colonial times??
And what ever became of the white slaves owned by these West Africans?? Did they just die off without interbreeding with the people and leaving behind offspring??
All of this is what I mean.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
Are you saying there was no foreign genetic input to West Africa during colonial times??
And what ever became of the white slaves owned by these West Africans?? Did they just die off without interbreeding with the people and leaving behind offspring??
1) Yes, there was foreign genetic input in West Africa during colonial times. But, as I stated, the impact of such is not directly noticeable--except in places like Cape Verde. Note parenthetically that the same phenomena occurred in places like Britain from the advent of the Trans-Atlantic Africa-Europe era onwards. There were noticeable numbers of Africans living in Britain during Elizabethan times, but they were all fully absorbed during the subsequent generations leaving no perceptible trace on the English phenotype.
2)In most cases the colour differentials in African populations run along a gradient. In other words there are few populations in which individuals are one uniform dark colour without gradual colour gradients within the population.
3)The offspring of the non-Africans held as serfs, slaves would have been gradually absorbed into the general population. And given that such occurred mainly in the Sahel region of Africa where the phenotypical variance of the different ethnic groups is evident one cannot make any provable assumptions that individual differences in colour spring from some specific cause.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
"a great number of good subjects peacably following their employments at sea have been taken by the turkish pirates of algiers, salley, barbary and other places off the coast of africa and now remain slaves, in cruel and inhumane bondage without any dayes of rest, either on the turkish sabbath or our, except four dayes and a year, being kept to extream labour from which, some endeavouring a little rest, several of them were barbarously murdered. neither is their diet anymore tolerable than their labour; great numbers being allow'd no other food than decay'd barley, which stinketh so that the beast refused to eat it. And often they are not permitted to go from their labour, to fetch water, which is their only drink, and sometimes driven about by black-a-moors who are set over them as task masters and some of them have been severely whipp'd that they have dropp'd down dead" brief account about k.williams and q mary african slavery survivors
" The poor christian captives which are taken by any of those hellish pyrates, belongong to the emperor of morocco are brought up to macqueness, being kept at hard work from daylight in the morning till night: carrying earth on their heads in great baskets driven to and fro, with barbarous Negroes by the Emperours Order; and when they are drove home by the Negroes at night, to their lodging, which is on the cold ground, in a vault or hollow place in the earth, laid over with great beams athwart, and iron bars over them; they are told in there, like sheep, and out in the morning; and if any be wanting, he quickly secures the negroes, and sends out a parcel of his guard to look for them .......account from a former slave in africa <<white slaves african masters>>
most slaves of the barbary and even one on the west african coast came from england-irish coast, italy,spain,portugal, sicily, and america
quote:According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by pirates and sold as slaves between the 16th and 19th century. These slaves were captured mainly from seaside villages in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and from more distant places like France or England, the Netherlands, Ireland and even Iceland and North America. The impact of these attacks was devastating – France, England, and Spain each lost thousands of ships, and long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. Pirate raids discouraged settlement along the coast until the 19th century
This is why a scholar suggested that alot of coastal towns were built on higher ground to watch for pirates. even to this day the selling of white children and woman is a very lucratrive business
There is a u.s. governmental site in which the page is not traslated into english but this is the address usinfo.state.gov
the department of labour: The trade of white slaves reaches to 800,000 persons a year. the total number ranges from 2-4 million if the import of (white) slaves into America were to be tooken into consideration
washington dec 2004 the department of labour of teh United States rep. by eileen chow announced that the trade of humans along the borders of the nation is possibly going to reach 800,000 people in years to come.
It was said in a conference in washington friday 6th based off the trade of white slaves in North America that if they were to take into account the number of slaves including all the borders of the country then the amount would account between 2-4 million people. The United States spent 125 million dollars on the efforts of combating this trade(white slave labour).
The conference is part of the shared activities of a coalition in the fight against this trade(white slave labour) which includes United States, Canada, Mexico, and the outer far eaching northern regions.
posted
Very good points made in this thread by lamin, including this one:
quote:The point is that after approx. 3 generations of a few non-local gene inputs into a resident population phenotypical traces of such have already been absorbed into the population.
Yep, needless to say, non-local contact should not be the assumed reasoning for non-local phenotypes (read, phenotypes that show up outside of designated location) in some places, ESPECIALLY Africa.
What's funny is the only place this prevalent subject ["foreign-admixture"] isn't talked about as much, is Egypt conveniantly of all places...
... unless, instead of "caucasoid" features the subject is 'nubian' features. Stop the hypocracy!!!
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
of all places...
Printer-friendly view of this topic