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According to The Guardian all those American slaves were Berbers

Couple of thousand miles out in the location of the slave coast there. True, the first slaves brought into Europe by Henry Navigator’s guys were – probably – Berbers from around that point but really, you’d think that even the wokest would grasp that there’s a certain sub-Saharanness about the subject, no?

13 thoughts on “According to The Guardian all those American slaves were Berbers”

  1. Bloke in North Dorset

    “Wasn’t the greatest part of the trade to South America?”
    AIUI the Spanish found that too many Africans died of local diseases, far easier to enslave the indigenous populations.

  2. Distinctly the other way around. The Dagos found that the Indios died off if put to heavy field labour. The Africans, coming from societies where that sort of labour was normal, did not. Or rather, the Indios might last a year or two, the blacks 5 or 7, which was enough to cover the importation costs.

  3. It’s a nice graphic but surely lifted from a 1920s encyclopedia. If a modern Guardian ‘creative’ produced it, bravo. Even if it is missing any trade from France and also the third leg of the triangle trade.

  4. “ you’d think that even the wokest would grasp that there’s a certain sub-Saharanness about the subject”

    Isn’t there a woke belief that all Africans are black?

  5. Given that only about 390,000 Black African slaves were imported into North America, they seem to be ignoring the larger problem. As they also left 42 million descendants, it was hardly the catastrophe they claim either.

    To quote Mohammed Ali: ” I’m glad my ancestors got on that boat.”

    https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Black_and_African_Americans

  6. The Portuguese took around 4.8m African slaves to South America (mostly Brazil) between about 1500 and 1866.

    The Caribbean was the next most ‘popular’ destination for slaves with around 3.5m, then North America with around 2m.

    There were (estimated) to be around 8m slaves traded internally in Africa in the same period and a further 4m ended up in Asia.

    Slavery was big business in Africa and the rich and powerful in Africa did very well out of it. So much so many of them resented the west for outlawing the practice.

  7. It’s curious that European countries only began to penetrate the interior and found empires and colonies after the abolition of slavery. Previously they had been content to occupy a few coastal forts and pay cash.

  8. Philip, I suspect the development of quinine made penetration of Africa easier.

    But I’d also argue that, like climate change, it just became fashionable. The fact was that it was quite difficult to make a profit from African colonies. Think of the extremes Leopold had to go to to squeeze enough loot out of the Belgian Congo.

  9. The Original Jonathan

    Well, they’ve correctly labelled the Slave Coast if it’s the location of peoples doing the enslaving.

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