A Realistic View of Slavery and Slave Trading

Posted By Richard Knight On June 29, 2023 In North American New Right | 13 Comments

2,808 words

White people commonly respond to demands for reparations

for slavery and slave trading by pointing out that it was
whites who abolished these things.[1] [2] I don’t know
whether they notice that this doesn’t get them the credit
from their antagonists that they seem to expect; they
certainly don’t appear to see why this is.
[1]
The reason they get no credit is that black people don’t see
the abolition of slavery and slave trading as quite the boon Woodcut of a slave caravan in the
Congo from 1888.
for humanity that white people do. If Africans had wanted
slavery and slave trading to be abolished, they could have
abolished them themselves very easily, just by ceasing to indulge in them. Instead, they met white
attempts at abolition with fierce resistance. This was quite natural. Slavery was their way. As for
slave trading, it gave them a good profit, and they saw nothing wrong with it.

No, the reason black people go on about slavery and slave trading is not that they deplore them but
that they see that white people deplore them, who might therefore be made to feel so guilty about
their forefathers’ involvement as to give black people large amounts of money in restitution.

Indeed, if we set the white record on slavery and slave trading against the black record, it stands
out as a shining example. The transatlantic slave trade lasted only a fraction of the time that
Africans spent selling each other to Arabs, and the number of slaves bought by whites — perhaps
ten or 12 million — was a fraction of the number bought by Arabs. As for the length of time Africans
spent selling each other to other Africans, and the numbers involved, these were much greater still.
The intra-African slave trade still predominated in the nineteenth century, when a European explorer
reported that slave-hunting in Africa went on far more to supply the domestic than the foreign

market.[2] [3]

I am no expert on slavery in the Americas, but I get the impression that it could have been worse.
Although Frederick Douglass mentions slaves being flogged, he doesn’t say that he was flogged

himself.[3] [4] Rather, as a boy he had to help look after farmyard animals, which can be quite an
agreeable task, and he was later transferred to a mistress for whom he had nothing but praise.
Olaudah Equiano was abducted as a child by Africans in his home country before being bought and
sold by other Africans, then shipped to America, where he was bought by an English couple, who
treated him like their own son. He wrote that he was “very warmly attached” to his master, who was
in the Navy, and told him that “if he left me behind it would break my heart.”[4] [5] As for Twelve
Years a Slave, according to the historian Simon Webb this was written not by Solomon Northup,
who could hardly write his name, but by a white abolitionist named David Wilson, who wanted to

make slavery sound as bad as possible.[5] [6]

Coming to the treatment of slaves in Africa, according to Herbert Ward, a nineteenth-century

English explorer, in the Congo it was customary for feuding chiefs to mark the settling of their
scores by buying a slave, breaking his bones, and burying him with just his head sticking out so
that all could see him slowly starve to death. The same fate lay in store for anyone who gave him

food or water.[6] [7] The Portuguese explorer Francisco Valdez reported that when the chief of a
certain tribe died, no one was allowed to mention the fact for a month or two on pain of being

immediately decapitated and his family sold into slavery.[7] [8] If no buyer could be found for his
family, they too would be decapitated. The King of Dahomey had to honor his ancestors. To do this,
he periodically killed a few hundred slaves so that their blood could be poured on his forebears’

graves. As the victims were slaughtered, the crowd shouted out in delight.[8] [9]

To give two more examples, according to the adventurer Hugh Murray, writing in 1853, after the

King of Coomassie died 200 slaves were sacrificed each week for three months.[9] [10] Another
writer stated that at the death of a King, large numbers of his favorite wives and slaves were put to
death to keep him company.[10] [11] We hear nothing comparable about the treatment of slaves in
America.

According to two independent estimates by nineteenth-century Scottish explorers, about three-

quarters of the sub-Saharan African population were slaves.[11] [12] Another observer put the
proportion at four in five.[12] [13] The slave was the unit of currency in Africa. Fines were paid in
slaves, wives were bought in slaves. All the way from the coast to the remotest point in the interior,
wrote the French-American anthropologist Paul Du Chaillu, the commercial unit of value was the

slave. “As we say dollar, as the English say pound sterling, so these Africans say slave.”[13] [14]

Africans did not object to slavery or slave trading, and this included slaves. In the 1800s the English
explorer Richard Lander was surprised to see “the most perfect indifference” in Africans as they lost

their liberty.[14] [15] In the 1820s, a Frenchman who passed a group of women being put up for
sale in the street noted that they “did not appear in the least mortified at being exhibited” for this
purpose.[15] [16] Male slaves, although shackled at the ankle, laughed, wrote two authors in 1826,

and the females sang with the utmost glee as they worked in the fields.[16] [17]

When an African slave obtained his liberty, he saw it as no cause for celebration. The naturalist
Samuel Baker wrote that abolition only proved that Africans did not appreciate the blessings of
freedom, nor did they show the slightest gratitude to the hand that broke the rivets of their fetters.

[17] [20] An African might even seek to become a slave, since then he would not have to fend for
himself.[18] [21] It was not unknown for former slaves in America to

petition to be reenslaved.[19] [22] In 1901, the black nationalist

Booker T. Washington wrote that many emancipated slaves returned

to their former owners asking to be taken back.[20] [23]

It was only white people, with their elevated concept of the rights of
man, who disapproved of slave trading, such as Francisco Valdez,

who found it “detestable,”[21] [24] and James Bruce, another

explorer, who found it a “horrid practice.”[22] [25] White people
proceeded to impose their high-flown concept on those in whose
minds it had never appeared.

Black people’s affinity for slavery can still be seen today, as in the
many African countries where it still flourishes. For a second [18]
example, the Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson reportedly You can buy Greg Johnson’s
said, “We don’t want to be equal, we want white people to be our It’s Okay to Be White here.
slaves.”[23] [26] Consistent with this, when I lived in a black part of [19]
London, I was quite often treated by the sort of young black man
who in Africa would have been a slave owner as though I might be
his slave. Finally, a senior black police officer was recently found guilty of, among other things,

telling junior officers that he owned them and bellowing at them to make his porridge.[24] [27] To
many black people, today as in the past, the urge to enslave appears irrepressible.

According to Francis Moore, a Briton writing in 1738, a certain African King would amuse himself by
going out with some troops from time to time to set fire to parts of the town. As people ran out of
their burning huts, the troops caught them, tied them up, and took them off to be sold as slaves.

[25] [28] In 1870, Samuel Baker reported that when a slave hunt in East Africa netted some old
women who could not keep up on the return march, they were clubbed to death.[26] [29]

Nothing satisfied an African like witnessing a brutal killing. A missionary observed a group dancing
round the mangled corpse of a beheaded female slave “at the very zenith of their happiness.”[27]
[30] In 1857, an explorer wrote that Africans appeared to take pleasure in cruelty: “The sight of

suffering seems to bring them an enjoyment without which the world is tame.”[28] [31] According to
Sir Richard Burton, an English traveler, during fires in Zanzibar in the 1860s black people were seen

adding fuel and singing and dancing, wild with delight.[29] [32] In 1867, Paul Du Chaillu recalled
seeing a young African woman’s corpse covered in lacerations into which red peppers had been
rubbed, a “common mode of tormenting with these people.”[30] [33] He could only hope that the
woman, who had presumably been accused of witchcraft, had died of her wounds and not had to
endure “the slower process of agonized starvation to which such victims are left.”
When I was at college, a lecturer told us that when he had staged Shakespeare’s tragedies in
Soweto, the audience had laughed at the grimmest scenes. He thought that they were expressing
pleasure at not being the victims. It seems possible that they were simply enjoying the sight of
human suffering.

When Herbert Ward witnessed Africans walking among the putrefying bodies of victims of a mass
human sacrifice, appearing to think nothing of it, he commented that the white man would never be
able to conquer his repugnance at the callous indifference to human suffering found everywhere in

Africa.[31] [34] To us this seems strange, for we have been brought up to believe that no one’s
indifference to human suffering could be more callous than a white person’s.

Yet, the old explorers thought that the life of a child could have intrinsic and not just economic
value. Africans were different. In 1847, John Duncan wrote, “So little do they care for their
offspring, that many offered to sell me any of their sons or daughters as slaves.”[32] [35]. Sir
William Cornwallis Harris wrote in 1843 that Africans would sell their children for the sordid love of

gain.[33] [36] All over Africa, according to Mungo Park, writing in 1815, parents might sell their
children.[34] [37]

Also in 1815, John Campbell wrote of seeing a child of about eight standing in the dust weeping and
looking almost like a skeleton:[35] [38] “Neither the men, women, nor children present seemed by
their countenances to express the least sympathy or feeling for this forsaken, starving child”;
instead, they laughed and told Campbell that he was welcome to take her with him if he wished. He
felt sure that in London the sight of the girl would have excited pity in the hearts of thousands.[36]
[39] Think of that: White people feeling sorry for a strange black girl! But perhaps Campbell was
right.

What a shame it is that our intellectuals have made such a thorough job of suppressing facts such
as those mentioned above, leaving us to seek moral instruction from black people as we ask them
how much money they require! They peddle their tales in the name of the idea of racial equality, yet
this is not the idea that they drive at, which is one of extreme racial inequality, where blacks, pure
and innocent, are being incessantly mistreated by their psychopathic white persecutors.

I wonder what it will take to set the record straight.

***

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 Notes

[1] [41] For example, the point is made that from the early nineteenth century until the end of the
British Empire 250 years later, the British expended vast resources attempting to wipe out slavery
and slave trading. In the 1830s or 1840s, a full 13% of the manpower of the Royal Navy was
devoted to stopping slave ships leaving West Africa for the Americas, quite apart from stopping
slavery elsewhere. (Triggernometry, March 26, 2023, “The Truth About Colonialism with Nigel
Biggar [42].”)

[2] [43] This note and others below refer to Hinton Rowan Helper [44] (“HH”), compiler of The
Negroes in Negroland (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1868). Helper’s notes give abbreviated
references, such as her, to Barth’s Africa, Vol. I., page 12. Where possible these references have
been expanded to give the author’s full name and the title and date of the book presumably
referred to. In this case, on page 40 HH quotes Johann Barth, 1857, Travels and Discoveries in
North and Central Africa, Vol. I, p. 12, stating that slave-hunting went on “not only for the purpose
of supplying the foreign market, but, in a far more extensive degree, for supplying the wants of
domestic slavery.”

[3] [45] Frederick Douglass, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself
(New York: Penguin, 1986). Originally published 1845.

[4] [46] History Debunked, Nov. 1, 2020, “An authentic account of slavery in West Africa [47].” The

book is available here [48].

[5] [49] See History Debunked (1), July 24, 2020, “Multicultural Education [50],” and (2) March 13,

2022, “The Twelve Years a Slave hoax revisited [51].”

[6] [52] Herbert Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals (Ostara Publications, 2019), p. 73.
Originally published 1891.

[7] [53] On page 31 HH quotes Francisco Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa,
Vol. 2, 1861, p. 331.

[8] [54] On page 19 HH quotes Hugh Murray, The African Continent: A Narrative of Discovery and
Adventure, 1853, p. 199.

[9] [55] On page 20 HH quotes Hugh Murray 1853, op. cit., p. 204.

[10] [56] On page 21 HH quotes “Wilson’s Africa,” p. 219.

[11] [57] On page 87 HH quotes Mungo Park, The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in the
Year 1805, 1815, p. 216. On page 39 he quotes Sir William Cornwallis Harris, Major Harris’s Sports
and Adventures in Africa, 1843, p. 314.

[12] [58] On page 109 HH quotes “Lander’s Africa,” Vol. I, p. 377, which could be The Travels of
Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa (1836) by Robert Huish or Lander’s Travels in Africa by
Richard Lander.

[13] [59] On p. 44 HH quotes Paul Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa or A
Journey to Ashango-Land, 1867, p. 380.

[14] [60] On page 37 HH quotes “Lander’s Africa,” op cit, p. 208.

[15] [61] On page 43 HH quotes René Caillié, Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo, Vol. II,
1830, p. 63.

[16] [62] On page 38 HH quotes Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton, Narrative of Travels and
Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, Vol. IV, 1826, p. 184.

[17] [63] On page 123 HH quotes Samuel White Baker, Great Basin of the Nile, 1870, p. 197.

[18] [64] On page 40 HH quotes “Wilson’s Africa,” p. 156, saying that the African “not infrequently
by his own choice places himself in [the] condition” of slavery.

[19] [65] HH gives several examples of freed slaves petitioning to be reenslaved in his book

Nojoque: A Question for a Continent (New York: George W Carleton, 1867), available here [66], p.
195.

[20] [67] In “The Day Freedom Came” (1901), Booker T. Washington wrote of the feeling of gloom
that descended on many emancipated slaves when they realised that freedom meant that they
would have to provide for themselves. “Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves
began to wander from the slave quarters back to the ‘big house’ to have whispered conversations
with their former owners as to the future” (quoted by Christopher Ricks and William A. Vance
[eds.], The Faber Book of America [London: Faber and Faber, 1994], pp. 198-99).

[21] [68] On page 43 HH quotes Valdez 1861, op. cit., p. 293.

[22] [69] On page 15 HH quotes James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the
Years 1768–73, Vol. I, 1790, p. 393.

[23] [70] The New Culture Forum, April 26, 2022, “The War on Whiteness & The West: Murray’s

Brave New Book Exposes How We’re Taught to Hate Ourselves [71].”

[24] [72] MailOnline, Jan. 17, 2022. “Two senior police officers are kicked out of Met after
Commander shouted at juniors, called pregnant colleague a ‘f******* nutter’ and approved £5,500
of his own invalid expenses, including alcohol and flight upgrade [73].”

[25] [74] On page 80 HH quotes Francis Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, 1738, p. 87.

[26] [75] On page 34 HH quotes Baker 1870, op. cit., p. 405.

[27] [76] On pages 21-22 HH quotes “Freeman’s Africa,” op cit., p.47.

[28] [77] On page 29 HH quotes Thomas Henry Hutchinson, Impressions of Western Africa, 1858, p.
283.

[29] [78] On page 142 HH quotes “Burton’s Africa,” p. 493, which could be any of Burton’s books
about Africa, most of which were published in the 1860s.

[30] [79] On page 57 HH quotes Paul Du Chaillu, 1867, op. cit., p. 156.

[31] [80] Ward 2019, op. cit., p. 186.

[32] [81] On page 39 HH quotes John Duncan, 1847, Travels in Western Africa, Vol. I, p. 79.

[33] [82] On page 39 HH quotes Harris 1843, op. cit., p. 314. Also, on p. 153 he quotes Richard
Lander noting that an African parent would sell his child for the merest trifle (“Lander’s Africa”, p.
348. This could be Robert Huish, The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa, 1836, or
there could be a book by Richard Lander himself.)

[34] [83] On page 87 HH quotes Park 1815, op. cit., p. 216.

[35] [84] On page 93 HH quotes John Campbell, Travels in South Africa, 1815, p. 266.

[36] [85] This racial difference has been described in terms of “r/K theory.” Animals with an “r”
strategy, such as rabbits, have many offspring after a short gestation and put little effort into
looking after them. Those with a “K” strategy, like kangaroos, have fewer offspring after a longer
gestation and invest more time in raising them. Compared to white and Asian people, people have
an “r” strategy. (The gestation period in black women is slightly shorter than in others.) This was
illustrated by the Scottish explorer Robert Moffat, who in 1842 wrote that African children “cease to
be the objects of a mother’s care as soon as they are able to crawl about in the field.” (On page 92
HH quotes Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa, 1842, p. 49, quoting
Kicherer.)

Article printed from Counter-Currents

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[44] Hinton Rowan Helper: https://counter-currents.com/2022/05/remembering-hinton-
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[47] An authentic account of slavery in West Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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[48] here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm
[49] [5]: #_ednref5
[50] Multicultural Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivwufkDoilI
[51] The Twelve Years a Slave hoax revisited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hpK4FUCmbO4
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[66] here: https://archive.org/details/nojoquequestion00help/page/201/mode/1up?
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[68] [21]: #_ednref21
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[71] The War on Whiteness & The West: Murray’s Brave New Book Exposes How We’re Taught to
Hate Ourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCPHK0EGKCI
[72] [24]: #_ednref24
[73] Two senior police officers are kicked out of Met after Commander shouted at juniors, called
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