1444 marks the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade. This is when the Portuguese transported the first Africans to Europe as slaves.

By 1526 they expanded their reach and delivered their first shipload of enslaved Africans to Brazil.

In 1619 the first enslaved Africans arrived in the British colony of Virginia in America.

In his New York Times best-seller, “Stamped from the Beginning,” Dr. Ibram X. Kendi identifies the roots of “anti-Black racist ideas.” According to Kendi’s research, the book entitled, “The Chronicles of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea,” written by Gomes Eanes de Zurara, launched into existence the demonization of people based on skin color. This, in order to rationalize and legitimatize the institution of this new form of subjugation, race-based slavery.      

In 1452, Zurara was commissioned by King Afonso V’s nephew Prince Henry, to write a biography of his uncle’s life and his work in the slave trade.  It was in that biography that Zurara introduces us to the concept of racism. 

While the colony of Virginia didn’t see its first enslaved Africans until 1619, the term “white” used to describe an individual wasn’t used in legal documentation to describe people until 1681.  Prior to that people were simply identified by national origin, social status, or religious beliefs.   

Following the uprising of the poor seeking restitution and fair treatment from the minority wealthy landowners during Bacon’s Rebellion 1676-1677, race was introduced to the equation as a divide-and-conquer strategy. It was met with tremendous success and eventually became a deeply entrenched self-perpetuating institutionalized system.  

The late former President Linden B. Johnson was quoted saying; “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

We live in a fallen sinful world and sin is our default setting, so it is not surprising that there is no shortage of man’s inhumanity to man.

While there had been an established history of slavery throughout various parts of the world involving various people groups, the Europeans developed something much different; race-based chattel slavery. Chattel slavery dehumanized the enslaved and exposed them to unparalleled collective legalized savagery and brutality. Without human rights, it was open season on the enslaved; whose ill-treatment could often only be limited by a lack of imagination.

While some treated their “property” better than others, the institution itself normalized various acts of inhumanity.  

Under the system of chattel slavery, the enslaved were bred on slave breeding farms like animals (one of these was even owned by Thomas Jefferson); their offspring was sold as commodities; their children were raped for pleasure along with the wives of their enslaved husbands, and even the men might be used to provide sexual pleasure for female or homosexual slave owners.

Unlike “indentured servitude” which lasted approximately 7 years, which many immigrants took advantage of in their quest to become American citizens, Africans under chattel slavery were destined to lifelong servitude along with their offspring.  

According to the slave narrative “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, it was customary for enslaved females to lose their virginity to the slave master, or one of his family members, or close acquaintances. The only thing her parents could do was to do their best to prepare her for this traumatic and horrendous act.   

The enslaved and Blacks in general, had no rights under the law; which was codified in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which denied citizenship to Blacks and established that Black people had no rights which the “white” man was bound to respect. Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws followed; further institutionalizing the dehumanization of Black people and other POC.

One of the tactics involved in diminishing the horrors of American chattel slavery, however, is to incorporate other forms of slavery, (inclusive of its mention in the Bible) and play the whataboutism game of, “everybody did it.”

Well, not everybody did it the same way and chattel slavery was not like what others did. The dehumanization aspect of reducing people to property led to some insane cruelty which to date has not been fully acknowledged, nor is it taught.

So yes, Africans enslaved Africans.

Africans were sold Africans into European slavery.  

Some rich Black people owned slaves in America, but there were not many rich Black people. This is a story within itself.

Some Native American tribes were slave owners and were slow to free them after 1865.

Other Native American tribes welcomed escaped slaves and embraced them as part of their tribes.

Some “white” abolitionists helped harbor escaped slaves along the underground railroad, putting their own lives in danger.

John Brown, a “white” minister, led a slave revolt that cost him his life by hanging. Many “white” folks marched alongside Dr. King and took part in the Freedom Rides and lost their lives. Many have been proven allies inclusive of our modern-day struggles against institutionalized systemic racism white supremacy, but unfortunately for the nation, never enough to turn the tide and get us across the goal line, as they have been in the minority and the exception to the rule. We must understand that even silence is compliance and provides quiet approval.

These are all basic facts of history concerning slavery and beyond. And while no form of slavery was good for the enslaved, not all slavery was alike; and America’s form of chattel slavery had its own unique racial component, and legally removed the humanity of the enslaved.

So, obviously, this is not about demonizing all so-called “white” people; as sin is no respecter of persons. But history is not a buffet; it is a collective whole and should be addressed as such.  

By Tobias Houpe