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Would you have owned a slave?

lets go back to the African slave trade and the process of invading Africa and shipping its residents to America and Britain.. do you think you would have owned a slave or would you have thought it was to cruel etc?

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Reply 1
Original post by selenerrr__x
I would've thought that's far too cruel especially the whole branding them process


doubtful tbh as everyones thinking back then was more or less the same. They didn't even consider Africans to be human.

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Reply 2
If you were brought up with everyone around you telling you that Africans were 'less than people', and nobody to tell you otherwise, would you know if it was wrong? You could argue that of course you would have noticed they're as human as us, but I couldn't give a figure as to how many people clicked on to that. I'd like to think I'd have noticed and been against it, although I'm a person whose opinions are constructed from others' and whatever makes people happy.

If we're talking from the very start of the African slave trade before it got hugely popular then I'm sure a lot of people would have been against it, much like the ship captain at the start of the tv series 'Roots'. But if we pick a point at where this has been normalised, I'm nervous to admit that I may well not have noticed the immorality of it.
I probably would have known straight off "they're people like me. They are no worse or better than me, vice versa. This is fundamentally wrong, I am hurting these people". But I would not have acted to save or free the slaves in fear of a backlash as sympathisers were persecuted.
No
I probably would have been a slave


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Reply 6
Original post by Jamiesonn
I probably would have been a slave


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Lol same as I'm black.. I think I would have been a run-away slave though.

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Reply 7
Yes
Original post by MrMango
Lol same as I'm black.. I think I would have been a run-away slave though.

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Then you most likely would have been shot if you were found.

The black people that sold others in Africa were the worst participants actually. Betraying their own race.

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Yes I'm lazy and so I would like the extra help.
Owning a slave back then in America was basically the same thing as owning a house today: it was a system ingrained into the economy that was simply too big to fail, particularly in the Confederate states. So yes, as a white Anglo, whose family would in relative terms have moved up a class or three by emigrating, I would probably have owned a slave.

It is of course worth qualifying that not all slave owners treated their slaves with the sort of barbarism you see in lurid depictions of the period. While I would suspect correction was almost universal, not just for infractions and material damages but also merely for insubordination and work not done, I doubt that a majority of slave-owners were motivated by naked sadism.

Incidentally, I expect with almost no hyperbole that if you tried to take people's houses off them today post-Right to Buy you would have to have a civil war of some sort over it as well. At the very least it would involve the break-up of the UK and a level of violent insurrection completely unprecedented, at least outside of Ireland, in modern British history. Imagine. Paul and Sue from down the road huddled behind the Volvo stuffing rags into bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Original post by MrMango
lets go back to the African slave trade and the process of invading Africa and shipping its residents to America and Britain.. do you think you would have owned a slave or would you have thought it was to cruel etc?

Posted from TSR Mobile


I would definitely have bought a couple of slaves and made them work to ensure I made my monies worth of them. In reality slaves are no different than buying a horse or beast of burden back then.

I wouldn't just buy african slaves though, would also buy Chinese and White ones as well. Chinese ones to supervise the africans and will arm them with whips or electrified cattle-prods, probably give them a bonus of an extra bowl of rice for being efficient :biggrin: Not sure what I'd do with my White slaves but will probably get them to supervise the Chinese slaves and for being efficient I'd give them an extra bottle of beer or whiskey :biggrin:
Original post by Alfissti
I would definitely have bought a couple of slaves and made them work to ensure I made my monies worth of them. In reality slaves are no different than buying a horse or beast of burden back then.

I wouldn't just buy african slaves though, would also buy Chinese and White ones as well. Chinese ones to supervise the africans and will arm them with whips or electrified cattle-prods, probably give them a bonus of an extra bowl of rice for being efficient :biggrin: Not sure what I'd do with my White slaves but will probably get them to supervise the Chinese slaves and for being efficient I'd give them an extra bottle of beer or whiskey :biggrin:


I'm loving the ignorant stereotyping
That you just fathomed.:biggrin:
Reply 13
Original post by Alfissti
I would definitely have bought a couple of slaves and made them work to ensure I made my monies worth of them. In reality slaves are no different than buying a horse or beast of burden back then.

I wouldn't just buy african slaves though, would also buy Chinese and White ones as well. Chinese ones to supervise the africans and will arm them with whips or electrified cattle-prods, probably give them a bonus of an extra bowl of rice for being efficient :biggrin: Not sure what I'd do with my White slaves but will probably get them to supervise the Chinese slaves and for being efficient I'd give them an extra bottle of beer or whiskey :biggrin:


You've really thought this through havent you.

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Of course I would. How else would I compete with other wealthy people?
Reply 15
Probably. Who knows. Would the average person back then have owned a slave if they could afford it? Probably. There's the answer.
Reply 16
Might as well go way, way back to the Romans and Greeks.

Nevermind having slaves from one underdeveloped part of the world - have slaves from everywhere. Go to war with the next city, win, take them all as your slaves. Hope you don't lose any wars, basically.
Reply 17
They would have done it if they had the money because they believed blacks and other non whites were savages and subhuman
No, I would be a slave lol. I'd become a house slave, then murder the entire family to set an example. That is, if I wasn't amputated beforehand as punishment for not meeting the daily quota in the field..

Owning a slave back then was normal but that doesn't excuse it. There were a few white people who were against it though.
(edited 9 years ago)
No

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