"Anyone who actually obeyed the law were easily outcompeted by another slave plantation owner who did not obey the law". This is basically how the global labour market still works. We have child/slave/safety labour global rules but, until someone can ignore them and make more money... do we?
yeah, it's why I put in more emotion into that phrase. Because even if you have a good job, bosses are always incentivised to spend as little money on their employees' wellbeing as possible.
This is why corruption is so destructive, and anti-corruption laws so essential; laws are only meaningful when it is possible to enforce those laws, and those tasked with doing so actually enforce them.
Sadly, those laws truly work only in developed country, and purely for economic reasons. (1) Child Labor: a child that could study can be incredibly more productive than one that was sent to work at 7 years old. (2) Slavery: highly skilled workers will demand great freedoms so they would rather flee the country than be under any form of enslavement. (3) Work Safety: governments don't want their workers to die, after they spent tons of resources to educate and train them. In summary, those kinds of rules only apply to high skilled workers, while everyone else can be sacrificed, if necessary. (I'm not saying that I agree, just that from my observations things work this way).
The real money comes from specialized (educated) industry. Child labour in a third world country can never compete with that. Its just a silly cheat to keep dictatorial regimes affloat.
It’s literally insane to live in a time of such amazing knowledge transfer that I, as a normal man in the midwestern United States who loves history, and learning, but never really had good educational opportunities to continue learning in a “traditional” fashion can just casually pop on a video made by another normal human being presumably for their own enjoyment and education that is a comprehensive and easily digested history of the transatlantic slave trade. Thank you so very much for making this video, providing resources to learn further, and sharing. This is the peak of what the internet is about, the transference of knowledge, skill, and understanding. Simply amazing, what a time to be alive and learning!!
It’s amazing! Our parents had to dedicate their careers to get an appreciable knowledge of a topic but now any voracious learner can go to Wikipedia or online library and get free access to primary and secondary sources
~5:56 A lack of settlements is not the sole reason why there weren't a lot of ships sailing up and down the West Saharan coastline. It was certainly a factor, but currents and wind patterns also mattered a lot; if you tried sailing up the western coast of Africa, after a certain point the currents started pushing against you. That meant that Africans had a hard time sailing north, and anybody who tried sailing south would have an easy enough time getting there but would have to ditch their ship and trek across the Sahara if they wanted to go home. It wasn't until the Portuguese discovered the "Little Wheel" current system (basically a smaller version of the "Great Wheel," the current/wind pattern that enabled the later Triangular Trade) that this changed, as they learned that by sailing west from the African Coast, you could ride the winds and currents in a loop back to Europe.
Yes, very true. Learning how to navigate beyond Cape Bojador (in Western Sahara/Morocco) was extremely difficult and cost many lives of early Portuguese explorers... That fact is widely highlighted in the "Lusiadas" (A major Master-piece in Portuguese Literature).
An excellent, sober explanation of the history here. What really sets your video apart is your attempts to explain the "why". Without an explanation of the incentives/mechanics of the trade, these videos typically just devolve into "earlier people bad". But weaving in details like "Europe getting richer -> the former poor wanting calories -> sugar provides calories -> sugar needs slaves -> Spain sought slaves" makes it clear that slavery was part of a wider system of economics and culture rather than just the poor moral judgment of a previous era. We can then see our modern world has similar incentive structures that produce dystopian outcomes, and perhaps learn from the past rather than just condemn it.
A new History Scope video is always exciting When it comes to bringing down Christmas, Israel is already excelling in that field with their contiunous attacks on Palestine and the Palestinian people
@@maxheadrom3088Christians created an entire philosophy to justify, expand and entrench slavery. Even today you find Christians who promote the same white supremacist narratives to justify their own abuses.
Great Work! I love how you bring in your own ideas, side facts and topics around the theme like why aren't slaves used in europe, the role of Portugal, spain, monopolys or how it evolved out of indulged serfs that truly separates your video from standard documentations. A truly masterpiece thank you! Very interesting video ❤
Great video, friend. As an African (Nigerian), it is refreshing to see more objective coverage of the history of slavery in Africa. I appreciate how you point out how the slave trade already existed in Africa long before Europeans came and how it is was facilitated by other Africans and Arabs, and the Europeans just used that to establish the trans Atlantic trade. Most people here, and elsewhere, wrongly assume all slavery in Africa started with the Europeans but thanks for not being like that.
@@sandran17 yeah, a lot of ancient history is. I mean, my ancestors back in what became Nigeria were known for human sacrifice. Ancient history tends to be dark sometimes.
@@orboakin8074your not a Nigerian, it's an absolute lie about you talking about sacrifice considering Nigeria is a concept made by Europeans they are over 250 ethnic groups so your saying all 250 performed sacrifice ?. Your just a white , trying to do both sides to the transatlantic slavery, European where the biggest slavers and no revisionist history will changed that. 😊
@orboakin8074 as much as human sacrifice is terrible, least its just killing a poor bastard and being done with it, torturing them for 10 years with agonising back breaking work on the basis of sheer greed feels worse to me.
@@sandran17 you have a point. Plus considering how most of our African ancestors were also doing the "10 years" of torture and forced labour to each other, it was equally horrible. At least with the Europeans, they actually abolished slavery that they were doing and that other Africans were doing to each other.
It's not the only cause. It would have happened anyway for other reasons, as the populations of Europe increased as well. But it was a factor in terms of export. With nearly all export increases in the 18th century being from trade with Africa, in the case of Great Britain.
Very educational, it’s something you know, or at least you think you know, but you never really realise just how intricate the entire thing was to 1 cultures economy at the detriment of others. The things human beings will do out of insatiable greed
Another great work of yours, but I am just missing one piece here. The Slavic slave trade. It would be super interesting if you could touch that subject of early Western European kingdoms raiding Slavic tribes for slave trade. Genoa and Venice were the main ports sending captured slavs to sell in the Middle East. I hope you can touch on this part of history in the future!
As "Slav" is where the name "slave" comes from due to the estern Europeans becoming the "gold standard" anybody else was just called the same name despite not being eatern European in origin it would be great to also here about this.
@Lee-ed9wv history even has the start date and end date of the 400 years the iseraelites were slaves in Egypt, down to the day but 1500 years later in history not even know the start date and end date of the transatlantic slavery
Often times I question history and question the choices people made. But your videos make it seem clear as day, and the perspective I have gained into these peoples lives has been absolutely invaluable!
I find it so ironic this video popped up after watching a video on the less famous but more horrible Arab Slave trade. I guess because they castrated all the men and therefore no descendants its just not talked about but it lasted 1000 years though. I felt kinda bad for not knowing more about it.
By what possible metric can you call the Trans-Saharan slave trade worse than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade? * Children born of the Arab Slave Trade were free, children born of Trans-Atlantic slavery were kept in slavery. * More than half of all victims of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade died en-route to their buyers, while the exact numbers for the Trans-Saharan trade are unclear, we know it was nowhere near that high * Slaves in the 'Arab World' were given significantly greater rights (still not much; analogous to modern animal cruelty laws) than those in European Colonies, whose rights ranged from very limited to nonexistent * Use of mutilation and torture was FAR more widespread in European Colonies, as a manner of threatening other slaves into line * The living conditions of slaves on plantations were abysmal compared to even the worst the Arab Slave Trade had to offer, with an average life expectancy of only a few years. * Even if we go by the most conservative estimates of the total number of West Africans enslaved in the Trans-Atlantic trade, the number is double that of the Arab Slave Trade. This is despite the Arab Slave Trade lasting for 1500 years, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade only lasting 400. During the peak of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century, more than 10 times as many Africans were being trafficked over the Atlantic as over the Sahara. * Systematic rape (mostly of preteen and teenage girls) was used in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to turn some female slaves into 'breeders' to increase the slave population. This alone meant that tens of millions more were enslaved under the Western European slavery system than the North African slavery system; as awful as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was, it is just the tip of the iceberg of Slavery in the Americas and Caribbean as a whole. IDK which video you watched, so what I'm about to say might not be applicable to that one in particular, but you should be very skeptical of the intentions and intellectual honesty of any video creator arguing that the Arab Slave Trade was worse. TH-cam is chock full of White Supremacist propaganda videos posing as histories of the Arab Slave Trade, which exaggerate the scale and cruelties of the Trans-Saharan trade in order to downplay or deflect from the cruelty of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. This revisionist rhetoric is mostly done in an effort to whitewash European colonialism and to minimize the massive racial inequality in the New World which it created. It's a phenomenon very similar to the Neo-Confederate movement or attempts to sanitize Rhodesia.
@@hypie88 If you think any of this comment is a joke, I urge you to do more reading on both the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Saharan slave trades. Some recommendations (all from top scholars in the field)... Slavery and African life: Occidental, Oriental, and African slave trades (Manning, 1990) Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (Lovejoy, 2011) Slavery and The Slave Trade in The Context of West African History (Fage, 1990) Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving Port (Law, 2004) The slave trade: the story of the Atlantic slave trade: 1440-1870 (Thomas, 1997) The rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (Green, 2011) The rise of African slavery in the Americas (Eltis, 2000) The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420 (Eltis et al, 2021) A fistful of shells: West Africa from the rise of the slave trade to the age of revolution (Green, 2019) The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (Wright, 2007) A historical geography of the trans-Saharan trade (Ross, 2010)
Refreshing look on a lot of topics that are obviously related to the societal problems we face globally in the present. It's never to be explained as a This OR That, but as an AND. It's pretty complex, as are humans inherently. Good job en bedankt man.
Typically it's wise to watch the entire video before commenting, but even though there's 13 minutes remaining (I'm so looking forward to viewing them!), a thought has been percolating in my head that I really wanna share: You were so spot-on about sugar and the calories thing. If it gives the people more energy, they will want it more, because it allows them to do more, which allows them to buy more. For our machines we've seen this with coal and oil and natural gas and now (finally!) renewables (we'll skip nuclear because I feel that was not adopted widely for political reasons, rather than economical ones (and the point where politics becomes economics and vice versa will also be saved for another time)). But yes! Sugar! And then coffee, because sugar gave you more physical energy (literally, in calories) but now coffee also gave you mental energy and so it lead to a mental revolution of sorts (Austrian coffeehouses, philosophy, maths, etc) and we still rely on it today (how many people would find their work literally incompletable without caffeine?). And now today we have another powdery white substance generating incredible amounts of wealth for those who control it, because it also provides massive amounts of mental energy, but for more higher-order levels of work (trading, entertainment, performing, etc) and also it has found huge success in off-work applications also; if you're a student in certain European cities, you only have so many hours each night and after using sugar to get through the physical demands of the day and caffeine to get through the mental load of your studies, you turn to this third very profitable substance to get through the craziness of nightlife and socialization and such. I'm curious what the next thing in this series would be. We have the stuff that makes life easier, the stuff that makes work easier, and the stuff that makes play easier. What else remains? I'm also curious about what the precursor to sugar would be. Just... Food in general, I guess. Maybe bread/grain. Stores well, lots of calories, opens up possibilities... But that's a more societal-level thing than individual. Hrm. But yes! 13 minutes remain, time to enjoy them. 😁
When you pointed out how sloth is one of the seven deadly sins while discussing indentured servitude, I couldn't help but notice the morbid irony of that statement. The whole motivation behind heinously punishing people who don't work in this instance is greed, another deadly sin! As a matter of fact, the biggest driving factor behind this whole disgusting gambit is greed! I suppose the Christians at the time were selective about which deadly sins they actually cared about... Anyways, thanks for the very informative video!
It is a very good video to have a general understanding of how Trans-Atlantic slavery was set up. But there are several inaccuracies, especially about Spain (which is to ve expected from someone suspiciously Dutch). But most of it is true. 1. He didn't mention the Siete Partidas, which granted rights to slaves (and when he did briefly mention the rights of slaves, he made it look as if it was the same everywhere, but it was mostly Spain). He also didn't mention how freed slaves integrated Spanish society relatively quickly (same as enslaved Muslims who converted to Catholicism in the Peninsula). 2. He does say that slavery was common in Europe, even along with serfdom. However, slavery was common everywhere... In Africa, America, Asia... EVERYWHERE. Nobody had conceived of a system without slaves. But in order to protect Native Americans, Spain did create legislation abolishing Native American slave by the end of the 1600s. And this Spanish contribution was the beginning of human rights everywhere... 3. This guy takes his time to mock the Catholic church and their understanding of how black people were descendants of Ham. But never once does he mention Scientific Racism, the brainchild of the Enlightment, which was the philosophical basis for am even more brutal form of colonization and slavery by Great Britain, the Netherlands, and France. Why doesn't he mention that his Atheist ideology brought even more brutal slavery than even the Catholics? 4. He also ignores how Great Britain got involved in the independence of Portugal by making an alliance with the Duke of Bragança... It was this meddling what brought the Iberian union down. The explanation was overly simplistic. 5. Spain's wealth was far more dependent on trade with China than on the slave trade. The Spanish Empire is a lot more comparable to the Roman Empire than to XIX century British Slave trade, especially in the sense that Spain gave back. Spain invested heavily in raising the standards living in America, and by the early XVII century, it was better to live in Mexico than in the Peninsula. 6. Also, some people could and, in fact, did return to Spain when they weren't successful in America. It was not a one-way trip... Even a great deal of Native Americans in the XVII and XVIIII centuries would go to the Peninsula, demand their rights to be vindicated, and then return. Some even stayed and had families (usually rich guys, of course).
When j finished watching every second of this video i was expecting to see 800k lowest to like -3M followers and like 1.5M views. These comments barely have 1 comment on them. You will succeed sir. You are talented. Keep up the amazing work
Me too. I've already had to remove a couple of them. But thanks to my other videos on Africa I already have a list of certain phrases which are held for review. So hopefully it's not going to be too bad.
@@HistoryScopeThe last video on Africa still traumtises me till this day!😭 I'm surprised you didn't do a comments off but that's a good thing, i guess!
Hello again, and seems we come this time that you have improved more the last time when you used maps. But, some things I noticed. Some small mistakes I saw. 6:43 Not sure, but in the map it shows that france annexed Savoy, Genoa, and other Italian states when they weren't. As you know, Italy compromised of Italian states as well as states of the Holy Roman Empire at the time. 15:52 Panama and Puerto Rico were explored by Christopher Columbus and eventually colonized (to be aware). A fun fact that Panama had the first European settlement on the Pacific coast of America known as Old Panama (Panamá Viejo) in 1519. The first settlements in Puerto Rico started in 1508. 24:42 Spain did not control all of the south region of Brazil, but did in some areas. But, understandable as you were focusing on explaining of why eventually slaves were being used in the colonies. Overall, I see very informative on the matter and more detailed that what could my teacher explain in my class when this topic was being explained (and good improvement after all).
7:00 Caravel invention by Portugal. 8:10 Why enslavement of Black people was allowed by the old Catholic Church. 9:30 How most African slaves were enslaved by Europeans... Not tgrough raids and kidnapping, but by trading for tyeym with local West African nations that captured slaces themselves. 16:20 so that's how the reconquista worked. 21:30 How Europeans bought tons of slaves
Ya know one thing I found strange during my time learning about slavery is why Arabian slavery is glossed over by almost all historians. Arab slavery of Africans was more brutal, larger in scope and they created a dependence for them that still have not gone away to this day. Atlantic slavery looks nice compared to Arab or Barbary slavery.
but why does any and every attempt to explore slavery in *AMERICA* need to be met with this defensive answer of “b-b-but what about the Arabs???” Nobody is denying this ever happened, nor do these particular slave trades do anything to justify or make what YOUR ancestors did any less bad. Own it or don’t. It is what it is. It is focused on so much bc these events of the trans Atlantic slave trade built the empires of the west that would conquer the world and eventually drag us all into two of the most destructive world wars of human history. All of this happened within the last 500 years, and has a direct impact upon the lives of Hundreds of millions of not billions of people. I hate this obtuse deflective narrative. I don’t even mind talking about slavery in other societies or other times of history. It was and is an institution that changes and has different nuances according to time, place and people. The slave trade of the Arab empires and emirates of the Middle Ages and of the later Barbary coast was different from the trans Atlantic slave trade in scale and in practices. But I guess nuance doesn’t matter to you, right?
There are hundreds of videos and thousands of books about the trans Saharan slave trade, people just pretend there aren't. I learned about it school so it's bs to say it isn't taught too
Both systems of slavery were terribly evil. But atleast with the transatlantic slave trade their were survivors and their descendants are still alive today. With the moslem-arab slave trade there are none or hardly any decendants because the muslims castrated their slaves. Pretty evil to enslave a man and then castrated that is straight demonic
This is amazing..very, seriously complex. Slavery has always been around since we walked around, don’t ever kid yourself. Now it is children and women as slaves.
Slavery in and of itself has been around for forever yeah. The issue with American slavery was it was based on race and made permanent and hereditary so whites involved could maximize their profits in the Americans plantation industry. I don't know why so many people can't understand that. It was a different ballgame when you go from working for somebody to pay off a debt or prisoners of war then being released, etc. to having generations of people stuck as chattel because of their race then having all sorts of laws and policies accordingly. That really didn't happen elsewhere in history the same way
Hello, I only recently found your channel and I must say I am impressed with the amount of research you put into the videos. I am wondering if in future videos about the trans atlantic slave trade you will cover the role expulsions of non-Catholics from Catholic kingdoms played. specifically when Spain expelled all non-Catholics, Portugal welcomed the refugees, but soon after non-Catholics were expelled from Portugal. In both cases anyone who either did not covert or was unable to leave were sold into slavery. Now when the refugees went from Spain to Portugal the Portuguese sent them to live on an Island off of West Africa, and when the Portuguese later expelled non-Catholics the people on the West African island became slaves in the trans atlantic slave trade, among the non-Catholics would have been Jews
Why don't people talk about the slave trade going east done by the Arabs to my people and I hate when yall compare indentured slavery to chattel slavery 🤦🏾🤦🏾
@rehmanahmed7742 holy fuck your reading comprehension is terrible. I clearly said the slave trade going EAST done by the Arabs that sent my people to the so called middle east and India etc. But carry on
Hi from Madeira! At its peak, around 10% of Madeira's population was made of slaves, although that era was much earlier than the peak of the slave trade.
Real risk of starvation as a part of life tends to make society more accepting of brutality especially when food is involved, if the most basic needs are not met then it’s less likely people will think about the plight of others.
Thats oversimplying it wayyyy too much, it was also a matter of money, greed and ignorance. Slavery was more profitable for sharecroppers and landowners, thats what one of the main topics of this video was. The Europeans also barely thought of black slaves and indigenous people as humans, they were resources, property.
Scarcity created by a parasitic class of people sitting on top of society is very different from scarcity created by everyone's life generally sucking because of limited resources.
Okay, so first of all, great video and great research, keep up the great work. However I would like to discuss a certain point that is spoken in the video, about the Spanish Empire. You see, even tho today a Big part of it is surrounded by black legend it is factually incorrect to frame it as an inherently exploitative entity When in various cases it was quite the opposite. Also the reason why Queen Isabel was so reluctant with the mistreat of native people is because she firmly believed in equality according to her Catholic beliefs,, she has also been cuoted as to give the order of equal treatment as any other spaniard and banning their enslavement even though its true lots of people Enslaved native people for personal gains and some posterior Kings turned a blind eye for personal gain, but it is quite the archivement that Spain took the stance it took on slavery and even more if We take into account the context of the era and what other contemporaries like France or England did. Once again thx for the video and for the content in general, great style and explanation!
0:32 I strongly feel you need to give dates and names of societies because Hetlot Slavery by the Spartans, Slavery by the Romans and Slavery in the early middle ages are completely different beasts
Good video but many inaccuracies. West African slaves were rare outside of the Maghreb and trans Atlantic voyage. The slave from Africa in the Middle East and Asia were Ethiopian (Habash to Indians) Zanj (Bantu East Africans) and Nilotics (common in Egypt and a big role in the Fatamid Caliphate.
Also another innacuracy you mentioned was the supposed collapse of west African industry in the 19th century. Thus is also not necessarily true with the exception of dahomey and igbo ppl of SE Nigeria the rest of West Africa didn't even participate in the trans atlantic slave trade at this time and actually focused more on trading with themselves rather than with Europeans one example is with the ashanti empire whom by the 19th century had completely pulled out of the trans trans atlantic market and instead focused on trading ashanti manufactured guns, gold, goldworks, timber and silk to numerous sahelian states like the sokoto caliphate or the tukolor empire considering trans atlantic trade to be irrelevant and the kingdom of benin whom had long ago pulled out of the trans trans atlantic slave trade in the early 16th century had been long selling palm oil and manila to other africans and Europeans for centries therefore there wasn't a collapse of west African industry if anything in certain parts it increased like gun/ gunpowder manufacturing in ashanti or wassolou for instance therefore that part was pure mis information
>the rest of West Africa didn't even participate in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade ...what on earth are you talking about? The Ashanti Empire was one of the primary centers of the Trans-Atlantic trade; the modern capital of Ghana (Accra) literally started as a port for trade with Danish and British slavers. And basically all mining within the Ashanti realm during the 18th and 19th century was performed by slaves. The Sokoto and Tukulor weren't directly involved in the trade because they were deep inland, but they did participate indirectly through selling slaves to coastal African societies. And that's saying nothing of the Trans-Saharan trade in which the Tukulor Empire was by far the most heavily involved country.
@@p00bix dude what are you on about?? The ashanti empire literally stop selling slaves by the 19th century even thomas bodwich noted this and no the ashantis weren'tthe biggest slave trader the would be dahomey and the kingdom of kongo in central africa secondly as you mentioned sokoto and tukolor didn't participate in the trans atlantic slave trade as they were literally in land but the documents from both sokoto and tukolor don't also talk of them selling a large number of slaves to other African states northwards or southwards if anything the same manuscripts from these empires though they mention a large amount of domestic slavery ( but not TAST) mention that these states literally got a large amount of revenue from exporting manufactured goods which that income would be further used to support local industries such as ashanti/wassolou gun manufacturing or ashanti gunpowder manufacturing. African states did not just rely on slavery in order to get rich as this is very unsustainable as shown by the examples of the kingdom of kongo or dahomey even the ashanti empror when posed by this same question from thomas bodwich literally said how unsustainable that type of society would be
@@p00bix and as l stated about how the ashantis were not the 'epicentre for the slave trade' only 17 percent at most left the modern gold coast although many historians say that the gold coast could have even contributed less at 11 or 10 percent most slaves came from west-central Africa or the port of loango aka congo/angola at nearly 42percent or even the bight of biafra at 20.2 percent
You are correct in a lot of ways. Certain industries did really well regardless of the slave trade. The African steel industry was as advanced as the rest of the world up until the 19th century. But it's the sudden disappearance of vital industries in the 19th century that we think caused an overall economic depression (although more research is needed. Africa is woefully under-researched). And after the slave trade largely ended a lot of this industry quickly returned to West Africa, Central Africa, and South Africa. But it wasn't fast enough to catch up with the Europeans at the time.
~39:29 The British absolutely did enslave Native Americans following many wars with them (including the Anglo-Powhatan Wars, the Pequot War, and King Philip's War), though most of them were shipped to the Caribbean and sold rather than being used for labor in their own homelands. Also, early on many of the Africans in the British colonies were indentured servants themselves rather than slaves; the firm divide between European indentured servants and African slaves was established at different times in different British colonies, with some of the Caribbean ones establishing race-based chattel slavery early in the 17th century, but some such as Virginia only officially establishing a racial line between servants and slaves at the end of the 17th century.
48:20 why is Africa still poor? Let's say you are a baker and your pies are worth $5 each, but a person continuously barters for $1 a pie, then sells your pies for $10 abroad and in your neighborhood for $15. When trying to renegotiate, you are threatened with sanctions and anyone who stands up for you ends up being killed. So, you are poor until there is a fair market without bullying. That is why China, Iran, and Russia are stepping up and sticking together. 😊
Wtf does that have anything to do with Russia or China??? But since you brought it up ....look at what Russia is doing literally this very moment to Ukraine, who was once part of the same country. And all over them wanting to take Ukraines natural resources. China has literally killed the most people in human history....more than once. And one of those times was not even that long ago. 1950s or so, Mao Zadong. 40 million killed. Of his own people. If you are really that delusional to think that Russia and China gives a shit about the people in Africa.....boy are you in for a rude awakening. But I'm sure you're convinced that Russia and China are good but America & Europe is bad.
Interesting, you leave a lot of information out of your explanation. Maybe I missed it, but you seem to forget who arranged for slaves to be available for sale. By doing so, you leave out how African’s raided other tribes to sell them into slavery. Slavery is a terrible issue from our past, and from today. Covering the topic requires truthfulness otherwise it will continue to flourish.
I read about this. From what I researched, a lot of slave transport businesses went under from not fulfilling contracts. It just seems to me like too risky a business venture from all the bankruptcies I read about.
It's fair enough to look at the Trans-Atlantic slave trade through the lens of Western Europe and North America, and this video does a good job of that, but it does gloss over some context which unfortunately reinforces some misconceptions about world history. For example, no mention was made what really motivated the Europeans to look for a *longer* route to Asia around Africa (it was largely caused by the Silk Trade routes being cut off by Muslim empires, especially after the fall of Constantinople). The statement about the Trans-Saharan routes transporting fewer slaves than the coastal Atlantic one only applies to slaves sent to Europe. The Arab/Muslim slave trade was objectively bigger and killed and mutilated far more Africans than the Trans-Atlantic one did in history. That doesn't make it any "better" or excuse it any way. But many like those in the comments here get upset when that's pointed out, either because they're ignorant of history or they want to cover it up.
23:82 People still behave in such a way. He asked the question of why more human slaves were not simply purchased like livestock...? He also made it seem like showing up with construction materials and firearms led to a legitimate trade in human resources rather than bribery, extortion, or intimidation as forts were being built by impoverished Western Europeans who never adopted native ethnicities.
One glaring deficiency is the fact that Africans rounded up Africans to the coast for sale to the wet for weapons and whiskey If westerners went too far inland, or stayed too long, they would catch a tropical disease and die Right to the waters edge they were brought as slaves by Africans to be sold as slaves
I know you mention it at the end of the video but you mention England a lot while showing the union jack/british isles which unfortunately are not interchangeable
@@HistoryScope yes which is absolutely fine but my point is mentioning England while showing Britain/British flag is not quite right since England and Britain are not the same thing. It's a minor critique in an otherwise very insightful video
The French played no role in Scottish entry into the UK, as they had been part of a Union of Crowns and thus outside the French orbits for over 60 years.
That was the point I was trying to make: they should have stopped it from their own geopolitical objectives. But they couldn't. France's failure to keep Scotland independent led to it eventually losing its status as a superpower to the British.
I think you need to be a bit more careful with using the Union Jack. That flag contains the Scottish flag, so you should really use the English flag when talking about England before the Act of Union.
Excellent video! Just one observation: Chilli comes from Central America and was taken to Asia by the Portuguese who also brought back to America several Asian species like Sugar Cane and Mango. Also, the fall of Constatinople to the Ottoman Empire also created an economic incentive to sail around Africa since the Ottomans demanded high taxes to cross the region. Also, the Queen of Portugal prohibited enslaving natives from the the New World. (around 1550).
13:54 Porugal already owns everything in their land, i dont see a reason they would like to share their taxes with someone else by giving them a monopoly. they could just tax everyone directly , this just seems like they are putting distance between the crown and the workers being taxed.
At the time a government didn't have the resources to tax the whole country. That required A LOT of people which in turn required a lot of salaries which in turn required increasing taxes. So before the age of centralized governments the monopoly system was used to get taxes. In essence, they were franchising their tax office to whoever could get them the most income. This was common all the way back in Rome (maybe earlier, idk)
You have a rare talent of explaining complex systems in an understandable way.
whats so complex about buying and selling poeple?
@@emanuelandersson8510apparently spelling the word people.
@@dodonpa-1XD
Sugar equals bourbon, and it was the bourbon trade that facilitated the exchange of slaves
@@emanuelandersson8510The complexity is convincing people that everyone played a part in it.
"Anyone who actually obeyed the law were easily outcompeted by another slave plantation owner who did not obey the law".
This is basically how the global labour market still works. We have child/slave/safety labour global rules but, until someone can ignore them and make more money... do we?
yeah, it's why I put in more emotion into that phrase. Because even if you have a good job, bosses are always incentivised to spend as little money on their employees' wellbeing as possible.
This is why corruption is so destructive, and anti-corruption laws so essential; laws are only meaningful when it is possible to enforce those laws, and those tasked with doing so actually enforce them.
Sadly, those laws truly work only in developed country, and purely for economic reasons. (1) Child Labor: a child that could study can be incredibly more productive than one that was sent to work at 7 years old. (2) Slavery: highly skilled workers will demand great freedoms so they would rather flee the country than be under any form of enslavement. (3) Work Safety: governments don't want their workers to die, after they spent tons of resources to educate and train them. In summary, those kinds of rules only apply to high skilled workers, while everyone else can be sacrificed, if necessary. (I'm not saying that I agree, just that from my observations things work this way).
@@p00bixwouw your comming really close to a dictatorship 😂
The real money comes from specialized (educated) industry. Child labour in a third world country can never compete with that. Its just a silly cheat to keep dictatorial regimes affloat.
It’s literally insane to live in a time of such amazing knowledge transfer that I, as a normal man in the midwestern United States who loves history, and learning, but never really had good educational opportunities to continue learning in a “traditional” fashion can just casually pop on a video made by another normal human being presumably for their own enjoyment and education that is a comprehensive and easily digested history of the transatlantic slave trade.
Thank you so very much for making this video, providing resources to learn further, and sharing. This is the peak of what the internet is about, the transference of knowledge, skill, and understanding.
Simply amazing, what a time to be alive and learning!!
It’s amazing! Our parents had to dedicate their careers to get an appreciable knowledge of a topic but now any voracious learner can go to Wikipedia or online library and get free access to primary and secondary sources
Isn’t learning great? This video was saturated with the knowledge of things I did not know and I’m actually glad I sat down and watched it.
~5:56 A lack of settlements is not the sole reason why there weren't a lot of ships sailing up and down the West Saharan coastline. It was certainly a factor, but currents and wind patterns also mattered a lot; if you tried sailing up the western coast of Africa, after a certain point the currents started pushing against you. That meant that Africans had a hard time sailing north, and anybody who tried sailing south would have an easy enough time getting there but would have to ditch their ship and trek across the Sahara if they wanted to go home. It wasn't until the Portuguese discovered the "Little Wheel" current system (basically a smaller version of the "Great Wheel," the current/wind pattern that enabled the later Triangular Trade) that this changed, as they learned that by sailing west from the African Coast, you could ride the winds and currents in a loop back to Europe.
Yes, very true.
Learning how to navigate beyond Cape Bojador (in Western Sahara/Morocco) was extremely difficult and cost many lives of early Portuguese explorers...
That fact is widely highlighted in the "Lusiadas" (A major Master-piece in Portuguese Literature).
An excellent, sober explanation of the history here. What really sets your video apart is your attempts to explain the "why". Without an explanation of the incentives/mechanics of the trade, these videos typically just devolve into "earlier people bad". But weaving in details like "Europe getting richer -> the former poor wanting calories -> sugar provides calories -> sugar needs slaves -> Spain sought slaves" makes it clear that slavery was part of a wider system of economics and culture rather than just the poor moral judgment of a previous era. We can then see our modern world has similar incentive structures that produce dystopian outcomes, and perhaps learn from the past rather than just condemn it.
Anything to make you feel better, buddy.
u said some bullshit
It’s always been about money and power.
In case our Christmas is too cheerful, here comes History Scope to bring our mood down again :D
But in all seriousness: Great video!
This was such a nice holiday gift - the gift of horrors from the past! My gratitude History Scope :)
A new History Scope video is always exciting
When it comes to bringing down Christmas, Israel is already excelling in that field with their contiunous attacks on Palestine and the Palestinian people
It was also Christians who worked to end slavery, though.
@@mycrazylife1111 I KNOW RIGHT?
@@maxheadrom3088Christians created an entire philosophy to justify, expand and entrench slavery. Even today you find Christians who promote the same white supremacist narratives to justify their own abuses.
Great Work! I love how you bring in your own ideas, side facts and topics around the theme like why aren't slaves used in europe, the role of Portugal, spain, monopolys or how it evolved out of indulged serfs that truly separates your video from standard documentations. A truly masterpiece thank you! Very interesting video ❤
"it was hot, it was wet, and it was fertile" ........ oh my
I had Bessie Smith singing "Need a little sugar in my bowl" in my head at that point! XD
😏
Smh 😂 🤫
Sounes like my ex 😂
Great video, friend. As an African (Nigerian), it is refreshing to see more objective coverage of the history of slavery in Africa. I appreciate how you point out how the slave trade already existed in Africa long before Europeans came and how it is was facilitated by other Africans and Arabs, and the Europeans just used that to establish the trans Atlantic trade. Most people here, and elsewhere, wrongly assume all slavery in Africa started with the Europeans but thanks for not being like that.
gotta admit its all pretty horrifying though
@@sandran17 yeah, a lot of ancient history is. I mean, my ancestors back in what became Nigeria were known for human sacrifice. Ancient history tends to be dark sometimes.
@@orboakin8074your not a Nigerian, it's an absolute lie about you talking about sacrifice considering Nigeria is a concept made by Europeans they are over 250 ethnic groups so your saying all 250 performed sacrifice ?. Your just a white , trying to do both sides to the transatlantic slavery, European where the biggest slavers and no revisionist history will changed that. 😊
@orboakin8074 as much as human sacrifice is terrible, least its just killing a poor bastard and being done with it, torturing them for 10 years with agonising back breaking work on the basis of sheer greed feels worse to me.
@@sandran17 you have a point. Plus considering how most of our African ancestors were also doing the "10 years" of torture and forced labour to each other, it was equally horrible. At least with the Europeans, they actually abolished slavery that they were doing and that other Africans were doing to each other.
Most interesting tidbit of information, was the industrial revolution was started to continue slavery.
It's not the only cause. It would have happened anyway for other reasons, as the populations of Europe increased as well. But it was a factor in terms of export. With nearly all export increases in the 18th century being from trade with Africa, in the case of Great Britain.
Very educational, it’s something you know, or at least you think you know, but you never really realise just how intricate the entire thing was to 1 cultures economy at the detriment of others. The things human beings will do out of insatiable greed
You are so good at explaining things
Another great work of yours, but I am just missing one piece here. The Slavic slave trade. It would be super interesting if you could touch that subject of early Western European kingdoms raiding Slavic tribes for slave trade. Genoa and Venice were the main ports sending captured slavs to sell in the Middle East. I hope you can touch on this part of history in the future!
As "Slav" is where the name "slave" comes from due to the estern Europeans becoming the "gold standard" anybody else was just called the same name despite not being eatern European in origin it would be great to also here about this.
Best quick overview Ive seen.
You put in just enough of almost all parts of how this happened
Help me out here if you can, how is it that it was 400 years of slavery if slavery didnt started here in America until 1619
It ended in 1865, even if it started in the 1500 that would still only be 300 some years
@@robertmorris716 then we can also say it ended just before WW2
@@Lee-ed9wv then we can also give different dates of when it started
@Lee-ed9wv history even has the start date and end date of the 400 years the iseraelites were slaves in Egypt, down to the day but 1500 years later in history not even know the start date and end date of the transatlantic slavery
Often times I question history and question the choices people made. But your videos make it seem clear as day, and the perspective I have gained into these peoples lives has been absolutely invaluable!
What a great Christmas present you given us. Thank you and happy holidays. ☺️🌲🥳
I find it so ironic this video popped up after watching a video on the less famous but more horrible Arab Slave trade. I guess because they castrated all the men and therefore no descendants its just not talked about but it lasted 1000 years though. I felt kinda bad for not knowing more about it.
yeah smh at people blaming white people for slavery when it was black slavers doing the enslaving for profits thing in the first place
They're both horrible
By what possible metric can you call the Trans-Saharan slave trade worse than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?
* Children born of the Arab Slave Trade were free, children born of Trans-Atlantic slavery were kept in slavery.
* More than half of all victims of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade died en-route to their buyers, while the exact numbers for the Trans-Saharan trade are unclear, we know it was nowhere near that high
* Slaves in the 'Arab World' were given significantly greater rights (still not much; analogous to modern animal cruelty laws) than those in European Colonies, whose rights ranged from very limited to nonexistent
* Use of mutilation and torture was FAR more widespread in European Colonies, as a manner of threatening other slaves into line
* The living conditions of slaves on plantations were abysmal compared to even the worst the Arab Slave Trade had to offer, with an average life expectancy of only a few years.
* Even if we go by the most conservative estimates of the total number of West Africans enslaved in the Trans-Atlantic trade, the number is double that of the Arab Slave Trade. This is despite the Arab Slave Trade lasting for 1500 years, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade only lasting 400. During the peak of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century, more than 10 times as many Africans were being trafficked over the Atlantic as over the Sahara.
* Systematic rape (mostly of preteen and teenage girls) was used in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to turn some female slaves into 'breeders' to increase the slave population. This alone meant that tens of millions more were enslaved under the Western European slavery system than the North African slavery system; as awful as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was, it is just the tip of the iceberg of Slavery in the Americas and Caribbean as a whole.
IDK which video you watched, so what I'm about to say might not be applicable to that one in particular, but you should be very skeptical of the intentions and intellectual honesty of any video creator arguing that the Arab Slave Trade was worse. TH-cam is chock full of White Supremacist propaganda videos posing as histories of the Arab Slave Trade, which exaggerate the scale and cruelties of the Trans-Saharan trade in order to downplay or deflect from the cruelty of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. This revisionist rhetoric is mostly done in an effort to whitewash European colonialism and to minimize the massive racial inequality in the New World which it created. It's a phenomenon very similar to the Neo-Confederate movement or attempts to sanitize Rhodesia.
@@hypie88 If you think any of this comment is a joke, I urge you to do more reading on both the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Saharan slave trades. Some recommendations (all from top scholars in the field)...
Slavery and African life: Occidental, Oriental, and African slave trades (Manning, 1990)
Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (Lovejoy, 2011)
Slavery and The Slave Trade in The Context of West African History (Fage, 1990)
Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving Port (Law, 2004)
The slave trade: the story of the Atlantic slave trade: 1440-1870 (Thomas, 1997)
The rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (Green, 2011)
The rise of African slavery in the Americas (Eltis, 2000)
The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420 (Eltis et al, 2021)
A fistful of shells: West Africa from the rise of the slave trade to the age of revolution (Green, 2019)
The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (Wright, 2007)
A historical geography of the trans-Saharan trade (Ross, 2010)
@@p00bixfacts look at the zanj rebellion and compare it to the largest American rebellion which didn't even number 300 men
thanks for the video, merry christmas
I just found your channel! Your content is immaculate. Starting with this video.
This was about the most in depth, while simultaneously concise explanations of this subject I have had the pleasure of learning from. Thank you.
Refreshing look on a lot of topics that are obviously related to the societal problems we face globally in the present.
It's never to be explained as a This OR That, but as an AND. It's pretty complex, as are humans inherently.
Good job en bedankt man.
Typically it's wise to watch the entire video before commenting, but even though there's 13 minutes remaining (I'm so looking forward to viewing them!), a thought has been percolating in my head that I really wanna share:
You were so spot-on about sugar and the calories thing. If it gives the people more energy, they will want it more, because it allows them to do more, which allows them to buy more. For our machines we've seen this with coal and oil and natural gas and now (finally!) renewables (we'll skip nuclear because I feel that was not adopted widely for political reasons, rather than economical ones (and the point where politics becomes economics and vice versa will also be saved for another time)).
But yes! Sugar! And then coffee, because sugar gave you more physical energy (literally, in calories) but now coffee also gave you mental energy and so it lead to a mental revolution of sorts (Austrian coffeehouses, philosophy, maths, etc) and we still rely on it today (how many people would find their work literally incompletable without caffeine?). And now today we have another powdery white substance generating incredible amounts of wealth for those who control it, because it also provides massive amounts of mental energy, but for more higher-order levels of work (trading, entertainment, performing, etc) and also it has found huge success in off-work applications also; if you're a student in certain European cities, you only have so many hours each night and after using sugar to get through the physical demands of the day and caffeine to get through the mental load of your studies, you turn to this third very profitable substance to get through the craziness of nightlife and socialization and such.
I'm curious what the next thing in this series would be. We have the stuff that makes life easier, the stuff that makes work easier, and the stuff that makes play easier. What else remains? I'm also curious about what the precursor to sugar would be. Just... Food in general, I guess. Maybe bread/grain. Stores well, lots of calories, opens up possibilities... But that's a more societal-level thing than individual. Hrm.
But yes! 13 minutes remain, time to enjoy them. 😁
12:16 Sugar production was brutal back then, and used a huge amount of wood to boil it down.
Y'know its a good day when history scope uploads
Another great video as per usual
May I recommend adding in the time codes for the Chapters you're already structuring the video into
This is most thorough and understandable explanation of the transatlantic slave trade than any school book can give
Bruuuh getting drunk and waking up a slave is wiiiild
When you pointed out how sloth is one of the seven deadly sins while discussing indentured servitude, I couldn't help but notice the morbid irony of that statement. The whole motivation behind heinously punishing people who don't work in this instance is greed, another deadly sin! As a matter of fact, the biggest driving factor behind this whole disgusting gambit is greed! I suppose the Christians at the time were selective about which deadly sins they actually cared about...
Anyways, thanks for the very informative video!
Yay, it's a Christmas miracle. Love the content!! Always a great day when history scope releases a video.
Amazing video thanks. Please produce more videos!
Man I've been waiting for this one for months
This is a great video to Published Right before Christmas!
I tried bringing it out earlier. But because of poor time management on my part it came out late.
It is a very good video to have a general understanding of how Trans-Atlantic slavery was set up. But there are several inaccuracies, especially about Spain (which is to ve expected from someone suspiciously Dutch). But most of it is true.
1. He didn't mention the Siete Partidas, which granted rights to slaves (and when he did briefly mention the rights of slaves, he made it look as if it was the same everywhere, but it was mostly Spain). He also didn't mention how freed slaves integrated Spanish society relatively quickly (same as enslaved Muslims who converted to Catholicism in the Peninsula).
2. He does say that slavery was common in Europe, even along with serfdom. However, slavery was common everywhere... In Africa, America, Asia... EVERYWHERE. Nobody had conceived of a system without slaves. But in order to protect Native Americans, Spain did create legislation abolishing Native American slave by the end of the 1600s. And this Spanish contribution was the beginning of human rights everywhere...
3. This guy takes his time to mock the Catholic church and their understanding of how black people were descendants of Ham. But never once does he mention Scientific Racism, the brainchild of the Enlightment, which was the philosophical basis for am even more brutal form of colonization and slavery by Great Britain, the Netherlands, and France. Why doesn't he mention that his Atheist ideology brought even more brutal slavery than even the Catholics?
4. He also ignores how Great Britain got involved in the independence of Portugal by making an alliance with the Duke of Bragança... It was this meddling what brought the Iberian union down. The explanation was overly simplistic.
5. Spain's wealth was far more dependent on trade with China than on the slave trade. The Spanish Empire is a lot more comparable to the Roman Empire than to XIX century British Slave trade, especially in the sense that Spain gave back. Spain invested heavily in raising the standards living in America, and by the early XVII century, it was better to live in Mexico than in the Peninsula.
6. Also, some people could and, in fact, did return to Spain when they weren't successful in America. It was not a one-way trip... Even a great deal of Native Americans in the XVII and XVIIII centuries would go to the Peninsula, demand their rights to be vindicated, and then return. Some even stayed and had families (usually rich guys, of course).
“…and a dead person, is an unproductive person…” Truer words… 😂😂
Thanks for this excellent piece of work! 04:57 "Er gaat niets boven Groningen". Why this quote? Groninger here 🙂
It was the first phrase that came up in my head :D
Cool animation dude.
What an AMAZING video.
I am an educated Portuguese, so I am a bit familiar with this topic... Still, I learned a lot with this video.
Yesss, another great video. Keep it up man 👍
Thank you for this excellent video. I love the fact you treat history as a science (which is hard on youtube).
another amazing history video, love your style!
When j finished watching every second of this video i was expecting to see 800k lowest to like -3M followers and like 1.5M views. These comments barely have 1 comment on them. You will succeed sir. You are talented. Keep up the amazing work
I'm very curious to see what these comments will look like.
Me too. I've already had to remove a couple of them.
But thanks to my other videos on Africa I already have a list of certain phrases which are held for review. So hopefully it's not going to be too bad.
@@HistoryScope That's good to hear.
@@HistoryScopeThe last video on Africa still traumtises me till this day!😭 I'm surprised you didn't do a comments off but that's a good thing, i guess!
@@HistoryScopeit’s honestly not half as bad as I expected. Excellent video!!!
Hello again, and seems we come this time that you have improved more the last time when you used maps. But, some things I noticed.
Some small mistakes I saw.
6:43 Not sure, but in the map it shows that france annexed Savoy, Genoa, and other Italian states when they weren't. As you know, Italy compromised of Italian states as well as states of the Holy Roman Empire at the time.
15:52 Panama and Puerto Rico were explored by Christopher Columbus and eventually colonized (to be aware). A fun fact that Panama had the first European settlement on the Pacific coast of America known as Old Panama (Panamá Viejo) in 1519. The first settlements in Puerto Rico started in 1508.
24:42 Spain did not control all of the south region of Brazil, but did in some areas. But, understandable as you were focusing on explaining of why eventually slaves were being used in the colonies.
Overall, I see very informative on the matter and more detailed that what could my teacher explain in my class when this topic was being explained (and good improvement after all).
Merry Christmas
Great, great, research! Awesome video!
7:00 Caravel invention by Portugal. 8:10 Why enslavement of Black people was allowed by the old Catholic Church. 9:30 How most African slaves were enslaved by Europeans... Not tgrough raids and kidnapping, but by trading for tyeym with local West African nations that captured slaces themselves. 16:20 so that's how the reconquista worked. 21:30 How Europeans bought tons of slaves
Ya know one thing I found strange during my time learning about slavery is why Arabian slavery is glossed over by almost all historians. Arab slavery of Africans was more brutal, larger in scope and they created a dependence for them that still have not gone away to this day. Atlantic slavery looks nice compared to Arab or Barbary slavery.
Who said this video was comparing anything?
but why does any and every attempt to explore slavery in *AMERICA* need to be met with this defensive answer of “b-b-but what about the Arabs???” Nobody is denying this ever happened, nor do these particular slave trades do anything to justify or make what YOUR ancestors did any less bad. Own it or don’t. It is what it is. It is focused on so much bc these events of the trans Atlantic slave trade built the empires of the west that would conquer the world and eventually drag us all into two of the most destructive world wars of human history. All of this happened within the last 500 years, and has a direct impact upon the lives of Hundreds of millions of not billions of people. I hate this obtuse deflective narrative. I don’t even mind talking about slavery in other societies or other times of history. It was and is an institution that changes and has different nuances according to time, place and people. The slave trade of the Arab empires and emirates of the Middle Ages and of the later Barbary coast was different from the trans Atlantic slave trade in scale and in practices. But I guess nuance doesn’t matter to you, right?
Trans Atlantic Trade moved more people in about a quarter of the time
There are hundreds of videos and thousands of books about the trans Saharan slave trade, people just pretend there aren't.
I learned about it school so it's bs to say it isn't taught too
Both systems of slavery were terribly evil. But atleast with the transatlantic slave trade their were survivors and their descendants are still alive today. With the moslem-arab slave trade there are none or hardly any decendants because the muslims castrated their slaves. Pretty evil to enslave a man and then castrated that is straight demonic
This is amazing..very, seriously complex. Slavery has always been around since we walked around, don’t ever kid yourself. Now it is children and women as slaves.
Slavery in and of itself has been around for forever yeah. The issue with American slavery was it was based on race and made permanent and hereditary so whites involved could maximize their profits in the Americans plantation industry. I don't know why so many people can't understand that. It was a different ballgame when you go from working for somebody to pay off a debt or prisoners of war then being released, etc. to having generations of people stuck as chattel because of their race then having all sorts of laws and policies accordingly. That really didn't happen elsewhere in history the same way
Bro.. this sooo good 🎉❤
Great Work!!!
i absolutely love this channel
Please also cover topic 'the rise and decline of Pakistan.'
Hello, I only recently found your channel and I must say I am impressed with the amount of research you put into the videos. I am wondering if in future videos about the trans atlantic slave trade you will cover the role expulsions of non-Catholics from Catholic kingdoms played. specifically when Spain expelled all non-Catholics, Portugal welcomed the refugees, but soon after non-Catholics were expelled from Portugal. In both cases anyone who either did not covert or was unable to leave were sold into slavery. Now when the refugees went from Spain to Portugal the Portuguese sent them to live on an Island off of West Africa, and when the Portuguese later expelled non-Catholics the people on the West African island became slaves in the trans atlantic slave trade, among the non-Catholics would have been Jews
Hello again, long time no see
Great work
love your channel baby
Why don't people talk about the slave trade going east done by the Arabs to my people and I hate when yall compare indentured slavery to chattel slavery 🤦🏾🤦🏾
Cuz Arabs aren’t white so nobody cares lmao
@@PapaSwisha he did talk about it and the topic of the video is the trans Atlantic slave trade
@rehmanahmed7742 holy fuck your reading comprehension is terrible. I clearly said the slave trade going EAST done by the Arabs that sent my people to the so called middle east and India etc. But carry on
Love your video
>How much do you know about it.
I know who owned the ships and auction houses. I also know why they were always closed on Saturday.
This is the first film I've ever seen that explains how the African slave trade began in the first place
Wonderful video, you should do one on the Arab slave trade.
24:09 greed is also one of the seven deadly sins. But this sin never crossed the landlord mind
Typical landlord!
im scared to read these comments
Amazing
Interesting. I have Portugese heritage from Madeira and I did a DNA test and I'm part Senegambian! A part of history.
Hi from Madeira! At its peak, around 10% of Madeira's population was made of slaves, although that era was much earlier than the peak of the slave trade.
Can you do a video on how the US became the richest country in the world, but also why the country has a massive wealth gap?
Hello, I really like your videos, Can you tell me what software you use to make these videos? Thank you very much!
Real risk of starvation as a part of life tends to make society more accepting of brutality especially when food is involved, if the most basic needs are not met then it’s less likely people will think about the plight of others.
Thats oversimplying it wayyyy too much, it was also a matter of money, greed and ignorance. Slavery was more profitable for sharecroppers and landowners, thats what one of the main topics of this video was. The Europeans also barely thought of black slaves and indigenous people as humans, they were resources, property.
That's incorrect: the less people have the more they are willing to share with others because of the "we're all in this together" mentality
Scarcity created by a parasitic class of people sitting on top of society is very different from scarcity created by everyone's life generally sucking because of limited resources.
@@HistoryScope
Not when it comes to starvation
Tell me youve never faced actual hardship without telling me
@@HistoryScopedefinitely not true, should come to Cambodia where I live to see
Okay, so first of all, great video and great research, keep up the great work.
However I would like to discuss a certain point that is spoken in the video, about the Spanish Empire.
You see, even tho today a Big part of it is surrounded by black legend it is factually incorrect to frame it as an inherently exploitative entity When in various cases it was quite the opposite.
Also the reason why Queen Isabel was so reluctant with the mistreat of native people is because she firmly believed in equality according to her Catholic beliefs,, she has also been cuoted as to give the order of equal treatment as any other spaniard and banning their enslavement even though its true lots of people Enslaved native people for personal gains and some posterior Kings turned a blind eye for personal gain, but it is quite the archivement that Spain took the stance it took on slavery and even more if We take into account the context of the era and what other contemporaries like France or England did.
Once again thx for the video and for the content in general, great style and explanation!
“You can’t make a profit if your dead”
i seen the subtitle when you said "crazy"
0:32 I strongly feel you need to give dates and names of societies because Hetlot Slavery by the Spartans, Slavery by the Romans and Slavery in the early middle ages are completely different beasts
amazing video
Good video but many inaccuracies. West African slaves were rare outside of the Maghreb and trans Atlantic voyage. The slave from Africa in the Middle East and Asia were Ethiopian (Habash to Indians) Zanj (Bantu East Africans) and Nilotics (common in Egypt and a big role in the Fatamid Caliphate.
Also another innacuracy you mentioned was the supposed collapse of west African industry in the 19th century. Thus is also not necessarily true with the exception of dahomey and igbo ppl of SE Nigeria the rest of West Africa didn't even participate in the trans atlantic slave trade at this time and actually focused more on trading with themselves rather than with Europeans one example is with the ashanti empire whom by the 19th century had completely pulled out of the trans trans atlantic market and instead focused on trading ashanti manufactured guns, gold, goldworks, timber and silk to numerous sahelian states like the sokoto caliphate or the tukolor empire considering trans atlantic trade to be irrelevant and the kingdom of benin whom had long ago pulled out of the trans trans atlantic slave trade in the early 16th century had been long selling palm oil and manila to other africans and Europeans for centries therefore there wasn't a collapse of west African industry if anything in certain parts it increased like gun/ gunpowder manufacturing in ashanti or wassolou for instance therefore that part was pure mis information
>the rest of West Africa didn't even participate in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade
...what on earth are you talking about? The Ashanti Empire was one of the primary centers of the Trans-Atlantic trade; the modern capital of Ghana (Accra) literally started as a port for trade with Danish and British slavers. And basically all mining within the Ashanti realm during the 18th and 19th century was performed by slaves. The Sokoto and Tukulor weren't directly involved in the trade because they were deep inland, but they did participate indirectly through selling slaves to coastal African societies. And that's saying nothing of the Trans-Saharan trade in which the Tukulor Empire was by far the most heavily involved country.
@@p00bix dude what are you on about?? The ashanti empire literally stop selling slaves by the 19th century even thomas bodwich noted this and no the ashantis weren'tthe biggest slave trader the would be dahomey and the kingdom of kongo in central africa secondly as you mentioned sokoto and tukolor didn't participate in the trans atlantic slave trade as they were literally in land but the documents from both sokoto and tukolor don't also talk of them selling a large number of slaves to other African states northwards or southwards if anything the same manuscripts from these empires though they mention a large amount of domestic slavery ( but not TAST) mention that these states literally got a large amount of revenue from exporting manufactured goods which that income would be further used to support local industries such as ashanti/wassolou gun manufacturing or ashanti gunpowder manufacturing. African states did not just rely on slavery in order to get rich as this is very unsustainable as shown by the examples of the kingdom of kongo or dahomey even the ashanti empror when posed by this same question from thomas bodwich literally said how unsustainable that type of society would be
@@p00bix and as l stated about how the ashantis were not the 'epicentre for the slave trade' only 17 percent at most left the modern gold coast although many historians say that the gold coast could have even contributed less at 11 or 10 percent most slaves came from west-central Africa or the port of loango aka congo/angola at nearly 42percent or even the bight of biafra at 20.2 percent
You are correct in a lot of ways. Certain industries did really well regardless of the slave trade. The African steel industry was as advanced as the rest of the world up until the 19th century.
But it's the sudden disappearance of vital industries in the 19th century that we think caused an overall economic depression (although more research is needed. Africa is woefully under-researched). And after the slave trade largely ended a lot of this industry quickly returned to West Africa, Central Africa, and South Africa. But it wasn't fast enough to catch up with the Europeans at the time.
Like the Africans rounding up and selling the Africans west?
That kind of FACT?
Anybody else writing an essay on the middle passage like me? :)
YES NEW VID- o it’s about that
You are wise at all because you have explained to me well
New video let’s go
~39:29 The British absolutely did enslave Native Americans following many wars with them (including the Anglo-Powhatan Wars, the Pequot War, and King Philip's War), though most of them were shipped to the Caribbean and sold rather than being used for labor in their own homelands. Also, early on many of the Africans in the British colonies were indentured servants themselves rather than slaves; the firm divide between European indentured servants and African slaves was established at different times in different British colonies, with some of the Caribbean ones establishing race-based chattel slavery early in the 17th century, but some such as Virginia only officially establishing a racial line between servants and slaves at the end of the 17th century.
48:20 why is Africa still poor?
Let's say you are a baker and your pies are worth $5 each, but a person continuously barters for $1 a pie, then sells your pies for $10 abroad and in your neighborhood for $15.
When trying to renegotiate, you are threatened with sanctions and anyone who stands up for you ends up being killed. So, you are poor until there is a fair market without bullying.
That is why China, Iran, and Russia are stepping up and sticking together. 😊
Wtf does that have anything to do with Russia or China???
But since you brought it up ....look at what Russia is doing literally this very moment to Ukraine, who was once part of the same country. And all over them wanting to take Ukraines natural resources.
China has literally killed the most people in human history....more than once. And one of those times was not even that long ago. 1950s or so, Mao Zadong. 40 million killed. Of his own people. If you are really that delusional to think that Russia and China gives a shit about the people in Africa.....boy are you in for a rude awakening. But I'm sure you're convinced that Russia and China are good but America & Europe is bad.
As a part of the Dewolfe family I approve of this video
Interesting, you leave a lot of information out of your explanation. Maybe I missed it, but you seem to forget who arranged for slaves to be available for sale. By doing so, you leave out how African’s raided other tribes to sell them into slavery.
Slavery is a terrible issue from our past, and from today. Covering the topic requires truthfulness otherwise it will continue to flourish.
OMG YES.
FINALLY
Hey your most viewed video is about the USSR could you make a deep video about the ussr government from the start to finish
This 'slavery' - thing sounds fun, maybe I should try it!!! :P
I read about this. From what I researched, a lot of slave transport businesses went under from not fulfilling contracts.
It just seems to me like too risky a business venture from all the bankruptcies I read about.
So clear. Thanke
er gaat toch best veel boven groningen, nee grapje leuke video
It's fair enough to look at the Trans-Atlantic slave trade through the lens of Western Europe and North America, and this video does a good job of that, but it does gloss over some context which unfortunately reinforces some misconceptions about world history.
For example, no mention was made what really motivated the Europeans to look for a *longer* route to Asia around Africa (it was largely caused by the Silk Trade routes being cut off by Muslim empires, especially after the fall of Constantinople).
The statement about the Trans-Saharan routes transporting fewer slaves than the coastal Atlantic one only applies to slaves sent to Europe. The Arab/Muslim slave trade was objectively bigger and killed and mutilated far more Africans than the Trans-Atlantic one did in history. That doesn't make it any "better" or excuse it any way. But many like those in the comments here get upset when that's pointed out, either because they're ignorant of history or they want to cover it up.
23:82 People still behave in such a way. He asked the question of why more human slaves were not simply purchased like livestock...? He also made it seem like showing up with construction materials and firearms led to a legitimate trade in human resources rather than bribery, extortion, or intimidation as forts were being built by impoverished Western Europeans who never adopted native ethnicities.
FINALLY! The fun the part of history.
I ain't going to watch this yet I'm going to wait until all 3 videos are out to watch it
Just watch it twice
In order to be fully indoctrinated n all
One glaring deficiency is the fact that Africans rounded up Africans to the coast for sale to the wet for weapons and whiskey
If westerners went too far inland, or stayed too long, they would catch a tropical disease and die
Right to the waters edge they were brought as slaves by Africans to be sold as slaves
Took me a moment at 15:53 to figure out that the red wasn’t some country I’d never seen before
I know you mention it at the end of the video but you mention England a lot while showing the union jack/british isles which unfortunately are not interchangeable
The British Isles were ruled by the British Empire which used the union jack. Hence that's what we show on screen
@@HistoryScope yes which is absolutely fine but my point is mentioning England while showing Britain/British flag is not quite right since England and Britain are not the same thing. It's a minor critique in an otherwise very insightful video
The French played no role in Scottish entry into the UK, as they had been part of a Union of Crowns and thus outside the French orbits for over 60 years.
That was the point I was trying to make: they should have stopped it from their own geopolitical objectives. But they couldn't.
France's failure to keep Scotland independent led to it eventually losing its status as a superpower to the British.
I think you need to be a bit more careful with using the Union Jack. That flag contains the Scottish flag, so you should really use the English flag when talking about England before the Act of Union.
Basically back in the day, everyones justification for the atrocities they commited was "Because God said so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯." .......
Excellent video! Just one observation: Chilli comes from Central America and was taken to Asia by the Portuguese who also brought back to America several Asian species like Sugar Cane and Mango.
Also, the fall of Constatinople to the Ottoman Empire also created an economic incentive to sail around Africa since the Ottomans demanded high taxes to cross the region.
Also, the Queen of Portugal prohibited enslaving natives from the the New World. (around 1550).
What mythical Portuguese Queen from the 1550s are you talking about!? The first Portuguese Queen as head of State was Maria I...in the 1770s
“And a dead person is an unproductive person”
13:54 Porugal already owns everything in their land, i dont see a reason they would like to share their taxes with someone else by giving them a monopoly. they could just tax everyone directly , this just seems like they are putting distance between the crown and the workers being taxed.
At the time a government didn't have the resources to tax the whole country. That required A LOT of people which in turn required a lot of salaries which in turn required increasing taxes.
So before the age of centralized governments the monopoly system was used to get taxes. In essence, they were franchising their tax office to whoever could get them the most income. This was common all the way back in Rome (maybe earlier, idk)
@@HistoryScope so it was because of the cost of taxation. Didnt think of that.
@@user-xp8nq5mf9y you just got the whole basis of serfdom and feudalism explained to you