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Show 68 - BLITZ Human Resources

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

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  • A Controversial Topic
    • Dan Carlin will discuss the Atlantic slave trade, despite others advising him not to.
    • He acknowledges the sensitivity and complexity of the topic. Transcript: Dan Carlin Used to say, she would say, intelligent people know these things, right? So a certain bedrock of a knowledge base. And you might not get any higher than that from me because that’s another reason that maybe you want to steer clear of the show like this is because it’s monumentally huge, and a person Like yours truly is completely inadequate to dealing with it. I always hope that I can be one little tile in the giant mosaic that is the picture here and that that tile has something to offer that’s unique. So (Time 0:02:47)
  • Shifting Focus to the Atlantic Slave Trade
    • Earlier episodes explored the broader history of slavery, including its pervasiveness.
    • This episode focuses on the Atlantic slave trade. Transcript: Dan Carlin They’re not that foundational otherwise other people would have asked them but you can be the judge of that assuming that without this script we ever get to that now we did a show quite A while back called addicted to bondage that looked at the overall human institution of slavery going back you know, to the very beginnings of civilization. It wasn’t as in-depth as that makes it sound, but it was more of a holistic look at the slavery question than dealing, and I think it specifically tried to avoid the more recent version That was specifically mostly African in nature, to give a sense of how common this thing was in human history all over the world. And (Time 0:04:30)
  • Slavery’s Pervasiveness
    • Slavery, once considered a “peculiar institution”, is historically widespread.
    • Chattel slavery, the lowest form, treats humans as property. Transcript: Dan Carlin Chunk of its population was enslaved so what was once referred to as a peculiar institution slavery is not we live in the strange time now a time where slavery is universally reviled Now i did read that there were more than 40 million people classified as slaves right now in the world which if true would make it almost certainly this period in human history where there Were the most slaves 40 million is a lot but sometimes the criteria is let’s call it slavery on a sliding scale and that isn’t meant to be trite but there’s all kinds of slavery and it’s Sort of on a gradient on one end you have things like um you know wage slavery as some people would say right people that are trapped in jobs that don’t make them enough money to live but They get paid then you have things like bond slavery debt slavery which is really the same thing indentured servitude all the way down to the lowest level of slavery on the gradient chattel Slavery chattel slavery is where we take human beings and we make them things. Maybe it would be more apropos rather than comparing them to a hammer or a chair to compare them to some sort of animal you’d find on a farm. Because the slave owners would often try to keep them healthy the same way you would try to keep some livestock healthy but it’s you know you own them you can do whatever you want with them That’s (Time 0:06:59)
  • Columbus’s Medieval Mindset
    • The Old World, connected by trade and culture, influenced Columbus’s actions.
    • Columbus, a product of the Middle Ages, brought those values to the New World. Transcript: Dan Carlin There’s not close contact but silk is making it one way money’s making it the other in other words that there are things like diseases, foods, codes of conduct and morality that are shared. You know, I mean, the Mongols alone in the 1300s, 1200s would have been spreading a lot of this stuff against everybody else’s will. So when columbus rolls up into the new world so-called new world and lands the person that is landing there is a person from the middle ages and (Time 0:09:18)
  • Religion over Race
    • Pre-Columbus, slave trade focused more on religion than race.
    • Skin color’s role in slavery developed later. Transcript: Dan Carlin Columbus’s day before he finds the so-called new world slavers were more likely to care about the slaves religious affiliation than their skin color The Christians in Spain would Enslave the Moors across into North Africa, the North African peoples who are like Moroccans and Algerians today, and those people would enslave the Christians as well. The Turks had lots of slaves. The Arabs had lots of slaves. The Italians had slave markets the russians had slaves the mongols enslaved everyone the chinese had slaves the indians had slaves they had slavery in sub-saharan africa with so-called Black africa and they had slavery in the americas before columbus even got there similar pattern to the rest of the world too some peoples had it some peoples didn’t amongst the peoples That did practice slavery it was on the slavery gradient scale too i mean there were and you’ll often hear people sort of try to defend these tribes as not really being slave owning tribes Because the slave was more like a family member a family member who couldn’t leave and had to do whatever they were told but that is a little different on the slavery gradient scale than Someone who’s captured in war and is a slave who’s held as raw fodder for some human sacrificial religious event that is upcoming, right? You’re (Time 0:11:54)
  • A Strange Fusion
    • The fusion of proto-capitalism and human bondage is a bizarre historical paradox.
    • Slavery’s persistence despite economic advancements is perplexing. Transcript: Dan Carlin One thing that has always struck me about this era is because some of it especially economically begins to look like well there’s a modernity to it it’s not the kind of economic system We have now but we’re an evolved form of it, right? We’re descendant from this system that’s about to develop in the 1400s because it’s the first truly globalized system, right? Because it’s the first time that the so-called old world and the so-called new world are aware of each other. Time they’re included in the economy the first time you have a global economy right and yet the idea that you could take a kind of a proto-capitalism and inject human bondage as one of The commodities that it works with the same way you would work with sugar or tobacco or oil today it’s bizarre they they seem to be from different eras like slavery should have already Died out before we got to this level of ability to you know maximize mercantile operations right (Time 0:16:12)
  • Progress vs. Expansion
    • Historical optimists cite anti-slavery progress, like papal restrictions on Christian slaves.
    • Pessimists emphasize the expanding scale and industrialization of slavery. Transcript: Dan Carlin If you want to be a historical optimist you can say that there were there were events on a historical slavery timeline that look like there’s progress happening here and there people Will eliminate slavery and do away with slavery and make rules that further constrict slavery and I’m not saying they’re not progress but when you make rules, for example, I believe It was one pope that said that, you know, Christians could be slave owners and Christians could be slaves, but here on after, you can’t have Christian slaves owned by non-Christian Slaveholders. Now, anything is progress in the right direction, but this to me sounds more like we don’t really have a problem with the idea of slavery we just have a problem with people like us being Enslaved but again not going to quibble with progress just going to point out that the historical optimists who want to make a point can point to some things that often if you examine Them on the ground with a critical eye look again progress but look more like you’re promoting the lowest people in your society a level or two up on the slavery gradient scale right maybe Something from a chattel slave to a serf or from a serf to a peasant or from a peasant to an indentured servant you know i mean i’m not again saying it’s not progress but um the historical Pessimist would come back with, yes, doesn’t seem to mean that much when you look at how many new peoples are going to be enslaved and how this is going to be turned into a machine. And (Time 0:18:31)
  • Renaissance Influence on Slavery
    • The Renaissance rediscovery of classical works impacted views on slavery.
    • Classical justifications for slavery influenced later periods, including the antebellum South. Transcript: Dan Carlin Start with the fact that there is the beginnings, as we all know, of something your history books call the Renaissance. Renaissance means rebirth. And it was always associated with new ideas, or a better way to put it would be old ideas that were rediscovered. The rediscovery of classical civilization was the way my old history book used to label it. Now, modern histories do a better job of as i think i alluded to pointing out that the people in europe for example had gotten their hands on some of this ancient greek and roman stuff a Couple of centuries earlier they were pouring through the scientific side of this stuff but at the renaissance they start getting and they become popular right these works never died Out they were in small little enclaves of knowledge including you know in in the arabic language that gets retransmitted over but but it wasn’t in wide general dissemination and then During the renaissance all of these ancient greek and roman pre-christian cultural and philosophical and artistic works sort of blow into the consciousness of the literate people In europe and it begins to change everything and to find a historical analogy now is to is to tread into science fiction territory because this is a thousand years or more before the people Of the renaissance can you imagine finding a book 1500 years old and it’s got all this stuff we didn’t know yet in it or calculations we didn’t think about or philosophical ideas that We’ve never been exposed to and then this stuff reaches the internet high of mind and changes everything that’s kind of the crazy stuff behind the renaissance rediscovery of classical Civilization but what’s funny is part of the reason that this is new to the people in europe at this time period is because they’ve been living with centuries of you know one sort of mental Construct that they were working with, which sort of excluded a lot of these pre their mental construct ideas. Right. They lived in a very Christian world. Steaming cup of coffee that all of a sudden gets an injection of pre-Christian, you know, cream or half and half into the mix. And you can imagine, you know, what that does. The turbulence of the time period upcoming is in part influenced by all of these ideas that a bunch of people who had a very, very, very, very Christian worldview and one that was enforced. Remember, this was the kind of mental thing that if you deviated from it too much, you would find yourself in dire, dire, dire straits. You could find yourself burned in this period for having a worldview too far off the beaten path, right? So (Time 0:21:42)
  • Ocean Navigation and Slavery
    • European advances in ocean navigation enabled direct access to sub-Saharan Africa.
    • This facilitated the growth of the Atlantic slave trade. Transcript: Dan Carlin Let me explain let’s go back to columbus’s birth again right so 1450 ish 51 52 right in there by this time there have been advances in european ocean going travel that’s a good way to put It right ocean going exploration and this is of course one of the more interesting things in all your history books, to go from a situation where, for the most part, human beings would Hug coastlines with naval vessels to going into the open ocean, right? Venturing forth into the Atlantic or the Pacific or what have you, the Indian Ocean. Part of their charm and what blows you away about them. Polynesians in canoes, Vikings in long ships, they had famously done this stuff. But there’s a difference between some of that and the sort of regular ongoing commerce that will be initiated by, you know, man’s venturing forth into the open oceans with big ships. And (Time 0:27:51)
  • Disruption and Demand
    • Europeans established direct contact with sub-Saharan African kingdoms.
    • The fall of Constantinople in 1453 disrupted existing slave trade routes, increasing demand for African slaves. Transcript: Dan Carlin What’s so monumentally different about this era is eventually the Portuguese making their way down the African coast get to the level that’s south of where the Sahara Desert is. In other words, their ships make direct contact with sub-Saharan African kingdoms. And one of the first things that they do is grab some of the people that they see on the coastline, throw them in chains, and take them back to Portugal. So a harbinger maybe of things to come. This is what’s happening like right around Columbus’s birth. And then in 1453, something famously happens that once again, in a supply and demand conversation about the global trading patterns and the price of investments and all these commodities, In 1453, Constantinople falls to the Turks. Now, (Time 0:31:29)
  • Money’s Entanglement
    • The slave trade’s profitability entangled even those not directly involved.
    • Money’s influence grew during this period, shaping exploration and warfare. Transcript: Dan Carlin A lot of people are going to make a lot of money during this time period and that’s another thing that’s worth dealing with is one of those strands to try to unpack here. And it’s a key reason why even people who had nothing to do with slavery ostensibly were impossible to disentangle from the slave trade because money touched everything and connected Everything. And you never want to say that money is not important, but in different time periods, things like currency and trade are more important than others. In the Europe after Rome fell, there was, I mean, (Time 0:36:03)
  • Columbus’s Financial Venture
    • Columbus’s expedition was a financially driven venture seeking new trade routes.
    • This entrepreneurial approach to colonialism shaped early interactions in the New World. Transcript: Dan Carlin Even see it affect everything like exploration and warfare. So this is a time period in history where a lot of places will just hire their defense forces. And usually they’ll just, like in Italy, they’ll hire a general. It’s a condottieri, and that’s a word that is connected to contract. So you hire him, you sign a contract. And they often come with their own armies. Everybody signs a contract. For two years, we will be the army of this Italian state. And this approach to dealing with things actually is involved in the Columbus explorations. I mean, this looks like a giant, well-invested, well-capitalized financial expedition. It’s entrepreneurial colonialism, in a sense. I mean, Columbus, if you follow his career, he went and gave presentations to potential investors. It’s like right out of a Renaissance version of Shark Tank. You know, goes to these people and says, I have a proposal. I’m going to go in the other direction and reach Asia, and we can open up our own direct trade channels right this is a trade deal this is a money-making thing he’s (Time 0:37:32)
  • Columbus’s Unexpected Investment
    • Columbus sought a quick profit (yellow bananas) but found a long-term project (green bananas).
    • The New World’s resources and indigenous population presented a different kind of investment. Transcript: Dan Carlin Would he want this money okay asia is where and Asia in air quotes because these guys have like a Marco Polo level of of understanding of Asia. What’s more, it’s like a time machine version. I was reading that one of the people they were hoping to hook up with was the Mongol Khan in order to make a sort of a trade deal with them. But they don’t knowongol con’s not in charge of the area anymore right their information’s like like seeing the light of a star from so far away you’re seeing you know the past light of A star marco polo is the past light of what asia was but they know that’s where the good spices and all that stuff come from right think of the money involved the spices and all the good stuff From Asia, in air quotes. That stuff comes via a land route to the Mediterranean European part of the world. Caravans and all those sorts of things. And generally, you know, merchant to merchant to merchant handoffs. And we all know there’s juice on each of those deals, right? So by the time it arrives in the, I don’t know what we want to call it, the Euro-Mediterranean theater in North Africa, that whole area, these spices are old, so they’re not exactly fresh. And there have been a lot of markups along the way, so they’re very, very expensive. I mean, what was the old television commercial with the crazy 80 guy, you know, cut out the middlemen and save. Columbus really made it to Asia, in air quotes uh the middleman’s gone and the spices will arrive fresh and you can tap into a completely ripe and ready to go and already operating in a Trading operation right all you have to do is make a deal and give them something and fill your ships with the good stuff and head back Everybody makes a fortune. Easy to calculate Columbus’s percentage then, right? (Time 0:41:09)
  • Germ Catastrophe and First Contact
    • The germ catastrophe decimated indigenous populations, regardless of colonizers’ actions.
    • Columbus’s landfall’s location and the natives’ peaceful nature influenced early interactions. Transcript: Dan Carlin The 1540s there were fewer than 500 survivors end quote now the thing about the germtastrophe is that for the most part i’m sure we can quibble and there’s ways you could argue that it Would impact numbers one way the other but for the most part, it wouldn’t have mattered who showed up or what their values were to initiate first contact. This germtastrophe holocaust is happening anyway. The people who first showed up could have been angelic pacifists, and you’re still going to lose. Let’s pretend you can make it better by having a different relationship you’re still going to lose seven out of ten it’s just it’s a holocaust any way you look at it but of course the people That showed up to initiate first contact are not angelic pacifists they are in fact quite the opposite and there’s a sense here part of it because columbus is lucky i mean if you believe The accounts he’s he’s landed in the garden of eden he could just as easily have landed in some island full of cannibals or you know he could have gotten really unlucky and land in one of Those areas of the americas that have organized states with organized militaries and people ready to resist and fight and lots of them the (Time 0:52:58)
  • The Black Legend
    • Bartolome de las Casas, “defender of the Indians,” documented Spanish cruelty.
    • The “Black Legend” debate questions the extent to which Spanish cruelty was unique. Transcript: Dan Carlin Obviously don’t have the indigenous people’s account of these happenings but we do have the um accounts of people who were their defenders i mean i’m thinking of one dominican spanish Friar in particular named bartolome de las casas who is known as the defender of the indians he’s a he’s a famous figure in places like south america even today in spanish circles he has A more mixed heritage because who’s going to love a person that that paints the country in such a negative light there’s something known as the black legend which is a contention among Some historians that the enemies of Spain, be they geopolitical enemies like the English or the Dutch, or religious enemies like the Protestants of all stripes, conjured up this terrible Legend of Spanish cruelty that isn’t deserved. And Bartolome de las Casas’ work is often cited as sort of the fountainhead, right, the origin of the black legend. I was trying to research this a little bit, and I stumbled upon one historian who, you know, the minute I read her sort of evaluation of the situation sort of rang true to me. So what she had said was that the black legend itself, in terms of the facts on the ground, is probably true. What’s going on in the Americas, for example, that people like Bartolome de las Casas talks about, but that the reason it’s unfair and sort of propagandistic is by singling out the Spanish As somehow unusually cruel and different. These people, these other countries that were often singling out the Spanish, were hiding the fact that they themselves have a history in the Americas and amongst the slave trade and All these things that have every bit as dark moments and black marks as the Spanish stuff. (Time 0:56:11)
  • Montesinos’ Sermon and Las Casas’ Evolution
    • Antonio Montesinos’ sermon challenged the morality of enslaving indigenous people.
    • Las Casas’ views on slavery evolved, initially advocating for African slave labor as a solution. Transcript: Dan Carlin And it’s recounted in the introduction to the Penguin version I have of de las Casas, is a short account of the destruction of the Indies. It’s written by historian Anthony Pagdon, and he writes, quote, The story is now a famous one. That morning, a recent arrival on the island, the Dominican Antonio Montesinos, delivered a sermon in the church of Santo Domingo. Taking his text from St. John, he drew an analogy between the natural desert in which the evangelist had chosen to spend his life and the human desert which the Spaniards had made of the once fruitful, quote-unquote, Paradisiacal island of Hispaniola. He then turned upon the colonists, now quoting the friar, quote, with what right, he demanded of them and with what justice do you keep these poor Indians in such cruel and horrible servitude? By what authority have you made such detestable wars against these people who lived peacefully and gently on their own lands? Are these not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them as yourselves? Pagden then writes, quote, the last three questions were to become the reference of every subsequent struggle to defend the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. For Las Casas in particular, the third, are you not obliged to love them as yourselves, to guide his actions for the rest of his life end quote now as i said de las casas’s views will continue To evolve for the rest of his life and he won’t believe at the end of his life what he believes in the middle of his life just like he didn’t believe in the middle of his life what he believed Earlier on in (Time 1:06:44)
  • Rising Demand for African Labor
    • Declining indigenous populations and the push to outlaw Indian slavery fueled demand for African labor.
    • Colonists saw African slaves as more valuable than indigenous slaves. Transcript: Dan Carlin Indication of the mood in 1544 is shown by a letter of Cristobal de Benevente, public prosecutor of the Supreme Court in Mexico, to the king, now quoting the letter to the king, quote, Every day the gold mines are giving less profit because of the lack of Indian slaves. In the end, if your majesty abolishes local slavery, wrote Benevente, there will be no alternative to allowing blacks into the land, at least in the mines, end quote. Now, that’s from Mexico, where there was a ton of movable wealth when the Spanish conquered that area. But once you take away all the stuff that’s there, I mean, the gold that’s sitting out in buildings and decorations, I mean, the movable wealth, then it’s all about, OK, how do we get the, You know, the wealth out of the land how do we turn the green bananas into yellow bananas and if there’s not going to be natives somebody’s got to do the work and as we had said it was only A generation before that the europeans have tapped into this african slave trade and the africans are an alternative for any number of reasons the first one and the most obvious is they’re There right there’s a huge demand explosion during this period and there’s labor there so that might be the number one reason but there’s a bunch of other reasons and it contributes To some very uncomfortable realities including once again treating human beings as though they’re non-human and having an exchange rate that reminds one of a currency exchange rate Right how many dollars to the pound how many deutschmarks to the frank how many yen to the ruble how many indian slaves to the african slave this is like a land mine and i feel like we’re Going to encounter these all throughout this discussion and so i thought of how we should approach these cultural landmines these issues that can explode in our faces because they’re A combination of offensive we’re dealing with people with a completely different mindset there’s a bunch of things that go into this and I thought we’re going to deal with it together We’re going to go up to this landmine we’re going to look at it we’re going to look at it from all sides we’re going to unravel and try to untangle what’s going on here how do we untangle something Like this famed (Time 1:13:04)
  • The Value of African Slaves
    • Colonists valued African slaves more than indigenous slaves.
    • This was due to factors like familiarity with Old World practices and resistance to diseases. Transcript: Dan Carlin Historian of slavery david breon davis in inhuman bondage has this line and what this essentially is is something that historians can see written down this isn’t anecdotal evidence This is the exchange rate the human exchange rate from one type of human with one color skin and from one culture to another type of human with another color skin from another culture Davis writes quote throughout the new world colonists agreed that the labor of one black was worth that of several indians end quote now when davis says colonists in this case he means Early first contact colonists the spanish and the caribbean the portuguese in brazil um and the going rate is multiple indians for every african now in an earlier era people like the Greeks and aristotle and whatnot might consider that a sign right there that you should be a slave. Obviously, they’re good at it. They make good slaves. That’s a sign that they’re in that class of people born to be slaves. And if you go to like the antebellum South and maybe the 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, they’ll make it a totally racial question, right? Well, that’s the ethnicity, that’s the genes, and you can see it in the people, and and they’re just born that way. The concept of race as we understand it today develops during this era, and (Time 1:15:17)
  • Staggering Numbers
    • An estimated 28 million Africans were enslaved between the 15th and 19th centuries.
    • About 12.5 million were sent to the Americas, and millions more died in transit or related conflicts. Transcript: Dan Carlin I think it’s worth for a second examining the numbers a bit in what we’re talking about here. Time to zoom out now that we’ve laid the foundation for how it got this way to what it is and how it develops. Historian Brenda A. Stevenson from UCLA, whom we quoted earlier in her book, What is Slavery? Goes over the numbers a little bit. And these are all difficult to figure out occasionally because sometimes the records are great and sometimes they’re not. But she says that most of the historians dealing with this subject now agree that some 28 million Africans were enslaved and sold between the 15th and 19th centuries. So that’s the 1400s and the 1800s. And she says, quote, approximately 12.5 million left for the Americas and the Caribbean. About 16 million purportedly were traded, not across the Atlantic, but rather to North Africa, on the coast of the Indian Ocean, and throughout the Middle East. But the 11 million or so who arrived in the Americas did not account for the millions, some believe at least 4 million, who died as part of the slave-raiding warfare during the forced Marches to the slave-trading coasts, or who perished in the Middle Passage, the ocean trip from Africa to America, as a result of scurvy and other diseases, dehydration, starvation, Harsh treatment, or suicide. Nor (Time 1:27:32)
  • Lack of Counterfactuals
    • Carlin finds it hard to imagine plausible counterfactuals to the Atlantic slave trade’s development.
    • The confluence of factors created a powerful momentum. Transcript: Dan Carlin This is a good time now that we’ve sort of laid the foundation for how did this even come to be to take a more blitz edition oriented approach here um because as i said i’m not qualified to Give you the history of slavery but we could sure talk about some of the really interesting aspects of it and the first one here is this lack of an ability and maybe it’s just and maybe i Lack the imagination but i’m sharing with you the fact i’m having a hard time seeing really plausible counterfactuals in this situation you know other alternative things that might Have taken place as opposed to this nightmarish outcome because there’s counterfactuals that are really easy to imagine the classic one we always play with in the united states maybe They do in britain too is what if the british had won the revolutionary war the american revolutionary war because that could easily have happened it’s not that hard to imagine that’s Literally a sort of a turn of fortune kind of thing whereas something like imagining a significantly different unfolding of the new world um you know, first century or two, I mean, that To me looks more like a mudslide, like a force of nature sort of deal where the best intentions of the most humanitarian of people in any of these societies would be drowned out by the sheer Crush of momentum of the time i (Time 1:34:27)
  • The Perceived Necessity of Slaves
    • Colonists pleaded for more slaves, viewing them as essential for settlement.
    • Carlin questions if the Americas could have been settled without slave labor, given the colonists’ mindset. Transcript: Dan Carlin What’s also interesting is if you buy into the premise from the primary sources and i mean from multiple different nations cultures eras i mean over hundreds of years you can read plea After plea after plea from these people in the americas writing back to the old country saying if we don’t have more slaves then we can’t settle this place at all and it didn’t necessarily Have to be african slaves i mean this is also the period where the famous indentured servitude really takes off big. But it doesn’t appear that many of these people are talking about free labor in any way, shape or form. It’s either going to be slaves or indentured servants or something like that. And if you take their arguments at face value, and I can’t figure out if this is somehow sort of a lack of imagination or the blinders that are put on because these people come from a different Era and a different economic system. But if you take their arguments at face value, it’s as though they’re saying that if the Americas had been found, you know, with the modern era’s sort of values in mind, right, where we Pay people for work, that it simply wouldn’t be settled or that we’d still be stuck hundreds of years later on the eastern seaboard still trying to chop down the primeval forests in the East with paid labor i (Time 1:42:59)
  • The Hidden Trauma of Sexual Assault
    • Carlin emphasizes the hidden aspect of sexual assault within slavery.
    • This abuse was pervasive and often went undocumented. Transcript: Dan Carlin Brings me to you know a part of the story that i keep i keep wanting to inject in here so i remember it myself if that makes sense but it’s it’s it’s a kind of a hidden part, but you can deduce It so easily, right? It’s like when they find planets without actually seeing the planet, but they can see that there must be a planet out there based on what’s going on with the other ones. I read an article and it was a writer. I don’t remember if she was writing for the new york times or the atlantic or something like that but she’d made a comment about how every time she looked in the mirror she was reminded Of a rape in her ancestral tree somewhere right her her very skin color was a lasting legacy to slavery and it’s the sexual assault question that we forget and that’s not an african atlantic Slave trade um issue that’s a slavery issue going back to the beginning of recorded history right this is i mean they buy slaves specifically for the concubine aspect of it in some places But even if that’s not what you have them for the lack of legal protections and oversight and all that kind of stuff means you’re going to get that anyway and what i mean by that is if is if You’re one of those slaves in baltimore that looks like you’re practically a free person to frederick douglas that doesn’t protect you right if you’re some um lady who works in the house Where the enslaver lives and you cook for their family and you’re practically a member of the household and, you know, you celebrate holidays with them and, you know, you’re up in the Privileged, you know, realms of the slave society as other slaves would view it. That doesn’t mean that when the lights go out at night, you’re not subjected to sexual assault all the time. In other words, without the legal protections, just because your outward situation seems so much more enviable, no (Time 1:54:47)
  • Trauma Before the Ships
    • Brenda Stevenson highlights the trauma enslaved people experienced before reaching slave ships.
    • Capture, marches, and sales were brutal and dehumanizing. Transcript: Dan Carlin One of the things that, you know, sometimes you have to be reminded about things that after you hear about them seem obvious, but you hadn’t thought about them. So Brenda Stevenson brings it up, and then after she says it, I’m noticing it everywhere, and it was about what these enslaved people go through before they even arrive at the ships to Take them across the Atlantic to the Americas. Because in your mind’s eye, you think, oh, well, it starts off, they become slaves, and then they get on the ships, and that’s horrible, and then the whole thing starts. No, it starts long before then. And what most of these people will experience between their capturing and the arrival at the coast to get on these ships, any one of their experiences be the worst experience most of Us have ever had. Simply the branding alone would be something that would be in the forefront of your mind today had anybody ever taken a glowing hot piece of metal and stuck it on your skin for a significant Period of time, right? And that’s just one of the things they get to go through. So Stevenson talks about it though she talks about um the different ways these people could become enslaved and there’s all sorts of different ways as i think we alluded to earlier and Before we consider ourselves so morally advanced let’s understand that if i couch it in the right framework many of you will agree that you’d support a kind of slavery under the right Conditions, and it’s conditions that the Africans enslaved people under, too. If I said that somebody had committed some heinous crime and that for the rest of their life they were going to have to be involved in hard labor in order to pay society back, a lot of people Think that that was a just sentence, and that was a kind of sentence that could get people put into slavery in africa there were a bunch of other ones of course simply owing money could Get you in trouble being a captive in war was a classic and my central african history is not good but i was reading that there was a a series of rather large wars between african rulers In the 17th and 18th centuries, the byproduct of which is a lot of slaves to sell afterwards. And so this was working out for everyone, right? We have ground zero production for this logistical supply chain that provides labor for the new world. And as fate would have it, we have a lot of wars creating a lot of product. So get them while they’re hot, right? Allrican slaves you can transport and so stevenson talks about the the trip from initially becoming a slave to simply making it to the coast to get on the slave ships which is normally Where we think the bad part starts well that would be wrong stevenson writes quote enslaved africans therefore, entered the Atlantic trade through numerous avenues as sold war captives, Kidnap victims, social outcasts, criminals as tribute payment or drawn from a pool of bonded laborers traditionally found in many Western and Central African societies. Some were sold from one locale in Africa to another, and then eventually sold to Europeans bound for the market in the Americas. The trips they took from their earlier places of residence or servitude to the coast for embarkment to the Caribbean or beyond could be hundreds of miles. Often, she writes, they were sold and resold along the way to the coast. They marched in single or double file, chained to each other with only the clothing they had on when taken, eating and drinking only what their captors provided. Exhausted, undernourished, physically, psychologically, and sexually abused, and often dehydrated as well some became ill others perished en route it was only the beginning of Their travails and their travels end quote she says then (Time 1:58:32)
  • The Court of Historical Slavery
    • Carlin uses a hypothetical court case to explore the justifications and criticisms of historical slavery laws.
    • He highlights the gap between legal frameworks and actual enforcement. Transcript: Dan Carlin One of the things that they do to you in debate class, and I know a lot of you have gone through this too, is to give you a side in a debate that you don’t agree with and then force you to defend It. And I imagine if we were in some cosmic court of law and you said that I had to be the attorney representing the past on this slavery question, you know, against the attorney representing The present, I think I’d point out that there’s all sorts of laws that I can name from multiple countries over multiple eras that are designed to make this situation better for the enslaved People. We’d mentioned one of them earlier with the problems Columbus ran into trying to enslave the indigenous peoples of the Americas when the Queen of Castile, who also happened to be the One funding his mission in that little piece of monarchical capitalism, said, why is my admiral enslaving my subjects, right? Well, France had something called the Code Noir in the 1600s. Britain had rules on slave ships and how many slaves you could put on the ship. I mean, the attorney for the past defending history would say, hey, listen, I can cite all kinds of laws, measures, debates, and things that were done to address this very issue. It’s not our fault it didn’t come far enough to meet your modern standards. We didn’t even know what those were, and you wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near them if we hadn’t taken the early steps like Code Noir and the Queen of Castile and limitations on the number Of slaves you can have on ships and eventually things like going after the slave trade. It’s hard, though, the world is a what’s the line from trixie from golem in the in the lord of the rings it’s trixie and you don’t know exactly what the motivations are and you have to be Careful i mean you know is is a limit on the size of um slave ship capacity something done for the benefit of the human beings that are the cargo or are you doing it to protect product you Got to be careful right we’re human beings um we’re a little tricksy but i think the attorney representing the interests and conduct of the past would say um that there are things they Can point to the show that they were trying. If you wanted to critique that from the other side, the lawyer representing modern times would say, well, your enforcement was terrible. When did this ever work out in the favor of the people that the law was supposed to protect? When did anybody ever have to pay any penalties? When was anybody ever discovered, investigated, or taken to task? (Time 2:12:33)
  • Jefferson’s Awareness
    • Clint Smith’s book explores Jefferson’s awareness of slavery’s negative impact on society.
    • Jefferson acknowledged slavery’s corrupting influence on both masters and children. Transcript: Dan Carlin Say late 1700s early 1800s i was reading a book called how the word is passed by clint smith and it’s about sort of the legacies of American slavery that he can see when he travels around. And he goes to Thomas Jefferson’s home and engages with some tourists who are there going through a tour afterwards, who were surprised to find out, you know, about Jefferson’s slave Past and all that. And Smith has a very interesting line where because all of us who are thomas jefferson fans and if you like the idea that all men are created equal you know the the declaration of independence Stuff i mean all of that is jefferson and jeffersonian and yet the guy is almost like a metaphor for the country as a whole and the weird sort of dichotomy that the united states is because He is at once this great proponent of liberty and freedom and all men are created equal who is also a slave owner and who is an intelligent enough and self-aware enough individual to realize That this is a contradiction. And Smith writes, quote, What’s fascinating about Jefferson is that this is a flaw of which he was wholly cognizant. In Notes on the State of Virginia, he wrote, quote, these are Jefferson’s words, there must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence Of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submission on the Other. Our children see this, he writes, and learn to imitate it, for man is an imitative animal. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the liniments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, And daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, he writes, who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. End quote. It’s (Time 2:38:21)
  • A Revolution in Sensibilities
    • Within a century, European powers shifted from embracing to vehemently opposing slavery.
    • This rapid change highlights the potential for societal transformation. Transcript: Dan Carlin Have to hold back the reins a little bit when i find periods in history like this because the danger is that you’ll fall into whiggish history thinking w-h uh the more modern academic Term would be to say that you were thinking in a teleological sense this idea that the best way to describe it is that great quote always attributed to martin luther king but i don’t think He was the first to say it that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice that’s sort of the wig view of history that we’re making progress and it may be you know two Steps forward one step back bunny hop kind of progress but it’s moving in a direction that’s getting more humane you know better for everybody more inclusive you know whatever you want To say and these days most historians don’t think that way and it might be a dangerous delusion to think that way because there might be a little complacency in this idea there’s don’t Worry it’s all going to work out the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice you know unless it doesn’t also let’s not forget that one person’s justice could be another person’s Manson like a murderous atrocity so you never know with that kind of thing i think the one aspect of this though that makes me come away with a net positive is look at what was accomplished Look at what’s possible that’s what this history experience here teaches us right it doesn’t teach lessons it’s an example look at how much change towards our modern point of view would Be a good way to put it that you see in what amounts to one long human lifespan here and you know we’re not talking about global public opinion deciding they want a different sweetener In their tea. As we’ve been saying, this is the legacy system of all legacy systems. It’s slavery. Centuries old in the Atlantic slave trade form. Millennia old. Ancient in the institution form. Wrapped up in the economies, the lifestyles, the downstream profits of everybody. I mean, woven into the fabric of society, entrenched. And if they can flip that iceberg, they prove it can be done, right? That icebergs can be flipped. And the reason we should take heart is we have a few icebergs in our future that may have to be flipped under similar sorts of constraints. Financial, institutional, woven into the fabric of our society, money. I (Time 3:05:30)
  • Revolutionary Hypocrisy
    • The hypocrisy of revolutionary ideals in a slave society fueled abolitionist arguments.
    • Slaves in South Carolina adopted revolutionary slogans, highlighting this contradiction. Transcript: Dan Carlin There’s a lot of places you’ll get killed in the 21st century world spouting the ideas of thomas jefferson for example you can see movement on the attitudes toward the slavery question Before the American Revolution breaks out because you’ll start to see the really tiny but just starting abolitionist movement gain some traction there’s a famous 1772 decision in Britain over a slave who runs away from his master while they’re in Britain and then gets recaptured. And the court rules, hey, you know, we don’t have to follow the law wherever you were made a slave, which I think was Boston. So you’re free here. And that had ramifications. But then when you get the American Revolution, what you see is the great hypocrisy begin. And it’s the kind of hypocrisy that just over the course of time is unsustainable a chasm is created that can be widened by people on the anti-slavery side of things the hypocrisy is the Lead in the Declaration of Independence. And by that, I mean in the journalistic sense, right? You’re never supposed to bury the lead, put it right at the top. All men are created equal, right? What do you do with that in a slave society? Right? The Declaration says, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life liberty And the pursuit of happiness what (Time 3:11:15)
  • A Collision Course
    • Abolitionist advocacy and changing economic incentives led to slavery’s regional isolation.
    • The cotton gin’s invention in 1793 dramatically increased the demand for slaves in the American South. Transcript: Dan Carlin The gradual regional isolation of the institution was places where slavery was still unbelievably valuable. So it’s going to last in Brazil even longer than it does in the United States. In the United States, something happens in the 1790s that will completely change the equation it’s almost as if right when it seems like it would probably be in everyone’s best interest To sort of jump on this we’re phasing you know slavery out it’s a soft landing from slavery it’s almost like you know the the gods of history say well what if we throw a little bit more money On the other side of the scale you know it’s almost like it’s to tempt humanity right oh you think slavery is a bad thing now what if i give you more money in the middle 1790s a guy named eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, and the economic situation in the American South explodes, and (Time 3:31:32)
  • Birthplace of Racist Ideology
    • Saint-Domingue was a focal point of racial tensions.
    • Baron de Beauvois, a scientist in Saint-Domingue, promoted the idea of inherent black inferiority. Transcript: Dan Carlin I say african heritage because you don’t have to have very much african heritage at all in a place like sandeming in the 1700s to be discriminated against and a term that we would use for These men today maybe you would say that they were biracial would be woefully inadequate as seen from the people of a place like San Domingue who would require much greater levels of Specificity as to the percentages involved in the racial mix. Biracial wouldn’t tell them enough about your background. They’re going to want to use words. And I had to look this one up. I was so fascinated with the word. I looked it up. I hope it’s not offensive, but almost all of them are going to be. The word was quadroon. And a quadroon is somebody who is a quarter black. When you live in a society where it’s important enough to have words to denote that level of ancestry, you know you live in a race-obsessed place. And Sandeming is race obsessed historian jeremy d popkin in his book facing racial revolution which is a book of primary sources so he’s reading the mail of these people in sandeming During this era that we’re about to get into and he says the first thing that they mention about anybody that they talk about in the in the letters is their racial makeup so this is the primary Lens through which they view the world. So we have to view it through that a little bit ourselves. There has always been bigotry. There has always been prejudice. There has always been ethnocentrism in human history. That’s just humanity. Go read your ancient Greek, right? How many of those authors divide the world into two kinds of people greeks and barbarians that’s not unusual at all how many indigenous people’s name for themselves are the people or Just people what does that mean everybody else is so this is not abnormal at all but it’s not the same thing as modern racism which you see really developing in forms that look familiar To us in the 1600s and 1700s so that’s pretty recent in the old days everybody discriminated against everybody except for those wonderful societies that mess up the curve a couple of These polynesian places some other societies where they’re just you know like sickeningly welcoming and trustworthy but otherwise most humanity is um a little standoffish but that’s Not the same as racism where it’s based on skin color it’s uh supposedly connected to you know the ingrained biology of the people involved and one group is inherently inferior and that All dates from this era. In fact, I was reading Popkin’s book that we just referenced, and he was talking about the fact that the island colony, where these people who come to Paris in October 1790, where they Come from is ground zero in like the birth of the pseudoscientific side of racism. This is sort of the darker side of the Enlightenment. We’ve been praising the liberty and equality and freedom side of things. But it also comes with this side, which is really sort of the early building blocks of modern science. So I suppose we don’t get to where we are today without these people laying the brickwork for it. But at the same time, you get these outrageous sorts of seemingly, you know, scientifically proven ideas like, you know, some races are inferior and others are superior. (Time 3:55:27)
  • A Witch’s Brew
    • Saint-Domingue’s society was deeply fractured along racial and class lines.
    • These divisions complicated the revolution and led to shifting alliances. Transcript: Dan Carlin And that’s what makes what’s going to happen so complicated. Author James Wolven described it as a witch’s brew anarchy is sometimes thrown out there but i had been looking for a short pithy description of just how many sided and divided this place Is and i didn’t run across anything that was just right in any of the books that i read and i stumbled upon a quote online by French historian Paul Fregosi. I did not read his book, I’m sorry to say, but the setting up of the situation is brilliant and gives you a real idea of what kind of fractures we’re talking about. Fregosi writes, quote, whites, mulattoes, and blacks loathed each other. The poor whites couldn’t stand the rich whites. The rich whites despised the poor whites. The middle-class whites were jealous of the aristocratic whites. The whites born in France looked down upon the locally born whites. Mulattoes envied the whites, despised the blacks, and were despised by the whites free negroes brutalized those who were still slaves haitian-born blacks regarded those from africa As savages everyone quite rightly lived in terror of everyone else haiti was hell but haiti was rich end quote so you get an idea here that what’s about to happen is going to be a lot more Complicated than just one group of people like the mixed race people fighting the white plantation owners it’s (Time 4:20:04)
  • The Rise of Toussaint Louverture
    • Toussaint Louverture emerged as a key leader in the Haitian Revolution.
    • He skillfully navigated complex political and military challenges. Transcript: Dan Carlin He’s going to have to work all kinds of angles and isolate people i mean it’s brilliant chess playing and it’s going to take one of the greatest geopolitical figures in all human history To put an end to his maneuvers to create a free society and an equal society in Saint-Domingue, Napoleon Bonaparte. What (Time 4:52:53)