Barbary Pirates and English Slaves (2017)
historic-uk.com
historic-uk.com
Interestingly enough, Crimea used to be a major center of slave trade all the way into 1700s. Christians were sold to Islamic world and vice versa.
https://mikedashhistory.com/2015/01/15/blonde-cargoes-finnis...
I just hope US people would realize allmost none of their North-American cultural tropes are applicable elsewhere as a foundation for anything, really.
Example: I am a finn. A middle class male in a high income country. What this means is: I am of the indigeneous population in this country (one of the population surges after the ice age). My kin where hunted as slaves and sold to asian slave markets.
Finland never participated in the colonial era except as a dirt poor third world economy to be exploited.
There is xenophobia and racism as elsewhere, but there is no historical past we should be particularly ashamed off.
If I were to come to US I presume I would be categorized based on my skin color in the "population whose ancestors benefitted from an inhuman trade" where as the truth would be "whose ancestors were the oppressed". I don't find it insulting or anything, but I do get the sense that the strength of the US tropes would make it impossible to discuss this in US context without myself being labeled a white power supremacist or something worse.
It is even more absurd in the UK, where in fact multiple groups of white people were successively displaced by conquest (Celts, Angles, Saxons, Normans, etc), and yet collectively, "Anglo Saxons" are perceived as oppressors, even if many decend from a group of people who were themselves oppressed.
Russia did not really recover from that outbreak, and some other countries may still have it ahead.
Have you tried renting an apartment in Moscow without “Slavic” looks?
Russians do not run their country for a century, but yeah, they may respond by not renting you their crappy and overpriced flat.
Do you have a source for that?
Поэтому интернационализм со стороны угнетающей или так называемой «великой» нации (хотя великой только своими насилиями, великой только так, как велик держиморда) должен состоять не только в соблюдении формального равенства наций, но и в таком неравенстве, которое возмещало бы со стороны нации угнетающей, нации большой, то неравенство, которое складывается в жизни фактически.
Lenin
And it absolutely applies to the USA of 2020s
Therefore, internationalism on the part of the oppressor or the so-called "great" nation (although great only by its violence, great only in the way that the oppressor[1] is great) should consist not only in observing the formal equality of nations, but also in such an inequality that would make the oppressor, large nation compensate the inequality that develops in life in fact.
1. a correct meaning here would probably be "bigot"
A lot of this, I think, is the result of geography rather than the Finns (or rather, their leaders) being different / special.
Romania never participated in the colonial era as well but it's not they wouldn't have liked to. Only neighboring Habsburgs, Russia and the Ottomans there was little direction to go. By the sea, they'd have to cross Bosphorus and Gibraltar straits to reach the open ocean so forget it either.
But once the opportunity present, there was no hesitation to jump and snatch. Took Dobrudja from Bulgaria after they got beaten shitless in the Balkan Wars by a coalition of Turkey, Greece and Serbia. Invaded Hungary opportunistically in WW1 after posing neutral for a couple years and managed to shoot a few poor unsuspecting border guards before being pushed back and nearly wiped out by German troops (lead by a young Erwin Rommel), after which sign an armistice with the Central Powers and invade Moldova to "secure" some space. Then 12 hours before the end of WW1 declare war to Central Powers again and be technically on the winning side. Invade Hungary again and "secure" Transylvania.
>> There is xenophobia and racism as elsewhere, but there is no historical past we should be particularly ashamed off.
The past is mostly presented as "special military operation" :P
Doesn’t this apply to everywhere though. I’m sure every country would have loved to colonize places but didn’t for various reasons.
I don’t think there are “evil” countries that colonized because they are evil. All countries that could, did.
Fortunately, recently people became more moral and have worked to limit this. Although cynically, I think it’s because the less evil way is no more lucrative.
First, about the Bulgaria thing. I grew up in a Romanian city just north of the Danube, Bulgaria was 11 km away (12-13, if you include the width of the Danube itself). In my home-town's central park there was (still is, afaik, I left that town ~20 years ago) a monument devoted to the Romanian soldiers who had died in the Second Balkan War, i.e. the war that you mentioned. They died when their boat had sunk while crossing the Danube. The majority of the Romanian deaths in that war (and there were a few) were the result of typhus (if I remember rightly), either way, what I do remember is my dad telling kid-me how stupid it was for us to get into that war whenever we were walking in front of that monument, how stupid our deaths had been. Of course, those deaths and that war were not mentioned in our history books.
What was also not mentioned were the atrocities committed by the Bulgarian soldiers once they invaded back, around 1917. It was really eye-opening to see photos of naked, dead, raped women in a Carnegie-report written just after WW1, a report that was mentioning places a few kilometers away from the village where my grand-parents had lived. I stumbled upon that report in an antiques-shop here in Bucharest a few years ago, again, no mention of those atrocities had been made in our history classes.
> after which sign an armistice with the Central Powers and invade Moldova to "secure" some space.
That was not an invasion, if you had read something, almost anything, on that subject you would have known that. Granted, I don't fault you for that, even here, in Romania, that event is seen in the wrong light, i.e. as a celebration of Romanians coming together after 100 years of Russian occupation. There was a coming back together of Romanians but there was nothing celebratory about it, as people who were alive back then and who were witnessing the whole thing actually said. It was a thing that the Germans wanted us, Romanians, to have, as compensation for the losses they had been inflicting on us (the union happened in March 1918, the Buftea peace treaty was signed in May 1918).
I will not go into the can of worms you opened about Transylvania because it's just not worth it, but the truth is I had expected better from HN readers/writers in here, no matter their nationality and ideological affinities.
>>A lot of this, I think, is the result of geography rather than the Finns (or rather, their leaders) being different / special.
My intent was not to signal virtue, merely the lack of historical action resulting in a system that could be economically or politically identified as colonization
Why? Geography, demographics and economy. Everyone was dirt poor - no economic elite to speak of. And the population was and is tiny.
Nonetheless, we're a country where Black Americans are subject to all sorts of disadvantages. My parents experienced the segregated South. It wasn't that long ago. The attitudes that allowed for de jure segregation to persist didn't simply disappear in the 60s. No reparations were made for 350 years of de jure oppression. This casts a long shadow materially and societally.
Generally, few people think of white people as being hardcore white supremacists simply for being white. Although I would say that Black people do want to see white people be actively anti-white supremacy, not just neutral, because white people are still the demographic majority and wield overwhelming political and economic power. So basically, there can be no justice to be found for Black Americans without the active participation of white people.
This is what all the other posters are saying. Nearly everyone has some ancestry that was oppressed for an extended period of time and they are not receiving reparations for it. Why should black Americans be different?
When you consider how small changes made early amplify over time, there’s other groups of people with orders of magnitude greater claims to reparations.
Punishing the son for the sins of the father is not healthy for society nor fair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_(transitional_just...
I'm not here to play Oppression Olympics and say that Black people deserve reparations more than anybody else. This push to compare and contrast often is used to deflect, delay, and ultimately disrupt the solidarity of marginalized people. So I only ask that people just understand the plight of Black folks in America in and of itself, and ask themselves what feels just.
This piece makes a compelling summary of the situation of Black folks in the US:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if reparations never happen for Black Americans within my lifetime. But that doesn't mean it's not justified. At the very least, what most Black people demand is a fair shake at jobs, wealth, security, and dignity. It is violations of these basic human rights and justice that get us out in the streets.
Most history books are filled with stories of gross injustices, exploitations or just plain horrors. Hardly any of those are ever later compensated by any reparations - that’s just how the world goes.
My ancestors escaped from Prussia and immigrated from Sweden in the late 19th century, well after Slavery and the Slave trade was over and lived in hovels dug into the side of hills in the wind-swept and tree-free plains of the mid-west. In a area on the North American continent that was never touched by slavery.
They became farmers and worked the land. My father didn't even have central plumbing for a great deal of his childhood. Had to piss in buckets when it became too cold and too dangerous to go to the outhouse in the winter.
Yet I have plenty of people all over the planet that I should be ashamed to have European heritage living in the USA and that it's my fault there are a lot of poor black people. And that I owe them money and should "check my privilege" because of it.
Ignoring that slavery touched the entirety of the continent, I'm going to guess that means your German ancestors ended up in the Midwest. Probably on Native American lands.
To this day, Native Americans are 20 times more likely to lack indoor plumbing than Whites. Roughly fifteen percent of the Oglala Lakota County, containing the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota lack indoor plumbing. Meaning this year they likely had to piss in buckets as the outhouse was too dangerous.
It goes back even further than modern humans that likely directly caused or at least aided the extinction of the Neanderthal.
By that logic there isn't a square inch anywhere on the planet that wasn't "touched by slavery".
Which renders the whole notion pretty much irrelevant and diminishes the role of slavery in USA history.
He explicitly stated in his comment that they settled in the Midwest.
Might be everybody on all sides of this conversation needs to calm down a bit.
Doesn't change anything I said, it just means I guessed based on a German immigrating to land "never touched by slavery" unnecessarily.
While there are systemic (and observable in aggregate, though often not individually) benefits to having white skin in the US, the idea that there’s a uniform “White” experience and that it is universally one of privilege is obviously wrong, and it’s also needlessly divisive.
The term white privilege is an accusatory polemic -- from a certain white perspective. Likewise a fish may not have the perspective to understand water, some whites may not understand they live in a social milieu that privileges them by disadvantaging everyone else.
The term white privilege is an inversion of the indubitable reality of anti-black discrimination, probably an unnecessary inversion.
Do the "plenty" of people have an issue with you having a German ethnicity? How so?
> And that I owe them money and should "check my privilege" because of it.
You are conflating different things here.
"Reparations" aren't a way to funnel money from "you" to "black people". That's another oversimplification, akin to saying that Medicare is about taking from richer people to put money into poor people's pockets.
"Privilege" has more to do with the colour of your skin, than your ethnic background.
No I am not.
Race is a political grift. It has been a political grift since the beginning. It's a way for some individuals to exploit social divides for personal profit. It's a political gamesmanship.
It was a grift when "white" was first legally defined during the colonial era. It is a grift now.
The greater wedge they can drive between people the greater the potential for personal profit and political power. If you want to eliminate racism in the USA then the worst possible way you can do it is by trying to force some idiotic and unrealistic notion of "equity" on the american people in the name of racial injustice.
And I agree with that. Also, I would say that the main issue here is money, not skin colour. Poor people are basically getting screwed so billionaires like Musk or Bezos add a couple more zeroes to their bank accounts.
But I cannot ignore the fact that there is racism embedded in the system, and that it is a massive problem.
I see this a bit like gender inequality back in the 70s and 80s. Are we going to ignore it, like our grandparents and parents did, or will be acknowledging it?
There are huge numbers of white people who don't like the status quo but see the "check your privilege" rhetoric as arguing that they haven't earned anything in their lives. If you come from a working-class white family like OP's, that's a slap in the face.
The answer isn't to say that people like OP are just misunderstanding what you mean and should listen better. The answer is to change the rhetoric so that it actually reaches the target audience.
This is a ridiculous and racist statement. This places the children of Bill Gates on the same "privilege" footing as a newly arrived Mexican immigrant who happens to have enough European ancestry to have white skin.
There are a huge number of factors that may or may not give someone a foot up in life and their external appearance is just one relatively small contributing factor.
One example I can think of where your two disparate examples may experience the same privilege in many parts of the USA is in a pulled over by police but prior to a driver’s license being shown scenario.
That's not to say that there aren't some important aspects of privilege that are influenced by skin color. It's simply that those are overshadowed by other aspects of your background.
Is it "racist" to point out that a racist will not look at someone's background, and will focus on evident skin features to make a character judgement? Really?
It's called prejudice for a reason.
> This places the children of Bill Gates on the same "privilege" footing as a newly arrived Mexican immigrant who happens to have enough European ancestry to have white skin.
This is a ridiculous comparison, because you are adding a new component, which is loads of money.
I myself am a hispanic white living in the US. I'm not rich by any means. But even I can tell how differently people look at me, compared to other hispanics with darker skin.
I didn't say that. Mine was a comment limited to OP's assumption that some people (it wasn't clarified "who" these people are), think he is privileged because of him being of a certain ancestry, which is not true.
But he doesn't have German ethnicity...? His ancestors moved to the US in the 19th century.
Where does the money start? Him. Where does the money go? Them. So, reparations are a way to funnel money from him to them. You can do all kinds of wordplay and commentary and invention of new terminologies, but those are all distractions from "reparations funnel money from him to them."
And what's the upside to having white skin but not having the generational wealth that supposedly comes from colonialism? There's many "white" countries that never colonised anyone, are still poor and certainly don't benefit from their "whiteness" today...
You're seeing it through both a Mexican and American lens. White Mexicans look down on indigenous Mexicans and there's definitely racism in the US, but how should someone from Czech Republic, Ukraine or Finland feel about their "privilege" today?
Edit - it's also been pointed out but should be again that the word 'slave' comes from the word for Slavs who unfortunately were frequently enslaved...
That’s not the basis for conversations around white privilege (at least not to anyone whose spent even the barest amount of time reading about it).
The issue is that all that history has created a systematically biased culture, one where a Finnish immigrant in 2022 will be treated better than a black person who can trace their American heritage back 300 years to forcible bondage, based purely on the color of their skin.
As a middle American born in the latter part of the 20th century I’ve participated in no more colonialism or slavery than you have. I’m not personally responsible for that history. But I’m cognizant that being white gets me a leg up in many places including Finland.
But would a Finn be treated better or worse than a black immigrant? Thomas Sowell has pointed out the difference in outcomes between black Americans and black immigrants to a small, similar area (New York, if I recall correctly). As they are impossible to tell apart for a stranger it makes for an interesting comparison.
Coleman Hughes has also pointed out the same kind of analysis using data comparing outcomes for white people[1]:
> Indeed, it is rare to find any two ethnic groups achieving identical outcomes, even when they belong to the same race. A cursory glance at the mean incomes of census-tracked ethnic groups shows Americans of Russian descent out-earning those of Swiss descent, who out-earn those of British descent, who out-earn those of Polish descent, who out-earn those of French descent in turn. If the disparity fallacy were true, then we ought to posit an elaborate system that is biased towards ethnic Russians, then the Swiss, followed by the Brits, the Poles and the French. Yet one never hears progressives make such claims. Moreover, one never hears progressives say, “French-Americans make 79 cents for every Russian-American dollar,” although the facts could easily be framed that way. Similar disparities between blacks and whites are regularly presented in such invidious terms. Rather than defaulting to systemic bias to explain disparities, we should understand that, even in the absence of discrimination, groups still differ in innumerable ways that affect their respective outcomes.
[1] https://americandigest.org/long-read-the-racism-treadmill-by...
But that was a problem during WW2 as well between US forces and their host countries, e.g. the UK or New Zealand where litteral fights were caused by white GIs insisting in racial segregation be implemented by Scotish pub owners and shops. The locals sided with the black GIs.
It's a role with great benefits. Thus the attraction of a narrative that supports that role.
I will grant you that Finland was not very successful in establishing empire besides mostly erasing Sami identity and language but that's not for the lack of trying.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Finland
Either they found some land that was uncontended, or they fought for it. I guess finding and making use of uncontended land has the moral high ground, but I think it's the exception. And if one's ancestors fought for it, I don't see why "I was here first" gives any special moral high ground. Especially because "here first" is not always very clear.
The American South - AFAIK - is unique in the percentage of families that 1) had wealth, and 2) had slaves.
Most of those people were independently wealthy immigrants, or descendents of them.
Beside the American South - you're not going to find any group that can be considered a majority that directly benefited from slavery.
Finland indirectly benefited from slavery - at the very least - by not DIRECTLY being enslaved in the slave trade. Sure, maybe not as indirect as New York City or London, but there were benefits...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_slave_trade
I hadn’t heard of the Zanj Rebellion of the 9th century in Basra:
But didn’t they also take female slaves too, some being concubines?
"Castration: A fair proportion of male slaves were imported as eunuchs... in practice, emasculation was frequent"
(and yes, it did also carry a high rate of death.)
My understanding was that adults were rarely castrated, rather boys from certain regions were targeted (I believe boys from modern Sudan were preferred by the Ottomans)
But, this is such a well-documented aspect of Ottoman slavery that it doesn’t depend on any particular Wikipedia page.
This was known to be full-on castration.
It opens up so much possibility. Modified humans as household/industrial appliances.
Tomorrow's XBox might be your genetically tweaked second cousin.
One of the things discovered in the grnomr sequencing project that was conductef in Iceland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Abductions
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hXkmBB-YL.jpg
https://www.michaelbackmanltd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12...
> The label "Turkish" does not refer to Turkey; at the time it was a general term for all Muslims in the Mediterranean region since the majority were a part of the Ottoman Empire. During the 17th century, the majority of those called "Turks" in Algeria, were disowned Christians that had converted to Islam. They were mostly Spanish, Italians, and provençaux (French).
In my experience, most "Western" understanding of European history evolved in the last millennium is completely bereft of the recognition that it was influenced by a heavyweight to their East.
Why did Columbus sail west? Why were the Portuguese going around the horn of Africa to get to Asia?
Wildly speculating, I'd suppose european concubines were very much sought after by slavers and their 'customers'. And even more so blonds and redheads for their 'exotism'.
Now some Algerians look very european. You can even see redheads, though I remember redheadness appeared independantly in Europe and the Levant I think.
The same was true about the Guanche, who used to inhabit the Canary Islands before their Spanish conquest. They were "whiter" than the Spanish who conquered them.
Here’s a link to the episode directly for people who use other podcast listeners (or just hate Spotify)… https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-68-blitz-...
Even as its centered around US perspective, it does a very good job at setting the stage of what slavery meant in europe and throughout the world.
It’s fascinating that one of the main reasons that transatlantic slavery turnout out as something that persisted for sooo much longer in US rather than slowly decline naturally like in the rest of world, was a technological invention made to make the life of slaves better. Talk about unintended consequences.
The only big perspective that was missing I think was the Asian slavery in India, where someone who was a slave could become a legitimate ruler and there have been some examples of those.
Where “slave” could actually turn out to be “forced high education to turn children into high value clerks and scribes”.
And Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast (season 4) on the Haitian revolution https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id70388977...
Slavery is an ancient and extremely complex topic. While it is certainly a moral evil there are very few heroes we can point to as moral saviors by modern standards. African kingdoms themselves sold their rivals into slavery en masse. Anyone who says the modern world is a horror show has no idea how good they have it.
I, for one, am glad that such barbaric practice has been more or less abolished.
Well, yes and no. Human trafficking is still big business even in the states (worldwide, the State Department estimates 24.9 million trafficked persons at any given time - domestically, there were for example over 1,500 reported cases in California in 2019). It's just underground now.
According to https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/human-trafficking-.... Only about 20% are sexually exploited, with the majority used for labor.
The modern world is still a horror show. We've just dialed back the barbarity from 100 to 98. Only now we tend to know more about what's going on in the world. And even then you can turn off the tragedy and suffering on the nightly news and happily watch Jeopardy!
And to misquote Gibbon - "our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery".
Depends on your actual location. Modern democracies were able to tame the worst human instincts down.
But Mariupol 2022 will likely enter the pantheon of worst horrors in history. Nothing good about that.
Of course Mariupol is horrible and I feel empathy for the people there. It must be horrible. And I’m sure it’s no comfort to them that Mariupol isn’t as bad as past things.
But it is a comfort to the rest of the world that Mariupol isn’t as bad as stuff like Alexander’s siege of Tyre over 2000 years ago [0]. And that Mariupol will not be remembered in the list of world horrors. It’s unlikely anyone will be linking to Mariupol in 2000 years. And let’s be thankful that it doesn’t get worse than it currently is. And that we help the people of Mariupol.
[0] after capture everyone in the city was murdered, crucified, or sold into slavery https://www.worldhistory.org/article/107/alexanders-siege-of...
https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates?selected_t...
(Edit spelling )
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
The scale thing is irrelevant because the morality of it isn't related to scale. It's just a consequence of larger populations at the time and bigger differences in tech levels. It's clear from history that the Barbary pirates etc weren't saying to themselves, well this much slavery is ok, but that much would be immoral so we won't do it. They were just a few centuries earlier when there were far fewer people around.
Not the best book I've read but it was pretty eye opening.
Slavery was pretty much universal since the dawn off human civilizations.
On the topic of England and slavery, it was so bad that Islamic slavers established a base on lundi island of the coast of Devon at one point.
Muslim slavers went as far north as Iceland. IDK why this isn't being taught, it is a part of history like any other.
(Central Europe OTOH had its own share of trauma with Ottoman slave raids. The northernmost Habsburg fortress that was built to contain them was in Těšín/Cieszyn. Look the city up on the map!)
At the time that song was written, the Royal Navy did not in fact rule the waves at all (we were latecomers to the colonial game relatively speaking). It was a song designed to exhort people to the goal of ruling the waves, and so (amongst other things) protecting the UK from pirate raids.
Royal Navy manpower needs vastly exceeded volunteers, so press gangs (impressment into naval service, essentially conscription) was used. If someone had some sailing experience, for example serving on a merchant vessel, they were liable to be conscripted into the navy.
Conditions on longer voyages were pretty terrible. According to everything I've read, scientific minds figured out scurvy quite some time before the same solution penetrated the skulls of the admiralty. So on long voyages there was potentially a high fatality rate of up to 50%.
My reading of this is that they needed to maintain morale. Barbary Slave raids were a credible threat everyone faced, particularly as if you were likely to be pressed (by virtue of not being useless on a ship) you were also likely to live near the coast (where there are ships). So even if you weren't particularly bothered about ruling the waves for trading or imperial reasons, preventing slave raids would be something to feel good about.
Where does this bias come from, probably, it feels much better to be battling an external enemy than to "blame the victim" as we'd say these days.
Beriberi was studied by the Japanese at a time when the theory of infections germs was developed by the Germans, and the Tokio University bought fully into this theory. There was another guy called Kanehiro Takaki who proved that it was actually caused by bad nutrition, but the Japanese army chose to ignore his findings until the Russo-Japanese war which cost so many lives due to beriberi that they were forced to adapt a better diet.
Yes, it's quite the mystery, isn't it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Coast,_San_Francisco
Here's a quote about the district from 1876 (excuse the colorful language)
"The Barbary Coast is the haunt of the low and the vile of every kind. The petty thief, the house burglar, the tramp, the whoremonger, lewd women, cutthroats, murderers, all are found here. Dance-halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous. Low gambling houses, thronged with riot-loving rowdies, in all stages of intoxication, are there. Opium dens, where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken men and women are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy or completely overcome, are there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, wealth, profanity, blasphemy, and death, are there. And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass, is there also." - Asbury, in Benjamin Estelle Lloyd's Lights and Shades of San Francisco (1876) (full excerpt https://archive.org/details/lightsshadesinsa00lloy/page/78/m...)
For instance let's go to a 1872 San Francisco chronicle article, "A Vigorous Check to Street Ruffianism The King of the Hoodlums Gets 415 Days in the County Jail--Juvenile Burglars--On the Barbary Coast"
It's a long quote but it's a good read
"...Judge Louderback in sentencing him made the following remarks: "Riley, you were born a bad man. You are one of the worst criminals at present in this city. You have appeared before the Court on all kinds of charges-vulgar and profane language, assault and battery, vagrancy, grand larceny, petty larceny, housebreaking, burglary and robbery. Citizens have refused to make complaints against you for fear you would indict some injury upon them. Men have begged officers not to subpoena them as witnesses against you for the same reason. Wives have entreated officers not to subpoena their husbands, one even going down upon her knees, for fear that you would murder her husband or commit some outrage upon his property. Wherever you have been you have proved yourself a terror to men, women and children. Your deeds of violence have acquired for you the infamous title of King of the Hoodlums."
Amazing...There's a fairly decent ~400 page 1933 book on the place named "The Barbary coast; an informal history of the San Francisco underworld" available at https://archive.org/details/barbarycoastinfo00asbu
And an Edward G Robinson (from "Little Caesar", inventor of the movie gangster) movie about it in 1935: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0026097
It's lost in the collective consciousness. There's stuff we'd find pretty hilarious looking at the archives. For instance, the city sent clergy to investigate the infidelity of the place in 1910.
For another colorful example, let's take a San Francisco chronicle article from October 8 1912 "Clergy denounces morale of city: Barbary Coast and Saloons Scored at Meeting of Juvenile Society"
"Vice conditions in San Francisco, particularly as presented by the Barbary Coast, were the subject of an address last night by Rev. Father Terrance...
"The climax of this iniquity." said the speaker, after telling about the dives in the Barbary Coast district, "Is rapped by the rapidly-multiplying dancing grills, where the dance steps indulged in are obscene, animal movements that would not be countenanced in the dominion of the Sultan at Constantinople. We have asked the Police Commissioners to separate drinking and dancing, as they have the power to do. If they fall us we must plan to carry the fight further. It is time that San Francisco ceased to be a by-word."
This spirit of San Francisco was born of the Barbary Coast
You uave a point so, Hollywood has a tendency of portraying romantic aspects when it comes to history.
https://nyupress.org/9780814712351/sodomy-and-the-pirate-tra...
One of the coolest 16th century castles - was created to stop pirates raiding spanish shipping in Florida. It is amazing with an amazing history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_San_Marcos
John Paul Jones was the first "American Pirate". He worked for the US / France and would raid british shipping.
https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/huguenot-pirates-in-th...
The treaty of Tordesillas on the 7th of June 1494 declared that lands lying beyond the Atlantic Ocean, whether discovered in the past or the future, were to be shared uniquely between Spain and Portugal. In addition, Pope Alexander VI gave his approval in a papal bull. This treaty did not receive the agreement of France or England and they were all the more offended by it because soon after this, the Spanish refused to allow any other nation to tradewith their American colonies.
It was in such circumstances as this that both France and England allowed their corsairs to attack Spanish vessels in Europe and the West Indies, with the justification that they had letters giving official permission from their government, although these papers were sometimes false. Indeed, sometimes the politicians actively encouraged such ventures.
In general you will see romantization of outlaw groups soon after they stop being a real-world threat.
> Sinan sailed under the famed Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa at the 1538 Battle of Preveza against Charles' Imperial fleet and its commander, Andrea Doria. Sinan suggested landing troops at Actium on the Gulf of Arta near Preveza, an idea which Barbarossa initially opposed, but which later proved to be important for securing the Ottoman victory.
> Around 1540, Sinan's son was traveling by sea to meet him after one of Sinan's victories. The boy was taken captive by Emperor Charles' forces and was ultimately handed over to the Lord of Elba, who baptized him and raised him at court. Barbarossa made several unsuccessful attempts to ransom Sinan's son. While sailing nearby in 1544, Barbarossa sent an envoy to Elba to again attempt to free the boy. The island's Lord replied that his "religious scruples forbade him to surrender a baptized Christian to an infidel". Infuriated, Barbarossa landed men at Piombino, sacked the town, and blew up the fort, after which the ruler agreed to release his "boy-favorite".
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayreddin_Barbarossa
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_I,_Holy_Roman_Empero...
I listened to this excerpt from a book by an Icelander who was captured and enslaved by Barbary raiders. Very interesting, would recommend.
In the early modern period, the rowed galley was the premiere device of naval warfare. The need for oarsmen for the growing fleets of the powers of the time, the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs, drove slave taking by both Islamists and Christians to incredible scale and brutality.
The Ottoman's, through their high level of centralized control, taxation and organization were able to repeatedly put together massive galley fleets, which were often supplemented by Barbary corsairs and often led by Barbary admirals.
Europe's response was to put its new engines of capital to the same purpose. They had no other choice as Europe lacked a centralized administration. Charles V was the closest thing they had but his powers of conscription were limited. Charles however was able to pay for one of his most critically timed fleets with a surprise influx of gold. Charles afterall was king of Spain as well has Holy Roman Emporer and 2 million ducets worth of new world gold was his take on the shakedown of the Incans for the ransom of Atahualpa.
This gold hit Charles' bankers just in time to construct a fleet which turned back a major Ottoman advance. To me there is no better illustration of first just how long we've been living in a globalizing world and second just how joined at the hip colonialism, capitalism and European power are.
That conflict, European powers against the Ottomans over the Mediterranean trade routes, included a massive gally building program by Venice. Which depleted Venice's coffers so much that were later on sidelined as an economic power.
And you might read up on serfdom, a hallmark in European feudalism.
This is total nonsense. In modern times it's Christian, largely European nations where slavery has not flourished. Check the data for yourself. Slavery is alive and well in many parts of the world. In many cultures it's hardly even controversial.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17...
What serfdom has in common with slavery is the fact that industrialization killed off both of them. Industry required a large and moveable work force.
I am not insinuating that being a serf was enjoyable, but if I had to choose between serfdom and slavery, that would be no contest.
Serfdom is, of course, different from slavery. Thr main difference being that serfs could be sold like other mobilr assets as they were attached to the land. When thr land was sold, the serfs eere sold along with it so. The common theme between slavery and servedom so is that in both cases people were property of sorts.
Abolitionists were Christians, because they tried to abolish slavery in Christian nations. As much as Abolitionists used religious arguments against slavery, slavery advocates used religious argments for it.
Modern day de-facto slavery, in the Arab world and illegal varieties affecting immigrants for example, are different from historical slavery. As much different as Roman and Greek slavery was from Barbary state slavery and Colonial slavery.
One hallmark of the modern variety of slavery, the one European nations used to build their colonial empires on, is the racist nature of it. In ancient times race didn't play much of a role in slavery. Nor did religion in pre-Christian Rome. These two things set the Colonial / Christian form slavery apart from those ancient forms.
There wasn’t a law or practice of enslaving people based on their skin color. As evidenced by the free blacks in other areas of the world that weren’t enslaved.
I think the racial stereotypes came about based on the race of the slaves, not the other way around.
Hollywood, at least in the HBO production “Rome” did get this part right. The main character has blonde hair, which is a political liability.
As noted in another comment, Zanj is the Arab word for black. Kafir is the word for nonbeliever and use more broadly. I’ve not heard it used racially.
Just because that's all you know about doesn't mean that's all there was.
Slavery existed on all continents (except Australia I think?) long before the expansion of Christians started. Antic Mediterranean had slaves. Scandinavia nations had slaves. Mongolian and Chinese empires had slaves. North and South American native civilizations had slaves.
Also the Christian slave traders of 13th - 19th century cooperated heavily with Arabs and natives to run the slave raids for them. At the same time Ottoman Empire also used slaves, as well as kidnapping children to serve as soldiers, just it's far less known in the West as it didn't affect Westerners.
Barbary Slave Trade 1500–1800
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade
Atlantic Slave Trade 1500-1800
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade
Abolition of Slavery from Britain 1807 and 1833
The Abolition of Slavery in Britain happened in 1807 making illegal to purchase slaves from Africa and then in 1833 stopping slavery in the Caribbean. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Aboli...
Indentured servants from Europe plus political deportations might have outnumbered Africans. I’ve heard this is true at least in the Caribbean. In my family, our origin could be Scotland or Ireland; both populations were called Irish at the time.