Matilda, the last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade | Hacker News Reader

Matilda, the last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade

aljazeera.com

49 pointsdxs42 comments

Very good writing and thorough coverage.

> A central element of the Black Codes was “vagrancy” laws. Through a system known as “convict leasing”, many African-American boys and men were arrested for minor offences such as vagrancy, imprisoned, and then leased out to work for private businesses. This created a new system of forced labour which again was little more than slavery. Convict leasing was legally rooted in the so-called “exception clause” of the 13th Amendment which states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

This is I think the primary reason our justice system is so messed up. Convict Leasing was and is a barbaric practice.

I highly recommend this book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_by_Another_Name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_leasing

> For example, in 1898, 73% of Alabama's annual state revenue came from convict leasing.

To think we are turning a blind eye to this in the world. It makes the US even more of a hypocrite.

I really like this video essay that also covers convict leasing: https://youtu.be/j4kI2h3iotA?si=9-VanyLpw1rJLLUI

I was aware that the transatlantic slave trade was banned in 1808. I had no idea there were illegal shipments as late as 1859. I'm glad this article specifically mentions the "convict leasing" exception to the 13th Amendment. As noted, it's still an issue to this day.

For obvious reasons, first hand accounts of the transatlantic slave trade are incredibly rare. A notable exception is Omar Ibn Said [1] who was fluent in spoken and written Arabic. The vast majority of slaves were illiterate.

[1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/only-surviving-ara...

I wonder which were the largest "institunalized" slavery cases over the ages (if one vaguely define slavery as being forced or fooled to do work in harsh conditions supported by the local rulers/govs, without the ability to stop - something like that, common sense).

I think African slavery was large, but there were Romans and Greeks before, or Asian countries. Pretty much everyone I guess.

I am asking this question because when I recently discussed massive homicides, I has the Nazi camps in mind and a friend mentioned Pol Pot's as being much bigger.

The place you are in (France in my case) biaises this a lot.

I wonder if we will get articles about the last survivor of the slavery in Qatar (abolished in 1952)

There is no last survivor of slavery in Qatar. Despite its officially being abolished, Qatari slavery endures to this day.

https://dohanews.co/report-qatar-fifth-highest-proportion-sl...

It's really hard to define slavery. I don't see any difference between indentured servitude and modern student loans. If a bank is projecting your future earning potential and how risky you are when deciding whether to give you a loan in student loans, mortgages, credit card ... How is that any different from slavery? They're literally projecting if you can pay off a loan amortized over ~30 years.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a very brutal form of slavery. Slavery existed in many forms throughout history and I don't think our current iteration of "employment" and lending is very different from many of slavery's historical forms

By your stated logic, all laws and enforceable contracts are slavery.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but that reduces "slavery" to "obligation" or "commitment", and dilutes atrocity to banal.

When you get credit card debt, does the credit card company choose what job you have to work at to pay it off? Do they choose where you have to live until you pay it off? Do they get to choose who, if anyone, you are allowed to marry? If you try to leave that place, does the credit card company chase you down, capture you, and beat you? Is the credit card company legally allowed to physically or sexually abuse you?

Good thing these days slavery is illegal in the US – unless your company owns a prison

Enslaved by Africans and sold by a Canadian, and I’m supposed to pay reparations?

Good thing we work on the evil of 3 generations ago instead of handling the evil of the now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Libya

It’s important to remember history so we might have a chance of not repeating it.

The OP's point is that it is still being repeated right now.

For context, there are around 40 million people living in some form of slavery today, around four times the number of people who were sold in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, so it is by no means a solved problem.

Most people in slavery today live in Asia and the Middle East, but there are pockets in Africa where it is common too.

Modern slaves are sold for as little as $10-$100 and are therefore often considered disposable by their perpetrators. Approx 70% are women and 25% children.

Slavery is illegal everywhere in the world but enforcement is lax or non-existent in some countries, notably Libya and Yemen.

Relative to population, that’s probably the lowest it’s ever been. Obviously the correct number is zero, but it’s an unfortunate fact of life that bad stuff tends to scale with population just like good stuff.

Yes, but unlike other bad stuff, like homicides, this issue isn’t homogeneously distributed over the world. It’s disproportionately concentrated to a small number of countries and regions, that for various reasons and to various degrees tacitly condone it.

Homicide is pretty concentrated too. The rate varies 100x or more between the best and the worst countries, and there’s enormous variation within countries too.

I’m not sure it’s as extreme as you suggest. Looking up stats on slavery in different countries, there are definitely some extreme outliers, but they don’t account for that much of the global total. And by far the worst offender is North Korea, which is never mentioned in these discussion. I also have no idea how accurate these figures are, but the focus on places like Libya doesn’t seem like an honest assessment of the situation.

In any case, I’m not sure how this matters. I guess it would influence how you fight it. If it’s concentrated in a few countries then you’d want pressure on those governments specifically. But in terms of how bad the problem is, I don’t see that it really matters how geographically spread out it is.

Yes, thank you, that was quite obvious.

My point, in case it somehow wasn’t obvious, is that we shouldn’t ignore the past just because problems continue.

The people that are given the most negative attention are those that have admitted guilt. The key to success in the liberal order is to shrug it off and chalk it up to cultural differences.

Case in point: slavery in the US prior to the Civil War is widely acknowledged to be wrong and gets lots of negative attention. Slavery in the US today is barely acknowledged to even exist and gets little negative attention.

It’s funny how people who want to deflect away from discussing the Atlantic slave trade by bringing up modern slavery always mention countries like Libya, and not the US. I imagine it’s worse in Libya, but “why focus on the US’s past when slavery is alive and well here in the present” would hit a lot closer to home and would probably be a lot easier to fix.

Unfortunately a significant fraction of the US is entirely okay with people (mostly black people) being turned into indentured servants for our prison system. They have zero appetite for prison reform, justice reform, police reform, etc, and would much rather we all sit down and shut up.

I am completely against private prisons. Providing there are legitimate reasons for someone to be in prison, how is it wrong to make them at least cover their own costs?

Start by explaining why slavery would ever not be wrong.

Are you against court-ordered community service?

It seems borderline, given that the person has a choice of when and where to perform it. But I don’t want to be near any borderlines here, so, yes. Morality aside, it seems very ineffective both in terms of punishment/rehabilitation and for getting value out of the person.

Well we're talking about morality, so is it morally wrong? I'm fairly sure you'd say conscription is morally wrong, but is jury duty morally wrong? I'm not sure a government can continue to exist without forcing people to work in one form or another.

As I said, it’s borderline.

Jury duty is an interesting question. I’m not a huge fan of the jury system, although it may be the best of bad alternatives. Maybe there’s no good way around this one.

I get that you’re trying to trip me up (and succeeding a bit), but penal labor isn’t difficult or borderline or anything like that. It’s a straightforward “we can make money by forcing that person to work, and it’s not illegal.” There’s no justification beyond, they’re a criminal so they deserve it. Obviously, criminal punishment has to involve violation of certain rights, but I don’t see any reason for it to involve violating this right besides liking money and wanting more of it.

Well I've already mentioned covering costs as a reason. Anything beyond that seems like a slippery slope.

You seem to think that forcing anyone to work is a slippery slope, and considering where we are now, there probably is some merit to that idea.

“Covering costs” is just a different way to say “we like money and we can get some by enslaving that person.” It’s not a moral justification for anything.

> how is it wrong to make them at least cover their own costs?

Very wrong. Prison provides a service to society. We pay for that service out of our own pockets for our own benefit.

This should be true whether you think prison should be about punishment or reform. This should be true regardless of who runs the prison.

If society is unwilling to pay the costs to segregate the population into guilty and not-guilty fractions, they should shut down the prisons and see how expensive that gets.

Trying to offset the costs of that service through literal slavery is insane, immoral, and not in anyone's interest. No crime validates being turned into a slave. Someone being in prison has already been stripped of their freedom, and going further to lease them out as underpriced labor not only fucks with the labor market, but it should not be considered "just" punishment when PRISON is supposed to be the punishment.

Making prisoners pay $2 for fifty cent ramen is just as unethical. If you are unwilling to pay the price for a society without criminals, imprison less people, make fewer criminals, or deal with the consequences. Functioning society has costs. Trying to escape those in such cruel ways is childish, selfish, and stupid.

The OP posted a wiki article. I can't find a wiki article for slavery in the US in the present. The one on indentured servitude is about the past too.

We use euphemisms for it and Wikipedia follows along. The relevant articles are:

For the illegal stuff: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_Uni...

And the legal variety: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_St...

What actions have you taken recently to handle the evil that is slavery in Libya?

I don't understand the point of a comment like this - the article is about a historical figure who is relevant to a large-scale event. Why is that a bad thing, and why do we need to solve all other issues in the world first?

Yes, exactly. We can do both. Recognise a historical figure and raise awareness of current issues.

Your point is valid. But the top-level point is also valid, because the article is from Al Jazeera. It's valid to point out that there's slavery in their (Arab) world much more recently than in the US.

"More recently" meaning, of course, currently.

Sure, ok I guess. Let's say it's valid, I can agree with that.

... but _why_ point it out? What's the purpose of doing so?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Qatar publishes articles like this in order to distract and divert from its own slavery problem.

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/findings/spotl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

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