SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the un-reaffirming-faith-in-humanity dept.
The Economist is carrying a free story (free except for the annoying subscribe pop-up) about a French slave trading ship that crashed into a reef and sunk just off of the tiny island named "Île de Sable" on July 31st 1761.
The Island is a tiny mountain top of sand 500 miles east of Madagascar. The island was subsequently re-named Tromelin Island (google map link) for reasons explained in the article. Zoom in and out again to see just how desolate a place this still is.
The shipwrecked French crew, built a boat out of the wreckage of their ship, with the help of some of the slaves. The boat they built, for lack of materials, could accommodate only about half of the people stranded. So all 123 Frenchmen climbed into the boat, left the 88 remaining slaves (out of an original 160 or more), and sailed off toward Madagascar, with a promise to return.
The article is the story of how that promise was not kept, not entirely the fault of the French First Officer, who pleaded for a ship to rescue the slaves, but was rebuffed at every turn. Too busy worrying about the British fleet was the excuse.
Finally in November 1776, 15 years after the shipwreck, with the British Fleet otherwise distracted, a French ship arrived and rescued the last seven remaining survivors (all women except a 8 month old baby boy) from the island.
The story is an interesting read, and documents how easy it was to be callously abandoned in that day and age. (Not nearly as callous as being sold into slavery by your own disaffected relatives, mind you!).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @08:09PM
Exactly, it's no less abhorrent but stop acting like all the colored people were living in harmony for millenia before white men showed up and invented it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @08:28PM
Nice strawman you've got there.
(Score: 3, Touché) by tibman on Thursday December 17 2015, @08:37PM
What color is it?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @11:07PM
It's not really a straw man when so many people forget to take into account nuances like this.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @11:47PM
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Anyone who believes that unrelated tribes selling prisoners of war as slaves to europeans means that the slaves are somehow responsible for their own slavement then they must also believe that completely unrelated people of european decent are responsible for buying those slaves and keeping them enslaved. You don't get to assign collective responsibility to all black people simply because they are black and then turn around and the deny that white people directly and collectively benefited from their side of the transaction too.
Yeah the tribes selling prisoners as slaves were scum, but that doesn't exculpate the people buying those slaves, keeping them and breeding them so that their children and their children's children were born into slavery by one iota. Not one iota. Two wrongs do not make a right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @12:37AM
means that the slaves are somehow responsible for their own slavement
This is the real straw man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @01:46AM
> This is the real straw man.
Its the logical conclusion of getting worked up about "disaffected relatives."
In the US there were only two groups - slave owners and slaves. If the fault wasn't with the slave owners then it must lie on the slaves themselves.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday December 18 2015, @03:33AM
In the US there were only two groups - slave owners and slaves. If the fault wasn't with the slave owners then it must lie on the slaves themselves.
Slaves from Africa didn't travel to the US and then get enslaved. You ignore the third group in Africa doing the enslaving. Then there's other groups in the US who had nothing to do with slavery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @03:49AM
> Slaves from Africa didn't travel to the US and then get enslaved.
So what? Once they are here that's all that matters.
> Then there's other groups in the US who had nothing to do with slavery.
Thank you captain obvious. Now say something that is relevant.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 18 2015, @10:16PM
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday December 18 2015, @03:47AM
In order to sort out what the real straw man is, I must recommend the book Things Fall Apart [barnesandnoble.com] by Chinua Achebe. Granted, it takes place in a later era, but it does give some insight into authentic African culture. It contains some folklore as well. (Well, how is folklore not part of culture?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @03:53AM
Yeah. No one is going to go read some random book just because you said they should. If you can't be bothered to summarize what about the book applies to the topic at hand, fuck I can't even be bothered to click that link. All you did was post to make yourself feel good.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday December 18 2015, @03:54AM
Holy crap. Hate to reply to myself. There's a movie version! [youtube.com] I'm not sure what to think of this, given that African culture is mostly oral tradition. At any rate, interesting.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday December 18 2015, @03:55AM
Terrible audio, btw. Overmodding, ho!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @02:47PM
The bottom line is at the time in the 18th century, this was accepted practice. Doesn't make it "right", but at that time it was considered "right". While I, and most everybody, finds it abhorrent, those involved found it business as usual.
What current practices that we consider as normal or "right" today will our descendants find abhorrent in 100+ years? Livestock Factories? Animal Testing on Primates?
Most people today don't even think about these practices, or prefer to ignore any complicity they have in them (eating cheap chicken, etc.).
It was the same in 1761 for right or wrong. Arguing who sold who into slavery is just silly since it won't solve anything. I would argue there is no single race that can be considered perfect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @02:25PM
Nice fallacy fallacy you've got there.