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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: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday December 17 2015, @10:47PM
No, they weren't. They were mostly captured by other Africans. But that doesn't mean that they were turned in by their relatives. When the Romans invaded Gaul (modern France) and enslaved a bunch of people, would you have argued "Well, those white people did it to themselves, so it's OK if we do it to them"? I don't think so. And that's the equivalent of what was going on in West Africa. Also, African slavery was nothing like American slavery: It was much more like what the American colonies called "indentured servitude" - there was a set period of service, and the working conditions were much better.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Friday December 18 2015, @09:09AM
Granted--I didn't mean to say they were turned in by their own family. Why does this matter again?
I meant to say they were turned in by other (black) Africans. The fact that (black) Africans enslaved other (black) Africans and sold them to be shipped to other countries is kind of a big deal. Who cares if it was another tribe doing it, another family doing it, or another country doing it.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday December 18 2015, @12:09PM
When the Romans invaded Gaul (modern France) and enslaved a bunch of people, would you have argued "Well, those white people did it to themselves, so it's OK if we do it to them"? I don't think so.
A better analogy (and also an historically accurate one) would be that the tribes in Gaul that sided with the Romans captured slaves when they defeated the other tribes and sold them to the Romans, and that this means that modern Italians should feel guilty towards the French.
sudo mod me up