moogal posted at 8:55PM Sat, 17 October 2015 - #4234035

DreaminGirl posted at 2:24AM Sat, 17 October 2015 - #4233995

Despite the long human history of slave trading various periods of trade can indeed be marked as having beginnings and ends. I was always under the impression that what made slavery in the US (which I understood the above comment to be referring to, right or wrong) unique was the uncommon racial aspect. People of one color having slaves exclusively of another color. ...

Actually... no.

It has been very common for a people in one culture to enslave those of another culture, regardless of skin color. Slavery has been largely culturally discriminate, except in the cases of indentured slaves or those captured in warfare as "the enemy." In the period you're speaking about, Western sensibilities may have, indeed, balked at the idea of other "Westerners" (white people) being enslaved, but, even so, forms of slavery for "whites" did exist and they, along with black slaves or indentured servants, were also considered "personal property."

The first slaves in the Americas were.. white.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/indentured-servants-in-the-us/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076

Later, slavery laws changed a bit and instead of indentured servitude for blacks, true slavery was the norm. No longer was it practically possible for a slave to earn their freedom if their master refused it. Black slavery became much more economically viable and could be more easily justified by the culturally, morally, intellectually "superior" slave owners. Thus, it became much more difficult to use such justifications with fellow whites/Westerners.

A common theme was one of "ethical duty" to instruct the "inferior" black slaves and to become self-appointed stewards of their religious and moral development. That's freakishly difficult to use as a justification for a slave who happens to be white... The mirror would tell the tale.

And, I'm sure this has some sort of use in a discussion about Poser Pron, right?

So, there is some notion that black slavery was "unique" in being totally based on race during this period. There is a small bit of truth to that, but it grew from much broader interpretations of "slavery." Black slaves simply became much more economically viable and the culture of the time could use many more "justifications" for its use of slaves than they could use for the enslaving of fellow whites. But, as an example of history, the idea of enslavement due to ones cultural or racial differences was very a common one and repeated for as long as we have written records.