Shameful pages in the history of the exploration of the New World: how people lived who became slaves. How it's made, how it works, how it works

In March 1857, the US Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens because they were property. Who were they, North American slaves?

At the beginning of the 16th century, the British founded the first settlement in North America, and after only a dozen years, ships began to bring slaves to the colonists en masse. Hundreds of thousands of men and women arrived. They were brought individually and as whole families with small children. The settlers needed labor. Especially in the south of the continent, where there were many agricultural farms.

Slaves who had no rights worked on the plantations. The owners could do whatever they wanted with them. In case of disobedience to the owner, any indignation, or attempts to rebel, they were severely punished. It was not uncommon to see a slave suspended by his arms with his legs set on fire. Or a slave receiving blows from a whip. But this was an easy punishment. Particularly cruel masters could burn a slave alive for any offense. It was common practice to display the severed heads of slaves on stakes in the city square as a means of intimidation.

Although most people think of a black African when they hear the word slave, Europeans were often among the slaves punished. No wonder. Slaves were imported not only from Africa.

Under King James VI, England began selling Irish prisoners to America. The Royal Proclamation of 1625 directly stated the need to send political prisoners overseas and then sell them into slavery. Charles I, Cromwell also continued to make slaves out of the Irish.

By the middle of the 16th century, the majority of slaves in Antigua and Monsterrat were from Ireland. Two thirds of the population of Monsterrat at that time were Irish slaves.

The British knew no pity. Ships with holds full of Irishmen, fathers, brothers, sons, sailed non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Wives and children were not allowed to take with them. They were then sold separately.

In the fifties of the 16th century, more than one hundred thousand of these children aged 10 to 14 years were sold to overseas colonies.

From 1641 to 1651 alone, three hundred thousand Irish were taken into slavery, and more than half a million were killed by the British. In ten years, Ireland's population has more than halved. From one and a half million to six hundred thousand people.

Some sources try to call the Irish “contract workers”, but this is not true. In reality, they were white slaves and differed from slaves from the “black” continent only in skin color.

There were even frequent cases when slaves from Africa were treated better than those from Ireland. Religious intolerance was evident, and hatred of the Catholic faith of the Irish was manifested. White people mocked white people. They were treated as inexpensive property.

African slaves were valued at that time more than their European comrades in misfortune. That's why they were protected. After all, the Irishman was valued at less than five pounds sterling. For an African it was necessary to pay ten times more. If a dark-skinned slave dies, you need to spend a lot to compensate for the loss. You don’t have to feel too sorry for the Irishman, and to intimidate the rest of the slaves, you can flog him to death for a minor offense.

Therefore, they also engaged in the reproduction of slaves. Children born to a slave automatically became slaves, increasing the owner’s wealth with their labor. You can also sell them. In addition, a woman was tied to the estate. If the Irish woman somehow managed to gain freedom, she could not escape. All that remained was to serve the owner. She remained close to the child, who, having been born in captivity, was doomed to a slave fate.

Later, planters came up with a more sophisticated way to get even more profit from this. Crossing African slaves with Irish women made it possible to get a good income and became an additional source of profit. It was possible to plan in advance which slave to get. The children born completely replaced purebred African slaves, saving the money of enterprising colonists. After all, these were ready-made slaves, obtained almost for nothing. You don’t have to buy them or pay for shipping from overseas.

Crossbreeding was widely practiced until a special law was passed in 1681 prohibiting such business. They accepted him not out of sympathy for the slaves. We didn't think about them. Such “breeding” of slaves became so widespread that it began to cause damage to one influential company involved in the transportation of slaves. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were lost. To please the slave traders, the government issued a banning decree.

For over a century, the English forced the Irish into slavery. Thousands, tens of thousands of white-skinned slaves were sold in the slave markets of the New World. White slaves worked on many island and mainland plantations in North America. To make it easier to distinguish such slaves from free whites, in the event of, for example, escape, the Irish were branded. The master's initials were burned onto the body of the slave.

If men worked mainly on plantations, doing agricultural work, then women, in addition to such work and serving the owners on estates as servants, were sold to brothels.

African slaves were often placed as overseers of white slaves, encouraging their cruelty towards the Irish.

In 1798, the Irish, with the support of the French, rebelled against the hated English rule. However, the attempt was unsuccessful. The rebels were defeated by British troops. This caused another surge in the slave trade. The British did not spare their defeated opponents. Thousands of new Irish slaves were sent overseas to Australia and America.

It was not until 1839 that civilized England stopped engaging in human trafficking. But for many years after the official ban, pirates continued to engage in the slave trade.

The attitude towards the people of Ireland did not change either. So, in 1899, the political magazine Harper's Weekly published an article racist against the Irish. The publication described a theory of origin that humiliates this people, that is, justifies their oppression.

The topic of the Irish trade and the terrible fate of hundreds of thousands of white slaves in America is rarely raised and is almost never discussed. After all, these unfortunate people disappeared without a trace. None of them returned home to their homeland and spoke about the horrors that were happening in the colonies. People were dying, the mortality rate among the Irish was the highest. In addition, mixing with African slaves, implanted by slave owners, also had an effect. History therefore forgets about them. There is no evidence, no memory of crimes.

July 30 is World Day against Trafficking in Persons. Unfortunately, in the modern world, the problems of slavery and human trafficking, as well as forced labor, are still relevant. Despite the opposition of international organizations, it is not possible to completely combat human trafficking. Especially in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, where local cultural and historical specifics, on the one hand, and a colossal level of social polarization, on the other hand, create fertile ground for the preservation of such a terrible phenomenon as the slave trade. In fact, slave trading networks in one way or another capture almost all countries of the world, while the latter are divided into countries that are predominantly exporters of slaves, and countries where slaves are imported for their use in some areas of activity.

At least 175 thousand people “disappear” every year from Russia and Eastern Europe alone. In total, at least 4 million people in the world become victims of slave traders every year, most of whom are citizens of underdeveloped Asian and African countries. Traders of “human goods” receive enormous profits amounting to many billions of dollars. On the illegal market, “live goods” are the third most profitable after drugs and. In developed countries, the bulk of people who fall into slavery are represented by illegally held captive women and girls who were forced or persuaded into prostitution. However, a certain part of modern slaves also consists of people forced to work for free at agricultural and construction sites, industrial enterprises, as well as in private households as domestic servants. A significant proportion of modern slaves, especially those from African and Asian countries, are forced to work for free within the migrant “ethnic enclaves” that exist in many European cities. On the other hand, the scale of slavery and the slave trade is much more impressive in the countries of Western and Central Africa, in India and Bangladesh, in Yemen, Bolivia and Brazil, on the Caribbean islands, and in Indochina. Modern slavery is so large-scale and diverse that it makes sense to talk about the main types of slavery in the modern world.

Sexual slavery

The most widespread and, perhaps, widely publicized phenomenon of human trafficking is associated with the supply of women and girls, as well as young boys, into the sex industry. Given the special interest that people have always had in the field of sexual relations, sexual slavery has been widely covered in the world press. The police in most countries of the world fight against illegal brothels, periodically release people illegally detained there and bring the organizers of profitable businesses to justice. In European countries, sexual slavery is very widespread and is associated, first of all, with the coercion of women, most often from economically unstable countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, into prostitution. Thus, in Greece alone, 13,000 - 14,000 sex slaves from the CIS countries, Albania and Nigeria work illegally. In Turkey, the number of prostitutes is about 300 thousand women and girls, and in total there are at least 2.5 million “priestesses of paid love” in the world. A very large part of them were turned into prostitutes by force and are forced into this occupation under the threat of physical harm. Women and girls are delivered to brothels in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, other European countries, the USA and Canada, Israel, Arab countries, and Turkey. For most European countries, the main sources of prostitutes are the republics of the former USSR, primarily Ukraine and Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Albania, as well as the countries of Western and Central Africa - Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon. A large number of prostitutes arrive in the countries of the Arab world and Turkey, again, from the former CIS republics, but rather from the Central Asian region - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. Women and girls are lured to European and Arab countries by offering vacancies as waitresses, dancers, animators, models and promising decent sums of money for performing simple duties. Despite the fact that in our age of information technology, many girls are already aware that abroad many applicants for such vacancies are forced into slavery, a significant part is confident that they will be the ones who will be able to avoid this fate. There are also those who theoretically understand what can await them abroad, but have no idea how cruel their treatment can be in brothels, how inventive the clients are in humiliating human dignity and sadistic abuse. Therefore, the influx of women and girls to Europe and the Middle East continues unabated.

Prostitutes in a Bombay brothel

By the way, a large number of foreign prostitutes also work in the Russian Federation. It is prostitutes from other countries, whose passports are confiscated and who are in the country illegally, who are most often the real “live goods”, since it is still more difficult to force citizens of the country into prostitution. Among the main countries that supply women and girls to Russia are Ukraine, Moldova, and, more recently, also the Central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. In addition, prostitutes from foreign countries - primarily from China, Vietnam, Nigeria, Cameroon - are also transported to brothels in Russian cities that operate illegally - that is, they have an exotic appearance from the point of view of most Russian men and are therefore in demand. However, both in Russia and in European countries, the situation of illegal prostitutes is still much better than in third world countries. At least the work of law enforcement agencies is more transparent and effective here, and the level of violence is lower. They are trying to combat the phenomenon of trafficking in women and girls. The situation is much worse in the countries of the Arab East, Africa, and Indochina. In Africa, the largest number of examples of sexual slavery are noted in Congo, Niger, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Unlike European countries, there is practically no chance of liberation from sexual captivity - within a few years, women and girls get sick and die relatively quickly or lose their “marketable appearance” and are thrown out of brothels, joining the ranks of beggars and beggars. The level of violence and criminal murders of female slaves, whom no one will look for anyway, is very high. In Indochina, Thailand and Cambodia become the center of attraction for trade in “human goods” with sexual overtones. Here, given the influx of tourists from all over the world, the entertainment industry is widely developed, including sex tourism. The bulk of the girls supplied to the Thai sexual entertainment industry are natives of the backward mountainous regions of the north and northeast of the country, as well as migrants from neighboring Laos and Myanmar, where the economic situation is even worse.

The countries of Indochina are one of the world centers of sexual tourism, and not only female but also child prostitution is widespread here. This is precisely why the resorts of Thailand and Cambodia became famous among American and European homosexuals. As for sexual slavery in Thailand, most often it involves girls who are sold into slavery by their own parents. By doing this, they set the goal of somehow easing the family budget and getting a very decent amount by local standards for the sale of a child. Despite the fact that the Thai police are formally fighting the phenomenon of human trafficking, in reality, given the poverty of the deep areas of the country, it is virtually impossible to defeat this phenomenon. On the other hand, difficult financial situations force many women and girls from Southeast Asia and the Caribbean into prostitution voluntarily. In this case, they are not sexual slaves, although elements of forced work as a prostitute may be present even if this type of activity was chosen by the woman voluntarily, of her own free will.

In Afghanistan, a phenomenon called “bacha bazi” is common. This is a shameful practice of turning boy dancers into actual prostitutes serving adult men. Pre-pubescent boys are kidnapped or bought from relatives, after which they are forced to perform as dancers at various celebrations, dressed in women's clothes. Such a boy must use women's cosmetics, wear women's clothes, and please the man - the owner or his guests. According to researchers, the “bacha bazi” phenomenon is common among residents of the southern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan, as well as among residents of some northern regions of the country, and among fans of “bacha bazi” there are people of various nationalities of Afghanistan. By the way, no matter how you feel about the Afghan Taliban, they had a very negative attitude towards the custom of “bacha bazi” and when they took control of most of the territory of Afghanistan, they immediately banned the practice of “bacha bazi”. But after the Northern Alliance managed to prevail over the Taliban, the practice of “bacha bazi” was revived in many provinces - and not without the participation of high-ranking officials who themselves actively used the services of boy prostitutes. In fact, the practice of “bacha bazi” is pedophilia, which is recognized and legitimized by tradition. But it is also the preservation of slavery, since all “bacha bazi” are slaves, forcibly kept by their masters and expelled upon reaching puberty. Religious fundamentalists see the practice of bacha bazi as an ungodly practice, which is why it was banned during the reign of the Taliban. A similar phenomenon of using boys for dancing and homosexual entertainment also exists in India, but there boys are also castrated, turning into eunuchs, who constitute a special despised caste of Indian society, formed from former slaves.

Slavery in the household

Another type of slavery still widespread in the modern world is forced unpaid domestic labor. Most often, residents of African and Asian countries become free house slaves. Domestic slavery is most common in the countries of West and East Africa, as well as among representatives of diasporas of people from African countries living in Europe and the United States. As a rule, large households of wealthy Africans and Asians cannot get by with family members alone and require servants. But servants in such farms often, in accordance with local traditions, work for free, although they do not receive such a bad salary and are considered more like junior members of the family. However, of course, there are many examples of cruel treatment of domestic slaves. Let us turn to the situation in the Mauritanian and Malian societies. Among the Arab-Berber nomads who live in Mauritania, a caste division into four classes is maintained. These are warriors - “Khasans”, clergy - “Marabouts”, free community members and slaves with freedmen (“Haratins”). As a rule, victims of raids on sedentary southern neighbors - Negroid tribes - were enslaved. Most slaves are hereditary, descendants of captured southerners or bought from Sahrawi nomads. They have long been integrated into Mauritanian and Malian society, occupying the corresponding levels of the social hierarchy, and many of them are not even burdened by their position, knowing full well that it is better to live as a servant of a status master than to try to lead an independent existence as an urban pauper, marginalized or lumpen. Basically, house slaves perform the functions of household assistants, caring for camels, keeping the house clean, and guarding property. As for slaves, it is possible to perform the functions of concubines, but more often they also do housework, cooking, and cleaning.

The number of domestic slaves in Mauritania is estimated at approximately 500 thousand people. That is, slaves make up about 20% of the country's population. This is the largest indicator in the world, but the problematic nature of the situation lies in the fact that the cultural and historical specifics of Mauritanian society, as mentioned above, do not prohibit this fact of social relations. Slaves do not seek to leave their masters, but on the other hand, the fact of having slaves encourages their owners to possibly purchase new slaves, including children from poor families who do not at all want to become concubines or household cleaners. In Mauritania, there are human rights organizations that fight slavery, but their activities encounter numerous obstacles from slave owners, as well as the police and intelligence services - after all, among the generals and senior officers of the latter, many also use the labor of free domestic servants. The Mauritanian government denies the existence of slavery in the country and claims that domestic work is traditional in Mauritanian society and the bulk of domestic servants are not going to leave their masters. A roughly similar situation is observed in Niger, Nigeria, Mali, and Chad. Even the law enforcement system of European states cannot serve as a full-fledged obstacle to domestic slavery. After all, migrants from African countries bring the tradition of domestic slavery with them to Europe. Wealthy families of Mauritanian, Malian, and Somali origin order servants from their native countries, who, most often, are not paid and may be subject to cruel treatment by their masters. Repeatedly, the French police freed from domestic captivity immigrants from Mali, Niger, Senegal, Congo, Mauritania, Guinea and other African countries, who, most often, fell into domestic slavery as children - more precisely, they were sold into the service of rich compatriots by their own parents , perhaps wishing good things for the children - to avoid total poverty in their native countries by living in rich families abroad, albeit as free servants.

Domestic slavery is also widespread in the West Indies, primarily in Haiti. Haiti is perhaps the most disadvantaged country in Latin America. Despite the fact that the former French colony became the first (except for the United States) country in the New World to achieve political independence, the standard of living of the population in this country remains extremely low. In fact, it is socio-economic reasons that encourage Haitians to sell their children to wealthier families as domestic servants. According to independent experts, currently at least 200-300 thousand Haitian children are in “domestic slavery”, which on the island is called “restavek” - “service”. How the life and work of a “restavek” will proceed depends, first of all, on the prudence and goodwill of its owners, or on the lack thereof. Thus, a “restavek” may be treated as a younger relative, or may be turned into an object of bullying and sexual harassment. Of course, most child slaves end up being abused.

Child labor in industry and agriculture

One of the most common types of free slave labor in Third World countries is child labor in agricultural work, factories and mines. In total, at least 250 million children are exploited worldwide, with 153 million children exploited in Asia and 80 million in Africa. Of course, not all of them can be called slaves in the full sense of the word, since many children in factories and plantations still receive wages, albeit meager wages. But there are often cases when free child labor is used, and children are bought from their parents specifically as free workers. Thus, child labor is used on cocoa bean and peanut plantations in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Moreover, the bulk of child slaves come to these countries from neighboring poorer and more problematic states - Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. For many young inhabitants of these countries, working on plantations where food is provided is at least some opportunity to survive, since it is unknown how their life would have turned out in parental families with a traditionally large number of children. It is known that Niger and Mali have one of the highest birth rates in the world, with the majority of children born into peasant families who themselves can barely make ends meet. Droughts in the Sahel zone, destroying agricultural yields, contribute to the impoverishment of the region's peasant population. Therefore, peasant families are forced to place their children on plantations and mines - just to “throw them off” from the family budget. In 2012, Burkina Faso police, with the help of Interpol officers, freed child slaves who worked in a gold mine. Children worked in the mines in dangerous and unsanitary conditions without receiving wages. A similar operation was carried out in Ghana, where police also released child sex workers. Large numbers of children are enslaved in Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, where their labor is primarily used in agriculture. Nestle, one of the largest cocoa and chocolate producers, is accused of using child labor. Most of the plantations and enterprises owned by this company are located in West African countries that actively use child labor. Thus, in Côte d'Ivoire, which produces 40% of the world's cocoa bean crop, at least 109 thousand children work on cocoa plantations. Moreover, working conditions on plantations are very difficult and are currently recognized as the worst in the world among other uses of child labor. It is known that in 2001, about 15 thousand children from Mali became victims of the slave trade and were sold on cocoa plantations in Cote d'Ivoire. More than 30,000 children from Ivory Coast itself also work in plantation agriculture, and another 600,000 children work on small family farms, some of them relatives of the owners as well as hired servants. In Benin, plantations employ the labor of at least 76,000 child slaves, including natives of this country and other West African countries, including Congo. Most Benin child slaves work on cotton plantations. In The Gambia, it is common to force minor children to beg, and most often children are forced to beg... by teachers of religious schools, who see this as an additional source of their income.

Child labor is very widely used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and some other countries in South and Southeast Asia. India has the second largest number of child workers in the world. Over 100 million Indian children are forced to work to earn their own food. Despite the fact that child labor is officially prohibited in India, it is widespread. Children work on construction sites, in mines, in brick factories, on agricultural plantations, in semi-handicraft enterprises and workshops, and in the tobacco business. In the state of Meghalaya in northeastern India, in the Jaintia coal basin, about two thousand children work. Children from 8 to 12 years old and teenagers 12-16 years old make up ¼ of the eight thousand miners, but receive half as much as adult workers. The average daily salary of a child in a mine is no more than five dollars, more often - three dollars. Of course, there is no question of any compliance with safety precautions and sanitary standards. Recently, Indian children have been competing with incoming migrant children from neighboring Nepal and Myanmar, who value their labor at even less than three dollars a day. At the same time, the socio-economic situation of many millions of families in India is such that they simply cannot survive without employing their children. After all, a family here can have five or more children, despite the fact that adults may not have a job or receive very little money. Finally, we must not forget that for many children from poor families, working at an enterprise is also an opportunity to get some kind of shelter over their heads, since there are millions of homeless people in the country. In Delhi alone there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people who have no shelter and live on the streets. Child labor is also used by large transnational companies, which, precisely because of the cheapness of labor, move their production to Asian and African countries. Thus, in India alone, at least 12 thousand children work on the plantations of the notorious Monsanto company. These are actually slaves too, despite the fact that their employer is a world-famous company created by representatives of the “civilized world”.

In other countries of South and Southeast Asia, child labor is also actively used in industrial enterprises. In particular, in Nepal, despite a law in force since 2000 prohibiting the employment of children under 14 years of age, children actually make up the majority of the workforce. Moreover, the law implies a ban on child labor only in registered enterprises, while the majority of children work on unregistered agricultural farms, in handicraft workshops, as house helpers, etc. Three-quarters of Nepali youth workers are employed in agriculture, with the majority of female workers employed in agriculture. Child labor is also widely used in brick factories, despite the fact that brick production is very harmful. Children also work in quarries and perform waste sorting work. Naturally, safety standards at such enterprises are also not observed. Most working Nepalese children do not receive secondary or even primary education and are illiterate - the only possible life path for them is unskilled hard work for the rest of their lives.

In Bangladesh, 56% of the country's children live below the international poverty line of $1 a day. This leaves them no choice but to work in heavy production. 30% of Bangladeshi children under 14 years of age are already working. Almost 50% of Bangladeshi children drop out before completing primary school and go to work - in brick factories, balloon factories, agricultural farms, etc. But the first place in the list of countries that most actively use child labor rightfully belongs to Myanmar, neighboring India and Bangladesh. Every third child aged 7 to 16 years works here. Moreover, children are employed not only in industrial enterprises, but also in the army - as army loaders, subject to harassment and bullying by soldiers. There were even cases of children being used to “clear mines” from minefields - that is, children were released into the field to find out where there are mines and where there is free passage. Later, under pressure from the world community, the military regime of Myanmar began to significantly reduce the number of child soldiers and military servants in the country's army, but the use of child slave labor in enterprises and construction sites and in agriculture continues. The bulk of Myanmar children are used to collect rubber, in rice and cane plantations. In addition, thousands of children from Myanmar migrate to neighboring India and Thailand in search of work. Some of them fall into sexual slavery, others become free labor in the mines. But those who are sold to households or tea plantations are even envied, since working conditions there are disproportionately easier than in mines and mines, and they pay even more outside of Myanmar. It is noteworthy that children do not receive wages for their work - their parents receive it for them, who do not work themselves, but act as supervisors for their own children. If children are absent or young, women work. Over 40% of children in Myanmar do not attend school at all, but devote all their time to work, acting as family breadwinners.

Slaves of war

Another type of use of actual slave labor is the use of children in armed conflicts in third world countries. It is known that in a number of African and Asian countries there is a developed practice of purchasing, and more often kidnapping, children and adolescents in poor villages for the purpose of subsequent use as soldiers. In the countries of West and Central Africa, at least ten percent of children and adolescents are forced to serve as soldiers in the formations of local rebel groups, and even in government forces, although the governments of these countries, of course, do their best to hide the fact of the presence of children in their armed units. It is known that the majority of child soldiers are in the Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

During the Civil War in Liberia, at least ten thousand children and adolescents took part in hostilities, and approximately the same number of child soldiers fought during the armed conflict in Sierra Leone. In Somalia, teenagers under 18 years of age make up almost the bulk of the soldiers and government troops and formations of radical fundamentalist organizations. Many of the African and Asian “child soldiers” cannot adapt after the end of hostilities and end up as alcoholics, drug addicts and criminals. The practice of using children forcibly captured from peasant families as soldiers is widespread in Myanmar, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and the Philippines. In recent years, child soldiers have been actively used by religious fundamentalist groups fighting in West and Northeast Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, as well as international terrorist organizations. Meanwhile, the use of children as soldiers is prohibited by international conventions. In fact, the forced conscription of children into military service is not much different from slavery, only children are exposed to an even greater risk of death or loss of health, and also endanger their psyche.

Slave labor of illegal migrants

In those countries of the world that are relatively developed economically and are attractive to foreign labor migrants, the practice of using free labor of illegal migrants is widely developed. As a rule, illegal labor migrants who enter these countries due to the lack of documents allowing them to work, or even identification, cannot fully defend their rights and are afraid to contact the police, which makes them easy prey for modern slave owners and slave traders. Most illegal migrants work on construction sites, manufacturing enterprises, and agriculture, and their work may not be paid or paid very poorly and with delays. Most often, the slave labor of migrants is used by their own fellow tribesmen, who arrived in the host countries earlier and created their own businesses during this time. In particular, a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, in an interview with the Russian BBC Service, said that most of the crimes related to the use of slave labor of people from this republic are also committed by natives of Tajikistan. They act as recruiters, intermediaries and human traffickers and supply free labor from Tajikistan to Russia, thereby deceiving their own compatriots. A large number of migrants who turn to human rights organizations for help have, over the years of free work in a foreign land, not only not earned any money, but also undermined their health, even becoming disabled due to terrible working and living conditions. Some of them were subjected to beatings, torture, bullying, and there were also frequent cases of sexual violence and harassment against migrant women and girls. Moreover, the listed problems are common to most countries of the world in which a significant number of foreign labor migrants live and work.

The Russian Federation uses free labor of illegal migrants from the republics of Central Asia, primarily Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as from Moldova, China, North Korea, and Vietnam. In addition, there are known facts of the use of slave labor by Russian citizens - both in enterprises and construction companies, and in private farms. Such cases are suppressed by the country's law enforcement agencies, but it can hardly be said that kidnappings and, especially, free labor in the country will be eliminated in the foreseeable future. According to a report on modern slavery presented in 2013, there are approximately 540 thousand people in the Russian Federation whose situation can be described as slavery or debt bondage. However, when calculated per thousand people, these are not such large figures and Russia occupies only 49th place in the list of countries in the world. The leading positions in the number of slaves per thousand people are occupied by: 1) Mauritania, 2) Haiti, 3) Pakistan, 4) India, 5) Nepal, 6) Moldova, 7) Benin, 8) Ivory Coast, 9) Gambia, 10) Gabon.

Illegal labor of migrants brings many problems - both to the migrants themselves and to the economy of the country receiving them. After all, migrants themselves turn out to be completely unguaranteed workers who can be deceived, not paid their wages, placed in inappropriate conditions, or not ensured compliance with safety regulations at work. At the same time, the state also loses, since illegal migrants do not pay taxes, are not registered, that is, they are officially “non-existent”. Thanks to the presence of illegal migrants, the crime rate increases sharply - both due to crimes committed by migrants themselves against the indigenous population and each other, and due to crimes committed against migrants. Therefore, the legalization of migrants and the fight against illegal migration is also one of the key guarantees for at least partial elimination of free and forced labor in the modern world.

Can the slave trade be eradicated?

According to human rights organizations, in the modern world tens of millions of people are in virtual slavery. These are women, adult men, teenagers, and very young children. Naturally, international organizations are trying to the best of their ability to combat the fact of the slave trade and slavery, which is terrible for the 21st century. However, this struggle does not actually provide a real remedy to the situation. The reason for the slave trade and slavery in the modern world lies, first of all, in the socio-economic plane. In the same “third world” countries, most child slaves are sold by their own parents due to the impossibility of maintaining them. Overpopulation in Asian and African countries, mass unemployment, high birth rates, illiteracy of a significant part of the population - all these factors together contribute to the persistence of child labor, the slave trade, and slavery. The other side of the problem under consideration is the moral and ethnic decomposition of society, which occurs, first of all, in the case of “Westernization” without relying on one’s own traditions and values. When it is combined with socio-economic reasons, very favorable soil arises for the flourishing of mass prostitution. Thus, many girls in resort countries become prostitutes on their own initiative. At least for them, this is the only opportunity to earn the standard of living that they are trying to lead in Thai, Cambodian or Cuban resort towns. Of course, they could stay in their native village and lead the lifestyle of their mothers and grandmothers, engaged in agriculture, but the spread of mass culture and consumer values ​​reaches even the remote provincial regions of Indochina, not to mention the resort islands of Central America.

Until the socio-economic, cultural, and political causes of slavery and the slave trade are eliminated, it will be premature to talk about eradicating these phenomena on a global scale. If in European countries and in the Russian Federation the situation can still be corrected by increasing the efficiency of law enforcement agencies and limiting the scale of illegal labor migration from and to the country, then in the Third World countries, of course, the situation will remain unchanged. It is possible that it will only get worse, given the discrepancy between the rates of demographic and economic growth in most African and Asian countries, as well as the high level of political instability, associated, among other things, with rampant crime and terrorism.

African slaves began to be imported into the territory of the modern United States of America in the 17th century. The first permanent settlement of English colonists in America, James Town, was founded in 1607. And twelve years later, in 1619, the colonists acquired a small group of Africans of Angolan origin from the Portuguese. Although these blacks were not formally slaves, but had long-term contracts without the right to terminate, it is from this event that the history of slavery in America is usually counted. The indenture system was soon officially replaced by the more profitable system of slavery. In 1641, Massachusetts changed the term of service for slaves to life, and a 1661 law in Virginia made maternal slavery hereditary for children. Similar laws enshrining slavery were passed in Maryland (1663), New York (1665), South (1682) and North Carolina (1715), etc.

The importation of blacks and the introduction of slavery were a consequence of the need for labor in the south of North America, where large agricultural enterprises were established - tobacco, rice and other plantations. In the North, where the plantation economy, due to special economic and climatic conditions, was less widespread, slavery was never used on such a scale as in the South.

The black slaves imported to America were mostly residents of the western coast of Africa, a much smaller part belonged to the tribes of Central and Southern Africa, as well as North Africa and the island of Madagascar. Among them were blacks of the Fulbe, Wolof, Yoruba, Ibo, Ashanti, Fanti, Hausa, Dahomey, Bantu and others tribes.

Until the end of the 17th century, the slave trade in the English colonies in America was a monopoly of the Royal African Company, but in 1698 this monopoly was eliminated, and the colonies received the right to independently engage in the slave trade. The slave trade took on even wider dimensions after 1713, when England achieved the right of asiento - the exclusive right to trade in black slaves.

In Africa, an agency of slave traders was created who rounded up slaves and prepared them for sale. This organization reached the far reaches of Africa and many people worked for it, including tribal and village leaders. The leaders either sold their fellow tribesmen or launched attacks on hostile tribes, took captives, and then sold them into slavery. The captured blacks were tied up in twos and led through the forests to the coast.

Factories grew along the western coast of Africa from Cape Verde to the equator, where slaves were driven in batches. There, in dirty, cramped barracks, they awaited the arrival of slave ships. When a ship arrived for “live goods,” the agents began to negotiate with the captains. Each black man was shown personally. The captains forced the blacks to move their fingers, arms, legs and whole body to make sure that there were no fractures. Even the teeth were checked. If there were not enough teeth, then a lower price was given for the black man. Each black cost approximately 100 gallons of rum, 100 pounds of gunpowder, or 18-20 dollars. Women under 25, pregnant or not, were worth full price, but after 25 they lost a quarter of the price.

When the transactions ended, the slaves began to be transported in boats to ships. They transported 4-6 blacks at a time. On board the ship, the blacks were divided into three groups. The men were loaded into one compartment. Women in another. Children were left on deck. Slaves were transported on ships specially designed to “stuff” more live goods into the hold. Small sailing ships of that time managed to transport 200, 300, even 500 slaves in one voyage. And at least 600 slaves were loaded onto the ship with a displacement of 120 tons. As the slave traders themselves said, “a Negro should not take up more space in the hold than in a coffin.”

2 On the road

The ships were on the road for 3-4 months. All this time the slaves were in terrible conditions. The holds were very crowded, the blacks were shackled. There was very little water and food. There was no thought of taking the slaves out of the hold to relieve themselves. In the darkness, the slave ship was easily distinguished from any other by the heavy stench emanating from it. Young black women were often raped by the captain and crew. Blacks had their nails cut short so they couldn't tear each other's skin. A large number of fights broke out between men as they tried to make themselves a little more comfortable. Then the overseer's whip came into play.

Slaves died in droves during transportation. For every Negro who survived, there were often five who died on the road - suffocated from lack of air, died from illness, went crazy, or simply threw themselves into the sea, preferring death to slavery.

3 America

Upon arrival in America, slaves were first fed, treated, and then sold. However, some tried to buy slaves quickly: after all, as the slave took a break from the “travel,” the cost increased. Slave prices varied over time. For example, in 1795 the price was $300, by 1849 it had risen to $900, and on the eve of the Civil War it reached $1,500-2,000 per slave.

Slaves were imported mainly for the tobacco and cotton plantations of the southern states. They were sent to work in batches, they worked up to 18-19 hours a day, driven by the scourge of the overseer. At night the slaves were locked up and the dogs were let loose. The average life expectancy of a black slave on plantations was 10 years, and in the 19th century it was 7 years. Conditions were slightly better for those slaves who served as servants, cooks, and nannies.

Slaves had no rights and freedoms and were considered the property of the owner, with whom the owner could do whatever he wanted without any prosecution by the law. The Virginia Slave Code, adopted in 1705, prohibited slaves from leaving plantations without written permission. He sanctioned flogging, branding and mutilation as punishment for even minor offenses. Some codes prohibited teaching slaves to read and write. In Georgia, the crime was punishable by a fine and/or flogging if the offender was a “negro slave or free person of color.” The ears of a slave who escaped and was caught were cut off, and the arms and legs of his children were cut off for unfulfilled work. A slave owner could, if he wished, kill his slave, although able-bodied slaves were rarely killed.

Slaves were prohibited from traveling in groups of more than 7 people unless accompanied by whites. Any white man who met a black man outside the plantation had to demand a ticket from him, and if he did not have one, he could give him 20 lashes. If a black man tried to defend himself or respond to a blow, he was subject to execution. For being outside the house after 9 pm, blacks in Virginia were quartered.

Negroes were made slaves, but they were never submissive slaves. They often started uprisings on ships. This is evidenced by a special type of insurance for shipowners to cover losses specifically in the event of a slave rebellion on the ship. But even on the plantations, where blacks lived, brought from different parts of Africa, representatives of different tribes, speaking different languages, slaves managed to overcome inter-tribal strife and unite in the fight against their common enemy - the planters. During the period from 1663 to 1863, over 250 black uprisings and conspiracies were recorded. Black uprisings were brutally suppressed. But even these isolated outbursts of despair among the oppressed slaves made the planters tremble with fear. Almost every plantation had its own weapons depot, and groups of planters maintained security detachments that prowled the roads at night.

Negro slaves expressed their protest in other forms, such as damage to tools, murder of overseers and owners, suicide, escapes, etc. Blacks fled to the forests, to the Indians, to the North, where by the end of the 18th century slavery was abolished . At least 60 thousand fugitives reached the northern states between 1830 and 1860.

Of course, the living conditions of each individual slave depended on his owner. In 1936-1938, American writers, participants in the so-called Federal Writers' Project, commissioned by the government, recorded interviews with former slaves, who by that time were over 80 years old. The result was the publication of Collected Stories of Former Slaves. From these stories it is very clear that blacks lived differently, some were more lucky, some were less fortunate. Here is the story of 91-year-old George Young (Livingston, Alabama): “They didn’t teach us anything and didn’t let us learn ourselves. If they saw us learning to read and write, our hand would be cut off. They were also not allowed to go to church. Sometimes we would run away and pray together in an old house with a dirt floor. There we rejoiced and shouted, and no one heard us, because the earthen floor muffled us, and one person stood in the doorway. We weren't allowed to visit anyone, and I saw Jim Dawson, Iverson Dawson's father, tied to four stakes. They laid him on his stomach and stretched out his arms to the sides, and tied one hand to one stake and the other to the other. The legs were also stretched to the sides and tied to stakes. And then they started beating me with a board - the kind they put on the roof. The blacks then came there at night and carried him home on a sheet, but he did not die. He was accused of going to a neighboring plantation at night. At nine o'clock we all had to be home. The elder came and shouted: “All clear! Lights out! Everyone go home and lock the doors!” And if anyone didn’t go, they beat him.”

And here is the memory of Nicey Pugh (85 years old, Mobile, Alabama): “Life was happy for the blacks then. Sometimes I want to go back there. How now I see that glacier with butter, milk and cream. How a stream gurgles over the stones, and above it there are willows. I hear turkeys cackling in the yard, chickens running and bathing in the dust. I see a creek next to our house and cows that have come to drink and cool their feet in the shallow water. I was born into slavery, but I was never a slave. I worked for good people. Is this called slavery, white gentlemen?

CONCLUSION

The slave trade was an unprecedented economic, social and political disaster in the history of mankind... Caused by the demand of America and Europe, it bled the whole of Africa and placed it outside of civilization.

William Edward Burghardt DuBois

I’m thinking about Othello again: what a brilliant idea to create Othello as black, mulatto, in a word, destitute.

Alphonse Daudet

The transatlantic slave trade - the forced removal of African slaves from Africa to the plantations and mines of the colonies of the New World and some other colonies of European powers - lasted more than 400 years in total. Its beginning dates back to the middle of the 15th century, when the first Portuguese sailors reached the West African coast. The end of the era of the European-American slave trade - the 70s of the 19th century. - coincides with the beginning of the colonial division of the African continent.

It is wrong to talk about the place of the slave trade only in the history of Africa. She is part of the history of Africa, Europe and the Americas.

The slave trade was one of the “main moments” of primitive accumulation; it had a great influence on the development of capitalism in Europe and America. Its role in the history of Africa is extremely complex and tragic. Its consequences are still not fully understood. They are also evident today, and therefore the history of the slave trade does not belong to the past, but is one of the pressing problems of today.

It is often written that the slave trade slowed down the development of Africa, throwing it back compared to the level of development at which African peoples were before the arrival of Europeans. This is not entirely accurate. The slave trade really slowed down the development of Africa and interrupted its independent development, but at the same time it directed this development in many ways along an ugly, unusual path that had no prerequisites in African society. In addition, the slave trade subjugated the general process of development and adapted it to the “slave trade” needs.

Africa, as already mentioned, knew slavery and the slave trade before the arrival of Europeans. Slavery here was domestic, patriarchal in nature. The slave trade, especially on the west coast, where it was not associated with the trans-Saharan and Arab trade, was internal in nature and determined by local demand for slaves. There is no data for the 15th–16th centuries. about a sharp increase in the export of slaves from the West Coast. The subsequent monstrously rapid development of the slave trade was a direct consequence of European policies aimed at developing the slave trade. This is especially clear in the example of the development of the slave trade in Angola and the Congo.

The slave trade before its official prohibition at the beginning of the 19th century. was a legal, universally recognized and profitable branch of trade, with a clear organization by European and American trading houses. The Africans, for their part, also created a fairly organized system of buying and selling their compatriots on the coast. The chaos of the slave trade should only be discussed in relation to those areas of the hinterland where slaves were captured.

At the same time, the rapid increase in the volume of the slave trade, due solely to external reasons, did not lead to the development or strengthening of the slave system among the peoples of Africa.

There were no changes in the African economy during this time that would require greater use of slave labor than was the case before the arrival of Europeans.

Before the arrival of the slave traders, all slaves were kept in a state of complete “readiness” for sale - chained and locked in special rooms. Only in some areas, such as the Congo or Angola, were slaves awaiting shipment overseas used by local slave traders. It is incorrect to talk about the expansion of local slavery, meaning slaves awaiting sale.

It is sometimes argued that the consequence of the slave trade was the so-called secondary development of the slave system after the prohibition of the slave trade. This is not entirely true. After the prohibition of the slave trade, or rather, after the export of slaves from West Africa began to really decrease, some large slave traders for some time turned into slave owners. Indeed, in the interior of the continent, the slave trade continued. Slaves were captured, sent to the coast, and here, due to the impossibility of sending overseas, they “settled” with slave traders. The most enterprising traders purchased these slaves and used them in their households. However, this process has not been widely developed. The struggle to prohibit the export of slaves grew into the seizure of colonies, and the influx of slaves to the coast gradually ceased.

The development of the slave trade with Europeans everywhere led to a worsening of the situation of “house slaves.” By threatening slaves with sale to Europeans for the slightest disobedience, slave owners intensified their exploitation.

The slave trade contributed to property stratification and social differentiation. It led to the disintegration of community ties and undermined the intra-tribal organization of Africans.

Chiefs, priests and other members of the tribal nobility, enriched by the slave trade, formed part of the new nobility. In an effort to get more weapons, various goods and strengthen their power, they were interested in developing the slave trade and strengthening trade relations with Europeans.

Gradually, all power was concentrated in the hands of slave traders, and the lives of Africans largely obeyed the demands of the slave trade.

By pitting one tribe against another, fueling endless internecine wars, the slave trade led to the isolation of African peoples, to aggressiveness and mistrust.

The slave trade was one of the factors that hampered the development of agriculture and some crafts. The widespread import of European goods, especially manufactured goods, which were exchanged for slaves, interrupted the development of a number of crafts, for example, weaving, weaving, jewelry and others, and contributed to the deterioration of the quality of manufactured goods.

In some areas (for example, the ocean coast of modern Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Tanzania, areas near Lake Tanganyika), which were large transshipment points for the purchase and sale of slaves, Africans abandoned their traditional crafts and were actively involved in the slave trade, which gave them the opportunity to “easy by selling their fellow tribesmen to obtain the necessary goods. D. Livingston talked about how Africans stopped, for example, cultivating cotton. It was much easier to catch some passer-by and, having sold him, get the necessary fabrics and other products from the Europeans or Arabs.

The slave trade undoubtedly contributed to the development of trade and exchange. Through it, Africa was drawn into the world market. However, receiving various goods from slave traders (we will not discuss their value here), Africa gave in exchange a “good” whose value is incomparable to anything else - people. For more than four centuries, West and East Africa were areas for the export of a single “monoculture” - slaves.

And at the same time, the slave trade tightly isolated Africa from the rest of the world. For centuries, what came from outside was associated, as a rule, only with the slave trade. Nothing else could have broken through the stockade of the slave trade, and Africa could not have interested the world in those centuries in anything other than slaves for export.

In general, the slave trade undoubtedly acted as a hindrance to the creation of local statehood. It accelerated the collapse of, for example, Benin, the state of Congo, etc. But, having arisen at the intersection of trade routes, city-states such as Vidah, Ardra, Bonny, Old Calabar and others grew up around slave markets during the slave trade - intermediaries between Europeans and slave traders interior of Africa. Some state formations, for example in the Yoruba lands, owed their emergence to the slave trade, and after some time their population themselves became victims of slave hunters. Dahomey and the Zanzibar Sultanate grew rich from the slave trade, making profits from the sale of their compatriots and neighboring peoples the main source of state income.

According to W. Dubois, who relied on Dunbar’s figures, it was generally accepted that the entire slave trade cost Africa 100 million human lives, including people who died during the slave trade wars, in slave caravans, during the “middle transition,” etc. d. Of these 100 million, according to Dubois, 40 million are victims of the Muslim slave trade and 60 million of the European one; The calculations of R. Kuczynski are close to the figures of W. Dubois. Other researchers brought the death toll from the slave trade to 150 million people.

Of course, there is no demographic or statistical information about the population of Africa in the past. There are only some conditional calculations, which, although not fully reflecting reality, still give some idea of ​​​​the dependence of the population of the African continent on the slave trade.

This is an unprecedented case in the history of mankind, when over 200 years the population of an entire continent, where no cataclysms occurred, remained at the same level or even decreased.

According to our calculations, at least 16–18 million people were taken from Africa to the countries of the New World during the entire period of the slave trade by European and American slave traders, and the total number of deaths as a result of the Atlantic slave trade was at least one hundred and fifty million people.

In recent decades, foreign researchers have been inclined to name other, much smaller numbers of deaths from the slave trade, this has already been discussed above. However, African scientists believe that more than 200 million people became victims of the slave trade in Africa.

The loss of such a number of people meant the destruction of productive forces, traditional cultural skills and connections and, as it seems to us, the worst thing - a violation of the gene pool of the race.

The slave trade required the strongest, healthiest, and most resilient. Many other Africans also died during the capture of slaves, but still the slave trade demanded the best from Mother Africa. Let's hope that major research by African historians, ethnographers, anthropologists, and geneticists on the consequences of the slave trade for Africa is ahead.

The psychological consequences of the slave trade turned out to be the most difficult for Africa and Africans both in Africa and beyond.

The slave trade led to a terrible devaluation of human life. Its consequences were moral decay, disfigurement of the psyche, consciousness of complete security for the evil caused to other people, degradation of both slave traders and slaves.

The most terrible legacy left by the slave trade is racism.

In the 18th century With the beginning of the struggle to prohibit the slave trade, a theory about the inferiority of Africans compared to white people was invented to justify it - racism arose. It was needed in order to legalize the continuation of the slave trade and establish the slavery of Africans in the American colonies.

The slave trade led to the fact that from the sphere of social differences the definition of “slave”, belonging to slavery, moved into the sphere of racial differences. “A slave not because he was captured and sold into slavery, but because an African cannot be anything other than a slave” - this racist position became the creed of planters and defenders of slavery.

One of the distinctive features of Africans is their dark skin color. It was declared a sign of an inferior race. The black man was denied the right to human dignity and could be insulted and humiliated with impunity.

At a certain level of social development, slavery existed among most peoples of the globe. We know about the slaves of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome. There were white Christian slaves in the Muslim countries of the East and Africa, and, conversely, in the economies of European countries until the 16th century. Slaves were used quite widely, among whom were natives not only of African and Eastern countries, but also of neighboring European states. Pirates and slave traders of the Mediterranean captured and sold people into slavery, regardless of the color of their skin or religion.

And yet, to this day, when most people hear the word “slave,” they conjure up an image of a black African. And this is also one of the consequences of the slave trade.

For generations, people have known Africa through the lens of the slave trade. The world has not heard of the magnificent wealth of ancient Ghana, or the power of medieval Benin and Songhai. Africa was known for slave traders and slaves. This is where the concept of the unhistoricity of African peoples largely originated, and in the minds of millions of people, far from having racist views, there was a belief that Africans were people of low mental capacity, capable of doing only unskilled work.

The formalization of racial prejudices into the theory of racism occurred at the end of the 18th century, when in almost all European countries and the United States there was a struggle to ban the slave trade.

From the very beginning of its existence, racism had an “office” character. Its emergence was caused by the desire to justify the oppression of one race by another and prove the necessity of it.

At the beginning of the 19th century. racism did not particularly manifest itself. The beginning of the colonial division of the world served as a new impetus for its further development. Particularly fertile ground for racist ideology and practice was created by the activities of colonialists in Africa and the struggle of slave-owning planters to maintain slavery in the United States. During the territorial division of Africa, racism was adopted by the colonialists to justify the now colonial slavery of Africans.

Modern science, if approached from a truly scientific point of view, easily refutes any speculation of racists. And yet racism - this, in the words of W. Du Bois, “the most terrible legacy of Negro slavery” - still exists.

In 1967, the issue of race and racism was discussed at a UNESCO meeting. The Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice was adopted, which, in particular, noted that “racism hinders the development of those who suffer from it, corrupts those who profess it, divides nations among themselves, increases international tension and threatens world peace.” .

In 1978, UNESCO returned to the debate on race and racism and adopted the New Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice. It states, in particular: “All peoples of the world have equal abilities that allow them to achieve the highest intellectual, technical, social, economic, cultural and political development.”

“Racism is a social phenomenon,” says G. Aptheker. “It has its own history, that is, a beginning, development and, I am convinced, an end.” Indeed, racism is not eternal, but if the times of the slave trade are a thing of the past, then racism lives on today.

The slave trade, which had such dire consequences for Africa, contributed to the development and prosperity of the countries of Europe and America.

There was a close connection in the era of primitive accumulation between slavery, the colonial system, the development of trade and the emergence of large-scale industry. “Like machines, credit, etc., direct slavery is the basis of bourgeois industry. Without slavery there would be no cotton: without cotton, modern industry is unthinkable. Slavery gave value to the colonies, the colonies created world trade, world trade is a necessary condition for large-scale industry.

Without slavery, North America, the country of the most rapid progress, would have turned into a patriarchal country." “In general,” wrote K. Marx, “for the hidden slavery of wage workers in Europe, slavery sans phrase (without reservations) in the New World was necessary as a foundation.”

The fabulous wealth of the planters of the West Indies and America was created by the hands of Africans, hundreds of thousands of whom died in the cruelest conditions of plantation slavery.

Both Americas benefited the most from the slave trade. The foundations of today's US economic power were laid during the slave trade on the bones of hundreds of thousands of Africans.

“We owe everything that is good in America to Africa,” said one of the American public figures of the 18th century. “Negroes are the main support of the New World,” his contemporaries supported.

Along with the Indians - the only autochthonous race of America, along with the descendants of Europeans who once immigrated to the New World, the descendants of former slaves Africans can rightfully consider the American continent their native land. Like Indians and Indians, like “white” inhabitants of the American continent, African-Americans were and are the creators of the history of the countries of which they are citizens.

The descendants of African slaves became outstanding scientists and public figures: the names of William Dubois, Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King and others are named among the best representatives of humanity.

Africans, torn from their homeland, sold into slavery and brought to a foreign, harsh land for them, gave their stepmother America not only their labor. They brought their culture, their customs and beliefs, their art to the New World.

It can be assumed that around the beginning of the 19th century. Gradually, in the process of working together on plantations, mines, and fighting against planters, some tribal differences began to be overcome. The languages ​​of the colonialists helped overcome the language barrier, since the slaves were natives of different regions of Africa and did not always understand each other. The subsequent abolition of slavery, the departure of slaves from plantations in some colonies, and the resulting migration within the country contributed to the growth of a sense of ethnic community. Perhaps from this time we can talk about the beginning of the process of the formation of the Afro-Cuban, Afro-Guyanese people, etc.

Of all the peoples who appeared in the New World after it became known to Europeans, Africans brought with them the most profound cultural traditions. The influence of African rhythms and melodies on the music of the peoples of both Americas and the West Indies is undeniable. Some traditional dances of the Yoruba in Brazil and the Mina and Coromantine in Cuba exist almost unchanged. Baya women borrowed some jewelry and elements of festive clothing from the Yoruba.

The folklore of Brazil was enriched by the folklore of slaves from Angola, Congo, and Mozambique. To a lesser extent, the influence of Yoruba folklore can be seen here. In Cuba, the descendants of Africans - Ibo, Coromantine, Yoruba - have preserved the traditions of their peoples. The modern language of Brazil includes many Yoruba and Quimbundu words.

Some Western scholars said that centuries of colonial slavery in the New World led to the almost complete disappearance of African traditions, both in the field of social relations and in the field of traditional art and religious cults.

This is not true. Rather, it should probably be said that in the conditions of the cruelest plantation slavery, slaves kept their religious rituals, cultural traditions, and folklore in the strictest secret from the whites, passing on from generation to generation. Research will show where the truth is. Such work requires field research and joint efforts of scientists from different specialties. Now there are works devoted to the history of slavery of Africans in individual American countries. Perhaps they will answer these questions too.

Encounters with European civilization were disastrous for many peoples of the world. The discovery of new lands and territorial conquests were accompanied by the suppression of resistance of the local population, often leading to the extermination of the aborigines, an example of this is the American Indians, Australians, and Tasmanians. Africa (we are talking here about the areas that were the site of the slave trade) suffered a different fate.

For four centuries, while the slave trade continued, Europeans did not try to penetrate deep into the continent: they did not need it. The struggle for the African continent began when, at a new stage in the development of capitalism, Africa was supposed to become and became a source of raw materials and a sales market for the metropolises, and Africans turned into colonial slaves in their native land.

The slave trade - transatlantic and Arab - and the fight against it, along with other factors, prepared and made it easier for the European powers to carry out the colonial partition.

The slave trade divided and bled Africa, brought colossal destruction to the African peoples, weakened the resistance of Africans to colonial conquest, and gave the colonialists various pretexts and reasons for interfering in the internal affairs of Africans.

The fight against the slave trade was used in various ways by colonialists when conquering Africa. So, under this pretext, expeditions were sent into the depths of Africa. Sometimes they were led by enthusiastic researchers, sometimes by outright colonialists. In both cases, such expeditions prepared the way for further colonial expansion.

And the slave trade, having weakened the resistance of African peoples to Europeans, was also an important factor that slowed down the development of the national liberation movement.

In many areas of Africa, where Europeans acted as the “saviors” of Africa from the horrors of the slave trade, where the slave trade was used as an excuse to seize African territories, they were opposed by local African slave traders who did not want to part with their profits. They were supported by Africans dependent on them, attracted by the promise of a certain reward, and simply lovers of profit and robbery. A paradoxical situation developed.

Capturing, for example, Lagos and other areas of modern Nigeria, the interior regions of Tanzania, Sudan, the British colonialists acted as real champions of the prohibition of the slave trade (it’s another matter what ultimate goals they pursued!). African slave traders and their allies fought in this case to maintain their right to engage in the slave trade. This struggle, outwardly directed against the European invasion, had nothing in common with the liberation movement against the Europeans.

In some areas of modern Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and other countries, the slave trade served as one of the factors that prevented the formation of the nation, as it brought with it wars and hostility between individual tribes.

In the last decade, publications by African authors have appeared, where African historians give their assessment of the Atlantic and Arab slave trade. They sharply criticize the work of West Africanists who try to prove that the slave trade was only an unfortunate episode in the history of Africa and did not have significant consequences for the African peoples. In February 1992, Pope John Paul II, while touring African countries, visited Senegal. Here, on the island of Gore, near the buildings that still survive, where slaves were once kept, prepared for sale overseas, Pope John Paul II, on behalf of all Christians on Earth, asked the Africans for forgiveness for centuries of the slave trade...

Slave trading is a thing of the past. But to this day, even after going through the suffering of colonial oppression, Africans remember with horror the years when, “numb in a bloody nightmare,” Africa gave its best children to overseas slave traders.