Suppression spanning centuries
500 years after slavery, the demand for reparations for those who suffered continue to grow louder
THE SPANISH King who 500 years ago this month initiated the policy of selling slave-trading licences to merchant bankers and industrialised slavery by authorising the transportation of slaves from Africa to the Americas, did not do the world a favour. Instead, King Charles V notched up slavery to an industrial scale and perpetuated the false thinking of racial superiority that exists today.
The system of enslavement preceded the king’s policy – in Greece, Rome and Africa slavery was used to subjugate and profit from the sale of people well before the use of sailing ships to transport millions from Africa to the Americas. For 350 years after the policy was initiated, 10.7 million black Africans were transported between the two continents with at least 1.8 million dying en route.
Europeans looked at Africans and regarded them as commodities – like cattle, to be bought, bartered for and used for their sexual gratification. Slaves had no rights and were to be used and disposed of as desired. Any revolt by slaves was put down quickly and led to stricter and more demeaning legislature.
Perhaps the most famous of the revolts on American soil was the uprising initiated by Nat Turner, who became a preacher after being allowed to read, write and practice religion. He led a sustained slave rebellion in 1831 which led to legislation aimed at further oppressing slaves by prohibiting education and movement.
The Amistad rebellion took place on a ship and the trial of the slaves who rebelled was heard in Hartford, Connecticut, federal district court. Slaves had revolted against punishment and torture and had taken the ship’s crew captive. When they made it to the US, a trial began with abolitionists supporting the 36 Africans who had been stolen from their countries. After more than 18 months of incarceration in the US, not to mention the time spent as slaves, the Africans were free and abolitionists paid for them to return to Sierra Leone.
The story of Haiti, the first country to be formed by former slaves, reveals the extent to which colonial France tried to hang on to the colony but also the depths it was willing to plumb to exact vengeance on the Haitians for daring to revolt and to throw out slave and plantation owners.
In the end, Haiti got its independence but at a price the country is trying to recover from. In 1825, France recognised Haiti’s independence in exchange for an indemnity of 100 million francs, with a repayment period that ended in 1887. The compensation was for the French farmers who had been stripped of their land during the revolt. Haiti had to comply or face the equivalent of economic sanctions from France and other countries.
Haiti remains one of the poorest countries. The impact of slavery continued for decades after the practice was abolished. The impact of slavery and the notion of racial superiority would spawn the hatred and bigotry associated with racial discrimination. In turn, the civil rights movement in the US and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa sprung up to fight the injustices.
Every aspect of life was based on the premise that racial superiority had been behind slavery and was to continue after it had been abolished.
Sport was not an exception. In 1936, Adolf Hitler reportedly said: “People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, their physiques were stronger than those of civilised whites and hence should be excluded from future games.” Hitler was referring to American athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games held in Nazi Germany. Owens, the grandson of former slaves, had proved to be unbeatable at an event that was meant to showcase Aryan superiority.
Owens and his US teammates sailed on the SS Manhattan to Europe for the Olympics – the white team travelled in first-class compartments. After his triumph at the Olympics, Owen returned to a segregated America but president Franklin Roosevelt did not congratulate him and neither was he sent an invitation to the White House. Forty years after his remarkable efforts in Berlin, Owens was recognised for his Olympic feat, with president Gerald Ford awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 1990 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by president George Bush senior. The lack of recognition and respect for Owens’s achievements was indicative of the racial discrimination that emanated from centuries of slavery. Discrimination can still be found on the global sporting stage with monkey chants and the throwing of bananas at black sportsmen commonplace at some venues.
Five-hundred years after slavery, the demand for reparations for those who suffered at the hands of slavery continue to grow louder.
The profit derived from slavery turned countries into colonial powers and reshaped the world. Half a millennium later, there are those who continue to deny that slavery and King Charles V’s policy is still having an impact.