#european slaves

[worldwide-blackfolk]

Don’t ever think that there weren’t other #slaves; damn near every race on earth was enslaved at one time or another. Yes, we’re more concerned about Blackfolk, but it’s helpful to know otherwise too. Research it, look into Asia and other areas. Mankind will take a society that is a peaceful people and enslave them.

European slaves

See also: Balkan slave trade, Black Sea slave trade, and Bukhara slave trade

Saqaliba is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe, or in a broad sense to European slaves under Arab Islamic rule.[citation needed]

Through the Middle Ages up until the early modern period,[76] a major source of slaves sent to Muslim lands was Central and Eastern Europe. Slaves of Northwestern Europe were also favored. The slaves captured were sent to Islamic lands like Spain and Egypt through France and Venice. Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives.[77][78] The Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for trade of such slaves.[79] After the Byzantine Empire and Venice blocked Arab merchants from European ports, Arabs started importing slaves from the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions, shipping them off as far east as Transoxiana in Central Asia.[80] Despite this, slaves taken in battle or from minor raids in continental Europe remained a steady resource in many regions. The Ottoman Empire used slaves from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The Janissaries were primarily composed of enslaved Europeans. Slaving raids by Barbary Pirates on the coasts of Western Europe as far as Iceland remained a source of slaves until suppressed in the early 19th century. Common roles filled by European slaves ranged from laborers to concubines, and even soldiers.

Christians became part of harems as slaves in the Balkans and Asia Minor when the Turks invaded. Muslim qadis owned Christian slave girls. Greek girls who were pretty were forced into prostitution after being enslaved to Turks who took all their earnings in the 14th century according to Ibn Battuta.[81]

[kemetic-dreams]

Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene, argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and that a pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged in trade colonies among "users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions".

Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in which speakers of a European language, often indentured servants whose language would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted extensively with non-European slaves, absorbing certain words and features from the slaves' non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of the original language.

These servants and slaves would come to use the creole as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact with a speaker of the superstrate was necessary

[alwaysbewoke]

[rhaenin-time]

It's all, "The Targaryens are colonizers," until you point out that they left Valyria and assimilated into the local power structure, whereas the Andals still live in a very particular type of feudal societal structure that does not occur 'organically' and in fact is the result of a collapsed previously-centralized imperial power structure which in this case is also a settler-colonial power structure that was fueled by their version of Manifest Destiny and enabled through genocide of the remaining Children and the imposition of their self-described "universal" culture, power structure, and faith-system upon the pre-existing population. All of which resulting in a particular kind of power structure enabled by and deeply connected to that history that, I repeat, they still live according to. In which case the Targaryens, having distinguished themselves from the imperial power structure that they left, divested from, and took measures to prevent from rising again, and having proceeded to embrace change and adaptivity (to the point of assimilation) are actually less colonial than the culture they assimilate into.

And then it's still, "The Targaryens are colonizers." Because these people don't understand or even really care about colonialism. It's just another word for "foreigner I don't like."

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Henryk Siemiradzki (Polish, 1843-1902) Song of a slave, 1884 Serpukhov Historical and Art Museum, Moscow

[leroibobo]

the paradesi synagogue in kochi, kerala, india. the first synagogue on the site, built by the city's longstanding malabari jewish community, was destroyed by portugese who'd colonized the area in their persecution of locals. it was rebuilt in 1568 by spanish and portugese jews who fled persecution and later expulsion, hence the name "paradesi" ("foreign" in malayalam).

these sephardic jews and a community of jews of mixed african and european descent who were formerly enslaved ("meshuchrarim", "freedmen" in hebrew) joined the malabari jewish community of kochi and somewhat integrated. they were later joined by some iraqi, persian, yemenite, afghan, and dutch sephardic jews. the middle eastern and european jews were considered "white jews" and permitted malabari jews and meshuchrarim to worship in the synagogue. however, in what seems like a combination of local caste dynamics and racism, malabari jews were not allowed full membership. meshuchrarim weren't allowed in at all, but were instead made to sit outside during services and not allowed their own place of worship or other communal rights.

as the "white jews" tended to be rather wealthy from trade, this synagogue contains multiple antiquities. they include belgian glass chandeliers on its walls, hand-painted porcelain tiles from china on its floors, and an oriental rug that was gifted by ethiopian emperor haile selassie.

[hussyknee]

"The forced migration of African slaves" motherfucker you mean the genocide of West Africans. Twelve and half million people forced out of their homeland or died before they ever left it. That is a goddamn Holocaust.

Genocide isn't just systematic killing, it's one group deliberately causing the death and displacement of another. It's why colonization and slavery is genocide. It doesn't hinge on whether or not they actually manage to get rid of everybody. We need to start punching assholes who'd rather split hairs and compare numbers instead of using the word.

[fatehbaz]

[T]he Dutch Republic, like its successor the Kingdom of the Netherlands, [...] throughout the early modern period had an advanced maritime [trading, exports] and (financial) service [banking, insurance] sector. Moreover, Dutch involvement in Atlantic slavery stretched over two and a half centuries. [...] Carefully estimating the scope of all the activities involved in moving, processing and retailing the goods derived from the forced labour performed by the enslaved in the Atlantic world [...] [shows] more clearly in what ways the gains from slavery percolated through the Dutch economy. [...] [This web] connected them [...] to the enslaved in Suriname and other Dutch colonies, as well as in non-Dutch colonies such as Saint Domingue [Haiti], which was one of the main suppliers of slave-produced goods to the Dutch economy until the enslaved revolted in 1791 and brought an end to the trade. [...] A significant part of the eighteenth-century Dutch elite was actively engaged in financing, insuring, organising and enabling the slave system, and drew much wealth from it. [...] [A] staggering 19% (expressed in value) of the Dutch Republic's trade in 1770 consisted of Atlantic slave-produced goods such as sugar, coffee, or indigo [...].

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One point that deserves considerable emphasis is that [this slave-based Dutch wealth] [...] did not just depend on the increasing output of the Dutch Atlantic slave colonies. By 1770, the Dutch imported over fl.8 million worth of sugar and coffee from French ports. [...] [T]hese [...] routes successfully linked the Dutch trade sector to the massive expansion of slavery in Saint Domingue [the French colony of Haiti], which continued until the early 1790s when the revolution of the enslaved on the French part of that island ended slavery.

Before that time, Dutch sugar mills processed tens of millions of pounds of sugar from the French Caribbean, which were then exported over the Rhine and through the Sound to the German and Eastern European ‘slavery hinterlands’.

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Coffee and indigo flowed through the Dutch Republic via the same trans-imperial routes, while the Dutch also imported tobacco produced by slaves in the British colonies, [and] gold and tobacco produced [by slaves] in Brazil [...]. The value of all the different components of slave-based trade combined amounted to a sum of fl.57.3 million, more than 23% of all the Dutch trade in 1770. [...] However, trade statistics alone cannot answer the question about the weight of this sector within the economy. [...] 1770 was a peak year for the issuing of new plantation loans [...] [T]he main processing industry that was fully based on slave-produced goods was the Holland-based sugar industry [...]. It has been estimated that in 1770 Amsterdam alone housed 110 refineries, out of a total of 150 refineries in the province of Holland. These processed approximately 50 million pounds of raw sugar per year, employing over 4,000 workers. [...] [I]n the four decades from 1738 to 1779, the slave-based contribution to GDP alone grew by fl.20.5 million, thus contributing almost 40% of all growth generated in the economy of Holland in this period. [...]

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These [slave-based Dutch commodity] chains ran from [the plantation itself, through maritime trade, through commodity processing sites like sugar refineries, through export of these goods] [...] and from there to European metropoles and hinterlands that in the eighteenth century became mass consumers of slave-produced goods such as sugar and coffee. These chains tied the Dutch economy to slave-based production in Suriname and other Dutch colonies, but also to the plantation complexes of other European powers, most crucially the French in Saint Domingue [Haiti], as the Dutch became major importers and processers of French coffee and sugar that they then redistributed to Northern and Central Europe. [...]

The explosive growth of production on slave plantations in the Dutch Guianas, combined with the international boom in coffee and sugar consumption, ensured that consistently high proportions (19% in 1770) of commodities entering and exiting Dutch harbors were produced on Atlantic slave plantations. [...] The Dutch economy profited from this Atlantic boom both as direct supplier of slave-produced goods [from slave plantations in the Dutch Guianas, from Dutch processing of sugar from slave plantations in French Haiti] and as intermediary [physically exporting sugar and coffee] between the Atlantic slave complexes of other European powers and the Northern and Central European hinterland.

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Text above by: Pepijn Brandon and Ulbe Bosma. "Slavery and the Dutch economy, 1750-1800". Slavery & Abolition Volume 42, Issue 1. 2021. [Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[littlefankingdom]

I'm sorry?? Did I just see someone saying that Toshiro is the one being xenophobic/racist and the author (a japanese woman) must be making a statement about Japan's xenophobia through his character??? And the fans defending him are blinded by their love for Japan to recognize this country isn't perfect???

Some or y'all have the audacity to say that a poc character, written by a poc woman, is written to be xenophobic/racist to a blond white man???

[yxxxxxx1]

Sultan Mehmed II X Emine Gülbahar Mükrime Hatun

In January 1448 a son was born to Mehmed Çelebi in Thracian Dimotika, by a slave girl named Gülbahar. The boy was given the name of Bayezid and was later (1481) to mount the Ottoman throne as the second sultan of this name. There is no doubt that this union was beneath Mehmed's station: Gülbahar bint Abdullah, whom Turkish legend sub- sequently transformed into a "daughter of the king of France," was a Christian slave of Albanian origin. It is equally certain, as we shall see later on, that Mehmed preserved a particular affection for her as long as he lived. From the fact that Gülbahar Hatun bore her child in Dimotika, it may be inferred that Mehmed was back in Europe by the beginning of 1448 at the latest and perhaps even that he was residing there. Dimotika was the site of an old Byzantine castle, with a double ring of walls, preserved by the sultans and sometimes used for the Ottoman state treasury.

Babinger, F. (1978). Mehmed the conqueror and his time. Princeton University Press.

P.s. She also bore him a daughter named Geverhan Sultan.

[kemetic-dreams]

The unspoken history hidden behind a surname

ByLolly Bowean

Chicago Tribune

•

Dec 26, 2017 at 8:00 am

Only the truly curious even ask.

And when a Harvard University student recently inquired about my name, she was clear that she wanted to know about my surname. She repeated it three times out loud and then began probing for something deeper.

She didn’t have to say it, but I knew she was trying to better understand my heritage and ethnic background. My surname, Bowean, is puzzling. And for some, it doesn’t match my physical presence.

When I’m in the Boston region, people ask me if it’s French and I think they are trying to determine if my heritage is Haitian. Others will ask if it’s Celtic, a question that would connect me to the Irish.

The truth is, my last name was probably supposed to be Bowen, but somewhere in the past someone misspelled it and the lives of my family clan were forever changed.

This was a common occurrence. Some Southern African-Americans struggled with literacy after emancipation, and so names took on new spellings. In other cases, white officials didn’t bother to document the correct spellings on public records and the mistakes lived on.

I learned this when I tried to research the history of my last name.

In this country, there are hundreds of Bowens.

Yet, my immediate relatives are the only people I have found with the “Bowean” last name.

I explained this all to the young, curious student. I went on to tell her that the Bowean surname came to my people through marriage.

Before we were Boweans, we were Norwoods and Wakefields rooted in a small town in western North Carolina — near the mountains. Those names are connected back to England.

“Those are my people,” I told her.

“I know some Norwoods and some Wakefields from western North Carolina,” she piped up, almost with an instant giddy excitement. It seemed that for a moment she thought we had found common ground. I’m sure she thought that maybe we knew some of the same people.

The next sentence she almost whispered: “But they’re white.”

As we both stood in the silence, we didn’t speak about the legacy of American slavery.

Yet this is the moment when race and what it means to be African-American comes creeping into the most fleeting of encounters. It’s these unexpected confrontations with history that trigger what writer and social commentator James Baldwin called the “constant state of rage.”

I didn’t tell the student that during slavery, African-Americans were assigned names by their owners, and many times didn’t even have a surname, records show. I didn’t talk about how those residents were at times given the last name of their owner so that they could be identified as that white family’s property.

I also didn’t bother to talk about how, even after the 13th Amendment brought enslaved people a form of freedom, some chose the plantation name as their last name in order to reveal where they were from. African people held on to these names for many reasons — one being the hope to reunite with other family members who would only be able to identify them by these familiar markers.

These are the names that so many African Americans still wear.

The decision to stay bound to these names is deeply personal. I would never change my name — even if I married — mainly because it connects me to a fragmented people. It is the name that binds us together. And I hold on to hope that my relatives, disconnected long ago, can locate me through that shared legacy.

It is in these innocent moments that the troubling history of this country becomes real and the residue reveals itself as still present. I’ve never been ashamed that I am a descendant of people who were enslaved. Yet it is in subtle, seemingly innocent moments that the trauma strikes me.

I began to feel weighted as I stood staring at the college-age woman with a classic, sophisticated Latin name that means purity. I felt the weariness of being pushed into an emotional space and frustrated from having to contemplate whether to delve deeper into a topic I didn’t expect during idle small talk.

Then I remembered that this history is one we don’t like to discuss anyway. We were only making small talk.

“There’s probably a relationship between the two families,” the African-American one and the white one, I remember telling the student. “But I don’t know exactly, specifically, what it is.”

And then to be polite, we left the rest unspoken and parted ways.

[alwaysbewoke]

[illustratus]

The Death of Spartacus by Hermann Vogel

[creative-chaos-apparently]

why do you hate georg washington /gen

Slave ownership and general colonization etc etc🫤

[ladychlo]

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