How many times have you heard that slavery was "America's original sin"? I'm not quite sure what that means, but I think the idea is that slavery was a uniquely horrible thing that defines the United States and will stain whites forever. It's one of the few things Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell and
Barack Obama agree on. There are books about it. Here's a college course at UC Davis called
"Slavery: America's Original Sin: Part 1."The fact is, there has been slavery in every period of history, and just about everywhere. The
Greeks and
Romans had it, the ancient
Egyptians had it, it's all over the
Bible, the
Chinese and the pre-
Columbian Indians
had it, the
Maoris in New Zealand
had it, and the
Muslims had it in spades. But I have never, ever heard of slavery being anyone else's "
original sin."
About the only societies that never had slaves were
primitive hunter-gatherers. As soon as people have some kind of formal social organization, they start
taking slaves.You've heard about slavery and
mass human sacrifices of Central and
South American Indians, but North American Indians were
enslaving each other long before the white man showed up.
Tlingit and Haida Indians, who lived in the Pacific Northwest, went raiding for slaves as far South as California. About one quarter of the population were slaves, and the children of slaves were slaves. During potlatches, or huge ceremonial feasts, the Tlingit would sometimes burn property and
kill slaves, just to show how rich they were. What's a couple of slaves to a guy who lives in a
house like this?
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