Aristotle’s teacher, Plato also supported slavery and did not see any injustice in the practice as it was, because of the slaves’ “inherent inferiority.” Slaves were essential to running the state so they should be used for their intended use. He said a knife is good if it is used efficiently, that is if it cuts well to accomplish a task. Slaves, most of the populace, were efficient tools to the betterment of society.

However, God looks upon all men as equal, not in ability, but in their status before Him. Consequently, any forced slavery is a sin against God.

Most Americans have an unrealistic and skewed impression of slavery that they have received from a flawed public school system and media moguls. They have been inculcated with the lie (spoken loudly and at length) that white Christians are somehow responsible for slavery! The fact is we did not start slavery. We ended it!

We even hear of Christians who surrendered their own freedom to ransom others. Slaves were granted religious equality and were permitted to hold office in the Church, even that of a bishop. However, it is noteworthy that Christ never commissioned His Disciples to launch a crusade to dismantle slavery. The New Birth would eventually solve the problem.

Social justice warriors on the left have not considered that aspect of the problem.

Loosey goosey Evangelicals who vie with others to see who is more woke are an embarrassment to genuine Christians who take a biblical position on the cultural issues facing our world. Most of those effervescent EvanJellicals would confess they are “profamily” but are not critical of sodomy or same-sex “marriage.”  They would be gladly cast as “Americans” but not as “nationalists.”  Too many don’t know what a woman is and are perplexed about female sanitary products in male restrooms. The problem is most of today’s soft middle of the road, never take a firm stand Christians are a theological, mental, emotional mess. They are very mushy on border issues and quickly hug any leftwing racial issue to their bosoms like an insecure kid and his ever-present security blanket.  

They watched Alex Haley’s televised Roots series sold to the public as a “historic novel.” We saw a handsome black man walking through his idyllic African jungle home when he was accosted by vicious white men, subdued after a valiant effort of resistance, chained, and taken to America where he lived and died a slave on a Southern plantation. That myth has been perpetuated by black preachers (who should be more dedicated to truth) when they tell their people that their ancestors were black royalty who were dragged from their homes by white Americans. Sorry, but it didn’t happen that way.

Black apologist Michael Eric Dyson pitched Alex Haley’s Roots as “unquestionably one of the nation’s seminal texts. It affected events far beyond its pages and was a literary North Star…. Each generation must make up its own mind about how it will navigate the treacherous waters of our nation’s racial sin. And each generation must overcome our social ills through greater knowledge and decisive action. Roots is a stirring reminder that we can achieve these goals only if we look history squarely in the face.”

But Roots doesn’t “look history squarely in the face.” It was fictional from the first page. It was a case of factualizing fiction.

Most Americans still don’t know that historians confronted Haley with his inaccurate screed, and he admitted, “I tried to give my people a myth to live by.” I believe thinking Blacks would prefer to live by the truth rather than a myth. The truth is that Haley pirated (stole, lifted, plagiarized, etc.) from The African, and accused of plagiarism, he settled with the author for $650,000.00.

Some have used the Bible to justify slavery but without success. Exodus 21:16 clearly forbids slavery: “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him…shall surely be put to death.” So God prescribed the death penalty for those who deal in human flesh! And the death penalty was for both buyer and seller! But what about the Bible supporting slavery in other places? It doesn’t. The Mosaic Law did not establish slavery. The Old Testament recognized slavery as a reality and sought to mitigate it since it was a fact of life throughout the world. The taking of captives in war is another matter but has been a factor in slavery since the beginning of time.

In I Timothy 1:10, the Apostle Paul condemned “menstealers” affirming that such a sin was why the Law of Moses was given.  The epistle of Philemon does not endorse slavery as some suggest. Onesimus was a run-away indentured servant who owed a debt to Philemon, (Paul’s friend) and Paul recommended that Philemon release him when Onesimus returned to him. Paul promised to pay any debt Onesimus owed to Philemon.  In Christ, there is neither bond nor free. All are equal in Christ.

When slavery is discussed, it usually focuses on Southern slavery with more heat than light. Slavery has been a reality since Joseph was sold into slavery in the early days of civilization as recorded in Genesis. Far more Whites have been slaves than Blacks, and it has always been wrong.

Black slaves were first taken to Europe in the late 1400s and to the New World in 1502. Between 1500 and 1860, it is estimated that over nine million Blacks were taken from Africa to the New World, but less than three percent were sold in America during the 350 years preceding the Civil War. Brazil was the biggest market by far.

Black slaves usually fell into one of three categories: (1) captives taken in war or those kidnapped by black chiefs (2) convicted criminals such as killers, thieves, etc.) (3) those born into slavery.

Some suggest that white men introduced slavery to the African continent; however, that is a fairy story. Slavery was known throughout Africa for centuries before white traders sailed into African ports. Slaves were used as money to pay taxes, to purchase a wife, cattle, or crops. As the black historian Nathan Huggins pointed out, “virtually all of the enslavement of Africans was carried out by other Africans.”

Some have tried to defend slavery because the enslaved Blacks were taken to “enlightened” countries where they heard the Gospel of Christ. Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt! While Christianity is the answer to paganism, the residual effects of slavery do not justify the buying or selling of humans.

The degrading, dastardly, and despicable practice of slavery has gone on since the beginning of time in all nations of the earth, but most Americans only think of North America when they think of slavery.

While slavery is a blot on the face of America (and the world) there were some residual benefits that black leaders admit.  In his Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington said that the Negro was the beneficiary, not the victim of slavery!

Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman in the mid-1970s in the African nation of Zaire and after his victorious fight, Ali flew back to the U.S.  On his return to America, a reporter asked Ali what he thought of Africa, and he replied, “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat.”

Evidently, Ali thought that something positive came out of slavery, and while he had major problems, famous Greek philosophers were more troubling about slavery than the brain-damaged boxer.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 20 books, the most recent, Reflections of a Lifetime Fundamentalist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets! The eBook is available at Amazon.com for $4.99. Other titles at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don  Boys, Ph.D., and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles and click here to support  his work with a donation.)

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”  John Bunyan, Baptist Preacher

Black History Month is an effort by variously motivated black leaders to promote pride and self-respect in current Blacks. Often, truth and fiction are comingled into a confusing jumble of misinformation. As a white American interested in truth, I will add some balance to the narrative.

There were comparatively few slaves in New England (usually one or two slaves per family, if any), but New York had many slaves. Slavery was not very beneficial in New York because the slaves had to be fed and cared for all year, yet the growing season was short.

New Yorkers were very afraid of black slaves and had a constant fear of a slave uprising when Whites would be slaughtered in their sleep. There were few massive uprisings, but many small plots, fights, and flights during which a master or overseer was slain. So, in the early l700s, slaves were beaten if three or more congregated in one place unless they were working. That would keep down conspiracies, but if a slave killed a white person, he was tortured and executed.

There was a slave uprising in New York City (population of about 8,000 citizens and 1,000 slaves) in 1712 in which nine Whites were killed, and the authorities hanged 13 slaves, and burned four alive (one over a slow fire). One slave was broken on the wheel, and one was left to starve to death in chains.  So much for the sanctified, self-justification of the northern hypocrite.

Now, to answer the sanctified, self-justification of the southern hypocrite. The southern planter sat on his porch, chewing tobacco, and drinking a cool glass of rum, and said, “Well, the southern slave is much better off than he was living in miserable squalor, sin, and superstition in darkest Africa.” No doubt, his living conditions were better, and his eating was more on schedule in slavery, but I remind you that Africa was home, and he had been forced from his home. In Africa, he was with his family, in lifetime surroundings, among friends, speaking his own language, and around his own culture. In American slavery, he was not his own man. Often, he was separated from his wife and children. He was the property of others. Even if he lived in a condominium on Virginia Beach, it was still wrong for him to be enslaved.

It is also true that slavery was wrong even when the slave owner was kind, thoughtful, and benevolent. All slave owners were not haters and sadistic tyrants. Most of them were average businessmen who needed workers. It was not a good business practice to mistreat a worker. Dead slaves don’t work! Some slave owners were thoughtful and kind, which did not justify slavery.

Some slave owners saw the wisdom in taking care of their slaves, even encouraging marriage to the extent of giving them a house, a plot of ground, and household goods. A slave with a family, home, garden, and some farm animals would be less inclined to rebellion. Slaves were not worked from daybreak to sundown. The January 1979 issue of Natural History reported, “Slaves spent their hours away from the field doing household chores, making handicrafts, hunting, and fishing, cultivating their own food, and entertaining themselves with dancing.” Archeological research at slave cabins in Georgia and Florida reveals that some slaves even had firearms!

Black leftists would have us believe that all slaves were worked to death and were practically starved to death. However, that only happened when the owner was a sadist or an idiot! Two liberal (very liberal) professors tell us in their book, Time On The Cross: The Economics Of American Negro Slavery, that some planters instituted a profit-sharing for their slaves. They also reveal “the average pecuniary income actually received by a prime field hand was roughly fifteen percent greater than the income he would have received for his labor as a free agricultural worker.” Wonder why public school books and race-baiters on television never mention that.

On some plantations, the best workers were given tobacco, whiskey, cash, holidays, and trips to town on the weekend. Rather substantial year-end bonuses were sometimes awarded.

We are told that the slaves were docile and contented, but that is not true, especially in earlier years. There was a natural tendency for second-generation slaves to be less belligerent and more contented, but that was not true of the first-generation slaves. The facts debunk the “contented” theory.

When the slaves arrived at the ports, the slaves were examined and branded with the mark of the new owner and then marched to the beach. Those Blacks brought from the interior were terrified of the pounding surf, the swaying slave ship, and the white traders. Some of the Blacks thought the white men were cannibals and would devour them on the beach.  It was not uncommon for the captives to claw at the sand and attempt suicide rather than be crammed into the waiting ships. That doesn’t sound as if they meekly accepted slavery.

Suicide was prevalent, especially upon leaving the African Coast since they had no idea what was happening to them.

The Power to Die reveals that some slaves refused to eat or leaped into the sea, prompting some captains to install a net to make it more difficult to accomplish their desires. Many slaves strangled themselves, tore open their throats, and hanged themselves. In America, they jumped into rivers or out of windows or even ran into burning buildings.

One sea captain wrote: “The negroes [sic] are so wilful [sic] and loth [sic] to leave their country, that they have often leaped out of the canoes, boat and ship, into the sea, and kept under water till they were drowned, to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats….”  There are numerous incidents of slaves jumping into the sea, cutting their throats, self-strangling, and self-starvation.

Upon arrival in their new land, those incidents drastically decreased; however, they did not give up the thought of freedom.

There were many slave rebellions, although not massive, that resulted in many executions of the leaders. Any slave who reported a rebellion was rewarded with his freedom, so most “uprisings” did not result in freedom for many slaves. It is natural that the more vicious the owner, the greater would be the desire for freedom of his slaves; however, not all slave owners were cruel and sadistic men.

Nat Turner was a slave in Southampton County, Virginia, and always felt he was destined to do great works that he thought were established by seeing spirits fighting in the night sky. He often heard voices which he often passed to his fellow slaves. After a solar eclipse, he was convinced it was an indication for him to lead his fellow slaves in a rebellion against their masters. One evening in 1831 he led a group of 75 slaves to attack and kill their masters as they slept. No child was spared or gender as they killed with guns, swords, clubs, and farm equipment. Some adults and children were beheaded. About 51 Whites plus ten or so others were killed in two days until the slaves were found and tried. Turner and 16 of his group were then executed in Jerusalem, Virginia.

Some famous Americans who profess sanity even call Turner “legendary” (Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates) and spoke of his “heroism and sacrifices.” Say what?

Movie producer Nate Parker described Turner as “a measured, self-determined man of faith, whose courage and sacrifice left him a martyr.” Nat wasn’t martyred; he was executed for the murder of innocent men, women, and children, even babies.

Molefi Kete Asante, a scholar at Temple University calls Turner a “reflective and mature thinker” who “believed in liberty,” “demonstrated both gravitas and charisma” and “has earned his place in the panoply of revolutionary icons.”

All three of the above promoters of Nat Turner have two things in common: they are all black and have major problems in their differentiation between right and wrong. They are missing a moral compass.

Whatever the location and how kind the slave owners were, chattel slavery is always wrong. Many slave owners cared for their slaves and were interested in improving their living and working conditions. Of course, those owners were still wrong. Those owners would not have wanted to be slaves, so it was wrong for them to enslave others. Jesus taught that truth when He said in Matthew 7:12, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them….”  That verse, if obeyed, would have wiped out slavery and all other injustices to men.

Slavery cannot be justified; however, it is easy for us to criticize the early Americans from our present advantage of enlightenment and abundance. What would you have done if you had lived in Jamestown in the 1600s with a farm to be worked, no white laborers to hire, and starvation facing you and your family? It is never right to do wrong, but it is easy for us to sit in judgment from a comfortable distance of more than 350 years.

While we can never condone slavery, let us at least be aware of the conditions that prompted it and be determined to never again enslave humans of any color for any reason.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 20 books, the most recent, Reflections of a Lifetime Fundamentalist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets! The eBook is available at Amazon.com for $4.99. Other titles at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don  Boys, Ph.D., and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles and click here to support  his work with a donation.)

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”  John Bunyan, Baptist Preacher

However, we are not supposed to speak or write about the “noble savage” being so ignoble.

Free Blacks also owned slaves, black and white and of course, Whites owned slaves, black and white. Slaves were not taken or purchased because of their color but because they were available. Profit, not racism was the motive.

In the colonies, Europeans carved out a civilization from the forests, drained the swamps, removed the rocks, dug precious metals from the earth, and built the most philanthropic, powerful, and prominent nation in history.

Admittedly, much credit goes to black slaves who were forced to work the tobacco and cotton fields of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Furthermore, much credit goes to white indentured servants who chose to work those same fields to pay off their debts for travel to the colonies.

During the 1600s, slavery became a trade and a valuable commercial venture. The early Puritans thought slavery was justified if the captives were taken in a just war, and even Roger Williams condoned slavery for a time!

I would be unfair and inaccurate if I implied that Blacks were without some guilt in this whole wretched business of slavery. Richard Hufstadter wrote in America at 1750: “Africa had a system or systems of slavery long before white men came to the Guinea Coast, and had regularly enslaved war captives and criminals . . . Other persons sold themselves or their families for food during famine, or were kidnapped by native gangs. Many native [black] kings ran profitable slave businesses, and responded eagerly to opportunities for greater profits. The slave trade became a recognized and entirely legal form of business in Africa.”

In different parts of Africa, slavery became a major source of income for the authorities. The river ports became an efficient way to move slaves from the mainland to the New World. Whites and Blacks cooperated in this nefarious business of selling humans.

One black King of Bonny said in response to England’s demand for an end to slavery, “We think that this trade must go on,” he exclaimed. The king continued: “That also is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.” And the trade went on until it seemed as if some countries would be emptied of its strongest people. Notice that the black king appealed to religion to justify what he was doing to his own people. Of course, men have used religion to justify their wickedness for centuries.

Some countries protested, but the trading in human lives went on—and grew, aided and promoted by local black chiefs. One former slave wrote, “But I must own, to the shame…of my own countrymen, that I was first kidnapped and betrayed by some of my own complexion, who were the first cause of my exile and slavery; but if there were no buyers there would be no sellers.”

And there were plenty of buyers—Portuguese, French, English, and Dutch.

Historian John A. Garraty wrote: “The local king dictated the rules of trade and filled a slave ship in his own good time. The Europeans’ power lay in the insidious luxuries which became necessities: liquor and firearms.” So Whites used liquor and guns to reward black kings and chiefs for attacking their own villages at night and carrying away in chains their own people to be sold at auction in the markets of the West Indies, Latin America, and Jamestown.

The slaves were sold for two ounces of gold in some ports while in other ports, a healthy, strong male brought 115 gallons of rum to his owner. Women sold for ninety-five gallons of rum.

Some slavers were convinced that the Blacks didn’t have souls so that made slavery acceptable! However, the Portuguese believed Blacks had souls and could be redeemed like anyone else. They convinced themselves that slavery was not wrong because slaves would be taken to Christian lands where they would be exposed to the Gospel. Many thousands of black slaves were sprinkled (called baptism by some church leaders) before the ships sailed out of the harbors of the Congo and Angola.

Some have estimated that from ten to twenty million blacks were sold into slavery yet many never reached land and were buried at sea. Garraty reports they were kept below decks “in two rows, one above the other like books on a shelf.” One ex-slave Olaudah Equiano wrote, “The stench of the hold (beneath the ship’s deck) while we were on the coast was intolerably loathsome but now that the whole ship‘s cargo were confined there together it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, was…aggravated by the galling of the chains.”

Many colleges use Equiano’s book; however, few admit that he was not born in Nigeria as the story is told, but in South Carolina and got his very interesting information from other slaves. However, Equiano’s statement was true. The air was so foul below decks a candle would not burn! Many Blacks committed suicide rather than endure such conditions while others simply stopped breathing, dying of suffocation.

Those who lived were sold on auction blocks in Latin America and North America and were destined to be worked, beaten, and sometimes killed by their owners. Twenty Blacks arrived in Jamestown on a Dutch ship in 1619 and were sold to tobacco planters. The tobacco planters had large tracts of land that had to be worked and they had now found workers. There was a large profit in tobacco, more than six times as much as in grain.

Obviously, the slave system was a major building block of the economies especially in the tobacco colonies. However, less than three percent of all the Blacks sold into slavery in the Western Hemisphere came to America. Most of them were sold in Central and South America and the Caribbean area. Slaves were treated worse, worked harder, and had a higher death rate in those areas than in America.

Slaves were not only working on the tobacco plantations in the south but they were also laboring in every colony in the north. The northern masters were just as cruel as those in the south were and penalties were just as harsh for unacceptable activity.

And the face of America received a scar that has never healed because racists keep picking at the scab.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA TODAY for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)

Frankly, such unfair, untrue, and unfortunate “missionary” activity by Progressives is demeaning to Blacks and distorts the historical tragedy perpetrated by depraved white slavers, degenerate black chiefs, and desperate settlers in America and other areas of the world. Black slavery is a scandal, a scab, and a scar on the face of America and we must never permit it to be mistaken, muddled, or mitigated; however, with the fanatics in the media, a balanced narrative is unlikely to happen.

Honest white people are willing to say, “Okay, I’m embarrassed that white people were involved in such an obscene practice; but no living American slaves exist, nor do any slave-owners, nor do any of the ship captains. So can we tone it down a few notches?” But the whiners are like all fanatics who only have one message and refuse to stop talking about it. Like a bulldog with a tasty, meaty bone, they won’t let go.

The zealots in the media refuse to speak of a few southern farmers who owned slaves, and a few ship captains who transported slaves, and a few chiefs who sold their own people. They insist on collective guilt demanding that all whites wallow in shame and never look any decent person in the eyes and feel like the scum of the earth for being white.

Sorry, but I have no guilt for slavery; consequently, I will not pay a dollar of reparations because of those Blacks who are full-time victims wallowing in self-pity looking for lifetime handouts.

Since their dishonest, dishonorable, and disgraceful ploy will not work, I suggest the do-gooders (as opposed to those who do good) turn their efforts elsewhere. Like the actual slavery happening throughout the world. They should do something lasting rather than preach an empty message for financial gain and personal influence.

Many modern Blacks identify vicariously to attempt to transfer the pain, determination, and character of thousands of slaves who survived chattel slavery, but that won’t work. People aren’t noble, principled, and special because of past generations; each generation must fight their own battles, take the same stands, and reap their own rewards. They must also admit the failure of the culture of broken families, illegal drugs, illegitimate births, violence, etc., and play their part in doing something about the slide into a culture of disarray, decay, and death. All families are on a slippery slope but minority families are accelerating dangerously. It’s time to stop blaming others and make a positive effort toward a solution.

Young Blacks need to stay in school, get a job—any job, and keep their pants on and zipped up and pulled up. They need to talk in a way all English-speaking people can understand them. When married, they should keep their vows and show children what a real man and woman should be.

If the fanatic slavery whiners really do care about slavery, they can do something about the overt slavery in Mali where at least 200,000 people are held in direct servitude to masters. In March 2002, French television channel TF1 reported how about 15,000 children were abducted from Mali and were sold as slaves to work the cotton plantations in the Ivory Coast.

That would be a good place to start but who cares about Mali. Not much news there. So, a greater challenge would be India where it is estimated that there are forty million people, including fifteen million children, working in slave-like conditions as bonded laborers.

Serge Trifkovic courageously revealed the slavery by the Muslim Arabs in Mauritania and Sudan in his The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam. “Contrary to the myth that Islam is a religion free from racial prejudice, slavery in the Moslem world has been, and remains, brutally racist in character. To find truly endemic, open, raw anti-Black racism and slavery today one needs to go to the two Islamic Republics in Africa: Mauritania and Sudan. Black people have been enslaved on such a scale that the term black has become synonymous with slave.”

I dealt with Muslim slavery in my book, ISLAM: America’s Trojan Horse! writing “Mohammed also permitted…the torture of a tribal chief to discover his hidden treasure. He accepted slavery as a law of nature.” I challenged domestic Muslim leaders to join me at the Sudan Embassy in Washington to “demand that Sudan stop its slavery and imprison all slavers–buyers and sellers.” I got no response.

Or, maybe one country is not enough of a challenge so they can take a shot at world slavery. The Topical Research Digest: Human Rights and Contemporary Slavery reports about 27 million slaves worldwide. However, it reveals that “Some human rights organizations have the number as high as 200 million” (Free the Slaves 2007).

Past and present and potential slavery is a problem that must be examined without presumption or prejudice, but with purpose and perseverance.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D; and visit his blog. Send request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)