One of the Atlantic slave trade's most insidious legacies was the way it racialised slavery. In ancient times when "free labour" was the exception, anyone from any people could be enslaved. Indeed, the word slave is said to have come from the Greek word for Slav. But by the 18th century, slave status was increasingly associated exclusively with Africans. It was this association which served to denigrate black people whatever their status.
The racist ideologies of the early 19th century were thus rooted in the slave trade and in turn materially affected the fate of Africans everywhere. The prestige now enjoyed by Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell was unthinkable until very recently, so enduring has slavery's impact been on the status of black Americans.
The final charge to be laid against the Atlantic slave trade is its impact on Africa itself. Transatlantic slavery encouraged the armed, the predatory and the ruthless. It empowered regimes brutal enough to extort taxes or slaves from their neighbours and engendered the spread of domestic slavery as increasing numbers of people were needed to grow crops to feed those slaves awaiting export. Mafia-style regimes made strong through the arms trade and greedy by the prospect of easy money flourished at the expense of the peaceful peasant and communally-run village.
So though transatlantic slavery is at the root of modern racism, it transcends race. It epitomises a most exploitative form of globalisation, which has since resurfaced in new forms. Will the Bush regime help redress its legacy through fair trade practices and constructive engagement? Or will Adam Smith's "invisible hand" still hold the whip?
| The Guardian UK's Madge Dresser considers "Slavery's living legacy"
posted in articles on July 17, 2003 10:54 PM | t (0)
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