
Wreck found by reporter may be last American slave ship - brudgers
http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2018/01/alcom_reporter_may_have_found.html
======
spraak
I don't understand this bit:

> "These ships were the 18-wheelers of their day. They were designed to haul a
> huge amount of cargo in relatively shallow water,"

Yet this ship supposedly came from Africa. It's not shallow coming from
Africa.

~~~
emmelaich
One of the reasons the European/American slave trade was so "successful"
compared to the Arabs is that Arab slave capturing and trading was typically
only nearly the coasts.

I guess large shallow boats such as this were part of that "success".

edit- wikipedia confirms that Clotilde transferred slaves from Dahomey which
is now in modern day Benin.

~~~
supreme_sublime
[http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/06/02/10-facts-about-the-
ar...](http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/06/02/10-facts-about-the-arab-
enslavement-of-black-people-not-taught-in-schools/)

I don't know if it was really less "successful". It lasted longer, and
enslaved more. Though it seems the route was more difficult because it was
over land instead of by sea.

~~~
emmelaich
Interesting article. But (as per its FB comments) it seems it is a copy of
text from [http://www.arabslavetrade.com/](http://www.arabslavetrade.com/) by
Owen Alik Shahadah
[http://africanholocaust.net/shahadah_bio.html](http://africanholocaust.net/shahadah_bio.html)

------
TaylorGood
Different “shipwreck” but same topic, has anyone watched Treasures From The
Wreck of The Unbelievable on Netflix? It’s new, and well..

------
mainthread
The gleeful tone of the article makes me uncomfortable. This is an artifact of
a crime against humanity.

~~~
curtis
> _The gleeful tone of the article makes me uncomfortable. This is an artifact
> of a crime against humanity._

It's possible to be excited about the discovery of the artifact without being
an apologist for the crime it was associated with.

~~~
mainthread
It certainly is. My perspective is that of a victim, not an apologist.

------
wavegeek
> The book primarily focuses on the story of the captives, who were freed just
> five years after they were enslaved, thanks to the end of the Civil War.

Just 5 years of slavery. I think this person lacks imagination and empathy if
they think "just" is a relevant word here.

~~~
indubitable
As an aside, I think something many people don't realize is that slaves were
not free Africans who were kidnapped and enslaved by westerners. These
individuals were enslaved in Africa, often at birth, and then sold by
Africans. These individuals were doomed to enslavement for their entire life,
one way or the other. Even the article hints towards this fallacy by implying
they had only been enslaved for 5 years total.

Slavery to this day still continues in Africa and especially west Africa.
Niger was the first West African nation to create a law penalizing slavery
[1]. That happened in... 2003. Unsurprisingly there is also still slavery in
Niger. So yes, I do think "just" 5 years of slavery, sometime from the 19th
century, is an extremely apt phrasing.

Conditions for these slaves are illustrated in the 'Mani v. Niger' entry in
that wiki entry. A man purchased a '5th wife' (he's allowed 4 under local
Islamic law, and then the 5th is a slave) for $400. She was 12 years old and
endured a decade of physical and sexual abuse bearing 4 children before he
married and then 'freed' her. But since now she was his wife, he had the right
to demand she not be able to leave his house. This made it all the way to
their supreme court, where they ruled in favor of the 'husband' \- though he
was charged with bigamy which carries a 6 month sentence.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Niger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Niger)

~~~
ergothus
> As an aside, I think something many people don't realize is that slaves were
> not free Africans who were kidnapped and enslaved by westerners.

I often see such comments on any post about the US practice of slavery. I have
yet to understand a good reason for them.

Academic curiosity? No, because I doubt anyone thinks the US invented slavery.
Even when we think (as i do) the US took an existing immoral practice and (as
a nation) made it worse, these comments don't try to address any such
distinctions.

This means the comments come across as 'US slavery wasn't that bad because it
just maintained an existing evil'. In addition to lacking support for the
conclusion, no reason is given for why that would be relevant at all to the
discussion at hand. Here we're discussing the fate of a ship that was used in
violation of even the immoral laws of the time purely prove it could be done.
In what way does whether the victims were already slaves or not matter at all
to the topic? Adding "as an aside" to admit the comments aren't directly
relevant is the same as using 'on average' to claim that racist/sexist
statements aren't so because it allows the comments to not apply to any given
individual - it seems like an excuse to be able to spread the idea without
having to justify it.

Assuming your reasons are not to downplay the US actions, what ARE your
reasons? Does knowing how your comments come across change your likelihood of
repeating this sort of interjection? I'm not interested in silencing any
facts, but timing and context matter. If you are introducing these concepts,
the onus of justification falls upon you.

~~~
indubitable
Providing facts should never require justification. Everybody is free to have
their own opinion, everybody is not free to have their own facts.

Regardless of the above, I'll indulge you because this is a topic I find
particularly interesting - and there is also a moral. It seems many people in
society are starting to view things as caricaturizations of reality. There are
the good guys, and there are the bad guys. And the person I was responding to,
I suspect, likely viewed the transatlantic slave trade through this lens based
on his apparently significant offense as somebody daring to use the word
'just' in reference to a time frame of slavery. I think this is surprisingly
dangerous.

The reason for this is that in reality things are not caricaturizations, but
changes that might not seem so severe to many. For instance back on the slave
trade I hope you'll indulge a few more of those condemnable facts. In the
entire transatlantic slave trade about 12.5 million slaves were bought from
Africa, with 10.7 million surviving the voyage. Of the 10.7 million 388,000,
or about 3.6% [1], ended up in what would be the United States. Many people in
the US seem to think that slavery ended, more or less, after the Civil War.
That's obviously quite a poorly informed view, but it's built upon this
caricaturization of slavery. In reality today there are more slaves than ever
before in history with an estimated 45.8 million people enslaved worldwide
[2]. That includes an estimated 57,700 slaves even within the United States.

Rather than judge people and events, I try to understand them - try to put
myself in their shoes and see how things played out. And in this case, it's
not hard to see. Slavery was likely a story of apathy and cognitive
dissonance. In the US about 1.4% of free Americans owned slaves, about 8% of
families. [4]. Obviously more owned slaves in states where slavery was legal,
but I'm considering the entire population as slavery was a rich man's game -
and getting involved in the business was little more than a carriage ride
away. Similar to today how California's ratio of entrepreneurs cannot be
considered in isolation as the lucrative opportunities there draw in people
from across the entire country.

And those that did choose to own slaves likely convinced themselves it was
morally fine since they were buying people who were already enslaved. In
Africa at the time slaves were even subject to things including human
sacrifice. [5] Just in West Africa there were events including the regular
sacrifice of hundreds of slaves and on rare occasion even thousands at once.
The cognitive dissonance there is not really hard to see.

And this behavior of cognitive dissonance and apathy continues to this day. Do
you really care about slavery? I imagine we'd all like to think so, but
reality paints a less favorable picture. What if the president started
implicitly condoning slavery for his own benefit? You might think you'd care,
but that has already happened very recently. Malaysia is one of the worst
places for modern slavery. You can see from the aforementioned link [2] that
about 0.4% of their population is a slave. That's one out of every 250 people
for 129k slaves in a country of 30million people. In 2015 Obama chose to
remove Malaysia from a list of the worst human traffickers. He did this just
so he could squeeze them into a trade agreement he wanted to pass (the TPP).
This was the same year that more than numerous mass graves and trafficking
camps were discovered in Malaysia. [3] A few media outlets ran the story, but
for the most part people showed they couldn't really care less. And so it
almost certainly was during slavery as well.

What if I told you a list of companies or products that are still generated
using slavery? Like chocolate? West Africa supplies about 69% of the world's
cocoa. [6]. And unsurprisingly, slavery and even child slavery, is involved in
its production. Companies funding the practice include Mars, Nestle, Hershey,
and others. Will you now stop buying their products? Probably not. Think about
that for a minute. A sweet treat is more important to you ( _" you" in this
case is rhetorical, as even if you in particular would/will give up the
companies - few would_) than taking a stand against not only slavery, but
child slavery. Slavery is incredibly offensive until it provides something we
want, or when doing something about it might cause you some inconvenience.
It's quite phenomenal isn't it? This disconnect between what we think we
think, and what we actually seem willing to do based on that?

The point of this all is that I think if people were more aware of reality,
and understood that the line between good and evil is far closer than any of
us would like to admit, that we'd be much more inclined to concern ourselves
with actual events and happenings - instead of taking faux offense at somebody
using the word 'just' in a way you find offensive.

[1] - [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-
cro...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-
cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/)

[2] -
[https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/](https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/)

[3] - [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/malaysia-
migra...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/malaysia-migrant-mass-
graves-police-reveal-139-sites-some-with-multiple-corpses)

[4] - [http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html](http://www.civil-
war.net/pages/1860_census.html)

[5] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice#West_Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice#West_Africa)

[6] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_in_cocoa_productio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_in_cocoa_production)

~~~
ergothus
> Providing facts should never require justification

Facts don't require justification. Which and where and when one chooses to
provide them might well require justification. Just as you are questioning the
above poster's selection of facts to present, I often question when someone
chooses to say "but what about X" whenever an issue is brought up, as if X
changes the issue actually under discussion.

> Regardless of the above, I'll indulge you

Quite generous of you. Without sarcasm, I will truly try to understand you,
though I do not agree that we cannot/should judge events, because our actions
are all we can control, and without judging their quality how can we evaluate
future ones?

> many people in society are starting to view things as caricaturizations of
> reality

You believe this is a new and/or increasing trend? I won't deny over-
simplistic viewpoints and even that there are areas that are having more of an
issue with this than in recent history, but I'm not willing to declare this to
be out of historical norms. For all that, say, US politics is more bitter than
in recent decades, we can't ignore politicians committing violence upon each
other (including in the US) or even such dramatic incidents such as the Great
Defenestration, all of which I assume involved a great amount of hero/villain
perspectives. Per my previous concern these examples do not make such over-
simplifications suddenly complex, but it does stand to show this is not new.

> [ a great deal of material supporting the concept that modern slavery exists
> and that psychic/statistical numbing and compassion fatigue exist]

> The point of this all is that I think if people were more aware of reality,
> and understood that the line between good and evil is far closer than any of
> us would like to admit, that we'd be much more inclined to concern ourselves
> with actual events and happenings - instead of taking faux offense at
> somebody using the word 'just' in a way you find offensive.

So your point was solely to argue that we should think that 5 years of slavery
is NOT a big deal? Your rationale appears to be in your previous post:

> These individuals were doomed to enslavement for their entire life, one way
> or the other

I understood the article's use of "just" to be a relative term, but I also
understand that 5 years of slavery is a big deal, EVEN IF they would have been
slaves anyway. Because while I do indeed practice a great deal of selfishness,
doing so does not mean I should deny charity to anyone. A wrong does not
justify a wrong, and a wrong certainly does not justify that we stop trying
for right at all.

The facts you have chosen to present seem cherry-picked to distract from the
actual point of the discussion. You've expended a great deal of effort to only
say that the phrase "just 5 years" is apt. If we acknowledge that good/evil
(however we define it) is a spectrum and not a fine line as you claim is your
desire and that 5 years as a slave is unarguably better than a lifetime as a
slave, you've not addressed either the (presumed) actual reason behind the
above poster's reaction (that being that a slave for 5 years should not be
minimized), nor have you addressed my points about how the timing and choice
of facts you present serve to convey the message that US slavery was fine.

Take, for example, how you carefully select statistics to argue that
relatively few US citizens owned slaves. But you don't address the large
population of citizens that supported it, that elected politicians that made
it a large national division from literally the founding of the country
through the civil war and it's aftermath, then through Jim Crow, redlining,
all the way to All Lives Matter. If slavery was merely a rich man's issue, why
did non-slave owning people accept it on it's face as opposed to requiring the
distance and plausible deniability we (mostly) do today? Was it Lee that
captured and conscripted free black people, or was it his non-rich troops?
(Plenty of problems in the North - I'm not trying to deny that, I'm addressing
your choice of facts)

Absolutely it is inaccurate to think in black or white, and it's wrong to feel
we are morally superior and/or without error. It is likewise wrong to use our
own flaws as an excuse to have more flaws, and it is wrong to ignore the
results of our actions. In this case, I'm seeing your actions as downplaying
and distracting from the problems of slavery, the historical brutality of
these particular incidence, and as placing a reaction to a potential downplay
as more important than other aspects of the issue, all under a guise of
warning of the perils of over-simplifying.

That's my impression, with no opinion on whether you are doing so
intentionally or innocently. I can be mistaken - it would be ironic of me to
over-simplify either your intentions or the effects of your choices. If I am
mistaken, please grant me a little more indulgence and explain how. At the
moment, regardless of the accuracy of my conclusions, I am not getting the
message you say you are trying to send, for I fully acknowledge our many moral
failings and the messy complicated details of human interactions, particularly
when it comes to those who are being victimized by multiple nations, and yet
agreeing that life is not as simple as good or evil has not modified my
opinion of the above poster's reaction to "just 5 years" as reasonable, if
likely not reflecting the intention of the author. Considering 5 years of
slavery to still be bad is not "faux offense", that is attempting to
acknowledge a fact.

~~~
indubitable
If I've "cherry picked" data feel free to provide the precise, in context,
data you feel I'm leaving out. I've gone out of my way to try to provide as
much context as possible, while also simultaneously providing substantial
further reading on the topic as well - all from online accessible 'objective'
third party sources, as opposed to for instance a news article / opinion piece
/ blog. I'd strongly recommend that series from PBS. It is phenomenally
informative, well researched, and interesting.

From my perspective you seem to be trying to rebuke data by yourself
ironically playing quite fast and loose with sourceless data and conclusions.
For instance you imply that because people elected politicians that supported
slavery, people must therefore have liked or supported slavery. I take it you
support, or think it's justified, killing hundreds of thousands in the Mideast
in wars waged primarily over oil and geopolitical control? What, how could you
not? Every single politician America has elected for the past several decades
has been all about this, so surely most Americans must support it? Again if
you can provide objective data and facts, with so much context as possible,
I'd love to discuss these - but I have little interest in facile speculation.

I think our entire worldview should be shaped by facts. To do otherwise would
be to appeal to misconceptions, bias, and prejudice. As a consequence of this
there is literally no scenario in which I would consider the submission of
facts and data to be unacceptable. Language policing is one of the first step
towards moving into a world where facts themselves begin to be unacceptable.
In all of the worst examples of fascism and oppression in the past one of the
first things to go is the ability for people to speak freely. Consequently,
any time I see somebody attempting to police language - I am certain to go
sharply in the opposite direction regardless of my personal views on the issue
at hand. As for what that makes you think of me? Well let's put it this way,
on a scale of 0 to 100, how much do you care about what I think of you? Now
why would you expect it to be any different for me?

~~~
ergothus
> If I've "cherry picked" data ... > trying to rebuke data

What data did I rebuke? I'm addressing that you chose to not only distract
from the actual issue at hand, but also chose to bring up specific true-
but-200-years-afterwards facts. Your selection of those outside facts is the
cherry-picking. You claimed to do this to prevent over-simplification but
instead commit it yourself by raising what is at best nihilism and has the
effect of promoting racism.

> For instance you imply that because people elected politicians that
> supported slavery, people must therefore have liked or supported slavery

Supported, certainly. Slavery wasn't a small issue, it was forefront, as
demonstrated by the many high-profile compromises and conflicts, and that it
ultimately led to a civil war, as seen in the very declarations of succession
and surrounding language. Such views and actions at such a scale don't just
happen, they are either accepted or resisted.

> I take it you support, or think it's justified, killing hundreds of
> thousands

I do not, but I believe the country as a whole de facto declared that they
did. And yes, while I was against that particular topic and spoke up and voted
accordingly, there are many actions I take that support and sustain actions
that I vocally claim to be opposed to. That my actions belie my words and
conclusions does not make may words and conclusions incorrect - it points out
a level of hypocrisy. Rather than declaring that because I'm sometimes a
hypocrite there is no point in judging my actions or those of others, I'm
saying that we must continue to push to improve. Wrong does not become Right
just because I've done it.

But I don't want to lose the topic: your original post which spent 50% of it's
content talking about slavery in Africa today. This is no more relevant to if
"just 5 years" was appropriate than the mating habits of the fruit fly, but
unlike such trivia you chose matters that would place a negative connotation
on Africa and Africans.

> I think our entire worldview should be shaped by facts.

This is a misleading statement - where did I say otherwise? The issue is not
what facts exist, but why you chose to raise these particular facts in this
particular context.

> Language policing is one of the first step towards moving into a world where
> facts themselves begin to be unacceptable.

How are you not performing an equal amount of "language policing"? Your
reasoning applies equally to the language you were objecting to. I doubt you
believe that 5 years of slavery is inconsequential, you're saying it's much
less than a lifetime. The above poster was implying that 5 years of slavery is
very consequential compared to a a lifetime without slavery. He/she objected
to the implication of word choice, you objected to the implication that the
word choice was inaccurate.

> Well let's put it this way, on a scale of 0 to 100, how much do you care
> about what I think of you? Now why would you expect it to be any different
> for me?

What is the point of defending free speech if you don't care how your words
are taken? On scale of 0 to 100, if a total stranger pointed out that my words
promote racism, my concern is much closer to 100 than not. Is it different for
you?

In summary:

1) Author said "just 5 years" of slavery

2) A poster expressed disagreement with the implication that 5 years of
slavery should be dismissed as not a big deal, obviously comparing it to not
being a slave ever

3) You expressed disagreement with the idea that the victims wouldn't have
been slaves of some sort anyway, and thus the author's language was accurate.
You also brought up that slavery exists in Africa today.

4) I expressed that your choice to bring up that second point promotes the
feeling that because slavery happens we should not be upset by it

5) You defended your choice because facts are involved and because free speech
is important

This is not an issue of if facts are valid - MANY facts are valid but not
relevant to the topic at hand. This is not an issue of free speech - both
sides are arguing over what language was appropriate, and I have no objection
to discussing modern slavery when we're discussing modern slavery.

This is an issue that you made a choice to bring up certain facts _outside the
topic_ and I questioned the purpose of doing so. The negative results from
your actions come not from knowing any particular facts, but from attaching
those facts-outside-the-topic to the topic, which is very misleading.

~~~
indubitable
Expressing dismay out at the audacity of somebody to even dare state
something, as opposed to stating why either it's wrong in the case of a fact
or why you disagree in case of an opinion, is language policing. In other
words it is attacking the choice of language, instead of discussing or
debating the view itself. Note the person who started this line of discussion
chose to immediately go ad hominem on the author instead of provide rationale
for why their personal opinion was that 'just' understates the issues in play.

I have no concern for what people think facts "promote." Give the same
information to different people and they will come to different conclusions.
Ultimately facts are what inform our opinions. When you believe something may
promote some opinion or another, you should consider the fact that you may
likely be projecting. People interpret things differently. For instance let's
take another controversial example, but one that also brings the issue down to
its most fundamental level. Imagine somebody states that blacks make up 38% of
the prison population, yet only 13% of the US population. This is very true.
However, it's also true that that same 13% of the population also commits more
than 52% of all the murders in the nation, along with similar over
representation in most forms of crime.

Rather than trying to cherry pick data to lead people in one direction or the
other, I think it is important that all facts are considered - even when we
might consider those facts as less than pleasant. In my example here, both
facts are very likely to mislead without the context of the other. And if
either fact were presented without the context of the other, I would fully
agree with you about 'cherry picking' facts. When I asked you to provide any
relevant facts I may have omitted after you claimed I was 'cherry picking
data', you failed to be able to provide a single one.

\--

As a sort of meta comment. Line by line quoting tends to create somewhat
scattered and disparate logic, made even worse with paraphrasings. Try to
think of things holistically and I think you might be able to express yourself
more clearly if you're perhaps expressing some nuanced view I'm still too
dense to perceive.

