African Slavery before Arabs and Europeans

What comes to your mind with you think of slavery?

Slavery, or involuntary human servitude was very different than what many people know of. People think of slavery as only being in the United states before the Civil War, but slavery actually existed many decades before that. Many people believe or only know of slavery as involving people from Africa being brought to the New World by Europeans and sold as slaves. To the surprise of many slavery was even in various countries, not only America, but even Africa. Slavery in Africa back then took many different forms that were actually quite different then what existed here in the United States. Slavery in Africa started a long time before Europeans or Arabs thought of taking the African people for a life servitude. It was not until the 7th century that slavery in African involved non-African groups. Before then African slavery involved normally a black owner and black slaves.

Slavery prior to European contact resided in all of Africa, in one form or another. Before the Europeans came, the process of how one became a slave or involuntary servant was very different. There were two different types of slavery, chattle and pawnship. In Chattle slavery means that the slaves were considered property. Pawnship slavery meant that a person was used as collateral for debt. Though some slaves were captivated as part of warfare, they were normally more of a bother than a benefit. Many times those captured from warfare were sold and transported to other villages father away from their homes to help with the ease of escaping. Also, quite often there were slaves that were part of the family or village. They were considered slaves due to their class or social status within their community.

The majority of people who were slaves in Africa did not have to live a lifetime of servitude, they would be slaves for only a few years out of their lifetime and then be free again. Unlike slavery here in the United States slaves in Africa had rights and were treated more like people. Slaves were allowed to marry, some were paid and even own land. Their children were born into freedom and many times adopted by the slave owner as part of the family.

Women in slavery were more common. They would do farming as well as economic things such as trade, and spinning. Women also had the responsibility of doing house hold chores and tending to children. Many of the owners would actually keep the slave women for wives or as a status of wealth. The men were used more for more manual work such as mining and herding.

I think that most people have a hard time learning about slavery because in today's society we see slavery as morally wrong. For many here in the United States, slavery is a hard topic to talk about due to the way the African people were treated. Even though they enslaved themselves way before the Arabs or the Europeans, they treated eachother better in my eyes. The Arabs and the Europeans brought about a new kind of slavery with the transatlantic slave trade. This trade was the start to a whole new meaning of slavery. Slavery that many people today are still mad over and they very well should be.