Thread by @Klaus_Arminius

🧵 #Colonization And #Slavery

While European colonialism is condemned, the crimes committed by other civilizations have either fallen to the wayside to be forgotten or even glorified

Let’s explore some of the examples:

#Native Slavery:

When Alaska was ceded to America, the Tlingit sued the US, over anti-slavery act.

#Native chiefs rejected it, stating the buying, selling, and holding of slaves is one of the rules & customs of their people; the civil authorities have no jurisdiction over them.

#Arab Slavery

You likely have heard of the Transatlantic slave trade, but have you heard of the Islamic Arab Slave trade? A trade that enslaved millions of Africans and Europeans, and easily rivaled the Transatlantic slave trade? Probably not.

When the British demanded #Zanzibar to end slavery, they were met with fierce resistance from the Sultan and the highborn Arabs. One of the Prince raised over 5’000 soldiers overnight to defend slavery.

The below thread explains the active role Brits took in ending slavery in #EastAfrica t.co/UdUEUxTFPX

The #Kurds, like the Persians, manage to resist Arabization. But unlike the Persians, the Kurds lost their homelands and became victims of untold genocide

There are approximately 40 million Kurds, a population distributed mainly between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

#African Colonization And Slavery

Long before Europeans arrived, slavery was practiced across Africa. Slaves would be used for manual labor, as domestic, and sometimes sacrificed in religious ceremonies or buried alive with their masters to serve them in the next life.

It was common in #Igbo society for families to sell disgraced relatives. “People would say, ‘Let them go. I don’t want to see them again.’ ”, says Ijoma Okoro, a professor of Igbo history at the University of #Nigeria, Nsukka.

The most powerful and wealthiest slave trader in the 19th century was a #Zanzibari half an African businessman called Tippu Tip.

Tippu Tip’s cruelty and harass treatment of slaves outraged European leaders and slave abolitionists.

"African intellectuals tend to blame the West for the slave trade, but I
knew that White traders couldn't have loaded their ships without help from Africans like my great grandfather.”, says Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Slavery in #Ethiopia existed for centuries, long before European set foot there. The kingdom supplied millions of slaves to the Arab world. The slaves were often #Oromo, who the #Habesha referred to as ‘Galla’ or ‘barya’, derogatory terms meaning 'uncivilized’ and ‘savage’.

In 1922, the kingdom was forced to end slavery after an unrelenting pressure from Europe else it saved economic sanctions and exclusion from the League of Nations. One of the conditions for its admission to the League of Nations, was that it takes concrete measures to end slavery

African King says he will not give up slavery (1840): "The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…" bbc.co.uk/worldservice/a…

Have you heard of the #Bantu Expansion?

Varies #African tribes were displaced through slaughter, rape, slavery and absorption by the Bantu colonists who came from the region of the Congo and the Niger Delta. The Khoisan of South Africa being an example of the tribes displaced.

#ADOS Slavery

When slavery was abolished, the US secured land in West Africa, #Liberia, where more than 12,000 freed African Americans moved to settle. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a freeman, became the colony’s governor.

Picture: African American with Liberian slaves

At the first opportunity, once the freed #AfricanAmericans were in the position of power, they enslaved the native #Liberians and created a two-tier society where they were on top and exploited the indigenous African Liberians. brightworkresearch.com/did-african-am…

Have you heard of the #Cham genocide?

Under Emperor Lê Thánh Tông of Đại Việt, the #Vietnamese conducted a Genocide campaign against the Cham slaughtereing 60,000 when taking the capital.

Given the current political climate, slavery and colonization has be some a weapon and a tool to guilt trip Europeans into submission and shame.

Europeans have made amends and acknowledged their past errors while others have either denied or washed their hands of involvement.

@threadreaderapp unroll

#Arab Slavery

Skeletons on the Zahara: The true story of twelve American sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815, captured by Arab nomads, sold into slavery, and subjected to a hellish two-month journey through the perilous heart of the Sahara.