Slavery . . . until the end of time

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Summer 1998]

Whatever one thinks of Marx & Engels’ unrealistic and unworkable forecasts of a future communist paradise, there is wisdom to be gleaned from Engels’ description of early man’s economic arrangements. Engels describes how agricultural man first produced only as much as he and his family could consume (if he was lucky enough to produce that much). Over time, as tools were developed and improved, man discovered that his family’s labor had the capacity to produce "considerably greater product" than required to meet their needs. He learned that the surplus they created could be exchanged or bartered.

And soon another truth was learned. Writes Engels, the "Great Truth" was discovered, that ". . . man also can be a commodity; that human energy can be exchanged and put to use by making a man into a slave. Hardly had men begun to exchange than already they themselves were being exchanged."

This understanding of how to increase production of food and goods now put societies on the path of moving up and beyond the lowly "state of barbarism." And, continues Engels, "The continuous increase of production heightened the value of human labor power. Slavery now becomes an essential constituent part of the social system."

The first to be enslaved usually were members of the nearest tribe or clan. For centuries, Europeans enslaved fellow Europeans, until economic circumstances altered, creating a whole new set of social needs. As the European looked elsewhere for a market in slaves, Africa became the continent of choice because of the sophisticated slaving network already in place.

Slavery had a sustained history in places like Ghana and Mali long before Europeans began trading in African slaves. Slave societies were common throughout the continent. Sometimes slavers got caught in their own nets, as in the case of Abd Rahman Ibrahima. Ibrahima was the son of a Timbo king and, along with his father, was an industrious slave trader. While on a mission to attack and capture other clansmen, he himself was captured by tribal enemies. Ibrahima was sold to a Spanish slaver, and wound up on a Mississippi plantation, where he remained for the next 40 years.

Marcus Garvey, black nationalist and leader of the largest mass movement of blacks, was certainly no apologist for slavery. Nevertheless, he had a keen understanding of the origins and indispensable role of the institution of human bondage. Without moralizing over the right and wrong of slavery, in the 1920s, he pragmatically wrote:

"Slavery is a condition imposed upon individuals of races not sufficiently able to protect or defend themselves, and so long as a race or people expose themselves to the danger of being weak, no one can tell when they will be reduced to slavery.

"Slavery is not a condition confined to any one age or race of people. Slavery has been since man in the different distribution of himself, scattered here, there and everywhere, has grown and developed, wherein one race will become strong and the other race remains weak. The strong race has always reduced the weak to slavery. It has been so in ages past, it is so now in certain parts of the world, and will be so until the end of time.

"The great British nation was once a race of slaves. In their own country they were not respected because the Romans went there, brutalized and captured them, took them over to Rome and kept them in slavery. They were not respected in Rome because they were regarded as a slave race. But the Briton did not always remain a slave. As a freed man he went back to his country and built up a civilization of his own, and by his self-reliance and initiative he forced the respect of mankind and maintains it until today."