Slavery
- Thread starter AndSmithMustScore
- Start date
- Tagged users None
- Moderator
- #52
And how would we fit all of that into the existing curriculum given the time constraints? Not to mention the other limitations.
There's nothing stopping anyone in Australia from going to university and taking a deep dive into global history.
It's impossible to do this in high school. In high school, history is only an elective.
- May 8, 2012
- 19,345
- 24,278
- AFL Club
- West Coast
The Ottomans had one of the largest slave trading systems in the history of the world. It's been well documented for a long time.
Episode IV
All Australian
- Jun 16, 2022
- 870
- 580
- AFL Club
- Fremantle
There's no "one of" about it.
Over the centuries, it was the largest by fair margin, dwarfing the American or any other trade. Existed in the region long before the Ottoman empire as well, given that before the Ottomans there were the Byzantines, and before them the Romans.
As Thomas Sowell aptly put it, the people who ended up as slaves had one thing in common - they were vulnerable. Pure and simple.
Racism was certainly a factor, but a casual perusal of historical texts and commentary in that regard (with particular reference to the Islamic world in question) leads to a interesting observation: descriptions of racial characteristics came about more often as a result of observation regarding the slaves they had, and did not form a reason as to where they got them from or why. Acquisition was a matter of logistics, not idealism.
Reading history does tend to result in interesting little tidbits popping up here and there with regard to the Slave trade.
Sir Samuel Baker, who had a rather storied career as an engineer, explorer and huntsman (including a stint as a general working for the Khedive (Sultan, Grand Vizier) of Egypt leading a force of soldiers formed largely of ex-convicts down the Nile in a military expedition to extinguish the slave trade and open the region up for commerce on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, in 1869) was journeying with the Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh in the Baltic region.
There, in the slave market of Vidin (Modern Bulgaria and part of the then Ottoman Empire) he was smitten by a young Austrian-born girl abducted by slavers and set to be sold, tried (unsuccessfully) to outbid the Ottoman Pasha for her, basically kidnapped her (with her permission), spirited her away and later married her. Her name became Lady Florence Baker.
While his career continued to flourish, in England he was viewed with a little suspicion and the queen herself refused to see him - not because his wife was an ex-slave, but because they'd been intimate before marriage.
I'm surprised someone hasn't made a movie out of that.
Episode IV
All Australian
- Jun 16, 2022
- 870
- 580
- AFL Club
- Fremantle
You don't need a "source". You need an aptitude for holistic analyses and a little mathematics. Sources might consist of demographic data (more difficult in the case of the Ottoman Empire, for several reasons), economic knowledge pertaining to the era and some other factors, but the majority would consist of putting two and two together.
Without considering the religious aspects of the Ottoman Empire and the impact that might have had upon it (including slavery and Sharia Law, which is a potential essay in itself), you have your basic variables - population, source, and time.
For the purposes of this (very, very, very brief) synopsis, I haven't counted the Native Americans - while they indulged in slavery themselves, they don't count toward the institution of slavery in the USA by comparison with the Ottoman Empire in this context.
The Ottoman Empire existed for roughly 600 years, until formally dissolved in 1922. The population, while as mentioned previously would be difficult to accurately measure, is generally considered to have fluctuated between 15 million and 30 million during the period of its existence. The Middle East was one of the more populous regions in the world at the time, more so than comparable areas in Europe and definitely more than Colonial America, which didn't even exist for at least half of the Empire's lifetime.
Again, it's difficult to estimate how many of those were slaves, but due to cultural factors and records from the time, its estimated that at least 10% were, rising to a high of around 20% of the total population by the 17th century - in other words, there were and had been millions for centuries before America even got started.
Colonial settlement of the USA began in the 17th century, but even in 1790 the population is recorded as having been somewhere around 3.5 - 4 million (colonials). It rose to around 30-35 million by 1865, of which 4.5 million were black (mostly slaves). So while the population absolutely exploded during that 70 years or thereabouts, it never saw the prolonged period of institutionalized slavery that the Middle East did other than for what would be generally considered a historically short period.
In short, the slave trade during the time of the Ottoman Empire went on centuries longer and involved far more people than the American one. Not only that, but limiting the discussion only to the Ottoman Empire, and considering it only as a subset of the wider Middle East trade has the effect of skewing the comparison even more.
Then there are the sources. The Atlantic Slave trade is widely documented and probably doesn't need much comment. In the Islamic world, however, slavery as a result of being taken during war was taken for granted (and religiously condoned). There was no "prisoner of war" status or any such new fangled notion... unless you were yourself a Muslim. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the first standing professional armies in the world that we know of, were slave armies. Case in point, the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. These were the sorts of armies which you might consider being reflected in books and TV such as A Game Of Thrones... highly disciplined, religiously indoctrinated and fanatically loyal slave armies (minus the castration, although they were forcibly circumcised). There were other examples of course but I'd have to go outside of the Ottoman Empire itself to note them. So in addition to the slave trade itself, we have other historical factors contributing to slave populations - the Ottomans fought a lot of wars in those 600 years.
Won't go too much further into the sources, just wanted to note that the Atlantic Slave Trade was by no means the only one going around. But it is relatively well documented, which is why it gets so much attention.
The USA had a bit of a barney amongst themselves and put an (official) end to it in 1865. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, did not until the whole Empire was dissolved in the 1920's... and that, as far as I'm aware, was not the Ottomans themselves but as part of the new constitution written by their Turkish successors.
...oh, all right. I saw a movie directed by and starring Mel Gibson. Fine, you got me. That's my source.
Without considering the religious aspects of the Ottoman Empire and the impact that might have had upon it (including slavery and Sharia Law, which is a potential essay in itself), you have your basic variables - population, source, and time.
For the purposes of this (very, very, very brief) synopsis, I haven't counted the Native Americans - while they indulged in slavery themselves, they don't count toward the institution of slavery in the USA by comparison with the Ottoman Empire in this context.
The Ottoman Empire existed for roughly 600 years, until formally dissolved in 1922. The population, while as mentioned previously would be difficult to accurately measure, is generally considered to have fluctuated between 15 million and 30 million during the period of its existence. The Middle East was one of the more populous regions in the world at the time, more so than comparable areas in Europe and definitely more than Colonial America, which didn't even exist for at least half of the Empire's lifetime.
Again, it's difficult to estimate how many of those were slaves, but due to cultural factors and records from the time, its estimated that at least 10% were, rising to a high of around 20% of the total population by the 17th century - in other words, there were and had been millions for centuries before America even got started.
Colonial settlement of the USA began in the 17th century, but even in 1790 the population is recorded as having been somewhere around 3.5 - 4 million (colonials). It rose to around 30-35 million by 1865, of which 4.5 million were black (mostly slaves). So while the population absolutely exploded during that 70 years or thereabouts, it never saw the prolonged period of institutionalized slavery that the Middle East did other than for what would be generally considered a historically short period.
In short, the slave trade during the time of the Ottoman Empire went on centuries longer and involved far more people than the American one. Not only that, but limiting the discussion only to the Ottoman Empire, and considering it only as a subset of the wider Middle East trade has the effect of skewing the comparison even more.
Then there are the sources. The Atlantic Slave trade is widely documented and probably doesn't need much comment. In the Islamic world, however, slavery as a result of being taken during war was taken for granted (and religiously condoned). There was no "prisoner of war" status or any such new fangled notion... unless you were yourself a Muslim. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the first standing professional armies in the world that we know of, were slave armies. Case in point, the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. These were the sorts of armies which you might consider being reflected in books and TV such as A Game Of Thrones... highly disciplined, religiously indoctrinated and fanatically loyal slave armies (minus the castration, although they were forcibly circumcised). There were other examples of course but I'd have to go outside of the Ottoman Empire itself to note them. So in addition to the slave trade itself, we have other historical factors contributing to slave populations - the Ottomans fought a lot of wars in those 600 years.
Won't go too much further into the sources, just wanted to note that the Atlantic Slave Trade was by no means the only one going around. But it is relatively well documented, which is why it gets so much attention.
The USA had a bit of a barney amongst themselves and put an (official) end to it in 1865. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, did not until the whole Empire was dissolved in the 1920's... and that, as far as I'm aware, was not the Ottomans themselves but as part of the new constitution written by their Turkish successors.
...oh, all right. I saw a movie directed by and starring Mel Gibson. Fine, you got me. That's my source.
Last edited:
