The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Razgovory]

They're the only ones that have statues of them and are still an issue in our society.

When Nazis and fascists start rallying around statues of the Sultan of Zanzibar, I'll consider Muslim slavers a higher priority.

Well, start by the infamous Leopold II. He did fight muslim slavers. 
Among other things...

Does that action exonerate mass murder?

Nope, but thanks for the strawman.

Then I fail to see your point. There are no statues to Muslim slavers, nor do Western countries celebrate them. Your post implies that we should celebrate Leopold II's victories over Muslim slavers, presumably instead of condemning his mass murder and own actions as a slaver. If you have an actual point worth discussing, try posting it.

His point is that Muslims are bad.

[Tamas]

In other words, as a North American historian, you think that North American style slavery had a much more profound effect on the world than Eurasian style slavery. Splendid.

As a North American historian who has team-taught classes about freedom and slavery with colleagues working on the Ottoman Empire and China, yes. It's absolutely a point I would argue. Conversely, early-modern Chinese imperialism may have had a more profound effect on the world than early-modern European imperialism. Neither means that slavery in Persia, or warfare in the Andes was great or benign. 

A useful distinction, in the history of slavery, is between "societies with slaves" and "slave societies". The first are societies where slavery existed. The second, where slavery structured the very polity itself. None of the East Asian societies that I know of structured themselves around the institution of slavery the way that, say, Jamaica did. The Ottoman Empire, and its Janissaries, is perhaps the most hybrid case.

So do you argue that the slavery perpetrated by the Ottomans etc. are less condemn-able than the North American one, on the grounds of it being less intertwined into the fabrics of the state (let's just assume that's true for the Ottomans, although I am very sceptical on that part).

[Valmy]

Was Canada a slave society or a society with slaves?

[Tamas]

Was Canada a slave society or a society with slaves?

Was Stalinist Russia a slave society or a society with slaves?

[The Brain]

What gets wetter the more it dries?

[Valmy]

Well that's different.

[The Brain]

Well that's different.

Have you ever been to Canada?

[Oexmelin]

So do you argue that the slavery perpetrated by the Ottomans etc. are less condemn-able than the North American one, on the grounds of it being less intertwined into the fabrics of the state (let's just assume that's true for the Ottomans, although I am very sceptical on that part).

No. That's not at all what I am saying. I live in the 21st century. Slavery is bad. Is this really under discussion?

What I am saying is that the deflection "but the Ottoman did it too" is never motivated by a desire to understand the role and place of the Ottoman practices of slavery, or the nuances of unfreedom in the early-modern world. It stems from a desire to either point the finger at Muslims *today* and to deflect the case for reparations in the US/the UK/France *today*.

Now, if you want to push me, as a historian, to ask whether I would have preferred to live as a slave in the 18th century Caribbean or as an enslaved Christian in 18th century Algiers, I would absolutely pick Algiers. Because Mediterranean slavery was understood to be a temporary condition. There were religious orders entirely dedicated to buying captives back. Most of the work was domestic, not the sort done in sugar plantation where life expectancy after arrival was 7 years, your body horribly maimed and mutilated, etc. And, as pertain to my point, in the world beyond slavery, as a presumably white captive Christian, after winning my freedom I would still be white. A freed black man in the Caribbean remained black.

After that, we can discuss a myriad of options: was being a Janissary in Istanbul better than a free person of color in Cap Français? Was it better to be working as an enslaved person in the fields in Eswatini or in the fields of the Illinois country? These are interesting thought experiments that help us define the contours of freedom, unfreedom (and test our notions of comfort), but one needs to participate in a good faith discussion. And who knows, maybe future research on slavery in the mainland Ottoman Empire, or in Persia, will shed light on similarly gruesome, chattel-like conditions as existed in the Caribbean. So far, however, it doesn't seem to have been the case, and certainly not up to the scale seen in the Atlantic World.

[The Brain]

Phew. I was worried for a while that no one would tell Tampax what his point is.

[Oexmelin]

Was Canada a slave society or a society with slaves?

Society with slaves. It did not depend on slavery for its production, social organization, etc. A case may be made that New France's later indigenous alliances depended upon the maintaining of a slave trade with Indigenous people.

Again, this is a heuristic device, not a cataloguing one. 

[Valmy]

I guess I was thinking how Pennsylvania, despite the Quakers at most tolerating it and having small numbers of them, could still be considered a slave society if we go by Oex's definition. I was just curious about Canada....

But really what I want is that people read Syt's article and talk about this stuff so I should probably stop.

[Tamas]

I will take that as a yes then, Oex. I do appreciate the explanation and of course I would also gamble on choosing the not as well documented slavery conditions over the well documented ones.

[Admiral Yi]

Quibble about the North African version.  The Barbary states used slaves in galleys.  I've also read of slaves being used in mines and for construction.

[Oexmelin]

Quibble about the North African version.  The Barbary states used slaves in galleys.  I've also read of slaves being used in mines and for construction.

Sure, but by the 18th century, galleys were mostly out, and the big architectural projects of the early Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, that employed hundreds of captives, had ceased. The copper mines of Northern Anatolia, and the marble quarries of the Greek Islands were also spaces where the Ottoman Empire employed slaves in the 17th and 18th century. But, by the most recent accounts, these represented perhaps 400-600 captives in total. The overwhelming majority of enslaved people in the Ottoman Empire were urban, and served as either craftsmen (silk workers are famous example) or servants.

[Tamas]

So a society using slaves as skilled labour and elite soldiers somehow has slavery less integrated into itself than the one using slaves exclusively for very low skill jobs?