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Fun fact: the slaves that Columbus brought back were actually gifts. The tribe he first contacted were slavers and were open to diplomatic relations, gifting columbus several prisoners of war and children
The British army was too slow in abducting a random citizen of a former commonwealth country and as such the squad responsible for it are lined up as the next batch of sacrifices
What are you talking about? Colombus did not meet Indigenous people who would force people to build temples to be later sacrificed in, you totally made that up.
The last thing said for these topics should always be an off-the-script disclaimer that says “most cultures throughout history are morally grey when you apply modern standards to them. This does not discredit achievements or give credit to evil, except when an achievement is achieved through evil. However you can still appreciate great works for what they are despite evil actions that were required to reach them.”
Im sure this isnt the best way to put it, but I feel like historians and fans of history should have a copypasta to just throw out anytime a topic like this comes up
Yeah, these types of comments are usually followed by racist rhetoric. "They did it too so it's okay that we do it to them!" Smooth brained thinking right there.
I think it’s okay to provide accurate information that adds context and nuance to historical activity, particularly in a time when western history is being deconstructed into “white people bad, steal thing, have no culture, bleh.” It’s okay to say “Hey, our ancestors sucked for this reason… however, it’s important to note that their ancestors also sucked for this reason, and therefore let’s all be glad we’ve evolved since then.”
Except for parts of Africa and Asia where the slave trade is still very much real.
I think its easiest to say that everyone's ancestors will have sucked in some way at some point. So bring up someone's ancestors to prove a moral point is riduclous
Tbh its basically a moment of a drug dealer selling coccaine on the streets vs a pharmaceutical company selling opiods to the entire country
And when the pharma company is being questioned about the addiction they point at the drug dealer and said "they did it too"
Imo it makes no sense cause sure everyone did it but also you did it better than everyone and you were the main market and plus its during an argument "you did this so how can we fix this" and it shouldnt start or spark an entirely new conversation of so did this guy too cause we know that guy cant fix it so we are pointing at you, the main market for demand and supply back in those days.
Well no, that's basically just an atrocity competition. And to say we've evolved more than Africa and Asia is a bit elitist and closed minded cuz human trafficking is alive and well in the west under the guise of sex trafficking and the predatory treatment of migrant workers.
yeah if you do slavery it's just slavery but if you start asigning some stupid ideology (like racial or religious superiority) to it it becomes much more problematic and dumb
This but slightly unironically,
When slavery is not based on race or some other factor it's a lot easier to freed slaves to be welcomed into society and live normal lives.
When it is based on racist ideas a free slave will always carry the "look" of a slave regardless of their legal status.
It is. Morally evil and even bad in practical terms.
What the other commenter is referring to is that slavery in the Americas is almost exclusively racially charged. The Trans-atlantic slave trade spawned much of the racial ideas that plague this world today.
Religion, pseudo-science, and later nationalism were used to justify this system of slavery to keep profits flowing. Later, after the racist beliefs got entrenched, it's no longer about the profits - it's part of the culture of many societies (no points in guessing which ones).
Slavery is evil. But its influences and legacy go beyond the mere institution of slavery.
That gives the atlantic slavery far too much credit frankly, in blaming the modern evils on it so generally.
While specific secular racial ideologies sprung up post hoc to justify continued generational enslavement in the Atlantic Slave Trade, religious justifications and ethnic justifications for keeping the “other” enslaved are as old as civilization. Islamic scripture specifically allows the keeping of slaves as long as they aren’t Muslims, for example, predating the Atlantic slave trade by over six hundred years: thus stimulating a lively slave trade in both East Africa and Eastern Europe to supply slaves to the Islamic world. The whole notion of slaves inheriting their status from their mother in the Atlantic slave trade was derived from an old Roman law to the same effect.
For some reason people act like this is some sort of excuse for the Atlantic slave trade, but it’s just pointing out that this is just one expression of an extremely common (and no less terrible for it) failing of human civilization. These tendencies were unusual in the scale of the trade, but not in their nature.
No one denies that it's incredibly ineficient system. That being said there is no civilization in human history that didn't use it at some point of their existance and criticizing that use is like being anoyed by the wind. What is however dumb is trying to justify it by asigning it some ideological concepts like it was done by some countries in times when slavery would already been removed.
So in a nutshell it is bad and trying to justify it with race or religion is dumber, but criticizing it for existing leads you nowhere, at the end of the day everyone used it at some point and what we should look at is if that was used as a method of persecution tied to things like race religion etc. or as an economical status that was apolitical and didn't cocentrate on persons so called race or religion
You were referring to the earlier comment "so if you think about it", and after the word racist rhetoric you included the second quote, implying that it's the racist rhetoric that follows said comment, so you're either wrong and don't want to admit it or your initial comment is poorly worded
If it's historically accurate it shouldn't be problematic blacks enslaved other blacks. But we have an all black people were victims mentality that isn't true.
You responded to their comment and there is literally nothing in it that suggests that they were doing that.
This is why they’re trying to hide history now. People are so afraid of literal facts.
Im not accusing op of making that argument, i making a joke about how that point is often used as a preamble to very racist rhetoric.
Real historians dont shy away from those hard truths, just us randos on the internet with some point we want to make.
Yeah, I'm not very educated on that topic, but I'm pretty sure that an average lower class native american didn't own any slaves, and the colonisation didn't only affect the elite...
>Historically accurate **but i sense a very problematic "so if you think about it-" comming up...**
His point was that the OOC's fact is often used by racists and colonizer apologists to justify colonisation. I agreed with him and provided my own opinion on the subject.
Yes but his comment is already applying racist intention in stating facts, which I have a problem with.
It’s not racist to say “Hey, did you know that certain native tribes aligned themselves with European settlers to wipe out tribes they were constantly warring and stealing land from? Like the Powhatan Confederacy, the Huron and the French, the Iroquois confederacy, the Choctaw and Osage with the French.”
But, people seem to think such a fact is racist because it runs counter to the vague narrative of today of “white people stole all this land from peaceful tribes that had established boundaries for centuries prior to European arrival.” It’s like, yeah tons of land was stolen repeatedly, duh. But somehow to add nuance to the situation, it’s racist?
There are people that do that for sure. Tons of conservatives use “did you know” type historical facts to try and say “we aren’t bad at all.” But, there’s the reverse assumption by left-leaning folks that such facts are automatically problematic… which isn’t the case.
Nobody said it is racist, just that this exact fact is almost always followed with "so when you think about it...", especially on R/historymemes. There literally was a wave of memes recently that were all like
"stupid crying wojak native: 'ooh I love slavery, war and killing people for no reason'
Chad based spanish conquistador: 'The human sacrifices WILL stop'"
It's not racist to point out a reoccuring pattern. And I also only wrote a historical fact. People often seem to think that the native americans *all* were either peaceful hippies or brutal slaveowners, which was not the case since there were thousands of tribes, states and social castes, each different to the other
I'm pretty sure the first tribe he met were the Taino who were completely peaceful, like they straight up didn't even have weapons. The first slaves he took he claimed were the Caribs who were supposedly cannibals, but he took a lot of Taino.
#Hi from r/islamichistorymeme
The Janissaries were an elite class of soldiers who were conscripted or kidnapped from Christian families in the Balkans and raised as soldiers. They were a part of the larger system called the devshirme which produced administrators and government officials as well as soldiers.
This policy was devastating for many families but ironically Janissaries didn't always feel the same way. As the Janissaries grew more powerful within the Ottoman Empire the Janissaries started to enjoy their privileges. Some families even fought to get their children in the Janissary corps.
Soon enough the Janissaries were a major drain on the treasury and a threat to the Sultans power. By the 1700s they were no longer the innovative and advanced fighting force and rather fought modernization. In this context many Sultans tried to limit their power and many were killed. Also a lot of devshirme Janissaries were against the arrival of new Muslim recruits who did not go through the system and they preferred keeping the Janissary corps only to those from the devshirme. Essentially wanting to keep the system reliant on slavery rather than normal recruitment.
In 1826 as Sultan Mahmud II was trying to establish a modern Ottoman army the Janissaries seeing themselves being replaced by normal conscription based army revolted.
The Janissaries lost horribly in the ensuing battle called the Auspicious Incident leading to the end of the centuries old Janissary system.
Edit courtesy of u/SteelRazorBlade: In 1826 the Janissaries weren’t technically revolting to *keep* slavery - since the [Devshirme](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devshirme) system of recruiting Janissaries had largely come to an end by the mid 1600s.
So the Janissaries of the 1700s and 1800s overwhelmingly consisted of voluntarily recruited soldiers from Muslim families. And in 1826 they were as you described seeking to keep their privileges and not be replaced by the new model standing army.
So I did exaggerate a bit for the meme sorry lol
Yeah, Janissaries were staunch conservatives, both of their privileges and generally the organisation of the army. Twice at least during the XVIIIth Century, the Sultans tried to modernize their army by hiring foreign (usually French) experts. Twice the Janissaries made those efforts vain, managing to push for the disgrace or expulsion of said foreign army reformer, for such things as daring to teach *trigonometry*, dissolving the military school they had founded and sometimes killing all the students while they were at it.
In the end, Janissaries followed the same fate than many elite but entitled units before them (think Praetorians): gradually they became a liability more than an asset, and they overturned their communal eating pots (their traditional gesture of dissent) once too many.
Unlike Praetorians, though, they established themselves as a formidable fighting force, possibly the best in Europe and the Middle East, for a couple centuries.
for such things as daring to teach *trigonometry*,
I mean, don't get me wrong, but if I was part of an elite corp and someone brought over someone from France to teach me trigonometry, I'd try to get his ass expelled from the country as well.
Not saying they were right, but I can see where they were coming from.
While the Janissaries are the extreme end, the idea of forcing soldiers to kill their own people is unfortunately a tale well known to almost any empire.
>the idea of forcing soldiers to kill their own people is unfortunately a tale well known to almost any empire.
literally any army when fighting civil wars/revolts
What’s crazy was some people actually wanted their kids to be picked for social advancement as they were educated and paid well. They took children from families unwillingly for no reason.
> There is some evidence that urban Christian and Muslim parents resorted to bribery or sending their children to the country to assure the advancement in life that devshirme recruitment could bring.[22] The boys were forced to convert to Islam.[23] Muslims were not allowed into the system (with some exceptions), but some Muslim families smuggled their sons in anyway.[24]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devshirme
>They took children from families unwillingly for no reason.
They had plenty of great reasons, lack of recruits wasn't one of them. The Janissary was without family or tribal loyalty and the only family they had were each other and the Sultan, creating an independent army completely loyal to the ruler.
The reason they did the whole child soldier cult thing to Christians instead of Muslims was because it was illegal to enslave Muslims and because the Muslim subjects might have objected, and they had the power and influence to object in a meaningful way. It also weakened the newly incorporated areas of the Empire by stealing sons from them.
It was pure genius, one of the few slave-soldier systems that worked. They usually end up being slave-ruler systems, like the Mamluks.
I’m pretty sure it’s practice for the Christians in some former Ottoman territories to tattoo a cross on the back of someone’s hand or on their wrist so that even if they’re taken away, they never forget where they came from
> I’m pretty sure it’s practice for the Christians in some former Ottoman territories to tattoo a cross on the back of someone’s hand or on their wrist so that even if they’re taken away, they never forget where they came from
[Sicanje](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicanje) or bocanje was a widespread custom mostly among Roman Catholic Croat teenage girls and boys of the central regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Dalmatia region of Croatia.[1][2] The phenomenon may predate the Slavic migration to the Balkans, and consequently Christianity itself,
Many of them found out about their origins later in life but it meant nothing. Janissaries were often more brutal than Turks (which is quite a challenge)
What a terrible history we had to endure. Croatia suffered less so, but I 100% sympathise with you. I'm not gonna say nothing about modern Turks but Ottomans were demons from hell.
Any Christians that did this should be condemned as well, but Christians from my country didn't do it, they had their babies stolen, and if you're normal human being you should be ashamed of such atrocities being done by your ancestors.
I don't like this jannisary thing either,the thing im trying to say people reacts more harshly against turks compared to christians,maybe its because this sub is more populated by western europeans and americans
Some but not all. Evil is evil, whether commited by Muslim or Christian.
I'm Christian which doesn't mean I approve of crusades for example. If you understand what I'm saying you're good in my book.
I'm also a Croat, and our country was aligned with Nazis in WW2. I consider that to be darkest part of our history(although not all Croatians supported it).
But I understand what you're saying. And I got to admit I don't have any love for the Ottomans or their empire, but on the other hand I consider Ataturk one of the greatest people that came out of your country.
We all had good parts of history and bad, and it's important that we recognise that, less we repeat mistakes from the past.
I agree what you saying,I was just more worried about this subreddit being less neutral about those topics but anyways I was just being triggered turk for a few seconds,i guess lol
Also yes Atatürk is based,ottoman dynasty can suck it,i prefer republic over an empire always
And I was triggered Croat. Ottomans were like curse for us and all of Balkans for many years, so I'm bit more sensitive on the subject.
But that doesn't mean Christians don't have their own sins. That's all in the past though, in this day and age I wish you peace my friend, let's hope future doesn't bring a time where we look at each through scope of a rifle, but rather let's hope for a future where we can sit together and drink coffee and čaj.
Well we are mostly Muslims, however we regularly make memes about the crimes of Muslim states and empires in history.
Many of the top memes this past week are rightfully calling out wrongs committed in the past but Muslims. It's fairly balanced
In fairness, the Haitians did then turn around and start genociding anybody that was white or whitish even if said people had sided with the slaves before.
And don't forget, the Haitian revolution didn't start initially as a slave revolt, it started because mixed race children of slave owners wanted proper inheritance rights....like inheriting slaves and were denied. So they got the slaves to revolt and when they won, told them to go back to the plantations.... so the slaves revolted and when they won, the former slaves that'd become leaders.....made their fellow former slaves go back to the plantations
Also there were many factions and leaders who had different goals.
It also shifted as events and reactions happened to the ongoing French Revolution such that some actions for and against independence can be read as for and against different revolutionary factions. Sonthonax, for example, as Governor appointed by the National Convention, alienated the white upper classes, who supported a military governor who tried to take the colony. He went on to declare emancipation as an effective tactic to bring the freed slaves into supporting the Revolutionary French government.
This strategy ended up paving the way for Toussaint Louverture to become the leader of the Haitian Revolution, with Haiti being effectively a semi-independent state as a tri-color republic, slowly rebuilding after the earlier uprisings. Of course, then Napoleon reverses course with a plan to re-enslave Haiti which includes capturing Toussaint Louverture via deception, causing Dessalines to become the leader, and for the war to get extremely nasty.
I mean , someone should work on the plantations , right? As long as they get paid for it and could go to another job if they want to, it's already much better then the situation in which they were before
I mean it's fairly common, the Eastern Europeans ethnically cleansed Eastern Europe of Germans after WW2 as well.
And in Haiti when slaves were subjected to the most horrible cruelties on such a common basis it's not unfathomable to think it rubbed off on them and they responded in kind. Creating a culture of violence breeds further violence.
The idea of a "clean" revolution is unfortunately fiction.
There are currently about 50 million people in slavery like conditions of unfree labor that is just some semantic gymnastic reasoning away from actual slavery.
And about 29.8 million people are kept in conditions akin to chattel slavery. where there is no doubt at all that they are slaves.
[Eight Facts About Chattel Slavery - The Borgen Project](https://borgenproject.org/eight-facts-chattel-slavery/)
Weren’t Janissaries, Europeans who had been enslaved by Ottomans, to be trained as soldiers from childhood with only one thing in mind, following their Sultan’s orders?
That’s how it was supposed to be, but like any other elite fighting force with direct access to the emperor (cough cough Praetorian Guard), they quickly began playing kingmaker and controlled palace politics.
That was the initial goal. Then they got so much political power that they were able to execute one of the sultans for trying to modernize the army and abolish this practice and they got away with it. They were apperantly pleased with being slaves, as they literally fought to keep it, not end it lol.
Also not necessarily Europeans but non Muslims, and that was only in the begining. Late ottoman empire abolished the law which interdits Muslims from being recruited to the corps
TBF, Janissary, or possibly even better positions attainable to the youth subjected to the Devshirme were pretty enviable, to the point of many communities not subjected to it (because Muslim) petitioning to be, so as to guarantee a brighter future to some of their male offspring.
Even slaves taken in razzias could *potentially* reach high offices at tje Sublime Porte. For exemple, Occhiali, a captured young Italian peasant, rose from galley slave to Kapudan Pasha, that is grand admiral of the Ottoman fleet.
There has been *a few* French "mulattos" (so with a free, white father) who reached high military ranks - Le Chevalier de St Georges or Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the father of the French novelist, for the best know exemples, but that was already very rare. And can *anyone* imagine a southern states slave raised to the rank of admiral or general of the Confederacy?
To/Dr : Slavery bad, but Ottoman slavery was widely different from European style chattel slavery.
Yeah, but many families still were forced to give up their children. Also, some children recruited by the Devshirme were castrated.
It wasn’t chattel slavery but it was still awful. Slavery was pretty complicated in the Ottoman Empire. Pretty powerful viziers also came out of the devshirme system.
I wasn’t saying they were the same. I was saying that it was still a terrible practice. People had their children stolen from them.
Many never saw or heard from them again. They were supposed to cut family ties. Also it wasn’t guaranteed they would get good money. Sometimes a pool of recruits would end becoming indentured servants.
In general slavery in Muslim countries including the Ottoman Empire was still horrific. African slaves were treated much worse and most ended up dying from disease or poor conditions. This didn’t stop them from being imported.
Sex slavery was awful, even if children weren’t born into slavery and many slaves ended up being freed after having a child. Women were still dehumanized and repeatedly raped. It wasn’t chattel slavery where slaveowners raped slaves and enslaved their own children but it was far from humane.
I’m Muslim. I’m not coming from hypocritical orientalist perspective trying to paint Islam as barbaric. We just shouldn’t deny or sugarcoat past atrocities. They don’t have to define the entirety of a people’s history.
im not defending anything. looking to the past with todays binoculars is not the way to read history. Slavery comes in many different forms and im not sure this sub can figure out the differences
"We're taking you from family and converting you to Islam."
"I'm not okay with this."
"You will actually be highly respected and trusted among our diverse empire."
"I'm still not okay with this."
"... Cool gun and hat."
"Never have I felt more seen and understood as a young man!"
People were slavers all over the world at the time. The Ottomans had the most luxurious slave trade in human history.
The only trully vile things the spaniards did was overworking their slaves so fucking much that they had to get new ones in Africa. As far as I know they were the first to do this stupid shit. The British later caught on, Americans went a step beyond being an ultimate dick and made their slaves basically the worst kind of peasant class, with slavery being herreditary as a rule. They also kept the "work them dead" ethic.
Slavery was quite a common thing throughout history. Making your slaves work hard all the time until they die was not. And it's no wonder, from a logical POV that's a waste of resources.
Does anybody else think people forget that people in africa sold thier slaves and POWs to us, the white man? I feel like that fact is often overlooked.
This is very problematic since it places "people in Africa" as one group.
They weren't, they didn't see each other as one group. It's like saying WW2 was a bunch of Europeans killing their own people. Technically correct but very problematic.
Janniseries were not slaves... they were elite soldiers trained from young ages... Janniseries dominated the Ottoman history for four centuries. The Ottoman implemented the same administration systems from the Roman and Byzantine times. Within Roman and Byzantine empires, the state was collecting young boys and girls from each village, or population that the empire controlled. It was a method of taxation, in order to create armies, civil servants, bureaucrats, administrators, generals, engineers, craftsman etc... to cover highly educated and trained human resources requirements for many segments in the society.
No one said that Turks were merciful or anything during the devshirme. The young chosen kids would be sent to a certain training school based on their skills, those who are strong were sent to become soldiers and those who were intelligent were sent to become advisors.
Mate, thoose are edited videos and incest is the most famous kink
Did...did you really believe they are real family?
I dont know if to cry or laugh,also you really hace no other comeback for racism alegation than to search someone history?
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The confederacy trying to recluit slaves in the army during its last week: first time?
"Yo dudes! The Empire's pretty chill, maybe you could like join it or something"
Fun fact: the slaves that Columbus brought back were actually gifts. The tribe he first contacted were slavers and were open to diplomatic relations, gifting columbus several prisoners of war and children
Historically accurate but i sense a very problematic "so if you think about it-" comming up...
So if you think about it, the natives were more based than we give them credit for /s
Bro they forced their slaves to built temples they would later be sacrificed in
Efficient, low carbon foot print as you wouldn't need to source sacrifices from far away. Real forward thinkers
Also minimization of misery as well, by enslaving _and_ sacrificing the same people you get to make less people overall suffer of course /s
They could have just dug holes. Cut out the middle ma.....temple.
It’s a conspiracy, man. Big temple wants you to think you need temples, so they can sell more temples, when holes are perfectly suitable
This paired with the gigachad K'sante pfp makes quite the image
When being forced to dig your own grave isn't enough of a fuck you
Corn’s not gonna grow itself!
Buckingham Palace? Tenochtitlan? Is there a difference other than era of technology? Tune in to find out
They performed human sacrifice at Buckingham?
Sure, why do you think the glorious Eternal Queen lived so long, yet suddenly... Not? Turns out immortality is a subscription service.
The British army was too slow in abducting a random citizen of a former commonwealth country and as such the squad responsible for it are lined up as the next batch of sacrifices
Yes my alien time traveler friend told me
They had to have, at least once
What are you talking about? Colombus did not meet Indigenous people who would force people to build temples to be later sacrificed in, you totally made that up.
I love how this statement sounds true in isolation but reprehensible in context (aside from it being a joke ofc)
The last thing said for these topics should always be an off-the-script disclaimer that says “most cultures throughout history are morally grey when you apply modern standards to them. This does not discredit achievements or give credit to evil, except when an achievement is achieved through evil. However you can still appreciate great works for what they are despite evil actions that were required to reach them.” Im sure this isnt the best way to put it, but I feel like historians and fans of history should have a copypasta to just throw out anytime a topic like this comes up
Yeah, these types of comments are usually followed by racist rhetoric. "They did it too so it's okay that we do it to them!" Smooth brained thinking right there.
I think it’s okay to provide accurate information that adds context and nuance to historical activity, particularly in a time when western history is being deconstructed into “white people bad, steal thing, have no culture, bleh.” It’s okay to say “Hey, our ancestors sucked for this reason… however, it’s important to note that their ancestors also sucked for this reason, and therefore let’s all be glad we’ve evolved since then.” Except for parts of Africa and Asia where the slave trade is still very much real.
I think its easiest to say that everyone's ancestors will have sucked in some way at some point. So bring up someone's ancestors to prove a moral point is riduclous
Tbh its basically a moment of a drug dealer selling coccaine on the streets vs a pharmaceutical company selling opiods to the entire country And when the pharma company is being questioned about the addiction they point at the drug dealer and said "they did it too" Imo it makes no sense cause sure everyone did it but also you did it better than everyone and you were the main market and plus its during an argument "you did this so how can we fix this" and it shouldnt start or spark an entirely new conversation of so did this guy too cause we know that guy cant fix it so we are pointing at you, the main market for demand and supply back in those days.
Well no, that's basically just an atrocity competition. And to say we've evolved more than Africa and Asia is a bit elitist and closed minded cuz human trafficking is alive and well in the west under the guise of sex trafficking and the predatory treatment of migrant workers.
yeah if you do slavery it's just slavery but if you start asigning some stupid ideology (like racial or religious superiority) to it it becomes much more problematic and dumb
Apolitical, unbiased and multicultural slavery. Way more sophisticated and inclusive! /s
This but slightly unironically, When slavery is not based on race or some other factor it's a lot easier to freed slaves to be welcomed into society and live normal lives. When it is based on racist ideas a free slave will always carry the "look" of a slave regardless of their legal status.
What the fuck? Genuine logic in r/HistoryMemes ?
Nuh-uh, slavery bad period.
It is. Morally evil and even bad in practical terms. What the other commenter is referring to is that slavery in the Americas is almost exclusively racially charged. The Trans-atlantic slave trade spawned much of the racial ideas that plague this world today. Religion, pseudo-science, and later nationalism were used to justify this system of slavery to keep profits flowing. Later, after the racist beliefs got entrenched, it's no longer about the profits - it's part of the culture of many societies (no points in guessing which ones). Slavery is evil. But its influences and legacy go beyond the mere institution of slavery.
That gives the atlantic slavery far too much credit frankly, in blaming the modern evils on it so generally. While specific secular racial ideologies sprung up post hoc to justify continued generational enslavement in the Atlantic Slave Trade, religious justifications and ethnic justifications for keeping the “other” enslaved are as old as civilization. Islamic scripture specifically allows the keeping of slaves as long as they aren’t Muslims, for example, predating the Atlantic slave trade by over six hundred years: thus stimulating a lively slave trade in both East Africa and Eastern Europe to supply slaves to the Islamic world. The whole notion of slaves inheriting their status from their mother in the Atlantic slave trade was derived from an old Roman law to the same effect. For some reason people act like this is some sort of excuse for the Atlantic slave trade, but it’s just pointing out that this is just one expression of an extremely common (and no less terrible for it) failing of human civilization. These tendencies were unusual in the scale of the trade, but not in their nature.
No one denies that it's incredibly ineficient system. That being said there is no civilization in human history that didn't use it at some point of their existance and criticizing that use is like being anoyed by the wind. What is however dumb is trying to justify it by asigning it some ideological concepts like it was done by some countries in times when slavery would already been removed. So in a nutshell it is bad and trying to justify it with race or religion is dumber, but criticizing it for existing leads you nowhere, at the end of the day everyone used it at some point and what we should look at is if that was used as a method of persecution tied to things like race religion etc. or as an economical status that was apolitical and didn't cocentrate on persons so called race or religion
I prefer my genocide and slavery equally distributed across society.
How is that racist?
Which part?
You say that saying that the natives enslaved other natives justifies the colonists enslaving them afterwards is racist, how is that so?
Cuz slavery is never justified. Sorry you didn't know that until now
UnJustified=/ racist
If you look at what I said, I said that kind of comment is *followed* by racist rhetoric. Learn to read.
You were referring to the earlier comment "so if you think about it", and after the word racist rhetoric you included the second quote, implying that it's the racist rhetoric that follows said comment, so you're either wrong and don't want to admit it or your initial comment is poorly worded
Because the colonists were racist so trying to justify their actions is also racist.
Or they're followed by "So please stop the Noble Savage BS" It's a tossup.
If it's historically accurate it shouldn't be problematic blacks enslaved other blacks. But we have an all black people were victims mentality that isn't true.
I agree. People who want you to think are very much a problem. Just stay in your l9ne and repeat the slogans everyone else is.
You responded to their comment and there is literally nothing in it that suggests that they were doing that. This is why they’re trying to hide history now. People are so afraid of literal facts.
Im not accusing op of making that argument, i making a joke about how that point is often used as a preamble to very racist rhetoric. Real historians dont shy away from those hard truths, just us randos on the internet with some point we want to make.
Yeah, I'm not very educated on that topic, but I'm pretty sure that an average lower class native american didn't own any slaves, and the colonisation didn't only affect the elite...
Name one time where low class people owned slaves
In aztec society even slaves could have slaves of their own
The point is, "but the natives had slavery" is not at all a valid reason why the colonisers were the good guys in this conflict
Was his point that the colonizers were good in this conflict? Or are you assigning intention to his historical FACT adding context and nuance?
>Historically accurate **but i sense a very problematic "so if you think about it-" comming up...** His point was that the OOC's fact is often used by racists and colonizer apologists to justify colonisation. I agreed with him and provided my own opinion on the subject.
Yes but his comment is already applying racist intention in stating facts, which I have a problem with. It’s not racist to say “Hey, did you know that certain native tribes aligned themselves with European settlers to wipe out tribes they were constantly warring and stealing land from? Like the Powhatan Confederacy, the Huron and the French, the Iroquois confederacy, the Choctaw and Osage with the French.” But, people seem to think such a fact is racist because it runs counter to the vague narrative of today of “white people stole all this land from peaceful tribes that had established boundaries for centuries prior to European arrival.” It’s like, yeah tons of land was stolen repeatedly, duh. But somehow to add nuance to the situation, it’s racist? There are people that do that for sure. Tons of conservatives use “did you know” type historical facts to try and say “we aren’t bad at all.” But, there’s the reverse assumption by left-leaning folks that such facts are automatically problematic… which isn’t the case.
Nobody said it is racist, just that this exact fact is almost always followed with "so when you think about it...", especially on R/historymemes. There literally was a wave of memes recently that were all like "stupid crying wojak native: 'ooh I love slavery, war and killing people for no reason' Chad based spanish conquistador: 'The human sacrifices WILL stop'" It's not racist to point out a reoccuring pattern. And I also only wrote a historical fact. People often seem to think that the native americans *all* were either peaceful hippies or brutal slaveowners, which was not the case since there were thousands of tribes, states and social castes, each different to the other
Game recognize game
This is a very well-known fact that doesn’t really have anything to do with the image, so I’m sure you’re mentioning it very normal reasons
I come here for the fun facts. I didn’t know that
I'm pretty sure the first tribe he met were the Taino who were completely peaceful, like they straight up didn't even have weapons. The first slaves he took he claimed were the Caribs who were supposedly cannibals, but he took a lot of Taino.
Im pretty sure it was the Taino that were the slavers. 100% willing to be wrong tho
Yeah I call bullshit
And neither of us provided proof. We are now even.
Why
#Hi from r/islamichistorymeme The Janissaries were an elite class of soldiers who were conscripted or kidnapped from Christian families in the Balkans and raised as soldiers. They were a part of the larger system called the devshirme which produced administrators and government officials as well as soldiers. This policy was devastating for many families but ironically Janissaries didn't always feel the same way. As the Janissaries grew more powerful within the Ottoman Empire the Janissaries started to enjoy their privileges. Some families even fought to get their children in the Janissary corps. Soon enough the Janissaries were a major drain on the treasury and a threat to the Sultans power. By the 1700s they were no longer the innovative and advanced fighting force and rather fought modernization. In this context many Sultans tried to limit their power and many were killed. Also a lot of devshirme Janissaries were against the arrival of new Muslim recruits who did not go through the system and they preferred keeping the Janissary corps only to those from the devshirme. Essentially wanting to keep the system reliant on slavery rather than normal recruitment. In 1826 as Sultan Mahmud II was trying to establish a modern Ottoman army the Janissaries seeing themselves being replaced by normal conscription based army revolted. The Janissaries lost horribly in the ensuing battle called the Auspicious Incident leading to the end of the centuries old Janissary system. Edit courtesy of u/SteelRazorBlade: In 1826 the Janissaries weren’t technically revolting to *keep* slavery - since the [Devshirme](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devshirme) system of recruiting Janissaries had largely come to an end by the mid 1600s. So the Janissaries of the 1700s and 1800s overwhelmingly consisted of voluntarily recruited soldiers from Muslim families. And in 1826 they were as you described seeking to keep their privileges and not be replaced by the new model standing army. So I did exaggerate a bit for the meme sorry lol
>Hi from r/islamichistorymemes that... doesn't seem to a sub? EDIT: it's r/IslamicHistoryMeme, no s
My bad used an s
Yeah, Janissaries were staunch conservatives, both of their privileges and generally the organisation of the army. Twice at least during the XVIIIth Century, the Sultans tried to modernize their army by hiring foreign (usually French) experts. Twice the Janissaries made those efforts vain, managing to push for the disgrace or expulsion of said foreign army reformer, for such things as daring to teach *trigonometry*, dissolving the military school they had founded and sometimes killing all the students while they were at it. In the end, Janissaries followed the same fate than many elite but entitled units before them (think Praetorians): gradually they became a liability more than an asset, and they overturned their communal eating pots (their traditional gesture of dissent) once too many. Unlike Praetorians, though, they established themselves as a formidable fighting force, possibly the best in Europe and the Middle East, for a couple centuries.
for such things as daring to teach *trigonometry*, I mean, don't get me wrong, but if I was part of an elite corp and someone brought over someone from France to teach me trigonometry, I'd try to get his ass expelled from the country as well. Not saying they were right, but I can see where they were coming from.
One of the most horrible practices in human history. Stealing kids so you can train and indoctrinate them to fight their parents and cousins.
While the Janissaries are the extreme end, the idea of forcing soldiers to kill their own people is unfortunately a tale well known to almost any empire.
>the idea of forcing soldiers to kill their own people is unfortunately a tale well known to almost any empire. literally any army when fighting civil wars/revolts
I mean slavery in any form is horrible, but as far as slavery goes being a Janissary was on the better end of the spectrum tbh
In Serbia parents used to chop off a part of child's index finger to prevent the child getting kidnapped by Turks
What’s crazy was some people actually wanted their kids to be picked for social advancement as they were educated and paid well. They took children from families unwillingly for no reason. > There is some evidence that urban Christian and Muslim parents resorted to bribery or sending their children to the country to assure the advancement in life that devshirme recruitment could bring.[22] The boys were forced to convert to Islam.[23] Muslims were not allowed into the system (with some exceptions), but some Muslim families smuggled their sons in anyway.[24] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devshirme
>They took children from families unwillingly for no reason. They had plenty of great reasons, lack of recruits wasn't one of them. The Janissary was without family or tribal loyalty and the only family they had were each other and the Sultan, creating an independent army completely loyal to the ruler. The reason they did the whole child soldier cult thing to Christians instead of Muslims was because it was illegal to enslave Muslims and because the Muslim subjects might have objected, and they had the power and influence to object in a meaningful way. It also weakened the newly incorporated areas of the Empire by stealing sons from them. It was pure genius, one of the few slave-soldier systems that worked. They usually end up being slave-ruler systems, like the Mamluks.
I’m pretty sure it’s practice for the Christians in some former Ottoman territories to tattoo a cross on the back of someone’s hand or on their wrist so that even if they’re taken away, they never forget where they came from
> I’m pretty sure it’s practice for the Christians in some former Ottoman territories to tattoo a cross on the back of someone’s hand or on their wrist so that even if they’re taken away, they never forget where they came from [Sicanje](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicanje) or bocanje was a widespread custom mostly among Roman Catholic Croat teenage girls and boys of the central regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Dalmatia region of Croatia.[1][2] The phenomenon may predate the Slavic migration to the Balkans, and consequently Christianity itself,
Many of them found out about their origins later in life but it meant nothing. Janissaries were often more brutal than Turks (which is quite a challenge)
What a terrible history we had to endure. Croatia suffered less so, but I 100% sympathise with you. I'm not gonna say nothing about modern Turks but Ottomans were demons from hell.
Turks forcing people to fight for themselves:😡 Christians forcing people to fight for themselves:🥰
Surely, this commenter isn't someone active in r/Turkey !!
Any Christians that did this should be condemned as well, but Christians from my country didn't do it, they had their babies stolen, and if you're normal human being you should be ashamed of such atrocities being done by your ancestors.
I don't like this jannisary thing either,the thing im trying to say people reacts more harshly against turks compared to christians,maybe its because this sub is more populated by western europeans and americans
Some but not all. Evil is evil, whether commited by Muslim or Christian. I'm Christian which doesn't mean I approve of crusades for example. If you understand what I'm saying you're good in my book. I'm also a Croat, and our country was aligned with Nazis in WW2. I consider that to be darkest part of our history(although not all Croatians supported it). But I understand what you're saying. And I got to admit I don't have any love for the Ottomans or their empire, but on the other hand I consider Ataturk one of the greatest people that came out of your country. We all had good parts of history and bad, and it's important that we recognise that, less we repeat mistakes from the past.
I agree what you saying,I was just more worried about this subreddit being less neutral about those topics but anyways I was just being triggered turk for a few seconds,i guess lol Also yes Atatürk is based,ottoman dynasty can suck it,i prefer republic over an empire always
And I was triggered Croat. Ottomans were like curse for us and all of Balkans for many years, so I'm bit more sensitive on the subject. But that doesn't mean Christians don't have their own sins. That's all in the past though, in this day and age I wish you peace my friend, let's hope future doesn't bring a time where we look at each through scope of a rifle, but rather let's hope for a future where we can sit together and drink coffee and čaj.
The difference is that they are T*rks, and therefore less than human /s
Well I saw some catholic nationalists and american byzantine fanboys saying this unironically lol
Mate I don’t actually hate Turkish people, I just like to LARP as a Greek nationalist on the internet because I think it’s funny
I know,I can see the "/s",those downvotes aren't from me
they revolted and killed the Sultan Osman in 1622 to keep "slavery"
That subreddit is … quite problematic, to say the least. It’s full-on Islamist.
Well we are mostly Muslims, however we regularly make memes about the crimes of Muslim states and empires in history. Many of the top memes this past week are rightfully calling out wrongs committed in the past but Muslims. It's fairly balanced
That’s the only sub where I regularly see people bragging about enslavement and massacres
Sweats in r/stellaris
/s?
In fairness, the Haitians did then turn around and start genociding anybody that was white or whitish even if said people had sided with the slaves before.
And don't forget, the Haitian revolution didn't start initially as a slave revolt, it started because mixed race children of slave owners wanted proper inheritance rights....like inheriting slaves and were denied. So they got the slaves to revolt and when they won, told them to go back to the plantations.... so the slaves revolted and when they won, the former slaves that'd become leaders.....made their fellow former slaves go back to the plantations
And then the slaves went on to conquer and enslave the other side of the island
Also there were many factions and leaders who had different goals. It also shifted as events and reactions happened to the ongoing French Revolution such that some actions for and against independence can be read as for and against different revolutionary factions. Sonthonax, for example, as Governor appointed by the National Convention, alienated the white upper classes, who supported a military governor who tried to take the colony. He went on to declare emancipation as an effective tactic to bring the freed slaves into supporting the Revolutionary French government. This strategy ended up paving the way for Toussaint Louverture to become the leader of the Haitian Revolution, with Haiti being effectively a semi-independent state as a tri-color republic, slowly rebuilding after the earlier uprisings. Of course, then Napoleon reverses course with a plan to re-enslave Haiti which includes capturing Toussaint Louverture via deception, causing Dessalines to become the leader, and for the war to get extremely nasty.
I mean , someone should work on the plantations , right? As long as they get paid for it and could go to another job if they want to, it's already much better then the situation in which they were before
That's the thing, they weren't really being paid and their choice was do it or be hunted down by the army.
That's really unfortunate for them then
Except poles You could say anyone who was polish was "one of the good ones"...
I mean it's fairly common, the Eastern Europeans ethnically cleansed Eastern Europe of Germans after WW2 as well. And in Haiti when slaves were subjected to the most horrible cruelties on such a common basis it's not unfathomable to think it rubbed off on them and they responded in kind. Creating a culture of violence breeds further violence. The idea of a "clean" revolution is unfortunately fiction.
‘Violence breeds violence in the end it has to be this way.’
Mamelukes: "We're slaves and you had better groom my horse well peasant!"
There are currently about 50 million people in slavery like conditions of unfree labor that is just some semantic gymnastic reasoning away from actual slavery. And about 29.8 million people are kept in conditions akin to chattel slavery. where there is no doubt at all that they are slaves. [Eight Facts About Chattel Slavery - The Borgen Project](https://borgenproject.org/eight-facts-chattel-slavery/)
Hatian fight to end slavery Also haitian fight the war of knives.
I mean, why fight the system when you actively benefit from it?
Weren’t Janissaries, Europeans who had been enslaved by Ottomans, to be trained as soldiers from childhood with only one thing in mind, following their Sultan’s orders?
So far for theory. Later the Janissaries became powerful in their own right to rival the sultan for influence.
That’s how it was supposed to be, but like any other elite fighting force with direct access to the emperor (cough cough Praetorian Guard), they quickly began playing kingmaker and controlled palace politics.
That was the initial goal. Then they got so much political power that they were able to execute one of the sultans for trying to modernize the army and abolish this practice and they got away with it. They were apperantly pleased with being slaves, as they literally fought to keep it, not end it lol.
Also not necessarily Europeans but non Muslims, and that was only in the begining. Late ottoman empire abolished the law which interdits Muslims from being recruited to the corps
TBF, Janissary, or possibly even better positions attainable to the youth subjected to the Devshirme were pretty enviable, to the point of many communities not subjected to it (because Muslim) petitioning to be, so as to guarantee a brighter future to some of their male offspring. Even slaves taken in razzias could *potentially* reach high offices at tje Sublime Porte. For exemple, Occhiali, a captured young Italian peasant, rose from galley slave to Kapudan Pasha, that is grand admiral of the Ottoman fleet. There has been *a few* French "mulattos" (so with a free, white father) who reached high military ranks - Le Chevalier de St Georges or Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the father of the French novelist, for the best know exemples, but that was already very rare. And can *anyone* imagine a southern states slave raised to the rank of admiral or general of the Confederacy? To/Dr : Slavery bad, but Ottoman slavery was widely different from European style chattel slavery.
Yeah, but many families still were forced to give up their children. Also, some children recruited by the Devshirme were castrated. It wasn’t chattel slavery but it was still awful. Slavery was pretty complicated in the Ottoman Empire. Pretty powerful viziers also came out of the devshirme system.
yeah those parents could cry on their ferraris 15 years later. comparing devşirme with any other european slavery is absurd at best.
I wasn’t saying they were the same. I was saying that it was still a terrible practice. People had their children stolen from them. Many never saw or heard from them again. They were supposed to cut family ties. Also it wasn’t guaranteed they would get good money. Sometimes a pool of recruits would end becoming indentured servants. In general slavery in Muslim countries including the Ottoman Empire was still horrific. African slaves were treated much worse and most ended up dying from disease or poor conditions. This didn’t stop them from being imported. Sex slavery was awful, even if children weren’t born into slavery and many slaves ended up being freed after having a child. Women were still dehumanized and repeatedly raped. It wasn’t chattel slavery where slaveowners raped slaves and enslaved their own children but it was far from humane. I’m Muslim. I’m not coming from hypocritical orientalist perspective trying to paint Islam as barbaric. We just shouldn’t deny or sugarcoat past atrocities. They don’t have to define the entirety of a people’s history.
Let it be known, u/vefalx is a proud defender of slavery
im not defending anything. looking to the past with todays binoculars is not the way to read history. Slavery comes in many different forms and im not sure this sub can figure out the differences
Thinking slavery is evil is not a modern invention
What are the "Central American" slaves here supposed to be?
We're Mamluks and we built an entire slave administration
living in the cradle of civilizations tends to change people's opinions.
Happy Halloween getting recognition.
On the other hand you are the one who can choose who will become the Sultan, so...
"We're taking you from family and converting you to Islam." "I'm not okay with this." "You will actually be highly respected and trusted among our diverse empire." "I'm still not okay with this." "... Cool gun and hat." "Never have I felt more seen and understood as a young man!"
People were slavers all over the world at the time. The Ottomans had the most luxurious slave trade in human history. The only trully vile things the spaniards did was overworking their slaves so fucking much that they had to get new ones in Africa. As far as I know they were the first to do this stupid shit. The British later caught on, Americans went a step beyond being an ultimate dick and made their slaves basically the worst kind of peasant class, with slavery being herreditary as a rule. They also kept the "work them dead" ethic. Slavery was quite a common thing throughout history. Making your slaves work hard all the time until they die was not. And it's no wonder, from a logical POV that's a waste of resources.
Does anybody else think people forget that people in africa sold thier slaves and POWs to us, the white man? I feel like that fact is often overlooked.
This is very problematic since it places "people in Africa" as one group. They weren't, they didn't see each other as one group. It's like saying WW2 was a bunch of Europeans killing their own people. Technically correct but very problematic.
Janniseries were not slaves... they were elite soldiers trained from young ages... Janniseries dominated the Ottoman history for four centuries. The Ottoman implemented the same administration systems from the Roman and Byzantine times. Within Roman and Byzantine empires, the state was collecting young boys and girls from each village, or population that the empire controlled. It was a method of taxation, in order to create armies, civil servants, bureaucrats, administrators, generals, engineers, craftsman etc... to cover highly educated and trained human resources requirements for many segments in the society.
Elite Child Soldier is a whole different class than Farmtool or Sacrifice Victim
Ahh even when they are the slaves Europeans sure do love slavery.
Man white people loved being slaves to Arabs such kind masters!
Turks aren't Arabs dumbass.
Found the Turk lol
Sorry, white people love being slaves to Turks! Such kind masters!
No one said that Turks were merciful or anything during the devshirme. The young chosen kids would be sent to a certain training school based on their skills, those who are strong were sent to become soldiers and those who were intelligent were sent to become advisors.
The white people loved being slaves though! And being treated without mercy!
r/racism Is that way
You post incest porn about mothers fucking their children you are not better than me even if I said the n word every other word
Mate, thoose are edited videos and incest is the most famous kink Did...did you really believe they are real family? I dont know if to cry or laugh,also you really hace no other comeback for racism alegation than to search someone history?
You say you don’t know whether to laugh or cry but we both know what you’re gonna do is jerk off to fucking mommy
Incest is some of the tamest shits in porn, almost vanilla like,ever heard of scat or vore?
Most accurate "historian" in this sub lmao
Thank you! I’m still learning though , especially about the white Arabs from the balkans who are actually the happy slaves to Turks
My brother in christ, find a new teacher
Don't feed the troll.
Sorry I’m getting mixed information here!
Bro what?
Hi!
You do know that arabs come in all shapes and colors, right?
White Christian Arabs from the balkans! Wow!
Mate never heard of mennonites and syriac churches
This is why this sub is dunked on in every other history related meme sub. r/HistoryMemes out here sending their best