Jefferson's Pillow

[jbor]

James wrote:

> But "the institution of slavery" was going strong long before the North
> American slave trade, and was by no means predicated on white slavers and
> black slaves
> 

Yes, I probably should have specified European colonialism. In the case of
North America particularly, the capture and enslavement of Africans was seen
as OK because of a notion of white superiority, but in other cases, eras,
certainly, convicts, prisoners of war, defeated warriors or clansmen ...

Victor and vanquished, strong and weak ...

It's like ol' Captain Zhang says:

"If you think you see no Slaves in Pennsylvania, [...] why, look again. They
are not all African, nor do some of them even yet know,-- may never know,
--that they are Slaves. Slavery is very old upon these shores,-- there is no
Innocence upon the Practice anywhere, neither among the Indians nor the
Spanish nor in the behavior of the rest of Christendom, if it come to that."
                                                            (M&D615-6)

> Isn't the bottom line 'power' rather than race?
> 

Bottom lines vary from person to person, society to society, period to
period. It's hard to generalise I think. Racism and oppression are both
pretty horrible, and often these two go hand in hand.

best