“If most of America were against slavery, then we would have ended the practice without a war.” Every civilized society has had some form of slavery, but America is the only nation in modern history that constitutionally approved reducing people to chattel through an international human trafficking system. As Michael Harriot breaks down the history of America’s race-based slavery system, he analyzes Africans’ role in the process.
Full transcript below.
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Michael Harriot [00:00:05] You know, the slaves wouldn’t be here if Africans hadn’t sold them. Plus, you know, you know, Black people own slaves. And, you know, a lot of white people didn’t own slaves. Those are some of the arguments you’ll likely hear whenever white people get defensive about America’s peculiar institution. And that’s why I want to welcome you to theGrio Daily, the only podcast that will tell you exactly who owned the slaves. You know, I’m sure you’ve heard those arguments. You know, slavery existed in every society. Or Black people owned slaves or Black people wouldn’t have been here if Africans had sold them into slavery or, you know, most white people didn’t own slaves. So I want to dig into that today and tell you the facts. It’s not their fault they don’t know about history because they don’t teach it. Well, that kind of is their fault. But we want to just inform some of our listeners about the actual institution. Now, we call it slavery, but it’s really not fair to call it that. And that’s why so many people say slavery existed in every society, because in some aspects, arranged marriage, indentured servitude, unpaid agricultural work, penal colony, all of that is a form of what we call slavery.
Michael Harriot [00:01:25] But when we’re talking specifically in America, what we’re talking about is the race based institution that reduced human beings to chattel through an international human trafficking system that was constitutionally approved. That’s a lot of words. But that’s why the system that America created was different from every other system in the world. As a matter of fact, the way Great Britain in most countries were able to outlaw slavery was through court cases. They said, look, our laws don’t allow this. And eventually, courts ruled against it. But in America, slavery was enshrined in the foundational document of this country, the Constitution. It not only tacitly legalized slavery through the 3/5 laws, which said that white people were worth 40 percent more than Black people. But it also required that if you are from a state that had outlawed slavery, it was still your duty to write enslaved people down and return them to their owners. It was in the foundational document and that kind of system had never existed before in the world, not a race based, constitutionally enshrined system that reduced human beings to chattel, not just chattel slavery because chattel slavery had existed before. But, you know, America was different because it was perpetual. It was inherited. The children of enslaved people belonged to their enslaver. It was race based. There were other people who were indentured servants, but not technically what we would call enslaved. They were not property. And again, it was all constitutionally enshrined.
Michael Harriot [00:03:05] So who are the people who owned what we call slaves? Well, let’s start at the beginning, because one of the arguments that you hear is that Africans sold people into slavery. So what we’re talking about is something also that existed, the slave trade existed, but because this color based chattel slavery that America legalized couldn’t have been conceived of, we can’t excuse those Africans who sold them, but we know that they had never seen anything like that, right? They didn’t know that it was inherited. You know, in most African societies, even the ones that enslaved people, the captured people were prisoners of war. They were people from conquered kingdoms. Yes. That existed everywhere in the world in most societies. But they couldn’t have conceived that it was inherited. There was always a path to freedom, whether it was time, whether it was children, this kind of slavery that we’re talking about, the American form. It never existed. So that doesn’t excuse the Africans who sold people into slavery. But this is also a thing that you have to know about colonization. People were prisoners of war and captives in Africa, just like Asia had fireworks technology, but they couldn’t conceive of white people coming and using that to create planetary war, using what we called gunpowder war gunfire. It wasn’t until white people showed up that fireworks became a planetary menace.
Michael Harriot [00:04:33] If you look at South America, the coca leaf existed forever, but it didn’t become a scourge on the planet until white people showed up. And specifically, it didn’t become a scourge until capitalism, which was invented and conceived of in Europe by the commanding and monetization and commodification of resources, land, agriculture. And that’s what gave us capitalism. And that European form of capitalism is what gave us slavery, is what gave us the drug trade. It’s what made war planetary menace. That wasn’t just confined to, you know, neighboring kingdoms. It was when white people showed up, just like America, there was going to be a genocide, and in Africa it was enslavement. So, yes, Africans sold people into a thing that they didn’t know about. And it wasn’t that prevalent until the white people showed up and introduced guns, introduced liquor, introduced all of those things for which they could barter human beings. So we got that out of the way. Africans, Yes. Sold slaves into a system that the pattern conceived of that no one had conceived up until white people showed up. That doesn’t excuse them, though.
Michael Harriot [00:05:46] Next, we have to realize that when those white people colonized the United States in what they called the New World, they wanted to enslave other people, too. They tried to enslave the Native Americans. But there was this thing called yellow fever and bubonic plague and a bunch of other things that made literally made other indigenous cultures allergic to white people. You know, one of the biggest genocides in the history of the planet literally changed the temperature of the planet was when white people showed up in the Americas. So those people died off. It just so happened that the Black people were resistant. They had immune systems that were strong enough to resist. But you also have to know that those people didn’t first go to Africa to trade for slavery. They were capturing slaves. All of the slaves in America weren’t sold by some were still captured even after, you know, the slave, the triangular trade or the international human trafficking system began.
Michael Harriot [00:06:45] But who owned those slaves? Well, in America, it was just why it was so rare for Black people to own slaves. 95% of the people who enslaved other people were white. And that is borne out of the census. You know, we had been doing censuses since the 1600s, so we can see who owned enslaved people. But those censuses are a little misleading because in many what was first colonies and then states being free was literally illegal. And it was illegal in some states like South Carolina, Tennessee tried to do it. Arkansas tried to do it, some successfully, some unsuccessfully to emancipate or what they call manument enslaved people. So what would happen is, you know, we like to think of enslaved people as working on plantations, but there are a lot of enslaved people who were just like, rented out. They worked in building ships. They worked as Blacksmiths, they worked as tailors. They worked in shops that were owned by white people. And those people sometimes give money to Black people, so Black people would buy their freedom. So a lot of times when you saw Black people who were slave owners, that’s because they had bought their freedom. So they literally owned themselves. A lot of men and women bought their spouses freedom so they could marry. They bought their children freedom out of slavery. So they were technically slave owners because they lived in a state that didn’t just allow Black people to walk around being free without having an owner. But those Black slave owners weren’t enslavers. There’s a difference. So we really don’t know how many Black people were enslavers. Even that 4% number, you know, because it wasn’t a whole 5% because the natives were slave owners also. But even that three 4% that were listed or registered as slave owners, they weren’t technically enslavers. A lot of them were people who owned quote unquote, their family or had, you know, bought people out of slavery. You know, we think of the Underground Railroad is stealing people away under the cover of darkness. But, you know, there were funds donated to the Underground Railroad to just buy Black people’s freedom.
Michael Harriot [00:08:54] The other thing is that we think of it as a small percentage of white people who own slaves. But in the South, they say the slave states, by 1860, about 25% of white people owned slaves. But that’s not quite right, because there were white people who were enslavers, even if they didn’t have slaves. Right. First of all, you have to realize, like if you live in a house with your mama and your daddy and they have a car, y’all got a car, right? Well, enslaved people were just like that. So, while they only counted the men. All this enslaved people. Right. The people who lived in the house were enslavers. They told the slaves what to do. Women would marry and inherit enslaved people from their families, from their fathers, as kind of like a dowry. Or when their father left, enslaved people to them in their will. But those enslaved people were often registered to the women’s husbands, so the women were listed as slave owners, but they were enslavers. The same with the children, the same with white people who again owned businesses that used slaves. Use slave labor for stuff like running shops, building ships. They were enslavers. They were purchasing the labor of those enslaved people from those slave masters and benefiting financially and economically and socially from slavery. They were enslaved. It’s not just a small number. Right. When you expand that out to the average size family, from the people who use slave labor without paying for it, the people in churches who built churches using slave labor. People who invested in the slave trade industry, whether it was purchasing slaves or on ships.
Michael Harriot [00:10:43] It was an investment vehicle. It was the first venture capitalism in America. I put in $100, I don’t even need a slave. But I know, like I help pay for the trip. When you get enslaved people from Africa, bring them back over here or the Caribbean. We can’t forget about the Caribbean. Then you know, whatever you sell them for, I get part of the profit. You are an enlsaver, right? So we can’t forget about it. 90% of the Black people in America were enslaved at the beginning of the Civil War. Just think about if you were one of the 90% enslaved people, right? And you saw a white person, you were running away or you wanted to be free or seeking freedom, to you all of the white people were enslaved. You couldn’t differentiate. There was no name tag system for enslavers, there was one for slaves. There was no ID on their license that said I am not an enslaver. To Black people in this country, all of the white people were enslavers. So not only did those people appear to be slave owners, but they supported a constitution, they supported a political system, they supported politicians, they supported an economic system that stole the wealth of Black people, whether it was their labor or their intellectual property, and gave it white people. Because if most of America were against slavery, then we would have ended the practice without a war, without the bloodiest war in the history of this country.
Michael Harriot [00:12:09] And that’s why we know who owned slaves. America did. And that’s also why you got to subscribe to this podcast. That’s why you got to download that Grio app. That’s why you got to tell your friends about it. And that’s also why we leave you every episode with our Black saying. And today’s Black saying is, “And before I own a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave. Because who wants to be like white people?” We’ll see you next time on theGrio Daily. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review. Download theGrio app, subscribe to the show and share it with everyone you know. Please email all questions, suggestions and compliments to podcast at theGrio dot com.
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