What should students be taught about slavery and racism in the US?
Of course what we teach 7-year-olds is different from 16-year-olds, so let's make the question about High School. How should the nation's history be characterized in their history classes, in general?
To which nation are you referring? The Chickasaw Nation? The US is not a nation. Never has been, never will be, so we can start by teaching that truth.
We can start by placing slavery in its proper context by telling the truth.
Every race practiced slavery. The fact that some Blacks in America were slaves is largely irrelevant given that they would have been slaves in Africa.
African tribal groups had slaves. So-called Native Americans practiced slavery long before Europeans arrived. Asians practiced slavery. Europeans practiced slavery.
Arab Muslims began the African slave trade circa 800 CE. They purchased African slaves from African tribes and then transported them around world.
In South Africa, there were Whites, Blacks and Coloreds. Who are the Coloreds?
I just explained that. Muslim Arabs bought slaves from African tribes and then took those slaves to India where they traded or sold them and then took Indians as slaves to Malaysia and Indonesia where they sold/traded Africans and Indians, and then took Africans, Indians, and people from tribes in Malaysia and Indonesia to what is now South Africa. The Coloreds in South Africa were the people descended of Indian, Malaysian and Indonesian peoples.
The Muslim Arabs conquered the Spanish Peninsula in part to put an end to the constant warfare between the Gothic tribes living on the Spanish Peninsula.
Eventually, what became Portugal and Spain adopted slavery, and the Spanish and Portuguese introduced it to the French and British 600 years after the Muslim Arabs began the slave trade.
Dr. Livingston, I presume? Europeans were unable to travel into the interior of Africa until the 1880s. The environment, especially the diseases, made it way to deadly for Europeans. They bought their slaves from African tribes all too happy to sell them.
Once students understand the truth, which is that slavery was a global thing, you can explain the different flavors of slavery to the students.
Slavery could be voluntary, meaning someone agreed to be a slave in order to gain certain advantages, like 3-hots and a cot, and to have their children looked after.
In Islam, the penalty for abusing a slave was death. The last public execution for abusing a slave was of an Albanian
pasha in 1874 just prior to the
Tanzimat Reforms that banned slavery. Shari'a Law required that all of your slaves live under your roof, instead of a barn or some other place on your property, and teaching slaves how to read and write, and teaching them a skill. If a slave converted to Islam, they were freed and given a parcel of land by their master.
Customary Law was based on a person's mother, meaning if your mother was of this tribe or nation, then so were you, even though your father may have been of a different race, nation or tribe, and if your mother was a slave, then so were you, even if your father was a free man.
In Britain, if you were a freed slave -- and, why, yes, we're talking about White people -- it was important that you carry your Writ of Manumission (Free Papers) at all times. If you wandered into another Shire (a county) they wouldn't know who you were and if you looked low-class, you'd be put in the stocks until they could find out where you came from. If you were a slave, you'd be returned to your master, and if not, you'd be released with a thousand apologies.
The brand of slavery the US practiced was different than those and certainly quite brutal, but it was like what some peoples around the world practiced. The type practiced by Africans and Native Americans also ranged from "benevolent" to brutal.
Once students have a full understanding, you can ask them questions:
1) Is there a difference between being a slave in the US, or being a slave to an African tribe?
2) Why were Africans slaves, but Native Americans not slaves?
3) Initially, American slavery was not so brutal, but it evolved to become unconscionable. How?/Why?
4) Would someone be better off if their ancestors never came to the Americas as slaves?
5) Is there a moral difference between the different types of slavery?
