Comparisons between different “systems” of slavery never read well. Every discussion of this repulsive practice that appears to excuse or exonerate it is indefensible. But Wilfred Reilly, in “Why slavery is not America’s original sin” (in Spiked, linked below), demonstrates that the horrors endured by Africans in “the Middle Passage” were exceeded by their treatment at the hands of Arab traders, in total numbers enslaved, and over a far longer period of time. Whites were also enslaved — in their millions — not only in the Mediterranean but from raids on coastal regions in Spain, France, Ireland, and England.

In arguing that slavery was a universal human activity, not confined to any one race (of slaves or slave owners), Reilly is if anything too moderate: He does not mention, for example, the Arab practice of castrating male African slaves. The operation was dangerous and often fatal, but the supply of slaves available to them in their well-organized trade was copious and inexhaustible. They had no need to keep slaves alive for long, or breed from them.

What is unique about European slavery is that it stopped. Centuries of opposition from humane and decent people gradually brought it to an end in Europe and America. In 1833 the British banned it universally, and enforced the ban where they could, though their writ didn’t run everywhere. The story of Tippu Tip reminds us of its stubborn endurance in some quarters, and there is strong evidence that it survives today in some Muslim countries in Africa. Activists who pull down statues of long-dead slavers would more profitably turn their attention (if they were brave enough to face reality) to rescuing the estimated 40 million slaves in the world today, perhaps the largest number of any time in history.

[A link to Wilfred Reilly’s “Why slavery is not America’s original sin” is here.]