It is interesting that you now lay the association of Islam with slavery in my lap. I did not make that association, which is why I posed the question. We are supposed to be discussing Virginia history in general and American history in particular. I was simply attempting to bring the discussion back to Virginia History. BTW I was not posing the question to anyway in particular, so please do not take offense. However, thank you for at least attempting to answer the question. Anita >From: David Kiracofe <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history > <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Islamic Slavery (was Re: Slavery and immoral stance, etc.) >Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:21:55 -0400 > >I'm a bit put off with your association of Islam, which is a cultural >and religious system, with the institution of slavery as practiced in >its various locales. Yes, Islamic law validated the holding of slaves, >but so did Christianity and numerous other faiths. But surely the >association of the buying and selling of people should be with the >people who did the buying and selling and not their presumed belief >systems. Neither the African Muslim seller (and not all sellers were in >fact Muslims) nor the European Christian buyers were behaviing in ways >that one would call specifically religious, rather they were engaged in >a very secular economic activity. > >To get to your question though (I wouldn't want to be accused of evading >it), Europeans began associating Africans with exploitable labor well >before Columbus. The Portuguese who acquired the first African slaves >(around 1440) did so from Muslim merchants in West Africa. The >degradation of people who were so different from themselves validated >Europeans' sense of occupying a higher place in the hierarchy of nature. > Europeans were quick to exploit Native workers in the Americas as >well. When desease and other problems with Native workers created >shortages, the contacts with those West African merchants were already >in place and ready to fill the need. Muslim merchants didn't create >this worldview, their role was simply to make it concrete for Europeans. > >To jump ahead to Virginia, we can see that the English came to the new >world with pre-existing social notions about the nature of the universe >-- in which some were of higher order than others -- and economic ideas >about the exploitation of the labor of lower orders, including both >Native Americans and Africans as well as other Europeans. If Native >American people resisted coerced labor, those who were prepared to be >dominant were ready to turn to other "lower" people. In Virginia that >meant principally the lower orders of English society and so there was >the massive migration of lower class servants. > >One result of bringing over people from the English-speaking world was >that the society of early Virginia was very fluid: one could serve one's >time and then acquire freedom, and possibly land and status, and so move >up from the lower ranks. As the colonial society matured, however, >there was a desire to make a more fixed, less fluid, society (more like >that of England where rank was very clearly delineated) and so there was >a need to settle on a labor system where labor was unable to achieve >freedom and its material and social benefits. Therefore we see the >movement toward slavery and particularly African slavery. It wasn't >all about race and yet race was so central to the practice of it as to >make the distinction all but irrelevant. > >I know this is a very truncated history of the beginnings of slavery in >Virginia, leaving out the perhaps anomalous experience of the first >Africans brought to Jamestown, and further skipping past the >developments in Virginia law pertaining to labor and race, but I will >leave it there and if anyone wants to add, subtract or even just >quibble, well, that's what we're all here for. > >David Kiracofe > > >David Kiracofe >History >Tidewater Community College >Chesapeake Campus >1428 Cedar Road >Chesapeake, Virginia 23322 >757-822-5136 > >>> Anita Wills <[log in to unmask]> 06/14/07 12:53 PM >>> >My question is what did Islam have to do with Europeans enslaving >Indians? >No one seems to want to answer that. _________________________________________________________________ Get a preview of Live Earth, the hottest event this summer - only on MSN http://liveearth.msn.com?source=msntaglineliveearthhm