Dakota Beacon

No one should be gullible enough to fall for the bilge called critical race theory (CRT), the “1619 Project,” and reparations for Blacks.

Slavery as an ancient despicable practice and racial branding as an equally despicable and flippant epithet (racism) are not equivalent. Throughout history Africans enslaved Africans; Europeans enslaved Europeans; Asians enslaved Asians; American Indians enslaved American Indians. If one person does not accept another person by choice for whatever reason, chalk it up to malignant individual choice via human nature. Attitudes can only change from the inside out. Compulsory change from the outside in by political force only leads to despotic re-education and domestic cold war. Using slavery to redress individual racial grievances will not end well.

Slavery has a long, sordid history. American Blacks alone do not bear the stigma of this vile practice. Caucasians were sold as salves in greater numbers for centuries. There is nothing unique, special, or peculiar about Blacks whose ancestors were slaves -- or slave owners. (Yes, Blacks owned slaves.) Uniqueness lies in America’s termination of slavery 158 years ago. No American alive today has been a slave or a slave owner.

Slave trade in Whites is a little known story in America’s suppressed history. That history will be completely expunged if CRT enthusiasts prevail. From time immemorial millions of Whites were kidnapped, chained, whipped, and worked to death up through the Industrial Revolution and later.

Slavery knows no racial, ethnic, or cultural bounds. Biblical references to slavery appear in both the Old and New Testaments. Thousands of years ago the Greeks practiced both rudimentary democracy and enslavement of fellow Greeks. Romans enslaved thousands of Whites in Britain. Julius Caesar enslaved over a million Gaul. Slave dealers followed in his wake. Charlemagne conquered Saxony. Huge numbers of Whites went into slave markets sold like cattle. From the eighth to 11th centuries France was a major transit point for White slaves to the Muslim world. The sale of White slaves to Asia and Africa provided European treasuries with a continuing supply of gold. Rouen, France in particular was the port for shipping Irish and Flemish slaves to the Muslim world.

The eastern European steppes saw a well-developed slaving network. Slavs and Finns entered the Muslim slave markets via the Black and Caspian Sea routes. The very word “slave” is derived from the ethnic term “Slav.” Muslims preferred Christian Europeans as slaves.

Venice, Italy served as a major transit point for White slaves brought from northern Europe across the Alps and traded for oriental luxury products, especially clothes. White Russian Muscovites were enslaved by European slave raiders, Mongols, and Ottoman Muslims. Slave trading was a major commercial activity in the Viking Age with slaves taken from the Scots and the Irish and sold to Muslims in Spain. So lucrative was the slave trade that Spanish Muslims sent diplomatic missions to Scandinavia during the 840s to formalize trade relations.

In a more recent century, the British parliament in 1659 debated the practice of selling British Whites into slavery in the New World. The Whites were not referred to as “indentured servants” at that time but as “slaves.” White slavery in colonial America cannot be separated from the dehumanizing of poor Whites in urban England during the Industrial Revolution and the “Irish problem” confronting British landlords.

Between 1609 and the late 1700s, no less than one-half of all Caucasians came to the New World as slaves in one form or another. Even among passengers on the Mayflower there were twelve White slaves. Later, many came as indentured servants but were swindled into permanent slavery after their seven-year contract expired. During America’s early history White slaves cleared forests, drained swamps, built roads, and died in greater numbers doing so than any other ethnic group.

American Indian tribes owned Black slaves. The Cherokee, on their Trail of Tears, took with them their 2,000 Black slaves. The slaves worked the farms of the new Cherokee homeland. The Choctaw owned 2,500; the Creek, 2,000; the Chickasaw and Seminole owned about 1,000 each. Further west, the plains Indians constantly raided each other’s tribes for slaves.

President Jefferson fought The First Barbary War in Tripoli with the US Navy and Marines to free White Americans taken as slaves by North African Muslims from ships sailing the Mediterranean.

Slavery as a worldwide phenomenon remains a continuing story. Modern trafficking in human flesh involves enslavement of young boys, girls, and women forced into international sex trade.

Today, tossed about glibly by nonsensical leftist activists, the “racist” label goes something like this. “My Black ancestors were slaves of White owners. You are White. Therefore, you are racist. Systemically racist. America was founded on the evil of slavery and must change.” Huh? Social justice and Marxist garbage! The statement is neither rational nor logical. It does, however, illustrate the ignorance of America’s history perpetrated in public education and despotism of the left.

Consider these books for your library. Four excellent references include “White Slaves, African Masters” by Paul Baepler; “Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters” by Robert C. Davis; “White Gold” by Giles Milton; and “They Were White and They Were Slaves” by Michael A. Hoffman III.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).