Every human society in history, until the past 200 years or so, has either been enslaved or has enslaved others. The ancient Hebrews were taken out of bondage in Egypt to be given a Torah that permitted slavery and indentured servitude, with restrictions. The Greeks had slaves. Eastern Europeans are called Slavic because they were slaves. The people who occupied what we now call Central and South America practiced slavery, and human sacrifice, on an industrial scale. Wars of conquest and slavery, along with cannibalism were hardly unknown in North America before the Europeans got here.
Now let me be very clear about Europeans. As a Jew I'm well aware of the shortcomings of European culture. At the same time, Europe gave us the modern world and in many ways provided the ideological underpinnings of the American republic, arguably the greatest human endeavor ever.
After the Europeans arrived in North America, some started to import slaves from Africa. Those Africans had been enslaved by other Africans, a practice that existed before European colonialism. King Gezo of Dahomey had no problem enslaving his African-African homies (a factor glossed over by Hollywood’s recent Woman King movie). “The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…”
I'm not trying to excuse or rationalize colonialism, just trying to place the history of slavery in America and of European colonialism within an appropriate context and perspective. While we’re speaking about context most Ashkenazi Jews (Jews whose families lived in Europe as opposed to Sephardi Jews, who lived in the Mediterranean crescent) have relatives who have been slaves in Nazi labor camps more recently than anyone related to Ta Nehisi Coates was a slave in the American south.
Just as humans practiced slavery, they also, like some other high primates, chimps in particular, have been very territorial while being quite willing to wage war to take others' territories. When they see something that they like, humans have a tendency to engage in either trade or conquest.
Every single human society in history that has advanced its technology (or borrowed it from another culture) enough to be able to make sea-going boats and ships, has used those vessels to first trade and then create empires. Can you think of a single society that was able to make watercraft capable of traversing seas and oceans that didn't use them to eventually expand by conquest?
Conquest and colonialism, like slavery, then, are human behaviors, not restricted to a limited number of societies.
So many of the societies that were conquered or put under hegemony by European colonialism from the 15th through the 19th centuries, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Zulu, the Chinese, and the south Asian Indians were imperialists themselves. You can call it colonialism or you can call it the clash of empires, and most clashes end with a winner and a loser.
Speaking of one of those winners, the British Empire was so globe-spanning that the statement “The sun never sets upon the British empire,” was empirically true, at least before World War II and the postwar independance movement. I don’t think it’s coincidental that many of the most functioning countries in their regions are former Brit colonies. Not just the Anglosphere of the United States, Canada, and Australia, but also countries like Nigeria in Africa and India in south Asia. Japan could be regarded as a de facto colony almost as much as Hong Kong was a de jure outpost of the British empire. The Brits brought the rule of law, a functioning civil service, and things like post offices and railroads.
Well put; no single people has a monopoly on victimization.
Best to acknowledge that, put it behind us and move on.
Thank you ronnie ;
Food for thought here, I wonder if those who need to ponder it the most will ever read it .
-Nate