When I read stories about slavery my heart is torn apart, the stories are so painful and unbearable that the books themselves become unreadable, but slavery wasn’t like that before, in the most ancient of nations slavery was a common practice, in fact you find slaves were part of the owner’s family which often cared for them as they did to their own relatives, when a child is born into a family of servants then he/she is regarded as a slave and the family in charge of them becomes the master. Some people who were living under a good master had better lives than those who were not slaves.
I have come across some ancient texts that revealed good relationship between the slaves and their masters, who had a strong bond and lived by simple rules, there was a very thin line between the word servant and a slave, a servant works for a pay, and goes home to feed their families with the little pay they have gained, a slave on the other hand had nowhere to go, and therefore works for the masters family without any pay, but then all his needs and those of his children are taken care of by the owner, slave families lived across just near the owners home, when you are dirt poor and famine has struck the country hard, better be some rich fellows slave than to perish, an owner of many slaves has less food for himself because he has more mouths to feed, if a slave wanders off into the desert he/she will perish, there is no life in the wilderness, better stay in the masters house and get plenty of food and water to drink than to die out in the desert, all you need to do is help in taking care of their flock and their other property, many good owners would fiercely defend their slaves from abuse and exploitation from others even members of their own family.
Like the slaves and servants of the great kings of Timbuktu and the Sultans of Zanzibar, all treated their servants and slaves with nobility.
But when it comes to the transatlantic slave trade it’s a different story, a platoon of pirates swarmed across the seas, and traveled from ocean to ocean carrying humans like cargo, the large scale exploitation of others made it impossible to treat them with at least any little care, then were sold off to cruel farmers, abusive owners…… and the stories of cruelty goes on.
Many of these slave traders were pagans or came from heathen nations, and have never comprehended how to treat a fellow human being, it is no wonder some of the experiences of these slaves were so vile that many people prefer not to raise those issues once again, they better remain as bad memories of the past. Nobody wants to talk about it. It came to our thoughts people from the tropics had no knowledge of what it’s like to be a slave yourself, none ever pitied them.
If people come across an article about slavery they become curious about it, some will figure out as the sad transatlantic slave trade of the last few centuries, so they quickly toss it aside, no one wants to read something that will cause them pain or heartbreak, slavery should be a none-issue in this twenty first century as for everyone’s knowledge.
Every budding author aspires to be a master of the quill someday. If ye want to write about slavery then better be cautious with your choice of words, if you bring up stories of masters who were cruel to their slaves then also remember that there were those who were very kind to them and treated them like a family, so as not to become too biased and deter your potential readers.
Some More Stories:
Slavery was a sad thing indeed