Who were the slave traders

Submitted by Sigmund (United States), Jul 13, 2010 at 10:35

Though there undoubtledly were numerous groups involved in the African slave, my understanding from history courses taken both in high school and college was that the "Arab slave traders" were probably the most predominant group. Later when conversion to a somewhat aberrant form of Islam started to become a fad among a number of blacks, I always wondered "why convert to the religion of those who were most responsible for selling your ancestors into slavery?"

The part that I did not get was the falsification of history that accompanied this movement. There is no primary evidence that Jews were heavily involved in the slave trade out of proportion to their numbers. There was huge Muslim involvement on the side of capturing, transporting and selling and there was major Christian involvement in buying. But, if only because there were and are so few Jews, there was little Jewish involvement.

Likewise, there were some Jewish slave owners in the United States, but not very many. Again, this is probably just the effect of there being small numbers of Jews. How many Jews owned plantations in the South. How many could have possibly had the means to buy a slave if they wanted to? Not many.

Perhaps it is good this issue is raised so that it can be finally put to rest.

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