• tbs230 said on Apr 01, 2007....

  The only thing I can say to that is Africans were displaced while Native Americans were not. When you are new to an area it makes it that much more difficult to fight. Plus, some Africans were betrayed by other tribes while most Native American tribes banded together.
  
  When you say Indians, do you mean only those in America? Because other Natives, particularly those in the Caribbean and South America were enslaved, most on their own lands.
  
  Africans did not submit, they were captured. Coming from a culture where the stronger tribe was ruled over the weaker, the one thing that made their capture so terrible was the horrible treatment they received.
  

• Dunedin said on Apr 01, 2007....

  Thanks for you comments, tbs.

  Not all blacks were displaced. I don't see any way that a few thousand Belgians with muskets in the Congo Free State could capture millions of Congolese unless they submitted.

  And for the blacks who were displaced, they had to be captured in their homeland before displacement could occur. American Indians did not submit in a comparable situation.

  I was referring to North America. I had forgotten about Columbus' enslavement of the Caribs. But they too fought back and were wiped out all. Next I thought of Oroonoko, the prince brought to Dutch Suriname as a slave, and thought my question was on the verge of an answer but then remembered Oroonoko was an African prince, not Indian. All the tribes and nations I know of in South America fought and were decimated. And if there were American Indian slaves aside from occasional oddities, why did Europeans in South America go through the expense of transporting millions of Africans from the 1600s till the 1860s? Why not use indigenous populations? I'm still scratching for a reasonable explanation.

  I did not know that some African tribes betrayed others. Can you elaborate?

• Nowteam said on Apr 02, 2007....

  Blacks didn't submit that's why slavery came to an end. It just took time to come to freedom

• Dunedin said on Apr 03, 2007....

  After more than 200 years of slavery a white man freed the blacks. Only then did submission become revolt.
   
  Or use whatever word you'd like besides submit, but there's a huge difference between how American Indians responded to enslavement attempts and how Africans responded. Why?

• jasonrest said on Apr 05, 2007....

  It has already been stated but I will reiterate and add for clarification.
  Africans were totally out of there element.
  Also various tribes were mixed fueling a lack of communication and subsequently confusion.
  Native Americans were in their element and able to communicate well. Tribe integrity was kept in tact.

• Dunedin said on Apr 06, 2007....

  Thanks, Jason. That's an explanation for America. What about when blacks were enslaved in their element in Africa?

• jasonrest said on Apr 06, 2007....

  Your welcome, and the "enslavement" that you speak of in Africa was not the slavery of early America. It was called indentured servitude. Those that were too poor had the "option" to sign a contract for however long and be "released" when they had fulfilled their obligations. I don't think whippings, forced breeding and the occasional murder was something implemented in the homeland. Even if it was, not to the same degree I can assure you. What I will admit, is that some of the "slaves" were sold to the thin nosed man with trinkets. Let me know if you need further assistance.

• tbs230 said on Apr 06, 2007....

  Ok, sorry this took so long.
  
  Many Native Americans were sent to the Caribbean and/or South America to work, simply because they were easy to find. The only problem with Natives was that they died too quickly. The Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayans. Thousands of Native Americans died because they had no immunity to European diseases, so that left Africa.
  
  Europeans were invested in Africans because they were strong laborers who could survive in the New World and not die because of disease. That's why Blacks were used.
  
  
  Slaves were initially captured by African tribes in raids or open warfare, or purchased from other African tribes, then sold for trade goods — usually whiskey, swords, guns and gold. There is evidence that this culture of slave-taking had existed in west Africa for at least from at least the 9th century AD, with the Ashanti selling prisoners captured in local tribal conflicts as slaves to Arabs (An Atlas of African Affairs, by Andrew Boyd, Patrick Van Rensburg; Praeger, 1962).

  Whole tribes were often captured and sold, not just the warriors. (Mintz, S. Digital History Slavery, Facts & Myths) A large number of slaves in the Atlantic slave trade were transported from what is now Guinea, Ghana, the Congo, Angola and other parts of West Africa. It is believed that about 11-12 million men, women and children were transported in ships across the Atlantic to various ports in the New World--mostly to South America and the islands in the Caribbean from 1500 to 1850. Less than 500,000 came to North America. Far from docilely accepting their imprisonment, some transported Africans actively resisted the brutality of their captors. African slaves are known to have engaged in at least 250 shipboard rebellions during the period of the transatlantic crossings. (Mintz, S. Digital History Slavery, Facts & Myths)

  Source: Slavery, Wikipedia.com

  
  It goes more indepth on Slavery. If you really want to know more, to a look at that article.
  

• Dunedin said on Apr 06, 2007....

  TBS, thanks for the info. How is it that blacks were resistant to European diseases but Native Americans weren't? Is it because they had been in contact with whites longer?

  Jason, I think we're talking about different things. I'm referring to the enslavement of ~10 million blacks by a few thousand whites in Congo Free State in the mid-1800s. There was lots of murder, lots of torture; those slaves were treated probably worse than American slaves. It was genocide. Why didn't these millions of blacks, on home turf, fight and overcome the few thousand whites?

• tbs230 said on Apr 06, 2007....

  That's exactly why. Europeans killed off countless Native Americans with smallpox and various other diseases that Natives had no immunity to because they simply were never exposed to them. Africans had a stronger resistance, and that's why the African slave trade was so extensively used, in the beginning at least. what with the Caribbean being so close to the climate in Africa, it made sense, economically, to have Africans work for them. That kind of free labor made sense to American plantation owners.
  
  Native Americans just weren't worth fighting, especially when the Natives knew the land better, had more food and shelter, and had plenty of reinforcements at hand.
  The Africans that became slave were stolen in the middle of the night from their family and friends, or were already slaves...they had no strength in numbers.
  

• The_three_F_words said on Apr 06, 2007....

  I wish had not read this, it makes me so angry.  I don't know that I can ever understand this, from any view point, ever. 

• Club38 said on Apr 21, 2007....

  Black slaves were captured and stolen from their land.With Native Americans the situation was reversed,by the land being stolen from them,rather than them,themselves being stolen.You should also remember that not all natives escaped slavery.Many natives were enslaved by the Spaniards in their conquest of the Americas.

  Club38

• Dunedin said on Apr 21, 2007....

  Club, thanks. That issue has been addressed. Still working on this one:
  
  "I'm referring to the enslavement of ~10 million blacks by a few thousand whites in Congo Free State in the mid-1800s. There was lots of murder, lots of torture; those slaves were treated probably worse than American slaves. It was genocide. Why didn't these millions of blacks, on home turf, fight and overcome the few thousand whites?"
  

• LYMIS said on May 04, 2008....

  I am of the belief that Africans submitted to slavery faster and more readily than Native Americans because of simple language barriers and a unified understanding of the land.  Native Americans had the advantage that they were indigenous to the culture and land that White attempted to converge upon, however, Africans were not.  Consider that they were mixed in languages because they had been prisoners of war or captives from another raid on small independant villages.  On the African continent dragged sometimes from hundreds of miles to the Ivory Coast to be sold by a waring tribe.  The Native Americans didn't have the same issue with context to knowledge of land mass and culture.

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