Rare Photos Of African Slaves On A Slave Ship, HEADED TOWARDS THE STATES
Posted on | February 26, 2006 | 7 Comments
Indian Ocean: East African slaves taken aboard the Dutch HMS Daphne from a Arab dhow, 1 November 1868. These photographs dated 1868 reveals a very little of the terrible suffering caused to millions of people by the slave trade.
This group of severely emaciated boys and young men on the lower deck of a Royal Naval ship apparently have been taken from what was a slave vessel trading illegally off the African coast headed to the Americas. The captain of the Royal Naval ship had instructions not to return the rescued slaves to the place on the coast where they had been put on the slave ship (presumably because they were in danger of being recaptured by traders) but it is not clear from the available documentation what happened to them afterwards.
The Indian Ocean Slave trade evolved around the Indian Ocean basin. Slaves were taken from mainland East Africa and sold in markets in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. In contrast to the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Indian Ocean Slave Trade was much older dating back from at least the second century C.E. until the early twentieth century. For example, the oldest written document from the East Africa Coast, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, describes a small trade in slaves around the second century C.E. Notice the physical features of the Arabs.
(I’m not sure of the source; these were forwarded to me.)
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7 Responses to “Rare Photos Of African Slaves On A Slave Ship, HEADED TOWARDS THE STATES”
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February 26th, 2006 @ 4:50 pm
These are quite moving and haunting images, Carla. Thanks for sharing them.
May 10th, 2006 @ 3:34 pm
Congratulations! These photos reveal a truth not yet really touched… thank you!
May 16th, 2006 @ 5:48 pm
Hi Carla,
I’m glad you posted these. They were sent to me to and I was unsure of their provenance. I was going to ask you about them — I figured if anyone would know about the authenticity of this kind of photo, it would be you. I wonder where they came from.
May 27th, 2006 @ 11:42 am
Though I will not deny that some Arabs and Africans were involved in the enslavement of African people, I have to disagree that the Arabs or the Arab enslavement of African people goes back to the 2nd Century A.D. Everything I’ve read states that Arabs did not enslave African peoples or even invade Africa until the 7th Century A.D., specifically around 640 A.D. This is stated by Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannon in BLACK MAN OF THE NILE AND HIS FAMILY on pg. 310, where he says:
it was all Europeans over
Africans until c.640 C.E.
at which time the Arab
Muslims (Moselems or
Moslems, sometimes Musselmen)
from the Arabian Peninsula
and other points East(Asia)
invaded and conquered
North Africa to become the
new colonizers and
slavemasters of both the
European slavemasters and
their indigenous African
victims. The Arabs not only
turned the tide of European
rule in North Africa, but
created the avenue by which
they and the indigenous
Africans were able to become
the slavemasters of Europeans
in Spain, Portugal, and parts
of Southern France from
c.711 B.C. until the 11th
Century C.E.
(Black Man of The Nile. ..
pg.310)
The late great Dr. John Henrick Clarke also said something similar in A GREAT AND MIGHTY WALK, a documentary produced by Wesley Snipe’s Amen-Ra Films company. He states, “Our African ancestors asked the Arabs to get those evil Romans off our backs. They did – and they replaced the Romans, by getting on our backs as well”. If I remember correctly, the Romans invaded Africa around the 3rd Century B.C., and held control pretty much until the Arabs came in, again, in
640 A.D. The Greeks preceded the Romans. Dr. Charles Finch also states 640 A.D.for the date of this event on LeGrand Clegg’s video, “When Black Men Ruled The World”. You also might want to check out, “The HIstory of Slavery” by Suzanne Everett which shows pictures of how the Romans and Greeks were enslaving themselves and other peoples, long before the Arabs even got involved in it. Specifically, check pages 25, 17, and 14. Pg. 25 has a heading called, “Household Slaves in Ancient Greece” and shows a statue of an enslaved Nubian boy who was a houseslave for a wealthy GREEK family. Also, on pg. 15 she says:
The abolition of slavery in Greece would have disrupted
the whole fabric of its society. . For the Greeks of the classical period (480-338 B.C.), it was unthinkable that society should be organized in any other way. Plato’s REPUBLIC was firmly based on slave labor, although he drew the line at enslaving his fellow Greeks – he advised soldiers to ‘keep their hands off one another and turn their energies against foreigners’
(Everrett, pg.15).
Also, Ashra Kwesi talks about how the Hyksos, a Eurasian people,had enslaved the Ancient Black Kemetans (Egyptians)for 400 years (several thousands of years before the Arabs)and were kicked out by the armies of a Black King named Ahmose on his tape “The Afrikan Origins of Judaism”.
As far as the skin tones of the Arabs in that picture, yes, the first Arabs were Black Africans, and there are some Arabs today who are as dark as coal.
I end this by saying, whenever
we study the history of slavery, especially, the history of the enslavement of African peoples,while we cannot forget those non-whites who were involved in it, we must not forget the Europeans as well, and we also must not just go off of one source. We must DIG DEEP. Peace.
Sincerely,
Charmlin Jr.
July 18th, 2006 @ 4:32 am
Hi Carla. You might want to correct this info as I also am. These photos are not a slave ship and odds are it was not headed for the U.S. It’s the British naval ship HMS Daphne which raided slave ships/boats and brought away and liberated the Africans found onboard. Thanks. Marian @ Marian’s Blog.
February 8th, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
These images are really stark and haunting. I also thank you for showing them. There is a real reluctance in general to address all aspects of African slave trading – be it pan-African or trans-Arab. In no way does this discount the collective horror and trauma of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, but its proper, multi-faceted research would go some way toward the deep digging Charmlin Jr mentions at the end of his/her post.
March 17th, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
The slaves you see are “freed” slaves. At the expense of many British sailor lives.
The lower photo is on board the HMS London 1881 era.
http://www.geocities.com/hmslondon1840/