[R_G]

Simple question, no slave trade, none.


How different is 2013 without it?

I think the cotton gin still gets invented so I don't think lack of slave labour keeps the U.S. from going places...

[Sithsaber]

Do you mean to say that all slavery would be non existent? Are you referring to the slave trade from africa only or does this also entail the forced mixture of Amerindians in spanish haciendas? What about the medieval trade of Christian captives turned slave in the barbary coast? Are we going as far back as republican Rome or do you limit this thought experiment to the period of transatlantic trade?

ans: 7

[R_G]

The African Slave trade to the United States.....obviously.

[Decky]

The African Slave trade to the United States.....obviously.

It wasn't obvious. The centre left like to make it out that slavery was an American black/ white issue but they only do this by ignoring the rest of history. What about north African pirates raiding Cornwall for slaves?

[Eran]

I don't think technological developments, by today, are very different.

I imagine that American plantations would require voluntary labour to fill the needs historically filled by African slaves. That may mean greater immigration (due to higher wages and better terms) from those European (and later Asian) countries which populated the Americas during late Colonial all the way to the days before the Civil War.

Thus we would have an America with more whites and Asians, and many fewer blacks.

The Civil War could probably have been averted, though the non-slavery-related tensions between North and South would have had to be resolved in other ways.

During the 20th century, again, absence of African Americans would have meant more demand for other sources of unskilled cheap labour, from Latin America, southern Europe or Asia (and, of course, some from Africa too).

21st century America would have greater Latino, Asian and European periphery (southern and eastern) populations, and many fewer Africans.

[Diligent]

Had the Africans not sold their labor capital so freely to the whites, the industrial revolution might have been far slower in coming to fruition. Though this theory is contested in some circles.

[Far-Right Sage]

It wasn't obvious. The centre left like to make it out that slavery was an American black/ white issue but they only do this by ignoring the rest of history. What about north African pirates raiding Cornwall for slaves?

Or for that matter, the bondage and forced labor of the Jews in Ancient Egypt, or the extensive use of slaves in everything from farming to aqueduct construction throughout the Roman Empire, which had less than nothing to do with the racial or ethnic background of the captives turned slaves in question. The Romans didn't care whether you were white, black, brown, or covered with purple spots from head to toe. Most slavery throughout history has little to do with race and more to do with the unfamiliarity of an "other" being quite easy to demonize to the extent that one can easily justify their captivity and forced servitude on the basis of either "might makes right" a la the pre-Judeo Christian morality of pagan Rome, or the Christian moralism/paternalism of the American Old South. Ironically similar to what provided the basis for justification of colonialism itself, in fact, as Victorian Britain among others managed to place the most beautiful masks and wreaths upon the most gratuitous and systematic acts of carnage.

Why do folks believe black Africans were selected when they were by British, Dutch, etc. traders and proliferated throughout the Americas and the Caribbean? They were primitive in technology and societal organization (the latter is more subjective, but this was undeniably the general perception) and thus lacked the capability to resist as states (because they were largely not states), as well as looking different enough and coming from an exotic enough part of the world that they could be marketed as some form of strange half-human to a very insular European society. Remember, we were still half jokingly referring to the Vietnamese, Laotians, etc. back in Nam as monkeys, as was the propaganda directed against the Japanese people during the war. Does anyone seriously believe that if Orientals had been less organized and advanced as societies, and more physically suited for the harsh treatment of transportation across an open ocean and a life of hard manual labor, that they would not have been snatched up in an instant?

The Africans weren't captured and enslaved out of a doctrine of racial supremacy. That ideological narrative only came about later to justify and lend legitimacy to an arrangement which was purely financial.

[AuContraireVoltaire]

You do not have today's America without the slave trade.
Plantation economy, demographic impact, civil war, the division between north and south that is still prevalent today...
America is a wholly different entity without the Atlantic Slave Trade. it's not even negotiable.

[longknife]

Let's get something straight - SLAVERY WAS NOT INVENTED BY SOUTHERN PLANTATION OWNERS.

It has been around as long as Mankind.

Every society throughout history has had some form of slavery.

And, Native Americans had slaves before Europeans arrived. In spite of that, the one American society that succored slaves was The Chreokee Nation, which Andy Jackson did his best to destroy.

The vast number of Africans shipped to the Americas were originally captured by blacks and sold to Arab traders.

Did you Whities know that Romans enslaved many of the peoples they conquered. That Vikings captured slaves to sell to the Ottomans. That parents selling their children into slavery still exists today. In fact, SLAVERY STILL EXISTS TODAY. But, I don't see the compassionate Lefties making a ruckus about it.

[neopagan]

American music would be more like the Eurovision Song Contest.
No Tango, Mambo, Calypso, Reggae, BeBop, Rock and Roll, Salsa, Blues, New Orleans Jazz, R and B, Bluegrass would be less bluesy and more like River Dance.

[R_G]

Some people take shit way too seriously and literally.

For fuck's sake, nobody came in here and argued the slave trade began in the 1700s. Nobody.



So let's stop the sidetracking bullshit.


Touching on Eran's original point, does that demographic mean less civil tensions in the 1900s? Whatever the issues are with latinos, I think it's more class warfare than anything else. So maybe latin americans would replace africans but I personally don't think it would have been segregation like was seen due to the massive difference in skin tone.

[Rilzik]

The Caribbean islands would be full of rich tan white people....

[Decky]

Why do folks believe black Africans were selected when they were by British, Dutch, etc. traders and proliferated throughout the Americas and the Caribbean? They were primitive in technology and societal organization (the latter is more subjective, but this was undeniably the general perception) and thus lacked the capability to resist as states (because they were largely not states), as well as looking different enough and coming from an exotic enough part of the world that they could be marketed as some form of strange half-human to a very insular European society. Remember, we were still half jokingly referring to the Vietnamese, Laotians, etc. back in Nam as monkeys, as was the propaganda directed against the Japanese people during the war. Does anyone seriously believe that if Orientals had been less organized and advanced as societies, and more physically suited for the harsh treatment of transportation across an open ocean and a life of hard manual labor, that they would not have been snatched up in an instant?

The Africans weren't captured and enslaved out of a doctrine of racial supremacy. That ideological narrative only came about later to justify and lend legitimacy to an arrangement which was purely financial.

I can't argue with any of that. I would also use the Vikings enslaving the Irish as an example showing that white people didn't particularly care who they enslave as long as they don't have the capacity for much resistance. After all Dublin is just a Viking lave trading town that has grew too big for its boots. The capital should be Cork city (or perhaps a Brasilia style project where a new capital is built, Tara maybe?).

It's this sort of thing that always makes me laugh at the proponents of critical race theory. By their own logic the Norwegians have "privilege" over the Irish even today.

[AuContraireVoltaire]

Let's get something straight - SLAVERY WAS NOT INVENTED BY SOUTHERN PLANTATION OWNERS.

It has been around as long as Mankind.

Every society throughout history has had some form of slavery.

And, Native Americans had slaves before Europeans arrived. In spite of that, the one American society that succored slaves was The Chreokee Nation, which Andy Jackson did his best to destroy.

The vast number of Africans shipped to the Americas were originally captured by blacks and sold to Arab traders.

Did you Whities know that Romans enslaved many of the peoples they conquered. That Vikings captured slaves to sell to the Ottomans. That parents selling their children into slavery still exists today. In fact, SLAVERY STILL EXISTS TODAY. But, I don't see the compassionate Lefties making a ruckus about it.

Yes, I think we all know that. The question concerned America though

[Quantum]

If the African slave trade never existed, modern anti-racism and racial diversity in the West wouldn't exist and the West would be far more homogenous. Governments and NGOs throughout the Western world base their racial policies on American historical lines and anti-racist groups use African-Americans as the poster child for racial oppression.

From the viewpoint of the nationalist, the slave trade was the worst decision the West made because they traded short-term material gain at the expense of racial homogeny.

[Figlio di Moros]

Without the Atlantic slave-trade, the New World would've progressed slightly differently. Indentured servitude formed the bases of agriculture in 17th century America, and would have persisted; likely, it'd have been the same story in the Carribean and latin America, with places like Trinidad, Barbados, or Jamaica looking a lot more like Peurto Rico.

The question is whether the institution would've evolved into sharecropping or yeomanry. It's possible that wealthier farmers, being able to secure loans for plantations, would have offered indentured servitude and sharecropping to would-be yeomen whose loans would have been expensive. The south would still have been a crop-based economy, and the Civil War would likely not have happened, allowing for a larger population in the late 19th century. It's hard to say what the impact it'd have on immigration around the time, though; there was a large nativist movement at the time already.

So, I'd say the US would be more homogenous, and the Carribean whiter. The economy would've progressed much the same, but the south wouldn't have become disenfranchised and perhaps secured a better development, or perhaps homesteading would've began earlier. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments wouldn't exist, giving the government more control over it's immigration policy; this could, in fact, have lead to many late-19th century immigrants lacking citizenship, as well as the hispanic wave today. It would also mean no constitutional protections for Corporate personhood, and that the National Banking Act of 1863/64 were never passed. Pressure would mount for banking and currency reform, but it'd have happened on a different timescale and with different standards. The 24th amendment a century later also would likely not have occured.

So.... I suppose all we can say is that the US would be more ethnically homogenous. We'd really have to take those changes peicemeal to get an idea how they'd change development and sentiments, and how society would've reacted towards those... :/

[Nattering Nabob]

Slavery was widespread in the American South because the cotton gin made cotton planting increadibly productive...

No cotton industry = very little need for slaves which were not affordable to any but the wealthy anyway (they cost about as much as a house does today)...

So no slaves would only have meant a much smaller cotton industry which, while it at one time equaled the economic output of the industrial North, America would have done fine without just as it did after slavery...

[Rich]

The African Slave trade to the United States.....obviously.

There would have been no United States. Period.

Your formulation is ambiguous, but I take it to mean what if the British Empire of which the United States is fork (a bit like Android has more prominence than linux) had not engage in Black slavery. The united States owes its existence to slavery. The Angosphere in the Americas would never have got off the ground with out slavery. New England's economy in the Seventeen and early eighteenth century was a major service provider for the British Caribbean. Of course the New England used slaves directly. Full Chattel slavery was first legalised in New England. What is now the United States would have been Spanish, French and Dutch.

What if none of the Christian States had engaged in Black slavery? Then I think its likely that a substantial part of the Americas would have remain Amerindian. They would have had time to recover from epidemics of first contact. It should also be noted that the importation of Blacks to the Americas with old world tropical deceases hugely increased the death toll. Lets remember plantation slavery was already kicking on Canaries and Maderias well before Columbus reached the Americas. Although if one is going to be strict and say the Europeans didn't engage in any forced labour of Non Europeans, then I suspect the Islamic world could well have established empires in the Americas.

If slavery is evil then America is a country and a nation founded on evil

[Kman]

Simple question, no slave trade, none.

How different is 2013 without it?

The NFL and NBA would suck a lot more I think and america would be significantly richer since the population would be more white and less resources would be spent on welfare payments to blacks and payments to keep blacks incarcerated in prisons.

[Quantum]

The NFL and NBA would suck a lot more I think and america would be significantly richer since the population would be more white and less resources would be spent on welfare payments to blacks and payments to keep blacks incarcerated in prisons.

Sucks for those who thought that importing a slave caste was beneficial in the long run and now they're stuck with them. People like Xbow curse these slave traders for bringing them here in the first place and the negative outcomes that arose from that.

The lack of racial tension would have meant that class solidarity would have been stronger as the elites couldn't have divided the masses so easily and reverse much of the progressive era legislation on workers' conditions. Much of the "small government" attitude would have disappeared and Americans would be more willing to spend on social services and government spending in general.