History is messy. If you've ever spent more than five minutes on social media lately, you’ve probably seen some pretty heated debates about who exactly invented the concept of owning people. The question of did black people start slavery is one of those topics that gets tossed around like a political football, usually without much context.
Slavery isn't a "who started it" game in the way we think of modern inventions. It wasn't invented by one specific person, race, or tribe in a single moment of clarity. Instead, it was a global, ancient, and unfortunately universal human failure.
To answer it simply: No, Black people didn't start slavery. But neither did White people, or any other single group. By the time we have written records, slavery was already a grim reality on almost every continent.
The Ancient Roots of Global Servitude
If we go back to the Code of Hammurabi in ancient Mesopotamia, which is about as far back as written law goes, slavery was already a codified part of life. This was roughly 1750 BCE. These weren't Black people or White people in the way we categorize race today; these were Babylonians. They had rules about how to treat slaves, how much they cost, and how they could be punished.
Around the same time, or shortly after, you see it in Shang Dynasty China. You see it in the Indus Valley. You see it in Pharaonic Egypt. In these contexts, slavery usually happened because of debt, crime, or—most commonly—war. If your city lost a battle, you didn't just lose your land; you lost your autonomy.
Why the "Who Started It" Question Is Tricky
People often ask did black people start slavery because they are looking at the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and trying to find a "gotcha" moment. It’s true that when European traders arrived on the West African coast in the 15th and 16th centuries, they found existing systems of servitude. Historians like John Thornton, author of Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, explain that African elites did participate in the trade.
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But here is the nuance.
The "slavery" practiced within Africa at that time was vastly different from the industrial-scale, race-based "chattel slavery" that would develop in the Americas. In many African societies, enslaved people could often marry, own property, or eventually gain their freedom. Their children weren't always born into slavery. It wasn't a permanent, inherited status based on the color of their skin.
The Shift to Chattel Slavery
Things changed when the Portuguese and later the British turned slavery into a global commodity. This is where the confusion often lies. When people ask did black people start slavery, they might be hearing about the "middlemen"—the African kingdoms like Dahomey or the Asante Empire that traded captives to Europeans.
These kingdoms were powerful. They were strategic. They weren't "victims" in the sense of being helpless; they were players in a global economy. They traded people for textiles, rum, and most significantly, firearms. If you had guns, you could protect your people from being enslaved by the neighbor who also had guns. It was a vicious, escalating cycle of survival and greed.
However, the Europeans introduced a new, terrifying element: the concept of "race." Before the Atlantic trade, a Greek might enslave a fellow Greek, or a Roman might enslave a Briton. It wasn't about "Whiteness" or "Blackness." The Atlantic trade turned skin color into a permanent marker of "slave" status. That was a new and devastating invention.
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The Role of the Arab Slave Trade
We also have to look at the Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades. This started centuries before the Atlantic trade and lasted long after it. Arab traders moved millions of people from East Africa and Central Africa into the Middle East and North Africa.
Honestly, this part of history is often ignored in Western schools. It involved both Black Africans and Slavs (where the word "slave" actually comes from, referring to Eastern Europeans). This trade was massive. It was brutal. And it confirms that slavery was a multi-directional horror.
Legal Realities in the Early Americas
Early on in the American colonies, the lines were blurrier than you might think. In the early 1600s in Virginia, there were "indentured servants" from both Europe and Africa. Some Black individuals, like Anthony Johnson, actually finished their terms of service, became free, and even ended up owning servants themselves.
This is a fact that often gets used to suggest that "Black people started slavery in America." It’s a bit of a stretch. While a few Black individuals navigated the system to their advantage, the legal system was rapidly being rewritten to ensure that only Black people could be permanent, heritable property. By the late 1600s, laws like the Virginia Slave Codes made it clear: if your mother was enslaved, you were enslaved. Period.
Why This Conversation Matters Today
Understanding the origins of slavery isn't about shifting blame or "winning" a debate. It's about realizing how human systems can be corrupted by greed.
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The reality is that slavery existed everywhere. The Aztecs had it. The Vikings had it. The Spartans built their entire society on the backs of "helots" (slaves).
But the Transatlantic Slave Trade was unique in its scale and its use of race to justify a permanent underclass. That is the legacy we are still dealing with. When we ask did black people start slavery, we have to be careful not to use the existence of ancient, global servitude to hand-wave the specific, legalized racial nightmare that was created in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Real Examples of Participation
- The Kingdom of Dahomey: Known for its "Amazon" warriors, this state became incredibly wealthy by capturing neighbors and selling them to European traders.
- The Roman Empire: At its peak, about 30% of the population was enslaved. Race didn't matter; if you were conquered, you were a slave.
- The Barbary Pirates: These North African privateers captured over a million Europeans between the 16th and 19th centuries, selling them into the Ottoman slave markets.
History isn't a story of "good guys" and "bad guys" based on race. It's a story of power. Those with power—regardless of their skin color—have historically exploited those without it.
Moving Beyond the "Gotcha" History
If you really want to understand this, you’ve got to look at the economics. Slavery didn't start because of hate. It started because of labor. People wanted cheap ways to build empires, pick cotton, or mine gold. Hate was the tool used to justify the economics after the fact.
To wrap this up, the idea that any one race "started" slavery is historically illiterate. It's a global scar.
Next Steps for Deeper Understanding:
- Read Primary Sources: Look into the Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. He was an enslaved man who bought his freedom and wrote about both African and European systems of slavery.
- Check the Database: Visit the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (slavevoyages.org). It is a sobering, data-driven look at the actual ship manifests and numbers.
- Explore Local History: Research how the specific laws in your region (like the 1662 Virginia Partus Sequitur Ventrem law) fundamentally changed the nature of slavery from a temporary status to a racial one.
- Differentiate Systems: Practice distinguishing between "indentured servitude," "debt bondage," and "chattel slavery" to see how the Atlantic trade was a departure from ancient norms.