Talk:Slave trade

(This talk page was previous a redirect to "Atlantic slave trade"; since this article stands on its own now, I've unredirected.) --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 15:33, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Untitled
Folks, this is appalling. Firstly, why is this given the Definitve "Slave Trade", when there have been so many slave trades. Why does it focus on such a narrow few. Why the inclusion of the overtly pro or Anti Jewish line ? (Jews never had slaves? so the Torah lies, does it?). This is in dire need of a cleanup, and considering I know Very little about any slave trade, save the American one, I'm not the one to do it. --Irishpunktom\talk 20:10, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I have added a totallydisputed tag because my efforts to NPOV the article are met with blind reverting by Guy Montag and Jayjg.Heraclius 17:15, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Your POV deletions and modifications were disguised, as usual, with a deceptive edit summary. Please explain which specific parts of the article you think are factually incorrect and POV; otherwise the tag will have to be removed. Jayjg (talk)  17:17, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, first of all, the phrase "Muslim-controlled" is very redundant and is repeated many times. How come there aren't similar "Christian" and "Jewish" phrases?Heraclius 17:18, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It hardly seems redundant, since it sets a cultural context; furthermore, adding "Christian controlled Europe" to a section that discusses the slave trade in the Middle East is a classic example of inaccuracy and WP:POINT. Jayjg (talk) 17:25, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Inter-European slave trade means slave trade in the Middle East? Do you even realize what you are saying?Heraclius 17:26, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps some talk discussion first?
It seems odd that the main argument has become how much Jews were involved in the slave trade. At some points in time they obviously were and at other times they were not, but this article isn't titled "Jews in the Slave Trade" and it seems clearly a POV issue to have, of the three paragraphs on the Atlantic slave trade, two of them on Jews. There is not a mention of the actual conditions of trade ships, of the fact that between 20 and 30 million slaves were shipped over seas, and that many of them died, or of the abolition movement, or of the tacit or legal acceptance from many governments, etc. There is no reason to believe that Jews were somehow responsible for a majority or even a significant minority of slave trading from 1500-1800, and, while we can discuss the role of Jews as traders and slave owners, the role of Conversos in Brazil, and the role of Jewish abolitionists, it is entirely unclear why this should be a focus of the article, as it has become.

Until the article is beefed up substantially, I would suggest that we stop adding in information about the Jews (since the effect, intentional or not, of Heraclius's edits seem to be "Jews were largely responsible for the slave trade" given the lack of balancing info) and start adding in information about the actual slave trade. Better yet, I would suggest we make this article a redirect to Slavery or the Atlantic slave trade, since it is a hopeless mess to date. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:25, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that we should redirect this article to slavery. I was in no way trying to suggest that "Jews were largely responsible for the slave trade".  This article was mostly a stub until a few weeks ago when a disproportionate amount of POV info was added about the Muslim world.  I tried to NPOV this section but I was met with blind reverting by Jayjg and Guy Montag.  So I saw that the Brazilian section was largely empty and added a few quotes by Jewish writers about Jewish involvement in Brazil.


 * However, if there is strong consensus to redirect this article to slavery, then by all means go ahead.Heraclius 18:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * So basically you admit you were attempting to make a point. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 18:29, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I wasn't making any point. Like I said before, I saw that the section on Brazil was empty and decided to add some quotes.Heraclius 18:31, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * You were annoyed by something in one section and so decided on being annoying elsewhere. That's essentially disruptive behaviour -- dealing with a problem in one place by causing a problem in another place. Everyone should carefully avoid doing exactly that; it's kinda like invading Iraq because you're pissed off at Afghanistan. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 18:37, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * So are you claiming that the quotes I posted were inaccurate and solely intended to annoy? Perhaps it is a personal viewpoint that allows one to be annoyed by such quotes.  In my opinion, I was just expanding the article.Heraclius 18:42, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Please show me where I said they were inaccurate. One need not be inaccurate to be annoying. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 18:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius wrote: I was in no way trying to suggest that "Jews were largely responsible for the slave trade". According to the POV of Jpgordon, the mere mention of Jews in historical context, even when accurate, is grounds for wholesale blaming of Jews. Read the archived discussion of "Aparthied" to see similar invective and disruptive discussion.69.209.210.145 20:15, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Note:I am not the anonymous IP reverting.Heraclius 20:26, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I tried to merge the articles but Guy Montag reverted my edits (as usual) claiming there was no consensus in talk. So here's the question, should the articles be merged as per Goodoldpolonius's suggestion?Heraclius 20:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Though it might get reverted, I didn't see anything here that wasn't covered in the Slavery article, or its subarticles, so there wasn't much to merge. I just made it a redirect.  --Goodoldpolonius2 21:22, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Err
Couple of things here. Firstly i did a google search on the quote and found that it was in use by sites like "stormfront", "Jew-watch", "Blacks and jews"(NOI), as well as a lot of Anti-Semetic sites. That somewhat scared me, however, that does not make it false. What is true is that there was a publication called "New World Jewry, 1493-1825: Requiem for the Forgotten" (At least, according to Tel Aviv University). So now, knowing that the book exists, that it is indeed scholarly and studied, what we need to know is if those passages were indeed included in that context in the book. Heraclius, or anyone else, do you have the book?--Irishpunktom\talk 21:25, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, the first quote that was removed was from a Rabbi. The second quote that was removed was from a Jewish writer.Heraclius 21:33, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Heraclius, who cares if it is a rabbi or a Jewish writer? I think the goal is reputable sources, not things written by Jews, and we still don't know the context of the quotes. I will say that there just isn't support for the prominance of Jews in the slave trade, though there were certainly Jews who were involved.  For example, let me quote from The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 3, The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History: A Special Issue. (Dec., 1999), pp. 1327-1328.  There is a review of two books on Jews and the slave trade, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade by Eli Faber and Jews and the American Slave Trade by Saul S. Friedman:
 * These two very different studies again confirm what every historian of the Atlantic slave trade already knows: the utter irresponsibility—at a minimum—of the Nation of Islam's assertions in The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews (1991) that Jewish merchants dominated the slave trade and that Jews owned slaves in numbers significantly greater than did Christians. What is the pity is that such malicious allegations should inspire refutation at the level of thoroughness in these books, and that aca¬demically styled studies such as these should have so little prospect of reaching enthusiasts of such tracts as The Secret Relationship.
 * ....Faber acknowledges the few merchants of Jewish background locally prominent in slaving during the second half of the eighteenth century but otherwise confirms the small-to-minuscule size of colonial Jewish communities of any sort and shows them engaged in slaving and slave holding only to degrees indistinguishable from those of their English competitors. Notes and tables longer than the text demonstrate Faber's extremely thorough use of the considerable specialized literature on Jews in the British Empire as well as in the quantitative sources on slavery and the slave trade.
 * I hope that this material should put the unsourced documents to rest, but I am happy to provide more, if needed. --Goodoldpolonius2 21:42, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Once again, I made no claims that Jews were the "masters of the slave trade" or that they traded more slaves than Christians. In fact, I believe the opposite of that and you don't have to convince me because it's common sense.  I just found a relevant quote to put in the Brazil section, and that's what sparked the whole controversy.Heraclius 21:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * This is why I find this whole discussion confusing - if you were to add one quote on slavery to the article, why make it so clearly an accusation of the prominance of Jews in the slave trade, if you don't believe that this was the case? I guess we can move on... --Goodoldpolonius2 22:05, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Not a disambiguation page
@Aciram, please read WP:PTM. The entries here do not have the same name, but are only partial matches. This implies that the article should have some other format than disambiguation: perhaps a list or even a regular article. A WP:SETINDEX might also be appropriate. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 18:24, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand. I was not aware of the discussion. --Aciram (talk) 18:34, 31 March 2024 (UTC)