Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 September 3

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 3

PROGRAM ON AMERICAN NEGRO AND SLAVE TRADE

I watched your programme on the Slave Trade in the America's. The most amazing part is there is not once mention made of the CHIEFS IN AFRICA THAT ACTIALLY SOLD THEIR PEOPLE AS SLAVES. The bad people is the buyers why is there not any mention of the SELLERS WHO TO ME IS THE BAD PEOPLE. I noticed that many MEN were slaves to work in the SUGAR CANE fields, where did the women come from... or were there female slaves as well... where did the men get women to have children because reference was made of families or did they relate with the people who was on the islands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.135.25.103 (talk) 07:13, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe the articles "African slave trade", "Atlantic slave trade", "Slavery in the colonial United States" and "Slavery in the United States" will answer most of your questions. Gabbe (talk) 09:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

During the 16th century through the mid-19th century, the European powers other than Portugal had little presence in sub-Saharan tropical Africa beyond the coast, and so were dependent on the cooperation of local rulers to funnel captives to the coast. In some of the Caribbean islands which were intensively devoted to sugar-cane plantations, the owners imported more male slaves than female slaves, and effectively worked them to death over a period of a decade or so. This was less common in the British North American colonies (later United States), where there was no sugar-cane, and relatively few large-scale single-crop plantations before the late 18th century... AnonMoos (talk) 09:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Do note that they mostly sold war captives. In the same way that Europeans a mere few centuries earlier also sold war captives to neighboring kingdoms. Please do not treat Africans as a single people. Africa is a continent of numerous cultures and languages and not at all united. Perhaps it may be because you appear to be American and 'American' to you refers to a citizen of a single country, not inhabitants of two continents. Americans would not call Canadians 'their people' in the same way that a 16th century Somali slave owner would not consider his Bantu slave a member of the Somali people. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 10:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a TV channel so you must have watched someone else's program. Female slaves were in demand in USA as housemaids and could be sexually abused. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I take your point that some movies and TV programs tend to overlook the issue of the complicity of some Negroes in the slave trade. I see them, and also the Caucasian and Arab slavers, as culpable. However, keep in mind that if you were the chief of a tribe, and captured an enemy group, your options were limited:

1) Kill them.

2) Let them go, risking them attacking you later. Even women and children were a risk, since the boys could grow up to be enemy warriors, and the women and girls would give birth to future enemy warriors.

3) Keep them captive yourself, straining food supplies, and requiring guards to watch them, meaning they can't join the war party.

4) Sell them into slavery, and use the money to buy weapons to protect your tribe from future attacks.

Also, if we view this from another perspective, wars typically start over scarce resources, like food. If there's not enough food in an area to support the population, the only two options available were for people to die (or be killed) or for them to leave (or be taken from) the area. Slavery was considered a less drastic option of removing people from the area, rather than killing them. StuRat (talk) 18:14, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I think your attempt to make this seem like a "strategic" decision overlooks much about the actual facts of the matter. The wars became wars of enslaving — not wars over scarce resources, but deliberate raids to grab slaves for selling. It was a way of making money at the expense of other people. They were not sitting around trying to come up with the most ethically optimal solution according to late-Enlightenment philosophies.

That Africans were not a united group (and some groups were perfectly happy enslaving other groups) should not come as a surprise. There are people willing to exploit others amongst all nations, all peoples, all continents. That Africa has been complicit in its own exploitation by European powers should also not be surprising; all exploitation requires large degrees of complicity. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely became systematically economic as the demand increased, but it still isn't the same as treating it as a 'neighbor selling his neighbors' kind of situation (like in modern human trafficking) that the OP posits. Slave raiding parties didn't exactly _target what they consider their 'own people'. In the same way that Norse raiders had to go viking to capture and trade slaves (with the exception of criminals).-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Disagreement over Childhood Mortality in Iraq on (Wikipedia vs Google)

Why does this childhood mortality graph on google so wildly disagree with this one on wikipedia? --CGPGrey (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Two thoughts:

1. The UNICEF data that the Wikipedia graph is supposedly based on matches the Google data almost perfectly. So it's not a dataset issue in that sense.

2. The Wikipedia graph is set to a different scale — survival out of 100%, rather than deaths per 1000. I wonder how the author calculated this difference, but it ought to be different. List of countries by infant mortality rate also gives data much more similar to the other data — a simple downward slope, no indication of a crash after sanctions.

I suspect some sort of either accidental or purposeful data manipulation, to be frank. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's actually a controversial issue and the UNICEF did release studies that confirm the Wikipedia IMR graph. There were a lot of wildly conflicting estimates of IMR from 1990, the beginning of the U.S. embargo of Iraq. Complicated by the fact that Iraq released studies that showed extremely high IMR blaming the U.S. embargo (Osama Bin Laden actually used it as propaganda). The U.S. in turn released studies that showed only a steady increase of IMR starting from Saddam's reign without the sudden spike in 1990, blaming instead Saddam and not the embargo.

The Wikipedia graph seems to be based on this particular report: Results of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Surveys. For other UNICEF (and WHO/World Bank) studies which confirm the Wikipedia graph, see:

• 2003 IRQ: Iraq Watching Briefs — Overview Report, July 2003
• Health and Welfare in Iraq after the Gulf War Crisis
• Annual mortality rates and excess deaths of children under five in Iraq, 1991-98.

It might be useful to note that the studies utilized different methods in different places, and that Iraq was actually in a civil war at that time. IMR in the Kurdish regions for example will differ significantly from IMR in Baghdad.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 04:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Strange political party in the UK from 15/20-ish years ago...

Anyone remember these guys? They were practitioners of some sort of unusual meditational technique that involved sitting in the lotus position and bouncing up and down on their backsides or making short hops back and forth while ommmming and ommmming and were of the belief that doing such generated some sort of 'good energy' that made society a better place given a sufficient concentration. They had a political party that ran in at least one general election and stated that if they got in, then they'd pass laws to get more people bouncing in the lotus position while meditating, generating enough positivity to cause violent crime rates to fall across the country and generally make people nicer to each other. Sound familiar, anyone? I remember that my mum voted for them - because she was hacked off with the mainstream parties and it was either these or the fash... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:55, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably the Natural Law Party. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Definitely sounds like it. They have a legacy website which may jog memories, especially their party election broadcasts. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that was it - thanks. Thinking about it, this yogic flying business really could cut the crime rate - if people were doing it as a pastime when ordinarily they'd be thinking about going out fighting or on the rob. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 18:56, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I remember them announcing that they would show footage of "yogic flying" during a party political broadcast. We all watched in anticipation, but in the event, it looked (to our untutored eyes) like a lot of earnest people bouncing up and down on cushions with their legs crossed. Perhaps they would have won more votes if they could actually have flown around the studio. What a missed opportunity! Alansplodge (talk) 00:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Lined paper

Is it known when lined paper was first used? And before it was "invented", would people (for example, explorers writing their experiences in their journals about finding the New World) just use regular paper to write their "adventures?" 64.229.181.189 (talk) 18:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Rules are an artifact of the printing press. Ruled paper was used in English choral practice hymn books by 1581.[1] 76.254.20.205 (talk) 19:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if before lined paper they used to place paper on top of a lined background, so the lines would show through the paper. StuRat (talk) 20:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Lines were used in medieval manuscripts. Sometimes a straight line was pressed into the page itself, and sometimes it was drawn in faintly, and in those cases the lines are often still visible. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

This article describes marking-out the pages of a vellum manuscript in the middle ages; "...the top sheet would be 'pricked out' using either a sharp knife or brad-awl. The holes would be pierced right through all the sheets. The lines would be ruled up, with a sharp instrument so that there was a slight impression left on the surface of the sheet. Each sheet would be ruled individually." Alansplodge (talk) 23:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

theoretical policies

What sorts of policies might the twenty year old son of a politician suggest after being given the task of getting young people more involved in society and such like, a sort of vague task he was set by his father as part of his hopes at improving the country any way he could. How well these ideas might work doesn't matter that much, they both get killed by goths in a few months.

85.210.120.241 (talk) 20:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Some ideas:

A) Work to lower the voting age. One argument, at least for the US, is that Senators declare war, and, in the case of a draft, that means 18-year-olds could be sent to war. Those 18-year-olds thus deserve the right to vote for or against those Senators. Since Senators have 6 year terms, that would mean they would need the right to vote from age 12, in order to be able to vote for or against any Senator that could have them drafted.

B) Form a service organization for youth, like the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps.

C) Form a committee to elect a specific candidate, and do door-to-door electioneering for that candidate. StuRat (talk) 21:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

And how does everyone know they were killed by Goths ? Were their bodies found wearing back lipstick and eyeliner ? StuRat (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Marijuana legalization. Those old fogies who run the world and are so ancient they attended Woodstock know nothing about getting high or its importance to liberating us from the shackles put on us all by The Man. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

That might actually be a good issue. Another is reform of the copyright laws. I think just about everyone who reads the warning on a DVD that threatens 5 years of prison and $250,000 fine for copying a DVD, without any financial gain, thinks that is an absurd penalty. And youths, being more likely to make illegal copies, are more likely to be affected. This has led to the formation of a Piracy Party in several nations. StuRat (talk) 21:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

One very important area of concern to you would be education. There is under funding of public schools leading to higher teacher:student ratios which hurts the students most at risk of failure the most. There is also very large barriers to a complete education in the UK, young adults must be able to come up with tens of thousands of pounds to attend post-secondary school. Education is not just about training for a job but gives many social benefits, the educated are more aware of problems and have greater critical thinking skills, so are able to be involved in solving these problems.

One idea you may like it requiring say 40hours of community service to graduate from highschool which is done in Canada. It may be small, but the first step to volunteering and taking part in one's community is the hardest step.

Large reform would be needed to make anyone sane care about politics. In the UK the majority of votes go to losing parties, which means the winners do not represent the voters. A Mixed member proportional representation is what I would go with for best results. I would also suggest that companies can no longer fund politicians as this is legal corruption, and I would also make it a crime, treason, for a politician to go against their own election platform.

I also agree with Sturat on the youth groups, to expand would be boyscouts/girlscouts. So any tax breaks/funding for this groups would be helpful. And to Sturat, I think the easier solution to the evil draft is to stop forced drafts, not increase the number of uneducated voters to new record highs. 99.235.194.16 (talk) 23:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but how exactly do you outlaw drafts, if the "representatives" are all old men who are personally unaffected by the draft, and many of the people who would be affected by the draft aren't allowed to vote against them ? Note that I also think there are rare cases where a draft is actually required to save the nation, but they tend to be overused to force people to fight in unwise and unnecessary wars. StuRat (talk) 16:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The goths killed them for forcing them to volunteer to graduate from high school

Yes, I like the idea of a broken political promise being a crime punishable by jail time. That should appeal to the idealism of youth. HiLo48 (talk) 23:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

LOL, in that case it wouldn't be the goths killing them. They'd have a full-blown state-sanctioned clean assassination.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 04:38, 4 September 2011 (UTC)