Slave trade

From the mid-15th century to the end of the 19th century, in order to provide labor for colonial plantations and mines in the Americas, Western colonialist countries abducted large numbers of black people from black Africa and trafficked them to the Americas and other places. This is bloody of the African slave trade. Since the slave trade was mainly carried out on the east and west sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Western countries generally call it the "Atlantic Slave Trade". The slave trade lasted for four centuries, costing hundreds of millions of Africans their lives, and had an extremely serious impact on Africa's political, economic and cultural development. It was the darkest period in African history. The slave trade brought huge profits to Western European capitalists and became an important source of primitive accumulation of capital.

In African history, the slave trade appeared very early. The book "Return to the Red Sea" written in the 1st century AD contains records about slaves from the Horn of Africa (today's Somalia). At the end of the 7th century, after the Arabs entered North Africa, they also trafficked captured black people to Arab countries, Persia, India, Indonesia and other places. In Europe, the Spanish already traded black slaves brought from North Africa in the 14th century, and then the Portuguese also started this trade. At the beginning of the 15th century, some Dacheng cities in Spain and Portugal had slave markets that specialized in selling black people. Since the mid-15th century, Africa has been continuously plundered by European colonists, and the slave trade was only an incidental trading activity. After C. Columbus discovered America at the end of the 15th century, the slave trade developed rapidly. European colonists carried out organized large-scale black trafficking activities on the African continent, which brought deep suffering to Africa.

The three stages of the slave trade The slave trade on both sides of the Atlantic has generally gone through three stages of development:

1. The first stage: from the mid-15th century to the 17th century Mid-century. Trade at this stage was mainly monopolized by countries such as Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese navigator Henry encouraged sailors to sail from north to south along the west coast of Africa in order to explore the sea route to the East and search for sources of gold and spices. In 1441, the Portuguese A. Gonsalves led a ship along the west coast of Africa and sailed south around Cape Brown, where he took 10 black people back to Europe. From then on, Portugal often sent some ships to the coast of West Africa to carry out plunder. In 1482, they established the earliest slave trading stronghold in the city of Elmina in Ghana. Soon, they carried out colonial development on the island of Sao Tome and Principe, establishing and expanding sugar cane plantations. At that time, they kidnapped not many black people, about 1,000. In the 16th century, with Columbus's discovery of the New World, Spain established a huge colonial empire in the West Indies and the American continent. During its conquest of the New World, Spain killed a large number of Indians and was in urgent need of cheap labor to develop its colonies, so it openly encouraged the importation of slaves from Africa. In 1510, the first group of African black Africans (about 250 people) were brought to the island of Hispaniola in the West Indies. Since then, the scale of the black slave trade has grown. In the mid-16th century, the west coast of Africa exported 10,000 slaves every year. Portugal, like the Spanish, continued to traffic African slaves to Brazil. The 16th century was an era when Spain and Portugal dominated the seas. The slave trade brought them huge wealth, so other European countries also competed to get involved. Britain, the Netherlands and France tried to break the monopoly of Spain and Portugal. In 1588, the Spanish "Invincible Fleet" was annihilated by the British, and the maritime superiority of Spain and Portugal plummeted. The Netherlands took the opportunity to take its place. The Netherlands has been Portugal's largest middleman in trade with Europe since the 16th century, and is known as the "sea coachman". At the end of the 16th century, the Netherlands seized Portugal's important trading strongholds and military locations in Africa. Then, it established the Dutch Guinea Company, the West India Company, the East India Company, etc., and seized the trade monopoly on the west coast of Africa. By the mid-17th century, the Netherlands had almost a monopoly on the maritime slave trade.

2. The second stage: from the mid-17th century to the second half of the 18th century, it was the climax period of the Atlantic slave trade. At this time, the slave trade developed rapidly and became the largest and most profitable industry in the world. Slaves became the "single crop" that black Africa could export, and the slave trade became the only trading activity between Africa, Europe and the Americas. In addition to Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands, countries participating in the slave trade include the United Kingdom, France, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, and Brazil. They hunted black slaves in large numbers not only on the coast of West Africa, but also in the interior of Africa and the coast of East Africa. By the mid-1880s, the average number of black slaves exported from Africa was nearly 100,000 per year.

European colonists organically connected the trade between Africa, Europe and the Americas, which became the popular triangular trade at that time. The triangular trade consists of three voyages: the first voyage is from the ports of European countries to the Atlantic coast of western Africa. Europeans exchanged cheap manufactured goods such as wine, arms, cotton fabrics, and various decorations for slaves, or obtained slaves through various unfair means; the second voyage was to transport slaves from Africa to various parts of the Americas, along with other Exchange of minerals and agricultural products; the last voyage is from the Americas back to Europe, where the industrial raw materials and plantation agricultural products brought from the Americas are sold in the European market.

3. The third stage: From the second half of the 18th century to the second half of the 19th century, the Atlantic slave trade gradually declined. At the end of the 18th century, the abolition movement flourished in Europe.

The United Kingdom passed a law banning the slave trade in 1807, and other countries also announced bans one after another. However, the desire to pursue huge profits prevented the slave trade from actually ending, and the smuggling trade became rampant. Since the first half of the 19th century, the United States has become the main country selling black slaves. On the east coast of Africa, the Arab slave trade was also particularly active at this time. The trade centers are mainly in Zanzibar and Pemba. From there, large numbers of black Africans were trafficked to countries along the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and then to the West Indies and the American continent. At the same time, slave traders from Portugal, the Netherlands, France and the United States also came to the east coast to sell black Africans. In the 1850s, black Africans exported more than 50,000 slaves to Cuba, Brazil and other places every year. In the second half of the 19th century, the slave trade was basically stopped, but it did not finally disappear. Sporadic trafficking activities continued until the end of the 19th century and even the beginning of the 20th century.

The origin and encounter of slaves European colonialists generally used cheap European industrial products and gunpowder weapons as bait to bribe some African kings and chiefs, and used inter-tribal wars to plunder slaves. Sometimes slaves were captured directly by surprise attacks. Before being trafficked to the Americas, plundered slaves generally had to go through three stages: being transported from the interior to coastal concentration centers; being selected by slave traders at the concentration centers; and being transferred on slave ships. Slaves were usually transported a long distance from the inland to coastal concentration areas. In order to prevent the slaves from escaping, slave traders put heavy shackles on the slaves. Sometimes there were iron chains to tie the slaves together, and some slave traders let them Slaves carried commodities weighing dozens of kilograms, such as ivory, animal skins, sorghum, honey, etc. When they could not find suitable products, they were even asked to carry a large stone or a bag of sand on their backs. The final stage was loading the slave ship. The journey from the Niger Delta to the West Indies takes seven or eight weeks with favorable winds. Slaves were crowded into stuffy cabins, with poor sanitary conditions and various infectious diseases spreading widely. Once they were found to be sick, they were immediately thrown into the sea, resulting in many deaths.

The resistance of the African people As the scale of the slave trade continues to expand, the resistance of the Africans has become more intense. In the early 16th century, King Alfonso I of the Congo wrote a letter to King John III of Portugal, condemning Portugal for engaging in slave trading. Queen Sisinga of Congo County and her father tried to prevent the Portuguese from selling slaves there. Slaves resisted most violently at sea. On slave ships from Africa to America, slaves continued to riot in order to escape their inhuman conditions. They would rather die than be slaves. When they had no choice but to fight with their bare hands, they often chose to commit suicide by jumping into the sea or embarking on a hunger strike. For example, in 1807, two ships of slaves died on hunger strike in Charleston Harbor in the United States.

The Abolition of the Slave Trade. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the slave trade was condemned by European Enlightenment thinkers such as J. Locke, C. Montesquieu and Voltaire. Quakers, evangelicals and other religions Groups have also criticized its anti-religious and barbaric nature. In the second half of the 18th century, under the influence of the North American War of Independence and the French Revolution, opposition to the slave trade and calls for the abolition of the slavery system converged to form a magnificent abolitionist movement. Some of the people who participated in this movement came from a humanitarian perspective, but some also came from an economic perspective. The latter believed that the plantations' frequent riots and excessive mortality had brought huge losses to the social economy.

In order to effectively stop the slave trade, Britain sent its navy to patrol the sea. Beginning in the 1830s, Britain signed agreements with major European slave-trading countries, such as France, Spain, and Portugal, stipulating that ships suspected of carrying slaves could be intercepted and inspected to punish merchants engaged in the slave trade. In 1862, the United States agreed to sign this agreement. In the 1880s, Cuba and Brazil, which imported the largest number of slaves in the Americas, also announced laws banning the slave trade and emancipating slaves. At the Berlin Conference in 1885 and the Brussels International Conference in 1890, Western countries passed general resolutions against the slave trade. In this way, the four-century world slave trade, which had caused immeasurable losses to Africa, was gradually abolished.

Through years of unremitting efforts, the brave South African people completely buried the apartheid system in the 1990s, which marked a great victory for the African people in their long-term struggle against racism. At the beginning of the new century, we gathered in South Africa, which has a glorious tradition of fighting racism, to discuss and formulate anti-racism strategies and measures, which has important symbolic and historical significance.

Colonialism, foreign aggression, the slave trade and the apartheid system are all typical manifestations of racism, which have brought serious disasters to the countries and peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America in history. In Asia, innocent people have been ravaged by colonialism and foreign aggression. From the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, no birthplace of ancient human civilization has been spared. In Africa, the iron hoof of colonialism has trampled on almost every inch of land, and the slave trade has written the darkest page in human history with the blood and tears of countless African sons and daughters. In America, the discovery of the New World broke the simple and peaceful life of the indigenous people. A large number of Indians were massacred and the land they relied on for survival was almost deprived of all.

However, light will definitely defeat darkness, and justice will definitely defeat evil.

Through the long-term and arduous struggle of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America and the concerted efforts of the international community, nearly a hundred countries broke away from the rule of colonialism and achieved national liberation and independence. After the establishment of the United Nations, it launched three consecutive decades of activities to combat racism and adopted important documents such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which greatly promoted the process of combating racism on a global scale.

But we must be soberly aware that the fight against racism still has a long way to go. The remnants of the old racism remain, and many countries are still facing poverty and war; new forms of racism continue to develop, and various xenophobia, xenophobia, discrimination against immigrant workers, and racial violence occur frequently; neo-fascism and neo-Nazism are also prevalent in some countries. Looked up. These are all contempt and trampling on human equality and dignity, and a blatant challenge to world peace and development. In addition, in the Middle East, racial hatred and bloody conflicts are still intensifying, and the Palestinian people are still deprived of their legitimate rights and interests. The international community should express its attitude towards this. The convening of this conference is very timely and necessary. It will help humanity develop effective measures to combat and ultimately eradicate racism as we enter the new millennium. I would like to take this opportunity to put forward the following three propositions:

1. Face up to history and eradicate the roots of old and new racism

Colonialism, foreign aggression, the slave trade, and apartheid have given countless lives This family has brought great suffering and humiliation, and it is a heinous crime that is deeply abhorred by all mankind. History cannot repeat itself and tragedy must be avoided. Countries that have invaded, colonized and enslaved countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other countries should fully face history and learn lessons. The international community should take effective measures to eradicate the roots of old and new racism, create a harmonious and peaceful home for people of different races, genders, languages ??or religions on the earth, and create a beautiful and brilliant future.

2. Equality and mutual respect, and enhance mutual understanding through dialogue

The world is rich and colorful. Different races and different civilizations are basic characteristics of human society and a reflection of the diversity of the world. China's ancestors have always advocated "tolerance is great" and "harmony is precious". Humanity has entered the 21st century. On this land where we all live together, society needs progress and people need peace. To this end, racial superiority and inferiority must be eliminated, national grievances must be resolved, and swords must be turned into plowshares. Countries, regardless of size, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all equal members of the international family. They should respect each other, live in good neighborliness and live in peace in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the universally recognized norms of international law. People of all ethnic groups should enhance understanding, learn from each other and jointly carry forward the essence of human civilization through dialogue.

3. Promote cooperation and promote the common development of all countries in the world

Economic globalization is developing rapidly. On the road to development, the vast number of countries and peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America must not only eliminate the negative effects of colonialism and racism in history, but also face the challenge of the ever-widening "digital divide". Under this situation, the international community, especially developed countries, have the responsibility and obligation to help developing countries get out of their predicament as soon as possible. The World Conference against Racism should be committed to promoting international cooperation and promoting the early establishment of a just and reasonable new international political and economic order, so that all countries in the world can benefit from the process of multipolarity and globalization, and ultimately promote peace and peace for all mankind. Development and prosperity.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to this conference and actively participated in various preparatory work for the conference. In response to the call of the United Nations and to raise the awareness of all sectors of society on today's racist issues, the Chinese government held a seminar on "The Internet and the Spread of Racist Speeches" in Beijing in July this year. Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan sent a congratulatory letter to the meeting, calling on the international community to pay attention to the serious harm caused by the spread of racist remarks on the Internet. The meeting believed that all countries should strengthen education for all, raise citizens' awareness of anti-racism, and improve relevant legislation in various countries to effectively curb the spread of racist remarks on the Internet. We hope that relevant parties in the United Nations can make full use of relevant resources to carry out research on the above topics and promote effective international cooperation.

“We are all brothers within the four seas”, this is an ancient saying left by our ancestors. We come from all over the world, with different races and different skin colors, but our genomes are similar, and our ideals of pursuing equality, happiness, and peace are the same. Let us take the Anti-Racism Conference as an opportunity to abandon arrogance and prejudice, deeply reflect on history and current situation, formulate effective measures, completely eradicate racism, a cancer of human society, and jointly create an era of equality, harmony, harmony and A prosperous world. (

On November 9, 1966, the 21st United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution designating March 21 each year as the "International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination". This is to commemorate March 21, 1960 It was determined by the Sharpeville Massacre in Japan and against racial discrimination. On March 21, 1960, Africans in the town of Sharpeville in the Transvaal Province of South Africa held a large-scale demonstration against the South African authorities. The Pass Law promotes racial discrimination. The Pass Law is one of hundreds of racial discrimination laws promulgated by the South African authorities. It stipulates that non-whites over the age of 16 must carry a pass with them. Those with incomplete documents will be arrested at any time. The demonstrators were brutally suppressed by the South African authorities. More than 70 people were shot dead and more than 240 people were injured, resulting in a tragedy that shocked the world.