John Thornton makes some enlightening claims in his article on “Slavery and the African Social Structure.” It is easy for me to view all forms of slavery as a racial issue, which makes it difficult to understand how Africans helped support the slave trade with the Portuguese. Despite the fact that they would sell slaves from other tribes, to subject another human being to such treatment and willingly help perpetuate the practice is difficult to fathom. Thornton claims that the European view of slavery and the African view of slavery differed a great deal. In Africa, much like in the native cultures of South and Latin America slaves were captured enemies, usually the result of war, but in Africa slaves were also the main source of wealth. Individuals could not buy land in the sense that we understand so “their only recourse was to purchase slaves, which as their personal property could be inherited and generate wealth for them.” It was not a matter of the color of their skin and inferior intellectual or moral abilities but a means to gain wealth and subdue one’s enemies. Although the idea of owning another human being, whatever the reason is a disgusting and humiliating experience, the slave trade started by the Portuguese and practiced in the “New World” was something else entirely.
A white Portuguese doctor documented the treatment and suffering of slaves in Africa before they even reached Brazil. He wrote “only the imagination can give an idea of the treatment that the slaves suffer when they are put in those libambo,” which was a chain that bound the slaves. He writes of their horrible treatment, lack of proper nourishment and water, and the fact that their “human nature is entirely overlooked.” However among the slaves he notices “charitable and obliging qualities which are not seen among the backlanders or any other free people. Though ten to twelve thousand may reach the coast, only six to seven thousand are taken to Brazil.
Despite racists overtones the lack of humanity and appalling treatment of the Africans was noted by several prominent white members of the community once the slaves that survived reached Brazil. One clergyman describes the scene at the slave market at Valongo in Rio de Janeiro. He likens the process to that of a “butcher feeling a calf,” with no other thought the physical capabilities and profit the slave can bring. The slaves were bought and sold with no regard to the fact that these men and women were human beings. Some went to work on plantations, others to be domestic slaves, or trained in some occupation in town, but there were some women who experienced a different fate. Slave prostitutes in Brazil were a common place commodity, even though technically attempts were made to impede the practice. Anything that could be done to demoralize or present the slave as subhuman was done. Slaves were renamed with Christian names upon arrival; women were hired out as wet nurses and subject to the every whim of their master, and human beings were treated as livestock. The wealth Spain gained from their new colonies was built on the backs of the people they conquered and the abhorrent practice of slavery.
Not trying to justify it at all, I will say that slavery was simply an aspect of life during these times. There was no concept that a person should be treated a certain way “because they are human” like there is today. In modern times, it is seen as wrong for a country to invade another country simply to expand their territory, yet for much of the world’s history such a practice did not inspire any moral considerations. Slavery is much the same way, and only in the last couple of centuries has much of the world accepted the idea that to treat a human being a certain way is “morally wrong” and thus should not be done. I remember reading in a History of the Middle East class last semester how slavery to them was “an unfortunate but common experience”. The African slaves certainly wouldn’t have looked upon their unfortunate fate as slaves as something new or uncommon. I don’t really think you’re trying to make a statement about the lack of humanity of the Portuguese, though, I think you’re simply expounding upon what Thornton said.
On the flip side, these slaves were converted or said to have been saved from an immoral land to Christianity. This shows that they did view them as humans because they did not convert cattle or other non-human things. I believe they did this to appease their own consciences for slavery. (not that they had much guilt, just maybe to cover any chance of a twinge of remorse for the slaves)