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Slavery And The Slavery Of Slavery Essay

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There has been an ongoing debate on whether Christianity condoned or condemned slavery. In this essay, I will discuss how slave owners used biblical context to uphold the institution of slavery. I will begin analyzing scriptures in the bible that pertain to slavery. It is in my belief that the Bible did not condone slavery in the way that slave owners upheld slavery. I do not argue against that there were not slaves by bondage but they were not enslaved against their will but through the will of God. Before I begin dissecting any arguments or scriptures I must tell how the people of Africa lived before the slave trade and how the African people became enslaved through the Atlantic slave trade.
It was in 1441 that the Europeans began trading slaves from Africa to Portugal. The Portuguese would eventually dominate the gold, spice and slave trade for almost a century before any other nations became greatly involved. African societies played a key role in the slave trade. Slavery was very common amongst the different ethnicities in Africa. In Africa, there were three types of slaves, those who were slaves through conquest, those who were slaves due to unpaid, debts, or those whose parents gave them as slaves to tribal chiefs. The tribal chiefs would then trade their slaves to Europeans in return for rum spices and cloth. Many people question why would other Africans would sell other Africans into slavery. The answer is ethnocentrism. Many african tribes did not view other

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