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introduction
In human history, there was slavery, and even after the Age of Discovery, the black slave trade once became one of the mainstream of maritime trade. However, according to common sense, these slaves should be extinct, after all, slave owners often do not care about their lives.
But what we can see is that slaves in many countries have multiplied from generation to generation, and the two most typical examples are black people in the United States, and Dalits in India.
So why do these slaves insist on reproduction when their lives are already so difficult?
(Black Slaves and Children)
1. Blacks in Africa and Dalits in India
Everyone knows that slaves are a very miserable social class, whether it is a slave in the Shang and Zhou dynasties on the mainland, or other countries that established a slave system, slaves cannot even be regarded as people, just commodities and tools.
(Black Slave)
Let's start with Dalits. Dalits were called "untouchables", and in ancient India they were generally engaged in various "unclean trades", such as washing clothes, sweeping the streets, or helping other higher classes to engage in agricultural production.
Even when Dalit walks on the streets, he cannot step on the shadow of a person of a higher class than him, because this is considered a disgrace and defilement by the brahmins who represent the mouth of Brahma.
But even with such hardship, the Dalit community continues to this day. According to statistics, there are more than 100 million descendants of Dalits in India's current population. You know, for thousands of years, they Dalits were oppressed by Brahmins and Kshatriyas.
(slave)
With Dalits out of the way, let's talk about the blacks who were trafficked to the Americas. Some farmers in the United States have no moral bottom line, they will use slaves as livestock, and when they die, they will spend money to buy a batch, but now there are tens of millions of blacks living in the United States.
(Black Slave)
From the examples of Dalits and blacks, it can be seen that they are still trying to reproduce their offspring in such a harsh living environment, and even let their own group grow step by step.
So what is it that gives them the motivation to reproduce? There are three reasons: physical, economic, and spiritual.
(Slave Owners and Black Slaves)
2. It is human instinct to reproduce
In ancient nature, there were many creatures that were stronger than us, such as dinosaurs in history, so our ancestors of human beings also passed through the days of being hunted by other animals. So in order to continue our own race, we must continue to reproduce, and over time, the reproduction will be integrated into the human genes.
(Reproduction is a biological instinct)
Even if human beings have now become the spirit of the earth and become the dominant race of the earth, this does not mean that the instinct to reproduce has receded from the genes of human beings.
In fact, modern human civilization is only a few thousand years old, but our instinct to reproduce and expand our ethnic groups has been passed down for tens of thousands of years.
(Human Ancestors)
3. Slaves are a commodity in their own right
And another reason why slaves will continue to reproduce is that those slave owners have been encouraged to reproduce for a long time, because it is an option that is in their own economic interests.
Friends who are familiar with history should know that the most important reason why European and American colonists would abduct black slaves from Africa to the Americas is that the Americas are vast and sparsely populated, and many European colonists have their own land and farms here, but there is a lack of manpower to cultivate them.
(Black Slave)
And those black slaves who lagged far behind the West in terms of cultural level, and were strong and obedient, became the first choice of these farmers. At the height of the slave trade, a high-quality black slave could fetch tens of dollars in the slave markets of the Americas.
But the slave market in the Americas could not be met by privateers alone. So over time, some farmers had the idea that if they could raise cattle, sheep, and chickens, why couldn't they raise black slaves?
(Black Slave)
Although the cycle of raising black slaves was a little longer, it was enough for those farmers to have enough agricultural output on their own farms. Even if a black slave under his command gave birth to a child, it was just an extra meal.
And the black slaves who were raised from childhood to adulthood did not have the wildness of their parents. Many of their parents were taken directly from Africa, and their generation must have rebelled. But these black slaves, who grew up on farms, had no idea how their ancestors lived. And in childhood, he had long been Xi to being slaves to others, so these slaves were much more obedient than the first generation of black slaves.
(Young slaves sold)
As a result, at that time in the Americas, many farmers raised black slaves as pigs, cattle and sheep. After raising it, see if you will continue to be a black slave for yourself or sell it, and you won't lose money anyway.
(Sold slaves)
4. Human beings are a race that will constantly pursue hope and light
The last reason why the two slave groups of Dalits and blacks have survived to this day is that people have a natural nature to seek hope and light.
It was true that Dalits and black Americans at that time were having a miserable time, but their will was also very tenacious, because they themselves lived at the bottom of society. Even to put it mildly, they have nothing left to lose, and reproduction is already the only right they have left.
(Descendants of Dalits)
I am afraid that in the eyes of these slaves, they themselves may not be regarded as human beings for the rest of their lives. But as long as they are willing to work hard and continue to reproduce, there is hope that one day they can change all this and let their descendants be upright people. Even if this hope is slim, they are willing to pursue it.
After all, our race did not dominate the planet in the first place, and as I said above, human beings were not physically superior, and we were the food of all kinds of top predators at that time.
But in the end, human beings have come to this day step by step in such a harsh environment and become the race that dominates the earth, isn't it because we have the will to persevere? And the slaves of ancient times may be the race that inherited the will of the most ancients.
In the end, the development of events also proved that their persistence was useful, and both Dalits and blacks now had their place.
(Successful Negro)
In India, their government legally abolished the caste system, and Dalits were finally able to live in the light. And black people in the United States have become one of the mainstream ethnic groups, and they are all citizens of the country recognized by the US Constitution.
Of course, there are various problems in India and the United States, such as the caste system is still alive in the hearts of many Indians, and racism and discrimination still exist in the United States. But now the black Americans and Dalits, they have indeed taken a big step on the road to real freedom and dawn.
Resources:
Renard Dewanen, Ji Jianguo.Black Slave Breeding Farm[M].Hebei People's Publishing House,1988.