The boys drink and review an Irish Cream Stout from Southern Tier, then discuss slavery around the world and throughout history.
From the earliest records of mankind there has been slavery. From Hammurabi, the Bible, Aristotle, records from Egypt — slavery was assumed to be a part of life. The Bible didn’t outlaw slavery, but it set limits on it. Later, we see a similar pattern in the Koran.
Slavery continues into the Roman Empire, where we see several different types of slaves, from gladiators, galley slaves, and miners, to easier roles like body slaves, household slaves, and even slaves who ran businesses. You might have become a slave from debt or from committing a crime. Slaves might have made up as much as 30 percent of the population.
The “slavs” are so called because so many of them were forced into slavery. American Indians had slaves. Europeans, Africans, and Asians all enslaved one another. Vikings took slaves. Everybody everywhere took slaves.
The whole concept is brutal and unthinkable to a modern man, but in a world where life was nasty, brutish, and short, sometimes slavery was better than the alternative.
The first U.S. war was fought against the Barbary pirates, who were capturing and enslaving Americans and Europeans.
Up until about 300 years ago, almost nobody questioned slavery.
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