[Basilissa]

Originally Posted by Virginia D. Templeton

Blacks before slavery:

That is a very old picture indeed, given that slavery in Africa existed for millennia:

In Africa, many societies recognized slaves merely as property, but others saw them as dependents who eventually might be integrated into the families of slave owners. Still other societies allowed slaves to attain positions of military or administrative power. Most often, both slave owners and slaves were black Africans, although they were frequently of different ethnic groups. Traditionally, African slaves were bought to perform menial or domestic labor, to serve as wives or concubines, or to enhance the status of the slave owner. Traditional African practices of slavery were altered to some extent beginning in the 7th century by two non-African groups of slave traders: Arab Muslims and Europeans. [emphasis added by ed.]

In fact, slavery has been so much an accepted traditional African practice (even if "altered to some extent" by Arab and European traders) that even today - a century after slavery has been outlawed - descendants of slaves are not allowed to marry descendants of slave owners and other free Africans:

In a tragedy reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, a couple in Nigeria killed themselves earlier this month after their parents had forbidden them from marrying because one of them was a descendant of slaves.

"They're saying we can't get married... all because of an ancient belief," the note they left behind said.

The lovers, who were in their early thirties, hailed from Okija in south-eastern Anambra state, where slavery was officially abolished in the early 1900s, as in the rest of the country, by the UK, Nigeria's colonial ruler at the time.

But descendants of freed slaves among the Igbo ethnic group still inherit the status of their ancestors and they are forbidden by local culture from marrying those Igbos seen as "freeborn".

So frankly, African Americans should be thankful that their ancestors were mercifully moved to a continent where (1) slavery ended earlier than in their homeland, and (2) currently there is no prohibition of slave/free descendants intermarriage.