Is it true that “the Jews financed the [Atlantic] slave trade”? Lauren Deutsch looked into the matter: “Jews Did Not Finance the Slave Trade; Here Is the Proof,” by Lauren Deutsch, Algemeiner, December 13, 2023:
…to the extent that Jewish people were involved in the transatlantic slave trade, it was not only in finance, and not even disproportionately in finance. The fact that only financing is mentioned plays into the stereotype that Jews are always behind the scenes, controlling the money. While the fact that any Jews were involved in the slave trade makes my blood run cold, it can hardly be said to constitute “the Jewish nation … financing the slave ships.”
Why do people think “the Jews” financed the slave trade? Some of the chief proponents of this idea have been Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jefferies [sic].
The Nation of Islam, under the leadership of Farrakhan, wrote a pseudo-scholarly book entitled, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, which is devoted to this topic. This book picks sources to show any Jews who were involved in the slave trade, and then carefully doesn’t mention the scale at which these people were involved — which was a tiny fraction of the whole.
The book leaves out mention of other groups involved in kidnapping, torturing, selling, and owning Black human beings, including indigenous groups in America, Black African leaders, and other ethnic and racial groups. I do not write this to excuse or minimize any involvement by anyone of any race in this horrific crime. My point is that this book takes one of the worst crimes in human history, and pins it on “the Jews” by virtue of the actions of a tiny minority of people involved.
This kind of collective scapegoating is never acceptable or moral. It is hardly surprising however, since Farrakhan is an outspoken antisemite. His list of public antisemitic remarks is too long to list here, but suffice it to say that “termites” is one of the nicer names he has for Jews.
Leonard Jefferies [sic] was a professor at the City College of New York, who in 1993 gave a now infamous lecture in which he asserted, among other things, “Everyone knows rich Jews helped finance the slave trade.” When Jefferies [sic] gave a version of this lecture at Harvard, and was questioned by a student regarding historical records that do not show Jewish ownership or control in the companies who engaged in enslaving Black people for profit, he replied that the investments were “secret.”
Because these allegations align with pre-existing antisemitic tropes about Jews (that Jews are secretly controlling everything), they reinforce what many people already believe. This makes them memorable, and credible to people who are exposed to them. It also means that people are inclined to accept them, regardless of the lack of evidence….
It is antisemitism that creates and sustains, in defiance of all the evidence, the belief that “Jews financed the slave trade.” These True Believers, like Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jeffries, are not going to be convinced by the facts of history — the actual records of these slave-trading companies that show how little involved were Jews in financing the trade. But there is another group, not pathologically haters of Jews, who simply have never been told the truth about Jewish non-involvement in such financing, and so are easy prey to falsehoods spread by the likes of Farrakhan. These people can be reached, and their minds changed, if presented with the historical evidence.
And there is something else about the slave trade in Africans that ought to be much better known in the Western world. And that is “the other slave trade” — that is, the Arab slave trade in East and Central Africa that was many times larger than the Atlantic Slave Trade conducted by the Europeans. The Arab slave trade in Africa was of a different sort than that conducted by the Europeans, who bought their slaves in West Africa. Some of the slaves were used in Arab lands, as in America, to work in agriculture and raising livestock. But there was another, very important use of African slaves unique to the Arabs. Black African boys were used as eunuchs for harems, and thus it was that the Arabs tended to seize, in the bush very young black males, and castrate them in situ, and then bring those who survived the painful operation, and the journey, by slave coffle, and by dhow, to East African ports (Pema and Zanzibar were well-known slave entrepots), to the slave markets of Arabia, where they were sold. According to Jan Hogedoorn, author of “The Hideous Trade,” an economic study of the Arab slave trade in Africa, the mortality rate for the black Africans was about 90% — that is, only 10% survived both the castration and the journey to the slave markets of Islam (Jiddah, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Constantinople). The millions seized by the Arabs over many centuries far exceeded the numbers of those bought by Europeans for the Atlantic Slave Trade. Descriptions of the Arab cruelty in their seizure of slaves may be found in works by such travelers and adventurers as Bruce, Livingstone, Burton, and many others.
There never was, and never could be, a Muslim Wilberforce. Why not? Because Muhammad owned slaves, thus legitimizing the practice for Muslims, and for all time. It doesn’t matter if he “treated them well,” as apologists for Islam suggest. He bought, sold, seized, and traded slaves, and because Muhammad is the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana), the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil), his practice, the “sunna” of the Arabs of the seventh century, can never be declared wrong. And that is why the Arabs most faithful to Islam, the Saudis, feeling fully justified in the practice, refused to abolish slavery, and finally did so only under enormous Western pressure, in 1962, when OPEC had not yet been formed, and Saudi oil revenues were not nearly as enormous. Some Arab states were even later — it was not until 1970 that slavery was abolished in Oman. A truthful historical narrative would show black people in the West that Islam has not been a liberating force for blacks against the “Western oppressor,” but instead has justified in Muslim Arab eyes their own, much more devastating traffic in African slaves.
mike says
Why do people think “the Jews” financed the slave trade? Some of the chief proponents of this idea have been Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jefferies [sic].
no surprise in the writing Farrakhan who will point the finger at others for crimes that your guilty of your self
Islam hates black and traffic blacks to the western world
Wake up to the truth
Farrakhan is Muslin and the hate runs deep in this man and of the people
C. Josef says
This on its face is preposterous. Anyone that is either Hebrew or Muslim IS a Semite! They both came from the same father, Abraham. Sorry if that upsets you but get an understanding of the Table of Nations and how and where people migrated. Facts are facts and not yours or mine but recorded history of facts.
This Semitic foolishness was started as a tool to divide people, and it has worked wonderfully because people do not investigate nor are they students of history. It doesn’t take much to find this information. Just need to look.
libertyORdeath says
I’m also in favor of including Arabs as semites.
Why not focus on the MUCH larger in scale and MUCH longer lasting Arab slave trade?
Too antisemitic?
Mick says
According to Wilfred Thesiger, the slavers in Oman (Al Burraimi oasis) were trading in Persian girls and Baluchi boys as well as blacks in the 1950s.
As he and TE Lawrence reported, slaves were able to gain positions of trust and freedom among the Bedouin. They were certainly better treated than the black slaves clearing the marshes near Basra in the 19th C..
Maybe better treated than Bengali contract labour today, on Gulf construction sites.
.
gravenimage says
Islamic slavery was *never* any kind of ideal. Slavery is one of the greatest crimes against humans, and Islam sacralizes this horror, because the “Prophet” Muhammed was a slaver and slave trader who enslaved whole tribes.
gravenimage says
The claim that considering organized hatred of Jews to be a bad thing is what is dividing people is simply grotesque. Everyone understands that antisemitism is a reference to the hatred of Jews.
Then, Islam teaches not just the hatred of Jews, but their murder and genocide. Most Muslims globally are *not* Semitic. The common link is the religion of Islam, *not* being ethnically Semitic.
Pretending, for instance, that Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jefferies are Semetic is absurd.
Barbara says
The Muslim Arabs would, in the Mediteranea Sea, capture ships and make the passengers slaves. The women would be sold to the sultans. The men worked as rowers in their galleys.
gravenimage says
+1
Transmaster says
What total crap Jew in Europe got the reputation of being bankers because unlike the mandate from Catholic Church they could charge interest on loaned money. But they were not needed to finance the slave trade. Spain and Portugal had more than enough plundered gold and silver to finance it all. Jews had a problem with getting loans repaid. The lord owing money could declare the Jew was the cause of his erectile dysfunction and if he didn’t escape he was killed. This is the reason why Jews are big in the diamond trade. A pocket full of diamonds was easy to carry when you were trying to outrun a mob. It was African Kingdoms in present day Guyana, Nigeria, Angola, and Tanzania who roved the bush tribes in the interior of the continent for slaves. The Arabic raiding parties doing this would have killed any Jews they found. This was the basis for the slave trade.
gravenimage says
All true, Transmaster.
Paul says
I wonder, was it the Jews that funded 1400 year old Islamic/Arab/African slave trade?
A trade that is still alive and thriving today!
libertyORdeath says
Yes, the jews were only minimally involved in the slave trade as a WHOLE, just as AMERICA was.
Well OVER 90% of slaves that came via the Transatlantic slave trade were sent to South America and the Carribean, NOT America.
It’s not really antisemitism at the heart of the exaggeration of Jewish involvement in slavery, but ANTI-WHITE racism. Just as it is with the exaggeration of American slavery over the much more brutal Arab or South American slave trade.
In the eyes of non-whites, Jews are just overachieving whites, just like East Asians. 99% of them have NEVER seen a non-white Arab or African Jew.
It’s the same story with the war today. They exaggerate the defensive actions of Israel to gain support from non-whites and self-hating leftists. Everything is just an excuse for anti-White racism. Which is an excuse for socialism.
Which is an excuse for communism.
Which is an excuse for globalism.
Which is an excuse for TRANSHUMANISM.
MJ Raichyk, PhD says
I think you had best rethink this ‘defense’ arguing that CLEARLY DODGES the issue claimed to be ‘the truth’ about Jewish involvement in slave trading…
Specifically the big defense was that ”involvement” was just a ‘small fraction’
….in one puny sentence of defense, then DIVERTS to attacking all sorts of other peoples to attack…
So let’s suggest the author was either lazy, math-averse, or hiding something… b/c the whole jewish population back in the 1800s was a small fraction…
So the relevant question is ”was the fraction involved in slave trading, COMPARABLY SMALL or was it OUT of PROPORTION to the size of the share of the total population…
For starters, the https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/givennames/dbdespop.htm
says that there were 2.5MILLION Jews in the world in 1800.
Whereas, the https://ourworldindata.org/population-growth-over-time
says that the world’s population in 1800 was 1 billion
So yes the percent of the world that was Jewish in 1800 is the ‘small fraction’ namely 0.25%…….
Hence we want the author to reveal her data on the percent of those with involvement in slave trading…
Weak defenses do NOT serve anyone well.
ttyl
libertyORdeath says
Well said and good references.
EVERYONE was involved in slavery. They only focus on the countries that they hope to STEAL from.
Nobody goes after Brazil, who had OVER 3 MILLION slaves delivered, compared to the 600,000 or so sent to the American colonies.
It’s MUCH more PROFITABLE to go after the US and Britain’s hard-earned wealth.
Back to the jews – YES they played an OUTSIZED role in financing the NORTH American slave trade, but so f@#king what? At the time, EVERYONE was involved in slavery in one way or another.
Why go after the financier when theres entire African tribes that made capturing slaves their SOLE economic activity? Or how about the Arabs? The Transatlantic slave trade came about via the Arabs trading slaves with the Vikings and CENTURIES of watching the Arab tricks and methods.
But nobody wants to move to Ghana or Saudi Arabia. They are not gonna give u any welfare or “protected group” status.
gravenimage says
Firstly, there were only a small percentage of Jews who had any involvement in the slave trade.
Then, the claim that Jews being a small population is irrelevant is quite false as well, because the canard is that it was Jews who funded the entire slave trade–obviously dishonest.
But MJ Raichyk is an ugly antisemite–he has also posted claiming that no Polish Jews died in tne Holocaust, and that Polish Jews murdered Polish Gentiles, then spent the war traveling around Russia exploting Russian Gentiles before decamping to Israel. Ugly and false:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/assad-no-evidence-six-million-jews-were-killed-in-holocaust-this-is-lie-developed-to-justify-creation-of-israel#comment-2506192
Mick says
White Nile’ by Empire-sceptic Alan Moorehead is a superb review of the East African slaving. Main traders: Turks, Sudanese, Egyptians, Omanis / Zanzibaris.
Exceptionally, some Bedouin of the Saudi peninsula took blacks into their families, adopted the offspring of their black concubines, and set slaves free to found their own villages. Hence the negroid features of many Western Saudis and Omanis.
Phil Copson says
This is a lie endorsed by ex-leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who denied that a mural depicting gross stereotypes of Jewish bankers engaged in financial dealings for African slaves, was anti-Semitic.and claimed that he hadn’t even noticed that the bankers were Jewish.
libertyORdeath says
Jews have the best stereotypes.
Rich
Good with money
Loyal to family and tribe
Smart/High IQ
Controlling the world
Controlling the banks
Controlling the media
Not saying it’s right, but compared to other groups, I’d take it.
James Lincoln says
libertyORdeath,
During my medical training, I encountered many excellent Jewish physicians.
I always tried to learn from them.
And I was always treated fairly, as long as I knew my stuff – and held up my end of the log.
gravenimage says
Unfortunately, libertyORdeath, these stereotypes have been used to mass murder Jews. In comparison, being stereotyped as unintelligent, unsophisticated, or lazy may in many cases be far less hazardous.
gravenimage says
Yes–Corbyn is a nasty piece of work. He is antisemitic and generally pro-Jihad.
Transmaster says
In Africa everything is blamed on “Colonialism”, in the US everything is blamed of slavery. In Africa the new Colonialism is the Chinese paying off government officials and taking over the country’s natural resources, In the USA is the Democratic party which historically were the slave owners in they have been keeping the black population of as political slaves.
Nancy Albert says
Henry M. Stanley was sent back to Africa after rescuing Livingston. What he found in the Eastern Congo was Arabs must have committed complete annihilation of villages, not just castrating the boys. They took the younger men to sell or conscript and women for harems. They slaughtered the elders then burned the dwellings and crops. Nothing would be left but very telling different vegetation; opportunistic vines, brambles and intractably dense immature woods, according to his records.
John Archer says
Practically all religions have human angle to them, but a religion that rewards you for lying and willfully deceiving people is horrific.
Islam is the worst ideology that has bedeviled the human race.
I wish the evil prophet of Islam had been aborted by his mother whilst still in her womb!
Rob Polans says
Were Jews even around?
gravenimage says
Rob, there were some Jews in the US during the antebellum period, yes. But they were such a small number they had very little influence.
For instance, the last year of the US slave trade was 1808. In 1800 the entire Jewish population in the United States was estimated at just 2,500 (.04 percent of total population).
How many of these Jews were financing the slave trade? A handful of Jews had interests in slave trading ships–that was the entire extent of it. No Jews owned slave trading ships, shipping companies, or any slave markets. As for slave owning, a few Jews in the South had a few household slaves. No Jews owned large plantations. Jewish involvement in the slave tradde was minimal.
gravenimage says
It is Antisemitism That Sustains, In Defiance of the Evidence, the Belief that ‘Jews Financed the Slave Trade’
……………………………….
Important piece from Hugh FItzgerald. This has long been a vicious canard.