Barbary Pirates

A natural extension of these semantics would lead one to the Berbers being named after the Barbar captors that brought them to North Africa.

I was curious how the “white” slave trade of the Barbary Pirates compared to that of African slavery. The number of African slaves was far greater but I was surprised to learn that only roughly 388,000 (about 6%) of the estimated 12.5 million taken came to North America. The narrative we are taught in the United States is that this country was a primary importer of slaves. Where did most go? The Carribbean and South America. Over 90% were taken to locations in the islands, Mexico and South America.

In my mind it makes the solidarity of people based on skin color in this country a really interesting phenomenon because that means those of African descent are aligning with people who may come from a place or culture that imported millions of African slaves. If this were viewed through a wider lens of history, rather than skin color, there would also be an immigrant vs. non-immigrant discussion/perspective for BIPOC, as well as the understanding of how Mexican and South American peoples were huge players in the African slave trade-to a far larger extent than the United States or its former colonies and how all of this relates to indigenous populations but also the sense of displacement for slaves, immigrants, etc of all colors. And then, of course, the continued dialog about the issue of color in the United States and how that relates to opportunity, advancement and treatment. But this information also gives some context an ex told me about California high schools. He explained that white people are the minority and that in school the black kids (he identified as black or mixed) would fight the Latino kids over turf and other issues.