Christina A. Sharik

SLAVERY DAYS

Child Slaves in Ghana:Photograph 2003 by Jean-Philippe ChauzySlavery days
are not over;
for the need to own
is still strong.

No, slavery days
are not over
they’re still alive,
though we know it is wrong.

Man, born of woman,
is cruel
to other men not of
his shade ~
shame on the people
who deal in sorrow,
who keep children
alone, and afraid.

From the West Indies
so long ago,
to the country of Ghana
today
to, and fro, the slave
ships go
and no one gets
in their way.

Shame on the
dealers in misery
who propagate
sorrow and pain;
shame on the
witnesses, shore side,
who do not speak
up in His name.

PETA protests
for the dogs and the cats –
and Green Peace
will stop Japan’s whalers;

But where are the ones
in front of the ships
stopping the captain
and sailors?

Perhaps, in some other life,
I was shackled,
perhaps you were sold
away from your wife ~

No, slavery days are not over
they work, unknown, through the night;
But for God’s grace, go I also,
alone, and yearning for light.

©Copyright March 27, 2007 by Christina A. Sharik

Indian Ocean: East African slaves taken aboard the Dutch HMS Daphne from an Arab dhow, November 1, 1868

This photographs dated 1868 reveals a very little of the terrible suffering caused to millions of people by the slave trade. This group of severely emaciated boys and young men on the lower deck of a Royal Naval ship apparently have been taken from what was a slave vessel trading illegally off the African coast headed to the Persian Gulf. The captain of the Royal Naval ship had instructions not to return the rescued slaves to the place on the coast where they had been put on the slave ship (presumably because they were in danger of being recaptured by traders) but it is not clear from the available documentation what happened to them afterwards.

The Indian Ocean Slave trade evolved around the Indian Ocean basin. Slaves were taken from mainland East Africa and sold in markets in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. In contrast to the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Indian Ocean Slave Trade was much older dating back from at least the second century C.E. until the early twentieth century. For example, the oldest written document from the East Africa Coast, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, describes a small trade in slaves around the second century C.E. Notice the physical features of the Arabs.