Slavery, the Unholy Binding
Slavery is unnatural. He who enslaves binds the spirit of the enslaved. Every binding of the spirit is a crime against the spirit.
SLAVERY! What an act of man’s inhumanity to man! Cruel, inhumane, dastardly and atrocious to say the least. Glaringly, the physical damage inflicted by this atrocity on humanity stares us all in the face, but the spiritual damage reaches far beyond what the eyes can see.
Through the ages, some elements of slavery have been recorded among different groups of peoples. Historian David Eltis, a leading contributor to the study of Transatlantic Slave Trade says that almost all peoples have been slaves and slaveholders at some point in their histories. (The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas; David Eltis).
The Mesopotamian kingdom of Babylon was noted in history with practices of slavery under the reign of Hammurabi (1792 to 1750BC). Babylonian slaves were noted to be either captives of warfare or commoners who fell into debt, couldn’t pay up and were enslaved by creditors until they pay up. Some were also noted, born into slavery. In many cases slavery was a temporary phase of life in Babylon.
In the Central and West African societies, inter-tribal wars were commonly associated with slavery. Victors in these wars often enslave captives as prisoners of war. Yes, they were enslaved but never articles of war for sale. They were mostly held for labor needs and treated with humane feelings.
Yes, slavery may have existed among many groups of people but never slave trade to the extent of the Transatlantic Slave Trade which surpassed all in terms of scale, legality, and commercialization.
Evil left uncurbed, draws strength from without and within to become a multi-headed monster.
What started in bits and pieces in different parts of the world became a hydra first in the hands of the Portuguese slave traders, then in the hands of Europeans and readily found receptive soil in slave labor in the Americas. Thus it became a monster, globally encircling all peoples especially West Africans with its poisonous fangs.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade which was just a segment of the global slave trade was recorded to have transported between ten to twelve million enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas from 16th to the 19th century.
To say that the conditions on the slave ships and the slave farms were inhumane is a gross understatement. One reads with pains of long lines of human beings in shackles.
With a bleeding heart, one also sees images of shackled human beings, being matched on to rickety slaves’ ships and thrown in hundreds into dark dungeons.. Here the enslaved had no choice but to discharge their waste; feces, urine and all into same dungeon. No doubt, in this condition only the fittest can survive the long, hazardous month-long journey to which they were subjected. The sick, the dying and the dead we read were often thrown overboard.
On the slave farms, one read that slaves’ lips were often drilled with super-heated iron rods and then padlocked so that they would not be able to eat of the farm products, principally sugar cane. How in the world did the human mind contrive such level of wickedness as this? Not to speak of executing these atrocities on other human beings?
To say that slave traders thought of the slaves as less of human can never adequately paint a picture of their state of mind. It beats one’s imagination.
How in the world can one describe the state of mind of a group of people, storming the abode of another group of people, encircling them as a hunter encircles animals and capturing them?
What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder:
Slave Traders expressly broke this All Holy Directive from On High. It’s not for nothing that we were given this Divine Law. A lot is tied to it, simple as it seems.
Slave traders forcefully broke families. Marriages made in heaven; couples meant to sojourn on earth side by side for their development and be a source of blessings to humanity through their union and their offspring, were forcefully torn apart. They were deprived of harmonious co-existence and blessings that automatically come through such.
Human beings were forcibly uprooted from their places of birth, their homeland where they were hitherto fully adapted to the prevailing conditions, food, weather and most importantly, the radiation of the soil. They were forced on to strange lands. Here they were compelled to live under strange conditions, eat foods that are alien to their bodies and be subjected to alien soil radiations. This cannot but affect their physical and spiritual development. It cannot but impede the blossoming of their personalities, talents, abilities etc, and ultimately shortens their earth-life.
Take heed, do not bind so that you may not be in bondage.
Slavery is unnatural. He who enslaves binds the spirit of the enslaved. Every binding of the spirit is a crime against the spirit.
The Free Will is an intrinsic part of the human spirit. It cannot be suppressed without force. Thus submission is alien to the human spirit. For this reason, submission had to be drilled into slaves. But no human being has the right to suppress another’s Free Will. Where this is done, there can be no love nor harmony. Thus, there can never be genuine harmony in the co-existence of slaves and their supposed masters.
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
He who enslaves cannot but face the consequences of binding. This naturally goes beyond the earth life in which he committed the atrocity. During an earth life, one may be under the protection of earthly laws but upon passing into the beyond, one is automatically subject to higher laws, which know of no earthly protection. They are just, precise and swing perfectly in the Will of the Almighty.
What about the pains, anguish, death, etc caused by participants of slave trade? Have their earthly deaths atoned for these? Clearly Not. In accordance with the immutable and perfect Justice of the Almighty, much await them.
In the infinite Wisdom of the Almighty, there is no group of people on earth today that had never been sent a leader, to guide and lead; None of these true leaders, be he Zoroaster in Iran, Lao Tse in China, Krishna, Buddha, Oduduwa etc. ever taught or encouraged slavery or slave trade. And then came the Word in Flesh, the Personification of the Love of the Almighty; Jesus Christ, Who expressly taught that we are all equal before God Almighty. Whether the slave traders were aware of this or not matters not.
The Mills of the Almighty grind slowly but grinds exceedingly fine.
©Leo
