Slavery has been a dark side of human existence since the beginning of time… it is still ongoing on so many levels across the world...

“Democracy” itself was based on slavery… without slavery, ancient Greeks such as Athenians could not practice democracy which allowed about 20% of the people (free men born in that city-state) to participate…

As for America, the first documented slave is considered to be a black man named John Punch...

Curiously, there are claims that John Punch is an ancestor of both the first African American winner of Noble Peace Prize, Ralph Bunche, as well as the first African American president, Barack Hussein Obama II (who was also awarded the Noble Peace Prize during his first year in office)...

The first legal slave in America is considered to be a black man named John Casor, who was owned by a wealthy black landowner Anthony Johnson... Johnson went to court to legally enslave Casor... the slave owner Anthony Johnson himself arrived in the New World as indentured servant via having been sold to Arab Muslim slave traders in the first instance... there are claims that slave owner Anthony Johnson is viewed as "the black patriarch" to some capacity for African American communities...

On this day -- May 30, 1854 -- the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress permitting inhabitants of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether or not to allow slavery within their borders...

According to Heuman and Burnard’s “The Routledge History of Slavery” (2011), between 10th-13th centuries the majority of slaves in West Asia (“Middle East”) were Circassians, Central Asians, and Africans until early 20th century when slaves also constituted of Iranians, West Indians, Indonesians, and Chinese. In 17th century, based on earlier scholarly works, Berber intellectual Ahmad Baba wrote that Muslims should never be enslaved and it is illegal for Muslims to sell slaves to non-Muslims…

Ahmad Baba claimed “…the reason for slavery is non-belief [in Islam] and the Sudanese non-believers are like other kafir whether they are Christians, Jews, Persians, Berbers, or any others who stick to non-belief and do not embrace Islam…. This means there is no difference between all the kafir in this respect. Whoever is captured in a condition of non-belief, it is legal to own him, whosoever he may be, but not if he was converted to Islam voluntarily…”

Interesting to note that in 17th c. Islam was considered foreign to Iranians and not part of their native identity and culture… hence, Iranians could be enslaved by Muslims…

Although Heuman & Burnard (2011) stated that the Iranian slaves came from Makran coast... one may wonder if it was not just restricted to that area and whether given Ahmad Baba's remarks about Iranian enslavement, the Safavid rulers of 17th c. Iran began brutal conversions to Shiite Islam to reduce Iranian slavery by Muslims while keeping them away from religious sympathies with Sunni Muslim Ottoman Empire?  Just a thought...

[pic Britannica: for educational purposes only]