The most ironic part of this movie, was when the American just arrived to Arabia and was staring at the black slaves like he couldnt believe what he was seeing, then the Arabian guy says:
'Whats the matter, havent you seen slaves before?'
I mean come on now, that was just too much there, America was the biggest slave trader in the world right about that time, but i guess such barbarism could only practiced by the Arabs.
He said haven't you seen a slave market? Thankfully, by 1890 those were hard to come by in America.
And remember, "It's the Movies, Rita."
At that time there is no slavery in the US anymore. Frank Hopkins was born in 1866, so after slavery was officially abolished in the states.
shareBone up on your history there Dare.......America had ended thier role in the slave trade way before Frank was born. Slave markets and bringing in new slaves was outlawed in the US in 1808, almost 80 years before these events. Slavery in America as a whole ended in 1865, unless you consider Wal-mart, but thats a different story.
Still he must have been familiarized with the idea of black people as slaves and also it took decades for the problem of racial segregation to be solved (for example i watched a documentarie on Discovery according to which when the Pentagon was build it had separate toilets for black and white people). So he shouldn`t have been that surprised when he saw the black slaves.
sharewell, they did portray the Wounded Knee Massacre pretty brutally in this movie, so I wouldn't say that they're sainting America. If his character was 30ish it's perfectly plausible that he doesn't have clear memories of the slave trade, so I think it's a reasonable statement.
"I drank what?!?"
-Socrates
He was shocked to see a Slave Market. It was probably something he had heard of, but never seen. Slavery was outlawed before he was born, but it was still going on. You don't believe me? Read "Help me remember, Help me forget" by Robert Sadler. Slavery in America went on for a long time after 1865, just not legally or openly.
share[deleted]
Big difference between segregation and slavery. Blacks didn't have it so bad in most places by the dawn of the 20th century, and even in the South, most whites simply wanted to be separate and acted out with lynching & whatnot when blacks got "too close".
"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised."
Good point 'Hellfire7' - slavery had just been outlawed but black people were still considered as 'ex slaves' in the U.S. right up until the second world war . Remember the civil rights movement was in the 1960's !
I suspect the point the filmakers are trying to make is that the Arabs are the original & most enduring slave traders in the world . Also , something alot of people are ignorant of is that the European ships transporting slaves to the New World bought their human cargo from Arabian trading posts in West Africa (the Dutch from East Africa)- they did not 'round them up' themselves . The Arab traders bought slaves from rival tribes as 'war booty' - a tradition that alas still goes on today !
London Evening Standard 2010-09-10
A doctor is to appear in court charged with modern-day slavery. Saeeda Khan, 68, allegedly brought a 50-year-old woman to London from Tanzania.
That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger . . .
So, in your mind segregation equals slavery?! That's some intellect you've got there....
You'd better tell that to many blacks, who --- just as whites and various peoples all over the world -- prefer to go to school with, work with, worship with, and live amongst their own kind.
Maybe I simply misunderstood the scene, but it was my impression that until the Arab said "haven't you seen a slave market before?", that he didn't realise the people he was looking at were slaves. He appeared to wave to the little kid, and was puzzled the kid didn't wave back, and I thought that was where his shock came from when he realised why the kid was actually there.
I didn't see it as either demonising Arabs or whitewashing Americans. I didn't see that as the point of that scene.
Just how it seemed to me ...
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
"I didn't see it as either demonising Arabs or whitewashing Americans. I didn't see that as the point of that scene."
The point of the scene was that it's the beginning of his relationship with the little kid. That's the boy he employs along with Yusef to help him take care of Hidalgo until the end of the movie.
"Sorry. I meant drop dead comrade."
puirt, you've got it, nice that someone here has actually been able to watch and comprehend that scene. Glad still that others corrected the original poster regarding slavery and the US.
Joe-We're American
Nick-In case you didn't know
Kevin-Yeah just in case
He had probably thought that no one had ever had black slaves except the US - that's one of the things they tell us in school to make us feel guilty for being white.
share>>>but i guess such barbarism could only practiced by the Arabs<<<
Well, the Arab world was and had been the main slavetrading and slavekeeping country for a thousand years. I suppose that counts for something?
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#Slavery_in_the_Middle_East
"The Arab slave trade lasted more than a millennium.[104][105] Slaves in the Arab World came from many different regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Zanj), the Caucasus (mainly Circassians), Central Asia (mainly Tartars), and Central and Eastern Europe (mainly Saqaliba)."
"The slave trade from East Africa to Arabia was dominated by Arab and African traders in the coastal cities of Zanzibar, Dar Es Salaam and Mombasa. Tens of thousands of black Zanj slaves were imported to lower Iraq, where they may have, according to Richard Hellie, constituted at least a half of the total population there in the 9th and 10th centuries."
"Some historians estimate that between 11 and 17 million slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900 AD."
"Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. In Constantinople (today Istanbul), about 1/5 of the population consisted of slaves. As late as 1908 women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire."
A picture of Black slaves at a Arabic slavemarket in the 13th century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slaves_Zadib_Yemen_13th_century_BNF_Paris.jpg
It always makes me smile (a sad, grim smile) if I hear of an African American who converts to Islam because "White Men kept my ancestors as slaves, which is something my Islamic brothers would never have done". Think again! White American slaveholders probably bought your ancestors from Arab traders.
You probably got a lot of this already but in 1890 there were no slaves in America, also remember the main character was born in 1866 or so. That means he NEVER saw slavery.
shareAmerica was far behind! Brazil was estimated to have had six times the number of black slaves as the U.S., and even they were nowhere near the Arabs.
Arab pirates boarded British and American ships and enslaved the crew for the crime of not being islamic.
I suppose they needed to hoard them because a significant percentage died of infections and other complications due to undergoing total castration. It is still done there today as it was hundreds of years ago - after numbing the area with an herbal concoction, the penis and scrotum were squeezed together with a hand or string and sliced off with one stroke of a short, curved blade. It has been said that you can scour their lands without finding a single descedant of their slaves.
I don't go in for American guilt, especially when the practitioers were dust long before I was born.
[deleted]
Most of you have missed the point and went on to the defensive. It's still ironic that an american in 1890 looks dumbfounded to see a slave market.
Ok Arabs were the worlds biggest slave traders. 2. Was Brazil or whatever. 3 Was Portugal. 4 was what? America. Yes Africans themselves sold slaves, but what difference does that make in the irony.
Please don't post images of slave markets in Arabia from other sources, the current flea market in Raleigh, North Carolina that i visited plenty of times in my youth is a sufficient example of what a slave market looks like if i ever needed to know. Images from wikipedia about foreign countries are not going to mellow this down any. Imagine my shock when I learnt it was a slave market.
Ok Americans were not the biggest slave traders, but that doesn't remove the irony of the scene. Why is this hard to swallow.
Just flip the characters and you will see it, an arab acts astonished from seeing a slave market, even if slavery was abolished in his country a hundred years prior and they werent the biggest slave traders in the world, its still ironic.
Ummm, reaching much...?
shareIt's still ironicNo, it is not; and flea-markets in Raleigh are irrelevant to the movie. Try to focus.
America was the biggest slave trader in the world
America was not the biggest slave trader. The Arabs and the Muslims have always been the biggest slave traders and practice that barbarism even today. So suck it up buttercup.
share