And to make a more Mudcat-friendly point, you may like to read the account of Scots children sold into slavery (officially, into indentured service) in the 18th century, which I typed up on my webspace recently - it is from Buchan's Songs and Ballads of North East Scotland, 1828 edition, which I found a couple of months back in one of my regular s/h book haunts.

http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/scotslaves.html

To introduce this, though with no tune, we have Buchan's collected words for The Virginian Maid's Lament - you might think this would be by a black slave, but no such thing - it is the lament of a Scottish, female slave on a Virginia plantation-O.

Anyone with a tune for this, please mail me!

david@maxwellplace.demon.co.uk

The African slave trade is simply a remnant of a worldwide custom, regpugnant though it may be to the West. I don't know enough about the terms and conditions, or behaviour of the buyers, to comment. Study a bit of mediaeval European history, and pretty well everything else from Roman and Greek to fairly modern Arabic, and you may conclude that WE are the odd ones out.

http://www.mp3.com/DavidKilpatrick