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Claudia Marques ("White wreckage," July 18) should go back to school and take history classes.
White wreckage? Really? Africans already had a slave trade before expanding it to the Americas. The trade to the Americas could not have started if there wasn't an existing market in Africa. Stronger tribes raided and enslaved prisoners.
Berbers and Arabs captured ships in the Mediterranean, and there was a flourishing market of white prisoners. So, the concept already existed in Africa.
Also, try Wikipedia: "Some Native American tribes held war captives as slaves prior to and during European colonization, some Native Americans were captured and sold by others into slavery to Europeans, and a small number of tribes, in the late 18th and 19th centuries, adopted the practice of holding slaves as chattel property."
Throughout the history of man, invasion was a way to expand or search for new sources of food or power. Romans invaded Western Europe and the British Isles. Berbers invaded the Iberian Peninsula and stayed for centuries. Alexander invaded Turkey, Egypt and reached India. Celts, Visigoths and Huns tramped through Europe. Even Native Americans followed that pattern.
You should be ashamed of being human and not just white. We all belong to the human race.
Douglas C. Borba
Murray