Prior to the 10th century, words other than “slave” were used for all kinds of unfree laborers. For instance, the old Latin word servus was used for both serfs and chattel slaves. In Modern English, the word slave originates from “sclave” around 1290. It’s based on the Byzantine Greek “sklabos” meaning “Slavic people”. The term originally referred to various peoples from Eastern and Central Europe since many Slavic and other people from these areas were captured and sold as slaves by the Vikings and later the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I.
Slavery traces back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (around 1760 BC) which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery in ancient cultures was known to occur in civilizations as old as Sumer and is found in every civilization including China, India, Assyria, Ancient Greece, Ancient Persia, Rome and the Islamic Caliphate. Slavery is mentioned in the Bible (and other religious texts) as being completely legal. If you continue to do research on slavery, you will find that almost every nation on the planet used slaves at some point. The middle east (Ottoman empire) had slaves, including white slaves. Africa has had slaves for centuries, including white slaves. Slavery is still surprisingly common throughout the world, again including Africa. In 2003 Niger was the first country in West Africa to pass a law specifically pertaining to slavery and creating a criminal penalty for the offense. Slavery still exists throughout the world (almost 30 million people).
If you want to talk about slavery you have to consider all sides of the issue, rather than erasing victims (some of whom, generations later, are still suffering from the effects) in favor of one side. Almost 40% of welfare recipients in the US are white, so I don’t see where their white privilege is, or how one benefits from their ancestors being abused white slaves in the USA (or anywhere else in the world, as white slaves existed on multiple continents, including Africa).
In the USA, the majority of slaves were white at one point (while it’s difficult to find statistics, over 50% of the entire northern population was comprised of white slaves or white laborers treated worse than slaves) and black slaves were originally non-existent. White slaves were mistreated more often (for example, a white slave cost a tenth of what a black slave cost, and it was not a crime to kill a white slave while it was a crime to kill a black slave) and many slaves were children. At one point, in New Orleans, blacks owned almost 30% of the black population. 1.4% of the white US population is said to have owned black slaves (this number has been debated but is more or less commonly accepted).
How did Africans arrive in the New World? In 1619 a Dutch ship, the White Lion, came ashore at Old Point Comfort with 20 captured enslaved Africans that they had taken from the Spanish. It is unclear if the White Lion came to Jamestown for the specific purpose of selling Africans to the colonists, or if it was simply the closest port; some records claim the ship was damaged in battle with the Spanish ship and by a storm. Either way, the Dutch were in need of repairs and supplies and the colonists were in need of able-bodied workers. So the Africans were traded for food and services, but they were not slaves. They were indentured servants who were freed after a period of time. (Source) One African, Anthony Johnson, arrived in Jamestown in 1621, fulfilled his obligation of servitude, married, and eventually became a landowner. The first legally-recognized slave in the area was John Casor, a black man. A court in Northampton County, Virginia declared him property for life. Casor was “owned” by the black colonist Anthony Johnson. Prior to this, not a single member of the black population was an actual slave. Wikipedia mentions that “The Virginia Colony had passed a law in 1662 that children were born with the status of their mother” but this was not racism, as it applied equally to blacks and whites without regard to race or ethnicity. This law was used to keep both black and white slaves indebted to a slave master for multiple generations.
From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. (Source) Four-fifths of the White slaves sent to Britain’s sugar colonies in the West Indies did not survive their first year. None of the Irish slaves shipped to the Caribbean ever returned.
According to historian Sharon V. Salinger, “Scattered data reveal that the mortality for [White] servants at certain times equaled that for [Black] slaves in the ‘middle passage,’ and during other periods actually exceeded the death rate for [Black] slaves.” Salinger reports a death rate of ten to twenty percent over the entire 18th century for Black slaves on board ships enroute to America compared with a death rate of 25% for White slaves enroute to America.
In 1670 the Governor of Virginia (Sir William Berkeley) reported to England (the Lords Commissioners of Foreign Plantations) on the status of his colony. He wrote that the population numbered approximately 40,000 people; of these, 2000 were black slaves and 6000 were white slaves. “Yearly, we suppose there comes in, of servants, about fifteen hundred, of which, most are English, few Scotch, and fewer Irish, and not above two or three ships of negroes in seven years.”
W.E.B. Du Bois, in his book Black Reconstruction in America, mentions white slaves in the US. He adds an anti-slavery quote from 1868: ”No man in America rejoiced more than I at the downfall of Negro slavery. But when the shackles fell from the limbs… it did not make them free men; it simply transferred them from one condition of slavery to another; it placed them upon the platform of the white working men, and made all slaves together. I do not mean that freeing the Negro enslaved the white; I mean that we were slaves before; always have been, and that the abolition of the right of property in man added… black slaves to the white slaves of the country. We are all one family of slaves together, and the labor reform movement is a second emancipation proclamation.” (p.356)
A couple of videos if you’d rather not read: