The Bible Unearthed - Exodus

Johnm said:"As slaves? You'd expect to see a loss of cultural identity, not the acquisition of one. This consideration isn't good for either of our positions actually. I'll have to reconsider some things."Oh, I dunno. The Aztecs forged themselves an identity (and a persecution complex IMO) out of being slaves and mercenaries consigned to live in a swamp. Slavery could act as an external pressure encouraging the developement of an esprit de corps.

The Aztec were a slave nation. They migrated southwards from the "Heron Place" in search of a "promised land"."In the Aztec codex Tira de la Peregrinacion, commonly called the Migration Scrolls. The scrolls have the Aztecs leaving Aztlan, which was described as an island in a lake with Chicomoztoc depicted as seven temples in the center of the island. The Aztecs felt they were the "chosen people" of Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli their war god was their protector, how had them search for their promised land."The Aztecs spent a lot of time wandering their own wilderness until Huitzilipchtli showed them the sign of an eagle on a cactus in what would become Tenochtitlan. However, during this period they acted as fairly mobile military clients to the Tepanecs, then the top dog in the conflict between Nahuatl-speaking tribes in the region. The bit of swamp in which they found their omen was ceded them by the Tepanecs.Thus I argue that a model in which a "!national consciousness" is forged while under subjection is not without precedent. I can buy the idea of the Israelites acquiring a national identity while under the rule of Egypt.In neither case should "slavery" be taken to mean the same thing as late European slavery, which was arguably the least humane of all historical forms of slavery. Both Israelits and Aztechs were slaves but this does not necessarily mean "human chattel".

Exploited migrant workers? Umm I think not.The Aztecs were MILITARY CLIENTS of the Tepanecs; this means they got given the dangerous jobs. It also probably means they were predated upon for human sacrifice candidates. They were not their own people; they were not free. They did not fight, and hence die, in their own interests primarily, but in the interests of the Tepanecs. Thats a pretty firm form of slavery.Now my argument had only to do with the formation of IDENTITY, not the formation of a state. My claim is only that in the face of adversity, a "theory of us" is often seen to form in response to external oppression. Therefore it seems possible, even plausivble to me, that the nucleus of what was to grow into the Israelites had its ideological birth in a captive people.

John wrote:

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You wouldn't be getting your info from Loading... would you?

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No. I don't do superstition. That said I can;t prove it, of course.In the Aztec codex Tira de la Peregrinacion, commonly called the Migration Scrolls. The scrolls have the Aztecs leaving Aztlan, which was described as an island in a lake with Chicomoztoc depicted as seven temples in the center of the island. The Aztecs felt they were the "chosen people" of Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli their war god was their protector, how had them search for their promised land.Anyone notice the similarity?Now, try looking at what the Tira de Peregrinacion actually says.http://history.smsu.edu/jchuchiak/Images-Theme%203.htm

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Most notably, it portrays the Aztec as being Aztec long before they became vassals of King Tezozomoc of Azcatpotzalco. This episode

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This is not much of a rebuttal. An oral tradition reinforcing the legitimacy of the ruling agency to be the ruling agency - with fully fledged ex nihilo customs of obeisance - is a common feature of origin myths. The codex is a post facto statement of what Aztecs believed, not what Actually Happened. And while it is not impossible that all Aztech customs predate their contact with the heirs of the Toltecs, I have never found a serious claim to this effect; indeed I don't consider the idea that the Aztechs appropriated the modes and metaphors of Toltec-inspired "theory of empire" to be very radical in the extant literature at all (although I grant I am not a professional archeologist or anthropologist).

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And since your information is not entirely correct, I'm sure you'll reconsider.

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No, not really. It seems to me you have attributed motive to my argument; I shall not speculate on why. I put it to you that the assertion that the forms Aztech state can be demonstrated to pre-date Aztech contact with Toltec-informed polities, that the Aztech state emerges fully fledged from initial tribal politics, is a much stronger claim than the one I am advancing and requires some sort of evidence. And if you could indeed do so, I would then need a separate explanation for why the Aztech theory of state so appears ostentatiously similar to its local predecessors.

Not at all. Slave regiments occur every now and then. Possibly the most famous are the Janissaries; but there are several penal units in Chinese history and the Jannisaries themselves are based on Persian precedent.I cautioned against extrapolation of late 19th century chattel slavery into history, but that appears to me to be what you are doing, PaulK. There have been many, many groups defined as slaves that experienced consitions radically different from chattel slavery; a Roman slave, for example, could conceivably be manumitted and enter society at the same social rank as their owner; a far cry from chattel slavery indeed. there are many forms of historical slavery; there is no reason to believe, IMO, that either the Aztechs or the proto-Israelites were ever subjected to chattel slavery, and I have never advanced such a claim.

This is descending into a semantic argument.From your own link:
"Even in a limited and well-defined social and historical context such as that of the Roman empire, however, the institution of slavery was so complex that we will only be able to 'scratch the surface' in our understanding of it."No kidding. So I will concede the legal structure of C19th Western chattel slavery is derived from the legal basis of Roman slavery. But note the differences - a slave and a child have the same legal status in relation to the patriarch. Roman chattel slavery is the extension of systemic familial patriarchy to non-familial relations. In C.19th slavery, the population of a whole continent was ideologically consigned to legtimiate slavery under conditions very different to those applied to the patriarchs own family, and governed by distinct legal conventions.There are massive qualitative differences between Roman chattel slavery and C.19th. The conflation of Roman and C.19th slavery as "the same" is a purely semantic obscurantism. To apply this to the initial argument is bordering on the dishonest.I await with bated breath an articulation of the argument that the Aztechs were NOT slaves, as I am sure it would be a valuable contribution to the existing body of work on Aztech history. Certainly, I have found terms like "slavery", "servitude", "military client" and "vassal bondage" common in the literature. Even if you were to challenge this on the semantic basis outlined above, you will then have given me the core of my argument by necessarily also demonstrating by implication that the Israelites were not slaves either (in your specific definition of "slavery"). And indeed, I place upon you the burden of proof, as the person advancing the more radical claim.edited to add:

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So perhaps you would like to refer to Meso-American forms of slavery - any records of slave-warriors there ? I've seen none in Aztec society.

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Erm - yes. The Aztechs themselves, that being a signifcant part of their origin story. And we see this system in operation both prior to the Aztech dominance and within the later Aztech system. Which is NOT AT ALL SURPRISING given that it is an Toltec system being consciously reintroduced by the "usurper state" in order to claim historical legitimacy.Lastly:" Aztec laws were simple and harsh. Almost every crime, from adultery to stealing, was punished by death and other offenses usually involved severe corporal punishment or mutilation (the penalty for slander, for instance, was the loss of one's lips). This was not a totalitarian state, however; there was a strong sense of community among the Aztecs and these laws, harsh as they seem, were supported by the community rather than an autocratic judiciary.Slavery was common among the Aztecs; it was not, however, racial or permanent. One became a slave by being captured in war, by committing certain crimes, such as theft, by voluntarily entering into slavery, or by being sold by one's parents. If one was captured in war, slavery was a pleasant option, for the purpose of Aztec warfare was primarily the capture of live human sacrifices. If, however, one had a useful trade, the Tenochca would forego the sacrifice and employ the captive in that trade. "http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/AZTECS.HTM[This message has been edited by contracycle, 06-17-2003]

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Any indication of any real parallels between the Janissaries or your Chinese units and the Aztecs ?

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Yes, primarily the fact that "you don't arm slaves" is a non-argument. I would not be at all suprised that this derives, in the modern context, from the arguments surrounding the American revolution rather than anything else. I mean its easy enough to utterly discredit; Roman gladiators were slaves, and yet armed.

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So you are reduced to asserting that requesting you to support your assertion is a "radical claim"

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By no means. If you are going to advance an ahistorical claim - that the aztecs were not slaves - then yes, you are obligated to support it. It is in such flagrant contradiction with the extant body of work that it simply cannot go unremarked.

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All your posturing, red herring and strawmen don't change the fact that you have failed to show that the Aztecs were slaves.

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Excuse me but this is a ridiculous ad hominem and demonstrates tyhe poverty of your argument. I will concede no; I do not have access to scanned versions of the entire extant body of work on MesoAmerican history to which I can provide references; but seeing as I am doing nothing more than advancing an established position, I frankly don;t NEED to point you to every single document every written.Posturing and red herrings? The fucking cheek, from someone who has relied upon nothing but semantic argument so far.

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And no, I don't accept that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt either as should be clear from what I wrote.

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Really? Where was that, then? And in which case, you ENTIRELY concede the inityial point if we only swap "slavery" for "subjection". As I thought, an intellectually dishonest semantic argument right from the get go.

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I am no advancing the claim that the Aztecs were not slaved - I am simply pointing out that you have not shown that they were - even by Aztec standards.

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I have. I have demonstrated:
a) its an important part of their own origin-myth
b) its a relationship prevalent in toltec-derived polities
c) it occurred in aztech society proper

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You haven't even shown that your examples of armed slaves have any bearing on the matter (the Jannisseries were given heavy indoctrination form a young age, and gladiators weren't soldiers so at least two are exceptional).

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I didn;t need to demonstrate relevance; I was debunking a spurious objection. Which I have done; as you point admit, you CAN arm slaves if they are sufficitnyl indoctrinated.

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And why you would assume that I was thinkig of 19th century America rather than, say, the Spartan helots (who come far more readily to my mind) I have no idea.

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Only becuase it is the common error of our generation to extrapolate the forms of slavery we are most familiar with falsely back in history.

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And to accuse me of "ridiculous ad hominem" after you drag up all sorts of irrelevancies - 19th Century slaver for a start. I never mentioned it - you just asserted that that was what I was thinking of for no reason at all.

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Correct. It is a diagnosis and I preceded it by conceding I was speculating on what you might be comparing with.

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Why not AZTEC slavery ? Were the Aztecs slaves in the sense that they held others as slaves ? You have produced no evidence that they were.

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Becuase that is what you were refuting existed.

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And if you had read my post 128 (which you replied to !) to you would see that I pointed out that the archaeolgical evidence has Israel and Judah coalescing from the resident population - not some external group.

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Which I rebutted, if you had bothered to read the response you observed, by pointing out that I was addressing the formation of IDENTITY, not asserting a massive population shift in the case of the proto-Israelites. Identity is much more portable than people - see indoctrination implications above.

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And can you explain how I can concede that the Aztecs were slaves without conceding that they were as you are insisting ? I haven't been discussing any other point with you.

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I asserted that the idea that proto-Israelites developed their nationalist ideology while in Egyptian slavery is not inherently weak, becuase there are similar precedents. The Aztec scenario leaped to mind because that particular element is such a conscious one in theirs. You objected to this analogy by attacking the notion of Aztec slavery.I will now operate on the assumption that you have been compelled to recant your position, and that you now accept that ideology-formation in response to subjugation is plausible.Thank you sir, I will take game, set and match.

Paul K wrote:

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No, you have produced no evidence that the Aztecs were slaves - certainly not in the sense that they kept slaves.

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I have - from my post 134:"Slavery was common among the Aztecs; it was not, however, racial or permanent. One became a slave by being captured in war, by committing certain crimes, such as theft, by voluntarily entering into slavery, or by being sold by one's parents. If one was captured in war, slavery was a pleasant option, for the purpose of Aztec warfare was primarily the capture of live human sacrifices. If, however, one had a useful trade, the Tenochca would forego the sacrifice and employ the captive in that trade. "Therefore the statement: Your point a) is false is a lie.We move on. You say: b) is irrelevant (why would the Toltecs keeping slaves be relevant)It is relevant because it demonstrates that slave-keeping is extant in the political mileieu and that if the Aztecs did NOT keep slaves, as a Toltec successor state, that would be surprising. Indeed, they would be the ONLY Toltec successor state not to do so.You then say: and c) works against you since we can use Aztec slavery as a model.I am unsure what you mean here; of course we can use Aztec slavery as a model; because it demonstrates the presence of slavery among the Toltec successor states (although I am still dazzled by the fact this needs proving) and thus supports my contention of slavery occurring in meso-american polities (which you requested).

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Their legends only says that they lived for a time in land controlled by other people and did relatively menial work for those people (but it included fighting - a relatively high class occupation in Aztec society).

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It was also a prestige institution in Rome and the Chinese states, and this did not prevent them from constructing armed slave units. I have already addressed and frankly destriyed this point.

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Secondly you are the one with the obsession with 19th Century slavery. I hardly think of it at all (here's a hint - I am not an American).

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Why would be an American have anything to do with it? FYI, I am not Amercian either. The primary perpetrator of C19th slavery was Britain, anyway - those were British colonial possessions to which slaves were initially being shipped.

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The question of identity formation is not one that I have been discussing.

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Well then I demand that you withdraw all your objections. That is the point I advanced, and to which you have objected. If you now wish to withdraw your objection, you may do so.

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So the only point you could legitimately claim victory on is one I was not even disputing.

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Then why did you object? Surely you were disputing.

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And I would like to know why you think that I am recanting a posiiton that I have never espoused. Please quote the post number where I claimed that "ideology-formation in response to subjugation" was not plausible.

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You have not made that explicit claim, a fact I find telling. Instead you attempted a semantic demolition of my argument, an inherently dishonest approach.

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So, explain the word for word quote without citation. Seems a bit odd that you made up an exact copy of the paragraph in question. I understand your embarrassment, but honesty really is the best policy.

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Ahuh. I found it on another site. I also came across crystallinks, but did not explore it in any great depth. Whether CL got the text from elsewhere, or the place I found got it from CL, I do not know. In either case, they were sufficently in sympathy with my reason to take them as indiacative of the general narrative I was presenting.
Not everything is a conspiracy, John. Take off the tin foil hat.

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Hello???? YOU brought up the codex as evidence for your position. I simply pointed out that it doesn't say what you claimed it does. That is most certainly fair play. Of course the codex ought to considered as biased toward the Aztec. However, I didn't bring it up as evidence. You did. I quite effectively refuted that argument by examining the text. And since the codex is the only bit of evidence you've posted, I have quite effectively refuted your entire argument. If you have something else, present it.

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Yes Hello John, welcome to the real world. I did not CITE THE CODEX specifically as supporting my positions; I cited that Aztec historical narrative of which the Codex is one articulation. I also pointed out that it should NOT be taken as literal fact - this is an undue attribution of authority to the author. The fact that the codex does not word for word accortd with what we understand to be the historical reality does NOT undermine my argument, it strengthens it; becuase the codex carries a panygeric or propagandist subtext.

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Nor is this the claim in question. The issue is whether the Aztec gained some form of cultural identity while in slavery. You've not demonstrated the slavery and your time frames seem to be confused.

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Then I can safely employ precedent for slavery occuring in other mesoAemrican socities as supporting evidence for my claim that the Aztecs were enslaved. Which PaulK requested.

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Motive? You made a claim that you cannot support. Thus I expect you to reconsider. Where do you see an attribution of motive?

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I suspect that by the false attribution of the use of crystalinks, you have decided that I'm a frothing fundie making this up as I go along. I suspect this therefore leads you to anticipate in my argument that is not present. I have supported my claim, and frankly feel that those presenting a counter-argument (the claim that the Aztecs were not enslaved) should provide som evidence for this radical claim. Burdone of proof lies on those whose argument is least in line with the prevailing documentation.

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Why would I make this claim? And why would you ask me to support it? Making the claim that the Aztec did not develop their culture while slaves is nowhere near the claim that they developed their culture in the absense of external influences. I doubt you could make that claim about any culture, but certainly not any one of the cultures of central America.

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Are there ANY precedents of non-coercive relationships between MesoAmerican states? BEst I can think of is the three way alliance, and that didn't last long. As I have said from the beginning, the assertion that the Aztecs were not slaves, and did not DEVELOP slavery as an insitution by exposure to pre-existing societies which employed it, but instead it autocthonously, is terribly weak. What then are we to make of the Aztec employment of slavery, which they recognise as slavery?

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The people who were to become the Aztec were certainly under the rule of other powers, but subjugation to a foreign government is not the same as slavery. The pre-Revolutionary war colonies were subject to the English crown, but were not slaves. The Egyptians under Cleopatra were subject to the Romans, but were not slaves. Judea, under the Pilates, was subject to Rome, but its people were not slaves.

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Granted. And I suggest there are qualitative differences; Rome was not in the need of a steady supply of POW's to provide for the human sacrifices that kept the sun rising every morning. Rome did not have to "farm" humans for sacrifice, nor did the British Empire.
Certainly, the conditions of Tepanec servitude were well within the parameters set by: "One became a slave by being captured in war, by committing certain crimes, such as theft, by voluntarily entering into slavery, or by being sold by one's parents. " or indeed within "If one was captured in war, slavery was a pleasant option, for the purpose of Aztec warfare was primarily the capture of live human sacrifices. If, however, one had a useful trade, the Tenochca would forego the sacrifice and employ the captive in that trade. "
Thus I regard the attempt to locate some highly specific "definition of slavery" that is frankly an undue abstraction of a complex historical process to be intellectual dishonesty of the highest order. To use this as an attack on a point that has been separately conceded is doubly so. The entire rebuttal has rested on a spurious semantic challenge to the word slavery, despite the fact that I used it, knowingly, WELL WITHIN the paramaters of the Aztec political milieu.

"? Making the claim that the Aztec did not develop their culture while slaves is nowhere near the claim that they developed their culture in the absense of external influences."I want to re-address this more finely.Granted. And I am not claiming and never have claimed that the entirety of Aztec culture is derived from their enslavement. Indeed, I know that this is not the case becuase of the way that other MesoAmericans were disturbed by the Xipe Totec rituals.My only point is that SOME of their identity formation definately DID occur at this time, and that this very period was a signifanct factor in the nconstruction world view. I therefore feel by analogy, that the claim that Egyptian servitude contributed to Israelite self-awareness IS NOT INHERENTLY WRONG. That is all; that is the entirety of the claim I have advanced and which you have spuriously attacked.

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YOur post 134 shows that the Aztecs kept slaves. It does not show that the Aztecs AS A PEOPLE were enlaved in that sense.
Therefore your assertion is false. You have not shown what you claimed. Yet you accuse me of lying.

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Excuse me, on what basis? Enslavement is WELL WITHIN the parameters described there. The Aztecs used the term themselves. You do not deny their SUBJUGATION but quibble over the term "slavery", even though the term slavery as used by the Aztecs fully covers the proposed scenario.What exactly is your objection? You have none.

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That the Aztecs kept slaves was never an issue.

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I'm glad you finally accept that at last.

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My assertion that point b) is irrelevant is therefore confirmed.
And you do not even understand that since you cannot show that the Aztecs as a people were slaves in the sense that the Aztecs kept slaves works against your claims. You cannot claim that Aztec slave keeping is irrelevant.

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Aztec slave keeping was only introduced to demonstarte a) the existance of slave-owning in mesoAemrican societies, which you challenged, and b) to demonstrate that the Aztecs certainly had social relationships they characterised as slavery, and thus had basis for comparison.

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So my objection is uphheld. You have not shown evidence that the Aztecs as a people were enslaved.I riased my objections in post 128 - my first contribution to the discussion of the Aztecs.

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Your objection is not upheld one bit.

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And quite frankly I do not find the fact that you are misrepresenting my position to be grounds for declaring ME dishonest. But that is what you are doing.

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Nonsense. I will not be lectured by someone whose entire argument constituted linguistic manipulation.

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It is all quite clear. Rather than admit that cannot back up your claim that the Aztecs were enslaved you are relying on bluster and personal attacks.

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I have supported it. Your position is now wholly incoherent; you no longer imply an absence of slave-owning precedent in mesoAmerica. You no longer deny that the Aztecs were a subject people. You do, however, deny that the Aztecs considered their subjugation as slavery. You have provided no basis for this claim - not one bit of support for this position has been advanced, desppite the fact that this form of subjugation is much more sever than many of those considered slavery by the Aztechs, and more sever than many forms considered slavery world wide.In short, your argument is undiluted bunk.

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I asked for genuinine parallels.

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They were provided.

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Again you are using bluster and bluff to get past the objection that it is unusual to use slaves as soldiers.

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It is only unusual to use slaves as soldiers if you apply a limited and ahistoric view of slavery.

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We both know that Roman gladiators were not soldiers, and the Jannissaries were raised in - and throughly indoctrinated - by he society they worked for. The Aztecs appear to have been used as mercenaries.

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That is A term used to describe the relationship between Aztecs and Tepanecs, it is not THE term applied universally by all writers. It, like slavery, is ALSO an attempt to allude to something which will be meaningful to a 20th Century reader. That does NOT suggest that it can be applied absolutely literally according to your local perception of what the word indicates - and EVEN IF IT DID it would then merely be an appeal to a spurious authority.

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We both know that you have no examples of slave-soldiers from Meso-America.

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There are no direct equivalents of the Jannisarries. There may be a closer correlation with Chinese penal battallions, except inasmuch as we are talking about relationships between tribes in the Aztec case.But then again, I never advanced the argument that there WERE direct comparators. This was introduced purely as a rebuttal to your claim that the fact that they were armed disqualified them from being slaves - a claim that I have succesfully falsified by historical precedent, and which you nevertheless repeat in this very post!

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Stopp blustering and making false accusations. Either produce real evidence or admit that you do not have any.

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This is not bluster, it is anger. So far, as far as I am able to tell, you have advanced a purely semantic argument which picked a perceived nit in the word "slavery". And yet clearly your perception of historical forms of slavery is extremely limited. I do not grant your initial objection was in any way, shape or form, valid.

Erm no, Paul. I do not mean that all, nor would I need to. I am not aware that you HAVE advanced a position; you have provided only semantic nitpicking at the most generous interpretation.I accept your apology and retraction. Thank you and good day.