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Liminal Revolutions's avatar

Based on Lynn's estimates Barbados' average IQ is 91 and Jamaica's is 75, both countries being of almost entirely African descent. It seems like you might be suggesting that the focus on education and skill development in Barbados (and Bermuda) is what caused these higher IQs. Is it not a more parsimonious explanation that the skilled labour required by these slave societies selected for slaves who were already relatively intelligent, leading to a founder effect that created societies with notably higher IQs than their countries of origin?

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Shade of Achilles's avatar

A tight and info-rich piece

On Athens: Lavrio silver mines were infamous for driving slaves to death. Roman treatment of agricultural slaves, when prices of chattel from Syria and Asia Minor were low, was also rough--thus the Servile Wars.

Arabs seem to have been particularly brutal with slaves in general. See eg Sultan Moulay Ismail and his sadistic use of captured Europeans (with black overseers) in construction of palace complex at Meknes, also general Muslim practice of castrating domestics other than bodyguards.

There was a cultural as well as economic element in how well slaves were treated. Your point stands however that skilled and learned slaves were treated comparatively well, especially by Europeans.

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