american-holocaust

PESTILENCE AND GENOCIDE 61ity rate (close to three out of ten babies in Spain did not live to see theirfirst birthdays) was abandonment. Thousands upon thousands of childrenwho could not be cared for were simply left to die on dungheaps or inroadside ditches. 18 Others were sold into slavery.East European children, particularly Romanians, seem to have beenfavorites of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century slave trade, although manythousands of adults were enslaved as well. Child slaves, however, were asexpensive as adults, for reasons best left to the imagination, as is indicatedby a fourteenth-century letter from a man involved in the business: "Weare informed about the little slave girl you say you personally need," hewrote to his prospective client, "and about her features and age, and forwhat you want her .... Whenever ships come from Romania, they shouldcarry some [slave girls]; but keep in mind that little slave girls are as expensiveas the grown ones, and there will be none that does not cost 50 to60 florins if we want one of any value." 19 Those purchasing female slavesof child-bearing age sometimes were particularly lucky and received a freebonus of a baby on the way. As historian John Boswell has reported: "Tento twenty percent of the female slaves sold in Seville in the fifteenth centurywere pregnant or breast-feeding, and their infants were usually includedwith them at no extra cost." 20The wealthy had their problems too. They hungered after gold andsilver. The Crusades, begun four centuries earlier, had increased the appetitesof affluent Europeans for exotic foreign luxuries-for silks and spices,fine cotton, drugs, perfumes, and jewelry-material pleasures that requiredpay in bullion. Thus, gold had become for Europeans, in the words of oneVenetian commentator of the time, "the sinews of all government ... itsmind, soul ... its essence and its very life." The supply of the preciousmetal, by way of the Middle East and Africa, had always been uncertain.Now, however, the wars in eastern Europe had nearly emptied the Continent'scoffers. A new supply, a more regular supply-and preferably acheaper supply-was needed. 21Violence, of course, was everywhere, as alluded to above; but occasionallyit took on an especially perverse character. In addition to the huntingdown and burning of witches, which was an everyday affair in most locales,in Milan in 14 7 6 a man was torn to pieces by an enraged mob andhis dismembered limbs were then eaten by his tormenters. In Paris andLyon, Huguenots were killed and butchered, and their various body partswere sold openly in the streets. Other eruptions of bizarre torture, murder,and ritual cannibalism were not uncommon. 22Such behavior, nonetheless, was not officially condoned, at least notusually. Indeed, wild and untrue accusations of such activities formed thebasis for many of the witch hunts and religious persecutions-particularlyof Jews-during this time. 23 In precisely those years when Columbus wastrekking around Europe in search of support for his maritime adventures,