# Blacks/Africans' jobs in ancient China  
Were the blacks all slaves in ancient China? This is a sensitive question. It is raised here for three reasons. An impression prevalent among the Chinese is that the blacks were mainly slaves, especially during the Tang period. Several newly-published works in English offer the same view (Wilensky, 2002, pp. 4-20; Jayasuriya and Pierre-Angenot, 2006; Wyatt, 2010). ${ }^{3}$ Moreover, as Rashidi correctly points out, the story of the African presence in early Asia would be incomplete without the exposé of the black role as servant or slave (Rashidi, 1985, p. 144). An objective answer is needed to provide a true picture of their life at the time. Blacks in China were engaged in various types of work. According to Juyan Han Jian, some became military officials, nobles or border officers (Zhang Chunshu, 1977, pp. 197-198). Emperor Xiaowu (454-465 CE) trusted a Kunlun named Baizhu who was often ordered to cane the officials. Since the literature shows that some blacks were nubi (slave-servants), there is no doubt that domestic service was one of their major  
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[^0]:    3 For a critique of "master-slave relations", see Bodomo, 2013, pp. 244-246.  
occupations. A comparison is made of Kunlun to 'imperialist actions whereby Victorian Britons subjugated millions of people of color around the globe in the nineteenth century' (Wyatt, 2010, p. 41). The comparison seems not to be appropriate. Needham stated the difference:  
The Chinese and other Asian nations had been using negro slaves for many centuries, but the fact that their slavery was basically domestic kept the practice within bounds short of the massive imports for plantation labor that dominated the Atlantic Trade (Needham, 1971, p. 517).