Difference between revisions of "Slavery"

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Slavery is a legal economic system with involuntary servitude, such that the people held in bondage must work for their owner, and can be bought and sold. Legally the slave has limited rights; for example, it was a crime in the South to kill or maim a slave except in self-defense. Normally slavery was a lifetime condition; children born to slave mothers automatically became slaves of the owner. People originally became slaves when captured in warfare.

In America the slaves were African blacks; Indians starved themselves to death rather than live as slaves. From 1500 to 1820, hundreds of thousands of Europeans were captured in war by Arabs and made slaves. Evidence suggest that European women were more often captured and traded as wives, and also for the procurement of white children which were of high sexual value in Arab culture.

The last forms of legal slavery were outlawed in 1970 in the Arabian countries, but hidden slavery still exists today in remote parts of Africa such as the Sudan where Arabs own black slaves.

Slavery was found in the history of most civilizations. Slavery flourishes where there is a high demand for labor and not enough workers. When the workers are plentiful, slavery dies out because it is unprofitable. That is, it becomes cheaper to free a slave and hire low cost paid labor than to buy and maintain slaves. Typically, when it had almost died out, it was made illegal by the government, as in Brazil.

The most famous instance of slavery was in the American South until it was forcibly ended during the American Civil War (1861-65)--the only major war in world history fought over slavery.

Metaphor

The term "slavery" is often used metaphorically for sex workers who are controlled by pimps.

In political writings, especially in Republicanism, slavery is a highly negative term that means political control by an outside force.

Economics

The two main forms of slavery are house servants (in which slaves are luxury items owned by the rich), and field work, in which slaves are used as a cheap labor force. If free labor is cheaper than expensive slaves, slavery will disappear. If there is a shortage of laborers (and an abundance of work to do), slavery becomes economically possible. It is especially profitable in new lands with few people and rich soils or mines that require imported labor.

Slavery tended to die out in cities and flourished only in rural areas. Slave labor was profitable for farms, mines, and construction jobs; it was not profitable for factories.

Ancient history

Most ancient civilizations, including Greece and Rome, had slavery on a large scale.

In Egypt Hebrews were slaves. The primary slave market in ancient Greece was on an island in the Aegean sea known as "Delos". From there slaves were traded and used throughout the Greek city-states. In ancient Athens about 30% of the population consisted of slaves.^[1]

Often prisoners of wars in ancient history were used as slaves, particularly during the Roman Empire. Probably over 25% of the population was enslaved in the Roman Empire.^[2] Christianity helped lessen the harshness by which Romans treated slaves; however, later Christian nations like Spain, England, and the Netherlands would continue in the use of slaves. According to the Domesday Book census in 1086, 10% of England's population was enslaved.^[3]

Medieval Europe

Painting of a slave market in late medieval Eastern Europe.

Slavery in Poland was forbidden in the 15th century; in Lithuania, slavery was formally abolished in 1588; they were replaced by the second enserfment.

Slavery was a major institution in Russia, and families facing starvation often sold themselves into slavery. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. In 1723, when the Peter the Great converted the remaining household slaves into house serfs. ^[4] Serfdom was abolished in 1863.

Present-day slavery

Slavery was also known among Arabs into the 20th century. As recently as the 1950s, Saudi Arabia had an estimated 450,000 slaves, 20% of the population.^[5][6] It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery in Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War.^[7][8] In Mauritania it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are currently enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour.^[9] Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.^[10] In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon; a Nigerien study has found that more than 800,000 people, or almost 8% of the population, are slaves.^[11][12]

1492-1865

In 1455, a "papal bull" (formal letter by the pope) justified a "right" of Christian nations to enslave any non-Christian in the name of exploration. The Spanish had already been enslaving South American natives on a limited basis, but with the rise of sugar plantations the need for a larger slave force arose. 12 million of African slaves were brought by the Europeans to Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean and Brazil. The demand for sugar was exploding throughout the entire western world. Soon France, the Netherlands and Britain were also establishing profitable sugar plantations in the new world. The plantation system began in Brazil, where rich white plantation owners were the highest rung in the social hierarchy and black slaves were at the bottom. Obviously life on a sugar plantation was very hard work for a slave; most died in less than 10 years, and had to be replaced.

Africa

Slavery was widespread within Africa itself, and the richest in Africa were not those owning the most land, but those who owned the most slaves. In the Sahara Desert, slaves worked in caravans and were used in gold and salt mining. Slaves were usually prisoners of war from other areas of Africa, or debtors, or enemies or the king, but many women outside of those three categories were also enslaved in African societies.

Slave trade

The trading of slaves with other countries was encouraged in Africa, and was considered an important component of the African economy. Slave trade across the Atlantic (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade) became a booming business for Europeans and Africans alike, by which African rulers sold their people to Europeans for goods such as iron, alcohol, tobacco and most importantly, guns. Trans-Atlantic trade led to the degrading use of "chattel" slaves, whereby the slaves were treated purely as property of the owner. The slaves served as sailors, skilled craftsmen or farmers. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, led to the death of 10-20% of the African slaves. But an even higher percentage lost their lives in the journey from their homes in Africa to the African coast, where they were to board the slave ships.

• After kidnapping potential slaves, merchants forced them to walk in slave caravans to the European coastal forts, sometimes as far as 1,000 miles. Shackled and underfed, only half the people survived these death marches. [1]

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one component in a system of routes known as the "Triangular Trade" between South America, New England, and the West Coast of Africa. The three main items that were exchanged were sugar, rum and slaves. European goods, mainly guns, were used to buy slaves from Africa. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas. Then, from America, sugar, rum and tobacco were brought back to Europe, completing the "triangle" of trade. Slavery is one of the less noble aspects of American history.

White slaves

Between 1530 and 1780, Europeans including Britons and even some Americans were frequently taken captive and enslaved by privateers from the Barbary States. Estimates of so-called "white slavery" vary from as little as 50,000 to in the millions ^[13]. Generally Europeans enslaved by the corsairs were usually poorer sea merchants and city dwellers whose families were unable to pay the ransom necessary to free them. Often the Pasha would purchase the female captives into his harem. Many were forced to "go turk" or convert to "mohammadism" in order to stay with their children who were raised as Muslims. Occasionally slaves would convert in order to escape harsher labors such as tending the oars in the corsairs ^[14].

For a long time, until the early 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. Kefe was one of the best known and significant trading ports and slave markets. In a process called "harvesting of the steppe" Crimean Tatars enslaved many Slavic peasants.

Boulanger Gustave Clarence Rudolph's painting The Slave Market

Islam

In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sudan, including Ghana (750-1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275-1591), about a third of the population were slaves. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Choke of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of slaves. The population of the Kanem was about a third-slave. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1396–1893). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in the northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. It is estimated that up to 90% of the population of Arab-Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.^[15]

The Anti-Slavery Society estimated that there were 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.^[16] Ethiopia officially abolished slavery and serfdom after regaining its independence in 1942. On August 26, 1942 Haile Selassie issued a proclamation outlawing slavery.^[17]

India

India in 1841 had an estimated 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 slaves in India.^[18] In Malabar, about 15% of the population were slaves. Slavery was abolished in both Hindu and Muslim India by the Indian Slavery Act V. of 1843. Provisions of the Indian Penal Code of 1861 effectively abolished slavery in India by making the enslavement of human beings a criminal offense.^[19]

Korea

Indigenous slaves existed in Korea. During the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) about 30% to 40% of the Korean population consisted of slaves. Slavery was hereditary, as well as a form of legal punishment. There was a slave class with both government and privately owned slaves, and the government occasionally gave slaves to citizens of higher rank. Privately owned slaves could be inherited as personal property. During poor harvests and famine, many peasants would voluntarily become slaves in order to survive. In the case of private slaves they could buy their freedom.^[20][21][22] Slavery was officially abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894.

Famous Slaves

• St. Felecity
• St. Patrick
• Pope Pius I
• Pope Callixtus I
• Pope Clement I
• Spartacus
• Frederick Douglass
• Harriet Tubman
• Dred Scott
• Booker T. Washington
• Attilla the Hun

Bible approves?

For a more detailed treatment, see Slavery in the Bible.

Slavery was an well-established institution throughout the Ancient Near East, and the Old Testament sanctions its form of regulated slavery, though that is seen as being counter cultural in its degree of amelioration, including as compared to that of ancient slave states as Greece and Rome, and the typical practice of slavery in American history.^[23][24] The New Testament does not condemn the institution itself, but makes requirements upon both masters and slaves in further improving treatment in the inherited economic institution.

Slave owners in the antebellum South cited both Old Testament and New Testament texts, such as Ephesians 6:5, “slaves, obey your masters”, in arguments for the Christian endorsement of slavery. Another Bible verse states that thieves should be sold into slavery.^[25] Under the Mosaic Law, Hebrew slaves could be kept for six years, and offered release in the seventh for nothing. They were to be treated as hired servants, and generous provisions given to them at termination, though they could choose to be lifetime servants. However, daughters who were sold to be betrothed to the owner or his son, were not set free in their seventh year but were to be allowed to be redeemed if that marriage had not taken place done. If marriage occurred, they were to be set free if the husband was negligent in his basic marital obligations.(Exodus 21:1-11; cf. Dt. 15:12-18)

The system of slavery commonly diminished a person to the point where they would be regarded as a thing or an object to be owned. The Christian abolitionists disagreed with this valuation, and saw the New Testament in particular, and its ethos of love for neighbor as oneself, as supporting the abolition of slavery, and advanced an interpretation of the Bible which presented human value in terms of God's parental love for all people as His children (see human rights).^[26][27]

While requiring Christian obedience ^[28] of slaves toward their masters, the New Testament also requires masters to exercise their duties in the fear of God, and prohibits threatening, abuse or unequal pay for slaves. ((Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1) (1Cor. 7:21) It also commands slaves to obtain freedom if possible, and contains the record of the apostle Paul requiring that the escaped slave Onesimus be received back by his master Philemon, no longer "as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved", even as Paul himself (Philemon 1:16,17)

Curse of Ham

Some Southern white theologians before the Civil War asserted that the slavery of blacks was the result the curse of Ham. However, there is no evidence that the curse had to do with skin color, and the descendants of Canaan most likely were not black, and it is generally concluded that they did not settle in Africa.^{[29][30][31][32]}

Abolition of American Slavery

Americans call slavery a peculiar institution.^[33] It flourished in the Southern states before military emancipation during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. This was a case of racial slavery--the slaves were black, the owners were white.^[34] see The South.

The end of slavery in America began with the American Revolution, when slaves were freed in all the northern states between 1776 and 1804.

British Empire

Emancipation of slaves in the British Caribbean became a major cause by the 1800s, when abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and John Wesley began speaking out against the evils of the system.^[35] Wilberforce was supported in his efforts by John Newton, a slave trader who became a Christian and then opposed the slave trade. In 1807 the House of Commons passed the Slave Trade Abolition Bill by a 283-16 vote. It made the international slave trade a crime of piracy and send the Royal Navy to enforce it.^[36] In 1808 the U.S. also outlawed the international trade. However, some slave traders evaded the prohibition--many were caught and hung, with the freed captives sent to Sierra Leone. Slavery remained legal inside the British Empire (including Canada) until 1833 when the government bought all the slaves from the owners^[37] and freed them.^{[38] [39]}

In the United States, the northern states abolished slavery by 1803--most of the slaves there were house servants. In the South, however, cotton made slavery very profitable and 11 states seceded in 1861 to protect their interest. Abraham Lincoln achieved the end of slavery in 1863-65, using the Army and the 13th Amendment. In Cuba and Brazil, slavery was unprofitable and finally collapsed in the 1880s as few people wanted to buy slaves.

Abolitionists

• Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad. (1820 - 1913) ^[40] Well-known associate of the Underground Railroad. Acted as a spy and led raids to assist others in gaining their freedom.
• Frederick Douglass, orator, writer and publisher. (1817 - 1875) ^[41] Respected leader of the abolitionist movement, consummate freedom seeker, orator and publisher.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, unitarian minister and freethinker. (1803-1882) ^[42] Expressed visceral public disapproval of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Exhorted people to "do the duty of the hour", and support abolition.
• William Lloyd Garrison, anti-slavery editor of the Liberator (1805 - 1879); the single most imfluential abolitionist ^[43] Founded the Liberator with partner Isaac Knapp in 1831.
• Elizur Wright, abolitionist, freethinker. (1804-1885) ^[44] Became involved in the abolitionist movement while attending Yale university. Eventually worked as a secretary with the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and assumed the editorship of the Massachusetts Abolitionist in 1839.
• John Brown (1800-1859), tried to lead a slave rebellion in 1859; the slaves did not join him, but white Southerners became convinced there were many more John Browns to come if they stayed in the Union
• John Stuart Mill, philosopher, essayist. (1806 - 1879) ^[45] Wrote numerous essays on abolition during the American Civil War. Asserted the war was being fought to abolish slavery, an unpopular political opinion at the time.

Further reading

• Finkelman, Paul, and Joseph C. Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1999), very good reference
• Fogel, Robert. Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (1989) online edition
• Genovese, Eugene. Roll Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974), the most important book, written as Genovese was moving from Marxism to conservatism
• Miller, Randall M., and John David Smith, eds. Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (1988), exellent reference
• Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery and the British Empire: From Africa to America (2008) excerpt and text search
• Parish, Peter J. Slavery: History and Historians (1989) online edition
• Phillips, Ulrich B. American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime (1918), the best older history; leftists complain it does not share their biases. free edition online
• Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (2 vol. 1997), very good reference

References

1. ↑ Ancient Greece
2. ↑ BBC - History - Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome
3. ↑ Domesday Book Slave
4. ↑ Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History
5. ↑ Slavery in Islam
6. ↑ £400 for a Slave
7. ↑ War and Genocide in Sudan
8. ↑ The Lost Children of Sudan
9. ↑ The Abolition season on BBC World Service
10. ↑ Mauritanian MPs pass slavery law
11. ↑ The Shackles of Slavery in Niger
12. ↑ Born to be a slave in Niger
13. ↑ http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/whtslav.htm
14. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_print.html
15. ↑ Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History
16. ↑ Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery
17. ↑ Ethiopia; Chronology of slavery
18. ↑ According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council).
19. ↑ Islamic Law and the Colonial Encounter in British India
20. ↑ Korea, history pre-1945:slavery -- Encyclopaedia Britannica
21. ↑ The Choson Era: Late Traditional Korea
22. ↑ Korean Nobi
23. ↑ Does God condone slavery in the Bible?
24. ↑ The issue of 'slavery' in the NT/Apostolic world
25. ↑ Exodus 22:3 "He should make a full restitution; and if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
26. ↑ Bourne, George, 1780-1845, A Condensed Anti-Slavery Bible Argument; By a Citizen of Virginia
27. ↑ George B. Cheever, God Against Slavery (1875)
28. ↑ Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible, Eph. 6:7; cf. Rm. 13:1
29. ↑ http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=70
30. ↑ http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/race-blacks.html
31. ↑ Full Life Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing Company (September 1992)
32. ↑ A Condensed Anti-slavery Bible Argument By George Bourne
33. ↑ John C. Calhoun and other southerners used "peculiar institution" as a euphemism for slavery.
34. ↑ A few free blacks owned slaves--usually relatives they had purchased from whites. Indian tribes also had slaves, both Indian and black.
35. ↑ William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
36. ↑ Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore BBC
37. ↑ Mostof the owners lived in great mansions in London, and appreciated the money.
38. ↑ The ex-slaves went through an apprenticeship process before gaining freedom. Andrea Curry Timeline: The Abolition of the Slave Trade, British Heritage Magazine (May 2007)
39. ↑ History: Parliament Abolishes the Slave Trade Parliamentary House of Lords
40. ↑ http://www.heritageny.gov/Railroad/urny.cfm
41. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/447/000048303/
42. ↑ http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/ralphwaldoemerson.html
43. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/966/000049819/
44. ↑ http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0852788.html
45. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/147/000030057/

see also

• Abolitionism
• American Civil War