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Slavery

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Slavery is involuntary servitude to another person or persons, such that the persons held in bondage are considered to be property. It reduces a person to the status of chattel who can be owned by another person. The selling price of a slave varied from less than that of horse to as many as a dozen horses.[1] The master controls and commands the slave, either through property-like ownership of the slave or by right to command him. The last forms of legal slavery wwere 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.

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

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 was cheaper to free a slave and hire low cost paid labor than to keep slaves. Typically, when it had almost died out, it was made illegal by the government, as in Brazil.

Economics

The two main forms of slavery are house servants (in which slaves are luxury items owned by the rish), 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.

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.[2]

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.[3] 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.[4]

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. [5] 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.[6][7] It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery in Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War.[8][9] 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.[10] Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.[11] 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.[12][13]

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 [14]. 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 [15].

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 Rudolphe'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 Chokwe 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.[16]

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.[17] Ethiopia officially abolished slavery and serfdom after regaining its independence in 1942. On August 26, 1942 Haile Selassie issued a proclamation outlawing slavery.[18]

India

India in 1841 had an estimated 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 slaves in India.[19] 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.[20]

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.[21][22][23] Slavery was officially abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894.

Famous Slaves

Bible approves?

Slavery flousished in the ancuient Middle East, including ancient Israel.

Slave owners in the ante-bellum South cited 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.[24] Under the Mosaic Law, slaves could be kept for six years. [25] (See Slavery in the Bible)

The slavery system diminished a person to the point where they would be regarded as a thing or an object to be owned. Christian abolitionists disagreed with this valuation, 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).

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.[26][27][28][29]


Abolition of American Slavery

Americans call slavery a peculiar institution.[30] 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.[31] 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.[32] Wilberforce was supported in his efforts by John Newton, a slave trader who became a Christian and then opposed the slave trade. The slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807, however slavery was not abolished in the Empire until 1832.

The British ban on the slave trade enforced by the British navy did undermine the slave trade globally.[33] This led to the United States banning the slave trade in the early 1800s. However, slavery itself was not abolished until decades later in 1865 when the U.S. government passed the 13th Amendment, after the secessionist Confederacy sought to defend its right to retain slaves and failed, and in South America when it was ended in Brazil in 1888.

Abolitionists

  • Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad. (1820 - 1913) [34] 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) [35] Respected leader of the abolitionist movement, consummate freedom seeker, orator and publisher.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, unitarian minister and freethinker. (1803-1882) [36] 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) [37] Founded the Liberator with partner Isaac Knapp in 1831.
  • Elizur Wright, abolitionist, freethinker. (1804-1885) [38] 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 Stuart Mill, philosopher, essayist. (1806 - 1879) [39] 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.


References

  1. ↑ Indentured Servants and Slave Prices (forum post)
  2. ↑ Ancient Greece
  3. ↑ BBC - History - Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome
  4. ↑ Domesday Book Slave
  5. ↑ Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History
  6. ↑ Slavery in Islam
  7. ↑ £400 for a Slave
  8. ↑ War and Genocide in Sudan
  9. ↑ The Lost Children of Sudan
  10. ↑ The Abolition season on BBC World Service
  11. ↑ Mauritanian MPs pass slavery law
  12. ↑ The Shackles of Slavery in Niger
  13. ↑ Born to be a slave in Niger
  14. ↑ http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/whtslav.htm
  15. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_print.html
  16. ↑ Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History
  17. ↑ Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery
  18. ↑ Ethiopia; Chronology of slavery
  19. ↑ According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council).
  20. ↑ Islamic Law and the Colonial Encounter in British India
  21. ↑ Korea, history pre-1945:slavery -- Encyclopaedia Britannica
  22. ↑ The Choson Era: Late Traditional Korea
  23. ↑ Korean Nobi
  24. ↑ Exodus 22:3 "He should make a full restitution; and if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
  25. ↑ Exodus 21:1-4 "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing."
  26. ↑ http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=70
  27. ↑ http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/race-blacks.html
  28. ↑ Full Life Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing Company (September 1992)
  29. ↑ A Condensed Anti-slavery Bible Argument By George Bourne
  30. ↑ John C. Calhoun and other southerners used "peculiar institution" as a euphemism for slavery.
  31. ↑ A few free blacks owned slaves--usually relatives they had purchased from whites. Indian tribes also had slaves, both Indian and black.
  32. ↑ William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
  33. ↑ Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore BBC
  34. ↑ http://www.heritageny.gov/Railroad/urny.cfm
  35. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/447/000048303/
  36. ↑ http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/ralphwaldoemerson.html
  37. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/966/000049819/
  38. ↑ http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0852788.html
  39. ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/147/000030057/


Further reading

  • Finkelman, Paul. and Joseph C. Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1999)
  • Fogel, Robert. Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (1989) online edition
  • Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery and the British Empire: From Africa to America (2008) excerpt and text search
  • Rodriguez, ed. Junius P. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (2 Vol. 1997)


see also