(Redirected from Slave trade)The 'history of slavery' covers many different forms of human exploitation across many cultures and throughout human history.
Slavery, generally defined, refers to the systematic exploitation of labor for work and services without consent and/or the possession of other persons as
property. There is no clear timeline for the formation of slavery in any formalized sense. Slavery can be traced to the earliest records, such as the
Code of Hammurabi, which refers to slavery as an already established institution.
[1]
Europe and Mediterranean
The ancient Mediterranean civilizations
Slavery in the ancient cultures was known to occur civilizations as old as
Sumer, and found in every such civilization, including
Ancient Egypt, the
Akkadian Empire,
Assyria,
ancient Greece, Rome and parts of
its empire, and the
Islamic
Caliphate. Such institutions were a mixture of
debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of
prisoners of war,
child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.
[2] In the Roman Empire, probably over 25% of the population was enslaved.
[3]
Slavery was an important element in the development of the ancient
Greek city-states. Records of
slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as
Mycenaean Greece. The treatment of Greek slaves could be said to be harsh, but not extremely brutal. The
Spartans had earlier reduced an entire population to a pseudo-slavery called ''
helots''. In
ancient Athens about 30% of the population consisted of slaves.
[4]
As the
Roman Republic expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved, thus creating an ample supply. The people subjected to
Roman slavery came from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Such oppression by an elite minority eventually led to
slave revolts (see
Roman Servile Wars); the
Third Servile War led by
Spartacus was the most famous and severe.
Greeks,
Africans,
Germans,
Thracians,
Gauls (or
Celts),
Jews,
Arabs, and many more were slaves used not only for labour, but also for amusement (e.g.
gladiators and
sex slaves). If a slave ran away, he was liable to be
crucified. By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth of Rome. Slavery was so common, and citizenship restricted so firmly (only to native-born adult males), that the slaves in Rome far outnumbered the citizens.
[5]
The Vikings
Main articles: Thrall
In the
Viking era starting c. 793, the
Norse raiders often captured and enslaved weaker peoples they encountered. In the
Nordic countries the slaves were called ''
thralls'' (
Old Norse: ''Þræll'').
[6] The thralls were mostly from
Western Europe, among them many
Franks,
Anglo-Saxons, and
Celts. There is evidence of German, Baltic, Slavic and south European slaves as well. The slave trade was one of the pillars of Norse commerce during the 6th through 11th centuries.
[7] The
Persian traveller
Ibn Rustah described how Swedish Vikings, the
Varangians or
Rus, terrorized and enslaved the
Slavs. The practice came to an end when
Catholicism became widespread throughout Scandinavia. As in the rest of Catholic Europe, the Church held that a Christian could not morally own another Christian. The thrall system was finally abolished in 1350.
Serfdom never came to
Norway,
Iceland and
Sweden.
[8][9]
Middle Ages
Main articles: Slavery in medieval Europe
Chaos and invasion made the taking of slaves habitual throughout Europe in the early
Middle Ages.
St. Patrick, himself captured and sold as a slave, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his
Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus . In
Carolingian Europe approximately 20% of the entire population consisted of slaves.
[10] At that time,
Europe was weak and disunited, and for more than half a century
Magyar bands raided
Germany,
Great Moravia,
Italy, the
Byzantine Empire, and lands as far away as the
Spain. The Magyars looted towns and took captives for labor,
ransom, or sale on the slave market.
[11]
Slavery in early medieval Europe was so common that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it—or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at, for example, the
Council of Koblenz in 922, the
Council of London in 1102, and the
Council of Armagh in 1171.
[12] William the Conqueror, too, banned export of
English slaves. The early
medieval slave trade was mainly to the East: the
Byzantine Empire and the
Muslim world were the destinations, pagan
Central and
Eastern Europe, along with the
Caucasus and
Tartary, were important sources.
Viking,
Arab,
Greek and
Jewish merchants (known as
Radhanites) were all involved in the slave trade during the
Early Middle Ages.
[13][14][15]
So many
Slavs were enslaved for so many centuries that the very name 'slave' derived from their name, not only in English, but in other European languages and in Arabic.
[16][17][18]
The
Mongol invasions and conquests in the
13th century made the situation worse. The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, women and children and marched them to
Karakorum or
Sarai, whence they were sold throughout
Eurasia. Many of these slaves were shipped to slave market in
Novgorod.
[19][20][21]
Slave commerce during the
Late Middle Ages was mainly in the hands of
Venetian and
Genoese merchants and cartels, who were involved in the slave trade with the
Golden Horde. Between 1414 and 1423, some 10,000 eastern European slaves were sold in
Venice.
[22] Genoese merchants organized the slave trade from the
Crimea to
Mamluk Egypt. In 1441,
Haci I Giray declared independence from the Golden Horde and established the
Crimean Khanate. For a long time, until the early
18th century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the
Ottoman Empire and the
Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the
steppe", they enslaved many Slavic peasants. In
Crimea, about 75% of the population consisted of slaves.
[23]
Medieval Spain was the scene of almost constant
warfare between Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from
Al-Andalus to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves. In raid against
Lisbon in 1189, for example, the
Almohad caliph
Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of
Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon
Silves in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.
[24]
The
Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the
Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the
Islamic world too.
[25] After the
battle of Lepanto approximately 12,000 Christian galley
slaves were freed from the
Ottoman Turks.
[26] Christians were also selling
Muslim slaves captured in war. The
Knights of Malta attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a centre for slave trading, selling captured
North Africans and
Turks.
Malta remained a slave market until well into the late
18th century. It required a thousand slaves to equip merely the
galleys (ships) of the Order.
[27][28]
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 remained a major institution in
Russia until the 1723, when the
Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house
serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.
[29]
Great Britain and Ireland
The Portuguese Explorations
''See also:
Portuguese Empire''
The 15th Century
Portuguese exploration of the
African coast, commonly regarded as the harbinger of European colonialism, also marked the beginnings of the slave trade which was to become a major element of this
colonialism until the end of the 18th Century. In 1452,
Pope Nicholas V issued the
papal bull Dum Diversas, granting
Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. This approval of slavery was reaffirmed and extended in his
Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455. These papal bulls came to serve as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonialism. Although for a short period as in 1462, Pius II declared slavery to be "a great crime"
[ Slavery and Christianity Catholic Enycyclopedia ].
The maritime town of
Lagos, Portugal, has the dubious distinction of being the location of the first slave market created by Europeans for the sale of imported African slaves - the ''Mercado de Escravos'', opened in
1444, whose site is still pointed out to visitors to the town. In 1444, first slaves were brought to Portugal from northern
Mauritania. The well-known Prince
Henry the Navigator, major sponsor of the Portuguese African expeditions, received one fifth of the selling price of the slaves imported to Portugal. In later times, the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from importing them to Europe to their transport to tropical colonies in the Americas - in the case of Portugal, especially to
Brazil.
Pre-industrial Europe
It became the custom among the
Mediterranean powers to sentence condemned criminals to row in the war-
galleys of the state (initially only in time of war).
[30] The French
Huguenots filled the galleys after the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes in 1685 and
Camisard rebellion.
[31] Galley-slaves lived in unsavoury conditions, so even though some sentences prescribed a restricted number of years, most rowers would eventually die, even if they survived
shipwreck and
slaughter or torture at the hands of enemies or of pirates.
[32] Naval forces often turned 'infidel'
prisoners-of-war into galley-slaves. Several well-known historical figures served time as galley slaves after being captured by the enemy -- the Ottoman corsair and admiral
Turgut Reis and the
Knights Hospitaller Grand Master
Jean Parisot de la Valette among them.
[33]
In that time ''
second serfdom'' took place in
Eastern Europe during this period (particularly in
Austria,
Hungary,
Prussia,
Russia and
Poland). Only in 1768 was a law passed in Poland that discontinued the nobility's control of the right to life or death of serfs. Serfdom remained the practice on the most part of territory of Russia until February 19, 1861. Some of the
Roma people were enslaved over five centuries in
Romania until abolition in 1864.
[34]
Slavery in the
French Republic was abolished on
February 4,
1794.
Modern Europe
Main articles: Holocaust,
Nazi concentration camps
Between 1933 and 1945, the
Nazi regime created many ''Arbeitslager'' (
labour camps) in
Germany and
Eastern Europe. Prisoners in Nazi labour camps were worked to death on short rations and in bad conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Millions died as a direct result of forced labour under the Nazis. (See for instance
Eugen Kogon's publication ''The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them''
[1])
Main articles: Gulag,
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Between 1930 and 1960, the
Soviet regime created many ''Lageria'' (
labour camps) in
Siberia. Prisoners in Soviet labor camps were worked to death on extreme production quotas,
brutality,
hunger and harsh elements. The fatality rate was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps.
Michael McFaul, in his
New York Times article of June 11,2003, entitled 'Books of the Times;Camps of Terror, Often Overlooked'
[2], has this to say about the state of contemporary dialogue on Soviet slavery:
It should now be known to all serious scholars that the camps began under Lenin and not Stalin. It should be recognized by all that people were sent to the camps not because of what they did, but because of who they were. Some may be surprised to learn about the economic function that the camps were designed to perform. Under Stalin, the camps were simply a crueler but equally inefficient way to exploit labor in the cause of building socialism than the one practiced outside the camps in the Soviet Union. Yet, even this economic role of the camps has been exposed before.
What is remarkable is that the facts about this monstrous system so well documented in Ms. Applebaum's book are still so poorly known and even, by some, contested. For decades, academic historians have gravitated away from event-focused history and toward social history. Yet, the social history of the gulag somehow has escaped notice. Compared with the volumes and volumes written about the Holocaust, the literature on the gulag is thin.
(The article draws attention to
Anne Appelbaum's
Pulitzer Prize winning text
[3])
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East
Main articles: Arab slave trade
:''For
Muslim views on slavery, see
Islam and Slavery.''
Child Slavery: Trafficked children as young as 2 years old are forced to work up to 18 hours a day as camel jockeys in the Middle East
The
Arab world traded in slaves for over a millennium. The
Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade is thought to have originated with trans-Saharan slavery.
[35][36] Arab, Indian, and Oriental traders were involved in the capture and transport of slaves northward across the
Sahara desert and the
Indian Ocean region into
Arabia and the
Middle East,
Persia, and the
Indian subcontinent.
[37] The slave trade from
East Africa to
Arabia was dominated by Arab and African traders in the coastal cities of
Zanzibar,
Dar Es Salaam and
Mombasa.
[37][39] The
Moors, starting in the 8th century, raided coastal areas of the
Mediterranean, and became known as the
Barbary pirates.
Male slaves were employed as servants, soldiers, or laborers, while female slaves were traded to Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms by Arab, Indian, or Oriental traders, some as
domestic servants, others as
sex slaves.
[40] Some sources estimate that between 11 and 17 million slaves crossed the
Red Sea,
Indian Ocean, and
Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900 CE.
[41][42]
In 1400
Timur the Lame invaded
Armenia and
Georgia. More than 60,000
people from the Caucasus were captured as slaves, and many districts of Armenia were depopulated.
[43]
From 1569 the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suffered a series of
Tatar invasions, the goal of which was to loot, pillage and capture slaves into ''
jasyr''. The borderland area to the south-east was in a state of semi-permanent warfare until the
18th century. Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people, predominantly
Ukrainians but also
Circassians,
Russians,
Belarusians and
Poles, were captured and enslaved during the time of the
Crimean Khanate.
[44] Russian conquest of the Crimea led to the abolition of slavery by the 1780s.
[45]
Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. In
Istanbul, about 1/5 of the population consisted of slaves. As late as 1908 women slaves were still sold in the
Ottoman Empire.
[46] In the ''
devşirme'' (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), many
Slavic males from the
Balkans, and
Turkic and
Circassian males from the
Caucasus Mountains and the eastern
Black Sea regions, were taken away from their homes and families and enlisted into special soldier classes of the army of the
Ottoman Empire. These soldier classes were named
Janissaries in the
Balkans and
Asia Minor, and
Mamluks in
Egypt. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the intrigues of the
Istanbul court of the Ottoman sultans, while the Mamluks were mainly responsible for the expulsion of the
Crusaders from
Palestine and preventing the
Mongols from entering
Egypt. The Moroccan Sultan
Moulay Ismail "the Bloodthirsty" (1672-1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his
Black Guard, who coerced the country into submission.
[47]
Nautical traders from the
United States became targets, and frequent victims, of the
Barbary pirates, as soon as that nation began trading with Europe and refused to pay the required tribute to the North African states.
Twentieth century and currently
The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade continued into the early 1900s
, and by some accounts continues to this day. As recently as the 1950s,
Saudi Arabia had an estimated 450 000 slaves, 20% of the population.
[48][49] It is estimated that as many as 200,000 children and women have been taken into
slavery in Sudan during the
Second Sudanese Civil War.
[50][51] 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.
[52] Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.
[53]
The Arab trade in slaves continued into the 20
th century. Written travelogues and other historical works are replete with references to slaves owned by wealthy traders, nobility and heads of state in the Arabian Peninsula well into the 1920s. Slave owning and slave-like working conditions have been documented up to and including the present, in countries of the Middle East. Though the subject is considered taboo in the affected regions, a leading Saudi government cleric and author of the country's religious curriculum has called for the outright re-legalization of slavery.
[4][5]
Children as young as two years old are used for slavery as
child camel jockeys across the Arab countries of the
Middle East. Although strict laws have been introduced recently in
Qatar and
UAE, thanks to better awareness of the issue and lobbying by
human rights organisations such as the
Ansar Burney Trust, the use of children still continues in outlying areas and during secret night-time races.
Slavery in Africa
Main articles: African slave trade
Two slightly differing Okpoho manillas as used to purchase slaves
In most African societies, there was very little difference between the free peasants and the feudal vassal peasants. Vassals of the
Songhay Muslim Empire were used primarily in agriculture; they paid tribute to their masters in crop and service but they were slightly restricted in custom and convenience. These people were more an occupational caste, as their bondage was relative.
In the Kanem Bornu Empire, vassals were three classes beneath the nobles. Marriage between captor and captive was far from rare, blurring the anticipated roles.
[54].
French historian
Fernand Braudel noted that slavery was endemic in Africa and part of the structure of everyday life. "Slavery came in different disguises in different societies: there were court slaves, slaves incorporated into princely armies, domestic and household slaves, slaves working on the land, in industry, as couriers and intermediaries, even as traders" (Braudel 1984 p. 435). During the 16th century, Europe began to outpace the
Arab world in the export traffic, with its slave traffic from Africa to the Americas. The
Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in
South Africa. Later, the
United Kingdom, which held vast colonial territories on the African continent (including
southern Africa),
made the practice of slavery illegal throughout
its empire. The end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors.
The nature of the slave societies differed greatly across the continent. There were large plantations worked by slaves in
Egypt, the
Sudan and
Zanzibar, but this was not a typical use of slaves in Africa as a whole. In most African slave societies, slaves were protected and incorporated into the slave-owning family.
13th century Africa - simplified map of the main states, kingdoms and empires
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.
[55][56][57][58][59][60][61]
Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2,000,000 slaves in the early 1930s
Ethiopia, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.
[62] Slavery continued in Ethiopia until the brief
Second Italo-Abyssinian War in October 1935, when was abolished by order of the Italian occupying forces.
[63] In response to pressure by Western
Allies of World War II Ethiopia officially abolished slavery and serfdom after regained its independence in 1942. On August 26, 1942
Haile Selassie issued a procamation outlawing slavery.
[64][65]
Elikia M’bokolo, April 1998,
Le Monde diplomatique. Quote:"The
African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the
Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the
Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth)." He continues: "Four million slaves exported via the
Red Sea, another four million through the
Swahili ports of the
Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the
trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the
Atlantic Ocean"
[66]
North Africa
Ancient Egypt
As practiced in
ancient Egypt, slavery was not in accord with the modern view of the term. Persons became "slaves" in ancient Egypt by virtue of being captives (or prisoners) of war, committing criminal or other indecent acts, or indebtedness. In many instances, some peasants in ancient Egypt led ''better'' livelihoods as slaves than as free persons: some Egyptian peasants purposely sold themselves into slavery as a means of repaying their debts. Though slaves in ancient Egypt could be sold, inherited or offered as gifts, they were not prohibited from learning, achieving greater social rank, purchasing property or negotiating other contracts. One papyrus from the
New Kingdom even records masters being testified against by slave witnesses. Slave children apparently enjoyed some authoritative protection, as a letter from the
18th dynasty records limits to their use for harsh labor, and Egyptian households further bore the responsibility of adequately raising children of slave parents. It's also worth mentioning that slaves were not as extensively used in ancient Egypt (Kemet) contrary to popular belief or the stories depicted in the Bible, one such measure is the recent archaeological discovery regarding the pyramids not being built by 'slaves'. They were actually built by citizens who during the flooded season would go into the city and work.
Barbary pirates
''See also
Arab slave trade''
According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million
Europeans were captured by
Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in
North Africa and
Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.
[67] The coastal villages and towns of
Italy,
Spain and
Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by them and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by its inhabitants; after
1600 Barbary pirates occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as
Iceland.
[68]
Algerians took 7,000 captives in the
Bay of Naples in 1544. In 1551,
Turgut Reis (known as Dragut in the West) enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island
Gozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them to
Libya. When pirates sacked
Vieste in southern Italy in 1554 they took an 6,000 slaves. In 1555, Turgut Reis sailed to
Corsica and ransacked
Bastia, taking 6000 prisoners. In 1563 he landed at the shores of the province of
Granada, Spain, and captured the coastal settlements in the area like
Almuñécar, along with 4,000 prisoners. Barbary pirates frequently attacked the
Balearic islands, resulting in many coastal watchtowers and fortified churches being erected. The threat was so severe that island of Formentera became uninhabited.
[69]
Between 1609 and 1616
England alone had a staggering 466 merchant ships lost to Barbary pirates. Slave-taking persisted into the 19th century when Barbary pirates would capture ships and enslave the crew.
[70][71]
Sub-Saharan Africa
Main articles: African slave trade
Slaves being transported in Africa, 19th century engraving.
wrote of the slave trade: "''To overdraw its evils is a simple impossibility.... We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path. [Onlookers] said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer. We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead.... We came upon a man dead from starvation.... The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves."'' Livingstone estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before ever reaching the slave markets of
Zanzibar.
[72][73][74][75]
Prior to the 16th century, the bulk of slaves exported from Africa were shipped from
East Africa to the
Arabian peninsula.
Zanzibar became a leading port on this trade. Arab slave traders differed from European ones in that they would often conduct raiding expeditions themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into the continent. They also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of female slaves over male ones.
The increased presence of European rivals along the East coast led Arab traders to concentrate on the overland slave caravan routes across the
Sahara from the
Sahel to
North Africa. The German explorer
Gustav Nachtigal reported seeing slave caravans departing from
Kukawa in
Bornu bound for
Tripoli and
Egypt in 1870. The slave trade represented the major source of revenue for the state of Bornu as late as 1898.
The
Middle Passage, the crossing of the
Atlantic to
the Americas, endured by slaves laid out in rows in the holds of ships, was only one element of the well-known
triangular trade engaged in by Portuguese, Dutch, French and British. Ships having landed slaves in
Caribbean ports would take on sugar, indigo, raw cotton, and later coffee, and make for
Liverpool,
Nantes,
Lisbon or
Amsterdam. Ships leaving European ports for
West Africa would carry printed cotton textiles, some originally from India, copper utensils and bangles, pewter plates and pots, iron bars more valued than gold, hats, trinkets, gunpowder and firearms and alcohol. Tropical shipworms were eliminated in the cold Atlantic waters, and at each unloading, a profit was made.
The
Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by coastal African kingdoms, such as the
Oyo empire (
Yoruba) and the kingdom of
Dahomey,
[76][77] through more formal trade agreements with European traders or by slave raiding parties through more informal bounty agreements. The people captured on these expeditions were shipped by European traders to the
colonies of the
New World. As a result of the
War of Spanish Succession, the United Kingdom obtained the monopoly (''
asiento de negros'') of transporting captive Africans to
Spanish America. It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to twenty million people were shipped as slaves from Africa by European traders, of whom some 15 percent died during the terrible voyage, many during the arduous journey through the
Middle Passage. The great majority were shipped to the
Americas, but some also went to Europe and
the south of Africa. The eastern regions of the
Central African Republic have never recovered demographically from the impact of nineteenth-century raids from the
Sudan and still have a population density of less than 1 person/km.
Some historians conclude that the total loss in persons removed, those who died on the arduous march to coastal slave marts and those killed in slave raids, far exceeded the 65–75 million inhabitants remaining in Sub-Saharan Africa at the trade's end. Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas (
cassava,
maize) would have limited general
population decline to particular regions of western Africa around 1760–1810, and in
Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa, females were most often
captured as brides, with their male protectors being a "bycatch" who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them.
During the period from late 19th and early 20th centuries, demand for the labor-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and slavery. The personal monarchy of Belgian King Leopold II in the
Congo Free State saw mass killings and slavery to extract rubber
[78].
Modern Africa
Main articles: Slavery in Modern Africa
Slavery in Mauritania was legally abolished by laws passed in 1905, 1961, and 1981, but it has never been criminalised,
[79] and several
human rights organizations report that the practice continues there. In
Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon; a study has found that more than 800,000 people are still slaves, almost 8% of the population.
[80] Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practised by at least four of
Niger’s eight ethnic groups. It is especially rife among the warlike
Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with
Mali and
Algeria.
[81]
The trading of children has been reported in modern
Nigeria and
Benin. In parts of
Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a
sex slave within the offended family. In this instance, the woman does not gain the title or status of "wife". In parts of Ghana,
Togo, and
Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of
ritual servitude, sometimes called ''trokosi'' (in Ghana) or ''voodoosi'' in Togo and Benin, young virgin girls are given as slaves to traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine.
Slavery in Sudan continues as part of
an ongoing civil war. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in
West Africa; see the
chocolate and slavery article.
[82]
Slavery in the Americas
Among indigenous peoples
Main articles: Aztec slavery,
Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies,
Slavery in Canada
In Pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica the most common forms of slavery were those of
prisoners-of-war and debtors. People unable to pay back a debt could be sentenced to work as a slave to the person owed until the debt was worked off. Most victims of
human sacrifice were prisoners of war or slaves.
[83] According to
Aztec writings, as many as 84,000 people were sacrificed at a temple inauguration in 1487.
[84] Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free. In the
Inca Empire, workers were subject to a ''
mita'' in lieu of taxes which they paid by working for the government. Each ''
ayllu'', or extended family, would decide which family member to send to do the work. It is unclear if this labour draft or
corvee counts as slavery.
Other slave-owning societies and tribes of the New World were, for example, the
Tehuelche of Patagonia, the
Comanche of Texas, the
Caribs of Dominica, the
Tupinambá of Brazil, the fishing societies, such as the
Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California, the
Pawnee and
Klamath.
[85] The
Haida and
Tlingit, who live along the
Pacific Northwest coast (now
Alaska and
British Columbia) were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as
California. Slavery was hereditary, the slaves being
prisoners of war. Among some Pacific Northwest tribes about a quarter of the population were slaves.
[86][87]
Brazil
Main articles: History of slavery in Brazil,
Bandeirantes
Slavery was a mainstay of the
Brazilian colonial economy, especially in
mining and
sugar cane production.
Brazil obtained 37% of all African slaves traded, and more than 3 million slaves were sent to this one country. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar plantations, once the native
Tupi people deteriorated. Although Portuguese Prime Minister
Marquês de Pombal abolished slavery in mainland Portugal on the February 12th, 1761, slavery continued in her overseas colonies.
The African slaves were useful for the sugar plantations in many ways. First, African slaves were less vulnerable to tropical diseases and to tropical conditions. Second, the benefits of the slaves far exceeded the costs. After two to three years, slaves worked off their cost, and plantation owners began to make profits from them. Plantation owners made lucrative profits even though there was approximately a 10% death rate per year, mainly due to harsh working conditions. The very harsh manual labour of the sugar cane fields saw slaves use hoes to dig large trenches. The slaves planted sugar cane in the trenches and then used their bare hands to spread manure. The average life span of a slave was eight years.
From
Sao Paulo the infamous
Bandeirantes, adventurers mostly of mixed
Portuguese and native ancestry, penetrated steadily westward in their search for Indian slaves. Along the
Amazon river and its major tributaries, repeated slaving raids and punitive attacks left their mark. One French traveler in the 1740s described ''hundreds of miles of river banks with no sign of human life and once-thriving villages that were devastated and empty.'' In some areas of the
Amazon Basin, and particularly among the
Guarani of southern
Brazil and
Paraguay, the
Jesuits had organized their
Jesuit Reductions along military lines to fight the slavers. In the mid to late 19th century, many
Amerindians were enslaved to work on
rubber plantations.
Resistance and abolition
Escaped slaves formed
Maroon communities which played an important role in the histories of
Brazil and other countries such as
Suriname,
Puerto Rico,
Cuba, and
Jamaica. In Brazil the Maroon villages were called
palenques or
quilombos. Maroons survived by growing vegetables and hunting. They also raided
plantations. At these attacks, the maroons would burn crops, steal livestock and tools, kill slavemasters, and invite other slaves to join their communities.
Jean-Baptiste Debret, a French painter who was active in Brazil in the first decades of the 19th Century, started out with painting portraits of members of the Brazilian Imperial family, but soon became concerned with the slavery of both blacks and indigenous inhabitants. His paintings on the subject (two appear on this page) helped bring attention to the subject in both Europe and Brazil itself.
The
Clapham Sect, a group of
evangelical reformers, campaigned during much of the 19th century for the United Kingdom to use its influence and power to stop the traffic of slaves to Brazil. Besides moral qualms, the low cost of slave-produced Brazilian sugar meant that British colonies in the West Indies were unable to match the market prices of Brazilian sugar, and each Briton was consuming 16 pounds (7 kg) of sugar a year by the 19th century. This combination led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil to end this practice, which it did by steps over several decades.
First, foreign slave trade was banned in 1850. Then, in 1871, the sons of the slaves were freed. In 1885, slaves aged over 60 years were freed. The
Paraguayan War contributed to end slavery, since slaves enlisted in exchange for freedom. In Colonial Brazil, slavery was more a social than a racial condition. In fact, some of the greatest figures of the time, like the writer
Machado de Assis and the engineer
André Rebouças had black ancestry.
Brazil's 1877-78 ''Grande Seca'' (Great Drought) in the cotton-growing northeast led to major turmoil, starvation, poverty and internal migration. As wealthy plantation holders rushed to sell their slaves south, popular resistance and resentment grew, inspiring numerous emancipation societies. They succeeded in banning slavery altogether in the province of Ceará by 1884.
[88] Slavery was legally ended nationwide on
May 13 by the ''
Lei Aurea'' ("Golden Law") of 1888. In fact, it was an institution in decadence at these times, as since the 1880s the country had begun to use European immigrant labor instead. Brazil was the last nation in the
Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery.
Modern times
However, in 2004 the government acknowledged to the
United Nations that at least 25,000 Brazilians work under conditions "analogous to slavery." The top anti-slavery official puts the number of modern slaves at 50,000.
[89] More than 1,000 slave laborers were freed from a sugar cane plantation in 2007 by the Brazilian government, making it the largest anti-slavery raid in modern times in Brazil.
[90]
Other South American countries
During the period from late 19th and early 20th centuries, demand for the labor-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and slavery in
Latin America and elsewhere. Indigenous people were enslaved as part of the rubber boom in
Ecuador,
Peru,
Colombia, and
Brazil [91]. In
Central America, rubber tappers participated in the enslavement of the indigenous Guatuso-Maleku people for domestic service
[92].
British and French Caribbean
Main articles: Slavery in the British and French Caribbean
Slavery was commonly used in the parts of the
Caribbean controlled by
France and the
British Empire. The
Lesser Antilles islands of
Barbados,
St. Kitts,
Antigua,
Martinique and
Guadeloupe, which were the first important slave societies of the
Caribbean, began the widespread use of African slaves by the end of the 17th century, as their economies converted from
tobacco to
sugar production.
The slaves were treated terribly, often beaten and raped. They had such miserable lives that death was considered a welcome release.
By the middle of the 18th century, British
Jamaica and French
Saint-Domingue had become the largest slave societies of the region, rivaling Brazil as a destination for enslaved Africans. Due to overwork, the death rates for Caribbean slaves were greater than birth rates. The conditions led to increasing numbers of
slave revolts, escaped slaves forming
Maroon communities and fighting
guerrilla wars against the
plantation owners, campaigns against slavery in Europe, and the
abolition of slavery in the European empires.
North America
''Main Articles:''
Slavery in Colonial America,
Slavery in Canada,
History of slavery in the United States,
Atlantic slave trade,
Indian slavery,
Slavery among the Cherokee
Early events
The first slaves used by Europeans in what later became United States territory were among
Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón's colonization attempt of
North Carolina in 1526. The attempt was a failure, lasting only one year; the slaves revolted and fled into the wilderness to live among the
Cofitachiqui people.
[7]
The first historically significant slave in what would become the
United States was
Estevanico, a
Moroccan slave and member of the
Narváez expedition in 1528 and acted as a guide on Fray
Marcos de Niza's expedition to find the
Seven Cities of Gold in 1539.
In 1619 twenty Africans were brought by a Dutch soldier and sold to the English colony of
Jamestown, Virginia as
indentured servants. The transformation from indentured servitude to racial slavery happened gradually. It was not until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into
Virginia law, directed at Caucasian servants who ran away with a black servant. It was not until the
Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of
African Americans as slaves would be sealed. This status would last for another 160 years, until after the end of the
American Civil War with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.
The first imported Africans were brought as indentured servants, not slaves. They were required, as white indentured servants were, to serve seven years. Many were brought to the
British North American colonies, specifically
Jamestown, Virginia in 1620. However, the slave trade did not immediately expand in North America. Mexico had completely abolished slavery by 1810; Canada, as a British colony, was covered by the ban on trading effected by the
Slave Trade Act 1807, and ownership from 1833.
Slavery under European rule began with importation of European
indentured labourers, was followed by the enslavement of
indigenous peoples in the
Caribbean, and eventually was primarily replaced with Africans imported through a large slave trade, the cost being around 105 American dollars.
Only a fraction of the enslaved Africans brought to the
New World ended up in
British North America-- perhaps 5%. The vast majority of slaves shipped across the Atlantic were sent to the
Caribbean sugar colonies,
Brazil, or
Spanish America.
Return of slavery to British law
★ 1642:
Massachusetts becomes the first colony to legalize slavery.
★ 1650:
Connecticut legalizes slavery.
★ 1661:
Virginia officially recognizes slavery by statute.
★ 1662: A
Virginia statute declares that children born would have the same status as their mother.
★ 1663:
Maryland legalizes slavery.
★ 1664: Slavery is legalized in
New York and
New Jersey.
[93]
Development of slavery
The shift from indentured servants to African slaves was prompted by a dwindling class of former servants who had worked through the terms of their indentures and thus became competitors to their former masters. These newly freed servants were rarely able to support themselves comfortably, and the tobacco industry was increasingly dominated by large planters. This caused domestic unrest culminating in
Bacon's Rebellion. Eventually, chattel slavery became the norm in regions dominated by plantations.
Many slaves in
British North America were owned by plantation owners who lived in Britain. The British courts had made a series of contradictory rulings on the legality of slavery
[94] which encouraged several thousand slaves to flee the newly-independent United States as refugees along with the retreating British in 1783. The British courts having ruled in 1772 that such slaves could not be forcibly returned to North America (see
James Somersett and
Somersett's Case for a review of the Somerset Decision), the British government resettled them as free men in
Sierra Leone. See
Black Loyalists.
Several
slave rebellions took place during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Early United States law
Through the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787 (also known as the ''Freedom Ordinance'') under the
Continental Congress, slavery was prohibited in the territories north of the
Ohio River. In the East, though, slavery was not abolished until later. The importation of slaves into the
United States was banned on
January 1,
1808; but not the internal slave trade, or involvement in the international slave trade externally.
Aggregation of northern free states gave rise to one contiguous geographic area, north of the
Ohio River and the old
Mason-Dixon line. This separation of a free North and an enslaved South launched a massive political, cultural and economic struggle.
Refugees from slavery fled the South across the Ohio River to the North via the
Underground Railroad, and their presence agitated Northerners. Midwestern state governments asserted
States Rights arguments to refuse federal jurisdiction over fugitives. Some juries exercised their right of
jury nullification and refused to convict those indicted under the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
The
Dred Scott decision of 1857 asserted that one could take one's property anywhere, even if one's property was
chattel and one crossed into a free territory. It also asserted that African Americans could not be citizens, as many Northern states granted blacks citizenship, who (in some states) could even vote. This was an example of
Slave Power, the plantation aristocracy's attempt to control the North. This turned Northern public opinion even further against slavery. After the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, armed conflict broke out in
Kansas Territory, where the question of whether it would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state had been left to the inhabitants. The radical abolitionist
John Brown was active in the mayhem and killing in "
Bleeding Kansas." Anti-slavery legislators took office under the banner of the
Republican Party.
Civil War
Example of abusive slave treatment: Back deeply scarred from whipping
Approximately one Southern family in four held slaves prior to war. According to the 1860 U.S. census, about 385,000 individuals (i.e. 1.4% of
White Americans in the country, or 4.8% of southern whites) owned one or more slaves.
[95][96] However, ninety-five percent of blacks lived in the South, comprising one third of the population there as opposed to one percent of the population of the North. Consequently, fears of eventual emancipation were much greater in the South than in the North.
[97]
In the
election of 1860, the Republicans swept
Abraham Lincoln into the Presidency (with only 39.8% of the popular vote) and legislators into Congress. Lincoln however, did not appear on the ballots in most southern states and his election split the nation along sectional lines. After decades of controlling the Federal Government, the Southern states
seceded from the U.S. (the Union) to form the
Confederate States of America.
Northern leaders like Lincoln viewed the prospect of a new Southern nation, with control over the Mississippi River and the West, as unacceptable. This led to the outbreak of the
Civil War, which spelled the end for chattel slavery in America. However, in August of 1862 Lincoln replied to editor
Horace Greeley stating his objective was to save the Union and not to either save or destroy slavery. He went on to say that if he could save the Union without freeing a single slave, he would do it. Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was a reluctant gesture, that proclaimed freedom for slaves within the Confederacy, although not those in strategically important
border states or the rest of the Union. However, the proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal and it was implemented as the Union captured territory from the Confederacy. Slaves in many parts of the south were freed by Union armies or when they simply left their former owners. Many joined the
Union Army as workers or troops, and many more fled to Northern cities.
Legally, slaves within the United States remained enslaved until the final ratification of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on
December 6,
1865 (with final recognition of the amendment on
December 18), eight months after the cessation of hostilities. Only in the Border state of Kentucky did a significant slave population remain by that time.
After the failure of
Reconstruction, freed slaves in the United States were treated as second class citizens. For decades after their emancipation, many former slaves living in the South
sharecropped and had a low standard of living. In some states, it was only after the
civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s that blacks obtained legal protection from racial discrimination (''see
segregation'').
Modern times
Although slavery has been illegal in the United States for nearly a century and a half, the
United States Department of Labor occasionally prosecutes cases against people for
false imprisonment and
involuntary servitude. These cases often involve
illegal immigrants who are forced to work as slaves in factories to pay off a debt claimed by the people who transported them into the United States. Other cases have involved
domestic workers.
Slavery in Asia
Indian subcontinent
Main articles: History of slavery in India,
Muslim Slave System in Medieval India
The Greek historian
Arrian writes in his book
Indica:
"This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a slave."
Though any formalised slave trade has not existed in
South Asia, unfree labour has existed for centuries in the Medieval ages, in different forms. The most common forms have been kinds of
bonded labour. During the epoch of the
Mughals, debt bondage reached its peak, and it was common for money lenders to make slaves of peasants and others who failed to repay debts. Under these practices, more than one generation could be forced into unfree labour; for example, a son could be sold into bonded labour for life to pay off the debt, along with interest.
Arab slave traders also brought slaves as early as the first century AD from Africa. Most of the African slaves were brought however in the 17th century and were taken into Western India.
Much of the northern and central parts of the subcontinent was ruled by the so-called
Slave Dynasty of
Turkic origin from 1206-1290:
Qutb-ud-din Aybak, a slave of
Muhammad Ghori rose to power following his master's death. For almost a century, his descendants ruled presiding over the introduction of Tankas and building of
Qutub Minar.
According to Sir
Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council), there were an estimated 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 slaves in India in 1841. 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.
[98][99][100][101]
China
Slavery in
China has repeatedly come in and out of favor. Due to the enormous population of the region throughout most of its history, China has relatively had an almost unlimited workforce of cheap labor. Thus, the economy would naturally rely on a system of
serfdom, slavery, or a combination of both. Approximately 5% of China's population was enslaved in ancient
Han China (206 BC–AD 220 AD) and slavery continued in China until the early 20th century.
[102] Slavery in China was finally abolished in 1910.
[103]
Japan
Main articles: Slavery in Japan
Slavery in
Japan was, for most of its history, indigenous, since the export and import of slaves was restricted by Japan being a group of islands. The export of a slave from Japan is recorded in 3rd century Chinese document, although the system involved is unclear. These slaves were called , lit. "living mouth".
In the 8th century, a slave was called and series of laws on slavery was issued. In an area of present-day
Ibaraki Prefecture, out of a population of 190,000, around 2,000 were slaves; the proportion is believed to have been even higher in western Japan.
By the time of the
Sengoku period (1467-1615), the attitude that slavery was anachronistic had become widespread. In a meeting with Catholic priests,
Oda Nobunaga was presented with a black slave, the first recorded encounter between a Japanese and an African. In 1588,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered all slave trading to be abolished. This was continued by his successors.
As the
Empire of Japan annexed Asian countries, from the late 19th century onwards, archaic institutions including slavery were abolished in those countries. However, during the
Pacific War of 1937-45, the Japanese military used hundreds of thousands of civilians and
prisoners of war as forced labour, on projects such as the
Burma Railway. (For further details, see
Japanese war crimes.)
[104]
Korea
Indigenous slaves existed in
Korea. Slavery was officially abolished with the
Gabo Reform of 1894. During the
Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) about 30% to 40% of the Korean population were 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.
[105][106][107][108]
Southeast Asia
There was a large slave class in
Khmer Empire who built the enduring monuments in
Angkor Wat and did most of the heavy work.
[109] Slaves had been taken captive from the mountain tribes.
[110] People unable to pay back a
debt to the upper ruling class could be sentenced to work as a slave too.
[111] Between the 17th and the early 20th centuries one-quarter to one-third of the population of some areas of
Thailand and
Burma were slaves.
[112]
Slaves in
Toraja society in
Indonesia were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Torajan slaves were sold and shipped out to
Java and
Siam. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women—a crime
punishable by death. Slavery was
abolished in 1909 by the
Dutch East Indies government.
[113][114]
Central Asia and Caucasus
Russian conquest of the
Caucasus led to the abolition of slavery by the 1860s
[115][116] and the conquest of the
Central Asian Islamic khanates of
Bukhara,
Samarkand, and
Khiva by the 1870s.
[117] A notorious slave market for captured
Russian and
Persian slaves was centred in the
Khanate of Khiva from the 17th to the 19th century.
[118] When the Russian troops took Khiva in 1873 there were 29,300 Persian slaves, captured by
Turkoman raiders.
[119][120]
Oceania
In the first half of the nineteenth century, small-scale slave raids took place across
Polynesia to supply labour and sex workers for the
whaling and
sealing trades, with examples from both the westerly and easterly extremes of the
Polynesian triangle.
By the 1860s this had grown to a larger scale operation with
Peruvian slave raids in the
South Sea Islands to collect labour for the
guano industry.
Aotearoa / New Zealand
In traditional
Māori society of
Aotearoa,
prisoners of war became ''taurekareka'', slaves, unless released, ransomed or tortured.
[121] With some exceptions, the child of a slave remained a slave. As far as it is possible to tell, slavery seems to have increased in the early nineteenth century, as a result of increased numbers of prisoners being taken by Māori military leaders such as
Hongi Hika and
Te Rauparaha in the
Musket Wars, the need for labour to supply whalers and traders with food, flax and timber in return for western goods, and the missionary condemnation of
cannibalism. Slavery was outlawed when the British annexed
New Zealand in 1840, immediately prior to the signing of the
Treaty of Waitangi, although it did not end completely until government was effectively extended over the whole of the country with the defeat of the
King movement in the
Wars of the mid 1860s.
Chatham Islands
One group of
Polynesians migrated to the
Chatham Islands, where they developed the largely pacifist
Moriori culture. Their pacifism left the Moriori unable to defend themselves when the islands were invaded by mainland Māori in the 1830s. Some 300 Moriori men, women and children were massacred and the the remaining 1,200 to 1,300 survivors were enslaved.
[122][123]
Rapa Nui / Easter Island
The isolated island of
Rapa Nui/
Easter Island was inhabited by the
Rapanui, who suffered a series of slave raids from 1805 or earlier, culminating in a near
genocidal experience in the 1860s. The 1805 raid was by
American sealers and was one of a series that changed the attitude of the islanders to outside visitors, with reports in the 1820s and 1830s that all visitors were receiving a hostile reception. In December 1862
Peruvian slave raiders took between 1,400 and 2,000 islanders back to Peru to work in the
guano industry; this was about a third of the island's population and included much of the island's leadership, the last ''ariki-mau'' and possibly the last who could read
Rongorongo. After intervention by the
French ambassador in
Lima, the last 15 survivors were returned to the island, but brought with them
smallpox, which further devastated the island.
Abolitionist movements
Main articles: Abolitionism
Proclamation of the abolition of slavery by Victor Hughes in the
Guadeloupe, the 1st November 1794
Slavery has existed, in one form or another, through the whole of human history. So, too, have movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves.
Moses led Israelite slaves from
ancient Egypt according to the
Biblical Book of Exodus - possibly the first detailed account of a movement to free slaves. However,
abolitionism should be distinguished from efforts to help a particular group of slaves, or to restrict one practice, such as the slave trade.
Persian Empire
The
Persian Empire was the first civilization to ban slavery from its foundation and used paid labor for all of the empire's constructions and army.
Cyrus the Great banned slavery in his charter of human rights, now kept in the
British Museum:
"... And until I am the monarch, I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of the others by force or without compensation. Until I am alive, I prevent unpaid, forced labor. To day, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other's rights.
No one could be penalized for his or her relatives' faults. I prevent slavery and my governors and subordinates are obliged to prohibit exchanging men and women as slaves within their own ruling domains. Such a traditions should be exterminated the world over. ..."[124][125]
Britain
In 1772, a legal case concerning
James Somersett made it illegal to remove a slave from England against his will. A similar case, that of
Joseph Knight, took place in Scotland five years later and ruled slavery to be contrary to the law of Scotland.
Following the work of campaigners in the United Kingdom, the
Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed by
Parliament on
March 25,
1807, coming into effect the following year. The act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention was to outlaw entirely the
Atlantic slave trade within the whole British Empire.
The
Slavery Abolition Act, passed on
August 23,
1833, outlawed slavery itself in the British colonies. On
August 1,
1834 all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was finally abolished in 1838.
France
There were slaves in mainland
France, but the institution was never fully authorized there. However, slavery was vitally important in France's
Caribbean possessions, especially
Saint-Domingue. In 1793, unable to repress the massive slave revolt of August 1791 that had become the
Haitian Revolution, the French Revolutionary commissioners
Sonthonax and
Polverel declared general emancipation. In Paris, on
February 4,
1794,
Abbé Grégoire and the
Convention ratified this action by officially abolishing slavery in all French territories.
Napoleon sent troops to the Caribbean in 1802 to try to re-establish slavery. They succeeded in
Guadeloupe, but the ex-slaves of Saint-Domingue defeated the French army and declared independence. The colony became Haiti, the first black republic, on January 1, 1804.
Slavery is defined as a
crime against humanity by a
French law of 2001.
[126]
United States
Slaves in the
United States who escaped ownership would often make their way north to
Canada via the "
Underground Railroad". Famously active
abolitionists of the U.S. include
Harriet Tubman,
Nat Turner,
Frederick Douglass and
John Brown. Slavery was
abolished in the United States in 1865.
Sierra Leone was established as a country for former slaves of the British Empire in Africa.
Liberia served an analogous purpose for
American slaves. The goal of the abolitionists was repatriation of the slaves to Africa. Also some
trade unions did not want the cheap labour of former slaves around. Nevertheless, most former slaves stayed in America.
Twentieth century worldwide
The
1926 Slavery Convention, an initiative of the
League of Nations, was a turning point in banning global slavery. Article 4 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the
UN General Assembly, explicitly banned slavery. The
United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery was convened to outlaw and ban slavery worldwide, including child slavery. In December 1966, the UN General Assembly adopted the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was developed from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 8 of this international treaty bans slavery. The treaty came into force in March 1976 after it had been ratified by 35 nations. As of November 2003, 104 nations had ratified the treaty.
According to the British Anti-Slavery Society, "Although there is no longer any state which recognizes any claim by a person to a right of property over another, there are an estimated 27 million people throughout the world, mainly children, in conditions of slavery."
[127][128][129]
References
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2. Demography, Geography and the Sources of Roman Slaves, by W. V. Harris's mum: The Journal of Roman Studies © 1999
3. BBC - History - Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome
4. Ancient Greece
5. Slavery in Ancient Rome
6. Slavery and Thralldom: The Unfree in Viking Scandinavia
7. Origin of Vikings: Algeidjuborg trafficking of "valkyries" to Islam
8. Serfdom -- Encyclopaedia Britannica
9. A Historical Note
10. The slave trade: myths and preconceptions
11. The Magyars of Hungary
12. Slavery, serfdom, and indenture through the Middle Ages
13. Slave trade -- Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
14. JewishEncyclopedia.com - slave-trade
15. Slavery Encyclopedia of Ukraine
16. Historical survey The international slave trade
17. Arabs and Slave Trade
18. definition of slaved
19. William of Rubruck's Account of the Mongols
20. Life in 13th Century Novgorod -- Women and Class Structure
21. The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia
22. How To Reboot Reality — Chapter 2, Labor
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24. Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier
25. Ottoman Dhimmitude
26. Famous Battles in History The Turks and Christians at Lepanto
27. A medical service for slaves in Malta during the rule of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem
28. Brief History of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem
29. Historical survey > Ways of ending slavery
30. The Last Galleys
31. Huguenots and the Galleys
32. French galley slaves of the ancien régime
33. The Great Siege of 1565
34. Roma Celebrate 150 years of Freedom 2005 Romania
35. Battuta's Trip: Journey to West Africa (1351 - 1353)
36. Slavery in the Sahara
37. "Slavery in Arabia"
38. "Slavery in Arabia"
39. Slaves And Slave Trading In Shi'i Iran, AD 1500-1900
40. Battuta's Trip: Anatolia (Turkey) 1330 - 1331
41. The Unknown Slavery: In the Muslim world, that is -- and it's not over
42. The Forgotten Holocaust: The Eastern 
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