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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 compensation and 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. The ancient Mediterranean civilizations Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean cultures was known to occur in civilizations as old as Sumer, and found in every such civilization, including Ancient Egypt, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Greece, Rome, parts of the Roman 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. 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. As Rome 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 as Greeks, Africans, Germans, Thracians, Gauls (or Celts), Jews, Arabs, and many more. Not only were slaves used for labor, but also for amusement (e.g. gladiators). If a slave from Rome ran away, he was crucified. By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth of Rome. Slavery was so common, the slaves in Rome far outnumbered the Roman citizens. Such oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts (see Roman Servile Wars); the Third Servile War led by Spartacus being the most famous and severe. Elizabethan England In 1569, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a lawsuit was brought against a man for beating another man he had bought as a slave overseas. The record states, "That in the 11th year of Elizabeth 1569, one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was questioned charged with assault; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in." In other words the court ruled that English Common Law made no provision for slavery. The state did not recognize one person as the property of another. Matter of Cartwright, 11 Elizabeth; 2 Rushworth's Coll 468 (1569)* Pre-industrial Europe Item 20 of The Grand Remonstrance*, a list of grievances against Charles I and presented to him in 1641, contains the following: "20. And although all this was taken upon pretence of guarding the seas, yet a new unheard-of tax of ship-money was devised, and upon the same pretence, by both which there was charged upon the subject near £700,000 some years, and yet the merchants have been left so naked to the violence of the Turkish pirates, that many great ships of value and thousands of His Majesty's subjects have been taken by them, and do still remain in miserable slavery." In the 17th century, slavery was used as punishment by conquering English Parliament armies against native Catholics in Ireland. Between the years 1659 and 1663, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland by the New Model Army, under the command of Oliver Cromwell, thousands of Irish Catholics were forced into slavery. Cromwell had a deep religious dislike of the Catholic religion, and many Irish Catholics who had participated in Confederate Ireland had all their land confiscated and were transported to the British West Indies as slaves. The Church was later implicated in slavery. Slaves owned by the Anglican Church's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts on its sugar plantations in the West Indies had the word "society" branded on their chests with red-hot irons. When slaves were emancipated through the British Parliament in 1834 the British Government paid compensation to slave owners. In one case the Bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues got compensation for the 665 slaves they had to set free. Recently (2006), Southwark Bishop Thomas Butler, at the Anglican Church's General Synod stated "The profits from the slave trade were part of the bedrock of our country's industrial development". 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. Slavery in the French Republic was abolished on February 4, 1794. Modern Europe 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. 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. Fatality rate was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps. Millions died as a direct result of forced labour under the Soviets. Today, North Korea sends its convicts to the Russian Far East to work in similar conditions as a way of repaying foreign debt. Slavery in Arabia, the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East For Muslim views on slavery, see Religion and slavery. The Arab world has traded in slaves like many other cultures of the region. It was one of the oldest slave trades, predating the European transatlantic slave trade by hundreds of years. 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 Mamelukes in Egypt. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the intrigues of the Istanbul court of the Ottoman sultans, while the Mamelukes were mainly responsible for the expulsion of the Crusaders from Palestine and preventing the Mongols from entering Egypt. The Arab trade in slaves continued into the 20th 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. T. E. Lawrence documented practices in which African Muslims performing the hajj would bring a son with them to Mecca and there sell him into slavery*. 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**. Slavery in Africa French historian Fernand Braudel noted that slavery was endemic in Africa and part of the structure of everyday life. "Slavery came in different guises 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 South Africa), made the practice of slavery illegal in these regions. Ironically, the end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors. This action is what today may be called an instance of cultural imperialism. 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 some slave societies, slaves were protected and incorporated into the slave-owning family. In others, slaves were brutally abused, and even used for human sacrifices. Slavery in North Africa 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. In the 15th and 16th centuries slaves were imported from Europe to North Africa. Slave-taking persisted into the 19th century when Barbary pirates would capture ships and enslave the crew. In all, about 1.5 million Europeans were transported to the Barbary Coast. It was a period when Europe was preoccupied by sectarian wars and European navies were depleted. The trade was run by expelled Moors and the slaving expeditions were often captained by Europeans with North African crews. In the early 19th century, European powers started to take action to free Christian slaves. The first major action was the bombardment of Algiers in 1816. Slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa 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 traders 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 slaves. 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. Further south, 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. 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 through more formal trade agreements with European traders or by slave raiding parties through more informal bounty agreements with European traders. 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 also went to Europe and the south of Africa. 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. Modern Africa Slavery persists in Africa more than in all other continents. Slavery in Mauritania was legally abolished by laws passed in 1905, 1961, and 1981, but several human rights organizations are reporting that the practice continues there. 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 of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of slavery, sometimes called trokosi (in Ghana) or voodoosi in Togo and Benin, or ritual servitude, young virgin girls are given as slaves in traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine. In the Sudan, slavery continues as part of an ongoing civil war; see also the Slavery in Sudan article. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in West Africa. See the chocolate and slavery article. Slavery among indigenous people of America 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. Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free. In Tahuantinsuyu (or 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. Slavery in Brazil During the colonial epoch, slavery was a mainstay of the Brazilian 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 deteriorated. Although Portuguese Prime Minister Marquês do 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 2-3 years, slaves worked off their worth, 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. 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. In the mid to late 19th century, many Amerindians were enslaved to work on rubber plantations. See I?? for more information. 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, the slaves aged over 60 years were freed. The Paraguay war contributed to end slavery, since slavers alisted 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 Ceara by 1884. (Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 88-90) Slavery was legally ended nationwide on May 13 by the Lei Aurea ("Golden Law") of 1888. In fact, it was a institution in decadence at these times(Since the 1880´s the country began to use european imigrant labor instead) . Brazil was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. 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 in Brasilia, the capital, puts the number of modern slaves at 50,000. * 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. Slavery in North America Main Articles: Slavery in Colonial America, Slavery in Canada, History of slavery in the United States, Atlantic slave trade The first recorded slaves in the United States, in 1619 twenty Africans were brought by a Dutch man of war and sold to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants. The transformation from indentured servitude to racial slavery happened gradually. It wasn't until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, directed at Caucasian servants who ran away with a black servant. It wouldn't be 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. Return of slavery to British law Development of slavery
South Asia 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. China Slavery in China has repeatedly come in and out of favor. Due to the enoromous population of the region throughout most of her 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. 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 history, 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.) Korea Indigenous slaves existed in Korea. It is widely known that the last names "Bang", "Ji", and "Chuk" are recognizable as last names having once been given to slaves. Slavery was officially abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894. Aotearoa / New Zealand
Middle East Children as young as two years old are used for slavery as child camel jockeys across the Arab countries of the Middle East. Though 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 the far flung areas and during secret night time races. Abolitionist movements 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, though modern archeology throws doubt on the claims of such a mass exodus. However, abolitionism should be distinguished from efforts to help a particular group of slaves, or to restrict one practice, such as the slave trade. 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. The act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention was to entirely outlaw the 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Declaraction 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. Slavery is defined as a crime against humanity by a French law of 2001•. Famous slaves and former slaves From the list of famous slaves: Various | |||||||||||
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