article Related Topics:
Slavery
 

''For other uses, see Slavery (disambiguation).
Slavery is the social and legal designation of specific persons as property, for the purpose of providing labor and services for the owner without the right of the slave to refuse, or gain compensation.

Definitions

Where slavery is a legal practice, slaves may be held under the control of another person, group, organization, or state. The legal designation of slavery is rare, as most societies consider slavery to be illegal, and persons held as in such condition are considered by authorities to be victims of unlawful imprisonment.

A specific form, known as chattel slavery, is defined by the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons by another person or state, including the legal right to buy and sell them just as one would any common object.

The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as "...the status or/and condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..." Therefore, slaves cannot leave an owner, an employer or a territory without explicit permission (they must have a passport to leave), and they will be returned if they escape. Therefore a system of slavery; as opposed to the isolated instances found in any society — requires official, legal recognition of ownership, or widespread tacit arrangements with local authorities, by masters who have some influence because of their social and/or economic status.

The word slave comes from the Latin term sclavus. The current usage of the word serfdom is not usually synonymous with slavery, because serfs are considered to have had some rights. In the strictest sense of the word, "slaves" are people who are not only owned, but who have no rights and are also not paid.

The International Labour Organization defines "forced labour" as "all work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily", albeit with certain exceptions: military service, convicts, emergencies and minor community services. *. The ILO asserts that child labour amounts to forced labour in which the child's work is exacted from the family as a whole.

In some historical contexts, compulsory labour to repay debts by adults has been regarded as slavery, depending upon the rights held by such individuals.

Mandatory military service in liberal democracies is a controversial subject: one view is that conscripts are not "slaves", as they have substantial legal rights, and any government which took it upon itself to implement conscription, outside a time of extreme national emergency, would eventually face a backlash at an election. Another view interprets acceptance of conscription as a sign of chauvinist, ultra-nationalist and/or fascist ideologies, justified by philosophies such as the Hegelian notion of nations having rights which supersede those of individuals.

In United States legal usage, the term involuntary servitude means a condition of labouring for another without one's willful consent. It does not necessarily mean the complete lack of freedom found in chattel slavery.

Many progressive thinkers have discussed the idea of "wage slavery", although it is generally accepted that payment of a wage signifies "free labour", with the quite different disadvantages experienced by such workers.

In some political philosophies such as anarcho-capitalism , government taxation of citizens is considered a form of slavery.

Some proponents of animal rights apply the term "slavery" to the condition of some or all non-human animalsSpiegel, Marjorie. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, New York: Mirror Books, 1996..

Effects of slavery

Slavery has had a major role in the economic development of the United States. Slaves helped build the roads upon which they were transported. The cotton, tobacco and sugar cane harvested by slaves became important exports for the USA and the Caribbean countries.

Slavery in the USA had important political implications. During the westward expansion of slavery during the early and mid-1800's, Northerners feared that the South would gain control of Congress if the Western territories entered the Union as slave states. Attempts by the North to exclude slavery from these territories angered the South and helped bring on the American Civil War in 1861.

There is a pragmatic tendency to consider the effects of slavery in purely monetary terms, and even then the context is often dropped. There are a broad array of effects arising from the adoption of slavery. In terms of the economics of slavery, slaves provide a cheap source of labour. The reason that slave labour was cheaper was because Europeans could not be compelled to work under such harsh work conditions. As European managers came to understand the vulnerability of workers in the tropics, they gave more attention to the diets of their slave labourers to reduce the death rate from scurvy, malaria, typhoid and yellow fever, etc. The availability of cheap slavery delayed the introduction of mechanised harvesters since cheap labour inputs removed the incentive for planters to find an alternative capital-intensive solution that ultimately won the day. Slavery was abolished not because it was morally repugnant but because European growers no longer needed cheap slave labour.

The basis of slavery is a slave master and the serf. Whilst the treatment of slaves varied, its evident that in those cases where slaves were treated better, slaves were accorded more 'humanitarian' lifestyles, in the sense that they were more likely to be productive, trained and efficacious, perhaps taking pride in their work. The alternative 'harsh' treatment has the opposite reaction, reducing morale, lowering productivity, requiring higher levels of supervision, but importantly also removing all incentive for 'slave' workers to find a more productive way of accomplishing the task. Toll is the source of inspiration if you are free to realise the benefits. By implication, slavery was undermining innovation in a second way. For these reasons, America did benefit from slavery in the short term by solving a short term shortage of plantation labour, but in the long term it only undermined the productivity incentive, and thus a nation's capacity to produce wealth. A look at US economic growth during the periods of slavery and after will demonstrate as much.

Slavery caused fear, suspicion and hatred between slave masters and serfs. Often these feelings escalated into uprisings resulting in the destruction of property, murder, rape, incarceration or desertion. These conflicts also increased the cost of business and judicial intervention.

How people become slaves

Historically, slaves were captured. Warfare often resulted in slavery for prisoners if one paid no ransom. It originally may have been more humane than executing those who would return to fight if they were freed, but the effect led to widespread enslavement of those of other groups; these sometimes differed in ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race, but often were the same. The dominant group in an area might take slaves with little fear of suffering the like fate, but the possibility might be present from reversals of fortune, as when Seneca warns, at the height of the Roman Empire,
And as often as you reflect how much power you have over a slave, remember that your master has just as much power over you. "But I have no master," you say. You are still young; perhaps you will have one. Do you not know at what age Hecuba entered captivity, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?
and when various powerful nations fought among themselves, as for the Atlantic slave trade, anyone might find himself enslaved.

The actual amount of force needed to kidnap individual people for slaves could lead to enslavement of those secure from warfare, as brief raids or kidnapping sufficed. St. Patrick recounts in his Confession having been kidnapped by pirates, and Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.

Societies characterized by poverty, population pressures, and cultural and technological lag are frequently exporters of slaves to more developed nations. Today most slaves are rural people forced to move to cities, or those purchased in rural areas and sold into slavery in cities. These moves take place due to loss of subsistence agriculture, thefts of land, and population increases.

In ancient Greco-Roman times, slavery was related to the practice of infanticide. Unwanted infants were exposed to nature to die; these were then often rescued by slavetraders, who raised them as slaves. Justin Martyr, in his Apology, defended the Christian practice of not exposing infant only secondarily because the child might die; first of all,

But as for us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do any one an injury, and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution.

In many cultures, persons convicted of serious crimes could be sold into slavery. The proceeds from this sale were often used to compensate the victims, and as a consequence, the criminal might be sold only if he lacked the property to make the compensation. Other laws and other crimes might enslave the criminal regardless of his property; some called for the criminal and all his property to be handed over to his victim.

Also, persons have been sold into slavery so that the money could be used to pay off debts. This could range from a king ordering a debtor sold with all his family, to the poor selling off their own children. In times of dire need such as famine, people have offered themselves into slavery not for a purchase price, but merely so that their new master would feed them.

In most institutions of slavery, the children of slaves are themselves the property of the master. Laws varied as to whether the status of the mother or of the father determined the fate of the child.

The origin of slavery

There is no clear timeline for the formation of slavery in any formalised sense. Individuals have been exploited for millennia, and women in some ancient cultures (by modern standards) might identify themselves as slaves. Slavery however refers to the systematic exploitation of labour for some purpose. Organised slavery has 2 elements: 1. Purpose for slavery: Prior to the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago, there was no advantage from retaining captive slaves. Agriculture lifted humans out of subsidence living, delivering higher rates of productivity. 2. Justification for slavery: Farming provided the master with an opportunity to put their prisoners of war (POW) to work for them. It's contentious whether this constitutes slavery since the POWs might in fact have initiated the war. Other slaves were criminals or people who could not pay their debts. The more popular notion of slavery originates from the collectivist identity that identifies a certain race of people as inferior merely because of their skin colour or ethnicity. This collectivist identity (even in the more individualistic cultures) explains why even after slavery is abolished the indentured serfs and their descendants were still exposed to discrimination and suffered from the misconception that they were intellectually 'less human'. A popular rationalisation was that God provided blacks as a source of slave labour.

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 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 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 .

Apologies

In June 1997, Tony Hall, a Democratic representative for Dayton, Ohio proposed a national apology by the U.S. government for slavery.

On May 21, 2001, the French National Assembly voted the Taubira law which recognized slavery as a crime against humanity .

At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, at Durban, South Africa, the US representatives walked out, on the instructions of Colin Powell. A South African Government spokesman claimed that "the general perception among all delegates is that the US does not want to confront the real issues of slavery and all its manifestations." However, the US delegates stated that they left over the racist resolution that equated Zionism with racism.

At the same time the British, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese delegations blocked an EU apology for slavery.

The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued across the world. For example, the Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action Plan.

Reparations

As noted above, there have been movements to achieve reparations for those held in involuntary servitude, or sometimes their descendants. There is a growing modern movement to donate funds achieved in reparations efforts not to the descendants of those held as slaves in prior generations, but instead to donate them to those freed from slavery in this generation, in other countries and circumstances.

In general, reparation for being held in slavery is handled as a civil law matter in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since slaves are exactly those people who have no access to the legal process. Systems of fines and reparations paid from fines collected by authorities, rather than in civil courts, have been proposed to alleviate this in some nations.

In the United States, the reparations movement often cites the 40 acres and a mule decree. Recent effort have also targeted businesses that profited from the slave trade and issuing insurance on slaves.

In Africa, the 2nd World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission was convened in Ghana in 2000. Its deliberations concluded with a Petition being served in the International Court at the Hague for USD$777 trillion against the United States, Canada, and European Union members for "unlawful removal and destruction of Petitioners' mineral and human resources from the African continent" between 1503 up to the end of the colonialism era in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The contemporary status of slavery

According to the Anti-Slavery Society, "Although there is no longer any state which recognizes, or which will enforce, a claim by a person to a right of property over another, the abolition of slavery does not mean that it ceased to exist. There are millions of people throughout the world — mainly children — in conditions of slavery, as well as in various forms of servitude which are in many respects similar to slavery."* It further notes that slavery, particularly child slavery, was on the rise in 2003. It points out that there are countless others in other forms of servitude (such as pawnage, bonded labor and servile concubinage, which are not slavery in the narrow legal sense.

In Sudan UN-peaceworkers have acknowledged the existence of slavery in the country. Although officially banned, it is still practicised widely, and there is even trading going on at the country by means of slavemarkets.

The economics of contemporary slavery

According to a broader definition used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves, another advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there are 27 million people (though some put the number as high as 200 million) in slavery today, spread all over the world (Kevin Bales, Disposable People). This is, also according to that group:
  • The largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history.
  • The smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once.
  • Reducing the price of slaves to as low as US$40 in Mali for young adult male labourers, to a high of US$1000 or so in Thailand for HIV-free young females suitable for use in brothels (where they frequently contract HIV). This represents the price paid to the person, or parents.
  • This represents the lowest price that there has ever been for a slave in raw labour terms—while the price of a comparable male slave in 1850 America would have been about US$1000 in the currency of the time, that represents US$38,000 in today's dollars, thus slaves, at least of that category, now cost only one one-thousandth (0.1%) of their price 150 years ago.

As a result, the economics of slavery is stark: the yield of profit per year for those buying and controlling a slave is over 800% on average, as opposed to the 5% per year that would have been the expected payback for buying a slave in colonial times. This combines with the high potential to lose a slave (have them stolen, escape, or freed by unfriendly authorities) to yield what are called disposable people—those who can be exploited intensely for a short time and then discarded, such as the prostitutes thrown out on city streets to die once they contract HIV, or those forced to work in mines.

Human trafficking

Trafficking in human beings, sometimes called human trafficking, or sex trafficking (as the majority of victims are women or children forced into prostitution) is not the same as people smuggling. A smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is free; the trafficking victim is enslaved. Victims do not agree to be trafficked: they are tricked, lured by false promises, or forced into it. Traffickers use coercive tactics including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of abuse to control their victims. Whilst the majority of victims are women, and sometimes children, forced into prostitution, other victims include men, women and children forced into manual labor.

Due to the illegal nature of trafficking, the exact extent is unknown. A US Government report published in 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.

Potential for total abolition

Those 27 million people produce a gross economic product of US $13 billion annually. This is also a smaller percentage of the world economy than slavery has produced at any prior point in human history. That, plus the universal criminal status of slavery, the lack of moral arguments for it in modern discourse, and the many conventions and agreements to abolish it worldwide, make it likely that it can be eliminated in this generation, according to Free The Slaves. There are no nations whose economies would be substantially affected by the true abolition of slavery.

A first step towards this objective is the Cocoa Protocol, by which the entire cocoa industry worldwide has accepted full moral and legal responsibility for the entire comprehensive outcome of their production processes. Negotiations for this protocol were initiated for cotton, sugar and other commodity items in the 19th century—taking about 140 years to complete. Thus it seems that this is also a turning point in history, where all commodity markets can slowly lever licensing and other requirements to ensure that slavery is eliminated from production, one industry at a time, as a sectoral simultaneous policy that does not cause disadvantages for any one market player.

Chattel slavery

Chattel slavery is a type of slavery defined as the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons, including the legal right to buy and sell them. The slaves do not have the freedom to live life as they choose, but as they are instructed by their owners. In fact, in most countries, chattel slaves are considered as movable property. They are not held responsible for their actions, however, the product of the slaves’ labor is the legal property of their owner as well.

In the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation was written in 1862 to outlaw slavery in the Confederacy, an area over which Union forces exercised no control. The proclamation did not free slaves in the Union-allied slaves states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. After the four year Civil War, the battle against slavery was won, prohibiting slavery in the United States. This was done through the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which banned all forms of slavery. Many people in developed countries believe that it is non-existent in all other areas of the world. In actuality, chattel slavery appears to be thriving in other countries*. Most of today's slaves are present in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

In some parts of North Africa, a person can become the property of another person for life. They are bought and sold for as little as $15. (Aikman, 53). If the slave for sale happens to be female, the price can be significantly increased*. They are branded as a form of identification to show what property owner owns which slaves by a burn imprinted on their back or arm. They can also be inherited from family to family, passed down from one generation to the next, like an heirloom. Children are also candidates for chattel slavery. The children whose parents are bought or traded into slavery receive the same treatment as the adults. They are sold into a different family than their parents and work in less than adequate conditions. They stay in damp pits, alone and away from their families. Most of the time, days can go by without a single meal. Some owners believe that if they keep their slaves hungry, it will keep them awake to work longer days.

Most common types of work

The most common types of slave work are domestic service, agriculture, mineral extraction, army make-up, industry, and commerce. These are just a few jobs listed in the article titled “Archaeology and Slavery” in World Archaeology Magazine. In this century, domestic services are required in a wealthier household and may include up to four female slaves and her children on its staff. The chattels are expected to cook, clean, carry water from an outdoor pump into the house, and grind cereal. Many chattel slaves were used in agriculture and cultivation. The strong, young men are forced to work long days in the fields, with little or no breaks for rehydration or food. In mineral extraction, the majority or the work is done by the men. They provide the salt that is used during extensive trade, not as much in this day and time, but this was especially true in the 19th century. (Alexander, 50) Many of the men that are bought into chattel slavery are trained to fight in their nation’s army and other military services. This is where a great deal of slave trading amongst wealthy officers takes place. Different military leaders can see the strength of a young slave, and make trades to get the young chattel on his side. Chattel slaves are trained in artisan workshops for industry and commerce. (Alexander, 49) The men are in metalworking, while the females are in the textile ones. They are sometimes employed as agents and assistants in commerce, even though they go without benefits or breaks. The majority of the time, the slave owners do not pay the chattels for their services.

Punishments

If the slave happens to refuse the work, or displease their owner in any way, severe consequences are carried out. One punishment is extensive beating. Some slave owners have beaten their slaves literally to death, usually with their bare hands. Another punishment includes tying the accused slave down in the hot sun without water or shade, causing them to dehydrate and suffer under the hot rays. Probably the cruelest and most tormenting punishment is known as “the insect treatment.” This act involves jamming small insects into the disobedient slave’s ear and closing the ear off with wax or small stones. They make sure the insects will not be able to come out by securing a scarf tight around the head to cover and seal the wax or rocks in place. (Aikman, 53) Most victims go insane from this punishment, and are not likely to disobey their owner again.

Today, abolitionists are trying to find ways to stop chattel slavery from continuing in the world. One classroom in Colorado was shocked to find out that slavery did not come to a halt in 1863. They decided to raise money to buy back a slave and set him free. So far, the students have collected $50,000, which is enough to buy the freedom of 1,000 chattel slaves in parts of Latin America. (McKitrick, 4)

References

Bibliography

  • Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. III: The Perspective of the World (1984, originally published in French, 1979.)
  • Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (1999)
  • Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1988)
  • Finkelman, Paul. Encyclopedia of Slavery (1999)
  • Lal, K. S. Muslim Slave System in Medieval India (1994) * ISBN 8185689679
  • Nieboer, H. J. Slavery as an Industrial System (1910)
  • Rodriguez, Junius P., ed., The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1997)

Primary sources

  • The Antislavery Literature Project - a scholarly source for primary literature on US slavery, with some contemporary slavery accounts.
  • The Slavery Reader, ed. by Rigas Doganis, Gad Heuman, James Walvin, Routledge 2003

USA

See also

Famous slaves and former slaves

From the list of famous slaves:

Various

Films

  • Alex Haley, "Roots", 1977 miniseries based on the book by Alex Haley

  • Sergio Giral,
    • El Otro Francisco - "The Other Francisco, 1975
    • "Cimarron," 1967
    • "Maluala", 1979

External links - the contemporary status of slavery

  • Stop The Traffik - This charity aims to expose and stop human slavery. It also promotes Freedom Day on 25th March 2007, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. If you want to make a difference then here is an excellent place to start.

Media

Labor | Slavery | Slave trade

Slawerny | عبودية | Esclavitud | Otrokářství | Slaveri | Sklaverei | Esclavitud | Sklaveco | Esclavage | 노예 | Perbudakan | Þrælahald | Schiavismo | עבדות | Utumwa | Bumpika | Esklavay | Vergovė | Rabszolgaság | Ропство | Hamba abdi | Slavernij | 奴隷 | Slaveri | Slaveri | Slaverie | Niewolnictwo | Escravatura | Sclavie | Рабовладельческий строй | Schiavismu | Slavery | Робовласништво | Orjuus | Slaveri | ทาส | Рабство | 奴隸制度

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Slavery".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world