Slavery: We explain what slavery is, its history and main characteristics. Also, when it was abolished and the pacts that prohibit it.
What is slavery?
Slavery is a legal situation in which an individual (the slave) is considered the property of another (the master), and lacks freedom and any kind of rights over himself. A slave can be treated as an object or a commodity, since he can be sold, bought, exchanged or donated, and to the extent that he is the property of a master, he can be mistreated and punished by the latter.
Slavery existed in many places and times in history. In some cases, it was the basis of the entire economic system of a society, which is known as slavery or, in Marxist terminology, the slave mode of production. Slavery as an economic system was characteristic of Greece and Rome in ancient times and of the plantations of some regions of America during the colonial era and the first years of the independent era. You must read about Modern Age once!
The word slave comes from the medieval Latin sclavus and this from the Byzantine Greek sklabós. Both terms derive from sloveninu, which was the self-name of the peoples of northeastern Europe, i.e. the Slavic peoples (who were often enslaved during the Middle Ages). Previously, slaves were given names such as doulos in ancient Greece or servus in Rome.
Slavery is now considered an illegal and undignified act, which violates the fundamental and inalienable rights of human beings, and is therefore considered a crime against humanity. Although it was legally abolished in most of the world in the 19th century, there are still contemporary cases of slavery, which may go unnoticed or whose perpetrators are prosecuted and convicted.
The current legal provisions on slavery are contained in the 1926 Slavery Convention, signed in Geneva, Switzerland, by the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations (UN). The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948, establishes that slavery and the slave trade are prohibited in any form, and the 1998 Rome Statute includes this practice among the crimes against humanity that are imprescriptible.
Every August 23, the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is celebrated. The date comes from the night of August 22-23, 1791, when a slave uprising took place in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) that started the Haitian Revolution, which contributed to the process of abolishing the transatlantic slave trade. Maybe you should definitely read about Renaissance Literature once!
KEY POINTS
- Slavery is the condition in which a person lacks freedom and rights because he or she is considered the property of another person.
- Slaves can be bought and sold, and are forced to work for a master without any remuneration other than subsistence.
- Slavery has existed since ancient times and was the economic basis of Greece and Rome. The transatlantic trade of African slaves was part of the colonial economy in America, where they were destined for plantations and mines.
- Slaves often owe their condition to being captured in wars or raids, paying with their servitude a debt that they cannot repay, or being the children of other slaves.
- The slave trade and slavery were abolished in the West during the 19th century, and are currently considered a crime against humanity.
History of slavery
The first clear signs of the existence of slaves correspond to the state societies of the Ancient Age. Both state institutions and private potentates could have servants and slaves. In some cases, such as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, slavery was not a central aspect of the economic system; in other cases, such as in the Greek city-states and Ancient Rome, slaves were the economic support of society.
A common form of slavery was taking prisoners of war, especially from the families of the defeated, and turning them into slaves. Debt slavery, that is, the subjection of one person to another as a mechanism for paying off a debt that could not be repaid, was also common. In other cases, traffickers captured people in remote regions, usually belonging to other ethnicities, to sell them as slave labor.
During the classical Greco-Roman period, slaves were an everyday part of society. In Ancient Rome, they were captured from regions conquered by the legions, purchased through trade and piracy, or born to other slaves. They were usually engaged in domestic, agricultural, mining, construction or military tasks, and some were converted into gladiators.
However, the crisis of the 3rd century AD led to a transformation in the slavery model, as it allowed the emergence of colonists who were often freed slaves (that is, freed by their masters) who worked lands that did not belong to them but which they owned in usufruct.
The slaves freed under this colonate regime were one of the antecedents of the serfs of the Middle Ages. However, slavery also existed during the medieval period, although medieval slaves came mostly from Eastern Europe and were more common in the caliphates and Muslim kingdoms.
In the Modern Age, the Portuguese and the Arabs were important slave traders. With the voyages of exploration and the conquest and colonization of America, the transatlantic traffic of people captured in Africa and sold as slaves by European merchants was fundamental in the construction of the American colonial society, especially in the Caribbean, Brazil and the south of the present-day United States.
The massive importation of African slaves into America, destined to work in the mines and on the cocoa, coffee, tobacco, sugar or cotton plantations, was largely due to the fact that the indigenous American populations had been decimated in the years of the conquest. In addition, the Catholic Church had ruled that the indigenous people had a soul, and the Spanish monarchy decreed that they should not be subjected to mistreatment or slavery (although this provision was often not fulfilled). On the other hand, people of African origin were considered to belong to an inferior race (a racial prejudice without scientific foundation), and were physically more resistant to the most arduous work.
Slavery was abolished in the Western world during the 19th century, following the first declaration of human rights (the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaimed during the French Revolution) and the fall of the Ancien Régime (the European absolute monarchies and their colonial empires).
Characteristics of slavery
Slavery is both a legal and social situation, and an economic system, characterized by:
- The existence of individuals deprived of all their rights and treated as merchandise, called slaves, who work as unpaid labor for a lord or master, that is, they do not receive a salary except what is necessary to guarantee their survival.
- Slaves constitute part of the patrimony of their masters, and therefore can be sold, transferred, exchanged or physically punished. In some cases, the condition of slavery is temporary, until the amount of work reaches the payment of a debt. In others, however, it is for life, such as enemies captured in wars or raids or children who inherit the condition of their parents, unless, by the will of their master or in exchange for a payment, they are freed (this process is known as manumission, and a freed slave is usually called a freedman).
- Slaves are valued solely by the amount and type of work they can perform. Thus, a young slave is more valuable than an old one, and a healthy one is worth more than a sick one. In slave societies, slaves were used for all kinds of work, from agricultural tasks (especially on sugar or cotton plantations) and mining to domestic service, street vending, or even for sexual purposes.
- Commonly, in slave societies, the children of slaves were also slaves from birth, although this could vary depending on the type of slavery practiced. In some cases, especially in Latin America at the beginning of the 19th century, freedom of the wombs (the sons and daughters of a slave were born free) was declared in order to progressively eliminate slavery.
- Slave trade and commerce were a lucrative business, especially on the Atlantic route connecting Europe, Africa and America between the 16th and 19th centuries, and on the Arab slave trade routes on the African coasts and the Indian Ocean until the 19th and early 20th centuries. This trade benefited the slave traders who obtained and sold the slaves, and the masters who bought and exploited them. African rulers and merchants were also involved, capturing people of other ethnicities and selling them as slaves.
Abolition of slavery
Slavery was abolished at different times, depending on the region. The first abolitionist movements arose in the 18th century, as a result of changes in thinking that began with the ideas of the Enlightenment and liberalism, which defended the principle that all people had rights. In the English-speaking world, the Quakers (a Christian community without creeds or priests) were pioneers of abolitionism, as they considered slavery to be a practice contrary to Christian values.
The first country to abolish slavery was France in 1794, two years after the proclamation of the republic during the French Revolution, but this measure was reversed in 1802 and was only reinstated in 1848. In the United States, different states began to abolish slavery after independence from Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, but the southern states maintained the practice until they were defeated in the Civil War (1861-1865).
In most Western countries, slavery was abolished throughout the 19th century. Since slavery was inherent to the European colonial model, many wars of independence, such as those in Latin America, added slaves to the ranks of the independence fighters, who were promised freedom.
The first American country to abolish slavery was Haiti, in 1804, when it gained independence from France shortly after a group of slaves from Africa led the Haitian Revolution. In 1813, the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata proclaimed freedom of the womb (that is, the sons and daughters of slaves were born free) and, in 1853, it was declared that there were no slaves in Argentina. In 1823 slavery was abolished in Chile, in 1829 in Mexico and only in 1888 in Brazil. The United Kingdom abolished the slave trade in 1807 but slavery was legal until 1833.
In other parts of the world, slavery was abolished only during the 20th century, especially in some countries with an Islamic tradition, such as Iraq (1924), Qatar (1952), Saudi Arabia (1962), Oman (1970) or Mauritania (1981).
