   #copyright

History of slavery

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History

   The history of slavery covers many different forms of human
   exploitation across many cultures and throughout humaninstitution.
   Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market.
   Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market.

Europe and Mediterranean

The ancient Mediterranean civilizations

   Slavery in the ancient 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 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.
   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). If a slave from Rome 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,
   the slaves in Rome far outnumbered Roman citizens.

The Vikings

   In the Viking era starting c. 793, the Norse raiders often captured and
   enslaved their opponents. In the Nordic countries the slaves were
   called Thralls ( Old Norse: Þræll). The thralls were mostly from
   Western Europe, among them many Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts. There
   is evidence of German and south European slaves as well. The Norse
   slavery came to an end with the breakthrough of christianity and
   national laws in the Scandinavian countries.

Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian England

   The trade in serfs in England was made illegal in 1102, and the last
   form of enforced servitude ( villeinage) had disappeared in Britain by
   the beginning of the seventeenth century. It resurfaced in that century
   as a form of punishment against Catholics (see Pre-industrial Europe,
   below). By the eighteenth century African slaves began to be brought
   into London and Edinburgh as personal servants. In a number of judicial
   decisions between slave merchants, it was tacitly accepted that slavery
   of Africans was legal.

   In 1729 the then-Attorney General and Solicitor General of England
   signed the Yorke-Talbot slavery opinion expressing their view (and, by
   implication, that of the Government) that slavery of Africans was
   lawful in England. At this time slaves were openly bought and sold on
   markets at London and Liverpool.

   However, in 1772 a runaway slave named James Somerset was recaptured,
   and various abolitionists brought legal proceedings demanding his
   release, forcing a legal decision for the first time under English law
   as to the legality of a slave's detention. One of Somerset's lawyers,
   Francis Hargrave, stated "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; and it was resolved,
   that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in.' " He
   argued that the court had ruled in Cartwright's case that English
   Common Law made no provision for slavery, and without a basis for its
   legality, slavery would otherwise be unlawful as false imprisonment
   and/or assault. In his judgment of 22 June 1772, Lord Chief Justice
   William Murray, Lord Mansfield, of the Court of King's Bench declared:
   "Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I
   cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and
   therefore the black must be discharged." Several different reports of
   Mansfield's long deliberated, but ultimately very short, decision
   appeared, and most disagree as to what was actually said. The decision
   was only given orally, and so no formal written record of it was issued
   by the court. Abolitionists widely circulated the view that it was
   declared that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law,
   although Mansfield himself later said that all that he actually decided
   was that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his
   will.

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 servitude! Cromwell had a deep 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 indentured servants.

   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 by Act of 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.

Slavery in Arabia, the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East

   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. The Arab or Middle
   Eastern slave trade is thought to have originated with trans-Saharan
   slavery. The Moors, starting in the 8th century, raided coastal areas
   of the Mediterranean and Northern European (including British and even
   as far north as Scandinavian) coastal areas and would carry away
   sometimes whole villages to the Moorish slave markets on the Barbary
   Coast. 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. 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.

   Male slaves were employed as servants, soldiers, or laborers by their
   owners, while female slaves, mostly from Africa, were long traded to
   Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms by Arab, Indian, or Oriental
   traders, some as female servants, others as sexual slaves. 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. As many African slaves may have crossed the Sahara
   Desert, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean as crossed the Atlantic,
   perhaps more. Some sources estimate that between 11 and 17 million
   slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to
   1900, compared to 11.6 million across the Atlantic from 1500 to the
   late 1860s. The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade continued into the
   early 1900s.

   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 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 .

Slavery in Africa

   Two slightly differing Okpoho manillas as used to purchase slaves

      Two slightly differing Okpoho manillas as used to purchase slaves

   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 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. Some of the slaves
   taken by the European slave trade were doubtless slave-owners
   themselves.

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. 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'.

   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

   See African slave trade
   Slaves being transported in Africa, 19th century engraving.
   Slaves being transported in Africa, 19th century engraving.

   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( To see Pedro Blanco). 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 in the Americas

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

   Slavery in Brazil, Debret
   Slavery in Brazil, Debret

   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 people 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 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 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 an 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 slaves used by Europeans in 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 and the
   slaves revolted and fled into the wilderness to live among the
   Cofitachiqui people.

   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 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

     * 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.

Development of slavery

   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 and Canada had
   completely abolished slavery by 1810.

   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.

   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 were owned by plantation owners who lived in Britain. The
   British courts had made a series of contradictory rulings on the
   legality of slavery 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.
   Example of abusive slave treatment: Back deeply scarred from whipping
   Example of abusive slave treatment: Back deeply scarred from whipping

   Several slave rebellions took place during the 17th and 18th centuries.

   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.

   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.

   The Civil War spelled the end for chattel slavery in America. However,
   in August of 1962 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).

   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
   domestics.

Slavery in Asia

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 favour. Due to the
   enormous 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 seiko (生口, seiko^ ?), lit. "living mouth".

   In the 8th century, a slave was called nuhi (奴婢, nuhi^ ?) 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

   In traditional Māori society, prisoners of war became slaves, (unless
   released, ransomed or tortured). 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 missionary condemnation of cannibalism.
   Slavery was outlawed on English Annexation of 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
   New Zealand Wars of the mid 1860s.
   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 - Pic
   by Ansar Burney Trust
   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 - Pic
   by Ansar Burney Trust

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. 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 outlaw entirely 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.
   Proclamation of the abolition of slavery by Victor Hughes in the
   Guadeloupe, the 1st November 1794
   Proclamation of the abolition of slavery by Victor Hughes in the
   Guadeloupe, the 1st November 1794

   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.

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