Slavery

Slavery is a labor system in which owners have a high degree of control over workers, and can buy and sell them. Usually the children of a slave woman became slaves. It flourishes only where land is cheap, labor is scarce and the laws explicitly protect what is called "the peculiar institution." Historically, nearly all societies have had slavery at one time.

Slavery has a long history in the human world. It was practiced in many ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Israel, Greece and Rome. In Europe, remnants of slavery left over from the Roman Empire died out in the Middle Ages. In modern times, the best-known example of slavery in history involves the use of slaves from southern and western Africa to work on export-oriented plantations in the Caribbean, North America and Brazil. Slavery was a major cause of the American Civil War, which ended slavery there in 1865 and made the Freedmen citizens in 1866 and voters in 1867. Demands for reparations and apologies for American slavery waxed and waned from the 1880s to the present.

Becoming a slave

People became slaves by being captured during warfare, or being born into it. Sometimes, people might actually sell themselves, as starving serfs did in Russia. In Africa from 1500 to 1800, tribes would war on other tribes to capture slaves, then sell them to traders along the seacoast (usually Arabs), who in turn sold them to slaveships (operated by Europeans) who took them to the Caribbean, South America, and North America. About 12,000,000 slaves were transported; many died in passage or on arrival in the new disease environment. About 3% were brought to the American colonies.

Slaves lead a marginal life, with little personal freedom, but can maintain and develop their own culture, religion, traditions and norms, and in some cases even own property. Often, the slaves and masters are of the same race, but slavery in the western hemisphere involved European masters and African slaves, and between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries Arab slavers held Europeans as slaves.

Emancipation

Voluntary emancipation

Some slaves might be freed by their masters, especially if they were the children of masters.

Natural death of slavery

Slavery is an economic system and ends when it is no longer profitable to purchase slaves (rather than use free labor, including serfs or hired workers). When no one was buying, no one could sell. Slavery died out in the Roman Empire, medieval Europe, and in countries such as Brazil and Cuba when the economic turning point was reached. Typically just turned their slaves loose one day, letting them fend for themselves. Some slaves, especially household workers, were luxury goods and were kept even if uneconomical. This sort of slavery persisted among wealthy families in the northern U.S. until 1800.

Slave revolts

Many slaves ran away but were usually recaptured. Slave revolts were a constant threat to the owners, who devised police or military controls to deal with it. Every slave society created a system of police patrols and passes that could identify and return runaways. In the western hemisphere, slavery ended violently in Haiti (1793-1803), Haiti was the main case in history of a successful slave rebellion.

Government emancipation

In 18th century Europe new values regarding liberty rejected slavery. Abolitionists emerged from the Quaker and other Protestant communities to demand the end of slavery on moral grounds. The first large-scale emancipations came in the United States of America after the Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776. All the northern states abolished slavery by a gradual plan, with New York (1799) and New Jersey (1805) the last ones. SOuth of the Mason-Dixon line (the line separating Pennsylvania and Maryland), all the states kept slavery and became known as the "slave states." The international slave trade was illegal after about 1815, enforced by the British Royal Navy. However, overland slave trading continued into the twentieth century, with Africans shipped to the Arab world as slaves as late as the 1950s.

Metaphor

'Slavery' is also a rhetorical term in politics used to protest unwanted restrictions on people. For example, the American patriots of 1775 denounced British policy as imposing "slavery" on them. The U.S. Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which allows the president to stop certain strikes and force the workers back to work, was denounced by labor unions as a "slave labor law"; it is still in effect. The term 'slavery' (or 'sexual slavery') has been used since 1900 to denounce the holding of prostitutes through coercion and human trafficking.

Slavery in Greece and Rome

The Ancient Greek civilization had practiced slavery, but in different degrees depending on different states (city-states). Sparta used slaves, called helots, most extensively.

Slave labor was vital in the development of the Roman civilization. Rome had acquired a massive number of slaves from military conquests. Around 1 AD, 300,000-350,000 out 900,000 Roman residents were enslaved.

Slavery in the United States and Canada

See Slavery, U.S.

Bibliography

Surveys

• Drescher, Seymour, ed. Encyclopedia of Slavery (1999)
• Finkelman, Paul, and Joseph Miller eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1998)
• Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study 1982
• Phillips, William D. Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Atlantic Slave Trade 1984
• Rodriguez, Junius P. ed. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1997)

Topics

• Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress (1984).
• Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture 1966, intellectual history of anti-slavery
• Engerman, Stanley L. Terms of Labor: Slavery, Serfdom, and Free Labor. Stanford University Press. 1999. online edition
• Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia, 1450-1725 (1982)

Africa and Middle East

• Campbell, Gwyn. The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia Frank Cass, 2004; online edition
• Eldredge, Elizabeth A., and Fred Morton; Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier Westview Press, 1994 online edition
• Lovejoy, Paul. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa Cambridge UP, 1983
• Miers, Suzanne, and Igor Kopytoff, eds., Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives 1977
• Toledano, Ehud R. Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East U. of Washington Press, 1998 online edition

Ancient

• Cuffel, V. "The Classical Greek Concept of Slavery", Journal of the History of Ideas, 27 (1966), 3, 323-42 in JSTOR
• Finley, Moses, ed. Slavery in Classical Antiquity (1960)
• Wiedemann, Thomas. Greek and Roman Slavery 1981 online edition

Latin America

• Butler, Kathleen Mary. The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica & Barbados, 1823-1843 (1995) online edition
• Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (2006)
• Eltis, David. "Europeans and the Rise and Fall of African Slavery in the Americas: An Interpretation," American Historical Review 98 (Dec. 1993): 1399-1423. in JSTOR
• Green, William A. British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment, 1830-1865 Oxford UP, 1976
• Higman, Barry W. Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834 (1995) 330 pp. online edition
• Klein, Herbert S. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean Oxford University Press, 1988 online edition
• Stinchcombe, Arthur L. Sugar Island Slavery in the Age of Enlightenment: The Political Economy of the Caribbean World Princeton University Press, 1995 online edition
• Walvin, James. Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire (2nd ed 2001) online edition
• Ward, J. R. British West Indian Slavery, 1750-1834 Oxford UP 1988

Primary Sources

• Berlin, Ira, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowlands, eds. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 5 vol Cambridge University Press, 1982. primary sources
• Blassingame, John W., ed. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies.Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
• Rawick, George P., ed. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography . 19 vols. Greenwood Publishing Company, 1972.

U.S.

• Baptist, Edward E. and Camp, Stephanie M. H., eds. New Studies in the History of American Slavery. U. of Georgia Press, 2006. 306 pp.
• Ira Berlin. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. general survey
• Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman, eds. Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution University Press of Virginia, 1983. essays by scholars
• Fogel, Robert W. Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery W.W. Norton, 1989. by Nobel Prize winner in economics online edition
• Genovese, Eugene D. Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made Pantheon Books, 1974. one of the most influential studies
• Genovese, Eugene D. The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (1967)
• Genovese, Eugene D. and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism (1983)
• Higginbotham, Jr., A. Leon In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period. Oxford University Press, 1978.
• Horton, James Oliver and Horton, Lois. Slavery and the Making of America. Oxford U. Press, 2005. 254 pp.
• Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery, 1619-1877 Hill and Wang, 1993. short survey
• Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia W.W. Norton, 1975. online edition
• Morgan, Kenneth, ed. Slavery in America: A Reader and Guide. U. of Georgia Press, 2005. 456 pp.
• Morris, Thomas D. Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 U. of North Carolina Press, 1996. online edition
• Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell. American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime (1918), the first major study; criticized as too friendly toward the owners. online edition
• Ransom, Roger L., and Richard Sutch. One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Robinson, Armstead L. Bitter Fruits of Bondage: The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861-1865. U. Press of Virginia, 2005. 326 pp.
• Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (1956),
• Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
• Jenny B. Wahl. "Slavery in the United States" in EH.NET (2004) online
• White, Shane and White, Graham. The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African American History through Songs, Sermons, and Speech. Beacon, 2005. 241 pp.
• Wood, Betty. Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776. Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. 131 pp.

State and local studies

• Berlin, Ira and Harris, Leslie M., ed. Slavery in New York. New Press, 2005. 403 pp.
• Campbell, Randolph B. An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas 1821-1865 Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
• Fields, Barbara J. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century Yale University Press, 1985.
• Follett, Richard. The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana's Cane World, 1820-1860. Louisiana State U. Press, 2005. 290 pp.
• Hurt, R. Douglas. Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie University of Missouri Press, 1992
• Jewett, Clayton E. and John O. Allen; Slavery in the South: A State-By-State History Greenwood Press, 2004 online edition
• Kennedy, Cynthia M. Braided Relations, Entwined Lives: The Women of Charleston's Urban Slave Society. Indiana U. Press, 2005. 311 pp.
• Kulikoff, Alan. Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800 University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
• Minges, Patrick N. Slavery in the Cherokee Nation: The Keetoowah Society and the Defining of a People, 1855-1867 2003 deals with Indian slave owners online edition
• Mohr, Clarence L. On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia University of Georgia Press, 1986.
• Mooney, Chase C. Slavery in Tennessee Indiana University Press, 1957.
• Olwell, Robert. Masters, Slaves, & Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790 Cornell University Press, 1998.
• Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Economic Cost of Slaveholding in the Cotton Belt" Political Science Quarterly 20 (June 1905): 257-75.
• Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Origin and Growth of the Southern Black Belts". American Historical Review (July 1906): 798-815.
• Phillips, Ulrich B. [http://www.dinsdoc.com/phillips-1.htm "Slave Crime in Virginia." American Historical Review 20 (January 1915): 336-40.

• Phillips, Ulrich B. "The Slave Labor Problem in the Charleston District" Political Science Quarterly 22 (September 1907): 416-39.

• Reidy, Joseph P. From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South, Central Georgia, 1800-1880 University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
• Ripley, C. Peter. Slaves and Freemen in Civil War Louisiana Louisiana State University Press, 1976.
• Rivers, Larry Eugene. Slavery in Florida: Territorial Days to Emancipation University Press of Florida, 2000.
• Schwalm, Leslie. A Hard Fight for We: Women's Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina University of Chicago Press, 1997.
• Sellers, James Benson, Slavery in Alabama University of Alabama Press, 1950 online edition
• Sydnor, Charles S. Slavery in Mississippi. 1933
• Takagi, Midori. Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond, Virginia, 1782-1865 University Press of Virginia, 1999.
• Taylor, Joe Gray. Negro Slavery in Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Historical Society, 1963.
• Wood, Peter H. Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion 1974.

Anti-slavery and political debates

• Fehrenbacher, Don E. Slavery, Law, and Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective Oxford University Press, 1981 online edition
• Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery: 1830-1860 . 1960.
• Morrison, Michael A. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War. U. of North Carolina Press, 1997. online edition
• Striner, Richard. Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery. Oxford U. Press, 2006. 295 pp.

Historiography

• Blight, David W. "The World the Slave Traders Made: Is there a Postrevisionism in Slavery Historiography?" Reviews in American History, 1991 19#1 pp 37-42 in JSTOR
• Boles, John B. and Evelyn T. Nolen, eds., Interpreting Southern History: Historiographical Essays in Honor of Sanford W. Higginbotham (1987).
• Davis, David Brion. "Slavery and the Post-World War II Historians," Daedalus (1974), vol 103#2, pp 1-16
• Davis, David Brion. "Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives" American Historical Review (2000) v 105#2 pp 452-66.
• Horton, James Oliver and Horton, Lois E., eds. Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory. New Press, 2006. 272 pp.
• Richard H. King, "Marxism and the Slave South", American Quarterly 29 (1977), 117-31. focus on Eugene Genovese
• Peter Kolchin, "American Historians and Antebellum Southern Slavery, 1959-1984", in William J. Cooper, Michael F. Holt, and John McCardell , eds., A Master's Due: Essays in Honor of David Herbert Donald (1985), 87-111
• James M. McPherson et al., Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays (1971).
• Peter J. Parish; Slavery: History and Historians Westview Press. 1989 online edition

Historical fiction

• Edward P. Jones. The Known World New York: Amistad, 2003. ISBN 0060557559 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

External links

• Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
• The Antislavery Literature Project major academic center for primary sources
• Images of slavery drawn by Thomas Nast (has background music)
• History of Slavery in America a historical overview By Ronald L. F. Davis, Ph. D.

• Map of 1820 showing free and slave territories.
• Classics on American Slavery collection of old scholarly articles available on-line through Dinsmore Documentation
• The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition documents and teaching guides