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Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons — known as slaves — are deprived of their personal freedom and compelled to provide their labour or services. The term also refers to the status or condition of those enslaved individuals, who are treated as the property of another person or household. Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation in return for their labour. As such, slavery is one form of unfree labour.

Chattel slavery is the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons, including the legal right to buy and sell them. Tax slavery is the absolute legal ownership of the ruler over a person's labour or income.^{[citation needed]} Serfdom (as last present in 19th century Russia) is generally defined as the ruler/landowner owning between a third and a fifth of a person's income.^{[citation needed]} While slavery has been a prominent feature of many civilizations throughout recorded human history, it has acquired a repugnant aura, in part as a result of abolitionist movements in the 19th century.

Etymology

The word slave in the English language originates from the Scottish sclave, which comes from the Old French esclave, which in turn comes from the Medieval welsh sclavus, which originates from the early Greek sklabos, from sklabenoi Slavs, of Slavic origin; akin to Old Russian Slovene, an East Slavic tribe.^[1] ^[2] The Latin term sclavus originally referred to the Slavs of Eastern and Central Europe , as many of these people had been captured and then sold as slaves. The current usage of the word serfdom is not usually synonymous with slavery, because Medieval serfs were considered to have some (though limited) rights. Slaves are people who are owned and controlled by others in a way that they have almost no rights or freedom of movement and are not paid for their labour, aside from food, clothing and shelter needed for basic subsistence.

Definitions

Where slavery has been a legal or customary practice, slaves were held under the involuntary control of another person, group, organization, or state. The legal presence of slavery has become rare in modern times, as nearly all societies now consider slavery to be illegal, and persons held in such condition are considered by authorities to be victims of unlawful imprisonment.

A specific form, known as chattel slavery, is defined by the 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 owned object.

The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as "...the status and/or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..." 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 International Labour Organization (ILO) 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 of: military service, convicted criminals, emergencies and minor community services.^[3]

Other uses of the term

None of the following are covered by this article. See the respective articles for details.

The International Labour Organization says that child labour usually amounts to forced labour.
Many socialists and communists have condemned "wage slavery" or "economic slavery", where workers are forced to choose between accepting wages perceived as too low for their work and not being paid at all (and so presumably starving). This is related to the notion of economic coercion.
Some anarchists and libertarians view government taxation as a form of slavery ^[4], though a more logical consideration from this particular viewpoint is that it is theft or extortion.
Some feel that military drafts and other forms of coerced government labor constitute slavery.
Some proponents of animal rights apply the term slavery to the condition of some or all human-owned animals, arguing that their status is no different from that of human slaves.^[5]

History of slavery

Slavery predates writing and evidence for it can be found in almost all cultures and continents. Its many origins remain unknown. An example of slavery is thought to have existed in the walled town of Jericho which was established around 10,000 BCE. The settlers of Jericho were plagued by roaming hunting and gathering bands, which they killed or captured. ^{[citation needed]} It is thought that the ones that were captured were then put to work as slaves who themselves may have later eventually become citizens and slave owners.^{[citation needed]} Slavery can be traced to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia (~1800 BCE.), which refers to slavery as an already established institution. The forced labor of women in some ancient and modern cultures may also be identified as slavery. Slavery, in this case, includes sexual services.

The history of slavery in the ancient world was closely tied to warfare. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Persian, Chinese, Mayan, Aztec and Indian sources are replete with references to slavery in connection with warfare. Captured prisoners of war were frequently impressed into slavery by their captors, often as manual labourers in military, civil engineering, or agricultural projects, or as household servants. Many ancient households were maintained with one or more slaves and slaves provided nearly all the agricultural and construction labour in some societies.

Many ancient societies had many more slaves than nominally "free" citizens who controlled them. Slavery nearly everywhere permitted cruelty and abuse although slaves were usually treated semi-humanely as valuable "property". Slavery nearly always predates written history on every continent. After writing was introduced, domestic slavery and sometimes concubine slavery was noted among the nomadic Arabs, and among Native American hunter gatherers, African, New Guinean, and New Zealand tribes, and among the Germanic and Viking raiders and many other pre-literate people.

Most slavery is associated with war in that losers are taken prisoner by the victors to prevent a future conflict, or as a form of penal punishment with the criminals being made slaves to partially compensate the victims. Debt slavery existed in very early times, and some African people had the custom of putting up wives and children as hostages for an obligation; if the obligation was not paid, the hostages became slaves. In Homer's Greece, it was not a crime, although unusual, for a master to beat or kill a slave, and the testimony of slaves was not allowed in Greek courts unless it was obtained through torture.

Ancient Egypt

The Egyptians used slaves captured in war or bought from foreigners. Contrary to popular belief, the great pyramids were built by free, not slave, labor. The Egyptians did not use slaves in great numbers. The lands were farmed by free peasants who gave the pharaoh a portion of their crops. One historian noted that the peasants were "only a notch above nudity and starvation." All of the slaves captured in war were considered the property of pharaoh and were not sold to private citizens. Although, it is recorded that the pharaohs did give many slaves as gifts to generals or priests.

Pharaohs such as Thutmose III and Rameses II published detailed lists of the type and number of enemies captured during their campaigns into Canaan. Ahmose, a soldier under the Pharaoh Ahmose, founder of the 18th Dynasty, in describing the fall of the Hyksos capital at Avaris reports on the walls of his tomb: "Then Avaris was despoiled. Then I carried off spoil from there: one man, three women, a total of four persons. Then his majesty gave them to me to be slaves" (see Hyksos). Slaves were also obtained throughout the Pharaonic period by expeditions into Nubia. As in other ancient cultures, there was a strong link between military aggression and slavery.

Slavery is also found in the sections of the Bible related to Egypt. Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt, and after his time, at the beginning of Exodus, all the Hebrews of Egypt have been reduced to slave laborers. Much like the story of Joseph, there are examples of slaves rising to higher social status, even of marrying into native Egyptian families. However, there are many more exmples of slaves being worked until death in Sinai copper mines. As in many later societies, there was a wide variety of slaves: from highly valued house servants and tutors, to skilled artisans, to field laborers (Canaanite "asiatics" are often depicted at the wine press).

Ancient Rome

In the Roman Republic and the Early Roman Empire about 15% to 20% of the population were slaves, and - until the 2nd century when laws protecting slaves were instituted - a master could legally kill a slave. However this was very rare because slaves were very expensive. Vedius Pollio, a citizen of Rome, reportedly fed the bodies of his slaves to his pet fish. Flavius Gratianus, a fourth-century Roman emperor, ruled that any slave who accused his master of a crime should be immediately burned alive. Roman slaves who participated in revolts were often crucified.

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 slave traders, who raised them to become slaves. Justin Martyr, in his First 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.

Ancient China

In ancient China, the lives of slaves were the hardest of all Chinese. Many rich Chinese families had slaves to do the menial work for them, both in the fields and at home. The Emperor and his court usually owned hundreds or even thousands of slaves. Most people were born slaves because their mothers were slaves; other people were sold into slavery to pay debts and others were captured in raids or battle.

Greece

In Byzantium, there was a considerable slave population, and, up until the 12th century, "infidel" and "heathen" slaves worked for both individual families and the state. By the 12th century there was a growing opposition to slavery, but nothing like the American Emancipation Proclamation was ever issued.

It was not uncommon in Byzantium for male slaves to be castrated. Even some important leaders of the army and navy, during various periods of Byzantine history, were castrated -- often because very high positions were available to eunuchs, as they were of no threat to the Byzantine Emperor (The Emperor was never castrated). Once Western ideas of sex, chivalry and more humane treatment became more popularized in Byzantium, however, there was a stigma attached to castration. ^[6]

Arab Empire

The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade or trans-Saharan slavery was mostly centered around settlements and ports in East Africa. It is one of the oldest known slave trades, predating the European transatlantic slave trade by hundreds of years. Male slaves, after being transported and sold, were employed as servants, soldiers, or labourers by their owners. 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 Asian traders were often involved in the capture or purchase and transport of African slaves northward across the Sahara desert and the Indian Ocean region into Arabia and the Middle East, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent.

More African slaves may have crossed the Sahara Desert, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean than crossed the Atlantic. 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 perhaps 11-12 million transported across the Atlantic from 1500 to the late 1860s. The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade continued in some areas into the early 1900s. ^[7]

Slaves were also brought into the Arab world from Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus mountains (Georgians, Armenians, etc.) White slaves were generally called Mamluks and black slaves referred to as zanji (it should be pointed out that the word zanji in Arabic simply means 'black' as it does zenci in Turkish).

Until the 10th century many black slaves could be found in the marshlands of Iraq, until the zanji/Khawarij revolt which turned the tide in the import of black slaves, after that many more white slaves than black were brought into the Arab world (see Tabari "Revolt of the zanj").

White slaves served in the army and formed an elite corp of troops eventually revolting in Egypt to form the Mamluk dynasty.

As in the Ottoman empire slavery had no racial connotations. During the Fatimid rule of Egypt at least one black slave rose to the position of ruler of Egypt. The white Mamluks ruled Egypt after the Ayyubids until the coming of the Ottomans

Ottoman Empire

In the Ottoman Empire after battles, winners often castrated their captives as a display of power. Castrated men — eunuchs — were often admitted to special social classes and were used to guard harems. Ottoman tradition relied on slave concubines for the "royalty" along with legal marriage for reproduction. Slave concubines were used for sexual reproduction to emphasize the patriarchal nature of power (power being "hereditary" through sons only). Slave concubines, unlike wives, had no recognized lineage.

Slaves in the Ottoman empire in general were brought from Eastern Europe and parts of Southern Russia. In the Islamic world slavery had religious rather than racial connotations, with most of the slaves in Ottoman history being Christians. The Ottomans had many white European and Central-Asian "Mameluk" slaves and the elite Janissary troops of the Ottoman army were all white slaves taken mostly from the Balkans.

Towards the latter part of the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century with the decline of its European territories the Ottomans began to import slaves from the sub Sahara via Egypt. Black slaves became a common sight amongst the Ottoman elite where they worked mostly in the households of rich Ottomans as servants or maids. When slavery was abolished in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk some of these black former slaves moved from Istanbul to the city of İzmir and the surrounding villages.

Turkey has had no history of segregation on racial grounds and many of those both black and white who were the descendants of slaves have intermarried with the Turkish population.

European slave trade

The later European or Transatlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas originated around 1500, during the early modern period of European exploration of West Africa and the establishment of Atlantic colonies in the Caribbean, South and North America when growing sugar cane (and a few other crops) was found to be a lucrative enterprise. Slaves were usually captured by African tribes in raids or open warfare or purchased from other African tribes. Many tribes were happy to get rid of their enemies by capturing and selling them for trade goods--usually whiskey, swords, guns and gold.

Whole tribes were often captured and sold, not just the warriors. (Mintz, S. Digital History Slavery, Facts & Myths) A large number of slaves in the Atlantic slave trade were transported from what is now Guinea, the Congo, Angola and other parts of West Africa. It is believed that about 11-12 million men, women and children were transported in ships across the Atlantic to various ports in the New World--mostly to Virginia and the islands in the Caribbean from 1500 to 1850. Far from docilely accepting their imprisonment, some transported Africans actively resisted the brutality of their captors. African slaves are known to have engaged in at least 250 shipboard rebellions during the period of the transatlantic crossings. (Mintz, S. Digital History Slavery, Facts & Myths)

How people become slaves

Historically, most slaves ancestors were initially captured in wars or kidnapped in isolated raids but some were sold into slavery by their parents as a means of surviving extreme conditions. Most slaves were born into that status.^{[citation needed]} Ancient warfare often resulted in slavery for prisoners and their families who were either killed, ransomed or sold as slaves. Captives were often considered the property of those who captured them and were looked upon as a prize of war. Normally they were sold, bartered or ransomed. It originally may have been more humane than simply executing those who would return to fight if they were freed, but the effect led to widespread enslavement of particular groups of people. Those captured sometimes differed in ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race from the captors but often were the same as the captors. The dominant group in an area might take captives and turn them into 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 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 sporadic raids or kidnapping often sufficed. St. Patrick recounts in his Confession having been kidnapped by pirates, and the Biblical figure Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.

Ancient societies characterized by poverty, rampant warfare or lawlessness, famines, population pressures, and cultural and technological lag are frequently exporters of slaves to more developed nations. Today the illegal slave trade (mostly in Africa) deals with slaves who 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 many ancient cultures, persons (often including their family) convicted of serious crimes could be sold into slavery. The proceeds from this sale were often used to compensate the victims (the Code of Hammurabi (~1800 BCE) prescribes this for failure to maintain a water dam, to compensate victims of a flood. The convicted criminal might be sold into slavery if he lacked the property to make compensation to the victims. Other laws and other crimes might enslave the criminal regardless of his property; some laws 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 their debts. This could range from a judge, king or Emperor ordering a debtor sold with all his family, to the poor selling off their own children to prevent starvation. 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 and take care of them.

In most institutions of slavery throughout the world, the children of slaves became the property of the master. Local laws varied as to whether the status of the mother or of the father determined the fate of the child; but were usually determined by the status of the mother. In many cultures, slaves could earn their freedom through hard work and buying their own freedom; this was not possible in all cultures.

¹ The type of work slaves did depended on the time period and location of their slavery. In general, they did the same work as everyone else in the lower echelons of the society they lived in but were not paid for it beyond room and board, clothing etc. The most common types of slave work are domestic service, agriculture, mineral extraction, army make-up, industry, and commerce.^[8] Prior to about the 18th century, domestic services were acquired in some wealthier households and may include up to four female slaves and their children on its staff. The chattels (as they are called in some countries) are expected to cook, clean, sometimes carry water from an outdoor pump into the house, and grind cereal. Most hired servants to do the same tasks.

Many slaves were used in agriculture and cultivation from ancient times to about 1860. The strong, young men and women were sometimes forced to work long days in the fields, with little or no breaks for water or food. Since slaves were usually considered valuable property, they were usually well taken care of. This was not always the case in many countries where they worked on land that was owned by absentee owners. The overseers in many of these areas literally worked the slaves to death.

In mineral extraction, the majority of the work, when done by slaves, was done nearly always by men. In some places, they mined the salt that was used during extensive trade in the 19th century.^[9] Some of the men in ancient civilizations that were bought into chattel slavery were trained to fight in their nation's army and other military services. Chattel slaves were occasionally trained in artisan workshops for industry and commerce.^[10] The men worked in metalworking, while the females normally worked in either textile trades or domestic household tasks. The majority of the time, the slave owners did not pay the chattels for their services beyond room and board, clothing etc.

Female slaves, who for the most were from Africa, were long traded to the Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms by Arab traders, and sold into sexual slavery to work as concubines or prostitutes. Typically, females were sold at a lower price than their male counterparts, with one exception being when (predominantly) Irish women captured in Viking raids were sold to the Middle East in the 800-1200 period.

Slavery in the Americas

In the Americas, slavery played an important role in the economic development of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, nearly all of the West Indies, Venezuela, and the United States. Slaves planted and harvested cash crops and worked in the construction of buildings and roads, along with performing domestic duties.

On the Spanish colony of Hispaniola, Native Americans were quickly enslaved; after their population dropped sharply, importation of African slaves began, with the first arriving in 1503.

In 1619, 20 Africans were dropped off by a Dutch trader at Jamestown, Virginia. Slavery did not legally exist in the colony at the time, and the Africans were treated as indentured servants, gaining their freedom after a fixed period of time. In 1654, John Casor, a black man, become the first legally-recognized slave in the area to become the United States. Casor was owned by one of the original indentured servants, a black colonist named Anthony Johnson. Slavery became formally codified in the English colonies in the second half of the 17th century.

The cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane harvested by slaves became important exports for Brazil, the United States and Caribbean island countries. The money generated by this trade was mostly used to support the subsistence of the slaves and expand the lifestyle of the slaveowners.

The importation of slaves into the United States was banned in 1808, by which time about 300,000 had been imported. Subsequent slaves were nearly all born in the United States. By 1800, slavery was abolished in most of the Northern states and many believed it would be soon in the South also. However, following invention of the cotton gin (in 1793), cotton became the main cash crop of the South and slave labor became the backbone of the Southern oligarchy and its plantation lifestyle,. Slavery in the United States also had important political implications. During the westward expansion of the United States during the early and mid-1800s, many Northerners, thoroughly detesting the institution of slavery, tried to prevent its expansion into new territories and new states entering the Union. Attempts by the North to exclude slavery from these lands angered the South and helped lead to the American Civil War in 1861.

The adoption of slavery carried many effects. Slaves provided a relatively cheap source of labor. Having originated in tropical West Africa, it was widely believed that African slaves would be effective workers, being accustomed to hot climates and to the infectious diseases prevalent in the tropics. Millions were imported to the Southern United States, Brazil, Peru, and the Caribbean colonies. To hire non-slave labor would have been more expensive, as the early experience of using English indentured servants in the United States demonstrated. But while Africans may have carried some resistance to tropical diseases, they had no such immunity to the numerous European diseases that spread through the New World: smallpox, chicken pox, cholera, whooping cough and other diseases continually ravaged slave populations.

While the treatment of slaves varied in time and location, it is usually apparent that in those cases where slaves were treated better, they were more likely to be productive, trained and efficacious, perhaps taking pride in their work. Harsh treatment had the opposite reaction, reducing morale, lowering productivity, and required higher levels of supervision, but importantly also removing all incentive for slave workers to work harder than necessary to get by. Absentee ownership, particularly in Brazil and the Caribbean islands often caused the overseers to literally work the slaves to death. They had little or no incentive to take care of another person's human property.

To many, toil can be a source of inspiration if free to realize some of the benefits. In the short term, some parts of United States society did benefit by solving a short-term lack of plantation laborers. But slavery was often counter productive for a larger segment of the society. After abolition, many former slave owners found productive ways to survive and contribute to society without the necessity of using slave labor. A comparative look at U.S. economic growth during the periods of slavery and after would demonstrate as much.

A further effect of slavery was to relatively denigrate, in some areas of the United States, the value of manual labor itself. Hard physical work became something people did if they were forced to do it, rather than a necessary part of self-improvement and advancement. It created an idle slave-owning self-proclaimed "aristocracy" who, while asset rich, were income poor and lazy. Slavery was not a cost free enterprise, slaves were seldom paid a wage, but the owners were responsible for feeding, housing, clothing, providing simple medical care, and (in s

^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary - Slave
^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary - Slav
^ http://www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=5059
^ E.g., Machan, Tibor R. (2000). "Tax Slavery". Ludwig von Mises Institute. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
^ Spiegel, Marjorie. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, New York: Mirror Books, 1996.
^ "A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium." | Ed. Paul Veyne, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. | Harvard College Press, 1987. |From Byzantium in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, by Evelyne Patlagean.
^ Mintz, S. Digital History Slavery, Facts & Myths
^ These are just a few jobs listed in the article titled "Archaeology and Slavery" in World Archaeology Magazine
^ (Alexander, 50)
^ Alexander, 49)

[1] Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary - Slave

[2] Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary - Slav

[ILO-3] ttp://www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=5059

[4] E.g., Machan, Tibor R. (2000). "Tax Slavery". Ludwig von Mises Institute. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

[MSpiegel-5] Spiegel, Marjorie. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, New York: Mirror Books, 1996.

[6] "A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium." | Ed. Paul Veyne, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. | Harvard College Press, 1987. |From Byzantium in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, by Evelyne Patlagean.

[7] Mintz, S. Digital History Slavery, Facts & Myths

[8] These are just a few jobs listed in the article titled "Archaeology and Slavery" in World Archaeology Magazine

[9] (Alexander, 50)

[10] Alexander, 49)

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