A History of Slavery
- Andrew Sanderson
- Jun 10, 2017
- 7 min read
Throughout the course of history, slavery has been a part of human society. It is convenient for us to believe that the days of forced labour are long gone, but slavery is still an issue in the modern age and it is probably happening closer than you think.
3100 BC - 1175 BC, Ancient Egypt
The slave population of ancient Egypt was divided into three types; chattel slaves, bonded slaves and forced labourers.
A chattel slave was usually a captor of war who would be assigned work by the pharaoh at a labour colony, would be given to a temple or given as a reward to a deserving subject or soldier. A native could also become a chattel slave as a criminal punishment or inherit the role as offspring of a slave mother.
Bonded slaves were members of the general population who voluntarily sold themselves into slavery along with their family and all personal property in order to settle a debt or as a means of subsistence.
Ancient Egyptian subjects could be drafted as forced labourers by the government to work in the military, on construction projects including the building of pyramids or to carry out manual labour in a mine or quarry. Forced labourers were paid for their work but could not opt out.
Slaves were generally well treated in ancient Egyptian society and were allowed to own property and carry out monetary transactions. It was forbidden for child slaves to be forced into hard labour.
It is consensually agreed among historians that the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza was not achieved by slave labour but by peasants who were unable to farm their land due to floods.
Retainer sacrifice is known to have occurred early on in Egyptian civilization where the slaves of pharaohs and other high ranking members of society would be killed after their master's death. Slaves were buried alongside their master in order to accompany them into the after life. The practice became less common over time and had stopped completely by 2900 BC.
1700 BC - 1200 BC, Chinese Bronze Age
Evidence of slavery in China dates as far back nearly 4000 years. With the practice being documented during the ancient Han dynasty of 206 BC.
During the Han dynasty, approximately five percent of the total chinese population lived as slaves and slavery continued until the 20th century.
Slaves were captured during war, through slave raiding and through kidnapping. Self-sale also occurred in China where an individual would voluntarily sell himself into slavery in order to pay a debt or sell members of his family when their subsistence could not be afforded. The families of executed criminals would also be sold into slavery.
It was common for slave owners to adopt slaves into their family with some slaves becoming heirs when no biological offspring were available.
750 BC, Ancient Babylonia
Babylonian slavery was recorded in the Code of Hammurabi, a text that set out Babylonian law. The text divides society into a hierarchy of two groups, slaves and free men with laws and penalties for breaking laws differing depending on the class of the law breaker or victim.
For example, the text states that, should a doctor kill a rich patient, his hands would be cut off; should he kill a slave, however, he would be made to pay a monetary fine.
Similarly to slave society in China, Babylonians would often enter into slavery voluntarily in order to satisfy subsistence or to pay a debt and occasionally would be adopted into the family of the slave owner and appointed as an heir.
100 BC - 1800 AD, India
Accounts of slavery were recorded in the Manusmriti, an ancient legal text of Hindu law written in the first century BC and persisted after India's colonisation by the British in the 19th Century.
The British studied and documented the institution of slavery in India with the desire of abolition. It is estimated that in 1840, the total slave population of India was as high as nine million.
In the region of Malabar, 15 percent of the total population lived in slavery, the highest proportion by region in British colonial India.
1000 AD - 1500 AD, England
Under the feudal system, the population was divided into a hierarchical class system where land owning lord of the manor would allow serfs to occupy a plot of that land.
The serf would enter into a reciprocal agreement of bondage wherein the serf would gain the lord's protection and be allowed to cultivate the allotted land for his own subsistence while agreeing to work and maintain the lord's land.
Serfs were further hierarchically divided into four classes, freemen, villeins, cottagers and slaves.
A freeman was essentially a rent paying tenant who was able to sell his produce in order to pay rent to the lord, freemen owed comparatively little duty to those further down the hierarchy.
Villeins were expected to spend some time working the lord's land as well as paying rent and were restricted to migrate from their tenancy without agreement between their current lord and the lord to who's land they desired to move.
Cottagers would occupy a small plot of land with a cottage and enough land to provide subsistence for him and his family but did not own a tenancy; neither were cottagers permitted to own their own work animals.
Slaves were on the lowest rung of the feudal hierarchy and held the fewest rights. Slaves had a duty to work the land but were not permitted to own tenancy or to produce their own crops, rather they would rely on donations from the lord of the manor for subsistence. If a slave attempted to flee his lord and was caught, he would be beaten.
In feudal England, ten percent of the population entered into the doomsday book were slaves up to as many as twenty percent in some area.
The feudal system was instituted across Europe and in some countries, particularly eastern European countries and Russia, was not abolished until the mid to late 19th century.
600 AD - 2000 AD, The Arab Slave Trade
The Arab Slave trade was the mass movement of slaves between the Islamic frontier in eastern Africa, crossing the Sahara desert into western Africa and the Islamic nations of the Middle East and as far east as India and Indonesia.
It was permissible in Islamic sharia law for non-Muslims to be taken as slaves and so, as the Islamic state expanded into north eastern Africa in the 7th century, many African natives captured during war were sold into slavery.
The Arab slave trade continued for the duration of the existence of the Ottoman Empire between 1299 and 1922. During the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into eastern and central Europe, Europeans were captured and entered into the slave trade.
Ottoman slaves were typically employed as domestic servants and not treated as chattel, they were given limited rights and protected against abuse. In the 18th century, Christian slaves were given their freedom should the choose to convert to Islam, those who did convert were allowed to integrate into Ottoman society whereas those who refused were often punished and subject to harsh discrimination.
Devşirme was an Ottoman practice in which young christian boys from Eastern Europe were taken from their families and raised as muslims. The boys were eventually enlisted into the janissaries, a unit of Ottoman soldiers who took part in further European conquests.
Female slaves were still traded in the Ottoman empire as late as 1908 and, despite pressure on various Sultanates from western nations to abolish slavery, abolition was never officially achieved due to the tenets of Islam.
1000 AD - 1700 AD, Korea
At times between the Silla period and the 18th century, as many as one third to one half of the Korean population lived in a state of slavery.
1300 AD - 1500 AD, Mesoamerica
In Aztec society, people could become slaves due to debt, as captives of war, self sale or as a criminal punishment.
Before the arrival of settlers from Europe, Mesoamerica was devoid of work animals; slaves were instead used to move heavy loads.
Aztec slave were able to buy their way out of slavery relatively easily whereas slaves acquired from other civilisations like the Maya were often sacrificed in large numbers and may have been cannibalised by the Aztec elite.
1400 AD - 1700 AD, Indigenous North American Society
During the age of discovery, many indigenous American tribal societies were found by European explorers to own slaves. Slaves were generally acquired by capture during war and raids between rival tribes.
The best documented slave owning societies were fishing societies including the Yurok, the Klamath and the Pawnee. Fishing societies were rich in resources and slaves were often owned, not out of necessity but as consumable status symbols. Slaves would often be killed in potlatches, ceremonial feasts during which personal possessions were destroyed as a display of wealth.
The Comanche were the dominant indigenous American tribe tribe of the great planes and would capture slaves from weaker tribes, later selling them to Spanish and Mexican settlers; the Comanche also took thousands of European settlers into slavery.
Should a member of one tribe kill a member of another tribe and subsequently be captured and taken into slavery, the slave would occasionally be charged with fulfilling the role of husband for the widowed female. In indigenous American society, the title of slave was not inherited by a slave's offspring, rather the children of slaves would become free tribal members.
1400 AD - 1800 AD, The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Between the 15th and 19th centuries, central and western Africans were taken into slavery by European traders. Slaves were transported to the Americas and the Caribbean where they were sold to farmers and manufacturers, producing goods for trade in Europe. The Transatlantic Slave Trade formed a triangular trade route between the three continents.
Conditions for slaves were harsh aboard slaving ships and a large proportion of those traded died before arriving in the Americas. It is estimated that, out of 12 million traded African slaves, up to 2.4 million did not survive transportation.
By the early 19th century, the governments of western Europe were put under pressure, primarily from religious groups like the Quakers and activists like William Wilberforce. The Transatlantic Slave Trade and was officially abolished in Britain in 1833 following an attempt in 1792 that was rejected by the House of Lords.
Present, Modern Slavery
Slavery not only continues to be an issue in the present day, but the problem continues to grow. Statistics show that enslavement occurs on a greater scale now than at any other time throughout history.
With worldwide profits expected to stand at over 30 billion pounds this year alone, human trafficking is a more lucrative industry than the illegal drug and firearms trade.
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