   #copyright

Slavery

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Animal & Human Rights

   The Buxton Memorial Fountain, celebrating the emancipation of slaves in
   the British Empire in 1834, London.
   The Buxton Memorial Fountain, celebrating the emancipation of slaves in
   the British Empire in 1834, London.

   Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons — known
   as slaves — are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to perform
   labour or services. The term also refers to the status or condition of
   those persons, 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.
   Slavery has been a prominent feature of many civilizations throughout
   recorded human history.

   Slavery ended during the Medieval West, only to be revived after the
   Renaissance and its appreciation of the organisation of classical
   society (i.e. ancient Greece and Rome). Following its western revival,
   slavery was opposed by abolitionist movements in the Americas and
   Europe.

Etymology

   Slave market in early medieval Eastern Europe.
   Slave market in early medieval Eastern Europe.

   The word slave in the English language originates from the Middle
   English sclave, which comes from the Old French esclave, which in turn
   comes from the Medieval Latin sclavus, which originates from the early
   Greek sklabos, from sklabenoi Slavs, of Slavic origin; akin to Old
   Russian Slovene, an East Slavic tribe. The term sclavus originally
   referred to the Slavs of Eastern and Central Europe, as many of these
   people had been captured and then sold slaves. The current usage of the
   word serfdom is not usually synonymous with slavery, because medieval
   serfs were considered to have rights, as human beings, whereas slaves
   were considered “things” — property. 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.

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
     * 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.

   Captive Andromache by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton — a Trojan
   princess enslaved after the Trojan war
   Captive Andromache by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton — a Trojan
   princess enslaved after the Trojan war

   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. 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 their enslavers, 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.

   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. 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 in the sense that minimally adequate food
   and shelter were provided to maintain good health, and that the
   workload was not excessive to the point of endangering health. However,
   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. 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. 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.

   Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market. Gustave Boulanger's
   painting The Slave Market.

   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.
   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. 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 examples 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 seems to have been a somewhat rare occurrence, for
   complex social reasons. In any event, the Cornelian Law in 82 BCE
   forbade masters from killing a slave; the Petronian Law in 32 BCE
   forbade masters from compelling slaves to fight in the arena. Suetonius
   wrote (Claudius, 25) that, under Emperor Claudius, if a master
   neglected the health of his slave, and the slave died, the master was
   guilty of murder; furthermore, if the slave recovered in a temple of
   Asclepius, he should be freed. Dio Chrysostom, a Stoic Greek under
   Emperor Trajan, devoted two Discourses (14 and 15), delivered over two
   days at the Forum, to the condemnation of slavery. Seneca the Elder (in
   De Clementia or "On Mercy," 1:18), in the first century CE, records
   that masters who were cruel to their slaves were publicly insulted.
   Hadrian, in the second century CE, renewed the Cornelian and Petronian
   laws. Ulpian, a Stoic lawyer of the third century CE under Emperor
   Caracalla, made it illegal for parents to sell their children into
   slavery. The last notable pagan Emperor, Diocletian, in the late third
   and early fourth century CE, made it illegal for a creditor to enslave
   a debtor and for a man to sell himself into slavery to pay a debt.

   Vedius Pollio, a citizen of Rome, reportedly fed the bodies of his
   slaves to his pet fish. Flavius Gratianus, a fourth-century Roman
   emperor who favored Christianity, ruled that any slave who accused his
   master of a crime should be immediately burned alive, but this applied
   mostly to plots against the emperor's own life. 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

   The state of Sparta was unique in relying on helots to undertake almost
   all economic activity. This allowed Spartan citizens to devote
   themselves entirely to the training and pursuit of warfare, which came
   in handy in preventing slave revolts.

   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 United States'
   Emancipation Proclamation was ever issued.

   It was not uncommon in early Byzantium for male slaves to be castrated,
   a tradition inherited from the Roman Empire. Even some important
   leaders of the army and navy such, as Narses a vanquisher of Persians,
   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 became more popularized in Byzantium, however, there
   was a stigma attached to castration.

Arab Empire

   The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade or trans-Saharan slavery was
   mostly centered around settlements and ports in East Africa, though it
   is estimated that the Arab Barbary Pirates of North Africa took over 1
   million white slaves from Europe between 1530 and 1780. . 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 (1250 years), compared to
   perhaps 11-12 million transported across the Atlantic from 1500 to the
   late 1860s (~360 years). The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade
   continued in some areas into the early 1900s.

   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
   Old site of a slave market in Europe; Lagos, Portugal
   Old site of a slave market in Europe; Lagos, Portugal

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. The Ottomans had many European and
   Central Asian "Mameluk" slaves and the elite Janissary troops of the
   Ottoman army were all Christian-born 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 initially captured by African tribes in raids or open
   warfare, or purchased from other African tribes, then sold for trade
   goods — usually whiskey, swords, guns and gold. There is evidence that
   this culture of slave-taking had existed in west Africa for at least
   from at least the 9th century AD, with the Ashanti selling prisoners
   captured in local tribal conflicts as slaves to Arabs (An Atlas of
   African Affairs, by Andrew Boyd, Patrick Van Rensburg; Praeger, 1962).

   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, Ghana, 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 South America and the islands in the Caribbean from
   1500 to 1850. Less than 500,000 came to North America. 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)

   During the period from late 19th and early 20th centuries, demand for
   the labor-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and
   slavery in both Latin America and Africa. The personal monarchy of
   Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo Free State saw mass killings and
   slavery to extract rubber (Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost).
   Meanwhile, indigenous people were enslaved as part of the rubber boom
   in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil (Michael Edward Stanfield , Red
   Rubber, Bleeding Trees: Violence, Slavery, and Empire in Northwest
   Amazonia, 1850-1933). In Central America, rubber tappers participated
   in the enslavement of the indigenous Guatuso-Maleku people for domestic
   service (Mark Edelman, "A Central American Genocide: Rubber, Slavery,
   Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Guatusos-Malekus," Comparative
   Studies in Society and History (1998), 40: 356-390.).

Slavery in the Americas

   Whipped slave, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, April 2, 1863.
   Whipped slave, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, April 2, 1863.

   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 southern 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, became
   the first legally-recognized slave in the area that later became 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 and the slave population in the
   United States eventually grew to 4 million by the 1860 Census. In other
   countries, the slave population barely reproduced itself. From the
   later eighteenth century, and possibly before that even, and until the
   Civil War, the rate of natural growth of North American slaves was much
   greater than for the population of any nation in Europe, and was nearly
   twice as rapid as that of England.

   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.

   Capitalist propaganda has hidden the fact that at one point wage labor
   was considered to be worse than slavery, because in the wage system
   labourers were/are hired and fired as needed, with little concern for
   their well-being and livelihood. In the United States, there were
   slaves who managed to become free (some bought their own freedom) and
   even become slave owners themselves.

   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 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.

   Harsh treatment reduced morale, lowered productivity, and required
   higher levels of supervision, but importantly also removed 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.

   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 some rare cases) education for all of the slaves' lives
   from birth to death. If a slave was not treated reasonably, he would
   only do the minimum work necessary.

   Slavery was a source of fear, suspicion and hatred between slave
   masters and slaves. Occasionally these feelings escalated into
   uprisings resulting in the destruction of property, murder, rape,
   incarceration, or desertion. These conflicts also increased the cost of
   business and judicial intervention to maintain the balance between
   society and an economy based on slavery. From the earliest known
   history of Africa, slavery existed. It eventually dominated the New
   World. For most parts of Africa, slavery was not based on race. Those
   that were enslaved were used as personal servants to the wealthy. Basic
   work was not considered degrading, and as a reward slaves were given
   educational opportunities. The institution of slavery was strongly
   influenced by the Muslim invasion of Africa. They captured men to serve
   in the military and women to serve their harems. The demand for slaves
   was dependent upon the needs of the wealthy. Slaves were not needed to
   work in fields, instead, they were treated as servants and did not
   experience the same severity as modern slaves. By the end of the
   fourteenth century, Europeans began bringing African slaves to Europe
   and made them into servants, and justifying it with an explanation of
   introducing them to Christianity. The slave trade quickly became a
   profitable and accepted to the Europeans. Near the end of the fifteenth
   century, European trade relations with African’s were well established.
   Forts and trading ports were built. However, the slave trade was not
   exceedingly profitable. There was not a considerable demand for slaves
   in European countries. By the late seventeenth century, there was a
   shortage of servants, Europeans resorted to enslaved Africans. Three
   distinctive systems of slavery emerged in the American colonies, and
   those systems included: slavery was used in raising tobacco and corn
   working under the “gang” system; slaves raised rice and indigo, working
   under the "task" system; and slaves were engaged in farming and stock
   raising for the West Indies or were household servants for the urban
   leaders. During the American Revolution, thousands of slaves freed
   themselves by running away. In the South, slavery expanded rapidly
   after the development of the cotton gin. In the North, every state
   freed slaves by statute, court decision, or enactment of gradual
   emancipation schemes. Slavery has been treated as a unimportant aspect
   of history but has played a crucial role in the making of the modern
   world. Slavery provided the labor force, a role in the settlement and
   development of the New World.

   References

   African-American: A Journey from Slavery to Freedom
   www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aaslavry.htm

   Anti-Slavery International www.antislavery.org

   Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789
   www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

   Slavery Guide www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/slavery/index.cfm

The contemporary status of slavery

   According to the Anti-Slavery Society, "Although there is no longer any
   state which legally recognizes, or which will enforce, a claim by a
   person to a right of property over another, the abolition of slavery
   does not mean that it ceased to exist. There are millions of people
   throughout the world — mainly children — in conditions of virtual
   slavery, as well as in various forms of servitude which are in many
   respects similar to slavery." It further notes that slavery,
   particularly child slavery, was on the rise in 2003. It points out that
   there are countless others in other forms of servitude (such as
   peonage, bonded labor and servile concubinage) which are not slavery in
   the narrow legal sense. Critics claim they are stretching the
   definition and practice of slavery beyond its original meaning, and are
   actually referring to forms of unfree labour other than slavery.

The economics of contemporary slavery

   Since 1945, debate about the link between economic growth and different
   relational forms (most notably unfree social relations of production in
   Third World agriculture) occupied many contributing to discussions in
   the development decade (the 1960s). This continued to be the case in
   the mode of production debate (mainly about agrarian transition in
   India) that spilled over into the 1970s, important aspects of which
   continue into the present (see the monograph by Brass, 1999, and the
   600 page volume edited by Brass and van der Linden, 1997). Central to
   these discussions was the link between capitalist development and
   modern forms of unfree labour ( peonage, debt bondage, indenture,
   chattel slavery). Within the domain of political economy it is a debate
   that has a very long historical lineage, and - accurately presented -
   never actually went away. Unlike advocacy groups, for which the number
   of the currently unfree is paramount, those political economists who
   participated in the earlier debates sought to establish who, precisely,
   was (or was not) to be included under the rubric of a worker whose
   subordination constituted a modern form of unfreedom. This element of
   definition was regarded as an epistemologically necessary precondition
   to any calculations of how many were to be categorized as relationally
   unfree.

   According to a broader definition used by Kevin Bales of Free the
   Slaves, another advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International,
   there are 27 million people (though some put the number as high as 200
   million) in virtual slavery today, spread all over the world (Kevin
   Bales, Disposable People). This is, also according to that group:
     * The largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any
       point in world history.
     * The smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever
       been enslaved at once.
     * Reducing the price of slaves to as low as US$40 in Mali for young
       adult male laborers, to a high of US$1000 or so in Thailand for
       HIV-free young females suitable for use in brothels (where they
       frequently contract HIV). This represents the price paid to the
       person, or parents.
     * This represents the lowest price that there has ever been for a
       slave in raw labor terms — while the price of a comparable male
       slave in 1850 America would have been about US$1000 in the currency
       of the time (US$38,000 today), thus slaves, at least of that
       category, now cost one thirtyeighth of their price 150 years ago,
       although this does not refer to the price of an 1850 slave in
       Africa.

   As a result, the economics of slavery is stark: the yield of profit per
   year for those buying and controlling a slave is over 800% on average,
   as opposed to the 5% per year that would have been the expected payback
   for buying a slave in colonial times. This combines with the high
   potential to lose a slave (have them stolen, escape, or freed by
   unfriendly authorities) to yield what are called disposable people —
   those who can be exploited intensely for a short time and then
   discarded, such as the prostitutes thrown out on city streets to die
   once they contract HIV, or those forced to work in mines.

Human trafficking

   Trafficking in human beings, sometimes called human trafficking, or sex
   trafficking (as the majority of victims are women or children forced
   into prostitution) is not the same as people smuggling. A smuggler will
   facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at
   their destination, the smuggled person is free; the trafficking victim
   is enslaved. Victims do not agree to be trafficked: they are tricked,
   lured by false promises, or forced into it. Traffickers use coercive
   tactics including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and
   use of physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of
   abuse to control their victims. Whilst the majority of victims are
   women, and sometimes children, forced into prostitution, other victims
   include men, women and children forced into manual labor. Due to the
   illegal nature of trafficking, the exact extent is unknown. A US
   Government report published in 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000
   people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure
   does not include those who are trafficked internally.

Abolitionist movements

History of abolitionism

   Slavery has existed, in one form or another, through the whole of
   recorded human history — as have, in various periods, movements to free
   large or distinct groups of slaves. According to the Biblical Book of
   Exodus, Moses led Israelite slaves out of ancient Egypt — possibly the
   first written account of a movement to free slaves. Later Jewish laws
   (known as Halacha) prevented slaves from being sold out of the Land of
   Israel, and allowed a slave to move to Israel if he so desired. The
   Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed about 539 B.C.E., abolished slavery and
   allowed Jews and other nationalities who had been enslaved under
   Babylonian rule to return to their native lands.

   Abolitionism should be distinguished from efforts to help a particular
   group of slaves, or to restrict one practice, such as the slave trade.

   Slavery ended during the Medieval West, only to be revived after the
   Renaissance and its appreciation of the organisation of classical
   society (i.e. ancient Greece and Rome). Medieval serfdom replaced the
   slavery of antiquity, and serfs were considered human beings with
   rights, protections, and opportunities for social mobility — the bond
   of serfdom “acted for the benefit of the peasant”, quite to the
   contrary of slavery. Often, the Church provided a means of upward
   mobility for serfs; perhaps the best example is Abbot Suger, the child
   of two serfs who nonetheless became a fellow student of the future King
   Louis VI at the abbey of Saint-Denis, and would eventually govern the
   kingdom of France during Louis’s crusade, earning the title “Father of
   the Country”.

   Following the revival of slavery after the Middle Ages, Portugal was
   the first country in Europe to again abolish slavery, in its European
   territory, Azores and Madeira islands and in the Portuguese State of
   India (Goa Daman and Diu). This was done by a decree issued in February
   12, 1761 by the prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal.

   In 1772, a legal case concerning James Somersett established the
   illegality of slavery in England.
   Proclamation of the abolition of slavery by Victor Hughes in
   Guadeloupe, 1 November 1794
   Proclamation of the abolition of slavery by Victor Hughes in
   Guadeloupe, 1 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 French
   control. They were successful at doing so in Guadeloupe and Martinique,
   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. To prevent the reimposition of slavery,
   the new state broke up the plantations into small private land
   holdings. However, these also proved too small for economic
   development, leading to widespread poverty. In France's other Caribbean
   colonies, where slavery was re-established, abolition did not take
   place until 1848.

   Following the work of campaigners in the United Kingdom, the Abolition
   of the Slave Trade Act was passed on March 25, 1807. The act imposed a
   fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention
   was to outlaw the slave trade within the British Empire. The Slavery
   Abolition Act, passed on August 23, 1833, outlawed slavery in British
   colonies. On August 1, 1834 all slaves in the British Empire were
   emancipated, but those still working were to be indentured to their
   former owners for six years in an "apprenticeship" system, which was
   abolished in 1838 after peaceful protests in Trinidad.

   Around this time, slaves in other parts of the world, aided by
   abolitionists, also began their struggle for independence. Beginning
   during the American Revolution, states in the Northern parts of the
   U.S. began to free their slaves. Pennsylvania passed the first Gradual
   Emancipation act in 1780, and Massachusetts ended slavery wholesale in
   1783 by judicial decree. By 1804, NJ would be the final "Northern"
   state to end enslavement. Slaves in the United States who escaped
   ownership would often make their way north with white and black
   abolitionist support to the northern part of the country or Canada
   through what became known as the " Underground Railroad". Famously
   active abolitionists of the U.S. include William Lloyd Garrison,
   Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Disputes
   over slavery, and its extension into new territories, helped to lead to
   the American Civil War, which took the lives of more than 620,000
   soldiers. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued during the war, and the
   Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, finally abolished slavery in
   the United States.

   Portugal abolished slavery in its overseas territories in 1869,
   following British lobbying and prior agreements to the gradual
   abolition of slavery throughout the Portuguese Empire. Spain officially
   abolished slavery throughout its territories in 1811, though colonies
   Cuba and Puerto Rico stopped the practice in 1873 and 1886,
   respectively. The last nation in the Americas to abolish slavery was
   Brazil, who did so in 1888.

   The abolition movement was fueled in part by a growing sense that
   slavery was morally repugnant, but also for economic reasons. Most of
   the former slaveowners (those that did not go bankrupt) found they
   could get cheaper labor costs by simply hiring the former slaves only
   when they needed them, instead of committing to feeding and housing
   them in perpetuity. The invention of the electric motor and a myriad of
   household machinery that had taken most of the drudgery out of
   housework removed the necessity of household slaves. The invention of
   labor saving devices has made farming and industrial production so
   labor-free that slaves are in actuality not cost effective; not
   considering of course the importance of the equity value involved in
   slave ownership.

   Abolition led to new concerns, notably the question of what to do with
   the massive increase in the number of people needing work, housing, and
   so on. To answer this question, Sierra Leone and Liberia were
   established for former slaves of the British Empire and United States
   respectively. Supporters of the effort believed the repatriation of
   slaves to Africa would be the best solution to the problem as well as
   setting right the injustices done to their ancestors. While these
   efforts may have been in good faith, and indeed some blacks (notably
   parts of the Harlem Renaissance) embraced repatriation, there were
   other motives as well; for instance, trade unions did not want the
   cheap labor of former slaves around, and racism (i.e. solving the
   problem by getting rid of the blacks) may have played a role.
   Regardless of the motives, both efforts were largely unsuccessful.

   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
   Declaration 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. By November 2003 104 nations had ratified
   the treaty.

Potential for total abolition

   The 27 million people referred to by Bales (see above) produce a gross
   economic product of US$13 billion annually. This is also a smaller
   percentage of the world economy than slavery has produced at any prior
   point in human history. That, in addition to the universal criminal
   status of slaveholding, the lack of moral arguments for it in modern
   discourse, and the many conventions and agreements to abolish it
   worldwide, make it likely that it can be eliminated in this generation,
   according to Free The Slaves. According to the latter, there are no
   nations whose economies would be substantially affected by the true
   abolition of slavery. Others think this a highly idealized view, since
   the beneficiaries of unfree labour are not confined within the
   boundaries of national economies where such relations are found.

Cocoa Protocol

   A first step towards this objective is the Cocoa Protocol, by which the
   entire cocoa industry worldwide has accepted full moral and legal
   responsibility for the entire comprehensive outcome of their production
   processes. Negotiations for this protocol were initiated for cotton,
   sugar and other commodity items in the nineteenth century — taking
   about 140 years to complete. Thus, it seems that this is also a turning
   point in history, where all commodity markets can slowly lever
   licensing and other requirements to ensure that slavery is eliminated
   from production, one industry at a time, as a sectoral simultaneous
   policy that does not cause disadvantages for any one market player.

Timeline of the abolition of slavery

   Below is a list of countries and the year in which they formally
   abolished slavery:
   Country Date Notes
   Japan 1588 Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered all slave trading to be
   abolished. His successor Tokugawa Ieyasu also continued abolishment of
   slavery although severe servitude was still on practice until XX
   century.
   Canada, Lower 1803 In 1803, William Osgoode, then Chief Justice of
   Lower Canada, ruled that slavery was not compatible with British law.
   Canada, Upper 1810 Abolished slavery in 1793 under Sir John Graves
   Simcoe, but did not free all the existing slaves until 1810
   Chile 1823 The Congress approves the total abolition of slavery, 24
   July
   United Kingdom 1772-1834 1772 slavery ruled illegal in England, on
   grounds of never having been allowed by law; 1807 slave trading
   abolished, and Royal Navy tasked with suppressing it, even when carried
   on by non-British subjects; 1834 abolished in British Empire, but
   working slaves required to spend 6 more years as "apprentices"; slavery
   never legal in UK. See article on abolitionism
   Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Leeward Islands, Windward
   Islands. 1838 Abolished the last vestiges of slavery two years ahead of
   schedule.
   France 1794, 1848 See article on abolitionism
   Colombia 1853
   Venezuela 1854
   United States 1777-1865 Vermont annexed, maintains prohibition on
   slavery; 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
   Portugal 1761-1869 Abolished in European Portugal and Atlantic Isles in
   1761 by Prime-Minister Marquis of Pombal. Abolished in the African
   colonies of the Portuguese Empire in 1869.
   Russia 1861 Emancipation of Serfs under Tsar Alexander II; Emancipation
   reform of 1861
   Cuba 1886 Cuba was then still a Spanish colony
   Brazil 1888 The last country to do so in the Americas.. The Imperial
   Princess Isabel de Bragança abolished all forms of slavery existent in
   the Brazilian Empire. That decision eventually led to the loss of
   confidence of the great Brazilian farmers in the Empire and to the
   Revolution that abolished Monarchy in the country. The Brazilian
   government has openly acknowledged that the practice still continues.
   Estmates by the Brazilian government (in 2004) placed the number of
   indentured slaves at 40,000 and there is evidence that this number is
   growing yearly.
   Saudi Arabia 1962 See Human rights in Saudi Arabia
   Mauritania 1981 Slavery still exists de facto

   See also: National abolition dates (longer list)

Apologies

   On May 21, 2001, the National Assembly of France passed the Taubira
   law, recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity. At the same time
   the British, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese delegations blocked an EU
   apology for slavery.

   The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is
   still being pursued across the world. For example, the Jamaican
   Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action Plan.

   In September 2006 it was reported that the UK Government may issue a
   "statement of regret" over slavery, an act that was followed through by
   a "public statement of sorrow" from Tony Blair on November 27, 2006.

   On February 25th, 2007 the state of Virginia resolved to 'profoundly
   regret' and apologize for its role in the institution of slavery. While
   unique and the first of its kind in the U.S., the apology came in the
   form of a non-binding resolution.

Reparations

   Sporadically there have been movements to achieve reparations for those
   formerly held as slaves, or sometimes their descendants. Claims for
   reparations for being held in slavery are handled as a civil law matter
   in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem,
   since former slaves' relative lack of money means they often have
   limited access to a potentially expensive and futile legal process.
   Mandatory systems of fines and reparations paid to an as yet
   undetermined group of claimants from fines, paid by unspecified
   parties, and collected by authorities have been proposed by advocates
   to alleviate this "civil court problem". Since in almost all cases
   there are no living ex-slaves or living ex-slave owners these movements
   have gained little traction. In nearly all cases the judicial system
   has ruled that the statute of limitations on these possible claims has
   long since expired.

   In the United States, the reparations movement often cites the
   unofficial 40 acres and a mule decree, which was never implemented, as
   an unpaid claim. Recent effort have also targeted the few surviving
   businesses that profited from the slave trade or issued insurance on
   slaves. Almost all these cases have been dismissed and reparations have
   never been paid to descendants of slaves.

   In Africa, the second self-appointed World Reparations and Repatriation
   Truth Commission was convened in Ghana in 2000. Its deliberations
   concluded with a petition being served in the International Court at
   the Hague for US$777 trillion (more than ten times the annual world
   GDP, equivalent to about 250 years' worth of the current U.S. federal
   budget) against the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom for
   "unlawful removal and destruction of Petitioners" mineral and human
   resources from the African continent" between 1503 up to the end of the
   colonial era in the late 1950s and 1960s.

   Following Blair's statement expressing "sorrow" over slavery, Esther
   Stanford, of the Pan African Reparation Coalition called for "various
   reparative measures including financial compensation" from the British
   government to the descendants of black Africans transported in the
   international slave trade. This view was repeated by Anti-slavery
   International's director Aiden McQuade, who called for "measures of
   reparation towards the communities and countries which have been
   impoverished and devastated by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade". Such
   reparations are not completely without precedent, since descendants of
   black American slaves sued Lloyd's of London in 2004 for insuring ships
   used in the slave trade during the 1700s and 1800s. There is widespread
   disagreement with reparations for slavery among the British public,
   including anger that such reparations are unilateral (i.e. focus purely
   on black African slavery by white people and do not take into account
   slavery within Africa by black Africans and Arabs over a longer
   period), single-issue (i.e. do not include other slavery within Britain
   under, for example, the Romans and Vikings), legally dubious (group
   responsibility for the actions of forebears has no legal basis under
   British law) and fail to take into account changing political, legal
   and moral attitudes.

   The idea of reparations for slavery has also been rejected by some
   black Africans. The president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, has ridiculed
   reparations by saying he is the descendant of generations of
   slave-owning African royals. "If one can claim reparations for slavery,
   the slaves of my ancestors or their descendants can also claim money
   from me".

Religion and slavery

   Some argue that the Bible - particularly the Old Testament - condones
   slavery in Ancient Israelite society by failing to condemn the
   widespread existing practice present in other cultures. It also
   explicitly states that slavery is morally acceptable, but only under
   certain circumstances (Leviticus 25:44-46; Exodus 21:7-11).

   But there are also many limits to slavery. For example, Hebrew slaves
   must be freed after six years of servitude (Exodus 21:2), although
   slaves from other nations can be enslaved in perpetuity (Leviticus
   25:44-46). Masters also do not have complete control over the lives of
   their slaves. If a master beats his slave so severely that the slave is
   killed immediately, the master is to be punished (contrary to
   widespread practice elsehwere and even much later that masters have
   complete control over the lives of their slaves). If the master had
   beaten the slave but had no intent on killing him/her, the master can
   go unpunished (Exodus 21:21). Ancient Israel during the time of the Old
   Testament was certainly not as slave-dominated as later societies such
   as Ancient Rome.

   The New Testament admonishes slaves to obey their masters (1 Peter
   2:18; Ephesians 6:5-8; Titus 2:9-10; Colossians 3:22-25; 1 Timothy
   6:1), and the prophets and apostles urged kindness to slaves (Ephesians
   6:9; Colossians 4:1). Modern Protestant churches have differently
   interpreted these passages to be either anti- or pro-slavery, with some
   regarding these passages to consist of the Bible reporting existing
   social customs and laws, rather than a moral endorsement of the
   institution of slavery.

   In regards to the Catholic Church, the early Church had nothing to say
   about the slavery that was part of the prevailing culture in Ancient
   Rome. The most influential of the Catholic Fathers for a thousand
   years, St. Augustine (354-430), wrote in City of God (19:15) that
   slavery "is no crime in the eyes of God," since slavery is part of
   God's punishment for sin. Pope Leo I (440-461) forbade admitting slaves
   (servi) into the clergy "because of the vileness [vilitas] of their
   condition," which he maintained, would "pollute" the sacred profession.
   Pope Gregory I (590-604), whose Church owned more than 1,500 square
   miles of land cultivated by slaves, repeated this prohibition and also
   (in "Epistles" 7:1) the prohibition of a slave marrying a free
   Christian.

   The position of the Christian churches became firmly anti-slavery only
   in the 1800s. For about one thousand years there was little protest
   from Christian clergy until, in 1462, Pope Pius II declared slavery to
   be "a great crime" (magnum scelus). In 1537, Pope Paul III forbade the
   enslavement of the Indians, while Pope Urban VIII forbade it in 1639,
   and Pope Benedict XIV in 1741. Pope Pius VII in 1815 demanded that the
   Congress of Vienna suppress the slave trade, and Pope Gregory XVI
   condemned it in 1839. In the Bull of Canonization of the St. Peter
   Claver, Pope Pius IX branded the "supreme villainy" (summum nefas) of
   the slave traders. Pope Leo XIII, in 1888, addressed an encyclical to
   the Brazilian bishops, In Plurimism (On the Abolition of Slavery),
   exhorting them to banish the remnants of slavery from their country.

   In Islam, the Qur'an accepts and endorses the institution of slavery,
   and Muhammad owned slaves (his actions are religiously binding through
   the Hadith). The slavery endorsed by the Qur'an limited the source of
   slaves to those captured in war and those born of two slave parents.
   The Qur'an considers emancipation of a slave to be a meritorious deed,
   yet nationwide emancipation did not occur in Muslim lands until
   post-WWII, with pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and
   France to secularise. Some Islamic nations have been among the last to
   outlaw slavery.

   In Hinduism, the caste system is analogous to slavery in several ways
   (low inherited status), while distinct in others (ownership). Hindus
   and scholars debate whether the caste system is an integral part of
   Hinduism sanctioned by the scriptures or an outdated social custom.
   Discrimination based on caste, including untouchability against the
   so-called low castes, was criminalized in India upon independence by
   the Indian Constitution.

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