7.1.1: Slavery Slavery

 7.1.1: Slavery Slavery, whose essential characteristic is that some individuals own other people, has been common throughout history. 

The Old Testament even lays out rules for how owners should treat their slaves. 

So does the Quran. The Romans had slaves, as did people in Africa, China, Greece, India, and Japan. In classical Greece and Rome, slaves did the work, freeing citizens to engage in politics and the arts. 

Slavery was most widespread in agricultural societies and least common among nomads, especially hunters and gatherers (Landtman 1938/1968; Rowthorn et al. 2011).

Let’s examine the causes and conditions of slavery. 

You probably will be surprised to learn how slavery has varied around the world. 

Causes of Slavery Contrary to popular assumption, slavery was usually based not on racism but on one of three other factors. 

The first was debt.

 In some societies, creditors would enslave people who could not pay their debts. 

The second was crime. 

Instead of being killed, a murderer or thief might be enslaved by the victim’s family as compensation for their loss. 

The third was war. 

When one group of people conquered another, they often enslaved some of the vanquished. 

Historian Gerda Lerner (1986) notes that women were the first people enslaved through warfare.

 When tribal men raided another group, they killed the men, raped the women, and then brought the women back as slaves. 

The women were valued for sexual purposes, for reproduction, and for their labor.

 Roughly 2,500 years ago, when Greece was but a collection of city-states, slavery was common. 

A city that became powerful and conquered another city would enslave some of the vanquished.

 Both slaves and slaveholders were Greek. 

Similarly, when Rome became the supreme power of the Mediterranean area about two thousand years ago, following the custom of the time, the Romans enslaved some of the Greeks they had conquered. More educated than their conquerors, some of these slaves served as tutors in Roman homes. Slavery, then, was a sign of debt, of crime, or of defeat in battle. It was not a sign that the slave was viewed as inherently inferior.  Conditions of Slavery The conditions of slavery have varied widely around the world. In some places, slavery was temporary. Slaves of the Israelites were set free in the year of jubilee, which occurred every fifty years. Roman slaves ordinarily had the right to buy themselves out of slavery. They knew what their purchase price was, and some were able to meet this price by striking a bargain with their owners and selling their services to others. In most instances, however, slavery was a lifelong condition. Some criminals, for example, became slaves when they were given life sentences as oarsmen on Roman warships. There they served until death, which often came quickly to those in this exhausting service. Slavery was not necessarily inheritable. In most places, the children of slaves were slaves themselves. But in some instances, the child of a slave who served a rich family might even be adopted by that family, becoming an heir who bore the family name along with the other sons or daughters of the household. In ancient Mexico, the children of slaves were always free (Landtman 1938/1968:271). Slaves were not necessarily powerless and poor. In almost all instances, slaves owned no property and had no power. Among some groups, however, slaves could accumulate property and even rise to high positions in the community. Occasionally, a slave might even become wealthy, loan money to the master, and, while still a slave, own slaves himself or herself (Landtman 1938/1968). This, however, was rare. Bonded Labor in the New World A gray area between slavery and contract labor is bonded labor, also called indentured service. People who wanted to start a new life in the American colonies but could not pay for their passage across the ocean would arrange for a ship captain to transport them on credit. When they arrived, wealthy colonists would pay the captain for the voyage, and these penniless people would become the colonists’ servants for a set number of years. During this period, these indentured servants were required by law to serve their masters. If they ran away, they became outlaws who were hunted down and forcibly returned. At the end of their period of indenture, they were free to work and to live where they chose (Main 1965; Handler and Reilly 2017).