| Part of a series on |
| Forced labour and slavery |
|---|
 |
Slavery was widely practiced by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, both prior to European colonisation and subsequently.
Slavery and related practices of forced labor varied greatly between regions and over time. In some instances, traditional practices may have continued after European colonisation.
Slaves were traded across trans-continental trade networks in North America before European arrival. [1]
Many of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, such as the Haida and Tlingit, were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far south as California. [2] [3] [4] Slavery was hereditary, the slaves being prisoners of war. Their targets often included members of the Coast Salish groups. Among some tribes about a quarter of the population were slaves. [5] [6] One slave narrative was composed by an Englishman, John R. Jewitt, who had been taken alive when his ship was captured in 1802; his memoir provides a detailed look at life as a slave, and explains that among his slavemasters, the main tribal chief had 50 slaves and his deputies up to a dozen each. [7]
The Pawnee of the Great Plains, the Iroquois of the state of New York, and the Yurok and Klamath of California, were known to keep slaves. [8] [9] [10]
In Mesoamerica, the most common forms of slavery were those of prisoners of war and debtors. People unable to pay back debts could be sentenced to work as slaves to the persons owed until the debts were worked off. Enslavement was also a possible sentence for the crimes of thievery, rape and poaching. [11]
The Mayan [12] [13] and Aztec [14] civilizations both practiced slavery. Warfare was important to Maya society, because raids on surrounding areas provided the victims required for human sacrifice, as well as slaves for the construction of temples. [15] Among the Maya, slavery was inherited, unless a ransom was paid. [16] Most victims of human sacrifice were prisoners of war or slaves. [17] Among the Aztecs, white collar crime such as embezzlement, breach of trust, and theft could be penalized with enslavement. [18] The Nahuas traded child slaves. [19]
In the Inca Empire, workers were subject to a Mit'a in lieu of taxes which they paid by working for the government, a form of corvée labor. [21] Each ayllu , or extended family, would decide which family member to send to do the work. It is debated whether this system of forced labor counts as slavery.[ citation needed ]
The Arawak, Caribs, Waraos and Akawaio of the Dutch Guiana captured people from other tribes. Most males were executed, but some were enslaved or sold repeatedly, often across great distances. [22]
The Tehuelche of Patagonia, and the Tupinambá of Brazil, were known to keep slaves. [23]
The history of Antigua and Barbuda covers the period from the arrival of the Archaic peoples thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Antigua and Barbuda were inhabited by three successive Amerindian societies. The island was claimed by England, who settled the islands in 1632. Under English/British control, the islands witnessed an influx of both Britons and African slaves migrate to the island. In 1981, the islands were granted independence as the modern state of Antigua and Barbuda.
The Spanish colonization of the Americas began in 1493 on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola after the initial 1492 voyage of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus under license from Queen Isabella I of Castile. These overseas territories of the Spanish Empire were under the jurisdiction of Crown of Castile until the last territory was lost in 1898. Spaniards saw the dense populations of indigenous peoples as an important economic resource and the territory claimed as potentially producing great wealth for individual Spaniards and the crown. Religion played an important role in the Spanish conquest and incorporation of indigenous peoples, bringing them into the Catholic Church peacefully or by force. The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the vast territory. Spanish men and women settled in greatest numbers where there were dense indigenous populations and the existence of valuable resources for extraction.
A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of slaves have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedom and the dream of successful rebellion is often the greatest object of song, art, and culture amongst the enslaved population. These events, however, are often violently opposed and suppressed by slaveholders.
The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno, who lived in the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. All these groups spoke related Arawakan languages.
The Garifuna people are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language, and Vincentian Creole.
Slavery in Canada includes historical practices of enslavement practised by both the First Nations until the latter half of the 19th century, and by colonists during the period of European colonization.
The Cariban languages are a family of languages indigenous to north-eastern South America. They are widespread across northernmost South America, from the mouth of the Amazon River to the Colombian Andes, and they are also spoken in small pockets of central Brazil. The languages of the Cariban family are relatively closely related. There are about three dozen, but most are spoken only by a few hundred people. Macushi is the only language among them with numerous speakers, estimated at 30,000. The Cariban family is well known among linguists partly because one language in the family—Hixkaryana—has a default word order of object–verb–subject. Prior to their discovery of this, linguists believed that this order did not exist in any spoken natural language.
The Haitian Revolution and the subsequent independence of Haiti as an independent state provoked mixed reactions in the United States. Among many white Americans, this led to uneasiness, instilling fears of racial instability on its own soil and possible problems with foreign relations and trade between the two countries. Among enslaved black Americans, it fueled hope that the principles of the recent American Revolution might be realized in their own liberation. While the Haitian Revolution was occurring during the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams, members of the Federalist Party including Alexander Hamilton supported Toussaint Louverture and his revolution. John Adams appointed Edward Stevens as US consul-general to Haiti to forge a closer relationship between the two nations and express US support for Louverture's government.
Social death is the condition of people not accepted as fully human by wider society. It refers to when someone is treated as if they are dead or non-existent. It is used by sociologists such as Orlando Patterson and Zygmunt Bauman, and historians of slavery and the Holocaust to describe the part played by governmental and social segregation in that process. Social death is defined by "three aspects: a loss of social identity, a loss of social connectedness and losses associated with disintegration of the body."
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised despite it being illegal.
Belizeans are people associated with the country of Belize through citizenship or descent. Belize is a multiethnic country with residents of Ethnic groups of Amerindian, African, European, Asian and Middle-eastern descent or mixed race with any combination of those groups.
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States includes slavery by and enslavement of Native Americans roughly within what is currently the United States of America.
During and after the European colonization of the Americas, European settlers practiced widespread enslavement of Indigenous peoples. In the 15th century, the Spanish introduced chattel slavery through warfare and the cooption of existing systems. A number of other European powers followed suit, and from the 15th through the 19th centuries, between two and five million Indigenous people were enslaved, which had a devastating impact on many Indigenous societies, contributing to the overwhelming population decline of Indigenous peoples in the Americas.
Afro-Saint Lucians or West African-Saint Lucians, are Saint Lucians whose ancestry lies within West and Central Africa. However, many Afro-Saint Lucians also have small amounts of other ancestry such as Arawak, European and Indian.
Afro-Vincentians or Black Vincentians are Vincentians whose ancestry lies within Sub-Saharan Africa.
Indigenous peoples in Guyana, Native Guyanese or Amerindian Guyanese are Guyanese people who are of indigenous ancestry. They comprise approximately 9.16% of Guyana's population. Amerindians are credited with the invention of the canoe, as well as Cassava-based dishes and Guyanese pepperpot, the national dish of Guyana. Amerindian languages have also been incorporated in the lexicon of Guyanese Creole.
The ownership of enslaved people by indigenous peoples of the Americas extended throughout the colonial period up to the abolition of slavery. Indigenous people enslaved Amerindians, Africans, and —occasionally— Europeans.
The practice of slavery in present-day Colombia dates back to the pre-Spanish era and persisted until its definitive abolition in 1851. This practice involved the human trafficking of indigenous individuals, initially among indigenous groups such as the Chibchas, the Muzos, or the Panches, and later by European traders, particularly the Portuguese, who brought enslaved Africans, to the region. Subsequently, commercial elites of the early Republic of New Granada, what is present-day Colombia, also participated in this trade.
Slavery existed in Morocco since antiquity until the 20th-century. Morocco was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa until the 20th-century, as well as a center of the Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the Barbary pirates until the 19th-century. The open slave trade was finally suppressed in Morocco in the 1920s. The haratin and the gnawa have been referred to as descendants of former slaves.
In the pre-Columbian era, Native Americans developed transcontinental trade networks, and slaves were among the commodities
Maquina had nearly fifty, male and female, in his house, a number constituting about one half of its inhabitants, comprehending those obtained by war and purchase; whereas none of the other chiefs had more than twelve
thieves, rapists, and poachers, among others, could be sentenced to enslavement for crimes.
the Maya […] once enslaved, the status could become hereditary unless the slave were ransomed
Con la esclavitud se castigaban el abuso de confianza, la malversación de fondos, el robo, dependiento de la gravedad.
lone. Lockhart (The Nahuas 99-100) confirms the existence of child slaves who had "come from a distance"
dominated by Arawaks […] Caribs […] Waraos […] Akawaio […] Native men added regularly to the population of their villages by capturing people […] Women were forced to marry into the village to perform domestic and sexual duties […] Male prisoners of war were more likely to be killed […] Some captives became servants or slaves or they found themselves repeatedly traded, often across great distances