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Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labor. Slavery typically involves compulsory work with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The outfitted European slave ships of the slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa who had been sold by West African slave traders to mainly Portuguese, British, Spanish, Dutch, and French slave traders. while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids; European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade.
Historically, slavery has been regulated, supported, or opposed on religious grounds.
Sublimis Deus is a bull promulgated by Pope Paul III on June 2, 1537, which forbids the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and all other people who could be discovered later. It states that the Indians are fully rational human beings who have rights to freedom and private property, even if they are heathen. Another related document is the ecclesiastical letter Pastorale officium, issued May 29, 1537, and usually seen as a companion document to Sublimis Deus.
Islamic views on slavery represent a complex and multifaceted body of Islamic thought, with various Islamic groups or thinkers espousing views on the matter which have been radically different throughout history. Slavery was a mainstay of life in pre-Islamic Arabia and surrounding lands. The Quran and the hadith address slavery extensively, assuming its existence as part of society but viewing it as an exceptional condition and restricting its scope. Early Islamic dogma forbade enslavement of dhimmis, the free members of Islamic society, including non-Muslims and set out to regulate and improve the conditions of human bondage. Islamic law regarded as legal slaves only those non-Muslims who were imprisoned or bought beyond the borders of Islamic rule, or the sons and daughters of slaves already in captivity. In later classical Islamic law, the topic of slavery is covered at great length.
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 enslaved people 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 common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan 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 practiced despite it being illegal.
The abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage – for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery throughout empires. Each step was usually the result of a separate law or action. This timeline shows abolition laws or actions listed chronologically. It also covers the abolition of serfdom.
The early history of slavery in the Indian subcontinent is contested because it depends on the translations of terms such as dasa and dasyu. Greek writer Megasthenes, in his 4th century BCE work Indika, states that slavery was banned within the Maurya Empire, while the multilingual, mid 3rd Century BCE, Edicts of Ashoka independently identify obligations to slaves and hired workers, within the same Empire.
The Slave Route Project is a UNESCO initiative that was officially launched in 1994 in Ouidah, Benin. It is rooted in the mandate of the organization, which believes that ignorance or concealment of major historical events constitutes an obstacle to mutual understanding, reconciliation and cooperation among peoples. The project breaks the silence surrounding the slave trade and slavery that has affected all continents and caused great upheavals that have shaped our modern societies. In studying the causes, the modalities and the consequences of slavery and the slave trade, the project seeks to enhance the understanding of diverse histories and heritages stemming from this global tragedy.
Slavery in Ethiopia existed for centuries, going as far back as 1495 BC and ending in 1942. There are also sources indicating the export of slaves from the Aksumite Empire. The practice formed an integral part of Ethiopian society. Slaves were traditionally drawn from the Nilotic groups inhabiting Ethiopia's southern hinterland as well as from the Oromos. War captives were another source of slaves, though the perception, treatment and duties of these prisoners was markedly different. Although religious law banned Christian slave masters from taking part in the slave trade, many Muslim Ethiopian slave traders took part in the Arab slave trade. Slaves usually served as concubines, bodyguards, servants and treasurers.
The Yoruba people contributed significant cultural and economic influence upon the Atlantic slave trade during its run from approximately 1400 until 1900 CE.
The Indian Slavery Act, 1843, also known as Act V of 1843, was an act passed in British India under East India Company rule, which outlawed many economic transactions associated with slavery.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.
Slavery was common in the early Roman Empire and Classical Greece. It was legal in the Byzantine Empire but it was transformed significantly from the 4th century onward as slavery came to play a diminished role in the economy. Laws gradually diminished the power of slaveholders and improved the rights of slaves by restricting a master’s right to abuse, prostitute, expose, and murder slaves. Slavery became rare after the first half of 7th century. From 11th century, semi-feudal relations largely replaced slavery. Under the influence of Christianity, views of slavery shifted: by the 10th century slaves were viewed as potential citizens, rather than property or chattel. Slavery was also seen as "an evil contrary to nature, created by man's selfishness", although it remained legal.
The history of slavery in the Muslim world began with institutions inherited from pre-Islamic Arabia. The practices of keeping slaves in the Muslim world nevertheless developed in radically different ways in different Muslim states based on a range of social-political factors, as well as the more immediate economic and logistical considerations of the Arab slave trade. As a general principle, Islam encouraged the manumission of Muslim slaves as a way of expiating sins, and many early converts to Islam, such as Bilal, were former slaves. However, Islam never banned the practice, and it persisted as an important institution in the Muslim world through to the modern era.
Slavery existed in the area of later Saudi Arabia from antiquity onward.
Sebastian R. Prange is a historian and academic known for his studies on the medieval Indian Ocean world. He is best known as the author of Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast (2018).
The Trans-Saharan slave trade, also known as the Arab slave trade, was a slave trade in which slaves were transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other direction. Estimates of the total number of black slaves moved from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arab world range from 6-10 million, and the trans-Saharan trade routes conveyed a significant number of this total, with one estimate tallying around 7.2 million slaves crossing the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century when it was abolished. The Arabs managed and operated the trans-Saharan slave trade, although Berbers were also actively involved.
The Indian Ocean slave trade, sometimes known as the East African slave trade or Arab slave trade, was multi-directional slave trade and has changed over time. Africans were sent as slaves to the Middle East, to Indian Ocean islands, to the Indian subcontinent, and later to the Americas.
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Professor William Gervase Clarence-Smith". Department of History. SOAS, University of London . Retrieved 18 February 2016.
- ↑ "Journal of Global History". Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
- 1 2 "William Clarence-Smith". Indian Ocean World Centre. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
- ↑ "Professor William Gervase Clarence-Smith: Research". SOAS. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
- ↑ For peer reviews see:Ewald, Janet J. (1992). "Slavery in Africa and the Slave Trades from Africa". The American Historical Review. Oxford University Press. 97 (2): 465–468. doi:10.2307/2165729.;
Review: Indian Ocean Slave Trade: The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century by W. G. Clarence-Smith Reviewed by: Patrick Manning, The Journal of African History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (1991), pp. 153–155. - ↑ Clarence‐Smith, William Gervase (1988). "The Economics of the Indian Ocean and Red Sea Slave Trades in the 19th Century: An Overview". Slavery & Abolition. Taylor & Francis. 9 (3): 1–20. doi:10.1080/01440398808574959.
- ↑ William Gervase Clarence-Smith (2012), Self-Determination and Women’s Rights in Muslim Societies, Editors: C Raghavan and JP Levine, Brandeis University Press
- ↑ W. G. Clarence-Smith (1985). The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825–1975. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-1719-3.
