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Breaking down Slavery
History of Slavery (Historical Origins)
1. Origins
a. Evidence of slavery pre-dates written records. The practice of slavery is assumed
proliferation after the development of agriculture during Neolithic Revolution over
11,000 years ago
b. Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer (5500-3500 B.C.), as well as other
ancient civilizations, inclusive to Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire,
Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, and the
pre-Columbian civilizations the Americas.
i. These institutions were a mixture of debt slavery, punishment for crimes, the
enslavement of POW (prisoners of war), child abandonment, and the birth of
slave children to slaves.
ii. Debt Slavery: (also known as debt bondage) a person’s pledge for of their labor
or service as security for the repayment of a debt or obligation. Debt bondage
can be passed from generation to generation.
2. Europe (Classic Era)
a. Ancient Greece
i. Records of slavery go as far back as Mycenaean Greece (1600-1100 B.C.).
ii. Unknown origins, slavery became an important part of the economy and society
only after the establishment of cities.
iii. This was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece,
including Ancient Israel and Christian Societies. An estimation of citizens within
Athens owned at least one slave (that is minimum one slave “servant” per
family).
iv. First condemnation of slavery recorded in history was by the Stoics, notably
within the Socratic dialogues (literary works during the 4th century B.C.)
v. 8th and 7th centuries B.C. during the Messenian Wars and Spartans an entire
population was reduced to pseudo slavery know as helotry.
1. Helotry: an entire population of people known only as “slaves to the
utmost”. Their status was between being free men and slaves.
2. This group of people worked to economically support the Spartan
citizens, were ritually mistreated, humiliated, and if called for
slaughtered.
3. These groups of people were disposable; they could be killed without
fear of repercussion.
Breaking Down Slavery
Compilation Completed by: Kimberly Anderson-Patterson
© January 15, 2015
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b. Rome
i. Romans learned and inherited the institution of slavery from the Greeks and the
Phoenicians.
ii. Those persons subjected to Roman slavery came from all over Europe to include
the Mediterranean.
iii. Oppression of the elite minority led to the slave revolts; the Third Serville War
led by Spartacus was of the most famous and severe.
1. Slave Revolts: a rebellion is an armed uprising of slaves and one of the
most feared events for slaveholders.
iv. There were many ethnic groups that were enslaved during the Roman reigns
used for labor and amusement; of some were the Greeks, Berbers, Britons,
Slavs, Thracians, Gaels (or Celts), Jews, Arabs.
v. During this reign, slaves who ran away were most likely “crucified”.
c. Celtic Tribes
i. Vaguely recorded by the Roman Slave Owners the Celtic Tribes of Europe.
1. Celtic: Diverse culture of the Gaels (Irish, Scottish, and Manx) and the
Brythonic Celts (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of medieval and modern
times.
ii. The slavery period of the Celtic Tribes of Europe requires extensive research
into uncovering the actual truths.
iii. During a war of the Roman Empire in 85 A.D. Calgacus’s (chief of Caledonian
Confederacy), gave a speech according to Tacitus (Senator and Historian of the
Roman Empire) and gave a perception that the British Isles did not have slavery.
3. Middle Ages
a. Great Britain and Ireland
i. Voluntary servitude and debt slavery became common within the British Isles
during the Middles Ages.
ii. Slaves were routinely bought and sold. Running away was also common and
slavery was never a major economic factor in the British Isles during the Middle
Ages.
iii. Ireland and Denmark provided markets for captured Anglo-Saxon and Celtic
Slaves.
iv. After 1100 slavery faded away as “uneconomical” (wasteful of money or other
resources).
v. European slave trade continued from 1100 to 1500.
Breaking Down Slavery
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b. Islamic Powers
i. The Islamic World was a main factor in slavery after the Muslim conquest of
North Africa during 632-750 for most of the Iberian Peninsula.
ii. The Islamic World was a huge importer of Squaliba (Slavic) slaves from Central
and Eastern Europe.
iii. Although Islamic Law forbade Muslims to enslave fellow Muslims or People of
the Book (Jews, Christians, Sabians, Magians), an exception was made if they
were captured in battle. If captured during war and converted to Islam, their
master (owner) was expected to free them as an act of piety, and if they did not
they were punished into submission.
iv. Muslim powers of Iberia both raided for slaves and purchased slaves from
European merchants, often it was the Jewish, one of the few they could easily
move between Christian and Islamic worlds.
v. Muslim and Jewish Merchants are recorded for slaves bought and brought in
from Eastern Europe and Christian Spain, and then re-exported them to other
regions of the Islamic world.
1. European slave trade shifted from being Western Mediterranean Islamic
nations to the Eastern Christian and Muslim States.
2. 12th and 13th century they sold both Slavic and Baltic slaves, as well as
Georgians, Turks, and other ethnic groups of the Black Sea and
Caucasians to the Muslim nations of the Middle East. The sale of
European Caucasians ended as the Slavic and Baltic ethnic groups
Christianized by the late Middle Ages.
3. From the 1440’s into the 18th Century approximately 1.5 million white
Europeans from Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and England Ukraine’s
were sold into slavery by North Africans.
vi. In 1575 the Tatars captured over 35,000 Ukrainian; a raid in 1676 took
approximately 40,000 of them; and in 1688 approximately 60,000 Ukraine’s
were captured. Some of the Roma people were enslaved over five centuries in
Romania until abolition in 1864.
1. Into the modern-time period, Muslims continued to trade in European
slaves. Muslim pirates raided the European coasts and shipping from
16th to the 19th centuries, took thousands captives, whom either they
sold or enslaved. Many were help for ransom as European communities
were known to raise funds to buy back their citizens.
2. These raids gradually ended with the naval decline of the Ottoman
Empire in the late 16th and 17th centuries, as well, the European
conquest of North Africa throughout the 19th century. State Piracy of
the North African Arab States continued until France colonized Algeria
in 1835.
Breaking Down Slavery
Compilation Completed by: Kimberly Anderson-Patterson
© January 15, 2015
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c. Mongols
i. The Mongol invasions and conquests took place in the 13th century and resulted
in taking numerous captives in slavery, however, skilled individuals, women and
children, and marched them into Karakorum or Sarai where they were sold
through Eurasia. Many were shipped to the slave market in Norvgorod.
ii. 1382 the Golden Horde sacked Moscow, burned the city and carried thousands
of its inhabitants as slaves.
iii. Between 1414 – 1423 approximately 10,000 Eastern European slaves were sold
in Venice. Geonice merchants organized the slave trade from Crimea to Mamluk
Egypt.
iv. In 1441 independence was declared from the Goden Horde by Haci Giray and
established the Crimean Khanate (longest lived of Turkic khanates that
succeeded the empire of Golden Horde).
1. In the 18th century, the khanate maintained an extensive slave trade
with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East in a process called
“harvesting of the steppe” where they enslaved many Slavic peasants.
2. Approximately 30 major raids were reported between 1558 – 1596.
d. The Vikings and Scandinavia
i. The Viking era beginning at best record 793 with the Norse raiders of no specific
method but of capturing and enslaving those militantly weaker. They referred to
their slaves as “thralls”.
ii. Thralls were mostly from Western Europe, of which were Franks, Anglo-Saxons,
and Celts.
iii. Many Irish slaves traveled in expeditions for the colonization of Iceland. As well
Norse took German, Baltic, Slavic, and Latin slaves.
iv. The slave trade was one of the pillars of Norse commerce during the 6th century
through reportedly the 11th century.
v. The 10th century the Swedish Vikings, the Varangians terrorized and enslaved
Slavs taken during their raids along the Volga River.
vi. Sometime in the 14th century the “thrall” system was abolished in Scandinavia.
4. Modern Era
a. Mediterranean Forces
i. Mediterranean powers sentenced convicted criminals to row in the war-galleys
of the state. After the revocation in 1685, the French Crown filled its galleys
with French Protestants condemned for resisting state (Galley-Slaves).
ii. Galley slaves lived and worked in such harsh conditions that many did not
survive their sentence terns.
1. If they had survived it was of shipwreck and was subjected to slaughter
or torture at the hands of enemies or of pirates.
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iii. Naval forces would turn infidel (POW’s) prisoners of war into galley-slaves. This
was not obsolete of well-known individuals or political figures either.
iv. Denmark-Norway was the first European county to ban the slave trade. A
decree was issued by the king in 1792 and fully effective by 1803.
1. Slavery as an institution was not banned until 1848.
2. During this time Iceland was a part of Denmark-Norway, however, slave
trading was abolished in Iceland in 1117 and was never re-established.
v. Slavery in the French Republic was abolished on February 4, 1974 including its
colonies.
vi. The Haitian Revolution by its slaves and free people of color established Haiti as
a free republic in 1804 ruled by blacks, the first of its kind.
1. During the revolution, Haiti was known as Saint-Domingue and was a
colony of France.
2. Napoleon Bonaparte gave up on Haiti in 1803, but reestablished slavery
in Guadalupe and Martinique in 1804 at the request of planters of the
Caribbean colonies.
vii. Slavery was permanently abolished in the French empire during the French
Revolution in 1848.
b. Portugal
i. 15th century of the Portuguese exploration of the African coast was more
commonly regarded as the harbinger of European colonialism.
ii. In 1452 Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas (June 8, 1452authorization to conquer Saracens and pagans and consign them to perpetual
servitude). The granted Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce Saracens,
pagans, or any other unbelievers to hereditary slavery.
1. This act legitimized slavery under Catholic beliefs of that time period.
2. This approval of slavery reaffirmed and extended the Popes Romanus
Pontifex papal bull of 1455.
iii. 1462 Pius II declared slavery to be a great crime. The followers of the Church of
England and Protestants did not use the papal bull as justification.
1. The position of the church was to condemn the slavery of Christians, but
slavery was regarded as an old established and necessary institution
which supplied Europe with the necessary workforce.
iv. In the 16th century, African slaves had replaced almost all other ethnicities and
religious enslaved groups in Europe.
1. Brazil territory, beyond the original borders, the enslavement of Native
Americans was carried out by the Bandeirantes (Portuguese Settlers in
Brazil).
v. Well known markets were European, Genoa, and Venice – of significant
importance to the trade after the plague of the 14th century which decimated
much of the European work force.
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vi. The maritime town of Lagos, Portugal was the first slave market created in
Portugal for the sale and of imported African slaves, which opened in 1444.
1. Prince Henry the Navigator taxed 1/5 of the selling price of the slaves
imported to Portugal.
2. By the year 1552 African slaves made up 10% of the population of
Lisbon
3. IN the 16th Century, the crown gave up monopoly on slave trade and the
focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe
to slave transports directly to tropical colonies in the Americas.
4. In the 15th Century, 1/3 of the slaves were resold to the African market
in exchange for gold.
vii. Portugal increased its presence along China’s coast; many Chinese slaves were
sold to Portugal within the 16th Century.
1. Most Chinese slaves were children and largely shipped to the Indies.
2. Chinese prisoners were sent to Portugal, sold as slaves, prized and
regarded better than the moorish or black slaves.
a. As black and negro are words that do not denote to a
nationality. The term moor is better suited to refer to the darker
hue of skin tone of those from North, South, and Central
America, as well as, those from Latin, African, Indian, and West
Indian nationalities.
3. Chinese scholar visiting Europe in 1540 was enslaved during a
Portuguese raid and purchased by Joao de Barros, a Portuguese
historian.
a. The scholar translated Chinese texts into Portuguese.
b. Dona Maria de Vilhena, a noble Portuguese woman, also owned
a Chinese male slave in 1562.
4. In the 16th Century, approximately 29-34 people in southern Portugal
owned slaves for agricultural labor.
5. Chinese boys were captured in China and were brought to Portugal and
sold as slaves in Lisbon and some in Brazil.
6. Due to hostility from the Chinese regarding trafficking in Chinese slaves,
in 1595 a law passed banning the selling and buying of Chinese slaves.
a. In 1624 (Feb 19th) the King of Portugal forbade the enslavement
of all Chinese (men, women, and children).
c. Spain
i. The Spaniards were the first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World.
1. Islands president were Cuba and Hispaniola
2. The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501
ii. Natives were used as forced labor.
Breaking Down Slavery
Compilation Completed by: Kimberly Anderson-Patterson
© January 15, 2015
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1. Native population would starve themselves rather than work for the
Spanish.
2. Shortage of labor was caused by spread of disease.
3. By 1517, the Natives had been virtually annihilated by the settlers.
iii. Spanish colonist gradually became involved in the Atlantic slave trade.
iv. The justness of Indian slavery was an issue for the Spanish Crown.
1. Charles V provided the solution on November 25, 1542, the Emperor
abolished slavery by decreed in his Leyes Neuvas New Laws.
2. The bill was based on arguments by the best Spanish Theologist and
jurists who unanimously agreed that condemnation of such slavery is
unjust.
3. It was declared illegitimate and outlawed it from America; not just
slavery of Spaniards over Indians, but also the type of slavery practiced
among the Indians themselves.
4. Spain was the first country to abolish slavery.
d. Netherlands
i. Slavery was illegal inside the Netherlands; however, it flourished in the Dutch
Empire.
1. It helped to support the economy
ii. By 1650 the Dutch has the pre-eminent slave trade in Europe.
1. Overtaken by Britain in the 1700’s
2. By 1778 the Dutch where shipping approximately 6,000 Africans for
enslavement in the Dutch West Indies every year.
iii. The Dutch shipped nearly 550,000 African slaves across the Atlantic.
1. Approximately 75,000 died on board before reaching their destination.
iv. From 1596 to 1829, the Dutch traders sold 250,000 slaves in the Dutch Guianas.
1. 142,000 in Dutch Carribean Islands
2. 28,000 in Dutch Brazil
3. Tens of thousands of slaves were mostly from India and some from
Africa, were carried to the Dutch East Indies.
e. Barbary Corsairs
i. From 16th to 19th century, Barbary Corsairs (pirates and privateers who operated
from North Africa) raided the coasts of Europe and attacked lone ships at sea.
1. England lost 466 merchant ships in 1609 to 1616 for Barbary pirates.
2. 160 English ships were captured by Algerians between 1677 and 1680
3. Captured sailors were made into slaves and held for ransom
ii. In 1627 Barbary Pirates under command of the Dutch renegade occupied the
island of Lundy.
1. It was reported that during this time captured slaves were being sent to
Algiers.
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iii. Ireland was not immune from attacks by the Corsairs. IN June of 1631 Murat
Reis and Algiers Pirates and armed troops of the Ottoman Empire, took the
harbor village of Baltimore, County Cork.
1. Nearly all villagers were captured
2. Those not captured would spend long years in seclusion of the harem or
within the walls of the sultans palace.
3. It is said only 2 of the villagers ever saw Ireland again.
British Slave Trade
i. Note that Britain played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade, particularly
after the 1600’s.
1. Slavery was a legal institution in all of the 13 American colonies and
Canada (acquired by Britain in 1763).
2. Profit of slave trade and of West Indian plantations were approximately
5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution.
ii. The Somersett’s case (famous judgment that held chattel slavery unsupported
by the common law in England and Wales) in 1772 decided that the condition
of slavery did not exist under English law in England.
iii. In 1785, English Poet William Copower, wrote “We have no slaves at home –
Then why aboard?”; “Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs receive our
air, that moment they are free. They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud. And jealous the blessing. Spread it
then, and let it circulate through every vein”.
iv. In 1807, following many years of the abolitionist movement, the British
Parliament, led by William Wilberforce, voted to make slave trade illegal
anywhere in the Empire with the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
1. Britain thereafter took prominent role in combating the trade.
2. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition
Act of 1833.
v. Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron seized nearly 1,600 slave
ships and freed 150,000 African who were aboard.
1. Action was taken against African leaders who refused to agree to the
British treaties to outlaw the trade.
2. Atinkoye (11th King of Lagos), is famous for having used British
involvement to regain his rule in return for suppressing slavery among
the Yoruba people of Lagos in 1851.
3. Over 50 African rulers signed anti-slavery treaties.
vi. In 1839 the world’s oldest international human rights organization, AntiSlavery International, was formed in Britain by Joseph Sturge, whom worked to
outlaw slavery in other countries.
Breaking Down Slavery
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© January 15, 2015
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Series: “What we do today, is somebody’s tomorrow”
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vii. In 1811, Arthur William Hodge (plantation farmer and member of the Council
and Legislative Assembly), was executed for the murder of a slave in the British
West Indies.
1. Notably, he was not the first “white” person to have been lawfully
executed for the killing of a slave.
g. Modern Europe
i. During World War II (The Holocaust), the Germans used slave labor from across
occupied Europe to support their war effort.
1. With numbers approximately up to 6 million people
ii. The Soviet Union used nearly 14 million people
1. They had them work I Gulags (Russian government agency
administering force labor camp systems during the Stalin era from
1930’s until the 1950’s).
2. This same camp system was also used to colonize Siberia.
The history of slavery extends into Africa, The Americas, Brazil, the British and French Caribbean and soon. The reality was then as it is today, at one time, nobody was obsolete from slavery, and some were
pardoned sooner than others. It would takes us months to really go into depth about the history of
slavery, it’s existence, it’s impact on the culture, our way of living, our sense of survival, and demand it
holds on the perception of our thinking. What is clear in the historical facts of slavery’s history is that
many were working to abolish it, as it was thought wrong and unlawful to any of who endured its rein.
This is the passion behind what we are called to do in today’s world of slavery; working together to not
only educate those around us of the very existence of slavery in its new light of acceptance among the
people, but to show them comparisons of previous wrongs to current wrongs, to help right the passage
and finally rid the world of this hateful, heinous act of cruelty amongst the human race. We as a people
united deserve more, as we have continuously worked hard to get rid of slavery in our world!
Breaking Down Slavery
Compilation Completed by: Kimberly Anderson-Patterson
© January 15, 2015
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Series: “What we do today, is somebody’s tomorrow”
www.texasoutreachclub.com (Learning Opportunity)
Texas Task Force Club
Human Trafficking Awareness
For Your Research:
Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge University
Press, 2009)
Finkelman, Paul, and Joseph Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (2 vol 1998)
Hinks, Peter, and John McKivigan, eds. Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition (2 vol. 2007)
795pp
Linden, Marcel van der, ed. Humanitarian Intervention and Changing Labor Relations: The
Long-Term Consequences of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (Brill Academic Publishers, 2011)
McGrath, Elizabeth and Massing, Jean Michel, The Slave in European Art: From Renaissance
Trophy to Abolitionist Emblem, London (The Warburg Institute) and Turin 2012.
Parish, Peter. Slavery: History and Historians (1989)
Phillips, William D. Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Atlantic Slave Trade (1984)
Cuffel, Victoria. "The Classical Greek Concept of Slavery," Journal of the History of Ideas Vol.
27, No. 3 (Jul. – Sep. 1966), pp. 323–342
Finley, Moses, ed. Slavery in Classical Antiquity (1960)
Westermann, William L. The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (1955) 182pp
Lovejoy, Paul. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge UP, 1983)
Davis, Robert C., Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, The
Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500–1800 (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003)
Breaking Down Slavery
Compilation Completed by: Kimberly Anderson-Patterson
© January 15, 2015
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