Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
14 7 Samuel Noah Kramer, Sumerian Mythhology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972), 2. 8 Ibid. 9 Chiera, 47. 10 Cottrell, 26. 11 Rawlinson, 130. 12 Kramer, 3. 13 Rawlinson, 131. 14 Chiera, 43. 15 Leo Deuel, ed. Treasures of Time: Firsthand Accounts by Famous Archeologists of Their Work in the Near East (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1961), 132. 16 Dueul, 132. 17 Ibid. 18 Kramer, 4-5. 19 Dueul, 127. 20 George Smith, “To Nineveh for the Daily Telegraph,” in The Treasures of Time: Firsthand Accounts by Famous Archeologists of Their Work in the Near East, ed. Leo Duel (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1961), 135. 21 Ibid. 22 Smith 137. 23 Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1946), 2. 24 N. K. Sandars, “Introduction,” in The Epic of Gilgamesh (New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1972), 10. 25 Andrew George, The Epic of Gilgamesh (London: Penguin Group, 1999), xxx. 26 Smith 143. 27 Ibid. 28 Trenton State Gazette (NJ), December 10, 1872. 29 San Fransisco Bulletin (CA), December 19, 1872 30 New-Hampshire Patriot (NH), December 25, 1872. 31 The Sun (MA), January 2, 1973. 32 Pomeroy’s Democrat (IL), January 11, 1973. 33 Sioux City Journal (IA), May 21, 1873. 34 Little Rock Daily Republican (AR), May 22, 1873. 35 Trenton State Gazette (NJ), May 22, 1873. 36 Trenton State Gazette (NJ), May 22, 1873. 37 Dueul, 142. Broaden Journal of Undergraduate Reseach 38 Little Rock Daily Republican (AR), October 10, 1873. 39 San Francisco Bulletin (CA), October 15, 1873. 40 Cottrell, 222. 41 Mogens Trolle Larsen, The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land, 1840-1860 (London: Routledge, 1996), xii. 42 Trenton State Gazette (NJ), September 16, 1873. 43 Trenton State Gazette (NJ), September 16, 1873. 44 Chiera, vi. 45 San Fransisco Bulletin (CA), February 4, 1875. 46 Minneapolis Journal (MN), February 2, 1898. 47 Biggs, xxxvi. 48 Grand Rapids Herald (MI), February 5, 1898. Idaho Statesman (ID), October 20, 1910. The Sun (MD), January 30, 1889. 49 Idaho Statesman (ID), October 20, 1910. 50 The Sun (MD), January 30, 1889. 51 Biggs, xxxvii. 52 Heidel, 268. 53 Chiera, 118. 54 Ibid., 132-134. 55 Fort-Worth Star Telegram (TX), August 24, 1913. 56 San Francisco Bulletin (CA), February 4, 1875. 57 Maureen Gallery Kovacs, The Epic of Gil gamesh (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989), xiii. 58 Minneapolis Journal (MN), February 2, 1898. 59 George, vvi. 60 Ibid., xxviii. 61 Ibid., xxviii. 62 Kovacs, xiv. 63 Biggs ix. 64 Sandars, 7-58. 65 Kovacs, xvii. 66 Ibid., xvii. 67 Jonthan Himes, interview by author, John Brown University, December 10, 2010. 68 Jennifer Pastoor, email interview by author, December 9, 2010. 69 Biggs, ix. 70 Pastoor. 71 George, xiv. 72 Himes. 73 Kovacs, xvii. www.jbu.edu/academics/journal 15 Shaping the Idea: A Comparative Discussion Of Roman Slavery and Slavery in the American South Ryan Stephens History Major The ancient institution of slavery changed whenever it was employed by new civilizations. Whenever societies became more or less dependent on its implementation, forced labor proportionally changed. Two examples of slavery are compared in the report: Roman slavery and slavery in the American South. Both societies initially placed a ‘non-crucial’ emphasis on the institution. However, both cultures also received an unexpectedly large influx of slaves; as the slave population rose, the value and treatment of slaves declined. My comparison focuses on that shift in slave treatment as a measure of the variability of the institution. The institution of slavery existed within some of the earliest human civilizations, and was arguably one of the most important elements involved in forming human thought and opinion. Robert Fogle wrote, “Slavery is not only one of the most ancient, but also one of the most long-lived forms of economic and social organization.”1 Slavery forced cultures to collide and intermingle, without slave labor many monuments or technological innovations might never have been realized. Despite its age and importance, slavery was not a single, unchanging system; rather, it morphed to fit the situation that implemented it. Time, economics, and other forces that drove slavery caused it to fluctuate in importance and change in its cruelty. David Turley, a prominent twenty-first century scholar on the subject explained that religions like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have, at different times, justified attaining slaves. He used the divides in time and culture of those examples to base his idea that, “This glimpse of the variety and malleability of slavery indicates one of the difficulties 16 in writing a synoptic account of the institution.”2 The objects of research in this work, slavery in Rome as well as slavery in North America, were just as varying as Turley claimed. There existed striking differences in the importance of slavery to each of the two societies in question. Turley coined the distinct phrases, “slave society” and “society with slaves,” to help his readers understand the emphasis varying peoples put on slavery. The former described cultures that almost entirely depended on or were very reliant on slavery. The latter addressed peoples who did not necessarily need to continue slavery for profit or well-being. There seemed to be, within slavery, some interesting side effects caused by the institution’s implementation in a slave society, and slavery itself seemed to become a different entity. Cultures not reliant on slaves, like the Roman Republic3, were often kinder to workers, and people in the lower class retained considerable dignity. Through careful comparison, it can be understood that slave labor became cruel and mechanical when it became a necessity, such as the case of late North American slavery or the late Roman Empire. To avoid confusion or poor comparison, Turley devised three components of slavery that aided in difficult comparisons of slave systems and will prove useful for the dissection of American and Roman slavery in this case. His three broad themes were, “the structural location of slavery within societies; the experience of slavery as registered by both the slaves and those seeking to control them; and finally, the ways in which slavery was reproduced and maintained in different societies.”4 Put plainly, to understand an accurate comparison of Roman slavery to that of the institution almost two millennia later, Turley’s points form a foundation that keeps the discussion on a sound track. For accuracy and consistency, a framework is necessary in order to compare two very different slave systems for the purpose of determining the way those societies influenced slavery in general. David Turley’s recommendations for appropriate understanding will be employed as a basic foundation. Great contrast may be noted between the type of slavery that existed in ancient Rome and the institution used in eighteenth and nineteenth century North America. Whenever one thinks of slavery in states like South Carolina in the early 1800s, he imagines slaves working long hours picking crops—often at the risk of extreme punishment. The mental image of early Roman slavery is unfortunately far less clear. Dr. Turley Broaden Journal of Undergraduate Reseach framed his picture of that slavery with the understanding that, “the Roman Empire as a whole was not a slave society. In the first two centuries BCE there were some slaves in rural society in the provinces and a greater proportion in provincial towns. While kinds of dependant laborers, other than slaves, probably performed most agricultural work in the distant reaches of the empire.”5 In general, early Roman slavery was very similar to the systems that developed around Italy before 300 BCE. William D. Phillips Jr. noted, “From their earliest beginnings, the Romans practiced slavery on a small scale, using a few slaves as farmhands and household servants.”6 The sparse dispersal of slaves in the Mediterranean was likely due to the fact that noblemen and aristocrats commonly owned the slaves in Greece and Rome. David Turley noticed that only the wealthy could afford slaves to perform all of the household labor and, “other heads of households or elders of the lineage had to work or rely on some other resource apart from slaves.”7 The general social structure in Rome allotted slaves to those who could afford more than a meager farming existence. The elite slaveholders were an essential element to the formation of the Roman idea of slavery. The early state’s overall lack of emphasis on slavery was likely shaped in part by the idea of exclusive ownership. David Turley elaborated: “Broadly, societies with slaves have begun to emerge as making use of slaves for social and service purposes carried out mostly within households, including royal and aristocratic courts.”8 The idea that only elites would hold slaves was critical in the early Roman Republic. A large influx of slaves entered Italy after 178 BCE thanks to several military conquests9, causing drastic changes to the nature of Roman labor. Prior to the expansion, slaves were often used for small-scale or private agricultural and manufacturing work. Again explaining an accurate idea of the system, David Turley wrote, “The economic deployment of slaves occurred characteristically within plantations, stuck-raising farms, mines, and a variety of manufactories.”10 It is understood that slavery was not a wide-scale economic boost to either the Roman Republic. Thus, slavery was most commonly used by citizens who wanted some labor in the home. Any economic benefits that Roman slaves had were centered on the income of particular families. Turley continued, “Where slavery was primarily a household institution it was not necessarily always simply for a domestic or sexual purpose. Slaves carried on forms of www.jbu.edu/academics/journal household manufacture such as weaving.”11 Slave occupation prior to the worker population increase tended to be common labor like household chores and agriculture. Due to the increased number of available workers in Rome, labor began to shift away from smaller domestic interests, and soon slaves were forced to work longer hours in fields. Instead of working alongside their slaves, owners opted to use gangs of people for large-scale agriculture. Keith Bradley chronicled the change in those slaveholders in Rome when he wrote, “for the men and their families, who comprised Rome’s political elite, a further consequence was a rise in personal wealth on an enormous scale, wealth that in due course intensified individualism and political competitiveness, and led to an increase in social ostentation.”12 It is important to understand the fundamental changes in slave ownership to form an idea of the day-to-day slave experience, as well as the experience of the masters. Most scholars agree that early slavery in the Roman Republic lacked the intensity that existed later in the Empire. When compared with other forms of the institution, like the sugar slavery in the Caribbean hundreds of years later, punishments were light. This was likely due to the fact that many Romans believed slaves were to be treated as normal human beings. William Phillips Jr. quoted a Roman jurist named Florentius, “Slavery is an institution of the common law of people by which a person is put into the ownership of somebody else, contrary to the natural order…The word for property in slaves is derived from the fact that they are captured from the enemy by force of arms.”13 Other than mining, most jobs that were assigned to slaves were also given to indentured citizens and freemen. Those forced to work often found themselves farming with one or two other slaves, cleaning and managing households, caring for temples, or raising income for the state. In contrast, some slave girls were also used for the sexual satisfaction of their owners.14 The importance of the institution changed rapidly after Rome began conquering its neighbors in the second century, however. Many of the men and women who were captured in battles were forced to be slaves in either Rome itself or one of her many provinces. Incredibly, the number of new slaves increased so quickly that many scholars claim that Rome became a slave society. Keith Bradley wrote, “By the middle of the second century B.C. Rome in fact was a genuine slave society, though such a description does not have to depend solely on 17 the quantitative criterion of the servile population of the total population.”15 Some of the Roman slavery was maintained through master-slave relationships. While free men would commonly conceive children with their female slaves, these numbers could not begin to match those that Rome’s military brought into Italy. Bradley’s discussion of the perceived change was written in his chapter entitled “Slavery and Slave Resistance at Rome,” and appropriately so, since the experience of the slave would inevitably change with the population increase. Due in large part to the new and readily available labor, Romans began to use slaves in groups of ten or more and chained together to farm crops. Domestic slaves were granted less kinship to their masters, which they could previously attain. Whether or not the Roman Empire could accurately be described as a slave society is not of pivotal importance. The key to examining slavery itself more appropriately lies in understanding the institution’s ability to change. A basic theme that emerged in Rome was the idea that once slaves became numerous and inexpensive—when there were a great number of slaves in society—the institution of slavery changed. The experience of the slave became something that it had not previously been. Negative changes in the treatment of slaves in Rome led to several slave revolts in less than six years, beginning in 146 BCE.16 It should be assumed that, if slavery has the ability to shift very quickly, as a consequence it may experience great changes over long periods of time. North American slavery stemmed from a long tradition of European slave enterprise. Often known for growing tobacco and cotton, the South and Chesapeake regions of the Colonies and later the United States were commonly understood to be the hub of the slave system in North America. Plantation crops like these and the slavery required to harvest them came much later in American history than many would guess. Robert Fogle explained, “to those who identify slavery with cotton and tobacco, the small size of the U.S. share in the slave trade may seem surprising…over 75 percent of all slaves were imported between 1451 and 1810. This fact clearly rules out cotton as a dominant factor in the trade, since cotton production was in its infancy in 1810.”17 The earliest instances of American slavery, called the Charter Generation, began arriving in colonies like Massachusetts in the late seventeenth century. As the American Revolution drew near, the number of slaves arriving in the colonies increased. Like the Roman Republic, 18 most slaveholders around this time were wealthy men. The price of a person and the annual cost of owning a slave were often too expensive for poorer subsistence-farming colonists to afford. Following the revolution, increased slave imports forced a decrease in the price of slaves and more citizens were able to purchase their labor; therefore, many more slaves were imported annually. Interestingly, just as Rome saw a dramatic increase in the number of available slaves once the Republic became an empire, so too did the English colonies just before they became the United States. The day-to-day experiences of slaves changed too, just as they had done in Rome during the expansion of the institution. The experience of the slave in North America, and particularly the South, has become the distinct and dominant memory of American slavery in modern years. Primary sources from freed slaves such as “The History of Mary Prince” and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” were preserved through the Civil War. Because of this, modern historians are now able to glimpse into Southern Slavery through the perspective of a laborer. Douglass for instance, a slave just prior to abolition, described the ways in which slavery affected him when he wrote, “I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute.”18 Frederick Douglass lived long after the Charter Generation, and slavery had not only been well established in the states—it thrived. In contrast to Douglas’ account, slavery in North America was not always as dehumanizing and harsh as Douglass described. Much like the Roman Republic, the English colonies that became the United States began experimenting with slavery on a small scale. The narrative of a man named Olaudah Equiano, a member of the Charter Generation, described his life as a slave in the earliest stages of the institution. Slaves like Equiano often had specific skills and talents that proved them useful to their owners. These skills included, among other abilities, the capability to communicate well in English, Portuguese, and other trade languages. Equiano managed to secure a job as a seaman, thanks to his ability to learn the skills necessary to navigation.19 These advantages, coupled with the limited supply of slaves, made it possible for laborers to enjoy a less-persecuted existence than those men and women later in history. Plantation slavery, identified as brutal and merciless Broaden Journal of Undergraduate Reseach slavery, was in its infancy. During this time, most charter slaves occupied jobs that Europeans would also work. Some were farmers working side-by-side their owners, while others were domestic slaves. It would be naïve to assert that slaves in the relaxed systems of the Roman Republic or the Charter Generation were given an easy life. In the prologue to his book, Generations of Captivity, Ira Berlin makes it very clear that, “no history of slavery can avoid these themes: violence, power, and labor, hence the formation and reformation of classes and races. The study of slavery on mainland North America is first the study of enormous, hideous violence that a few powerful men wielded to extort the labor of others…”20 Not much is known about the complete lifestyle of Roman slaves but, “from the limited amount of information available a tendency is apparent for the service areas that would have accommodated slaves to have been marginalized in relation to the main residential areas, either by being secluded in some way or by being given inferior forms of construction, or both.”21 Roman slaves were most certainly not treated with the utmost dignity. Keith Bradley reinforced this idea as he continued, “Generalizations about the typical material environment of the slave in the central period of Roman history must necessarily be cautious, therefore, yet the evidence described so far implies on the face of things a fairly bleak material regime for most Roman slaves.”22 The wellbeing of slaves was worsened once Caligula began his expansion of Rome. As previously mentioned, a reoccurring pattern became clear: whenever copious amounts of fresh slaves were easily available, their individual price was reduced. Any substantial reduction in the price generally led to a decline in the care and treatment of slaves. Caligula’s expansion of the state brought in waves of new slaves, being mostly prisoners of war. A decline immediately occurred in the way Romans cared for their ‘property’. Keith Bradley found that the treatment sometimes harmed the spirit of the slave, and summarized the shift when he said, “the likelihood that Roman slaves attempted from time to time to reduce the rigors of servitude or to extricate themselves permanently from their condition may be read ily admitted in simple terms of human nature, especially in view of the already documented fact that prisoners of war in Roman antiquity often preferred to inflict death upon themselves than to submit to the horrors of capture.”23 www.jbu.edu/academics/journal 19 It was a change in the treatment of slaves that so often sigespecially the shift from a society with slaves to a slave society, naled a real shift in the institution. This kind of transition can necessarily caused the institution of slavery to become somebe obviously noticed upon a study of American slavery. Per- thing entirely different. haps no other sources capture the brutality of post-revolution slavery in the United States as well as the many slave narratives. Frederick Douglass described his earliest memory of the carnage when he wrote, “I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight [of the beating of a slave], that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me.”24 There existed a fascinating similarity in the way that slavery changed in Rome and North America. Both societies existed without an immediate need for slaves. In each case, wealthy men were primarily those who could own slaves. Additionally, forced labor was typically not too strenuous for each worker, and slaves often lived with their masters. Further, the Roman Republic as well as the English colonies and early United States functioned solely as societies with slaves. Both societies experienced a relatively quick influx of new labor that caused a serious reduction in the price of slaves. In fact, so many slaves were imported that these nations became arguably dependent on that source of labor, thus becoming slave societies. The ease of purchase caused by the new merchandise seemed to force a decline in the general wellbeing of slaves and damaged the relationships of slaves and masters. The lack of difficulty in purchasing a slave also gave poorer citizens the ability to buy slaves, removing the elite status of slaveholding. The third effect the price drop had was the increased brutality towards the slaves. It could perhaps be due to the fact that slaves became easier to replace, but after the influx in both societies, masters treated their slaves with much less dignity. This pattern seems to be the discovered theme: wherever a society with slaves25 exists, it will be necessarily less hostile or brutal than a similar slave society that is dependent on forced labor. There are, of course, complications with any historical comparison. The simple fact that Roman slavery was two millennia removed from North American Slavery is the first sign that a comparison may be inappropriate. Some scholars also question Turley’s three focus points. Geographic, legal, and religious variables could also potentially pose problems in such a comparison. Regardless of that risk, important similarities existed between the two states that lead to one resounding conclusion. A considerable shift in the importance of slavery, 20 EndNotes 1 Fogle, Robert William. Without Consent or Conctract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. Norton Press: 1991. 17. 2 Turley, David. Slavery. Blackwell Publishers: Malden, Massachusetts 2000. 4 3 Roman Republic will denote the early period of Roman rule prior to rapid militarization after the 2nd century BCE 4 Turley, David. Slavery. Blackwell Publishers: Malden, Massachusetts 2000. 4 5 Ibid, 78. 6 Phillps Jr., William D. Slavery From the Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade. University of Minnesota Press: 1985. 17. 7 Turley, 62. 8 Ibid, 62. 9 Westermann, William L. The Slave Systems of Greek and 10 Roman Antiquity. The American Philosophical Society: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1955. 64. 10 Turley, 63 11Ibid, 63. 12 Bradley, Keith R. Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World. Indiana University Press: 1989. 18-19. 13 Phillips, 17. 14 Moore, Robert H. Lecture on Society in the Roman Republic. History 2523A: Classical World. John Brown University: September 15, 2009. 15 Bradley, 19. 16 Bradley, 18. 17 Fogle, 18. 18 Gates, Henry Lous Jr. The Classic Slave Narratives: The Life of Frederick Douglass. Penguin Group:2002. 387. 19 Gates, 19-247. 20 Berlin, Ira. Generations of Captivity. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 2003. 3. 21 Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome. Cambridge University Press: 1994. 85. 22 Ibid, 85. 23 Ibid, 109. 24 Gates Jr., 344. 25 Being non-dependent on slave labor Broaden Journal of Undergraduate Reseach Music