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Origins of Slavery
Egypt
1550 B.C. -1800 A.D.
The ancient Egyptians enslaved Hebrews, Babylonians, and other war captives. Slaves worked in the Pharaoh’s
palace and the houses of nobility. A few rose to high office in service of the Pharaoh – such as Joseph, also
famous for his colorful coat. Many years after Joseph, Moses led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt into freedom.
In 1250 A.D., slaves rose to rule Egypt. These slaves, the Mamluks, were Turks brought to Egypt as slaves in
the early 1200s. Egyptians gave them military training and positions of power in the army and government.
After seizing power the Mamluks conquered several nearby countries. They lost power just 67 years later,
when Turkey invaded Egypt.
China
1800 B.C.–1910 A.D.
As one of the world’s oldest civilizations, China has a long history of slavery. Slaves were made of war
captives and kidnapping victims. People also sold themselves into slavery to satisfy debts. Some sold their
wives and children instead.
Slaves worked as household servants, in agriculture and construction, and as government bureaucrats. Some
families adopted their slaves. In some cases, slaves even inherited wealth from their masters.
The ruler Wang Mang abolished slavery in China 17 A.D., but was restored when he lost power six years later.
Slavery was not officially abolished until 1910, and there continues to be problems. In 1920s and 1930s, young
girls (mui tsai) were traded and enslaved as prostitutes. After the communist revolution, the government
established concentration camps called laogai. Most of the people imprisoned there are political prisoners.
Survivors of the camps say they were forced to work as slave laborers.
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Greece
1200 B.C.-323 A.D
The Greeks enslaved others even as they founded the world’s first democracies. Some Greek philosophers
questioned the institution of slavery, but none called for abolition. Slaves were made of war captives, victims
of piracy, and the unfortunate family members of those deep in debt. They worked throughout Greek society,
from wealthy households and sacred temples to farms and mines.
The life of a slave varied greatly. Slaves in the mines suffered through hard work and terrible conditions, while
urban slaves were treated more humanely.
Greek law gave slave owners almost complete power over their slaves, allowing any type of punishment except
death. Slaves had no rights in courts of law. A slave could buy his own freedom or receive it as a gift for
outstanding service, but an ex-slave could almost never become a Greek citizen. One exception was a slave
name Pasion. He spent many years as a trusted slave for a banking firm. Upon his owner’s death, he acquired
freedom, his citizenship, and the right to run the bank.
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Roman Republic: 509 B.C.-27 B.C.
Roman Empire: 27 B.C.-476 A.D.
Roman Republic:
In Rome’s early years, most Romans worked their own small farms. The Punic Wars changed Roman society
dramatically as Romans began enslaving enemy captives. These slaves were put to work, making large
plantations possible-and profitable. These changes made the Roman Republic a slave-based economy.
Roman Empire:
How important was slavery to the Roman Empire? The empire could not have been built without the muscles
of slaves. Ironically, slavery may also have helped cause its downfall.
Millions of people were enslaved throughout Rome’s territory. Most were war captives or kidnapped in
lootings. At times slaves outnumbered freemen three times over. Roman law treated slaves brutally. Slaves
could not possess property, enter into contracts, or marry. If a slave owner died violently within his own house,
his slaves could be executed because they had not prevented his death. However, a slave was permitted to buy
his freedom and become a Roman citizen.
Such brutal treatment infuriated the slaves. Since slaves usually greatly outnumbered their owners, they often
revolted. The most famous slave revolt was led by Spartacus. His army of 90,000 defeated two Roman armies
before he was killed in battle and thousands of his soldiers were captured and crucified.
Over time, Roman slaves shouldered more responsibilities in agriculture, home life and government. Free
Romans assumed that any service could be accomplished by slaves, excusing them from practical concerns- and
the need to learn practical skills. Some historians believe this attitude led to the fall of Rome.
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Caribbean
1516 A.D.-1880 A.D.
Why would someone work a slave to death? French and British sugar planters in the Caribbean craved wealth
deeply-so deeply that they didn’t mind working slaves to death if it meant greater profits.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Caribbean sugar plantations satisfied Europe’s skyrocketing hunger for sugar.
Cultivating sugar in the heat and humidity of the tropics was hard, miserable work. Europeans refused to do it.
Some planters brought Africans to the islands instead.
Working conditions were terrible. Field slaves worked from dawn to dusk six days a week, with a brief break at
midday. They ate very little-just flour, salt herring, or peas. These conditions drove up the death rate. About
one third of Africans died within the three years of arrival in the West Indies.
To maintain the slave population, more Africans were imported. By the mid-1700s, over 100,000 were
imported every year. This meant that slaves often outnumbered Europeans 10 times over. Rebellions were not
unusual, but harsh discipline crushed most of them. Only the revolt on French St. Domingue in the 1790s
succeeded. It was led by the ex-slave Toussaint l’ Overture. His army defeated the French and established the
republic of Haiti-the world’s first black republic.
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Spanish Main
1516-1880
In the 1500s, a Catholic monk in Spanish America stopped the slaughter of enslaved Native Americans. This
merciful act had some terrible consequences, for it doomed Africans to centuries of slavery. How could this
have happened?
Spain’s colonies in Latin America had an enormous need for labor. Their gold and silver mines needed miners.
Their plantations and cattle ranches needed field hands. The Spanish first enslaved Native Americans, but the
Indians suffered terribly from European diseases and miserable working conditions. A Spanish monk name
Bartolome de las Casas exposed that situation. He brought about a gentler treatment of the Indians.
With Native Americans off-limits, the Spanish had to look elsewhere for farm and mine workers. So they
began importing Africans, who were immune to many tropical diseases. The Spanish imported millions of
Africans-more than the British and Americans brought to the United States.
Over time, many of these slaves were freed. By the 1700s, there were more free blacks than slaves in Spanish
America.
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Britain
1619 A.D.-1833 A.D.
Britain dominated the slave trade for over 100 years. Only when the British public turned against slavery did
Britain try to end, or abolish, it in Europe and the Americas.
During the 1700s and 1800s, the British public supported the institution of slavery. British slave traders
shipped huge numbers of Africans to English, French, and Spanish colonies in the Americas. They made
enormous profits, and much of this wealth later helped finance the Industrial Revolution.
Some people in Britain began protesting slavery in the late 1700s. Lord Mansfield declared, “The air of
England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it.” Many still defended
slavery, saying that abolition would ruin the British economy. Efforts to abolish slavery failed in Parliament
until abolitionists exposed the horrors of the slave trade. These reports fueled public distaste for the institution.
Slavery within England was outlawed in 1772. In 1807, the Abolition Act ended the British slave trade. And in
1833, the Emancipation Act abolished slavery in all British colonies.
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North America
Pre-Columbian-1865
Who were the first slave owners in North America? Not Europeans, but several Native American tribes. The
Klamath, Pawnee, Yurok, Creek, Mandan, and Comanche all had small numbers of slaves. The Shoshone
woman Sacajawea-now famous for guiding the Lewis and Clark Expedition-had been captured as a slave and
sold to the Mandan.
But white European-Americans created the institution of slavery that we are familiar with. Many people from
northern states profited from the slave trade by shipping thousands of Africans to the Americas as slaves. Over
time, most of these enslaved Africans went to the plantations of the American South. By 1860, there were
nearly four million slaves in the country.
Why Africans? Europeans began enslaving Africans in the 1400s. For nearly a century, African slaves and
European indentured servants lived in similar lives of drudgery. But servants earned their freedom in exchange
for several years of work. Slaves were forced into a lifetime of servitude.
Gradually, slaves lost their rights until they became mere property. The law gave masters total power over
slaves, including the right to kill their slaves. Also, white slave owners thought they were superior to black
people, which increased the gap between slave and free.
The American Civil War was fought, in part, over slavery. During the war, President Abraham Lincoln issued
the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in rebel states. The North’s victory in 1865 brought the end
of slavery throughout the United States.
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Germany
1942-1945
Nazi Germany enslaved millions of people in the 1940’s. They sent people from many different groups to
concentration camps: communists, socialists, Jews, Gypsies, gays, prostitutes, Soviet prisoners of war, and other
foreigners. Forced labor-slavery-began in 1942. Prisoners were worked to death in criminal and rocket
factories. Those too weak to work were killed.
By the last months of World War II, over 700,000 people were enslaved. These slave camps were part of a
larger Nazi extermination effort in which millions of Jews and other people were methodically killed.
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