Slavery in Africa
Slavery was common and widespread throughout Africa into the
19th
century. The
Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in
South
Africa. Britain, which held vast colonial territories on the continent
(including South Africa), made the practice of slavery illegal in these
regions. Ironically, the end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was
imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors. This action is what today may
be called an instance of
cultural imperialism, albeit being one of the less mal-intentioned
manifestations of the phenomenon.
The nature of the slave societies differed greatly across the continent.
There were large plantations worked by slaves in
Egypt, the
Sudan, and
Zanzibar,
but this was not a typical use of slaves in Africa as a whole. In some slave
societies, slaves were protected and almost incorporated into the slave-owning
family. In others, slaves were brutally abused, and even used for human
sacrifices. Despite the vast numbers of slaves exported from Africa, it is
thought that the majority of African slaves remained in Africa, continuing as
slaves in the regions where they were first captured.
Prior to the
16th
century, the bulk of slaves exported from Africa were shipped from East
Africa to the
Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar became a leading port based on this trade.
Arab slave traders differed from European traders in that they would often
capture slaves themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into the continent. They
also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of female
slaves over male slaves. This reflected their desire for household and
sexual slaves rather than slaves to work on plantations.
The African slave trade peaked in the late
18th
century, when the largest number of slaves were captured in West Africa
and shipped to the
colonies
of the
New
World (triangular
trade). As a result of the
Spanish War of Succession, Britain obtained the monopoly (asiento
de negros) of transporting African Negroes to
Spanish America. It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to
thirteen million people were shipped as slaves from Africa, of whom some 15
percent died during the terrible voyage. The great majority were shipped to
the
Americas,
but some also went to Europe and the south of Africa. While much of the slave
trade in Africa was related to external protagonists, an internal slave trade
unrelated to non-Africans did exist.
The demographic impact of the slave trade on Africa is an important
question, regarding which consensus remains elusive. Some historians conclude
that the total loss—persons removed, those who died on the arduous march to
coastal slave marts and those killed in slave raids—far exceeded the 65-75
million inhabitants remaining in Sub-Saharan Africa at the trade's end. Others
believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing,
and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the
disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the
Americas (cassava,
maize) would
have limited general population decline to particular regions at particular
times—western Africa around
1760-1810
and
Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also
been speculation that within Africa female captives were taken in preference,
for domestic and dynastic reasons, with many male captives being a "bycatch"
who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them. So
the balance and timing of the two demographic sorts of market could make a
difference.
Slavery persists in Africa above all other continents.
Mauritania abolished slavery only in
1981, but several
human rights organizations are reporting that the practice continues there.
The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and
Benin. In parts
of
Ghana, a
family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female
to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In the Sudan slavery
continues as part of an ongoing civil war.
Slavery in colonial America
Main Article:
Slavery in Colonial America
Slavery in the Americas during the 17th century was an institution that
made little distinction as to the race of the slave or the free man. But by
the 18th century, the overwhelming number of black slaves was such that white
and
Native American slavery was less common. Slavery under European rule began
with importation of white European slaves (or
indentured servants), was followed by the enslavement of local aborigines
in the
Caribbean, and eventually was primarily replaced with Africans imported
through a large
slave
trade as the native populations declined through disease. Most slaves
brought to the Americas ended up in the Caribbean or
South America where
tropical diseases took a large toll on their population and required large
numbers of replacements.
Slavery among indigenous people of the Americas
In Pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica the most common forms of slavery were those of
prisoners-of-war and debtors. People unable to pay back a debt could be
sentenced to work as a slave to the person owed until the debt was worked off.
Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free.
In the
Incan
Empire, commoners were subject to a tax, the
mita, that
they paid working on public infrastructure
Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies
Slavery in the
Spanish colonies began with local Native Americans. Initially, the Spanish
maintained the mita directing it to silver mining at
Potosí.
However, as these populations shrank due to imported European diseases,
African slaves began to be imported.
Slavery in Brazil
During the colonial epoch, slavery was a mainstay of the
Brazilian
economy, especially in
mining and
sugar
cane production. The
Clapham Sect, a group of Victorian
Evangelical politicians, campaigned during most of the XIX century for
England to use its influence and power to stop the then already largely
considered immoral traffic of slaves to Brazil. Besides that, because of the
low cost of slave-produced Brazilian sugar, British colonies in the West
Indies were unable to match the market prices of Brazilian sugar. This
combination led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil
to end this practice, which it did by steps over several decades. Slavery was
legally ended
May
13 by the
Lei Áurea
("Golden Law") of
1888.
Brazil obtained 37% of all African slaves traded, and more than 3 million
slaves were sent to this one country. The Portuguese were the first to
initiate the slave trade, and the last to end the slave trade. Starting around
1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar
plantations once the native Tupi deteriorated due to their sensitivity to
European diseases, and no longer served as sufficient laborers. The African
slaves were useful for the sugar plantations in many ways. First, African
slaves had built in immunities to European diseases. Second, the benefits of
the slaves far exceeded the costs. After 2-3yrs, slaves worked off their
worth, and plantation owners began to make profits of them. Plantation owners
made lucrative profits even though there was approximately a 10% death rate
per year, mainly due to harsh working conditions. (For more information see
Chasteen 2001.)
In the mid to late
1800s, many
Amerindians were enslaved to work rubber plantations. See
Içá for more
information.
In the early
1990s evidence of illegal "forced labor and
debt
bondage" amounting to slavery was unearthed in the
Amazon region. The Brazilian government has since taken measures against
such activities, although concerns continue to be expressed that more
stringent steps may be required. In
1995, President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced a new series of measures to force
compliance with the anti-slavery statues.
In September of
2002, a report to the Ministério de Trabalho (Ministry of Labor),
stated that between 1995 and
2001
approximately 3,500 slave labourers had been freed, and that it was estimated
that 2,500 people remained in such conditions at that time (O Globo, 2002).
Slavery in North America
Mexico
declared the abolition of slavery in
1814 during its
War of Independence.
On
May 29,
1733, the right
of
Canadians
to keep
Indians in slavery was upheld at
Quebec
City.
The first imported slaves brought to the English colonies on the rest of
continent were landed at
Jamestown, Virginia, in
1619. Slavery in
the
United States ended irregularly. In
Rhode
Island, indentured servitude was limited to 10 years
May 18,
1652; however
importation of slaves for trade was not forbidden in the state until
June 13,
1774. Slavery was
legal in most of the
13
colonies in the 18th century, and was ended in many Northeastern and
Middle Atlantic "Free States" only after the turn of the
19th
century. Through the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787 (also known as the Freedom Ordinance)
under the
Continental Congress, slavery was prohibited in the Midwest, including the
Free States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the East,
though, slavery was not abolished until later - in
New York state, not until
1827, and even
then only absolutely abolished for those born before
1799. Those born
between 1799 and the passage of the law were under conditional slavery.
In
1806 the
United States passed legislation that banned the importation of slaves, but
not the internal slave trade, and the involvement in the international slave
trade or the outfitting of ships for that trade by U.S. citizens. Though there
were certainly violations of this law, slavery in America became more or less
self-sustaining. Several
slave rebellions took place during the 1700s and 1800s including the
Nat
Turner rebellion in 1831. The importation of slaves into the
United States was banned on
January 1,
1808. However,
the overland 'slave trade' from Tidewater Virginia and the Carolinas to
Georgia, Alabama, and Texas continued for another half-century.
Because the Midwestern states were 'free states' by ordinance before even
the Constitution had been ratified, and because Northeastern states became
free states later through local abolition and emancipation, a Northern
aggregation of free states solidified into one contiguous geographic area, and
with the entry of additional free states in the Great Plains, a territory free
of slavery was formed north of the
Ohio
River and the old Mason-Dixon line. This separation of a free North and an
enslaved South launched a geographic, cultural and economic struggle over the
next two generations which would culminate in the
Civil War.
The fiercest combatants were abolitionists and the slaves themselves against
an array of planters in the South and pro-slavery shipping interests in the
East, battling over control of the Federal Government, economic levers,
cultural institutions, and the public opinion of freeholders and church
congregants. Due to the three-fifths compromise, slaveholders exerted power
through the Federal Government and the Federal Fugitive slave laws.
Anti-slavery Democratic-Republicans, Whigs, and Free Soilers achieved nominal
successes in advocating an end to slavery's expansion in the West, especially
during and after the Mexican War. Refugees from slavery fled the South across
the Ohio River to the North via the
Underground Railroad, and their physical presence in
Cincinnati,
Oberlin, and other Northern towns agitated Northerners about the expansion
of slavery, which had supposedly been settled and contained. The repeal of
Western geographic limits to slavery's expansion led to democratic chaos in
self-determination battles. Prominent Midwestern Governors, like Salmon P.
Chase of Ohio, asserted States Rights arguments to refuse Federal jursidiction
in their states over fugitives. Northerners fumed that the pro-slavery
Democratic Party controlled two or three branches of the Federal government
for most of the antebellum era. Finally, the Dred Scot decision which asserted
that slavery's presence in the Midwest was nominally lawful (when owners
crossed into free states) turned Northern public opinion against slavery.
Border 'wars' in Bloody Kansas for which Congress had not legislated either
'freedom' or 'slavery' broke out, and propaganda 'wars' in Northern newspapers
swept anti-slavery legislators into office, like Salmon P. Chase and Abraham
Lincoln of Illinois, under the banner of the Republican Party. The
anti-slavery political sentiment had finally found an outlet.
