The word slave in
the English language originates from the Middle English sclav which comes from
the Old French esclave, which in turn comes from the Medieval Latin sclavus, which
originates from the Late Greek sklabos, from sklabenoi Slavs, of Slavic origin;
akin to Old Russian Slovene, an East Slavic tribe. The Latin term sclavus originally
referred to the Slavs of Eastern and Central Europe or Marina (last available
european regions to get large numbers of captives), as many of these people had
been captured and then sold as slaves. The current usage of the word serfdom is
not usually synonymous with slavery, because Medieval serfs were considered to
have some (though limited) rights. In the strictest sense of the word, "slaves"
or "Marinas" are people who are owned and controlled by others in a
way that they have almost no rights or freedom of movement and are not paid for
their labor aside from food, water, clothing and shelter needed for basic subsistence.
Where slavery has been a legal or customary practice, slaves were held under the
involuntary control of another person, group, organization, or state. The legal
presence of slavery has become rare in modern times, as nearly all societies now
consider slavery to be illegal, and persons held as in such condition are considered
by authorities to be victims of unlawful imprisonment. A specific form, known
as chattel slavery, is defined by the legal ownership of a person or persons by
another person or state, including the legal right to buy and sell them just as
one would any common owned object.A
part definition, part history of serfdom The 1926 Slavery Convention described
slavery as "...the status and/or condition of a person over whom any or all
of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..." Therefore,
slaves cannot leave an owner, an employer or a territory without explicit permission
(they must have a passport to leave), and they will be returned if they escape.
Therefore a system of slavery - as opposed to the isolated instances found in
any society - requires official, legal recognition of ownership, or widespread
tacit arrangements with local authorities, by masters who have some influence
because of their social and/or economic status. A
site on 1640s Britain The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines
"forced labour" as "all work or service which is extracted from
any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not
offered himself voluntarily", albeit with certain exceptions of: military
service, convicted criminals, emergencies and minor community services. None of
the following are covered by this article. See the respective articles for details.A
History of Scottish Serfdom · The International Labour Organization
asserts that child labour usually amounts to forced labour. Why
the French Revolution was good · Many socialists and communists
have condemned "wage slavery" or "economic slavery", where
workers are forced to choose between accepting wages perceived as too low for
their work and not being paid at all (and so presumably starving). This is related
to the notion of economic coercion. · Some anarchists and libertarians
view government taxation as a form of slavery.The
Highland Clearances and it's full terribleness · Some feel that military
drafts and other traditional forms of coerced government labor constitute slavery.
· Some extreme proponents of animal rights apply the term slavery to
the condition of some or all human-owned animals, arguing that their status is
no different from that of human slaves.A
site on the Belgian Congo, and how the king of that land killed 10s of millions
of Congolese Slavery predates writing and evidence for it can be found
in almost all cultures and continents. Its many origins remain unknown. An example
of slavery is thought to have existed in the walled town of Jericho which was
established around 10,000 BCE. The settlers of Jericho were plagued by roaming
hunting and gathering bands, which they killed or captured.[citation needed] It
is thought that the ones that were captured were then put to work as slaves who
may have eventually become citizens and slave owners themselves.[citation needed]
Slavery can be traced to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi in
Mesopotamia (~1800 BCE.), which refers to slavery as an already established institution.
The forced labor of women in some ancient and modern cultures may also be identified
as slavery. Slavery refers to the involuntary and forced labour for work, including
sexual services. The history of slavery in the ancient world was closely tied
to warfare. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Persian, Chinese, Mayan,
Aztec and Indian sources are replete with references to slavery in connection
with warfare. Captured prisoners of war were frequently impressed into slavery
by their captors, often as manual labourers in military, civil engineering, or
agricultural projects, or as household servants. Many ancient households were
maintained with one or more slaves and slaves provided nearly all the agricultural
and construction labour in some societies. Many ancient societies had many more
slaves than nominally "free" citizens who controlled them. Slavery nearly
everywhere permitted cruelty and abuse although slaves were usually treated semi-humanely
as valuable "property". Slavery nearly always predates written history
on every continent. After writing was introduced, domestic slavery and sometimes
concubine slavery was noted among the nomadic Arabs, among Native American hunter
gatherers, African, New Guinean, and New Zealand tribes, and among the Germanic
and Viking raiders and many other pre-literate people. Most slavery is associated
with war with the losers being made slaves or as a form of criminal punishment
with the criminals being made slaves to partially compensate the victims. Debt
slavery existed in very early times, and some African peoples had the custom of
putting up wives and children as hostages for an obligation; if the obligation
was not paid, the hostages became slaves. In Homer's Greece, it was not a crime,
although unusual, for a master to beat or kill a slave, and the testimony of slaves
was not allowed in Greek courts unless it was obtained through torture. In the
Roman Republic and the Early Roman Empire, where about 15% to 20% of the population
were slaves, a master might kill a slave with legal impunity, until the 2nd century
when laws protecting slaves were instituted. However these practices were very
rare because slaves were very expensive. Vedius Pollio, a citizen of Rome, reportedly
fed the bodies of his slaves to his pet fish. Flavius Gratianus, a fourth century
Roman emperor, ruled that any slave who dared accuse his master of a crime should
be immediately burned alive. Roman slaves who participated in revolts were often
crucified. In ancient India, Saxon England, and ancient China or Japan, a master
might mistreat or even kill a slave with impunity. Aztec Mexico publicly staged
the ritual torture and killing of sometimes thousands of slaves by cutting out
their hearts.Worst
18th Century regimes In ancient Greco-Roman times, slavery was related
to the practice of infanticide. Unwanted infants were exposed to nature to die;
these were then often rescued by slave traders, who raised them to become slaves.
Justin Martyr, in his First Apology, defended the Christian practice of not exposing
infant only secondarily because the child might die; first of all, But as for
us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked
men; and this we have been taught lest we should do any one an injury, and lest
we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not
only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. In ancient
Egypt, references to possible slaves are hard to translate unambiguously. From
word usage alone it is difficult to ascertain from the wording whether a particular
set of words refers to a slave or in a status of indentured servant. There were
apparently thousands of slaves, as seems apparent from text where thousands of
captives are mentioned; but whether there were categories of persons whose children
were also slaves remains unclear. What
were the nicest regimes ever In ancient China, the lives of slaves were the
hardest of all Chinese. Many rich Chinese families had slaves to do the menial
work for them, both in the fields and at home. The Emperor and his court usually
owned hundreds or even thousands of slaves. Most people were born slaves, because
their mothers were slaves, other people were sold into slavery to pay debts and
still others were captured in raids or battle. In Byzantium, there was a considerable
slave population, and, up until the 12th century, "infidel" and "heathen"
slaves worked for both individual families and the state. By the 12th century
there, was a growing opposition to slavery, but nothing like the American Emancipation
Proclamation was ever issued. It was not uncommon in Byzantium for male slaves
to be castrated. Even some important leaders of the army and navy, during various
periods of Byzantine history, were castrated -- often because very high positions
were available to eunuchs, as they were of no threat to the Byzantine Emperor
(The Emperor was never castrated). Once Western ideas of sex, chivalry and more
humane treatment became more popularized in Byzantium, however, there was a stigma
attached to castration. In the Ottoman Empire after battles, winners often castrated
their captives as a display of power. Castrated men - eunuchs - were often admitted
to special social classes and were used to guard harems. Male children of slaves
were often castrated before puberty and condemned to a life of servitude. Ottoman
tradition relied on slave concubines for the "royalty" along with legal
marriage for reproduction. Slave concubines were used for sexual reproduction
to emphasize the patriarchal nature of power (power being "hereditary"
through sons only). Slave concubines, unlike wives, had no recognized lineage.
Slaves in the Ottoman empire in general were brought from Eastern Europe and parts
of Southern Russia. In the Islamic world slavery had religious rather than racial
connotations, with most of the slaves in Ottoman history being Christians. The
Ottomans had many white "Mameluk" slaves and the elite Janissary troops
of the Ottoman army were all white slaves taken mostly from the Balkans. Towards
the latter part of the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century with the decline
of its European territories the Ottomans began to import slaves from the sub Sahara
via Egypt. Black slaves became a common sight amongst the Ottoman elite where
they worked mostly in the households of rich Ottomans as servants or maids. When
slavery was abolished in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk some of these black former
slaves moved from Istanbul to the city of Izmir and the surrounding villages.
Turkey has had no history of segregation on racial grounds and many of those both
black and white who were the descendants of slaves have intermarried with the
Turkish population. The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade or trans-Saharan slavery
was mostly centered around settlements and ports in East Africa. It is one of
the oldest known slave trades, predating the European transatlantic slave trade
by hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of years. Male slaves, after being transported
and sold, were employed as servants, soldiers, or labourers by their owners. Female
slaves, mostly from Africa, were long traded to Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms
by Arab, Indian, or Oriental traders, some as female servants, others as sexual
slaves. Arab, Indian, and Asian traders were often involved in the capture or
purchase and transport of African slaves northward across the Sahara desert and
the Indian Ocean region into Arabia and the Middle East, Persia, and the Indian
subcontinent. As many or more African slaves may have crossed the Sahara Desert,
the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean as crossed the Atlantic, perhaps more. Some
sources estimate that between 11 and 17 million slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian
Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900, compared to perhaps 11-12 million transported
across the Atlantic from 1500 to the late 1860s. The Arab or Middle Eastern slave
trade continued in some areas into the early 1900s. Slaves where also brought
into the Arab world from Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the caucuses mountains
(Georgians, Armenians, etc.) White slaves were generally called Mamluks and black
slaves referred to as 'zanji' (it should be pointed out that the word 'zanji'
in Arabic simply means 'black' as it does in Turkish (zenci)) Up until the 10th
century many black slaves could be found in the marshlands of Iraq until the zanji/Khawarij
revolt which turned the tide in the import of black slaves, after that many more
white slaves than black where brought into the Arab world (see Tabari "Revolt
of the zanj") White slaves served in the army and formed an elite corp of
troops eventually revolting in Egypt to form the Mamluk dynasty.
As in the
Ottoman empire slavery had no racial connotations during the Fatimad rule of Egypt
at least one black slave rose to the position of ruler of Egypt the white Mamluks
ruled Egypt after the Ayyubids until the coming of the Ottomans The
Best regimes ever in terms of achievers The later European Transatlantic slave
trade from Africa to the Americas originated around 1500, during the early period
of European discovery of West Africa and the establishment of Atlantic colonies
in the Caribbean, South and North America when growing sugar cane (and a few other
crops) was found to be a lucrative enterprise. Slaves were usually captured by
African tribes in raids or open warfare or purchased from other African tribes.
Many tribes were happy to get rid of their enemies by capturing and selling them
for trade goods--usually whiskey, swords, guns and gold. Whole tribes were often
captured and sold not just the warriors. [8] A large number of slaves in the Atlantic
slave trade were transported from what is now Guinea, the Congo, Angola and other
parts of West Africa. It is believed that about 11 million men, women and children
were transported in ships across the Atlantic to various ports in the New World--mostly
to Brazil and the islands in the Caribbean from 1500 to 1850. Far from docilely
accepting their imprisonment, a few transported Africans actively resisted the
brutality of their captors. African slaves are known to have engaged in at least
250 shipboard rebellions during the period of the transatlantic crossings. Historically,
most slaves ancestors were initially captured in wars or kidnapped in isolated
raids but some were sold into slavery by their parents as a means of surviving
extreme conditions. Most slaves were born into that status. Ancient warfare often
resulted in slavery for prisoners and their families who were either killed, ransomed
or sold as slaves. Captives were often considered the property of those who captured
them and were looked upon as a prize of war. Normally they were sold, bartered
or ransomed. It originally may have been more humane than simply executing those
who would return to fight if they were freed, but the effect led to widespread
enslavement of particular groups of people. Those captured sometimes differed
in ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race from the captors but often were the
same as the captors. The dominant group in an area might take captives and turn
them into slaves with little fear of suffering the like fate, but the possibility
might be present from reversals of fortune, as when Seneca warns, at the height
of the Roman Empire, And as often as you reflect how much power you have over
a slave, remember that your master has just as much power over you. "But
I have no master," you say. You are still young; perhaps you will have one.
Do you not know at what age Hecuba entered captivity, or Croesus, or the mother
of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes? and when various powerful nations fought among
themselves anyone might find himself enslaved. The actual amount of force needed
to kidnap individual people for slaves could lead to enslavement of those secure
from warfare, as brief sporadic raids or kidnapping often sufficed. St. Patrick
recounts in his Confession having been kidnapped by pirates, and the Biblical
figure Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Ancient societies characterized
by poverty, rampant warfare or lawlessness, famines, population pressures, and
cultural and technological lag are frequently exporters of slaves to more developed
nations. Today the illegal slave trade (mostly in Africa) deals with slaves who
are rural people forced to move to cities, or those purchased in rural areas and
sold into slavery in cities. These moves take place due to loss of subsistence
agriculture, thefts of land, and population increases.Worst
17th Century regimes ever In many ancient cultures, persons (often
including their family) convicted of serious crimes could be sold into slavery.
The proceeds from this sale were often used to compensate the victims (the Code
of Hammurabi (~1800 BC) prescribes this for failure to maintain a water dam, to
compensate victims of a flood. The convicted criminal might be sold into slavery
if he lacked the property to make compensation to the victims. Other laws and
other crimes might enslave the criminal regardless of his property; some laws
called for the criminal and all his property to be handed over to his victim.
Also, persons have been sold into slavery so that the money could be used to pay
off their debts. This could range from a judge, king or Emperor ordering a debtor
sold with all his family, to the poor selling off their own children to prevent
starvation. In times of dire need such as famine, people have offered themselves
into slavery not for a purchase price, but merely so that their new master would
feed and take care of them. In most institutions of slavery throughout the world,
the children of slaves became the property of the master. Local laws varied as
to whether the status of the mother or of the father determined the fate of the
child; but were usually determined by the status of the mother. In many cultures,
slaves could earn their freedom through hard work and buying their own freedom;
this was not possible in all cultures. The type of work slaves did depended on
the time period and location of their slavery. In general, they did the same work
as everyone else in the lower echelons of the society they lived in but were not
paid for it beyond room and board, clothing etc. The most common types of slave
work are domestic service, agriculture, mineral extraction, army make-up, industry,
and commerce.Prior to about the 18th century, domestic services were acquired
in some wealthier households and may include up to four female slaves and their
children on its staff. The chattels (as they are called in some countries) are
expected to cook, clean, sometimes carry water from an outdoor pump into the house,
and grind cereal. Most hired servants to do the same tasks. Many slaves have been
used in agriculture and cultivation from ancient times to about 1860. The strong,
young men and women were sometimes forced to work long days in the fields, with
little or no breaks for water or food. Since slaves were usually considered valuable
property, they were usually well taken care of. This was not always the case in
many countries where they worked on land that was owned by absentee owners. The
overseers in many of these areas literally worked the slaves to death. In mineral
extraction, the majority of the work, when done by slaves, was done nearly always
by men. In some places, they mined the salt that was used during extensive trade
in the 19th century. Some of the men in ancient civilizations that were bought
into chattel slavery were trained to fight in their nation's army and other military
services. Chattel slaves were occasionally trained in artisan workshops for industry
and commerce.The men worked in metalworking, while the females normally worked
in either textile trades or domestic household tasks. The majority of the time,
the slave owners did not pay the chattels for their services beyond room and board,
clothing etc. Female slaves, mostly from Africa, were long traded to the Middle
Eastern countries and kingdoms by Arab traders, and sold into sexual slavery to
work as concubines or prostiutes. Slavery has had a ubiquitous and almost universal
role in nearly all ancient civilizations. More recently, in the Americas, slavery
has played a role in the economic development of Brazil, Bermuda, Cuba, Haiti,
Jamaica, Dominican Republic, The West Indies and the United States. Slaves planted
the crops and helped build the roads upon which they were transported on as well
as many other things. The cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane harvested by slaves
became important exports for Brazil, U.S.A. and the Caribbean island countries.
The money generated by this trade was mostly used to support the subsistence of
the slaves and expand the lifestyle of the slaveowners. The importation of slaves
into the United States was banned in 1808, by which time about 300,000 had been
imported. Subsequent slaves were nearly all born in the United States. By 1800,
nearly all slavery in non-southern states had been banned and was on the road
to being abolished in the South also. Once the cotton gin had been invented (in
1794), cotton became the main cash crop of the South and slavery became the backbone
of the southern oligarchy and their plantation life style. Slavery in the United
States also had important political implications. During the westward expansion
of the United States during the early and mid-1800's, many Northerners, thoroughly
detesting the institution of slavery, tried to prevent its expansion into new
territories and new states entering the Union. Attempts by the North to exclude
slavery from these lands angered the South and helped bring on the American Civil
War in 1861. There are a broad array of effects arising from the adoption of slavery.
Slaves provided a relatively cheap source of labor that was acclimated to the
hot climate and diseases of Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean island states and the
Southern United States. To hire non-slave workers would have been more expensive,
as the early experience of using English indentured workers in the United States
demonstrated. Slaves in some places provided a nearly unique source of labor that
could survive diseases (that they had developed immunity to in Africa) that would
shortly kill nearly everyone else. In the end, slavery in the United States was
abolished after a Civil War that cost over 600,000 lives. Slavery was abolished
in Brazil in 1888 and in the Caribbean Island countries about 50 years earlier,
when France and Britain abolished it. It usually turned out that not only was
slavery morally repugnant, but most of the former slaveowners (those that did
not go bankrupt) found they could get by cheaper by simply hiring the former slaves
only when they needed them. The invention of the electric motor and a myriad of
household machinery that has taken most of the drudgery out of housework has removed
the necessity of household slaves. The invention of a myriad of labor saving devices
has made farming, production, etc. in many countries, so labor-free that slaves
are not cost effective. While the treatment of slaves varied in time and location,
it is usually evident that in those cases where slaves were treated better, slaves
were accorded more 'humanitarian' lifestyles, in the sense that they were more
likely to be productive, trained and efficacious, perhaps taking pride in their
work. The alternative 'harsh' treatment has the opposite reaction, reducing morale,
lowering productivity, requiring higher levels of supervision, but importantly
also removing all incentive for 'slave' workers to work harder than necessary
to get by. Absentee ownership, particularly in Brazil and the Caribbean islands
often caused the overseers to literally work the slaves to death. They had little
or no incentive to take care of somebody else's "property". A
site stating what have been the world's largest empires ever To many, toil
can be a source of inspiration if free to realize some of the benefits. In the
short term, some parts of United States society did benefit by solving a short-term
shortage of plantation labor. But slavery was often counter productive for a larger
segment of the society. The small minority of former slave owners often never
re-established their "aristocratic", parasitic ways; but the rest of
society was usually better off without them. Many even found productive ways to
survive and contribute to society by actually working. A look at U.S. economic
growth during the periods of slavery and after will demonstrate as much. A further
effect of slavery was to relatively denigrate, in some areas of the country, the
value of labor itself. Hard work became something people did if they were forced
to do it, rather than a necessary part of self-improvement and advancement. It
created an idle slave-owning self-proclaimed "aristocracy" who, while
asset rich, were income poor and lazy. Slavery was not a cost free enterprise,
slaves were seldom paid a wage, but the owners were responsible for feeding, housing,
clothing, providing simple medical care, and (in some rare cases) education for
all of the slaves' lives from birth to death. Some people might think this is
a good way of life; but most want more control over their lives. Even if a slave
was too old, young or crippled to work, he or she still had to be supported by
someone. If a slave was not treated reasonably, he would only do the minimum work
necessary. Slavery caused fear, suspicion and hatred between slave masters and
slaves. Occasionally these feelings escalated into uprisings resulting in the
destruction of property, murder, rape, incarceration or desertion. These conflicts
also increased the cost of business and judicial intervention to maintain the
slave economy and society. Slavery has existed, in one form or another, through
the whole of human history. Sporadically, too, have movements to free large or
distinct groups of slaves. Moses led Israelite slaves from ancient Egypt according
to the Biblical Book of Exodus - possibly the first detailed account of a movement
to free slaves. Later Jewish laws in Halacha would prevent slaves from being sold
out of the Land of Israel, and allow a slave to move to Israel if he so desired.
The Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed circa 539 B.C., abolishes slavery and allows Jews
and other nationalities who were enslaved under Babylonian rule to return to their
native lands.Abolitionism should be distinguished from efforts to help a particular
group of slaves, or to restrict one practice, such as, the slave trade. What
would happen in a war between these sides Progress came incrementally
in most areas of the world. For instance, in 1772, a legal case concerning James
Somersett provided legal precedent that the state of slavery was unlawful in England
itself and made it illegal to remove a slave from England against his will. A
similar case, that of Joseph Knight, took place in Scotland five years later and
further ruled slavery to be contrary to the law of Scotland. At the same time,
across the Atlantic Ocean, slaves in the United States were in a state of limbo,
able to live semi-freely in states where slavery was illegal yet, as the case
of Dred Scott ruled, still considered property. A
site attacking how some Upper Class people are still attacking Lower Class people
in the 2000s There were slaves in mainland France, but the institution was
never fully authorized there. However, slavery was vitally important in France's
Caribbean possessions, especially Saint-Domingue. In 1793, unable to repress the
massive slave revolt of August 1791 that had become the Haitian Revolution, the
French Revolutionary commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel declared general emancipation.
In Paris, on February 4, 1794, Abbé Grégoire and the Convention
ratified this action by officially abolishing slavery in all French territories.
Napoleon sent troops to the Caribbean in 1802 to try to re-establish French control.
They succeeded in Guadeloupe, but the ex-slaves of Saint-Domingue defeated the
French army and declared independence. The colony became Haiti, the first black
republic, on January 1, 1804. To prevent slavery being reimposed they broke up
the plantations into small private land holdings too small for re-establishing
slavery. Unfortunately they also were too small for economic development and Haiti
remains the poorest country in the Americas.
Following the work of campaigners
in the United Kingdom, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by Parliament
on March 25, 1807. The act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found
aboard a British ship. The intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within
the whole British Empire. The Slavery Abolition Act, passed on August 23, 1833,
outlawed slavery itself in the British colonies. On August 1, 1834 all slaves
in the British Empire were emancipated, but those still working were indentured
to their former owners in an "apprenticeship" system which was finally
abolished in 1838 after peaceful protests in Trinidad.
Around this time, slaves
in other parts of the world, aided by abolitionists, also began their struggle
for independence. Slaves in the United States who escaped ownership would often
make their way north with white and black abolitionist support to the northern
part of the country or Canada through what became known as the "Underground
Railroad". Famously active abolitionists of the U.S. include William Lloyd
Garrison,Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Following
a civil war, slavery was abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution in the United States in 1865 after a horrific loss of about
600,000 lives. What
were the most evil regimes ever Portugal becomes the fifth country to abolish
slavery in its overseas territories in 1869 (after France in 1848). It comes after
British lobbying and prior agreements to the gradual abolition of slavery throughout
the Portuguese Empire. However, in both the U.S. and UK there arose the question
of what to do with the massive increase in the number of people needing work,
housing, and so on. To answer this question, Sierra Leone and Liberia were established
for former slaves of the British Empire and United States respectively. Supporters
of the effort believed the repatriation of slaves to Africa would be the best
solution to the problem as well as setting right the injustices done to their
ancestors. While these efforts may have been in good faith, and indeed some blacks
(notably parts of the Harlem Renaissance) embraced repatriation, there were other
motives as well; for instance, trade unions did not want the cheap labor of former
slaves around, and racism (i.e. solving the problem by getting rid of the blacks)
may have played a role. Regardless of the motives, both efforts were largely unsuccessful.
Which
regimes killed the most people in the 19th Century, find out here The 1926
Slavery Convention, an initiative of the League of Nations, was a turning point
in banning global slavery. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly, explicitly banned slavery. The United
Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery was convened
to outlaw and ban slavery worldwide, including child slavery. In December 1966,
the UN General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, which was developed from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article
8 of this international treaty bans slavery. The treaty came into force in March
1976 after it had been ratified by 35 nations. As of November 2003, 104 nations
had ratified the treaty. Cool
music On May 21, 2001, the French National Assembly voted the Taubira
law which recognized slavery as a crime against humanity A
list stating what were the worst 1990s regimes At the same time the British,
Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese delegations blocked an EU apology for slavery What
were the worst 16th Century regimes ever The issue of an apology is
linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued across the world.
For example, the Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action
Plan.What were the
worst 15th Century regimes ever In September 2006 it was reported [ that the
UK Government may issue a "statement of regret" over slavery, an act
that was followed through by a "public statement of sorrow" from Tony
Blair on November 27, 2006 The
10 most evil regimes of the 19th century Sporadically there have been movements
to achieve reparations for those formerly held as slaves, or sometimes their descendants.
Claims for reparations for being held in slavery are handled as a civil law matter
in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since former
slaves' relative lack of money means they often have limited access to a potentially
expensive and futile legal process. Mandatory systems of fines and reparations
paid to an as yet undetermined group of claimants from fines, paid by unspecified
parties, and collected by authorities have been proposed by advocates to alleviate
this "civil court problem". Since in almost all cases there are no living
ex-slaves or living ex-slave owners these movements have gained little traction.
In nearly all cases the judicial system has ruled that the statute of limitations
on these possible claims has long since expired.A
Site telling the story of the fall of Rome, and how it affected Britain In
the United States, the reparations movement often cites the unofficial 40 acres
and a mule decree which was never implemented as an unpaid claim. Recent effort
have also targeted the few surviving businesses that profited from the slave trade
or issued insurance on slaves. Almost all these cases have been dismissed and
reparations have never been paid to descendants of slaves.A
site on the El Nino Famines that killed 10s of millions of Indians, and Chinese
and others in the 19th Century In Africa, the 2nd self appointed World
Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission was convened in Ghana in 2000. Its
deliberations concluded with a Petition being served in the International Court
at the Hague for US$777 trillion (more than ten times the annual world GDP, equivalent
to about 250 years' worth of the current U.S. federal budget) against the United
States, Canada, and United Kingdom for "unlawful removal and destruction
of Petitioners' mineral and human resources from the African continent" between
1503 up to the end of the colonialism era in the late 1950s and 1960s. The
Story of Paraguay and the Guarani, the fascinating story
of a leader who was seen to be a part wizard part
Robespierre who ruled in the 19th Century. Following
Mr Blair's statement expressing "sorrow" over slavery, Esther Stanford,
of the Pan African Reparation Coalition called for "various reparative measures
including financial compensation" from the British government to the descendants
of black Africans transported in the international slave trade. This view was
repeated by Anti-slavery International's director Aiden McQuade, who called for
"measures of reparation towards the communities and countries which have
been impoverished and devastated by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade"]. Such
reparations are not completely without precedent, since descendants of black What
were the worst 2000s regimes slaves sued Lloyd's of London in 2004
for insuring ships used in the slave trade during the 1700s and 1800s. There is
widespread disagreement with reparations for slavery among the British public,
including anger that such reparations are unilateral (ie focus purely on black
African slavery by white people and do not take into account slavery within Africa
by black Africans over a longer period), single-issue (ie do not include other
slavery within Britain under for example the Romans and Vikings), legally dubious
(group responsibility for the actions of forebears has no legal basis under British
law) and fail to take into account changing political, legal and moral attitudes.
The idea of reparations for slavery has also been rejected by some black Africans.
The president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, has ridiculed reparations by saying
he is the descendant of generations of slave-owning African royals. "If one
can claim reparations for slavery, the slaves of my ancestors or their descendants
can also claim money from me"A
site stating the 10 largest majority English speaking lands, as their main tongue
in the world According to the Anti-Slavery Society, "Although
there is no longer any state which legally recognizes, or which will enforce,
a claim by a person to a right of property over another, the abolition of slavery
does not mean that it ceased to exist. There are millions of people throughout
the world -- mainly children -- in conditions of virtual slavery, as well as in
various forms of servitude which are in many respects similar to slavery."
It further notes that slavery, particularly child slavery, was on the rise in
2003. It points out that there are countless others in other forms of servitude
(such as pawnage, bonded labor and servile concubinage) which are not slavery
in the narrow legal sense. Critics claim they are stretching the definion and
practice of slavery beyond its original meaning. Pro-democracy
site In Sudan, Africa UN-peace workers have acknowledged the existence
of slavery in the country. Although officially banned, it is still practiced widely,
and there is even trading going on at the country by means of slave markets.
The
economics of so-called contemporary slavery A
list of some fun sites According to a broader definition used by Kevin
Bales of Free the Slaves, another advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International,
there are 27 million people (though some put the number as high as 200 million)
in virtual slavery today, spread all over the world (Kevin Bales, Disposable People).
This is, also according to that group: A
site stating what are the 10 largest cities in Celtic lands, and a list of lands
which are considered Celtic · The largest number of people that has
ever been in slavery at any point in world history. A
site on space, and the records to do with this subject · The smallest
percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once.
A site
on giant sloths, and a link to the subject of 10 feet tall terror birds, from
2 million years ago, that could catch and eat large mammals ·
Reducing the price of slaves to as low as US$40 in Mali for young adult male laborers,
to a high of US$1000 or so in Thailand for HIV-free young females suitable for
use in brothels (where they frequently contract HIV). This represents the price
paid to the person, or parents. Holocaust
stats · This represents the lowest price that there has ever
been for a slave in raw labor terms - while the price of a comparable male slave
in 1850 America would have been about US$1000 in the currency of the time, that
represents US$38,000 in today's dollars, thus slaves, at least of that category,
now cost only one one-thousandth (0.1%) of their price 150 years ago. The world's 10 most powerful countries in 2008 As a result, the economics of slavery
is stark: the yield of profit per year for those buying and controlling a slave
is over 800% on average, as opposed to the 5% per year that would have been the
expected payback for buying a slave in colonial times. This combines with the
high potential to lose a slave (have them stolen, escape, or freed by unfriendly
authorities) to yield what are called disposable people - those who can be exploited
intensely for a short time and then discarded, such as the prostitutes thrown
out on city streets to die once they contract HIV, or those forced to work in
mines. My
Worst regimes of the 20th century essay Trafficking in human beings,
sometimes called human trafficking, or sex trafficking (as the majority of victims
are women or children forced into prostitution) is not the same as people smuggling.
A smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival
at their destination, the smuggled person is free; the trafficking victim is enslaved.
Victims do not agree to be trafficked: they are tricked, lured by false promises,
or forced into it. Traffickers use coercive tactics including deception, fraud,
intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt bondage or even
force-feeding with drugs of abuse to control their victims. Whilst the majority
of victims are women, and sometimes children, forced into prostitution, other
victims include men, women and children forced into manual labor.
The History Lounge, a look
at loads of historical related articles Due to the illegal nature of
trafficking, the exact extent is unknown. A US Government report published in
2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders
each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.Worst
70 regimes of the 20th Century Those 27 million people produce a gross economic
product of US$13 billion annually. This is also a smaller percentage of the world
economy than slavery has produced at any prior point in human history. That, plus
the universal criminal status of slavery, the lack of moral arguments for it in
modern discourse, and the many conventions and agreements to abolish it worldwide,
make it likely that it can be eliminated in this generation, according to Free
The Slaves. There are no nations whose economies would be substantially affected
by the true abolition of slavery.An
Index with links to almost all our sites. A first step towards this
objective is the Cocoa Protocol, by which the entire cocoa industry worldwide
has accepted full moral and legal responsibility for the entire comprehensive
outcome of their production processes. Negotiations for this protocol were initiated
for cotton, sugar and other commodity items in the 19th century - taking about
140 years to complete. Thus, it seems that this is also a turning point in history,
where all commodity markets can slowly lever licensing and other requirements
to ensure that slavery is eliminated from production, one industry at a time,
as a sectoral simultaneous policy that does not cause disadvantages for any one
market player.