The%20Origins%20of%20Slavery

1
The Origins of Slavery

• Introduction to the Civil War
• 1860-1865

2
Labour, Not Race

• Slavery was initially a labour system, not a
  racial system
• In the USA, race became associated with unfree
  labour after the Declaration of Independence as a
  way to justify bondage

3

• Israelis enslaved by Egyptians
• Greeks and Romans enslaved non-citizens
• Slavic Christians and non-Muslim Africans
  enslaved by Ottoman Turks
• European serfs bound to land while slave is bound
  to master
• Is there really any difference between all of
  these examples?

4
The Slave Trade

• Time is money in the transportation industry
• Ship captains had neither the time or money to
  capture slaves
• product had to be ready for shipping when the
  captain arrived in port
• African leaders were the middle-men in the slave
  trade

5

• Most slaves were captured in battles between
  tribes
• Prior to the Atlantic slave trade, captured
  warriors were killed women and children were
  enslaved or incorporated into tribe
• In Africa, sale of captured enemies was a
  practical movebe rid of enemy and gain profit

6
Morality of the Slave Trade

• Consider what was acceptable in the past is
  often not acceptable today
• Consider whaling, womens rights, child labour,
  religious intolerance, torture, burning at the
  stake, capital punishment, polluting the
  environment

7
Before the Trans-Atlantic Trade

• Most slaves were sold EAST
• Traded for luxury goods such as books, paper,
  horses, tea, coffee, sugar, spices, jewellery,
  perfumes, later guns
• Drought and famine caused destitute to sell
  themselves or children
• African and Mid Eastern purchasers valued women
  more highly than men (eunuchs were most valuable)
• With the discovery of America, men, not women,
  became the gender of demand

8
European View of Labour

• Serfdom may have been abolished in Western
  Europe, but the peasant still had to farm land
  controlled by a feudal landlord
• Peasant was, technically, free but the state
  demanded taxes and military service in return
• Privately owned farms worked by individual
  families was an alien concept

9
The Trans-Atlantic Trade

• The Premise Europeans realized that the
  European country that could first circumvent the
  Arab middle-men (caravan trade) would control
  trade with Europe
• Portugal uniquely situated location, ocean and
  wind currents in 1442, they took 12 African
  slaves to Lisbon
• Colonialism a source of cheap labour was needed
  for the colonies
• Africans were enslaved because they were cheap,
  readily available and did not disrupt the
  economies of Europe
• Therefore ECONOMIC motivation, not RACIAL

10
The Triangle Trade

• See your previous note on this system of trade
• Goods are traded for slaves
• The middle passage death rate ranged from 10
  to 50

11
Example Sugar

• Labour intensive
• 1 worker for each acre cultivated
• Must be cured as soon as it is cut to remove the
  plants water (otherwise it would decompose)
• After that, it has a very long shelf life
• Slaves were just another commodity
• Cost was so low that, with the exception of North
  America, it was cheaper to work a man to death
  than to maintain a standard of living that would
  allow the slave to live to old age
• 650 to 1920 est. that 28.7 million slaves were
  traded
• 12 million were involved in the Atlantic Slave
  trade

12
Slavery in America

• The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 by Eli
  Whitney gave slavery new life.
• The gin separates the seeds from the cotton, a
  job previously done by hand.
• Did not remove need for slaves just meant that
  slaves could now pick the cotton and would not
  have to separate it.
• In fact, the opposite occurred Cotton growing
  became so profitable for the planters that it
  greatly increased their demand for both land and
  slave labour.
• In 1790 there were six slave states in 1860
  there were 15.

13
The American South

• Slavery led to the south being a static,
  conservative and closed society
• The South defended its way of life by arguing
  that agricultural values were superior to
  industrial society
• They argued that industrial workers were just
  like slaves but were treated more unfairly by
  Industrialists in the North

14
Slavery in Latin America

• Most Latin American slaves lived in Brazil and
  the Caribbean
• Fewer European women than in North America lead
  to rampant miscegenation.
• Cheaper to work slaves to death than to increase
  the slave population through natural means.

15
Slavery in Brazil

• Brazilian society organized around the fazenda
  (large estate the hacienda in Spanish)
• Largest slave population of the Americas and was
  a multi-racial society
• Slavery made it difficult for poor whites and
  mulattoes to find work.

16
End of the Slave TRADE

• The slave trade was abolished in the British
  Empire on March25, 1807
• Slavery was not abolished until the Slavery
  Abolition Act of 1833
• In Brazil, British pressure led to the end of the
  Brazilian slave trade in the 1850s, but slavery
  was not abolished until 1888.
• In America, slavery was abolished with the
  passing of the 13th amendment on April 8, 1864.
• We will hear from our presenters, however, that
  this did not truly end human rights violations
  towards African Americans, especially in the
  South.