Premodern Slavery Modes of Acquisition Sources of slaves Status in society Roles in Society Economic Function

Patterson: social death, cut off from history

Davis: dehumanization and coercion

Pre-Modern Slavery Ancient: Babylon

Hebrew Slavery

Egypt

Hammurabi’s Code

Scriptural Sanctions

Public Works

The number of spoil taken in them ..... of vile Naharina who were as defenders among them, with their horses, 691 prisoners, 29 hands [of slain], 48 mares ... in that year 295 male and female slaves, 68 horses, 3 gold dishes, 3 silver dishes, .....Report from the 42nd (?) year of the reign of Thutmose IIIW.M.F. Petrie A History of Egypt  Part II p.122

Premodern Slavery

Ancient Greece

Aristotle: natural subordination: “He who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a slave.”

Slaves worked in agriculture, mines, crafts, and as domestics.

Most Families had one or two. Plato owned five. Large scale holdings were rare. Small agricultural holdings were the norm.

Spartans had a class of workers, helots, akin to serfs, and they also had some designated as slaves.

Greece The common ground was the deprivation of civic

rights. Citizens had

right to own property authority over the work of another power of punishment over another

Slaves had restricted legal rights restricted familial rights and privileges (marriage,

inheritance, etc.) possibility of social mobility (manumission or

emancipation, access to citizen rights) religious rights and obligations military rights and obligations (military service as

servant, heavy or light soldier, or sailor)

Premodern Slavery

Free urban population: 7MSlave urban 1.3-1.9 M

Free rural: 42MSlave rural: 3.5-6.5

Slaves represented between 7-13% of population. The raw numbers would average between 5-8M slaves.

Sources: war and reproduction

Ancient: Rome

“All slaves are enemies”

Rome

Familia rustica

Familia urbana

Premodern Slavery

African slavery Internal and

External Kinship and

assimilation Privileges Disabilities

Arab/Islamic Female to male 2:1

Concepts

Captive Chattel Commodity

Dehumanization Coercion/

Punishment Dishonor

Summary Premodern Slavery

Justifications: captives in a just war, judicial (penal or debt), social (voluntary self-sale, poverty)

Slaves can sometimes exercise administrative/social power/status (Babylon, Rome, Egypt)

Many forms of limited duration (set terms, manumission was frequent, though not necessarily full freedom)

Commodification: some, e.g. Saharan trade, but not large scale market (warfare was sporadic)

Summary Premodern Slavery

Enslavement: typically an “other,” tribe, ethnicity, religion, nationality, but often indistinguishable, i.e. need for branding and/or other identifiers, sometimes internal, e.g. Greek adoption of abandoned infants.

Assimilation: African kinship assimilation, subsequent generations in Mediterranean cultures.

Slave labor: domestic, craft production, civil works, managerial, agricultural (though not for industrialized production for export)

Origins of Racism Chicken or Egg ? Subhuman (Genetics) Blackness/Labor Childlike (limited intelligence, knowledge) Animalistic (instinctive and lascivious, not

rational) Bible: Noah’s Curse (sin) Blackness (evil)

Darkness, Danger, Evil, the Devil, Chaos, Witches

Uncivilized (pagan, literacy, technology, custom)