THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

18.4 | Slavery

THE (BRIEF) HISTORY OF SLAVERY

• Slavery has existed since the beginning of human civilization

• Slavery has enslaved all peoples and ethnicities • Ex: Mediterranean cultures (Christian and Muslim)

enslaved many people; mostly Greeks, Bulgarians, Turkish PoWs, and Tartars – but also Africans

• Not all slavery was dehumanizing and exploitive, nor based on race• Ex. Greeks during Roman times (Polybius) and

Janissaries during the Ottoman period • Slavery in the New World however, was a very

different monster

POPULATION CHANGES• Pre-1492

• Western Hemisphere• 54 million

• 1650• Western Hemisphere

• 6 million

ESTABLISHMENT OF AMERICAN SLAVERY

• Spanish and Portuguese depopulation of the Americas• Labor, extermination, disease, et cetera

• A need to fill the labor pool• 1518 – first Spanish ship sailed to America specifically

to deliver Africans • Importation of African slaves on large scale late 1500s• 1619 Jamestown begins importation of slaves

• Sugar plantations in the West Indies and Brazil absorbed most of the slave influx

• By 1725, the population in the West Indies was 90% slave labor – in a place where Africans were not native

PLANTATION ECONOMY• From Maryland, to the West Indies, to Brazil

• Large estates using slave labor to cultivate cash crops for economic gain – Remember Roman latifundia?

• Slaves seen as property, treated poorly, bred as animals, treated as animals, and sold, just like animals

• American racism develops during this time period• Unique in that British colonies were such heavily

populated areas that were forming new social identities (unlike other, less populated and disconnected colonies)

• Created a culture of racism unique, but not uncommon

THE SOURCE OF SLAVES

• Myths of European infiltration • Europeans unable to penetrate African interior

• Diseases, logistics, knowledge• Europeans in contact with African slavers for

centuries• 1300s Cyprus, to Crete, to Sicily, to Spain, to

Portuguese Sao Tome – set the standard of slave use c. 1500

• Oriental and Occidental Slave Trade• Africans enslaving and selling Africans to Asia and

Europe

THE AFRICAN SIDE OF THE SLAVE TRADE

• Africans dominated the African interior• Tribal rivalries led to numerous conflicts, and

enslavements• High-value commodities were sold in the African

economy, to the Asian economies, and to the European economies at the trade ports established by Europe

• As European demand grew, African enslavement grew• Corrupt chieftains would enslave entire villages to turn

a profit

THE SLAVE TRADE• Triangular Trade

• Middle Passage• 1500s-1800s an estimated 10 million slaves

Slaves

Raw Materials

Manufactured Goods

LATIN AMERICAN “CLASSES”Parts of North, Central, and South America

dominated by Spain and Portugal

LATIN AMERICAN SOCIAL CLASSES• The Upper Class• Peninsulares

• Spanish and Portuguese officials born in Europe• Creoles

• Decedents of the former who owned land and business in the Americas

LATIN AMERICAN SOCIAL CLASSES• The Lower Class• Mestizos

• European and Native American mix• Mulattoes

• European and African mix• Numerous other mixes• All considered inferior to Upper Class

NORTH AMERICAN “CLASSES”White and Black

THE END OF SLAVERY?• Abolition of slavery

• The French Empire – 1794• Britain – 1807 • The British Empire – 1833 • USA – 1860s • Russia (serfs) – 1861 • Brazil – 1888 • The formal end of African indigenous slavery occurred in 1928

in Sierra Leone

• Modern Slavery