What is slavery?

• “Condition by which person is owned by another.” - Merriam Webster’s dictionary

• This definition seems a bit lacking doesn’t it?

Who is guilty of slavery in global history?

• Basically everyone. • Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient India

(caste system), Shi Huangdi, Ancient Greece and Rome…

• …Middle Ages (serfdom), Ottomans (janissaries), Mongols (Chinese at the bottom of the hierarchy)

• Mayans, Aztecs…

Why was it easy for Europeans to target Africa for their slaves?

• Reason 1: Bartolome de las Casas pleaded with the King of Spain to stop abusing the Indians and to find another source of labor…so the King turned to Africa

Why was it easy for Europeans to target Africa for their slaves?

• Europeans targeted Africans b/c:– They already had outposts in Africa armed with

weaponry and resources– Most slaves came from the coast—it was easy to

get them from those regions– There was infighting between kingdoms and

clans of this time and African leaders often captured enemy Africans to sell to the Europeans for profit (these Africans competed with each other to have the best “goods” for the Europeans)

How was European slavery of Africans similar to slavery that already existed in Africa?

Slavery was one form of exploitation. Its special characteristics included the ideas that slaves were

property; that they were outsiders who were alien by origin or who had been denied their heritage through judicial or other sanctions; that coercion could be used

at will; that their labor power was at the complete disposal of a master; that they did not have the right to

their own sexuality and, by extension, to their own reproductive capacities; and that slave status was

inherited unless provision was made to ameliorate that status.Source: Paul Lovejoy

How was European slavery of Africans similar to slavery that already existed in Africa?

• Exploitation • Slaves are property (no freedom)• Slaves were an “outsider” group• Use of manipulation• Didn’t have judicial rights• Similar jobs- fieldwork, chores• Inherited (some forms of “traditional slavery” were

also inherited, some not).

Food for thought:

• So why do we tend not to think twice about all the historical forms of slavery

• But this makes us cringe…

• What was it about the European enslavement of Africans that was so different…

Why was the institution of slaveryjustified/needed/used in the Americas?

• Slavery emerged to persuade whites that they had a higher status than blacks (encourage colonization)

• Black slavery was a reflection that blacks had always been treated differently (race argument)

• African slavery was no different than other forms of slavery and was needed for the same purposes

• Europeans had to do something about the growing number of Africans/blacks! (white fear) = reflection of white fear that blacks could become more powerful (whites had to do something)

• Slavery emerged to meet econ/social needs (i.e. plantation); racism towards blacks evolved as a result—it was not the cause

Southern Colonial Exports, 1770sCommodity Value

Tobacco £ 766,000Flour £ 410,000Rice £ 312,000Fish £ 154,000

Wheat £ 115,000Indigo £ 113,000Corn £ 83,000

Lumber £ 70,000Staves & Headings £ 65,000

Horses £ 60,000

SlaveCropsin red

How did the Europeans get away with murder? (literally)

• Years after slavery was conducted and then abolished, many people (not just Africans) asked how this could have happened

• The Africans had great civilizations of their own!

• They started looking for answers…but couldn’t find out a lot about their origins….

• Here’s why…

• "When African nationalists were demanding independence in the 1960s, the Smith regime* actually sanctioned historians to write a fake history on the origins of [African civilizations], denying its African origins. 

This was not different from the accounts of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century antiquarians, which linked Great Zimbabwe with Phoenicia, with Saban Arabs, with the Egyptians and the rest of the near East. We would call that, in the scholarly world, 'antiquarian revisionism' - trying to use old values to support a wrong cause altogether. "

Dr. Innocent Pikirayi, lecturer in history and archaeology, University of Zimbabwe. 

• *majority white government led by Rhodesian premier Ian Smith