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Mostellaria

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Mostellaria is a play by the Roman author Plautus . Its name translates from Latin as "The Ghost (play)" (with the word fabula understood in the title). The play is believed to be an adaptation of a lost comedy of the Athenian poet Philemon called Phasma (the Ghost). It is set in a street in the city of Athens .

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108-424: A young man named Philolaches is having a great time while his father Theopropides is overseas on business. Philolaches has borrowed a lot of money to buy the freedom of the slave-girl he loves. One day, he is having a party in the street with his friends, when his slave Tranio interrupts the merry-making to announce that Philolaches' father has returned unexpectedly and will arrive from the harbour at any minute. Amid

216-523: A sanctuary from where a god could enfranchise him. In very rare circumstances, the city could affranchise a slave. A notable example is that Athens liberated everyone who was present at the Battle of Arginusae (406 BC). Even once a slave was freed, he was not generally permitted to become a citizen, but would become a metic . The master then became the metic's prostatès (guarantor or guardian). The former slave could be bound to some continuing duty to

324-469: A state tax . The soft felt pileus hat was a symbol of the freed slave and manumission; slaves were not allowed to wear them: Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus (πίλεον λευκόν, Diodorus Siculus Exc. Leg. 22 p625, ed. Wess.; Plaut. Amphit. I.1.306; Persius , V.82). Hence

432-405: A civil servant but not hold higher magistracies (see, for instance, apparitor and scriba ), serve as priests of the emperor or hold any of the other highly respected public positions. If they were sharp at business, however, there were no social limits to the wealth that freedmen could amass. Their children held full legal rights, but Roman society was stratified . Famous Romans who were

540-612: A desire to die with a clear conscience as part of their reasoning for freeing their slaves. Testamentary manumission could often be disputed by heirs claiming fraud, or that an enslaved person had preyed upon a relative's weak mental or physical condition. Legally testamentary manumissions were usually respected by the courts, who understood enslaved people as part of their owner's property to distribute as they wished. Relatives who claimed fraud had to provide evidence of their claims or they would be dismissed. As in baptismal manumission, conditions of ongoing servitude were sometimes placed upon

648-407: A fixed period of time after which they would be granted freedom . Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty . In the course of human history , slavery was a typical feature of civilization , and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of

756-538: A generous gift. As in other parts of Latin America under the system of coartación , slaves could purchase their freedom by negotiating with their master for a purchase price and this was the most common way for slaves to be freed. Manumission also occurred during baptism, or as part of an owner's last will and testament. In baptismal manumission, enslaved children were freed at baptism. Many of these freedoms came with stipulations which could include servitude often until

864-504: A kinship group and those related to the master. Slavery was practiced in many different forms: debt slavery, enslavement of war captives, military slavery, and criminal slavery were all practiced in various parts of Africa. Slavery for domestic and court purposes was widespread throughout Africa. When the Atlantic slave trade began, many of the local slave systems began supplying captives for chattel slave markets outside Africa. Although

972-517: A legal right to counsel, freedom from double jeopardy , a right to trial by jury in graver cases, and the right to grand jury indictment, but they lacked many other rights such as white adults' ability to control their own lives. Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations because it requires economic surpluses and a substantial population density. Thus, although it has existed among unusually resource-rich hunter gatherers, such as

1080-580: A limited set of legal rights. For example, in the Province of New York , people who deliberately killed slaves were punishable under a 1686 statute. And, as already mentioned, certain legal rights attached to the nobi in Korea, to slaves in various African societies, and to black female slaves in the French colony of Louisiana . Giving slaves legal rights has sometimes been a matter of morality, but also sometimes

1188-548: A marriage where a girl, usually, is married off to a man to settle debts owed by her parents. The Chukri system is a debt bondage system found in parts of Bengal where a female can be coerced into prostitution in order to pay off debts. The word slavery has also been used to refer to a legal state of dependency to somebody else. For example, in Persia , the situations and lives of such slaves could be better than those of common citizens. Forced labour, or unfree labour,

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1296-420: A matter of self-interest. For example, in ancient Athens , protecting slaves from mistreatment simultaneously protected people who might be mistaken for slaves, and giving slaves limited property rights incentivized slaves to work harder to get more property. In the southern United States prior to the extirpation of slavery in 1865 , a proslavery legal treatise reported that slaves accused of crimes typically had

1404-413: A permanent part of a master's lineage and the children of slaves could become closely connected with the larger family ties. Children of slaves born into families could be integrated into the master's kinship group and rise to prominent positions within society, even to the level of chief in some instances. However, stigma often remained attached and there could be strict separations between slave members of

1512-467: A person had not disinherited his children or spouse, a slave owner could manumit their slaves as they wished. Manumission laws varied between the various colonies in the Caribbean . For instance, the island of Barbados had some of the strictest laws, requiring owners to pay £200 for male slaves and £300 for female slaves, and show cause to the authorities. In some other colonies, no fees applied. It

1620-432: A scene of music in various metres. Each section is rounded off by lively trochaic septenarii, which were apparently recited or sung to the accompaniment of tībiae (a pair of reed pipes). Moore calls this the "ABC" metrical succession. In this play, the pattern is varied from ABC, ABC... as follows: C. W. Marshall (2006), however, who sees the metrical sections (or "arcs") as always starting with iambic senarii, divides

1728-417: A slave's children at baptism could be one way for owners to ensure the loyalty of the children's still-enslaved parents. Enslaved people could also be freed as part of a slave owner's last will and testament. Testamentary manumission frequently involved expressions of affection on the part of the slave owner to the enslaved person as part of the rationale behind manumission. Slave owners also frequently cited

1836-432: A slave, a person must pay the cost for them to be transported out of the colony. A 1723 law stated that slaves may not "be set free upon any pretence whatsoever, except for some meritorious services to be adjudged and allowed by the governor and council". In some cases, a master who was drafted into the army would send a slave instead, with a promise of freedom if he survived the war. The new government of Virginia repealed

1944-517: A social institution, chattel slavery classes slaves as chattels ( personal property ) owned by the enslaver; like livestock, they can be bought and sold at will. Chattel slavery was historically the normal form of slavery and was practiced in places such as the Roman Empire and classical Greece , where it was considered a keystone of society. Other places where it was extensively practiced include Medieval Egypt , Subsaharan Africa, Brazil,

2052-497: Is a form of unfree labour in which a person works to pay off a debt by pledging himself or herself as collateral. The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, may be undefined. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their progenitors' debt. It is the most widespread form of slavery today. Debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia. Money marriage refers to

2160-597: Is estimated that by the 1890s the largest slave population of the world, about 2 million people, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate . The use of slave labour was extensive, especially in agriculture." The Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s out of an estimated population of 8 to 16 million. Slave labour in East Africa

2268-426: Is not thought that they go back to Plautus's time, since no manuscript contains them before the 15th century. Also, the acts themselves do not always match the structure of the plays, which is more clearly shown by the variation in metres. The different scenes of the play are clearly differentiated by changes of metre. The usual pattern is to begin each section with iambic senarii (which were spoken without music), then

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2376-487: Is often used as a pejorative to describe any activity in which one is coerced into performing. Some argue that military drafts and other forms of coerced government labour constitute "state-operated slavery." Some libertarians and anarcho-capitalists view government taxation as a form of slavery. "Slavery" has been used by some anti-psychiatry proponents to define involuntary psychiatric patients, claiming there are no unbiased physical tests for mental illness and yet

2484-651: Is one of several Plautus plays used as inspiration for the Stephen Sondheim , Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum . The character Erroneous returns from being abroad to be told his house is haunted and must walk seven times around the seven hills of Rome to remove the ghosts. Kevin P. Joyce's play When the Cat's Away is loosely based on Mostellaria , transposing

2592-519: Is set in a street in Athens. The houses of Theopropides and his neighbour Simo face the audience. Between them is a narrow alley leading to the garden door of Simo's house. There is an altar between the stage and the audience. To the audience's left the road leads to the harbour, and on the right to the forum. Plautus's plays are traditionally divided into five acts; these are referred to here for convenience, since many editions make use of them. However, it

2700-517: Is sometimes used to describe an individual who is forced to work against their own will, under threat of violence or other punishment. This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom , conscription and penal labour . As slavery has been legally outlawed in all countries, forced labour in the present day (frequently referred to as " modern slavery ") revolves around illegal control. Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution and

2808-463: Is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil and Mexico having been identified as leading hotspots of commercial sexual exploitation of children . In 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in then-current conflicts. More girls under 16 work as domestic workers than any other category of child labour, often sent to cities by parents living in rural poverty as with

2916-574: The American Civil War . In South Carolina , to free a slave required permission of the state legislature ; Florida law prohibited manumission altogether. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire gradually became less central to the functions of Ottoman society throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Responding to the influence and pressure of European countries in the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire began taking steps to curtail

3024-607: The American Indian peoples of the salmon -rich rivers of the Pacific Northwest coast, slavery became widespread only with the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago. Slavery was practiced in almost every ancient civilization. Such institutions included debt bondage, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war , child abandonment , and

3132-547: The Congo Free State and French ruled Ubangi-Shari , labour was demanded as taxation; private companies were conceded areas within which they were allowed to use any measures to increase rubber production. Convict leasing was common in the Southern United States where the state would lease prisoners for their free labour to companies. Depending upon the era and the country, slaves sometimes had

3240-518: The Indian subcontinent , and later to the Americas. These traders captured Bantu peoples ( Zanj ) from the interior in present-day Kenya , Mozambique and Tanzania and brought them to the coast. There, the slaves gradually assimilated in rural areas, particularly on Unguja and Pemba islands. Some historians assert that as many as 17 million people were sold into slavery on the coast of

3348-1197: The League of Nations and the United Nations, such as the Temporary Slavery Commission in 1924–1926, the Committee of Experts on Slavery in 1932, and the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery in 1934–1939. By the time of the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery in 1950–1951, legal chattel slavery still existed only in the Arabian Peninsula: in Oman , in Qatar , in Saudi Arabia , in the Trucial States and in Yemen . Legal chattel slavery

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3456-563: The Muslim empire and claimed over "tens of thousands of lives in lower Iraq". The Zanj who were taken as slaves to the Middle East were often used in strenuous agricultural work. As the plantation economy boomed and the Arabs became richer, agriculture and other manual labour work was thought to be demeaning. The resulting labour shortage led to an increased slave market. In Algiers ,

3564-730: The Sahara desert to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle eastern civilizations. During the Red Sea slave trade , slaves were transported from Africa across the Red Sea to the Arabian Peninsula. The Indian Ocean slave trade , sometimes known as the east African slave trade, was multi-directional. Africans were sent as slaves to the Arabian Peninsula , to Indian Ocean islands (including Madagascar ), to

3672-405: The bombardment of Algiers by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1816. Under Omani Arabs, Zanzibar became East Africa's main slave port , with as many as 50,000 African slaves passing through every year during the 19th century. Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900 AD. Eduard Rüppell described

3780-522: The separation of powers , or what Comte called the "separation of the spiritual and the temporal" during the Middle Ages and the end of slavery, and Smith's criticism of masters, past and present. As Smith stated in the Lectures on Jurisprudence , "The great power of the clergy thus concurring with that of the king set the slaves at liberty. But it was absolutely necessary both that the authority of

3888-457: The slave trade , which had been legally valid under Ottoman law since the beginning of the empire. Ottoman Empire policy encouraged manumission of male slaves, but not female slaves. The most telling evidence for this is found in the gender ratio; among slaves traded in Islamic empire across the centuries, there were roughly two females to every male. Sexual slavery was a central part of

3996-407: The 1890 Brussels Conference Act for the suppression of the slave trade. However, clandestine slavery persisted well into the 20th century. Gangs were also organized to facilitate the illegal importation of slaves. Slave raids and the taking of women and children as "spoils of war" lessened but did not stop entirely, despite the public denial of their existence, such as the enslavement of girls during

4104-588: The 19th century, slave revolts such as the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, and especially the 1831 rebellion led by Nat Turner , increased slaveholders' fears. Most Southern states passed laws making manumission nearly impossible until the passage of the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , which abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," after

4212-646: The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa, it was the largest in volume and intensity. As Elikia M'bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique : The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from

4320-549: The Haitian restaveks . Forced marriages or early marriages are often considered types of slavery. Forced marriage continues to be practiced in parts of the world including some parts of Asia and Africa and in immigrant communities in the West. Marriage by abduction occurs in many places in the world today, with a 2003 study finding a national average of 69% of marriages in Ethiopia being through abduction. The word slavery

4428-509: The Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa, and approximately 5 million African slaves were bought by Muslim slave traders and taken from Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert between 1500 and 1900. The captives were sold throughout the Middle East. This trade accelerated as superior ships led to more trade and greater demand for labour on plantations in the region. Eventually, tens of thousands of captives were being taken every year. The Indian Ocean slave trade

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4536-499: The Jamaica manumission deeds shows that manumission was comparatively rare on the island around 1770, with only an estimated 165 slaves winning their freedom through this fashion. While manumission had little demographic impact on the size of the enslaved population, it was important to the growth and development of the free population of colour, in Jamaica, during the second half of the eighteenth century. African slaves were freed in

4644-576: The Nazis and the Soviet Union placed increasing importance on the labor provided in those camps, leading to a growing tendency among historians to designate such systems as slavery. A combination of these include the encomienda where the Spanish Crown granted private individuals the right to the free labour of a specified number of natives in a given area. In the "Red Rubber System" of both

4752-509: The North American colonies as early as the 17th century. Some, such as Anthony Johnson , went on to become landowners and slaveholders themselves. Slaves could sometimes arrange manumission by agreeing to "purchase themselves" by paying the master an agreed amount. Some masters demanded market rates; others set a lower amount in consideration of service. Regulation of manumission began in 1692, when Virginia established that to manumit

4860-487: The Ottoman slave system throughout the history of the institution, and the most resistant to change. Outside of explicit sexual slavery, most female slaves had domestic occupations, and often, this also included sexual relations with their masters . This was a lawful motive for their purchase, and the most common one. It was similarly a common motivation for their retention. The Ottoman Empire and 16 other countries signed

4968-781: The Umayyad Caliphate in Iraq. The Zanj Rebellion , a series of uprisings that took place between 869 and 883 near Basra (also known as Basara), against the slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate situated in present-day Iraq, is believed to have involved enslaved Zanj that had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa . It grew to involve over 500,000 slaves and free men who were imported from across

5076-545: The United States, and parts of the Caribbean such as Cuba and Haiti. The Iroquois enslaved others in ways that "looked very like chattel slavery." Beginning in the 18th century, a series of abolitionist movements saw slavery as a violation of the slaves' rights as people (" all men are created equal "), and sought to abolish it. Abolitionism encountered extreme resistance but was eventually successful. Several of

5184-640: The Virginia legislature passed laws forbidding them from moving into the state (1778), and requiring newly freed slaves to leave the Commonwealth within one year unless special permission was granted (1806). In the Upper South in the late 18th century, planters had less need for slaves, as they switched from labour-intensive tobacco cultivation to mixed-crop farming. Slave states such as Virginia made it easier for slaveholders to free their slaves. In

5292-445: The act of manumissio vindicta , Latin for "freedom by the rod" (emphasis added): The master brought his slave before the magistratus , and stated the grounds ( causa ) of the intended manumission. "The lictor of the magistratus laid a rod ( festuca ) on the head of the slave, accompanied with certain formal words, in which he declared that he was a free man ex Jure Quiritium ", that is, " vindicavit in libertatem ". The master in

5400-472: The aristocracy. In the 2020s, in North Korea , Kippumjo ("Pleasure Brigades") are made up of women selected from the general population to serve as entertainers and as concubines to the rulers of North Korea. "Tribute labor" is compulsory labor for the state and has been used in various iterations such as corvée , mit'a and repartimiento . The internment camps of totalitarian regimes such as

5508-407: The baptismal record and must be assessed through other evidence. Although slave owners often characterized these baptismal manumissions as a result of their generous beneficence, there are records of payments by parents or godparents to ensure the child's freedom. Mothers were almost never manumitted alongside their children, even when the mothers gave birth to their master's own children. Manumitting

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5616-496: The capital of Algeria, captured Christians and Europeans were forced into slavery. In about 1650, there were as many as 35,000 Christian slaves in Algiers. By one estimate, raids by Barbary slave traders on coastal villages and ships extending from Italy to Iceland, enslaved an estimated 1 to 1.25 million Europeans between the 16th and 19th centuries. However, this estimate is the result of an extrapolation which assumes that

5724-401: The century from 1580 to 1680. By extension, for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000. Davis' numbers have been refuted by other historians, such as David Earle, who cautions that true picture of Europeans slaves is clouded by the fact the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe. In addition, the number of slaves traded

5832-400: The condition of some or all human-owned animals, arguing that their status is comparable to that of human slaves. The labour market, as institutionalized under contemporary capitalist systems, has been criticized by mainstream socialists and by anarcho-syndicalists , who utilise the term wage slavery as a pejorative or dysphemism for wage labour . Socialists draw parallels between

5940-472: The context of Ancient Greece , affranchisement came in many forms. A master choosing to free his slave would most likely do so only "at his death, specifying his desire in his will". In rare cases, slaves who were able to earn enough money in their labour were able to buy their own freedom and were known as choris oikointes . Two 4th-century bankers, Pasion and Phormion, had been slaves before they bought their freedom. A slave could also be sold fictitiously to

6048-407: The crime of slavery in language by reducing its victims to a nonhuman noun instead of "carry[ing] them forward as people, not the property that they were" (see also People-first language ). Other historians prefer slave because the term is familiar and shorter, or because it accurately reflects the inhumanity of slavery, with person implying a degree of autonomy that slavery does not allow. As

6156-624: The end of an owner's life. Children freed at baptism were also frequently the children of still-enslaved parents. A child who was freed at baptism but continued to live with enslaved family was far more likely to be re-enslaved. Baptismal manumission could be used as evidence of a person's freed status in a legal case but they did not always have enough information to serve as a carta de libertad . Female slave owners were more likely than males to manumit their slaves at baptism. The language used by women slave owners who freed their slaves also differed substantially from that of men, with many women using

6264-432: The enslaved person, by obligating them to care for another relative. In Iberoamerican law, a person had discretion over one-fifth of their estate with the rest going to children, spouses, and other relatives. An enslaved person could be sold in order to cover debts of the estate, but not if they had already paid part of their purchase price towards manumission as this was considered a legally binding agreement. As long as

6372-604: The enslavement of slaves' offspring. Slavery was widespread in Africa, which pursued both internal and external slave trade. In the Senegambia region, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sahel , including Ghana , Mali , Segou , and Songhai , about a third of the population were enslaved. In European courtly society, and European aristocracy, black African slaves and their children became visible in

6480-506: The focus is on increasing the number of slaves doing simple tasks rather than upgrading their efficiency. For example, it is sometimes argued that, because of this narrow focus, technology in Greece – and later in Rome – was not applied to ease physical labour or improve manufacturing. Scottish economist Adam Smith stated that free labour was economically better than slave labour, and that it

6588-444: The gang to a task and made each worker's performance dependent on the actions of the others. The slaves chopped out the weeds that surrounded the cotton plants as well as excess sprouts. Plow gangs followed behind, stirring the soil near the plants and tossing it back around the plants. Thus, the gang system worked like an assembly line . Since the 18th century, critics have argued that slavery hinders technological advancement because

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6696-427: The general panic, Tranio has an idea. He hustles Philolaches and his friends into the house and locks the door. The father now arrives. Tranio greets him respectfully but pretends that it is dangerous to enter the house because it is haunted by the ghost of a man once killed there. Unfortunately, at this moment a money-lender turns up to claim the money that Philolaches borrowed. Tranio thinks quickly and pretends that

6804-597: The interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African kingdoms , such as the Oyo Empire ( Yoruba ), the Ashanti Empire , the kingdom of Dahomey , and the Aro Confederacy . It is estimated that about 15 percent of slaves died during the voyage , with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself in the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to

6912-415: The king and of the clergy should be great. Where ever any one of these was wanting, slavery still continues..." Even after slavery became a criminal offense, slave owners could get high returns. According to researcher Siddharth Kara , the profits generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were $ 91.2 billion. That was second only to drug trafficking, in terms of global criminal enterprises. At

7020-572: The late 1300s and 1400s. Starting with Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor , black Africans were included in the retinue . In 1402 an Ethiopian embassy reached Venice . In the 1470s black Africans were painted as court attendants in wall paintings that were displayed in Mantua and Ferrara . In the 1490s black Africans were included on the emblem of the Duke of Milan . During the trans-Saharan slave trade , slaves from West Africa were transported across

7128-522: The late 16th and early 17th century observers, account for around 35,000 European Christian slaves held throughout this period on the Barbary Coast, across Tripoli, Tunis, but mostly in Algiers. The majority were sailors (particularly those who were English), taken with their ships, but others were fishermen and coastal villagers. However, most of these captives were people from lands close to Africa, particularly Spain and Italy. This eventually led to

7236-486: The laws in 1782, and declared freedom for slaves who had fought for the colonies during the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783. Another law passed in 1782 permitted masters to free their slaves of their own accord. Previously, a manumission had required obtaining consent from the state legislature, an arduous process which was rarely successful. As the population of free Negroes increased,

7344-476: The losses of Sudanese slaves being transported on foot to Egypt: "after the Daftardar bey's 1822 campaign in the southern Nuba mountains, nearly 40,000 slaves were captured. However, through bad treatment, disease and desert travel barely 5,000 made it to Egypt." W.A. Veenhoven wrote: "The German doctor, Gustav Nachtigal , an eye-witness, believed that for every slave who arrived at a market three or four died on

7452-433: The master and was commonly required to live near the former master ( paramone ). Ex-slaves were able to own property outright, and their children were free of all constraint. Under Roman law , a slave had no personhood and was protected under law mainly as his or her master's property. In Ancient Rome , a slave who had been manumitted was a libertus ( feminine liberta ) and a citizen. Manumissions were subject to

7560-527: The master's will of a devoted servant after long years of service. A trusted bailiff might be manumitted as a gesture of gratitude. For those working as agricultural labourers or in workshops, there was little likelihood of being so noticed. In general, it was more common for older slaves to be given freedom. Legislation under the early Roman Empire put limits on the number of slaves that could be freed in wills ( lex Fufia Caninia , 2 BC), which suggests that it had been widely used. Freeing slaves could serve

7668-402: The meaning "to strip the enemy (killed in a battle)" or "to make booty / extract spoils of war". This version has been criticized as well. There is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as " unfree labourer " or "enslaved person", rather than "slave", should be used when describing the victims of slavery. According to those proposing a change in terminology, slave perpetuates

7776-401: The meaning 'prisoner of war slave', 'slave' in the 8th/9th century, because they often became captured and enslaved. However this version has been disputed since the 19th century. An alternative contemporary hypothesis states that Medieval Latin sclāvus via * scylāvus derives from Byzantine σκυλάω ( skūláō , skyláō ) or σκυλεύω ( skūleúō , skyleúō ) with

7884-423: The meantime held the slave, and after he had pronounced the words " hunc hominem liberum volo ," he turned him round (momento turbinis exit Marcus Dama, Persius, Sat. V.78) and let him go ( emisit e manu , or misit manu , Plaut. Capt. II.3.48), whence the general name of the act of manumission. The magistratus then declared him to be free [...] A freed slave customarily took the former owner's family name, which

7992-408: The money was borrowed to buy the house next door. Even after Philolaches' father meets the real owner of the house, Tranio manages to hide the truth for some time, but he is finally found out and jumps on top of an altar to escape punishment. Fortunately, all ends happily when one of Philolaches' friends offers to repay the debt, allowing the father to forgive his son. Even Tranio is forgiven. The play

8100-574: The ninth to the nineteenth).... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea , another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean. The trans-Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into

8208-502: The number of European slaves captured by Barbary pirates was constant for a 250-year period: There are no records of how many men, women and children were enslaved, but it is possible to calculate roughly the number of fresh captives that would have been needed to keep populations steady and replace those slaves who died, escaped, were ransomed, or converted to Islam. On this basis it is thought that around 8,500 new slaves were needed annually to replenish numbers – about 850,000 captives over

8316-522: The opposite holds true, then it is more costly for landowners to guard the slaves than to employ paid workers who can demand only low wages because of the degree of competition. Thus, first slavery and then serfdom gradually decreased in Europe as the population grew. They were reintroduced in the Americas and in Russia as large areas of land with few inhabitants became available. Slavery is more common when

8424-480: The party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery, and the person is called a slave or an enslaved person (see § Terminology ). Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, suffering a military defeat, or exploitation for cheaper labor; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race or sex . Slaves may be kept in bondage for life, or for

8532-498: The phrase servos ad pileum vocare is a summons to liberty, by which slaves were frequently called upon to take up arms with a promise of liberty ( Liv. XXIV.32). "The figure of Liberty on some of the coins of Antoninus Pius , struck A.D. 145, holds this cap in the right hand". The cap was an attribute carried by Libertas , the Roman goddess of freedom, who was also recognized by the rod ( vindicta or festuca ), used ceremonially in

8640-453: The phrasing “for the love I have for her” as well as other expressions of intimacy as part of the reasoning for freeing their slaves as written on the baptismal record or carta de libertad . Male slave owners were far less likely to speak in intimate terms about their reasoning for freeing their slaves. Many children manumitted at baptism were likely the illegitimate children of their male owners, though this can be difficult to determine from

8748-435: The play into just four sections as follows: The play contains five songs: three of them polymetric, using a range of different metres, involving young men and slaves; and one each of cretic and bacchiac, involving the old men Simo and Theopropides. There is also a section of 90 lines of iambic septenarii (a metre often associated with prostitutes) when the prostitute Philematium is chatting with her maid Scapha. Mostellaria

8856-400: The pragmatic interests of the owner. The prospect of manumission worked as an incentive for slaves to be industrious and compliant. Roman slaves were paid a wage ( peculium ), which they could save up to buy themselves freedom. Manumission contracts found, in some abundance at Delphi (Greece), specify in detail the prerequisites for liberation. A History of Ancient Greece explains that in

8964-443: The proportion of free black people nationally increased to ~14% of the total black population. New York and New Jersey adopted gradual abolition laws that kept the free children of slaves as indentured servants into their twenties. After the 1793 invention of the cotton gin , which enabled the development of extensive new areas for cotton cultivation, the number of manumissions decreased because of increased demand for slave labour. In

9072-406: The psychiatric patient must follow the orders of the psychiatrist. They assert that instead of chains to control the slave, the psychiatrist uses drugs to control the mind. Drapetomania was a pseudoscientific psychiatric diagnosis for a slave who desired freedom; "symptoms" included laziness and the tendency to flee captivity. Some proponents of animal rights have applied the term slavery to

9180-441: The same protections, independence, or rights as men, either in the public or private spheres. In reflection of unwritten, yet strictly enforced contemporary social codes, women were also legally prevented from participating in public and civic society. For example: through the illegality of women voting or holding public office. The freed slaves' rights were limited or defined by particular statutes . A freed male slave could become

9288-778: The ships. Slavery in Mexico can be traced back to the Aztecs . Other Amerindians , such as the Inca of the Andes, the Tupinambá of Brazil, the Creek of Georgia, and the Comanche of Texas, also practiced slavery. Manumission Manumission , or enfranchisement , is the act of freeing slaves by their owners. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to

9396-412: The slaves were not treated as chattel slaves and were given certain rights in a system similar to indentured servitude elsewhere in the world. The forms of slavery in Africa were closely related to kinship structures. In many African communities, where land could not be owned, enslavement of individuals was used as a means to increase the influence a person had and expand connections. This made slaves

9504-781: The sons of freedmen include the Augustan poet Horace and the 2nd century emperor, Pertinax . A notable freedman in Latin literature is Trimalchio , the ostentatiously nouveau riche character in the Satyricon , by Petronius . In colonial Peru, the laws around manumission were influenced by the Siete Partidas , a Castilian law code. According to the Siete Partidas , masters who manumitted their slaves should be honored and obeyed by their former slaves for giving such

9612-598: The states of the United States began abolishing slavery during the American Revolutionary War. The French Revolution tried to abolish slavery in 1794, but a permanent abolition did not occur until 1848. In much of the British Empire, slavery was subject to abolition in 1833, throughout the United States it was abolished in 1865 and in Cuba in 1886. The last country in the Americas to abolish slavery

9720-430: The story from Athens to modern day Nantucket. Rachel Beth Cunning simplified and adapted the play to create more comprehensible reading materials for Latin 3 and Latin 4 students in a high school classroom. Slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property , especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by

9828-445: The tasks are relatively simple and thus easy to supervise, such as large-scale monocrops such as sugarcane and cotton , in which output depended on economies of scale . This enables systems of labour, such as the gang system in the United States, to become prominent on large plantations where field hands toiled with factory-like precision. Then, each work gang was based on an internal division of labour that assigned every member of

9936-401: The time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that the most widely used term is gratuitous manumission, "the conferment of freedom on the enslaved by enslavers before the end of the slave system". The motivations for manumission were complex and varied. Firstly, it may present itself as a sentimental and benevolent gesture. One typical scenario was the freeing in

10044-524: The time the weighted average global sales price of a slave was estimated to be approximately $ 340, with a high of $ 1,895 for the average trafficked sex slave, and a low of $ 40 to $ 50 for debt bondage slaves in part of Asia and Africa. The weighted average annual profits generated by a slave in 2007 was $ 3,175, with a low of an average $ 950 for bonded labour and $ 29,210 for a trafficked sex slave. Approximately 40% of slave profits each year were generated by trafficked sex slaves, representing slightly more than 4% of

10152-419: The trade of labour as a commodity and slavery. Cicero is also known to have suggested such parallels. Economists have modeled the circumstances under which slavery (and variants such as serfdom ) appear and disappear. One theoretical model is that slavery becomes more desirable for landowners where land is abundant, but labour is scarce, such that rent is depressed and paid workers can demand high wages. If

10260-481: The two decades after the American Revolutionary War , so many slaveholders accomplished manumissions by deed or in wills that the proportion of free black people to the total number of black people rose from less than 1% to 10% in the Upper South. In Virginia, the proportion of free black people increased from 1% in 1782 to 7% in 1800. Together with several Northern states abolishing slavery during that period,

10368-408: The way ... Keltie ( The Partition of Africa , London, 1920) believes that for every slave the Arabs brought to the coast at least six died on the way or during the slavers' raid. Livingstone puts the figure as high as ten to one." Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient world . In many African societies where slavery was prevalent,

10476-469: The world despite slavery being illegal. In the modern world, more than 50% of slaves provide forced labour , usually in the factories and sweatshops of the private sector of a country's economy. In industrialised countries, human trafficking is a modern variety of slavery; in non-industrialised countries, people in debt bondage are common, others include captive domestic servants , people in forced marriages , and child soldiers . The word slave

10584-433: The world's 29 million slaves. A widespread practice was branding , either to explicitly mark slaves as property or as punishment. Slaves have been owned privately by individuals but have also been under state ownership. For example, the kisaeng were women from low castes in pre modern Korea, who were owned by the state under government officials known as hojang and were required to provide entertainment to

10692-547: The world, except as a punishment for a crime . In chattel slavery , the slave is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner. In economics, the term de facto slavery describes the conditions of unfree labour and forced labour that most slaves endure. Mauritania was the last country in the world to officially ban slavery, in 1981, with legal prosecution of slaveholders established in 2007. However, in 2019, approximately 40 million people, of whom 26% were children, were still enslaved throughout

10800-624: Was Brazil, in 1888 . Chattel slavery survived longest in the Middle East . After the Trans-Atlantic slave trade had been suppressed, the ancient Trans-Saharan slave trade , the Indian Ocean slave trade and the Red Sea slave trade continued to traffic slaves from the African continent to the Middle East. During the 20th century, the issue of chattel slavery was addressed and investigated globally by international bodies created by

10908-569: Was borrowed into Middle English through the Old French esclave which ultimately derives from Byzantine Greek σκλάβος ( sklábos ) or εσκλαβήνος ( ésklabḗnos ). According to the widespread view, which has been known since the 18th century, the Byzantine Σκλάβινοι ( Sklábinoi ), Έσκλαβηνοί ( Ésklabēnoí ), borrowed from a Slavic tribe self-name *Slověne, turned into σκλάβος , εσκλαβήνος ( Late Latin sclāvus) in

11016-578: Was drawn from the Zanj , Bantu peoples that lived along the East African coast. The Zanj were for centuries shipped as slaves by Arab traders to all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean during the Indian Ocean slave trade . The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs recruited many Zanj slaves as soldiers and, as early as 696, there were slave revolts of the Zanj against their Arab enslavers during their slavery in

11124-473: Was finally abolished in the Arabian Peninsula in the 1960s: Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962, in Dubai in 1963, and Oman as the last in 1970. The last country to abolish slavery, Mauritania , did so in 1981 . The 1981 ban on slavery was not enforced in practice, as there were no legal mechanisms to prosecute those who used slaves, these only came in 2007. Indenture, also known as bonded labour or debt bondage,

11232-469: Was hyperactive, with exaggerated estimates relying on peak years to calculate averages for entire centuries, or millennia. Hence, there were wide fluctuations year-to-year, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, given slave imports, and also given the fact that, prior to the 1840s, there are no consistent records. Middle East expert, John Wright, cautions that modern estimates are based on back-calculations from human observation. Such observations, across

11340-646: Was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labour, Bantu slaves bought by east African slave traders from southeastern Africa were sold in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries to customers in Egypt, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India, European colonies in the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands , Ethiopia and Somalia. According to the Encyclopedia of African History , "It

11448-446: Was nearly impossible to end slavery in a free, democratic, or republican form of government since many of its legislators or political figures were slave owners and would not punish themselves. He further stated that slaves would be better able to gain their freedom under centralized government, or a central authority like a king or church. Similar arguments appeared later in the works of Auguste Comte , especially given Smith's belief in

11556-488: Was not uncommon for ex-slaves to purchase family members or friends in order to free them. For example, ex-slave Susannah Ostrehan became a successful businesswoman in Barbados and purchased many of her acquaintances. For Jamaica, manumission went largely unregulated until the 1770s, when manumitters had to post a bond in order to ensure those that they freed did not become wards of the parish. One quantitative analysis of

11664-531: Was the nomen (see Roman naming conventions ) of the master's gens . The former owner became the patron ( patronus ) and the freed slave became a client ( cliens ) and retained certain obligations to the former master, who owed certain obligations in return. A freed slave could also acquire multiple patrons. A freed slave became a citizen. Not all citizens, however, held the same freedoms and privileges. In particular contrast, women could become citizens , but female Roman citizenship did not allow anywhere near

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