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121-672: There is a lighthouse on Cape Mesurado, located in the Mamba Point neighborhood of Monrovia and in the cape's northwestern portion, that was established in 1855. It is currently inactive, although the Liberian government is seeking financial assistance to restore and reactivate the lighthouse. Because Cape Mesurado was being used as a base for the illegal slave trade , in 1815 Governor William Maxwell of Sierra Leone sent an armed force there to interfere with it, seizing ships and merchandise and rescuing enslaved Africans who were working in

242-471: A slave ship and asked if he was going to be eaten. Yet, the worst for slaves has only begun, and the journey on the water proved to be more harrowing. For every 100 Africans captured, only 64 would reach the coast, and only about 50 would reach the New World. Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with

363-411: A "bycatch" who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them. British explorer Mungo Park encountered a group of slaves when traveling through Mandinka country: They were all very inquisitive, but they viewed me at first with looks of horror, and repeatedly asked if my countrymen were cannibals. They were very desirous to know what became of the slaves after they had crossed

484-586: A U.S. naval officer, Ayers sought out land to establish a new colony. Stockton led negotiations with leaders of the Dei and Bassa peoples who lived in the area of Cape Mesurado. At first, the local ruler, Zolu Duma (King Peter), was reluctant to surrender their peoples' land to the strangers, but he was forcefully persuaded (some accounts claim at gunpoint) to sell them a "36 mile long and 3 mile wide" strip of coastal land, in exchange for trade goods, supplies, weapons, and rum worth approximately $ 300 (a considerable sum at

605-593: A ceremony known as the Annual Customs . As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples. Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led

726-407: 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

847-835: A hundred yards off on one side, and another of the women on the other side, looking on; they said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer. 27th June 1866 – To-day we came upon a man dead from starvation, as he was very thin. One of our men wandered and found many slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be able to speak or say where they had come from; some were quite young. The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken-heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves... Twenty one were unchained, as now safe; however all ran away at once; but eight with many others still in chains, died in three days after

968-504: 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

1089-517: 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

1210-580: 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

1331-403: A local holiday, called “Matilda Newport Day,” was established in 1916. (It was abolished in 1980 by a government that came to power in a military coup.) 6°18′48″N 10°48′28″W  /  6.31333°N 10.80778°W  / 6.31333; -10.80778 History of slavery The history of slavery spans many cultures , nationalities , and religions from ancient times to

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1452-548: 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,

1573-420: 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

1694-413: 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

1815-517: 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,

1936-415: A trail of slaves: 19th June 1866 – We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead, the people of the country explained that she had been unable to keep up with the other slaves in a gang, and her master had determined that she should not become anyone's property if she recovered. 26th June. – ...We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path: a group of men stood about

2057-497: 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

2178-399: Is allowed in my religion , and I shall capture people and make them slaves ." He said the girls should not have been in school and instead should have been married since girls as young as nine are suitable for marriage. Chattel slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property , especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with

2299-604: Is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerien study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% of the population. Niger installed an anti-slavery provision in 2003. In a landmark ruling in 2008, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice declared that the Republic of Niger failed to protect Hadijatou Mani Koraou from slavery, and awarded Mani CFA 10,000,000 (approximately US$ 20,000 ) in reparations. Sexual slavery and forced labor are common in

2420-597: 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

2541-487: 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

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2662-517: 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

2783-463: 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

2904-807: The Akkadian Empire , Assyria , Babylonia , Persia , ancient Israel , ancient Greece , ancient India , the Roman Empire , the Arab Islamic Caliphates and Sultanates , Nubia , the pre-colonial empires of Sub-Saharan Africa, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas. Ancient slavery consists of a mixture of debt-slavery , punishment for crime, prisoners of war , child abandonment , and children born to slaves. Writing in 1984, French historian Fernand Braudel noted that slavery had been endemic in Africa and part of

3025-607: 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

3146-547: 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

3267-853: The Dey of Algiers to free many slaves. The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin . In parts of Ghana , a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In this instance, the woman does not gain the title or status of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo , and Benin , shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of ritual servitude , sometimes called trokosi (in Ghana) or voodoosi in Togo and Benin, young virgin girls are given as slaves to traditional shrines and are used sexually by

3388-580: The Early Middle Ages but continued to be practiced in some areas. Both Christians and Muslims captured and enslaved each other during centuries of warfare in the Mediterranean and Europe. Islamic slavery encompassed mainly Western and Central Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, India , and Europe from the 7th to the 20th century. Islamic law approved of enslavement of non-Muslims, and slaves were trafficked from non-Muslim lands: from

3509-462: 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

3630-621: The Kanem was about one third enslaved. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1396–1893). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. It is estimated that up to 90% of the population of Arab - Swahili Zanzibar

3751-1197: 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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3872-563: 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 ,

3993-781: 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 the ninth to the nineteenth)." He continues: "Four million slaves 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

4114-569: 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

4235-807: The United States , France , Spain , Portugal , Holland , West Africa and Arabia . The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria ) allegedly became dissatisfied of the British intervention in stopping the trade of slaves: "We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself." Joseph Miller states that African buyers would prefer males, but in reality, women and children would be more easily captured as men fled. Those captured would be sold for various reasons such as food, debts, or servitude. Once captured,

4356-405: 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

4477-492: The present day . Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic , and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places. Slavery has been found in some hunter-gatherer populations, particularly as hereditary slavery, but the conditions of agriculture with increasing social and economic complexity offer greater opportunity for mass chattel slavery . Slavery

4598-602: The private sector ; 15.4 million live in forced marriages. Forms of slavery include domestic labour, forced labour in manufacturing, fishing, mining and construction, and sexual slavery . Evidence of slavery predates written records; the practice has existed in many cultures and can be traced back 11,000 years ago due to the conditions created by the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution . Economic surpluses and high population densities were conditions that made mass slavery viable. Slavery occurred in civilizations including ancient Egypt , ancient China ,

4719-522: 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

4840-751: The 17th century. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon , the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger , the Kongo , and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola . Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of slaves as well as Bono . The population of

4961-526: The 1840s, King Gezo of Dahomey said: "The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth...the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery." In 1807 the United Kingdom made the international trade of slaves illegal with the Slave Trade Act . The Royal Navy was deployed to prevent slavers from

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5082-532: The Americas . The merchants were sources of desired goods including guns, gunpowder, copper manillas , and cloth, and this demand for imported goods drove local wars and other means to the enslavement of Africans in ever greater numbers. In India and throughout the New World, people were forced into slavery to create the local workforce. The transatlantic slave trade was eventually curtailed after European and American governments passed legislation abolishing their nations' involvement in it. Practical efforts to enforce

5203-529: The Americas. The Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony at the Cape of Good Hope (now Cape Town ) in the 17th century. In 1807 Britain (which already held a small coastal territory, intended for the resettlement of former slaves, in Freetown , Sierra Leone ) made the slave trade within its empire illegal with the Slave Trade Act 1807 , and worked to extend the prohibition to other territory, as did

5324-529: 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

5445-734: The Democratic Republic of Congo. Many pygmies in the Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo belong from birth to Bantus in a system of slavery. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in West Africa; see the chocolate and slavery article. According to the U.S. State Department , more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Ivory Coast in "the worst forms of child labour " in 2002. On

5566-549: 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

5687-509: 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

5808-572: The Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French . Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the trade of slaves with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin 's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast". In

5929-576: 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

6050-1119: The North via the Balkan slave trade and the Crimean slave trade ; from the East via the Bukhara slave trade ; from the West via Andalusian slave trade ; and from the South via the Trans-Saharan slave trade , the Red Sea slave trade and the Indian Ocean slave trade . Beginning in the 16th century , European merchants , starting mainly with merchants from Portugal , initiated the transatlantic slave trade . Few traders ventured far inland, attempting to avoid tropical diseases and violence. They mostly purchased imprisoned Africans (and exported commodities including gold and ivory ) from West African kingdoms, transporting them to Europe's colonies in

6171-977: The Philippines during the Iberian Union (1580–1640). The Middle Passage , the crossing of the Atlantic to the Americas , endured by slaves laid out in rows in the holds of ships, was only one element of the well-known triangular trade engaged in by Portuguese, American, Dutch, Danish-Norwegians, French, British and others. Ships having landed with slaves in Caribbean ports would take on sugar, indigo, raw cotton, and later coffee, and make for Liverpool , Nantes , Lisbon or Amsterdam . Ships leaving European ports for West Africa would carry printed cotton textiles, some originally from India, copper utensils and bangles, pewter plates and pots, iron bars more valued than gold, hats, trinkets, gunpowder and firearms and alcohol. Tropical shipworms were eliminated in

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6292-465: 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

6413-403: The United States in 1808. In Senegambia , between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the Western Sudan , including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population was enslaved. The earliest Akan state of Bonoman which had third of its population being enslaved in

6534-425: 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

6655-710: The abolition of slavery included the British Preventative Squadron and the American African Slave Trade Patrol , the abolition of slavery in the Americas, and the widespread imposition of European political control in Africa. In modern times, human trafficking remains an international problem. Slavery in the 21st century continues and generates an estimated $ 150 billion in annual profits. Populations in regions with armed conflict are especially vulnerable, and modern transportation has made human trafficking easier. In 2019, there were an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide subject to some form of slavery, and 25% were children. 24.9 million are used for forced labor , mostly in

6776-413: 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

6897-461: The arrival of the Portuguese . Because it had been established within his kingdom, Afonso I of Kongo believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally slaves to sell, he wrote letters to the King João III of Portugal in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise may have been killed in

7018-574: The author) across the Atlantic Ocean" Zanzibar was once East Africa's main slave-trading port, during the Indian Ocean slave trade and under Omani Arabs in the 19th century, with as many as 50,000 slaves passing through the city each year. Prior to the 16th century, the bulk of slaves exported from Africa were shipped from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula . Zanzibar became a leading port in this trade. Arab traders of slaves differed from European ones in that they would often conduct raiding expeditions themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into

7139-411: The best clothing, meaning they were even more exposed to diseases. On top of the fear of disease, people were afraid of why they were being captured. The popular assumption was that Europeans were cannibals . Stories and rumours spread that whites captured Africans to eat them. Olaudah Equiano accounts his experience about the sorrow slaves encountered at the ports. He talks about his first moment on

7260-441: 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

7381-401: 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

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7502-573: The cold Atlantic waters, and at each unloading, a profit was made. The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century when the largest number of people were captured and enslaved on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African states, such as the Bono State , Oyo empire ( Yoruba ), Kong Empire , Kingdom of Benin , Imamate of Futa Jallon , Imamate of Futa Toro , Kingdom of Koya , Kingdom of Khasso , Kingdom of Kaabu , Fante Confederacy , Ashanti Confederacy , Aro Confederacy and

7623-400: 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

7744-483: The continent. They also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of enslaved females over male. The increased presence of European rivals along the East coast led Arab traders to concentrate on the overland slave caravan routes across the Sahara from the Sahel to North Africa. The German explorer Gustav Nachtigal reported seeing slave caravans departing from Kukawa in Bornu bound for Tripoli and Egypt in 1870. The trade of slaves represented

7865-429: The crew. Death was so common that ships were called tumbeiros, or floating tombs. What shocked Africans the most was how death was handled in the ships. Smallwood says the traditions for an African death were delicate and community-based. On ships, bodies would be thrown into the sea. Because the sea represented bad omens, bodies in the sea represented a form of purgatory and the ship a form of hell. Any Africans who made

7986-407: 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

8107-662: The crossing. They described their only pain in the heart, and placed the hand correctly on the spot, though many think the organ stands high up in the breast-bone. African states played a key role in the trade of slaves, and slavery was a common practice among Sub Saharan Africans even before the involvement of the Arabs , Berbers and Europeans . There were three types: those who were enslaved through conquest, instead of unpaid debts, or those whose parents gave them as property to tribal chiefs. Chieftains would barter their slaves to Arab, Berber, Ottoman or European buyers for rum, spices, cloth or other goods. Selling captives or prisoners

8228-410: The disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas ( cassava , maize) would have limited general population decline to particular regions of western Africa around 1760–1810, and in Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa, females were most often captured as brides , with their male protectors being

8349-493: 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

8470-407: The factories there. For their crimes, the factory owners, Robert Bostock and John McQueen, were sentenced to fourteen years transportation to New South Wales by the Vice admiralty court . Interference with the illegal slave trade was furthered the following year, when HMS Queen Charlotte of the British West Africa Squadron seized the Le Louis , which was suspected of being engaged in

8591-402: 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

8712-444: 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

8833-425: The incident. According to police, approximately 276 children were taken in the attack, of whom 53 had escaped as of 2 May. Other reports said that 329 girls were kidnapped, 53 had escaped and 276 were still missing. The students have been forced to convert to Islam and into marriage with members of Boko Haram, with a reputed " bride price " of ₦ 2,000 each ( $ 12.50/ £ 7.50). Many of the students were taken to

8954-597: 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

9075-574: The journey to the coast killed many and weakened others. Disease engulfed many, and insufficient food damaged those who made it to the coasts. Scurvy was common, and was often referred to as mal de Luanda ("Luanda sickness," after the port in Angola). The assumption for those who died on the journey died from malnutrition . As food was limited, water may have been just as bad. Dysentery was widespread and poor sanitary conditions at ports did not help. Since supplies were poor, slaves were not equipped with

9196-654: The journey would have survived extreme disease and malnutrition, as well as trauma from being on the open ocean and the death of their friends. In Algiers during the time of the Regency of Algiers in North Africa in the 19th century, up to 1.5 million Christians and Europeans were captured and forced into slavery. This eventually led to the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816 by the British and Dutch , forcing

9317-415: 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

9438-540: The kingdom of Dahomey . Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance. The slaves were brought to coastal outposts where they were traded for goods. The people captured on these expeditions were shipped by European traders to the colonies of the New World . It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to twenty million slaves were shipped from Africa by European traders, of whom some 15 percent died during

9559-572: 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

9680-577: 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

9801-476: 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

9922-530: The major source of revenue for the state of Bornu as late as 1898. The eastern regions of the Central African Republic have never recovered demographically from the impact of 19th-century raids from the Sudan and still have a population density of less than 1 person/km . During the 1870s, European initiatives against the trade of slaves caused an economic crisis in northern Sudan, precipitating

10043-402: 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

10164-401: 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

10285-545: The neighbouring countries of Chad and Cameroon , with sightings reported of the students crossing borders with the militants, and sightings of the students by villagers living in the Sambisa Forest , which is considered a refuge for Boko Haram. On 5 May 2014 a video in which Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the kidnappings emerged. Shekau claimed that "Allah instructed me to sell them...I will carry out his instructions" and " [s]lavery

10406-683: The night of 14–15 April 2014, a group of militants attacked the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok , Nigeria. They broke into the school, pretending to be guards, telling the girls to get out and come with them. A large number of students were taken away in trucks, possibly into the Konduga area of the Sambisa Forest where Boko Haram were known to have fortified camps. Houses in Chibok were also burned down in

10527-520: 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

10648-502: 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

10769-522: 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

10890-415: The period from the late 19th century and early 20th century, demand for the labour-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and forced labour . The personal monarchy of Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo Free State saw mass killings and slavery to extract rubber. Surviving the voyage was the main struggle. Close quarters meant everyone was infected by any diseases that spread, including

11011-581: The priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine. An article in the Middle East Quarterly in 1999 reported that slavery is endemic in Sudan . Estimates of abductions during the Second Sudanese Civil War range from 14,000 to 200,000 people. During the Second Sudanese Civil War people were taken into slavery; estimates of abductions range from 14,000 to 200,000. Abduction of Dinka women and children

11132-406: 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

11253-509: The rise of Mahdist forces. Mahdi 's victory created an Islamic state , one that quickly reinstituted slavery. European involvement in the East African trade of enslaved people began when Portugal established Estado da Índia in the early 16th century. From then until the 1830s, c.  200 enslaved people were exported from Portuguese Mozambique annually and similar figures has been estimated for enslaved people brought from Asia to

11374-485: The salt water. I told them that they were employed in cultivation the land; but they would not believe me ... A deeply-rooted idea that the whites purchase negroes for the purpose of devouring them, or of selling them to others that they may be devoured hereafter, naturally makes the slaves contemplate a journey towards the coast with great terror, insomuch that the slatees are forced to keep them constantly in irons, and watch them very closely, to prevent their escape. During

11495-575: The slave trade. Settlers had previously landed at Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone, but they were experiencing a high death rate there due to the island's swampy, unhealthy conditions, so, in 1821, the American Colonization Society dispatched a representative, Dr. Eli Ayers , to purchase land farther south down the coast from Sierra Leone that would provide better living conditions. With the aid of Robert F. Stockton ,

11616-628: The slave trade. Led by Lott Carey and Elijah Johnson , the Americo-Liberians organized a defense against local attacks, rejecting an offer of British military assistance that would have required them to hoist the Union Jack on Cape Mesurado. During the Battle of Fort Hill on 1 December 1822, a colonist named Matilda Newport is supposed to have repelled an attack by lighting a cannon with an ember from her pipe. To commemorate her action,

11737-535: The slave's location of work and residence dictated by 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

11858-412: 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

11979-661: 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

12100-504: The structure of everyday life throughout the 15th to the 18th century. "Slavery came in different guises in different societies: there were court slaves, slaves incorporated into princely armies, domestic and household slaves, slaves working on the land, in industry, as couriers and intermediaries, even as traders". During the 16th century, Europe began to outpace the Arab world in the export traffic, with its trafficking of slaves from Africa to

12221-477: The surrounding areas in northern Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century, approximately 2 million to 2.5 million people living there were enslaved. Slavery in northern Nigeria was finally outlawed in 1936. Writing in 1998 about the extent of trade coming through and from Africa, the Congolese journalist Elikia M'bokolo wrote "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across

12342-445: 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

12463-623: The terrible voyage, many during the arduous journey through the Middle Passage . The great majority were shipped to the Americas, but some also went to Europe and Southern Africa. While talking about the trade of slaves in East Africa in his journals, David Livingstone said To overdraw its evil is a simple impossibility. While travelling in the African Great Lakes Region in 1866, Livingstone described

12584-524: 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

12705-434: The time). The Cape Mesurado colony faced many of the same challenges that had faced the previous colony at Sherbro Island: scarce supplies and swampy, unhealthy conditions. The new colony’s Americo-Liberian residents (who had been slaves or the children of former slaves in the United States before their emigration to Africa) were also sporadically attacked by local tribes who resented the newcomers’ efforts to put an end to

12826-419: 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

12947-408: 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,

13068-469: 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

13189-433: 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

13310-547: 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

13431-541: Was institutionalized by the time the first civilizations emerged (such as Sumer in Mesopotamia , which dates back as far as 3500 BC). Slavery features in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery was widespread in the ancient world in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Slavery became less common throughout Europe during

13552-564: 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

13673-772: Was a common practice among Africans, Turks, Berbers and Arabs during that era. However, as the Atlantic trade of slaves increased its demand, local systems which primarily serviced indentured servitude expanded. European trading of slaves, as a result, was the most pivotal change in the social, economic, cultural, spiritual, religious, political dynamics of the concept of trading in slaves. It ultimately undermined local economies and political stability as villages' vital labour forces were shipped overseas as slave raids and civil wars became commonplace. Crimes which were previously punishable by some other means became punishable by enslavement. Slavery already existed in Kingdom of Kongo prior to

13794-569: 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

13915-595: Was common. In Mauritania it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are currently enslaved, many of them used as bonded labor . Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007. During the Darfur conflict that began in 2003, many people were kidnapped by Janjaweed and sold into slavery as agricultural labor, domestic servants and sex slaves. In Niger , slavery

14036-517: 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

14157-424: Was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved. Slavery in Ethiopia persisted until 1942. The Anti-Slavery Society estimated that there were 2,000,000 slaves in the early 1930s, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million. It was finally abolished by order of emperor Haile Selassie on 26 August 1942. When British rule was first imposed on the Sokoto Caliphate and

14278-473: 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,

14399-469: 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

14520-646: 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

14641-446: 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

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