A Comprehensive Overview of Slavery Throughout History

The History of Slavery

Slavery has been practiced in most regions throughout the world since ancient times.
Scholars believe slavery most likely started with farming because people captured prisoners during war and used them as forced labor on their land, typically without pay.
The first written records of slavery come from Sumeria in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE, among the first writings of any kind.
The practice is documented in Southwest Asia, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome. Additionally, slavery was practiced in India, China, Meso- and South America, and parts of Africa.
During the Middle Ages, serfdom replaced slavery in much of Europe, which was, to a great extent, another form of slavery.
In the Near East and North Africa, the practice of slavery changed with the introduction of Islam, where Muslim practices demanded that slaves who converted had to be freed or allowed to buy their freedom.

Slavery started in Sumeria around 3500 BCE and spread to Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia.
Muslims continued slavery in this region. In the Ottoman Empire, slaves served as soldiers, sailors, and government administrators.
Some scholars believe that military and administrative slaves formed the power base for the Ottoman ruler.

China began using slavery around 200 BCE. Slaves were acquired through capture in war, slave raiding, and the sale of women and children to fulfill debts.
By the 200s CE, Korea had a large slave population.

India practiced slavery for hundreds of years but did not keep records on the numbers of slaves.
In 1841, after the British gained control of India, they estimated that India had about nine million slaves.
Slavery was also practiced in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Slaves did various jobs, including making crafts, mining, farming, and domestic chores.
Both civilizations depended on slave labor.
During the 400s BCE, slaves made up about a third of Athens's population.
In ancient Sparta, slaves constituted an integral part of the economy.
In Rome, even common people owned slaves.

In North Africa, ancient Egyptians owned slaves, some of whom were killed to accompany their dead masters into the afterlife.
In the West African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, about one-third of the population were slaves.
East Africa had the largest percentage of slaves. In Zanzibar and Kenya, the slave population at times reached about 90 percent.

Before Europeans arrived, a few Native American tribes practiced slavery, including the Creek, Comanche, and fishing societies of the Pacific Northwest.
After Europeans established colonies in the Caribbean and North America, the number of slaves soared.
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean spurred the need for slaves.
Europeans enslaved thousands of Native Americans, but most died from European diseases and harsh conditions.
Plantation owners began to import thousands of enslaved Africans because black people from Africa were more resistant to disease.

During the Middle Ages, serfs replaced slaves throughout most of Europe.
In Russia, slavery began around the 800s and continued for hundreds of years. In 1720, the government converted slaves into serfs. In 1861, Czar Alexander II freed the serfs.
In Scandinavia, from about 800 to 1050, the Vikings used numerous slaves, obtained from raids throughout Europe. After the decline of the Vikings, slavery continued to exist.

The Maya often used slaves to carry heavy loads and sacrificed slaves to their gods.
The Aztecs had a milder form of slavery, which allowed slaves to buy their freedom fairly easily, but they also sacrificed slaves.
The Spanish set up the encomienda system, where officials took care of Indians in certain areas in exchange for labor, which often became a system of enslavement.
Some encomienda workers were paid salaries.
The Spanish monarchs tried to end the encomienda because they did not want Spanish aristocrats to gain too much power.
Eventually, the system was replaced by the hacienda system of land ownership.

The Age of Exploration changed how Europeans understood slavery.
The rapidly growing economy in Europe and its colonies increased the demand for cheap labor for plantations and mines.
The large-scale removal of enslaved people from their homes to colonies around the world from 1500–1900 was extraordinary.
The use of African slaves in the Americas and the Caribbean, along with the strong correlation between slavery and darker skin, contributed to the development of a racist ideology and chattel slavery.

Spaniards often had children with Indians and people of African descent, which led to a colonial class system based on race:
- People of pure Spanish descent occupied the highest class.
- Mestizos (people of Spanish and Indian descent) formed the second class.
- Mulattoes (people of African and Spanish descent) made up the next class.
- The lowest class consisted of African and Indian slaves.

Europeans realized that Africans were more resistant to some diseases than Native Americans and were better workers on colonial plantations and mines.
European powers started the Atlantic slave trade with domains in West Africa to obtain enslaved Africans.
Africans captured prisoners during wars and sold them to Europeans for rum, clothing, and guns, which they used to fight wars with neighboring tribes.
By the early 1600s, the Netherlands, France, and England became involved in the trade and made huge profits.

The Atlantic slave routes consisted of triangular trade.
First Route: Ships from Europe sent manufactured goods to West Africa, traded for slaves, transported slaves to the Caribbean, where they were sold for profit. Traders then bought coffee, tobacco, and sugar to ship back to Europe.
Second Route: New England traders transported rum and other goods to West Africa, traded for slaves, shipped slaves to the Caribbean and sold them. Traders then bought sugar and molasses to carry back to New England and sold to rum producers.

The Atlantic slave trade lasted from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s, during which about 10 million Africans were enslaved.
New crops introduced to Africa improved diets and health, so the slave trade did not reduce the population of this region.
Since it involved the forced movement of people, the Atlantic slave trade is considered a type of involuntary migration.
Most Europeans who came to the Americas freely chose to move for various reasons, such as religious freedom or profit, which is considered voluntary migration.

The route from West Africa to the Caribbean, along which enslaved Africans were transported in the triangular slave trade, is called the Middle Passage.
Captains of slave ships used two methods: loose packing and tight packing.
- Loose packing: Fewer slaves were loaded onto ships to reduce losses from disease and death.
- Tight packing: Cramming hundreds of enslaved people into a ship, accepting that many would die, but reasoning that more would make it across overall.
Slaves were wedged together in the hold and chained to low platforms stacked in tiers. Each slave occupied a space that was 6 feet long, 3 feet high, and 16 inches wide.
Conditions were cramped, and a person could neither stand nor turn over, leading to many deaths.
The ship captains were concerned with profit, not the comfort, of the humans in bondage.

Enslaved captives were fed meager rations of rice, millet, or cornmeal, often further reduced to conserve supplies, causing starvation and disease.
In the daytime, captains allowed slaves to come on deck for exercise, during which sailors often forced them to