1

2

“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall

be prohibited in all their forms.”Article 4, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• What is slavery? • How did it develop in the United States?

• How and why was it abolished? • What is its legacy?

• Are the chains of slavery still rattling in our modern world?

3

Slavery definedSlavery and raceMajor reasons for slaveryOrigin of the term

4

What Is Slavery?It is difficult to draw a hard line between slavery and free labor. There are labor practices that, while not

technically slavery, are so exploitative and so restrictive that they come very close to it. Slavery

can best be described as follows:Under slavery, one person can belong to another as

their property, just as a cow, a house, or a wallet full of money can belong to someone. The owner can use

the slave in any way, and can sell the slave at any time. Under a system of slavery, compulsory labor or sex is enforced by private or government authority.

A slave may be bought and sold in the market like an ox. He is liable to be sold off to a distant land from his family. He is bound in chains hand and foot; and his

sufferings are aggravated a hundred fold, by the terrible thought, that he is not allowed to struggle against misfortune, corporal punishment, insults and outrages committed upon himself and family; and he is not allowed to help himself, to resist or escape the blow, which he sees impending over him. I was a slave, a prisoner for

life; I could possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to my keeper. No one can imagine my feelings in my reflecting moments, but he who has

himself been a slave. Henry Bibb, The Life and Adventures of an American Slave (1849)

5

Slavery and RaceIn the United States, the concepts of

slavery and race are inseparable. However, in ancient Rome and

Greece, among the Persians and the Chinese, and in Africa and the

Americas, people became slaves for three major reasons that were not

race-based:1. Prisoners captured by armies during war were forced into slavery2. Poverty forced people to sell themselves or their children into slavery or face starvation 3. Punishment

6

Portuguese explorers established the tradeCatholic Church approvalSources of slavesVoyage to the Americas: Middle Passage

7

Starting with the voyage of Columbus in 1492, the Americas became part of a trade network that would

dominate Western history for the next 500 years.

Over 10 million Africans would

survive the dreaded Middle Passage to the Americas in the 16th,

17th and 18th centuries; however, the journey claimed the lives of millions

more, as did the cruel roundup of slaves in the African interior.

8

Slaves captured or purchased in the African interior were marched to the coastal trading

centers where they were sold to traders. By the 17th century, slaves could be purchased in Africa for about $25 and sold in the Americas for about

$150.

9

To maximize their profits, slave merchants carried as many slaves as possible on their ships. One slave ship, the Brookes, was originally built to carry a maximum of 451 people, but actually

carried over 600 slaves per voyage from Africa to the Americas.

10

“The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to

the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself,

almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of

loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling

victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their

purchasers.”

Plan and Sections of a Slave Ship, 1789. The Brookes carried 609 slaves (351 men, 127

women, 90 boys, and 41 girls) crammed into its decks.

11

“This wretched situation was again aggravated by the

galling of tThee chains, now become insupportable; and

the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the

groans of the dying, rendered the whole a

scene of horror almost

inconceivable.”

12

“Happily perhaps for myself I was soon reduced

so low here that it was thought necessary to keep me almost always on deck;

and from my extreme youth I was not put in

fetters. In this situation I expected every hour to

share the fate of my companions, some of

whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the

point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries. Often did I think many of

the inhabitants of the deep much more happy

than myself; I envied them the freedom they enjoyed,

and as often wished I could change my condition

for theirs.”

“Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my

opinion of the cruelty of the whites. One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied

themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the

deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the

remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well we

cold…”

13

“One day, when we had a smooth sea, and a moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen, who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through

the nettings, and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would soon have done the same, if they had not been prevented by the ship’s crew, who were

instantly alarmed.”

“In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate; hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade.”

Slaves forced to dance on deck. The slavers

could get better prices for their human

“goods” if these were delivered in good

condition. Sometimes they forced them to dance for exercise to counter the cramped

conditions of the passage.