Slavery is a subject of interest for a variety of scholars, among whom are historians, sociologists, anthropologists and economists. No one knows when the institution of slavery began or in what portion of the world. Every government that has embraced slavery since 500 BC has established laws to regulate it. In countries having religious laws — Ecclesiastic, Torah, Sharia law — religions have likewise established regulations on the subject of slavery. Their reason for regulating slavery is to keep the slaves alive as fundamental economics.
The most likely source of slaves for powerful ancient civilizations, such as Egypt, Persia, Rome, was conquest of rivals’ people – both military and civilian. Instead of killing an opponent’s warriors the practice became to put them to work in the military or as a “best practice” to bring the living-captives back to increase wealth from useful work in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, et al, raising the standard of living for the conquerors.
In ancient Greece in the classical period, slaves were thirty percent of the total population of City-States then extant. Later, the Roman Empire was composed of thirty percent slaves and seventy percent free persons. It is likely that having too many slaves in the population increases the risk of rebellion Empires and slavery do not last forever, and slave rebellions often play an important role in leading to the empire’s fall. Israel under the governance of King David was an example of a well-run Kingdom that made use of slaves among the population. The slaves that existed in Athens, Rome and Israel were productive slaves whose sole purpose was to supply the economic foundation of the government. Productive slavery most often occurred only in Western and Islamic civilizations.
The world has known other forms of bondage of persons such as serfdom, indentured labor and peonage. Serfs, as an example, had some rights, so that the serf was a subject of the law. Nearly always, the serf was bound to the land on which he was born, and following generations were bound to the same land. Serfs were subject to the laws governing serfdom, which were unlike laws of slavery. Serfs had to maintain the land of the lord of the manor, but the serf also had a plot of land that he worked and had right to what it produced for him. The law provided protection, justice and the right to his plot of land. As such, serfdom was not as totalitarian as slavery. A slave, unlike the serf was the object of the law. The law made the slave the property of his owner. When the owner moved, the slave was made to move too. The owner could sell or transfer ownership of the slave and of the slave’s offspring as well. The owner supplied the slave with the tools, clothing, shelter, food and healthcare that kept him alive. The slave had no rights, no justice, and only the protection necessary to protect the owner’s interest in the slave, and none else. The serf was usually the owner of the clothes, tools, shelter and reproductive rights of his body, such that the offspring was likewise as his father, bound to the land with his parents. Serfs could be personally taxed by the State, whose laws governed nearly all the attributes of being a serf. The serf, having little money would pay his taxes to the state by working on some state project similar to what the serf performed for his landlord-keeper.
Indentures are short-term contract arrangements for employment, usually four or five years, and such contracts are freely entered into by a servant and an agent for an employer. Great Britain had such laws of indenture. Most indenture contracts were to pay for the cost of transportation to the American colonies. Ship’s captains in Great Britain loaned money as business propositions to persons willing to relocate to America. A contract would be written between the lender and debtor for a sum of money (the price of transportation). Upon arrival in America, the ships’ captain sold the contract to a buyer, often a farmer or craftsman that needed an apprentice. At the end of the contract, the indentured person was freed, and sometimes given a bonus to get started on his own livelihood. The bonus might be some tools to use in selling his service at a living wage. From the time of founding of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts Bay until well after the Civil War, it is estimated that half of all white immigrants to America were indentures, and during the Irish potato famine in the 1840s, nearly all immigrants were Irish indentures. Indenture applied to both male and female, single or married.
Peonage is the same as indenture, except that its geography is different. Instead of colonization in North America, the passage is to South American colonies of Portugal, Italy and Spain, and the Peon comes from a Mediterranean country.
Publiustoo.com November 5, 2021
