Slavery: what is it and what were its characteristics?

A summary of the characteristics of slavery, and its mode of production.

Slavery was an economic system in which forced labor, i.e. slaves, was used as a mode of production.that is, slaves. This system, although today believed to be extinct, was very common in many cultures and, in fact, was the basis on which they were able to function.

Below we will see how it originated, what it consists of, how slaves lived and were traded, as well as talk about the decline of this system and whether it still exists today.

What is slavery?

Slavery, also called slave mode of production, is the system of economic production whose fundamental pillar is unpaid labor, that is, slaves.

These people were men, women and children, who were forced them to work, receiving in return only enough to subsist on, and with no guarantee that they would live long term.and with no guarantee that they would live in the long term. Their legal status was that of property of their master, like those who had goats and cows on the farm, and they could be bought like any other object.

Although today it may seem to be an unjust and oppressive system, which it is, throughout history slavery has been the fundamental pillar of all kinds of cultures. Civilizations such as, for example, ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt, pre-Columbian cultures such as the Inca and Mayan, and also Muslim countries were based, at some point in their history, on a system of slave production.

Origins

The origins of slavery can be found in prehistoric times.It is considered one of the first economic systems of mankind.

When prehistoric humans developed agriculture, around 10,000 B.C., primitive communities changed from being nomadic to building sedentary settlements. These settlements exploited the nearby land and, as they had more food, they increased their population, while at the same time, they began to disappear.The idea of private property was not a new concept, but rather a new way of life, and the idea of private property was a new one.

Although the idea of private property was very uncommon among the ancient hunter-gatherers, as they passed to agronomist cultures, the idea of individual property clearly began to take shape. Farmers had their land, their crops and their animals. With the advent of agriculture, basically, we went from a culture in which hunting and gathering was shared to one in which each individual or family was responsible for their production and had the right to consume what they had produced.

These communities, either because of territorial disputes or the need to obtain more goods, ended up waging wars among themselves. As a result of these conflicts, the losing villages were plundered and their survivors were taken prisoner.. These prisoners ended up working on the lands of the winning tribes, forcing them to be the labor force under the threat of death or torture. This is how the first slaves in history were obtained.

However, the great slavery systems were at the hand of great civilizations such as Egypt, Greece and Rome. In fact, the slave mode of production was the essential component in the economic and social formation of the classical Mediterranean civilizations, shaping them as we know them today. Slavery in Greece and Rome was carried out on a massive scale, almost comparable to the way slavery is manufactured.The slavery in Greece and Rome was carried out on a massive scale, almost comparable to how goods are manufactured in modern industrial societies.

How did the slave live?

Slaves were unpaid workers, deprived of any rights, treated as animals or simply as objects. The vast majority of them lived in subhuman conditions.

They could not own property of any kind, since they were property in themselves. Moreover, they could not express their opinion or complain about how they were treated. Living was not a right for them either, since it was the master who decided whether he wanted his property to live or not, and killing them did not imply any kind of remorse. In the event that a slave became pregnant, the baby could be sold in the slave market.. That is, they could not start a family on their own either, since having children was the master's decision.

The few things they had, such as rags to wear, lousy food and poor housing, were things that their masters had allowed them to have. In order to continue having these things they were obliged to work day and night, having just enough to subsist on and not being able to go anywhere freely.

As property they were, if a free person killed the slave of a master he had to compensate him with the corresponding value, but he did not receive the same legal consequences that he would have received if he had killed a free citizen. In the eyes of the legality of the different states that have been founded on slavery, killing a slave is not the same as killing a "normal" person..

Despite the fact that the master had the last word on his life, there have been cases of slaves who have obtained their freedom, but not before paying a significant price for it. If the master allowed it, his slave could gain the status of a free man, i.e., a freedman.but he had to pay the price to compensate for his master's loss of him as a laborer. Paying compensation equal to the value of their freedom was extremely expensive, especially considering that slaves normally earned no wages.

How were slaves traded?

Slaves were usually people who had been free at some point in their lives but had been deprived of their freedom. It could also be the case that they were born into a family of slaves and had inherited this condition.

The way slaves have been obtained throughout history has followed the same patterns. In most cases, slaves were enslaved because, after a war, a people had won the war, after a war, one people had won over the other and the survivors were taken prisoner and forced to work as slaves.. On other occasions, as was the case with the European colonization of Africa and America, there was an important business behind slavery.

Europeans went to Africa to catch black people unawares, put them in chains, put them on a ship and took them either to Europe or to the American colonies. The conditions in which they traveled were subhuman and many of them died during the journey. However, although the slavers lost merchandise, they did not seem to care because, in the eyes of the European slave traders, they did not care, In the eyes of the European slave traders, Africa was a continent very rich in this merchandise..

Upon arrival in port, the slaves were auctioned off in public squares. This was not exclusive to Europe after the discovery of America, since selling slaves in the market was also a well-established practice among the Romans. There, the buyers, owners of large estates and workshops, selected the individuals who appeared to them to be the strongest and healthiest.

Decline of slavery

Actually, slavery has had its ups and downs throughout history and, in fact, there have been periods in which it was forbidden followed by periods in which the slave production system was an imperative necessity.

In the West, the first decline of slavery occurred after the fall of the Roman Empire.. Even before that, the spread of Christianity and the creation of the Catholic Church had brought about great changes in the mentality of the Romans, who had seen slavery as something extremely necessary for society to continue to function.

Christianity encouraged reforms in Roman law, making the idea of slavery to be seen as something totally contrary to God's designs. This is why, with the arrival of the Middle Ages, slavery was apparently abolished. However, this, far from being eradicated, was transformed into a new system of oppression, characteristic of feudalism: serfdom.

Peasants who had practically nothing to live on went to the lands of the feudal lords in order to live on them in exchange for work and tribute. in exchange for working and paying tribute. The feudal lord, as the owner of the land, was also the one who could demand all kinds of services from his new tenants.

The conditions of the serfs of the glebe were subhuman, like those of slaves. However, despite not being free persons, they had certain recognized rights, such as the right to marry, the right to life as long as they did not commit crimes, as well as the right to exploit and store part of the fruits of their labor. They were, therefore, people who were halfway between slaves, seen as objects, and fully free citizens.

After the Middle Ages with the (re)discovery of America, slavery re-emerged in Europe, with more force and brutality than ever. Several countries, such as Spain, Portugal, France and, in a particularly cruel and heartless way, England, developed the whole system of slavery characteristic of the slave trade. In fact, it was this slave trade it was this slave trade that laid the foundations for the ethnic configuration of several American countries, such as the United States, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the United States.such as the United States, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Brazil.

The definitive decline of slavery would begin in the 18th century and, in the 19th century, this practice would be fully abolished in the West, or at least legally. The reason why Europeans and American colonists chose to recognize that slaves were human beings and had the right to be free was due to French Enlightenment, which would lay the foundations for the bourgeois revolutions.. These revolutions would initiate a whole series of changes in terms of the gaining of human rights, which would be consolidated in modern human rights.

It must also be said that slavery continued to be practiced after it was abolished, especially in wartime situations. In Europe, during World War II, Germany used prisoners in its concentration camps as slaves, while the Soviet Union did the same with its prisoners in the "gulags". The United States was not a great example either, since it used Japanese prisoners in the same way as it had done with blacks just a century earlier.

Current status of slavery

Today, no country in the world would call itself a state with a slave production system. There are international treaties openly against slavery and there is even an anti-slavery day, established on December 2 of each year as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.

Despite all this, there are many countries in which the lowest strata of society are exploited in a subhuman way. Child slave labor in various textile companies, mass production in Asia, sexual exploitation and human trafficking are all modern businesses that combine the characteristics of modern-day slavery with those of the slave trade. are modern businesses that combine the characteristics of a slave production system.

Thus, although it is no longer legal to deprive someone of their freedom, it is still done today, at least on the black market. With all this, in the same way that the West clearly and categorically abolished slavery, we can only hope that it will be eradicated at all levels of all societies on the planet.

Bibliographical references:

• Bales, K. (2004). New slavery: a reference handbook. ABC-CLIO. pp. 15-18. ISBN 978-1-85109-815-6.
• Anderson, P. (1979). Transitions from Antiquity to Feudalism. Madrid: Siglo XXI. ISBN 84-323-0355-0.
• Gallego, J. A. (2005). Slavery in Spanish America, Encuentro. pp. 19.