‘SLAVERY’

DR. KHALID MANZOOR BUTT

 INTRODUCTION
• Slavery was a stigma on the face of humanity. It was degrading and
humiliating.
• Slavery had a strong link with feudal culture.

• Slavery and the slave trade were intimately connected with the rise of
European capitalism.

• In their role as producer of exported raw material for the European

metropolises, the colonist quickly realized that slavery afforded both
the fastest and easiest method of providing the labor force for
developing the colonies.
 INTRODUCTION
• The institution of slavery was so strong and practiced so widely by
almost every society from the ancient time to the Middle Ages.

• Organized religion and every type of society accepted slavery as a …

part of human activity.

• The slaves were usually obtained in two ways, which might be termed
“internal” and “external”. Within a society, a man might be enslaved as
a punishment for crime or might sell himself or his children into
slavery to pay debt.

• From outside the society slaves were acquired by the capture of

enemies in war. This happened sometimes on a great scale. Whole
tribes or communities might be carried off from their homeland.
 DEFINITION OF SLAVERY

R. Coupland has describes slavery in his book The British Anti-Slavery

Movement:

“Slavery may be defined as the ownership and use of human property. The
master inherits, buys, sells or bequeaths his slave as he does his pick or his
spade. His treatment of his or her may be controlled, like the usage of the
other possessions, by the custom or law of the society to which he belongs;
but in general the slave’s life and labour are as much at the master’s
disposal as those of his horse or his ass. …he may be treated, underfed,
overworked, done to death. … The slave’s soul is almost as much in
bondage as his body. …He cannot lead his own life. He can do little to
make his fate: it lies in another man’s hands.”
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY
The League of Nations (LON) defined the phenomenon in these
worlds:
“Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of
the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised.”

According to the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia,

“Slavery, institution whereby one person owns another and can extract
from that person labour or other services, found among both primitive
and advanced people.”
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
 Slavery in Greece. By the closing years of the classical Greek
period, slavery was taken for granted and slave trading from the
Black Sea region had assumed such economic importance that
Polybius, a Greek historian of the 2 nd century B.C., claimed that
along with cattle, slaves were “the necessities of life.”

 Expansion of Slavery by the Romans. The Romans inherited the

institution of slavery from the Greeks and the Phoenicians and
expanded it with the territorial growth of the Roman Empire.
 The Romans systematically developed slavery on order to free the
local population for wars of conquest, which in turn brought slaves
from North Africa, Iberia, Britain and the Germanic lands.
 ISLAM AND SLAVERY
• Islam introduced some measures to improve the status of slaves, the
most downtrodden section of the Arab society.
• Islam also put an emphasis on the emancipation of slaves to check this
practice.

Muhammad Sharif Chaudhry gives some references from the Holy Quran
and Hadith* regarding slaves.
Freeing of slaves has been made by the Quran an expiation for certain sins
and crimes like murder, breaking of oath, divorce by Zihar, etc. Certain
rules and regulations have been laid down by the Quran and Hadith for
atonement of certain sins and religious irregularities through emancipation
of slaves. Beating of a slave is a great sin and it can only be atoned by
setting that slave free. Liberating of slaves is one of the eight heads of
expenditure on which Zakat funds can he spent by an Islamic state.
ISLAM AND SLAVERY CONTINUED…..
A Hadith is attributed to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),

Samorah bin Jundab reported that the Prophet said,

“The best charity is an intercession wherewith a slave is set free.”
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SLAVERY
• It is pertinent to mention that in the middle age and even afterwards,
slave trade was very much in vogue. Traders from European countries
brought numerous ships full of slaves from the African colonies.
• They used to sell those slaves in the European and American markets
like animals and commodities. The social, cultural and legal systems
were supportive of this business.

• This practice was being undertaken in Europe, the cultural,

educational, economic and political hub of the globe.
• It is astonishing that in the land of Newton, Voltaire, Locke,
Shakespeare, Kant, Bentham and Michelangelo, human trafficking
was rampant even in the period of the Enlightenment.
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SLAVERY

 Modern slavery was a transformation of many legacies. The

Europeans who enslaved the natives of the New World and brought
Africans as slaves to the Americana began to do so because they
wanted cheap, available labor.
 European merchants and shippers had already been familiar with
plantation slavery and with the African slave trade for about a
century before Christopher Columbus discovered America.

 In 1488, Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Spain, presented Pope

innocent VIII with some 100 Moorish slaves, which the Pope
distributed to his counselors within the Roman curia.
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SLAVERY
 It was not until 1662 that England signed the first treaty on slave
trading with Tripoli, which prohibited the enslavement of English
subjects in Tripoli.
 The European colonization of America gave a unique impetus to
slavery by making it the foundation of a society. The Spanish and
Portuguese, who had used African slaves on their plantation around
Malaga and the Algarve, brought them to the New World along with
the first explorers and colonists.

 The scarcity and high mortality of the native inhabitants coupled with
the growing economic importance not only of mining and pearl
fishing but also of such staples as sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco
stimulated the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade.
 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SLAVERY
Slavery in Colonial America
The American slave was viewed not only as a unit of potential labor but also
as a commercial asset. A direct connection existed between the transatlantic
slave trade and the growth and prosperity of the individual American
plantation colonies.
 The regular slave trade between Africa and the English North America
colonies began in 1619 when a Dutch frigate in distress landed at
Jamestown, Va., and exchanged 20 Africans who had probably been
captured in the West Indies, for food and supplies.
 Merchant shippers from New york and New England imported slaves as
regular merchandise for the planters of Maryland, Virginia and the
Carolinas. By 1670 both law and customs defined all Africans in the
colonies as slaves.
 By 1776 the colonies had a slave population of more than 500,000 the
majority of whom lived south of Maryland. Mean while the American
slave population had increased from about 700,000 in 1790 to well over 3
 ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• ‘Constriction of Slavery’ were important features of the 19th century,
particularly in Europe and USA. During 19th century slavery came
under criticism not only from religious sects but also from secular
thinkers on political reform, who saw it as an obnoxious form of special
privilege, contrary both to reason and humanity.
• In the modern age, efforts to abolish slavery bore fruit with a decision
of the English Court on the basis of the Habeas Corpus in 1772.
• 1772 Lord Mansfield, the English Chief justice, declared that
slavery was illegal in England.
In the modern age, England took a lead in abolishing the centuries old
institution of slavery. “In 1772, Lord Mansfield, the English Chief Justice,
declared that slavery was illegal in England.
Antislavery societies were founded in England in 1787, and in France in
1788.”
 ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• Case of R. V. Knowles vs. ex parte Somerset
In a case (R.V. Knowles, ex parte Somerset) of a slave, ‘James Somerset’,
under habeas corpus, the Chief Justice held slavery unlawful on the basis
of restricting the free movement of a man against his will in Britain,
regardless of the law in the nativity of the slave. This decision of the
Court gave a new beginning to end slavery which was a big hurdle in the
way of Human Rights.

• 1791 French Revolution temporarily abolished slavery in French

Empire
• 1834 Banning Slave Trade through British Empire.
• 1863 Dutch Abolish Slavery
 ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• On the other side of the Atlantic, in the USA, the Supreme Court gave
a surprising decision in the case of Dred Scott VS. Sandford (slave).
Chief Justice Taney, with other associate judges, gave a verdict in
favour of the master in 1857, and put the issue of elimination of
slavery for the time being, on the back burner in America.
• The opinion of the court decided against Scott’s claim for freedom on
three grounds:
• (1) as a Black he could not be a citizen of the United States, and
therefore had no right to sue in a federal court;
• (2) as a resident of Missouri the laws of Illinois had no longer any
effect on his status;
• (3) as a resident of the territory north of 36‘ 30‘ he had not been
emancipated because congress had no right to deprive citizens of their
property without due process of law.
ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• The decision of the Supreme Court showed that by the middle of the
19th century, racial bias was still there even at the top. The court was
not even ready to accept blacks as citizens of America with rights. At
the same time, the slaves were regarded as the property of the master.

• Thus, this decision of the Supreme Court reflected the approach and
thinking prevailing in America, where all people were not been
treated equally, and the racial division was quite pronounced.

• The champions of liberty and democracy could not stop slavery,

though the import of slaves had been banned in America in 1808.
 ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• As with the practice of slavery, the concept of Human Rights was
difficult to visualize and implement. In 1811, it was declared illegal for
British ships to indulge in the slave trade.

• Eventually, in 1834, slavery was abolished throughout the British

Empire. This step of Britain greatly affected British colonies in different
parts of the world.
• Moreover, it was quite important in changing the approach and in
stimulating the movement against slavery.
• This practice continued and remained part and parcel of their social and
economic order till President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of 1863,
abolishing slavery at the eve of the Civil War.
• Then in 1865, two years after the proclamation, the 13th Amendment was
incorporated in the Constitution to end slavery in America.
 ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• The American constitutional amendment to abolish slavery also
strengthened the on going movements against slavery in other
countries of the world. Indeed, it was the second important milestone
after England’s ban on slavery. It had a great affect on other countries
which followed the same course, and slavery started diminishing in the
world.
• Still slave-trade could not be abolished, worldwide, and in many
regions, slavery was very much part of the socio-economic system
right until the 20th century. With the emergence of the League of
Nations in 1920, the issue of slavery came under focus at the
International level.
• Then, the League of Nations successfully managed to organize a
Slavery Convention in 1926 for ending slavery in all forms, and to ban
the slave trade by land and sea.
 ALLEVIATION OF SLAVERY
• League of Nation established a The Slavery Convention, 1926
“Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the
powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.”

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade
shall be prohibited in all their forms.”

• Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, The Slave

Trade, and Institutions and Practices similar to Slavery, 1956
“Debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage and the delivery of a child for
the exploitation of that child are all slavery like practices and require
criminalization and abolishment”