Slavery

Personal identification card or "identity card" of a 10-year-old black slave named Benito Criollo, a servant and a destination in Havana.

Slavery in BrazilJean-Baptiste Debret.

Advertisement published in the Cuban press of Havana, in 1839. Black slaves, horses and leeches are sold in the same announcement.

Registration of a newborn slave, named Bruno, in Puerto Rico. Year 1868.

Slavery is the possession of a person as property, especially in regards to their work. Slavery refers in particular to the "state of a person subjected to forced servitude". In turn, a slave is defined as a person "who lacks freedom due to being under the domination of another".Slavery is also spoken of as a practice or institution that treats or recognizes some human beings as the legal property of others.Slavery usually involves some type of work, the place of work and residence of the slave being dictated by the enslaver. Unlike similar terms such as captivity or servitude, the term slavery emphasizes the idea of complete ownership and control over a person's life, liberty, and fortunes by an owner or master.

Slavery dates back to ancient times, although not equally in all civilizations. It seems that its historical origin comes from the practice of taking advantage of captives in wars as labor, as an alternative to another possibility, also usual, executing them. It was also the fate of some conquered peoples. Another way to reach slave status was debt slavery or individual coercion. Among the indigenous people of North America, slavery can date from 1500 years BC. C. The cultural flowering of the Athens of Pericles or classical Rome was based on an economy based on the slave labor force. Aristotle held that slavery is a natural phenomenon. In Europe, with the transition from slavery to feudalism, from the crisis of the 3rd century, most of the workforce was no longer slaves, except in places like Al-Andalus, where they continued to be the main workforce. However, slavery did not disappear, and remained a more or less marginal social condition, throughout the Middle Ages and throughout the Modern Age, when the Berbers of North Africa enslaved 1.25 million Europeans between 1500 and 1800, and renewing its presence in the West during the colonization of America. Slavery in Asia continued without major change until the 19th and 20th centuries.

The fight against slavery cost many lives. The balance of the three servile wars in Rome (135 to 71 BC) is at least 170,000 slaves killed in battle or subsequently executed; the Civil War that ended slavery in the 11 US states where it was legal (out of a total of 33 states in 1861) claimed at least 620,000 lives among the combatants; among them, some 580,000 non-Afro-descendants.

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is celebrated on August 23; International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is celebrated on December 2. In the Catholic Church, Anti-Trafficking in Persons Day is that of the patron saint of victims of slavery, Saint Bakhita, who was a slave in Africa between 1877 and 1885. Contemporary international treaties (Slavery Convention, 1926) They include the prohibition of slavery, which is considered a crime against humanity. However, it continues to exist culturally rooted in certain countries (India, Sudan, Mauritania) and has reappeared in others under certain exceptional conditions, such as child slave labor in Southeast Asia or certain types of prostitution throughout the world. world.

History

Slavery in Antiquity

Ancient Egypt

The first writings in which there is evidence of the presence of slaves in a great civilization is in Mesopotamia during the Sumerian era, although very limited. In Ancient Egypt a sufficient number of slaves to have some social importance occurred only in some periods, especially in the New Kingdom. Their rivals, the Hittites, enslaved prisoners of war, a common situation among many ancient societies: many slaves came from conquest. In Rome, abandoned children were also picked up by slave traders, for example, at the door of the houses, when the pater familias did not want to acknowledge their paternity, since he possessed the power of the «ius exponendi». A free man could also become a slave in order to have to pay a fine for having committed a crime.

It is debated whether the Mesoamerican cultures, which knew the wheel, did not come to use it for utilitarian purposes due to an overabundance of slaves.

Ancient Greece

Slavery as a social and economic practice was common in Greco-Roman antiquity. The social status and role of slaves was considered inferior, worthless or non-existent in relation to a free person. The society of Ancient Greece had philosophically based slavery which, for Aristotle, was the indispensable guarantee so that free men could dedicate their time to politics and good government of the city. In Ancient Rome, the practice of slavery was regulated, sometimes down to the smallest detail, establishing manumission as a formula for the liberation of slaves, always with cause. Century V a. C. the century I is the time of greatest implementation and extension of slavery. The wars of conquest waged by the Roman Republic meant the acquisition of numerous slaves.

They carried out three servile wars and the last one was the bloodiest (that of Spartacus). During the Roman Empire it began to subside, mainly due to the depletion of the traditional sources of supply of new slaves as a result of the end of Roman territorial expansion (I).

The notion of slavery, in Ancient Rome, designated the most disparate social conditions. A slave could be a servant or servant, as well as the emperor's finance minister, the Greek and Latin teacher of the sons of a Roman legislator, or a gladiator.

Slaves did not have a room to sleep in, they simply lay on the floor in any corner of the house. Every middle-income Roman owned at least a couple of slaves. He would leave his house usually accompanied by one while the other remained locked up at home. Slaves ate the leftovers of their masters' food, which, in a town without hunger, could mean eating better than many free men. The dividing line between free men and slaves was very important. The former could not legally be subjected to torture, burned alive or beaten. Slaves do, by their own masters or by a judge.

Slaves could not marry or exercise parenthood. The owner of the children of slaves was the pater familias. The slave traders collected the abandoned babies that were exposed in the sanctuaries to turn them into slaves. There were slaves who came to occupy public positions in the administration of their masters' assets, but they could also be field workers or artisans: most of the artisans or potters in Arezzo, for example, were slaves. If they were not peasants they could be raised in domestic service. A slave could be a singer who sang for the master, an architect who built for the prince, or a grammarian.

In 316, under the influence of the Spanish bishop Osio de Córdoba, the Emperor Constantine granted the bishops the manumissio in Ecclesia, which created the power to emancipate slaves in the churches, a process more simple and direct than the complex emancipation by court that has been used since republican times.

Middle Ages

Major Muslim slave traffic routes in Africa.

In Europe, during the Middle Ages, it persisted in marginal areas, such as Scandinavia, where the Vikings imported so many enslaved people during looting, that the Scandinavian genetic composition was altered; or as in Al-Andalus, where the main hand of The work was slavery, since Muslim sharia law allowed the enslavement of Spanish Christians and black African animists. Much of medieval slavery was agrarian (being a rural society) and domestic, and in the Roman Empire, with the advance of Christianity, the situation of the slaves began to soften, with the rise to power of Constantine I the Great, a synthesis between Christian Romanity and pagan Germanism was already taking place, which introduced in the Empire the Germanic servitude, which was legalized as a more benign punishment than the death sentence, by Constantine himself through an edict in 322. There is an intense debate among historians regarding the chronology, the causes and ways in which the disappearance of slavery occurred. The positions that place the disappearance of the slave system at an earlier date, at the time of the barbarian invasions of the V century, would be those of Marxist historians, including Karl Marx himself; On the other hand, authors such as Georges Duby or Pierre Bonnassie place it in the XI century, in the middle of the so-called feudal revolution. According to the latter author, the rise of slavery occurred in the VII century, in the middle of the High Middle Ages.

In any case, the serfs of the 12th century, as opposed to those of the II, were free, or rather semi-free, and enjoyed a series of rights and at least in theory could sue their lord if he violated those rights, but they were tied by work commitments to the land and the feudal lord. In the Muslim world and in Byzantium the tradition was also maintained, collecting the ancient Roman customs. At the end of the 15th century, slavery in Europe was very low, although this was more for reasons of scarcity than for moral development or philosophical, since it was transferred and extremely extended in the new continent by the European powers.

Slavery in the Arab world

Arab slave trade, Zanguebar

Several historiographical sources estimate the duration of the slave trade by Muslim Arabs as over a millennium, estimating more than ten million people subjected to slavery, and that in some marginal areas of the Islamic world they remain under various forms of serfdom. Slaves in the Arab world came from a variety of origins, including sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Zanj), the Caucasus (mainly Cherkeese), Central Asia (mainly Tatars), and Central and Eastern Europe. (mainly Saqaliba).

Ibn Battuta has affirmed many times that they were given to him or that he bought slaves. Slaves were bought or captured on the borders of the Islamic world and later imported to the main centers, where there were slave markets from which they were distributed. In the IX and X, black slaves from the Zanj may have made up at least half the population in lower Iraq. At the same time, several tens of thousands of slaves in the region were also imported from Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Algeria, 1815

Zanzibar was at one time the largest slave-trading port in East Africa, and under the Omani Arabs in the 19th century at least 50,000 slaves a year passed through the city. Some historians have estimated that between 11,000,000 and 18,000,000 (eleven to eighteen million) black African slaves crossed the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Sahara Desert from AD 650 to AD 1900, compared to 9,400,000 to 12,000,000 (9,400,000 to 12 million) Africans who may have been brought to the Americas. One of the reasons for European powers to colonize nearly the entire African continent in the last quarter of the 19th century was the desire to control the slave trade and slavery in Africa.

Central and Eastern European slaves were generally known as Saqaliba (which could be translated as "Slavs"). The Moors, from the 17th century XVIII, they also carried out razzias in the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, being known as Barbary pirates. It is estimated that they captured around 1,250,000 (one million two hundred and fifty thousand) white slaves from Western Europe and North America between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Slavery in Europe

The story of the liberation of more than two hundred English, Polish, Greek and Russian slaves at Mytilene in 1627, who had been enslaved by the Turks "still resonates" in Europe; published the feat in Rome in 1628, it was translated into several languages, including Spanish, in Barcelona that same year.

Slavery in America

In pre-Columbian America

These slaves were very different from those that emerged after the European colonization of the Americas, but they did have a lot in common with the slaves of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Among the slaves of the American Indians, the children of slaves could inherit slavery status. A slave could own possessions and even own other slaves. They could buy his freedom or get it if they could prove they had been mistreated, or if they had had children or married their masters. When their master died, if they had done an exceptional service, they were released.

In the period of European colonization

The Dutch imported many slaves to their colony of New Netherland (North America), to the point that when they ceded New Amsterdam to the English, forty percent of the population were slaves.

Slavery in Africa

In Africa, where monogamy was not necessarily the rule, males often took their female slaves as wives. honor" relationships with their employers, instead of resisting them.

In counterpoint, there were African slaveholders among the s. XVII to XIX in much of the West African coast, in societies of western Sudan (now Zaire), in Mozambique, and in Mombasa. Most of these slaveholders were mulatto; the English called them mulatresses and the Dutch tapoeyerinnen, but others were the African wives, concubines, or widows of Europeans. Some of these Africans owned large numbers of slaves; some were engaged in the trading of slaves. It is believed that the slaveholders owned more female slaves than males; among the benefits would be their reproductive capacity, since the slaves' children remained the property of the slaveholders. There is no reason to believe that the slaveholders treated their slaves better than the slaveholders; a document from 1621 details how an old woman given two slaves by the Dutch beheaded one upon finding him at leisure.

In North Africa, between 1500 and 1800, the Berbers enslaved 1.25 million Europeans, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English, Icelandic, Irish, German, Flemish (Belgian), Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Slovene and Russian. Among those enslaved were women.

In the African port of Alexandria it operated in the s. XVII a market of slave virgins. Marcos Lachimosch rescued his future wife, the Polish Katarzyna, while she was being transported to said market to be sold.

The African Slave Trade

The triangular trade economically served the interests of American colonies and was the basis of the production system of plantations as well as pre-industrial growth in Europe. It is the way of the ships between the ports of England, Portugal, Spain and France, towards the Caribbean, once loaded on the west coast of Africa.

With the arrival and conquest of America by the Europeans, expansion plans were drawn up that required cheap labor. Initially, the indigenous American peoples were enslaved, but Spanish legislation very soon raised the legality of this practice (thanks to the writings of Bartolomé de las Casas and the School of Salamanca), and made them imported enslaved people from Africa, who also had greater physical resistance and disease, especially tropical diseases, thus beginning a large-scale trade in African slaves: the slave trade.

By the 17th century, there was a large increase in the number of slaves due to their importance as laborers, on large-scale farms (plantation system) in North America, South America and, mainly, in the Caribbean. There is no consensus on the figures for slavery in modern times. It has been proposed that 60,000,000 (sixty million) kidnap victims, of whom 24,000,000 (twenty-four million) ended up in America, 12,000,000 (twelve million) in Asia and 7,000,000 (seven million) in Europe, while that the remaining 17,000,000 (seventeen million) would die on the voyages.

This increase in the slave trade was accompanied, in most cases, by a strong racist ideology: blacks were considered subhuman beings, frequently assimilated to animals, without even being able to be considered subjects of law and therefore considered, legally, as mere objects or things. The slave trade extended to the Native Americans, who organized a well-structured trade in the acquisition, transport, and sale of black slaves.

In the case of the indigenous people of the Americas, it had been decided that they had souls, so they could not be enslaved. In fact, it was customary on many plantations to exploit the slave under severe conditions until his death, since it was cheaper to buy new slaves than to improve their living conditions, and there was also insurance that covered so-called accidents.^{[citation required ]} The source of slaves was Africa, and the island of Gorea, a French colony, was the precise place where the slave market was established, also known as the place of no return and where the families broken up by slavery.

Similarly, the Arabs maintained a significant trade in enslaved Africans, both through routes across the Sahara and through the eastern coast of Africa, primarily the Island of Zanzibar. This trade extended from the 7th century to the XX and reached proportions similar to or greater than the Atlantic slave trade.

The figures of trafficking

Recorded by William Blake representing metaphorically Europe supported by Africa and America.

The number of people enslaved from Africa varies, according to different estimates, between 10,000,000 and 60,000,000 (between ten and sixty million) people between the centuries XV and XIX. To which must be added those enslaved in the Islamic world (both European and African), in the cultures of India and within the African states. In addition, in the Mali Empire about 9,000,000 (nine million) were trafficked from West Africa to the Maghreb on the way to the Sahara but only half survived the trip. The Muslims also trafficked between 1 and 1.25 million Spaniards, Italians and Greeks from the Mediterranean and the Balkans to the Maghreb and the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs trafficked millions of slaves, 2,250,000 (two million two hundred and fifty thousand) in Zanzibar between 1450 and 1700.

At the end of the 19th century, the Sokoto Caliphate had 2,000,000 to 2,500,000 (of two million to two and a half million) slaves. In the 1930s, the slave population in Ethiopia numbered 2,000,000 (two million) out of a total population of 8,000,000 to 16,000,000 (eight to sixteen million), according to the Anti-Slavery Society. It is estimated that in 1841 there were 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 (eight to nine million) slaves in India; only Malabar had 15% slaves of its total population. From the beginning of the colonization of the United States, some 645,000 Africans would be exported to that region as slaves for plantations. In addition, about 1,600,000 (one million six hundred thousand) people from the Sahel were enslaved by the Arabs and sold in Muslim territories.

According to British historian Eric Hobsbawm, the number of African slaves transported to America would be 1,000,000 (one million) in the century XVI, 3,000,000 (three million) in the XVII and, during the XVIII, would reach 7,000,000 (seven million). In addition, the researcher Enrique Peregalli calculates that 25% of deaths would have to be added during the captures and another 25% during the voyage across the Atlantic. It must be included that up to 10% of the slaves who worked in plantations, mines and other trades died each year due to the poor living conditions and labor abuses of their masters and foremen.

Virginia, 1670

Researcher Enrique Peregalli estimates that between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 (between three and four million) were transported from Angola to America. In the 17th century onwards, most of the captured slaves came from Nigeria and Angola, 30% from the former, close to of 3,500,000 (three and a half million) people (from 1650 to 1860).

According to estimates by Hugh Thomas, of the 12,000,000 (twelve million) Africans who arrived alive in the Americas, three million were originally from the Republic of Congo and Angola, two million from the Slave Coast, 2,000,000 (two million) from Benin and Calabar, 1,500,000 (one and a half million) from the Gold Coast (Guinea), 1,000,000 (one million) from Mozambique and Madagascar.

During the 19th century, despite the British blockade, 1,000,000 (one million) slaves were exported to America from Nigeria.

In the 1930s, the slave population in Ethiopia numbered 2,000,000 (two million) out of a total population of 8,000,000 to 16,000,000 (eight to sixteen million), according to the Anti-Slavery Society.

In Madagascar, slavery was abolished in 1896, but many of the 500,000 freed slaves remained in the homes of their former masters as servants, other sources put the number emancipated at about a million, it should be noted that This measure was taken after the installation of the French to the government of the island.

The slave trade achieved enormous development and growth for both its export and reception centers; for example, Zanzibar went from exporting between 6,000 and 10,000 slaves annually in 1811, to between 40,000 and 45,000 in 1839, and Cuba went from having 199,145 slaves in 1817 to 369,000 in 1867. For its part, Luanda (in present-day Angola) around 1750 was exporting 5,000 to 10,000 slaves per year and Abomey (capital of the kingdom of Dahomey) was sending annual shipments of 20,000 at the turn of the century XVIII but dropped to 12,000 by the early XIX century. Circa 1843, it was estimated that Mogadishu had a population of 5,000 people, two-thirds of whom were slaves (which is why it was called Slave City), and about 4,000 slaves were exported annually. From Senegal, the figure reached 60,000 people.

As for Mozambique, the number of slaves taken from there to the Indian Ocean islands is estimated at 495,439 between 1720 and 1902. At the other end of the continent from the coast of Guinea, 40,000 slaves were exported each year during the 16th century. While 60,000 slaves were exported from the Cape Colony between 1650 and 1800.

Regarding the slave population, already in 1492 in Spain there were 100,000 black and Berber slaves. During the 16th century, the Crown authorized the introduction of 120,000 slaves, although thanks to smuggling the figure reached 400,000 people of color. For its part, in 1552, Lisbon was populated by 10,000 slaves (10% of the city's total). In 1675, the English had more than 100,000 African slaves in their Caribbean colonies compared to the barely 5000 of the North American colonies.

Slave Hunter, Brazil, 1823, Mauricio Rugendas

Between 1650 and 1860, 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 (ten to fifteen million) people who arrived alive were imported from Africa to other continents; 4,500,000 (four and a half million) to the Caribbean, 5,000,000 (five million) to Brazil, 300,000 to Europe, 200,000 to Mexico, and 500,000 to the present-day United States and Spanish South America. In total, during the At the peak of the slave trade in the 18th century, about 70,000 slaves were shipped from Africa to the Americas.

Between 1492 and 1870, the following numbers of slaves were exported to Spanish America:

The African slave trade.

Image representing the interior of a slave ship, Mauricio Rugendas.

The following table shows the slave population in America around the end of the 18th century:

While in several regions African slave labor replaced Amerindians as the main labor force. The following table shows the export of slaves made by each European empire:

I punish a slave in Brazil, by Mauricio Rugendas (circa 1830)

Exportation of slaves in America between the 16th century and XVII:

Slave population in the original Thirteen Colonies between 1750 and 1860:

Slave population in the southeastern United States between 1790 and 1860:

Estimated number of voyages and slaves transported during the African trade (XVI-XIX):

Slaves delivered throughout the American continent and to a lesser extent in Europe:

Regions where the slaves came from:

Trades to which slaves were assigned in America:

The largest recipient of slaves was undoubtedly Brazil, surpassing even the Caribbean. Some 12 million Africans were captured and taken to Brazil,

Landing of African slaves between 1781 and 1855 in Brazil:

Brazilian slave population by province between 1864 and 1887:

Relationship with other economic systems

Sidney Mintz and Stanley Elkins consider that there is a reciprocal relationship between capitalism and slavery, arguing that as the dynamism of capitalism varies, the repressive nature of labor activity also varies. Lester Thurow argues that while democracy is incompatible with slavery, capitalism is not, so slavery tends to reappear at the same rate as authoritarian forms of government advance. There were insurances that compensated for the accidental loss of slaves during the trip, but not because of hunger. That is why some slavers threw them overboard before they died. The planned economy favored by ideological currents such as Marxism has been described as a form of slavery.

Slavery

The RAE defines slave owner as 'supporter of slavery'; with which more than slave owners, it applies to those who defend their interests, active as a social movement, and to the ideology that articulates their vision of society, identifies with or differs from racism.

Philosophical pro-slavery

Aristotle.

Since ancient times, the history of political and social thought had naturally accepted slavery as one of the aspects of the social system. There are pro-slavery texts by Aristotle, for example. However, there must also have been Aristotle's contemporaries of opposite opinions, since he himself collects them:

It is argued on the one hand that there is a science, which belongs to the Lord, which is confused with that of the father of the family, with that of the magistrate and with that of the king [...] Others, on the contrary, pretend that the power of the Lord is against nature; that the law is the one that makes men free and slaves, not recognizing nature no difference between them; and that finally slavery is unjust, since it is the work of violence.

[...]

The usefulness of domesticated animals and slaves is little more or less of the same kind. Some and others help us with the help of their bodily forces to meet the needs of our existence. Nature itself wants it this way, since it makes the bodies of free men different from those of the slaves, giving to them the necessary vigour for the wicked works of society, and doing, on the contrary, to the first incapable of folding their erect body to dedicate themselves to hard work, and assigning them only to the functions of civil life, distributed to them between the occupations of war and those of peace [...] It is clear that one is naturally free and the other naturally slaves; and that for the latter it is slavery as useful as just.

On the other hand, it could hardly be denied that the opposing opinion contains some truth. The idea of slavery can be understood in two ways. One can be reduced to slavery and remain in it by the law, being this law a convention whereby the overcomer in the war is recognized as the property of the victor; the right that many legists consider illegal, and as such they often consider him political speakers, because it is horrible, according to them, that the strongest, only because he can use violence, make his victim a subject and a slave.

These two opposing opinions are equally supported by wise men.

Aristotle, PolicyBook I, chapter II.

To the truth it is preferable to be a slave of a man who of a passion, for we see how tirically he exercises his dominion over the heart of mortals the passion to dominate, for example. But in that order of peace that subjects one man to another, humility is as advantageous to the slave as noxious the pride of the ruler. However, by nature, as God first created man, no one is a slave to man or sin. However, criminal slavery is governed and ordered by the law that governs the preservation of natural order and prohibits disruption. If nothing was done against this law, nothing should be punished with that slavery. Therefore, the Apostle advises the servants to be subject to their masters and to serve them with heart and good degree. So, if their owners do not give them liberty, turn them, in a certain way, free their bondage, not serving with false fear, but with faithful love until iniquity passes and the principality and human power become annihilated and God is all in all things.

Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, chap. XV.

John Locke.

Patristics and medieval Christian thought viewed slavery as a consequence of sin, and considered it just that someone should be reduced to slavery as an alternative to a deserved death, such as that of a death row inmate. They also justified the enslavement of pagans taken prisoner in a just war.

The main argument of Thomas Aquinas about slavery derives from his consideration of the texts of Aristotle and Isidore of Seville, and he builds it from the following «objection»: Slavery among men is natural, since some are servants by nature, as Aristotle shows in the first book of Politics. In addition, servitude relations belong to the law of nations, as Isidoro says. Consequently, the law of nations is a natural right. From there, he concludes:

They saydum quod hunc hominem esse servum, absolute considering, magis quam alium, non habet rationem naturalem, sed solum secundam aliquam utilitatem consequentem, in quantum utile est huic quod regatur a sapientiori, et illi quod ab hoc iuvetur, ut diciturrum in 1. Et ideo servitus pertinens ad ius gentium est naturalis secundo mode, sed non prime mode.That this certain man is a servant [servum, also translatable by 'slave'] before that other, considered from an absolute point of view, cannot be said to be natural, but by virtue of the usefulness that is followed, that is, as it is useful to this man to be governed by a wiser one, and to him it is useful that he be helped by it, as it is said in the first book of the Policy. Therefore, servitude [servitus, also translated by ‘slavery’, which belongs to the right of peoples, is natural by virtue of the second way, in no case by virtue of the first.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II 57, 3 ad 2.

The Spanish neo-Thomists of the XVI and XVII, many of them Jesuits, continued with similar arguments, which justified the trafficking and possession of slaves (Antonio Diana, Tomás Sánchez de Ávila, Luis de Molina, Fernando Robello, Diego Avendaño). Luis de Molina's opinion was more nuanced, since he considered that most of those reduced to slavery had been unjustly, even admitting the traditional arguments in favor of slavery; however, he eases the conscience of the owners as long as they have no proof that their slaves were unjustly enslaved.

In late 17th century 17th century England, Locke, a liberal rationalist, reproduces the traditional justification of slavery as alternative to death that is in hand to give for a conqueror:

Without a doubt, if by his fault he has lost the right to his own life by any act worthy of death, the beneficiary of such loss may, when he has his power, delay the execution of death, and use him for his own service; but he does not cause him harm. For whenever such a person feels that the roughness of his slavery exceeds the value of his life, in his power he is, with resistance to the will of his owner, causing the death he desires. This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is not otherwise the fact that in a state of war continued between a legal conqueror and a captive, because they only establish one agreement among themselves, and reach an agreement of limited power, on the one hand, and obedience on the other, the state of war and slavery would cease for the entire duration of the covenant; for, as it was already said, no one can by agreement transcend another, what he himself does not have.

John Locke, Trial on the Civil Government, cap. IV From slaveryparagraphs 22 and 23.

Pro-slavery politics in the American South

John Calhoun.

James Hammond.

The pro-slavery ideology was especially important in the United States between 1789 and 1849, in the run-up to the Civil War; where those interested in defending the "Southern way of life" (Dixie) were forced to react to the anti-slavery movement. Previously there was in practice no need for advocacy for an activity that had gone on without notable opposition around the world until the mid-18th century (with the Enlightenment and with some religious movements —Quakers—). Only in the early 19th century did the abolitionist movement become a concern for slaveholding interests, as the UK and Other countries were limiting the international slave trade and establishing abolitionist legislation.

After the independence of the United States, slavery became a topic of debate. In the first decade of the century XIX, the states of the North were successively approving emancipatory legislation, while in the states of the South they were rejected. By 1810, 75% of Northern slaves had been freed, and virtually all of them in the next generation. The anti-slavery arguments, in addition to philosophical and moral, were economic and social, emphasizing their inefficiency (especially in areas where slavery prevailed).). Even in a southern and slave-owning state like Virginia, in the period from 1783 to 1812, which implied a partial abandonment of tobacco cultivation in favor of other less intensive ones, slaves were freed on a scale that was never seen again. witness until 1865. The economic reasons for this disappeared in the middle decades of the century, when international demand for sugar and cotton grew, and the Louisiana Purchase opened up vast new territories ideal for the plantation economy. The increase in the number of slaves and the increasing uniqueness of their situation on the international scene generated more and more criticism of slavery in the South, which forced a response s pro-slavery more and more articulate.

Speeches such as James Henry Hammond's famous Mudsill Speech in 1858, and John C. Calhoun's in the United States Senate in 1837, articulated political arguments. pro-slavery of the phase that can be described as the maturity of the movement (from the late 1830s to the early 1860s). These theorists embodied the views and class sensibilities of a substantial part of southern society. They started from the fact that the basis of most historical societies was the existence of a class of landless, which they presented as inherently transitory and easily manipulated, which made it a destabilizing force in the economy, society, the government and the peaceful and harmonious development of the laws: the greatest threat to democracy. Human inequality was seen as a self-evident constant, expressed in Hammond's (a wealthy southern landowner) mudsill theory: the mudsill ("mud" 34;), as a foundation, supports the building. Non-whites, whose natural disposition for inferior jobs was taken for granted (a present but not a central issue, since the racist component is only part of this fundamentally socio-political argument), should not be allowed to participate in democratic society, but only whites, elevated to the status of "citizens," who could thus devote themselves to higher tasks, which advance civilization. Any effort to equalize races or classes would therefore go against civilization itself and the common good of society as a whole, since social inequality, and specifically slavery, are understood as necessary for the common good of all. everyone: both slaves and owners. These arguments were also present in the rhetoric of Democratic Party politicians such as Calhoun.

The Spanish “slave party”

The interests of slave traders (an activity that soon became outlawed, but which were maintained clandestinely) and slave owners in the Spanish West Indies were defended throughout the century XIX with great efficiency by what has been historiographically called the slave party, which instead of acting as a political party did like a pressure group. Among them were notable personalities such as Antonio López y López (ennobled with the title of Marquis of Comillas), Francisco Romero Robledo or the Cánovas del Castillo brothers (José Cánovas del Castillo and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo —the conservative leader—), many of they "Indians" (that is, returned to the Peninsula after getting rich in America).

Slaves for hire or wages

The rental of slaves was an institution that had considerable development both in antiquity and in the modern and colonial world, implying a transitional system from one mode of production to another, being an intermediate form between absolute slavery and other forms of feudal or capitalist labor.

If in the ancient world its application was assigned to the desire for profit and the need to increase the productivity of slave labor due to the consequent decline in general production, in the modern world it would not have been very different, its application having to be expanded with the decline of slavery itself, especially when a slave-owning power like England became a champion of the liberation of slavery, considering it onerous and unproductive in the face of the growing wage relations emerging from the industrial revolution.

For the modern world, after the conquest of America, the uses and customs differentiated the treatment of black slaves in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies from the English colonies, being in the former more humane and benign than in the latter, due to the existing legislation in the metropolis, to different conceptions about slavery, and even, to the different types of production in which the slave was used.

In the Iberian Peninsula, blacks found a legal and moral framework regarding slavery, due to the experience provided by the Catholic Christian reconquest against Islam. The long tradition derived from Justinian's Code would find a finished elaboration and continuation in the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X el Sabio.

As such legislation was transferred to America, it governed all matters pertaining to black slavery. Due to the important Catholic Christian influence on the equality of all men before God, the laws favored manumission, encouraging the master to free his slaves and the latter to try to free themselves through the legal means at his disposal.

The slaves were often encouraged to look for work elsewhere, in order to pass to their masters a fixed part of wages and to keep the rest for themselves. Those who were mainly benefited from this practice were the right artisans, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, reavers, tailors and musicians.[...] the slave received a salary for himself, after having paid the master the part that corresponded to him. Certain people from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, otherwise poor, obtained a means of subsistence for possessing one or more of those slaves, men or women, who were allowed to hire.

In Buenos Aires and other cities of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, slavery was not cruel, especially for those blacks who were dedicated to domestic service. They received humanitarian treatment and had little work, which would mean that many of them did not seek to be released, preferring to remain comfortably at home with their masters. In the cities they carried out most of the arts, professions and trades, being the houses of the Spaniards and Creoles full of them, because owning slaves granted social status and prestige to their masters.

A chronicler from the early XIX century typified its occurrence in these lands:

The desire to stand up, and without working, a small capital, has suggested the idea of employing it with preference to buy slaves, and to dedicate them to the trades, so that with their work they will recover more than the interest of the fund invested in this speculation; by such means they have filled all the public shops with mercenary people, and have therefore retracted the righteous desires of the poor citizens to apply.

Eduardo Saguier, established that in the Río de la Plata it was common in the cities, both in artisan production and in domestic service, a stipendary slavery, in which the masters forced their slaves to contribute with a tribute called wages, consisting of an individual tax paid in currency. Such tribute forced the slave to rent his labor force outside the master's domain, or also, to produce merchandise to sell in the colonial market, which was enriched with a greater supply of labor. The wage slave had different rights compared to other types of slaves.

In Córdoba, Argentina, although there are few documented cases found, they seem to demonstrate its existence and practical concretion, although not its extension in society. It also seems relevant that in many cases the rented slaves are not clearly noted, as if their institution were something prone to be hidden, or at least minimized in a traditionally hierarchical and stratified society like Cordoba.

The annotations in the convents denote that after the sale of slaves, wages were the second income they had, although on many occasions there is no proper clarification of the type of work performed or who performed it. In addition, the wage figures recorded there would be adulterated, or would merely be indicative of the existence of wage slaves, as they represent much lower amounts than likely.

Abolitionism

Background

CItemid=105 Slavery and Christianity slave contract Lima, Peru, June 13, 1794.

From the 18th century, slavery abolitionist movements began to be important. There are two fundamental reasons for this: the emergence of a new philosophical and political order from the ideas of the Enlightenment, which culminated in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 in the French Revolution, and the emergence of a new economic order from the Industrial Revolution that began in England, which made the slave system less convenient than the paid work system. In fact there is a direct correlation between industrialization and abolitionism.

In revolutionary France, on February 4, 1794, under the Jacobins, the Convention abolished slavery, although this provision would be revoked years later by Napoleon.

The abolitionist movement in the United Kingdom began to be developed by Quakers and especially by the performance of Thomas Clarkson who traveled 35,000 miles on horseback in seven years to publicize the horrors of slavery. The fact that in 1831 the most important revolt in British territory took place in Jamaica, led by 20,000 freed slaves who burned more than a hundred plantations, convinced the British government of the impossibility of maintaining the regime.

In America, as part of the independence-oriented indigenous uprising of the Inca leader Túpac Amaru II (which encompassed the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, and had an impact on other regions), the abolition of slavery was proclaimed for the first time on the continent on November 16, 1780, when the Bando de Libertad was issued in Tungasuca (Cusco). ^{[citation required]} The military suppression of the process by the Spanish viceregal governments aborted this possibility.

In the new American nations, abolition, often preceded by freedom of the womb, occurred during the independence process, in some cases and in others during the first years of independence. The first country to abolish slavery was Haiti in 1803.^{[citation required]} In Mexico it was Miguel Hidalgo, on December 6, 1810, who abolished slavery by decree —however, the official decree was published on September 15, 1829. Chile followed in October 1811, on the side of the government of José Miguel Carrera and officially and definitively endorsed in the Constitution of 1823, and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1813 and definitively in 1853. Among the last Countries to abolish slavery include Cuba, under Spanish rule, in 1888, and Brazil in 1888. Cuban revolutions against Spanish rule at the turn of the century XIX were largely based on the slow process of abolishing slavery carried out by the Spanish authorities.

The Convention on Slavery, promoted by the League of Nations and signed on September 25, 1926, comes into force on March 9, 1927. It officially ends slavery and creates an international mechanism to persecute those who they practice. The United Nations, as heir to the League of Nations, assumes the commitments of the Convention.

Europe

Spain

The Siete Partidas, a long-standing legal code of Alfonso X the Wise, affirm (IV, 23, 8) that slavery is “the vilest thing in this world” after sin; In 1814 Spain signed bilateral treaties with England (which tried to influence international meetings, in this regard), which prohibited the slave trade.

The legal abolition of slavery in mainland Spain came in 1837 and excluded overseas territories, given the pressure exerted by the oligarchy of Cuba and Puerto Rico, which threatened to annex the United States. In the Iberian Peninsula, slavery had ended, in fact, with the liberation —by the ambassador of the Sultan of Morocco— of the Muslim slaves of Barcelona, Seville and Cádiz, through their purchase in 1766.

As far as the colonies in a phase from the early 19th century to the 1860s, they only advocated the abolition British pressure and some isolated personalities who were not successful.

English pressure achieved the promulgation of the aforementioned law of 1837 for the abolition of slavery in metropolitan Spain and the disrespected laws of prohibition of the slave trade of 1817 and 1835 and its persecution of 1845 and 1867. After the Civil War, the United States joined the United Kingdom in its abolitionist pressure on Spain.

On April 2, 1865, the Sociedad Abolicionista Española was created on the initiative of Puerto Rican landowner Julio Vizcarrondo, who had moved to the peninsula after freeing his slaves. On December 10 of the same year, he founded his newspaper El Abolicionista, which had the support of politicians who forged the Revolution of 1868, "La Gloriosa" that dethroned Isabel II.

As a consequence of this, while Segismundo Moret was overseas minister, a law called “liberty of wombs” was promulgated in 1870, which granted freedom to the future children of slaves and irritated the slaveholders. In 1872 the government of Ruiz Zorrilla drafted a bill to abolish slavery in Puerto Rico.

A fierce opposition broke out against this project. To coordinate opposition action, Círculos Hispano Ultramarinos de exresidentes de las Antilles were created in several cities, such as Madrid, Santander, Cádiz or Barcelona, and the constitution of the "National League" was also promoted in several cities. » anti-abolitionist. They instigated plans by the nobility against King Amadeo of Savoy, conspiracies, press campaigns and street demonstrations, such as the one on December 11 in Madrid, which was replicated by the one organized in this city by the Spanish Abolitionist Society on January 10, 1873. Such tension is explained, since the liberation of the 31,000 slaves of African origin in Puerto Rico was seen as a feared preamble to the liberation of the almost 400,000 Cuban slaves.

Precisely, the opposition to this abolitionist bill was one of the most visible elements, in the conservative press, criticizing King Amadeo, reproaching him for not confronting a Parliament dominated by an alliance in a dubious constitutional way, in this issue, from monarchist-progressives (such as the head of government Ruiz Zorrilla himself) and from republicans (such as Castelar or Pi Margall). According to the Diario de Barcelona, on February 7, 1873, a military coup would have taken place if the king had legitimized it with his support. Instead, Amadeo ratified the government's order to dissolve the artillery weapon. He then abdicated on February 11.

The law that abolished slavery in Puerto Rico was finally approved on March 25, 1873, one month after the king's abdication and the proclamation of the First Spanish Republic had been voted. In 1877, the Cuban historian José Antonio Saco finished printing his monumental History of slavery from the most remote times to the present day (Paris, 1875-1877, 4 vols.). But Cuba had to wait seven years longer than Puerto Rico, since the definitive abolition did not come until February 17, 1880, already in the reign of Alfonso XII.

British Empire

In the British Empire, successive legislative measures (1807, 1827, 1833 and 1834) first prohibited trafficking and later declared slavery abolished. Most European countries, in many cases under British pressure, did the same between 1830 and 1860. However, these new "protectionist" human rights laws were only the facade of what began to be implemented much later, since that unofficially the major powers continued for a long time with human trafficking.

Let's not forget that European modernization at the hands of the industrial revolution was carried out thanks to all the "free" labor that slavery provided. Only about 30 ships and 1,000 people were used to suppress the slave trade between the years 1808 and 1870.

America

Argentina

The Assembly of the Year XIII of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata dictated the freedom of wombs on January 31, 1813, so that the children of a slave woman were born free:

I FEEL so disdainful, as outrageous to humanity, that in the same peoples, who with so much treason and effort walk towards their freedom, remain for longer in slavery the children who are born throughout the territory of the united provinces of the Rio de la Plata, are considered and had to be free, all those who in that territory had been born since the 31st of January of 1813 even in the future, day consecrated to the installation -

From May 1, 1853, when the Constitution of the Argentine Confederation entered into force, slavery was definitively abolished. In its article 15 it said:

Article 15: In the Argentine Confederation there are no slaves; the few who exist today are free from the swearing of this Constitution, and a special law will rule the compensations to which this declaration takes place. Any contract for the purchase and sale of persons is a crime to which those who celebrate it will be responsible, and the scribe or official who authorizes it.

When the State of Buenos Aires was incorporated in 1860, this final paragraph was added:

And the slaves who in any way enter are free only by the fact of treading on the territory of the Republic.

Brazil

The first abolitionist law in Brazil, the Free Womb Law, was promulgated on September 28, 1871 by the cabinet of the Viscount of Rio Branco. This law gave freedom to the children of slaves born after that date, although they continued under the guardianship of their owners until they reached 21 years of age.

In 1880, Joaquim Nabuco and José de Patrocínio created the Sociedade Brasileira Contra a Escravidāo, which will be the first step in the development of a strong abolitionist campaign to which lawyers, intellectuals, journalists and the Positivist Church of Brazil among others. It is worth noting the performance of the ex-slave and lawyer Luis Gama, one of the heroes of the abolitionist cause.

In 1885, due to the pressure exerted by public opinion and the European abolitionist position, the Saraiva-Cotegipe Law (known as the Sexagenarian Law) was promulgated, which gave freedom to slaves over 60 years of age. Finally, on May 13, 1888, the Imperial Government, through Princess Isabel, signed the so-called Golden Law, which abolished slavery in Brazil.

Canada

A small number of Africans were forcibly taken as slaves to New France, Acadia, and later British North America during the 17th century . Those in Canada came from the British colonies in what is now the United States, as no shipments of human goods went to Canada directly from Africa. The number of slaves in New France is believed to have been in the hundreds. They were house servants and farm workers. There were no large plantations in Canada, and therefore no large slave labor forces like those that existed in most of the European colonies in the American South, from Virginia to the West Indies and Brazil.

Slavery in Canada was legal until the declaration of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

Central America

On April 24, 1824, the United Provinces of Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) abolished slavery in their territory through the "Decrees on Freedom." When the Federation disintegrated years later, the abolition would be preserved in all these countries.

Chili

In Chile in 1780, the abolition of slavery was proposed in the failed conspiracy of the three Antonios. Convened on July 4, 1811, the first National Congress established the following October 15, on the initiative of Congressman Manuel de Salas, the “freedom of wombs” —which consisted of declaring free the children of slaves who were born from that moment on in the country; likewise, their wombs were declared “equally free” to avoid fraudulent actions, such as the sale of mothers abroad—; In addition, the side added that all slaves who stayed in the territory for more than six months or who were passing through were free.

In 1818, and as a result of the participation of battalions of black slaves among the victorious patriotic forces belonging to the Liberation Army of Generals José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins, they were promised total freedom.

In 1823, José Miguel Infante presented in Congress a bill that proposed the total abolition of slavery —at that time, Chile had approximately between 3,000 and 5,000 black and brown slaves. The new law, approved on the 24th of July of that year, it indicated that all those born from 1811 onwards, and their descendants, were free.

Finally, under the government of Supreme Director Ramón Freire, slavery was definitively abolished in December 1823 through the Constitution of that year, which included the ideas of Infante:

Article 8.°
In Chile there are no slaves: the one who asks for a natural day will be free. Whoever has this trade cannot dwell here more than a month, nor can it ever be naturalized.

In this way, Chile became the second country in the world, after Denmark (1792), and the first in Latin America to do so officially.

The current 1980 Constitution, in its 19th article, also pays tribute to Infante in its wording:

Article 19. The Constitution assures all persons:
[...] 2.o.- [...] In Chile there are no slaves, and the one who asks for their territory is free.

Columbia

In 1810, during the creation of the ephemeral State of Cartagena, the trade in black slaves was totally prohibited. In 1816, Simón Bolívar promoted the enlistment of slaves to the independence army with the promise of almost immediate freedom, but it was not until the Constituent Congress of 1821 that a serious political process began in search of the abolition of slavery. On the initiative of José Félix de Restrepo, the freedom of wombs was promoted, also forcing slaveholders to dress and feed their freed children. The Constitution of 1821 in articles 1 and 15 reads:

The children of the slaves born from the day of the publication of this law in the provincial capitals will be free, and as such their names will be inscribed in the civic records of the municipalities and in the parish books. All slaves and slave labors who had obtained their freedom by force of laws and decrees of the different republican governments were declared to be permanently and irrevocably free, and were subsequently reduced to slavery by the Spanish government. The respective judges shall declare freedom, with due credit.

In 1823, a complete ban on the slave trade was declared. Finally, after difficulties and violations of the initiative, on May 21, 1851, the freedom of the slaves was decreed as of January 1, 1852, committing the State to pay compensation to the owners through bonds.

Cuba

The fact that the island and a large part of the Spanish Antilles did not become independent until the end of the XIX century meant that On the one hand, the abolition was delayed and, on the other, that part of the initiative came from abolitionists in Spain. In 1868, the revolutionary Carlos Manuel de Céspedes proclaimed: "Free Cuba is incompatible with slave-owning Cuba."

In 1880, the Spanish Courts approved the “Patronatos” law, although it is called the Law for the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, which was signed by King Alfonso XII himself, but it leaves the problem pending. The Queen Regent María Cristina signed a Royal Order in 1886 that put an end to the Patronatos, ending slavery in Cuba.

Ecuador

The abolitionist thesis has been discussed in Andean America since the time of Bolívar. However, it was not well received, mainly because the Andean societies had not reached the era of industrial development. By basing their economy on agricultural exploitation, it was essential for them to maintain slavery. This was understood by Bolívar, who preferred to leave the emancipation of the slaves until after the great-Columbian unity had been affirmed. As this first stumbling block was never resolved, abolition remained a pending task for the generation of liberators.

In the Republic of Ecuador, the manumission of slaves was proclaimed on July 24, 1851 by José María Urbina, when he was Supreme Chief. When Urbina decreed the manumission of the slaves, he established a compensation system for the ex-masters, and for this purpose, a large part of the state budget for the years 1851 and 1852 was allocated for this purpose.

This measure would be ratified by the National Constituent Assembly on September 18, 1852. The Constituent Assembly strongly debated between immediate abolition and phased abolition (in installments). The representatives of the Costa region defended its immediate abolition, since its agricultural production system needed more workers, who would arrive once they were freed from their slavery in the Sierra region. This thesis prevailed and the slaves were freed immediately. Many freedmen from the Sierra migrated to the Coast. The reaction of the mountain landowners against the abolition of slavery was such that it ended up overthrowing Urbina's successor, Francisco Robles, and plunged the country into the biggest crisis in its history (1859) in which the country almost disappeared.

United States

John Brown

The liberal tradition of some states in the north of the United States offered fertile ground for abolitionists. The abolitionist measures began being local. The economic motivation was essential to be for or against the slave trade. Economic rivalries increased the opposition between the North and the South.

The humanist and religious Protestant movements, the influence of English theorists such as William Wilberforce or Robert Owen, and the new social theories derived from romantic literature, had a fundamental influence on the anti-slavery ideas of northerners.

Slavery in the United States was gradually reduced and the independentistas believed that it was going to disappear. A 1787 ordinance prohibited the spread of slavery to the northwest. In 1793, the cotton shelling machine appeared. In 1808, the trade was prohibited and new black slaves were prevented from entering. This led to much infighting because the southern planters were unwilling to risk the economy of that region. It was discussed whether the federal power should respect the traditions of the old states and whether it had the right to prohibit the entry of new slaves into their territories.

In the old littoral states, such as Virginia, Delaware or Maryland, the number of slaves increased. In the new territories, with the large industrial plantations of cotton or sugar cane, the conditions of the slaves were worse and worse.

By the early 19th century century, Virginia's typical patriarchal plantation was fading away. What proliferated the most were the small plantations exploited by poor whites. Slavery spread more and more in miserable conditions and contrary to the thoughts of the men of the North and the West. Allowing the entry of new states generated destabilization. In 1818 there were already 11 states that did not accept slavery, while 10 states did have slaves. The state of Missouri requested to be accepted as a State of the Union but it was a slave state and this brought a political imbalance. The northern states only accepted it after the non-slavery state of Maine also entered. Slavery was also outlawed in the northern part of Louisiana.

In 1831, a slave revolt had sparked massacre in Virginia. In 1831, extremists under William Lloyd Garrison demanded the immediate abolition of all forms of slavery throughout the Union. In 1848, contingents of European immigrants arrived with the revolutionary wave that ended the Europe of the Restoration and the dominance of absolutism on the European continent. These immigrants brought anti-slavery ideas.

Texas had no problem joining, but the cession of territories by the state of Mexico created difficulties, since if they accepted it, there would be a greater number of slave states than adversaries of slavery. This exacerbated internal disputes, especially in the case of the state of California, which cut in two the Mason-Dixon Line, which separated the abolitionist north from the slaveholding south. Finally California achieved entry as a State of the Union as a state without slaves, like New Mexico, which was to the south. With the Clay Agreement in 1850, slave-holding states were recognized the right to enter abolitionist states to search for runaway slaves who had hidden there. This generated many incidents and the states of the north protested when those of the south managed to get a vote that the new states, regardless of their geographical position, should decide at the time of their entry into the Union whether to accept or reject slavery. The differences in criteria generated real conflicts that, in turn, were stimulated with weapons and money.

The economic crisis of 1857 increased the opposition between the northern and southern states. The southerners wanted to sell their raw materials harvested by slaves but the northerners were interested in industrialization and not slave labor. The conflict between protectionists and free traders accentuated the disputes. In 1859, abolitionist John Brown raised slaves in Virginia after attacking the Harper's Ferry Armory, an Army munitions depot. Brown was quickly captured, tried, and sentenced to be hanged. After his execution, many northerners hailed him as a martyr.

Those from the south, led by Jefferson Davis, also took extremist positions and caused the rupture of the Democratic Party of the United States with which they allowed the election of the candidate of the Republican Party of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, who in his program of The government proposed, in addition to protectionism, among other things, the abolition of slavery. Slavery and opposition to it were some of the causes of the so-called Civil War. In the Civil War, the two opposing sides were the forces of the Northern states (the Union) against the newly formed Confederate States of America, made up of eleven southern states that proclaimed their independence. Finally the south fell defeated.

The abolition of slavery began during the war with measures that ordered it throughout the territory and in the federal district in 1862. Officially, the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, was the declaration made by the United States president Abraham Lincoln who announced the freedom of all slaves from the rebellious states. The proclamation does not name the slave-holding states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware, which never declared their secession, so it did not free those states' slaves. Tennessee had already returned to Union control, so it too was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were established for the 48 counties that were in the process of creating West Virginia, as well as 7 other counties and 2 cities. New Orleans was specifically exempted and 13 Louisiana districts, all of which were already largely under federal control at the time of the proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only slaves that were in territory outside the control of the Union, that is, those for whom it would not take immediate effect until the conquest of the rebel states progressed. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, Lincoln's proclamation freed thousands of slaves the same day it went into effect in most nine of the ten states where the order was effective (the exception being the state from Texas). In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln was re-elected and in 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution decreed the abolition of slavery throughout the Union.

Haiti

In Haiti, slavery was abolished in 1803, making it the first country to abolish slavery on the continent.^{[citation required]}

Mexico

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla considered the problem of slaves as something that had to be "remedied in the most urgent way" and by decree of December 6, 1810 in the city of Guadalajara (Jalisco) decreed the abolition of slavery:

1. That all slave owners shall give them liberty, within ten days, to the death penalty, which shall be applied to them by violation of this article.
2. Let the contribution of tributes to the castes that paid it cease and any exaction that the Indians are required.

However, this decree did not officially abolish slavery in the Mexican Republic. The official decree came on September 15, 1829, during the government of President José María de Bocanegra. In article 30 of the Constitutive Act, the following was declared:

1. Slavery in the Republic is abolished.
2. It is therefore free that until today were considered slaves [...].

Although slavery was formally prohibited in Mexico, on the eve of the revolution the journalistic essay México Bárbaro, written in 1908 by journalist John Kenneth Turner, documented the trafficking and sale of people indigenous peoples on a large scale in the interior of Mexico during the government of Porfirio Díaz in places like Yucatán and Valle Nacional. In addition, in 1835, the abolition of slavery was one of the main causes of the Texas Revolution.

Panama and Colombia

In Gran Colombia, slavery was abolished in 1851. During the presidency of José Hilario López, the New Granada Congress decreed the abolition of slavery by law on May 21, 1851 in article no. 1 that, From January 1, 1852, all slaves that existed in the territory of the Republic of New Granada, which included the current countries of Colombia and Panama, would be free.

Peru

Slavery was abolished by decree of President Ramón Castilla on December 3, 1854, in this proclamation that "restores, without any condition, the freedom of slaves and freed servants, solemnly fulfilling a duty of national justice", it buy slaves in the name of the State and freedom is given. This decree served for two to three thousand slaves to join the army of Castile that was fighting against José Rufino Echenique and was decisive in his triumph in the battle of La Palma, on January 5, 1855. It should be noted that in times of the Viceroyalty of Peru, slaves could buy their freedom and that of their children, becoming black horros or freedmen.

Uruguay

In Uruguay, the total and unrestricted abolition of slavery was enshrined during the government of President Manuel Oribe in 1842. ^{[citation required]}

Venezuelan

Promulgation of the Slave Freedom Act.

During the war of independence the Spanish and Republican armies offered freedom to slaves who joined their ranks, and the time of independence saw some of the most violent slave uprisings in the country's history. Simón Bolívar, decreed during the expedition of the Keys the abolition of slavery in Venezuela, but due to the failure of the expedition this measure was not reached. It was in 1821 during the Congress of Cúcuta that a serious political process began in search of the abolition of slavery, the freedom of wombs was promoted, also forcing slaveholders to dress and feed their freed children. In articles 1 and 15 it says:

The children of the slaves born from the day of the publication of this law in the provincial capitals will be free, and as such their names will be inscribed in the civic records of the municipalities and in the parish books.

All slaves and slave labors who had obtained their freedom by force of laws and decrees of the different republican governments were declared to be permanently and irrevocably free, and were subsequently reduced to slavery by the Spanish government. The respective judges shall declare freedom, with due credit.

In 1823, a total ban on the slave trade was declared. The slave population had been gradually reduced until arriving in the 1850s to be an insignificant sum of the labor force. During the presidency of José Gregorio Monagas, the final step to the abolition of slavery would be taken by the law of the Congress of the Republic of March 24, 1854, the Venezuelan government paid the owners a monetary quota for each slave, its first article establishes that slavery is abolished forever in Venezuela.

The current Constitution of 1999 establishes:

Article 54: "No person may be subjected to slavery or servitude".

Current situation

Despite the entry into force of the Slavery Convention and the 'officially prohibited' in almost all countries, slavery continues to exist on a large scale, both in its traditional forms and in the form of 'new slavery'. According to a study published in the year 2000, there could be about 27 million slaves worldwide. In the study published by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2012, it is estimated at about 20.9 million, that is, 3 of every 1,000 people in the world are victims of forced labor. One of the countries that maintains slavery and protects it is Mauritania, against whose government several voices were raised in 2005.

Likewise, in many parts of the world there are still areas where there are large numbers of people living in a regime of slavery similar to those of antiquity. Especially in areas where the administrations practically do not exist, do not easily reach or oppose and fight against it due to the corruption of the officials who must control it, as in the Amazon jungle for example.

According to the US State Department, there are currently between 90,000 and 300,000 enslaved people in Sudan. These slaves, today, are bought and sold in modern slave markets. In 1989, a Dinka woman or child cost about $90. Several months later, the price dropped to as low as $15 as the offer was much higher. They are forced to change their religion and convert to Islam, their names are changed to other Arabs and they are forced to speak a language they do not know. The humanitarian organization Christian Solidarity International has been running, since 1995, buying slaves to free them, paying $50 each.

Reflecting on the relationship between slavery and capitalism, liberal economist Lester Thurow argues that:

Democracy and capitalism come from very different beliefs about the proper distribution of power. The first is based on the equitable distribution of political power, "a man, a vote", while capitalism believes it is the duty of the economically fit to drive the unfit out of business and eliminate them. La "survival of the fittest" and the inequalities in purchasing power are the basis of capitalist efficiency. The first is personal profit and therefore companies become efficient to enrich themselves. To put it in its crudest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible with slavery, not democracy.

Slavery related to sexual exploitation occurs in many parts of the world.

Human trafficking

Trafficking in persons, smuggling or commerce in persons is the illegal trade in persons for the purposes of reproductive slavery, sexual exploitation, forced labor, organ trafficking, or any modern form of slavery.