In the most comprehensive comparative study of slavery, O. Patterson (1982) argues that there are three universal features. First, a slave master has virtually unlimited rights of violence or threat of violence over a slave; secondly, a slave experiences ‘natal alienation’ being genealogically isolated and denied all rights of birth; thirdly, a slave has no honour. Unlike other definitions of slavery Patterson shows that in many societies masters had little interest in what slaves produced. For example, in kin-based societies in Africa, slaves were acquired as a means of increasing the number of dependants, and hence the prestige, of the master with little resulting economic difference between the master and slave. So the experience of Ancient Greece and Rome and the antebellum Southern states of North America from the 17th to the 19th century, where enslavement was primarily for labour purposes, cannot be incorporated in a general definition of slavery.
Patterson further questions the usual definition of slaves as being the property of the masters. He argues that, viewed comparatively, the concept of property in connection with slavery is socially variable with the legal recognition of absolute property common in Europe but not universal, emerging only with Roman law. This concept of absolute property may have emerged from the institution of slavery rather than the other way round. Patterson points out that other categories of dependants may be defined as the property of others, so that this in itself may not distinguish slaves: rather the distinctive feature is that slaves are denied rights of property (except for the peculium whereby the master invested partial and temporary rights of possession (see USUFRUCT) in the slave, but with ownership rights still vested in the master). Thus, in defining slavery Patterson omits the concept of ownership and on the level of personal relations defines it as ‘the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonoured persons’.
Near-universal correlates of slavery have been the sexual abuse of female slaves by their masters, the high frequency of concubinage and sometimes marriage between master and slave, and the rarity of enslavement of members of the master's own ETHNIC GROUP (with Russia in the 17th- and 18th-centuries being one of the few examples of such a practice).
Since slavery has existed in many known societies from the very beginning of human history, there have been many variations in the practice and institutions. Some societies such as Ancient Greece and Rome (see ANCIENT SOCIETY), the US, Brazil and many parts of the Caribbean from the late 17th century to the mid-19th, may be termed slave-holding societies, in as much as the ruling classes derived most of their wealth by extracting ECONOMIC SURPLUS from slaves, even though, as in Ancient Greece and Rome, this may not have been the most prevalent form of labour (de Ste. Croix, 1981). Other variations are in the means of enslavement, of which capture in warfare and kidnapping have historically been the most important, accounting for the majority of slaves in the Atlantic slave trade between the 17th and 19th centuries. Other means have included penal enslavement, the main source of slaves in Imperial China, and birth, with many variations between societies in how slave status was inherited, e.g. Roman practice was for slave status to derive from the mother, but under the Near Eastern and Islamic rule the higher status of the parents was decisive, meaning that children of mixed (slave and free) parentage usually became free. The means of acquiring slaves has also varied, internal or external trade being among the most common (Patterson even argues that slavery may have been involved with the origins of trade) and dowry and bride payments.
A final main variation concerns manumission practices, the freeing of slaves. The best-known slavery system in the modern world, that of the southern USA, is unusual in that manumission rates were amongst the lowest known. In many systems, slaves often became free on the death of their master, through marriage or concubinage with the master, especially in Islamic societies, by adoption, or through political manumission, e.g. by the state in recognition of acts of bravery in warfare. On freedom, however, the slave often remained in a dependent relationship with the ex-master, although, again, the US South was exceptional in granting such low status to freed slaves.
No known slave masters have succeeded in totally controlling all slaves or in having them accept totally their dishonoured status (compare DIALECTIC OF CONTROL). Thus slave rebellion has been a constant feature throughout history, although the lack of any ready basis for unity among slaves means that the only documented successful overthrow of a slavery system by rebellion was in San Domingo in the French Caribbean 1791-1803 (see James, 1980). As with all systems of domination, the sole use of violence as a means of control is self-destructive, so that various other incentives have figured, primarily the possibility of freedom, but also the right to acquire possessions which may be used to buy freedom. The extent to which slave systems subordinate psychologically, by the creation of a 'slave mentality’ (e.g. ‘Uncle Tomism’), has been challenged recently (see Weinstein and Gatell, 1979; Genovese, 1971).
Debate also exists as to whether slave systems are inherently inefficient compared with non-slave systems (e.g. involve more costs of social control, social subsistence and labour reproduction, and involve less flexibility in use of capital). Associated with this is the question of whether their elimination has been brought about primarily by economic or political considerations. The suggestion is that slave systems only become established where other forms of labour are in short supply and/or where a ready source of slave labour exists.
the earliest and most overt form of exploitation, in which the slave, together with the instruments of production, is the property of his master, the slaveholder. In the most extreme forms of slavery, the slave had absolutely no rights. Devoid of any economic incentive to work, he labored only under direct physical compulsion. Sometimes the status of slaves was also emphasized by such visible symbols as a brand, collar, or special clothing. Appearing at the time of the dissolution of the primitive communal system, slavery was the basis of the slave-holding system. Slaves were members of foreign tribes taken prisoner in time of war or captured in military operations designed specifically for that purpose (raids, piracy), as well as members of the same tribe who had been enslaved for not paying their debts or for committing crimes. The number of slaves also grew through a natural increase in the existing slave population and through the slave trade.
The earliest form of slavery was patriarchal slavery, in which the slaves were considered members without rights of the family that owned them. They usually lived under the same roof as their master but performed heavier tasks than the other members of the family. The patriarchal form of slavery is closely related to the existence of a natural economy. This form of slavery existed to a certain extent among all nations during their transition to class societies. It predominated in the societies of the ancient East, as well as in the Greek states and Rome, until rapid economic development changed slavery in these states into the form that it assumed in antiquity. For Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., and for the late Roman Republic, patriarchal slavery was already a thing of the past. “Classical” slavery had become firmly established in conjunction with a market economy and the maximum expropriation of the slave as an individual—the loss of all his rights and his transformation into a “talking tool.”
Classical slavery flourished for a relatively short time since the very nature of slave labor caused its inevitable downfall and transformation: the slaves’ hatred of their work and the oppression could only lead to the economic inefficiency of slavery and necessarily required at least a basic modification of the forms of servile dependence. Historical factors, such as the reduction in the supply of slaves and the constant slave rebellions, reinforced the economic factors in impelling slaveholders to find new forms of exploitation. The necessity of providing the direct producers with an incentive to work and thereby increasing the efficiency of their exploitation was becoming quite apparent. Many slaves were then bound to the land and gradually merged with the coloni (colonatus system). This development, which had economic causes, resulted in the de facto disappearance of any differences between coloni and slaves.
Slavery played a considerable, but not a leading, role in the economy of the “barbarian” states that emerged on the territory of the Roman Empire in the early Middle Ages, particularly in the Ostrogoth state in Italy and the Visigoth state in Spain. In these states, many of the slaves worked the land and paid quitrent to a lord, thus gradually merging with the impoverished members of peasant communes to create a group of enserfed peasants. By the 13th century, slavery had almost completely disappeared from most of Western Europe, although an extensive slave trade still flourished down to the 16th century in such Mediterranean cities as Venice and Genoa, which imported slaves from Turkey and sold them in North Africa.
In Byzantium slavery disappeared at a much slower rate than in Western Europe. It was still economically significant in the tenth and 11th centuries, but by the late 11th and 12th centuries the merger of slaves with the dependent peasantry was practically completed in Byzantium as well. Slavery existed in the Germanic and Slavic tribes chiefly in its patriarchal form; among the Slavs, only the Dalmations traded in slaves. In ancient Rus’ slavery still existed between the ninth and 12th centuries within the framework of a developing feudal society. The slaves (kholopy) gradually joined the ranks of the dependent peasantry, most of them becoming household serfs. However, the situation of certain groups of serfs, particularly those working in mines, differed very little from that of slaves. Slavery continued to exist down to the sixth century in the ancient kingdoms of Transcaucasia and Middle Asia; vestiges of slavery could still be observed there during the Middle Ages.
In the largest Oriental states, notably China and India, slavery existed in its patriarchal form until the onset of capitalist relations, and sometimes it did not disappear even when the latter became established. The main source of slavery in this part of the world in the Middle Ages was indebtedness. In China, impoverished peasants frequently sold members of their own families into slavery, and throughout the entire medieval period criminals or members of their families became slaves of the state. Slavery was also relatively widespread in the Muslim countries of the Near East. Because Islam forbade the enslavement of Muslims, the main source of slavery in Muslim countries was prisoners captured in the course of wars against the “infidels” and the purchase of slaves in the markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the Muslim countries, slaves were used for heavy labor, such as mining (Zinji), in the armies of Muslim rulers (Ghulams, Mamelukes), and in households and personal service (including harems).
The spread of slavery throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas beginning in the 16th century is linked to the process known as the primitive accumulation of capital and to the colonial subjugation of the countries in these areas. Slavery was most extensive and assumed the greatest economic importance in the colonies on the American continent owing to the specific development of the colonies in the Americas: the lack of manpower and the presence of uninhabited land that could be used for large-scale plantation agriculture. The opposition of the Indians, their extermination, and the formal prohibitions on enslaving Indians imposed by the rulers of Spain and Portugal prompted Spanish, Portuguese, and, later, North American planters to import Negro slaves from Africa. The slave trade reached its peak between the 17th and 19th centuries, and the total number of Negroes imported to the Americas probably exceeded 10 million.
In the late 18th century Negro slaves constituted the majority of the population in areas dominated by large plantations in the South of the USA, the West Indies, Brazil, and Guyana. Negroes were brutally treated on the plantations, where their status was that of draft animals. Only the slaves serving in the households of the plantation owners found themselves in a slightly better position. Unions between slaveholders and Negro concubines gave rise to a large mulatto population in several countries. The industrial revolution, which stimulated a sharp increase in the demand for cotton and other industrial crops, gave fresh impetus to the development of plantation slavery in the USA at the end of the 18th and first decade of the 19th century.
As capitalism developed, it became increasingly evident that slave labor had a low productivity and hampered the further evolution of productive forces. Under those circumstances the abolition of slavery began in response to the increasing opposition of slaves and to the growth of a large-scale antislavery social movement, exemplified by abolitionism in the USA. The French Revolution proclaimed the abolition of slavery, but this goal was achieved in reality in the French colonies only in the 1840’s. Slavery was legally abolished in Great Britain in 1807, but in fact continued to exist in the British colonies until 1833. Portugal proclaimed the abolition of slavery in the 1850’s, and in the 1860’s slavery was abolished in most states on the American continent. The abolition of slavery in the USA occurred as a result of the Civil War (1861–65) between the North and the slaveholding South. Forms of forced labor that differed little from slavery continued to exist after the latter had officially been abolished. They included peonage in Latin America and the system of contract laborers in Oceania. The institution of slavery persisted for a long time in a number of colonies and dependencies. It was particularly widespread in Portugal’s African colonies as part of the plantation economy and as a household institution. As late as the 1950’s slavery existed among the Arabs of central and southern Arabia and in such African countries as Ethiopia and Nigeria.
The struggle to eradicate slavery through international law began in the 19th century, but most international documents condemning slavery remained purely formal. What may be regarded as the first international antislavery convention was signed in Geneva in 1926 under the auspices of the League of Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948, prohibited slavery and slave trade in all its forms (art. 4). A conference of 59 nations that convened in Geneva in 1956 for the purpose of combating slavery adopted a supplementary convention on the eradication of slavery, the slave trade, and institutions and customs similar to slavery, such as forced labor.
V. I. KOZLOV