Questions tagged [slavery]
The system in which some people (slaves) are a property of other people (masters) and are forced by them to perform work.
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Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
Was there any punishment for killing slaves, and what punishment was given for it, and was it enforced?
21
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1answer
6k views
Did galley captains put corks in the mouths of slave rowers to keep them quiet?
I’m reading Sword and Scimitar by Simon Scarrow and there’s this bit about rowers in galleys of the Knights of St. John (Malta). In the story, it is important the Knights' galley keeps silence so that ...
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2answers
374 views
Why didn't slaves just leave? [closed]
How did ancient cultures keep their slaves from just walking away? Record-keeping in these societies was quite poor. Even if paperwork did exist stating that someone was a slave, the next town over ...
4
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2answers
284 views
Why was agriculture more conducive to slavery in U.S. South than the North?
The most common explanation I hear for why there was more slavery in the South than the North in is that farming was more profitable in the South due to climate, soil quality etc. and the North had ...
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1answer
213 views
What was the historical prevalance of inherited chattel slavery?
Slavery was widespread throughout the ancient world. However, some of the most common examples seem to differ qualitatively from slavery as it's commonly conceived today. For instance, Greek slavery ...
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3answers
283 views
Economic status of whites in the US South at the height of slavery?
In Tony Horwitz' book Midnight Rising about John Brown's raid, on page 23 discusses Calhoun's stance on slavery: he asserted that slavery freed Whites from drudgery and class conflict.
I wonder if at ...
4
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2answers
262 views
Are there any histories of indigenous Americans who were brought to Europe?
I have read brief accounts of indigenous Americans who were brought to Europe in the wake of Columbus's arrival, including a family of Inuit who were brought to meet Elizabeth I but died shortly after ...
3
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2answers
315 views
What was the South actually afraid Lincoln or Congress would do that precipitated the Civil War?
While the US Civil War was fought over slavery, it doesn't appear that an interpretation of law from the 19th century supports the notion that Congress or the President could have eliminated slavery ...
10
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3answers
753 views
How accurate/realistic is the conception of 'the kindly slave owner'?
I'm reading an historical fiction novel New York by Edward Rutherfurd at the moment.
One of the early chapters, set in New Amsterdam (New York City) in the mid 17th century, is told from the ...
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0answers
69 views
Which countries/empires other than European/US saw an active movement to abolish slavery?
Note: There is a similar question about ancient times, prior to 500 AD. So I'll fix the timeline for this question from 500 AD to the time of abolition of slavery in USA.
I've learned (despite best ...
8
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2answers
345 views
Were the first African Americans in Jamestown slaves or indentured servants?
Recently, Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia referred to the first African Americans to arrive in Jamestown as indentured servants. This quickly created a twitter storm of corrections, first by ...
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1answer
330 views
Why there are more people of red hair among Arabs than Mongols when both populations are naturally born with dark hair?
Question Title is edited by J Asia, see OP's comments in my answer, below. Have left rest of OP's question as is (the body of question). This question, in my limited understanding of genetics, is ...
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3answers
628 views
Were slave plantations economically superior or inferior to plantations with paid labor?
According to certain Marxist authors (Mostly Georgi Plekhanov (and some others), but I'm afraid I cannot quote because the text is not in electronic form and not in English.), slavery in US and latter ...
3
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1answer
311 views
Were the 35,000 helots freed after Plataea and were they then Spartan citizens?
What happened to the 35,000 helots that fought at Plataea?
Were they made Spartan citizens?
I just felt this might have been disruptive to Spartan society.
I've checked Wikipedia, Google.. ...
24
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1answer
2k views
Are there records of US slaves who practiced Islam following their import from Africa?
Islam has historically been prevalent in many regions of Africa, such as in the Songhai Empire, which was based around Sharia law. It seems plausible to me that some Africans were practitioners of ...
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2answers
2k views
What % of slave owners in the antebellum south committed rape?
In David Blight’s biography of Frederick Douglas, he explains the young Frederick witnesses several violent beatings and or rapes by the age of 7 or 8.
It’s also unclear weather or not the head of ...
2
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1answer
199 views
Are there historic examples of slave emancipation leading to mass starvation?
I was reading this article about "1 Million New Afrikan / Blacks Died From Starvation & Disease When Slavery Ended & Reconstruction Period ( Largest Biological Crisis of 19th Century)" and I ...
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2answers
332 views
Earliest Traces of Slavery
The earliest example I know is from Sumer. That would be the earliest example of institutionalized slavery, because that's (one of) the earliest forms of urbanized civilization. However, what's the ...
4
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1answer
261 views
What was the 'indemnity' paid out by Haiti actually for?
The Haitian Revolution was a successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection between 1791 and 1804 and led by Toussaint L'Ouvrture.
Haiti paid reparations to French slave-holders set in 1825 ...
2
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1answer
290 views
Did freed slaves keep a portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the wall?
I read somewhere that post-civil war, many freed slaves kept a portrait/drawing of Abraham Lincoln in their house, and that this "tradition" went on for some time. Is this true, and can anyone share a ...
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4answers
2k views
Where can I find a personal account of freedom of a slave in America after 1863
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared free all slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865 the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the whole country. I am familiar with the context.
What I am ...
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2answers
193 views
What developments in Jefferson's life caused him to withdraw from the topic of slavery in political discourse?
Where Jefferson once saw slavery as the central flaw in Virginia, a sentiment he forcibly expressed in his Notes on the State of Virginia, he later “began to adjust his thinking to concentrate instead ...
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3answers
863 views
What prompted Lincoln to change his mind about ending slavery?
Prior to the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln asserted that he would not end slavery in the South and that he was not in favor of racial equality. Yet, by 1863 he signed the “Emancipation Proclamation” ...
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1answer
621 views
What is the position of modern scholarship as regarding the claims of professor Samuel Rafinesque in his book about the indigenous Americans [closed]
Here is an excerpt of a 19th century book by Professor Rafinesque:
PROFESSOR CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE (THE PRIMITIVE BLACK NATIONS OF
AMERICA 1832)
"The Native American Negroes or black ...
2
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1answer
201 views
How did the Russian-American Company hire serfs?
In the Russian Empire until 1861 the estate of serfdom kept most of the country's population the property of others. This cheap labor was attractive to capitalist enterprises like the Russian-American ...
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5answers
7k views
What did the Emancipation Proclamation exactly do?
I'm a bit confused about what Lincoln's proclamation did exactly. It's thought by some the Emancipation Proclamation gave all slaves the status of free. However from reading the introduction of the ...
14
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1answer
3k views
Were myopic slaves more valuable in ancient Greece?
When reading on nearsightedness I came across the following passage:
We only have to remember how valuable a myopic slave was in ancient Greece, as a rare person who preserved his ability to read ...
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0answers
122 views
What was John Hippisley's worldview when he advocated for the slave trade?
I'm reading about William Wilberforce's opposition to the slave trade. One of the quotes is from John Hippisley, who was a proponent of the slave trade. In one of his essays he says "The impossibility ...
8
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1answer
376 views
What obligations did a freed slave have to his/her former master in Anglo-Saxon England?
As in Ancient Rome, slaves in Anglo-Saxon England could gain their freedom:
The manumission (freeing) of slaves was solemnized by ceremony, the
presence of witnesses, and legal documentation...
...
6
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1answer
262 views
Did Western “New Imperialism” actually free slaves in Muslim lands?
Slavery is fair game in mainstream/traditional Islam. I have heard various commentaries that abolishing of slavery in various Muslim-dominated countries actually coincided with the 2nd wave of Western ...
5
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0answers
313 views
French Revolutionary figure who thought apes could oversee black slaves?
I'm operating off of fuzzy memory for this question but I know I have encountered this bizarre (and offensive: fair warning) historical figure who I am inquiring about here before in my previous ...
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1answer
1k views
What (primary) sources are there on the life of female slaves in Classical Greece, more specifically Athens?
Since there was often a difference in what jobs male and female slaves were respectively made to work in (and there even being one exclusive to women, being a wet nurse), I was wondering whether, for ...
10
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1answer
344 views
What evidence is there for inventions by slaves or former slaves in Ancient Rome?
The article Slavery in the Roman Empire claims that
Slaves are...reported to have made several important inventions.
A number of slaves and freedmen did achieve some measure of fame and fortune: ...
51
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1answer
8k views
In ancient Rome, could free-born Romans become slaves?
In the article Roman Slavery, Kenneth Tuite of the Classics Department at the University of Maryland states quite categorically that Romans could not be slaves:
Although a class system existed, ...
7
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1answer
410 views
Was slavery abolished in the Kingdom of Hungary, and if so, when?
I can find only very little information on the abolition of slavery in the Kingdom of Hungary. The Wikipedia Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom only mentions that in 1958 Hungary ratified ...
5
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1answer
655 views
Why did Confederate General Forrest leave the KKK?
I've watched a video with a simplified version of General Nathan Bedford Forrest's history. It was in the context of contemporary pressure to remove statues of Confederate leaders.
At the request of ...
15
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1answer
1k views
Preventing slaves from running off in Classical Greece
I was once again reading the Old Oligach’s rant on slaves and how good they supposedly had it.
if it were customary for a slave (or metic or freedman) to be struck by one who is free, you would ...
6
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2answers
3k views
Which European country sent the most slaves to the Americas?
I'm asking for a history project; I have searched online, but have been unable to find an answer.
6
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2answers
574 views
Why was it necessary to maintain a balance of power between the Slave and Free states?
As said in the title, why was there a need to maintain the balance of power between the Slave states and Free States by keeping them equal in number, before the American Civil War?
Both the Clay ...
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2answers
187 views
How could a black woman be transported directly from Africa to Britain in 1760s?
I am a screenwriter. Currently started developing a screenplay for a feature film with the story happening in Western Africa and Britain in 1770 (+/-).
I know that in Atlantic slave trade scheme ...
20
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2answers
4k views
What would a Roman slave be legally required to do if his master vanished?
Say that I were a Roman slave around the time of the Empire, perhaps as someone who maintains his villa. I serve my master faithfully and then one day, without warning, he doesn't come home. The day ...
4
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1answer
394 views
Why do some slave narratives from the WPA seem so positive?
Why do some slave narratives from the WPA seem so positive?
For example:
Freedom is all right, but de niggers was better off befo’ surrender, kaze den dey was looked after an’ dey didn’ get in no ...
14
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1answer
653 views
Did ancient Rome have slave hunters?
The Roman economy was heavily reliant on slaves, which means they had a LOT of them, which would lead one to conclude that at least some of them would run away. So who hunted escaped slaves? Did Rome ...
2
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1answer
425 views
How did a 12 year old Sardinian slave girl factor into America's First Barbary War?
Late 1798 a pirate raid near Sardinia, captured roughly 1000 people, mostly women and children. What role did one of these newly acquired slaves a 12 year old girl, play in America's first Foreign ...
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2answers
772 views
In historical slave societies, what jobs were left over for poor free laborers?
And what laws or institutions sprang up to deal with them?
Slaves have the effect of depressing wages for poor workers. If this has been a universal, I'm curious whether slave-owning cultures have ...
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2answers
584 views
Why did American Abolitionists believe slavery to be immoral? [closed]
Someone already asked when and how people began to consider slavery immoral on stack exchange, but no one has asked why. Why did American abolitionists believe slavery was immoral before 1860? I know ...
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3answers
243 views
Are there historical instances of property rights not being respected/acknowledged between U.S. states, territories, and the federal government?
Some of the controversies leading up to the American Civil War were whether the U.S. States had to recognize the slave property of other States (e.g., maintaining them in a state of slavery, or ...
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2answers
639 views
Why was the North willing to go to war over Slavery?
[edited]
According to Washington Post, "There is a consensus among historians that the root cause of the Civil War was slavery". Assuming that slavery was indeed the root cause, I can understand why ...
7
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2answers
597 views
Was there a time when it was easier for slaves than citizens to access state-sponsored medical facilities in Ancient Rome?
The Wikipedia article Medicine in Ancient Rome has this to say on the first hospitals in Rome:
The Roman medical system saw the establishment of the first hospitals;
these were reserved for ...
7
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1answer
2k views
What were the ethnic backgrounds of the slaves in Ancient Greece?
When studying Ancient Greek History, one can often come across the historical fact that slavery did exist in the Greek world 2000 plus years ago. There were the Helots in Ancient Sparta and of course ...
