95
votes
Accepted
Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
Yes, murder of a slave was illegal in the antebellum South, and it was a capital offence.
An example is the case of John Hoover of North Carolina. He was arrested on 28 March 1839 for the murder of ...
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80
votes
Accepted
Is it true that there are more slaves in the world now than ever at one point in history?
Let's start with some basic facts.
There are more people in the world today than ever before in human history.
Because of 1) there are more poor people in the world than for most of human history, ...
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79
votes
Is it true that slavery was endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa previous to the establishment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
Africa
Slavery is an ancient universal institution, which appeared independently in all cultures and societies which reached a certain level of productivity per capita.
Early hunter-gatherers did not ...
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64
votes
Did slaves have slaves?
This happened in Roman Times judging by two notes in Slaves doing business: the role of Roman law in the economy of a Roman household by Richard Gamauf (2009):
A Roman slave could hold property which,...
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64
votes
Accepted
Did slaves have slaves?
Short Answer
Yes. There are examples of slaves owning slaves from different historical periods and in different regions of the world, including:
Ancient Near East
Early Medieval Sunni Islam
Late ...
- 108k
61
votes
Why were slave owners even offered compensation via the 1837 Act if they'd lost the power in parliament to stop abolition in 1833?
To safeguard legal system and rule of law
While it may sound strange to us, slavery was considered as something usual and almost natural for a long time during human history. This is especially true ...
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58
votes
Accepted
In ancient Rome, could free-born Romans become slaves?
That is for sure an overgeneralisation, but so is Wikipedia's. There are some elements of truth in both: Ancient Rome held that freedom could not be sold, and in principle a freeborn person could not ...
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58
votes
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Why were slave owners even offered compensation via the 1837 Act if they'd lost the power in parliament to stop abolition in 1833?
Lord Wynford, though speaking in opposition, illustrated the reasons in the House of Lords, on Tuesday, June 25th 1833, why a payment was being considered and what arguments such a payment should be ...
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48
votes
Accepted
Has chattel slavery ever been used as a criminal punishment in the USA since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment?
Yes, but for fixed periods of (for example) six months or 1 or 2 years rather than for life. This section of the 13th Amendment, ratified on the 6th of December, 1865, was controversial from the ...
- 108k
48
votes
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Was it possible for a young Japanese woman to end up enslaved in Great Britain in the mid-1600s?
No.
At least, not to any practical intent or purpose.
Japanese in Britain
Significant numbers of Japanese were actually sold into slavery overseas during the 16th century, mostly through Portuguese ...
- 97.6k
46
votes
What did the Emancipation Proclamation exactly do?
Since it only applied to areas that didn't recognize Federal authority, the snarky take on the Emancipation Proclamation has always been that it didn't itself free a single slave. Like a lot of famous ...
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45
votes
Accepted
Are there records of US slaves who practiced Islam following their import from Africa?
There is some very good evidence for captured Muslims who were sold as slaves, but continued to practice their faith.
Perhaps the best known individuals were Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, who was enslaved ...
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40
votes
Was Roosevelt the "biggest slave trader in recorded history"?
This relies in willfully mistaking figurative language for non-figurative speech.
Roosevelt didn't "trade" those people in the sense that a slave trader traded his captives. He made a political pact ...
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38
votes
Accepted
How is serfdom related to slavery?
It seems like you are trying to treat "slavery" and "serfdom" as trans-historical categories, and that is where the confusion lies. To make meaningful definitions and comparisons, ...
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38
votes
Did enslaved persons take their owner's surnames?
TL;DR is that it looks like that's true.
There's an open question about this issue specifically relating to New York on our Genealogy sister site. However, the only answer there (from a moderator, ...
- 119k
35
votes
Accepted
Did galley captains put corks in the mouths of slave rowers to keep them quiet?
Yes, this does seem to have happened on some galleys but evidence for the widespread use of this practice is lacking. Concerning conditions in general on galleys (rations, clothing, treatment etc.), ...
- 108k
35
votes
Accepted
Did Catherine the Great really call for the abolition of serfdom?
This answer is based on the assumption that the OP is referring to the HBO miniseries Catherine the Great and, more specifically, the following segment of the script:
[Catherine:] But in these more ...
- 108k
35
votes
Accepted
How did slavery become permissible in the French West Indies when it was forbidden in France?
Louis X's decree in 1315 did not abolish slavery. That's a historical myth.
First, the ordonnance did not say anything about slaves, and explicitly mentioned that it was applicable to persons "...
- 97.6k
33
votes
Why was sugar cultivation more profitable in the Caribbean/Brazil than West Africa?
In short, Brazil and Caribbean Isles were easy to colonize and suited to the culture of the sugar cane.
This related question will provide most of the explanation why Africa was harder to colonize, ...
- 1,191
29
votes
Did anyone in ancient times want to abolish slavery?
Alcidamas of Asia Minor. He said that God had made no man a slave in the 4th century BC. He was talking about the Spartan enslavement of the Messenians, but it was a universal statement.
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28
votes
Accepted
Was the Somerset Decision in 1772 in England the real underlying cause of the American Revolutionary war?
He's not 100% wrong that the desire of slaveholders in the States to protect their "property" and the institution itself has been drastically underplayed by Americans in talking about their own ...
- 119k
28
votes
Accepted
What prevented slaves in Classical Greece from running off?
INTRO
First, it is important to note that Greek (and other) slaves performed many kinds of jobs and this fact alone could influence the likelihood of a slave running away:
The status of slaves, and ...
- 108k
26
votes
What were the ethnic backgrounds of the slaves in Ancient Greece?
SHORT ANSWER
For most of the classical period, non-Greek slaves came primarily from Thrace and Anatolia. There is also evidence of slaves from Syria, Illyria, Macedon and Ethiopia. Slaves of Greek ...
- 108k
26
votes
Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
As sempaiscuba has said, it was illegal to kill a slave in the slave-holding states of the United States. Premeditated murder of a slave has always been illegal in the slave-holding states.
However, ...
- 1,136
25
votes
Accepted
How accurate/realistic is the conception of 'the kindly slave owner'?
A few preliminary points:
'New York' was of course 'New Amsterdam' for the larger part of the mid 17th century (until 1664). This is important, as the status and nature of slavery (and of free blacks)...
- 108k
24
votes
Accepted
Did anyone in ancient times want to abolish slavery?
I don't see Gregory of Nyssa mentioned here. Fourth century Christian bishop, has a couple homilies in which he upbraids slave owners for the presumption that they could own human beings.
Excerpt (...
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24
votes
How is serfdom related to slavery?
Slavery and serfdom are legal terms; every legal framework (roughly every country) will have different definitions. So as you point out Roman slavery is different from French slavery, and both are ...
MCW♦
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23
votes
Accepted
Was Plato sold into slavery?
One source of the story of Plato being sold into slavery is Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius. An English translation is available online on Project Perseus. You can find ...
- 14.9k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible