Slave Research Articles

Child slave labour in Ghana and attempts to help. Autoethnographic perspective

The aim of the article is to draw attention to the process of helping and related responsibility in a foreign culture, in African conditions. The author presents reflections referring to her two-year stay in Ghana and direct work with children exploited for slave labour, their parents and social workers. The complex process of freeing children from slave labour is described from the organisational and legal perspective. The author discovers the complicated social and mental mechanics leading to child slave labour. With reference to her own experience, the author reveals the process of returning children to normal life and the process of reintegration while describing emerging threats. The author warns against irresponsible helping, at the same time suggesting the conditions that should be met to help wisely.

Housing the King’s Enslaved Workers in the Spanish Caribbean

The construction of military edifices in Spanish Caribbean was overseen by engineers, as previous studies have largely shown, but forced labor played a key role in the processes, an understudied aspect. Hundreds of enslaved workers in San Juan de Puerto Rico or San Juan de Ulúa (Veracruz, Mexico) and thousands in Havana (Cuba) helped create the built environment of the Spanish empire in the eighteenth century yet both their significant physical presences and housing situations have not been discussed at large. Furthermore, general maintenance of these structures was one of the duties of military engineers serving in Spanish Caribbean and, thus, archival material should be rich in describing this aspect, yet very few plans or reports offer any information concerning enslaved workers’ habitations, apart from Havana’s galeras and some sections of San Juan de Ulúa, both unpublished until now. Recognizing that Spanish authorities paid little attention to the lodgings of their enslaved workers, this paper considers the forms of structures created by enslaved peoples for their lodgings. Through examples discussed in Havana and for San Juan de Ulúa, this study demonstrates that European architectural traditions were eschewed in favor of native and, likely, African customs. These examples offer unique insights into enslaved peoples’ living environments and expand our discussions into how race contributed to the diversity of architectural practices in the early modern Iberian world.

Информационная хунта (1866–1867): надежды и разочарования. Испания и Куба накануне Десятилетней войны за независимость 1868–1878 гг.

The Information Junta or Commission for Reform (1866–1867), convened at the initiative of Spain and supported by supporters of reforms of colonial administration in Cuba and Puerto Rico, was called upon to discuss issues related to the liberalization of the colonial regime in the Spanish colonies, the abolition of the wartime regime introduced in 1825, and the so-called "special laws" established by Article 80 of the Constitution of 1837, which excluded Cuban deputies from participation in the Spanish Parliament, to consider the regula-tion of the labour of the coloured population of the island and of Asians, and the means of attracting free white immigration, as well as those connected with navigation and trade with oth-er countries, and the imposition of customs duties. This was the first attempt at dialogue between the mother country and its colonies. Meetings of the Information Junta, held from Oc-tober 30, 1866 to April 1867, revealed serious disagreements between Cuban and Puerto Rican deputies over the issue of slavery, as well as within the camp of Cuban reformist politicians over proposed political reforms to colonial administration. The activities of the Information Junta and its results became the subject of research in the proposed article.

Arming Slaves in Early Modern Maritime Asia

AbstractWhile there are large literatures on both Islamic slave soldiers and the phenomenon of “arming slaves” in the Atlantic world, military slavery in early modern Asia is still poorly understood. Using a variety of Chinese, Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese sources, this article will argue that enslaved labour was frequently directed towards violence across early modern Asia, colonial or otherwise. At the same time, the phenomenon was far from uniform in the vast expanse of land and sea between East Africa and Japan. Rather, it is better to speak of a series of analogous regimes of bondage that interacted with each other across large distances, with the line between enslaved soldiers, mercenaries, and run-of-the-mill trader-raiders being vanishingly thin at times. Finally, all this existed within the context of military infrastructure in the broadest sense of the word that included fortresses, factories, and even war elephants.

Отражение проблемы рабства на страницах каталонских журналов республиканских взглядов в годы Демократического шестилетия (1868-1874)

This article explores the portrayal of the slavery issue and the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) in the cartoons of Catalan republican journals La Flaca, La Carcajada, and La Madeja dur-ing the Democratic Sexennium (1868-1874). The analysis reveals that Thomas Padró's cartoons delve into the complex socio-political processes of the mid-19th century, associated with the abolitionist movement in Spain and its impact on colonial territories. While the journal's editorial stance supported the abolition of slavery, it opposed the separation of Cuba from Spain, envisioning prosperity for the territory only with-in the unity of Spain. Following the proclamation of the First Spanish Republic, the editorial focus shifted away from the colonies, emphasizing internal events.

‘Slaves’ and ‘Slave Owners’ or ‘Enslaved People’ and ‘Enslavers’?

Abstract Studies of slavery increasingly refer to ‘enslaved people’ rather than ‘slaves’, and, to a lesser extent, to ‘enslavers’ rather than ‘slave owners’. This trend began with scholarship in the United States on plantation slavery but has spread to other academic publications. Yet ‘slave’ continues to be widely used, indicating not everyone is aware of the change or agrees with it. Despite this, few historians have justified their terminology. After surveying the extent of the preference for ‘enslaved person’, I discuss arguments for and against it. Supporters of using ‘enslaved person’ argue that this term emphasises that a person was forced into slavery – but this emphasis means it is less able to accommodate early medieval cases where people sold themselves into slavery. The accompanying preference for ‘enslaver’ over ‘master’ obscures dynamics of ownership and manumission. In addition, ‘enslaved people’ and ‘enslaver’ do not necessarily bring us away from the perspective of slaveholders to the perspective of slaves. Nor are they essential for readers to appreciate the humanity of slaves. Overall, historians should use this issue as an opportunity to reflect on the extent to which scholarship of transatlantic slavery should set the terms of debate for slavery studies in general.

Domestic Slavery in Syria and Egypt, 1200-1500, written by Jan Hinrich Hagedorn

Domestic Slavery in Syria and Egypt, 1200-1500, written by Jan Hinrich Hagedorn

Jáchymov: Borders of Oblivion

Abstract The remarkably dynamic history of the small Czech town of Jáchymov provides the possibility of tracing memory, forgetting and recalling through constant rewriting and negotiation – both of a place of the individual memories, as well as the hierarchy of the events which are worthy of being remembered, and those that would rather be forgotten. German, Soviet, and Czech presence here cross with the spa and military nature of this place and its martyrological memory, on one side of the transfer of the German population shortly after World War II, and on the other one the political prisoners of the 1950s, who were forced into slave labor in the local uranium mine. All of these layers still remain today – referring to the title of the book by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska – remembered in Jáchymov's summer landscape, in which the air is breaking the image of reality, making it fluid, and somewhat elusive. And it is this variety of the layers of memory, recalling, and oblivion, which I would like to identify and describe in my article.

Multi-method analysis of a historic wooden trough from Kentucky, USA: a case study in corroborating artifact oral histories with heritage science

Oral history indicates that a large wooden trough held in storage at the University of Kentucky’s William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology was a component of the saltpeter mining operation in Mammoth Cave in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, worked largely by enslaved persons. We used multiple heritage science methods, including radiocarbon wiggle-match dating, tree-ring dating, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), and optical scanning, combined with historical research, to examine the trough. Our analysis supports the oral history of the trough as an artifact of the mining system in Mammoth Cave. This case study illustrates how heritage science methods can provide corroboration for the origins and biographies of poorly documented historical artifacts.

Sick Time: Medicine, Management, and Slavery in Louisiana and Cuba, 1763–1868

Capitalist ideas of productivity became central to medicine under slavery. They shaped how physicians treated enslaved patients, crafted a scientific basis for medicine, and conceived of themselves as professionals. Between the late-eighteenth-century and the mid-nineteenth-century, white male physicians in Louisiana and Cuba distinguished themselves from other healers: first, by aligning with Spanish colonialism, and then, by making themselves essential to a new form of plantation management that used clock-time discipline, hierarchical divisions of labor, and complex accounting systems. These technologies helped planters track the hours and days each enslaved person spent working, eating, sleeping, birthing, suffering from sickness and injuries, and recovering. This in turn enabled precise interpretations of enslaved health in terms of productivity, which was primarily measured in work time and the number of commodities produced. Physicians, who were seeking a rigorous intellectual foundation for medical knowledge production, latched onto planter methods of calculating and controlling enslaved health. One of those methods was what planters and physicians called “sick time,” which was an allotment of time away from work intended to manage illness enough for enslaved people to return to work. However, as physicians used plantation management to cast an air of scientific accuracy over their knowledge, enslaved people reconfigured their own medical practices to make themselves less visible and countable. Fugitive practices involving trees, animals, and natural springs helped enslaved people to heal by taking their own forms of sick time.

Trabalhadoras migrantes latino-americanas e violências: rumo a uma visão interseccional?

Abstract The history of Latin American society has been influenced by colonization, which has subjugated non-white women to gender violence, racism and sexism. This article discusses the work of female Latin American migrants through the lens of intersectionality to reflect upon the historical and social realities of Latin women who migrate in search of employment or to escape violence. Drawing upon the contributions of the sociologist Patricia Collins, this article discusses the concept of intersectionality and topics pertaining to intersectional analyses (relationality, power relations, social inequality, social context, complexity and social justice). As a critical social theory that is under construction, intersectionality deepens the analysis of oppressions experienced by female migrant workers, such as xenophobia, racism, slave labor, sexual exploitation and precarious working conditions. Thinking about the violence experienced by female Latin American workers from an intersectional perspective implies listening to these women, understanding their resistance, increasing the visibility of collective actions, and guaranteeing the implementation of public policies considering their experiences and perspectives.

Slavery in Bethlehem: Difference and Indifference in Northampton County’s Moravian Settlements

ABSTRACT This article offers a new history of slavery in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: how enslaved men and women were brought to Bethlehem, who owned these enslaved men and women, how some became free, and whether the lives of enslaved Moravians differed from those of free Moravians. The prevailing account states that the Moravian congregation itself purchased enslaved men and women soon after Bethlehem was settled to augment its labor force. But most Afro-Moravians got to Bethlehem, this article shows, through a haphazard process that the congregation did not manage: enslavers (Moravians elsewhere) sent men, women, and children to Bethlehem or brought them when they moved to the backcountry community. Moravian authorities claimed that there was “no difference” in Bethlehem between these enslaved people and White Moravians. The archive that the congregation produced tends to reinforce that view: church registers, membership catalogs, diaries, and memoirs are mostly silent, for instance, about individuals’ legal status. But amplifying voices that have been overlooked of enslaved and free Afro-Moravians, as well as exploring the neglected 1780 Register of enslaved persons in Northampton County, reveals that differences based on race shaped the lives of people of African descent in Bethlehem and Northampton County’s other Moravian communities.

Human Rights - The People

Human rights also grant people the opportunity to an impartial and fair trial. Everyone is entitled to move to court, where their impartial decisions are made. The court can be trusted to provide them with justice even when everything else is in vain. The most important thing is that humans have been freed from all types of slavery. No one can force another individual to work as an enslaved person. Furthermore, humans are allowed to express and speak their views. It is essential to the well-being of humans. In the modern world, they are constantly violated, and we have to work together to confront this problem. Both the government and the citizens need to make efforts to safeguard each other's rights and progress to improve the world. That's right, and this will guarantee prosperity and happiness throughout the globe.

Formation and development of the Bosporus kingdom: separate historical and legal aspects

The article talks about the Bosporus kingdom as one of the states that managed to avoid annexation by Rome and preserved its autonomy for several centuries. This state was located in the Eastern Crimea and in the western part of the Taman Peninsula. Its capital was Panticapei (modern Kerch), which in ancient times was surrounded by nomadic (mainly Scythian and Sarmatian) peoples.
 It has been established that the Archeanactid dynasty ruled here at first, and from 438 to 109 B.C. - Spartokids dynasty. It was during the reign of Satyr I, Leukon I, Perisades I, Eumela I in the 4th century B.C. the Bosporus kingdom with its center in Panticapei reached its greatest power, an authoritarian system of government developed, and therefore, Bosporus came to be considered a kingdom with a monarchical form of government.
 The author analyzed the legal system of the Bosporus kingdom. It was found that the main sources of law were: the legislative activity of the kings of Bosporus, the rights of the Greek city-polises that were part of the Bosporus kingdom, and the customs of local tribes. Norms of civil law protected the interests of slave owners. Two main forms of ownership were defined: state and private. Land, slaves, cattle and movable property were owned. The main types of contracts were: purchase and sale, mine, loan and donation.
 The author also characterized the complex nature of marital and family relations. Agreements on the future marriage were usually concluded by the decision of the parents. A legal marriage resulted from an eggiesia, a formal private agreement between the head of the bride’s family, on the one hand, and the groom or his father, on the other.
 In the field of criminal law, the author established that the main types of crimes were: crimes against the state, against the community, and against a specific private person. However, the most serious crimes were often called adikia - a sin before the gods. The damage could be physical, moral or material.

Modern Day Slavery in Your Supply Chain

Modern day slavery is a huge problem in supply chains. Estimates place the number of workers living in slavery conditions between 17-21 million worldwide. This problem is growing rather than shrinking even though countries have laws that prevent slave labor and some countries and states have laws that require reporting on audits of their supply chains. Why do we have this problem and what can we do to fix it? This paper addresses the issue and some recommendations to fix this global problem.

Islamic Tombstones for Slaves from Abbasid-Era Egypt

ABSTRACT This article studies tombstones from eighth- to tenth-century CE Egypt that are designed to mark the grave of a Muslim slave. These funerary inscriptions are unusual in that they do not marginalize the enslaved as much as do other early Islamic sources. Furthermore, they reveal otherwise undocumented attitudes towards persons who died as slaves. Offering a thick description of an unpublished tombstone for a ninth-century concubine-mother (umm walad), the present article analyses tombstones for slaves from two perspectives. It first studies the representation of the enslaved and the specific terminology that tombstones used to designate the deceased as enslaved. It then turns to the commemorative context of tombstones, arguing that tombstones of slaves served similar purposes and used similar illocutionary strategies to those used by contemporary tombstones for free Muslims. Despite these similarities between tombstones of free and enslaved persons, we see that deceased slaves were commemorated as members of the Muslim community as well as the legal property of their owners.

Zoroastrian Fire Foundations: A Portrait of Slaves and Slaveholders

ABSTRACT Throughout the Sasanian era (224-650/1 CE), Zoroastrian Fire Foundations were some of the most significant landowners in Iran. The sources represented in this study reveal that Fire Foundations were among the most prominent organizations in late antique Iran, actively utilizing slaves and their labour in various social, economic and religious contexts. This article studies the religious, social, legal, and economic aspects of slaves in general, and slaves of Fire Foundations in particular throughout the Sasanian period. Drawing on Middle Persian legal and religious texts, the article examines three interrelated themes: the Fire Foundations characterized as slavers, and the function of priests in mobilizing their immense landed estates, income, and the utilization of slave labour; the relationship between free persons and slaves; and the link between the Fire Foundations and slaves. Analyzing these key questions and the considerable involvement of clerics in all these aspects enables us to discern the structural role of priests in Fire Foundations’ use of slavery and within the broader framework of the Sasanian economy. Through this analysis, the article highlights the close administrative and financial ties binding the priesthood and the monarchy during Sasanian Iran.

Enslavement for Manumission: The Creation of Byzantine ‘Private Subjects’

ABSTRACT The article challenges current perspectives on slavery as ‘unfreedom’ and proposes to examine the enslaved within a socio-political dynamics of power relations. An analysis of four Byzantine documents from the eleventh century and the place they accorded to slaves and manumitted slaves reveals the way enslavement and manumission served together as a means to acquire socioeconomic independence and private authority by turning the enslaved persons into private subjects: men and women exclusively subordinated to the authority of their owners. Private authority was based on a total subordination towards the enslaver and challenged the public imperial authority over people. An analysis of the place accorded to slaves and manumitted slaves in the private domain as seen from juridical and economic documents from the central Middle Ages from different regions of the Byzantine Empire shows slaves as social capital and slavery as a means to gain socioeconomic independence as part of the power game in a medieval society.

An Analysis of Racism in Uncle Tom's Cabin from the Marxism Perspective

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a novel that reflects the cruelty and inhumanity of the slave system. In the novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe created scenes of real artistic power and that her analysis of the capitalistic elements of the slave system were remarkably astute. The racism depicted in this novel is, on the surface, the inhuman oppression and exploitation of black slaves by slave owners. While on the deep level, it is the exploitation and oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, and this exploitation is a major means for the bourgeoisie to extract the surplus value of working workers. Starting from a Marxism perspective, this article analyzes the economic interests and class relationships behind slavery in the novel, studies the relationship between racism, socio-economic structure, and class contradictions, and explores how racism interweaves with economic interests and becomes a tool of class oppression. While the specter of racism still lingers in American society today, the paper tries to figure out the complexity of racial issues in the United States, thus providing more comprehensive thinking and methods for eliminating racism and inequality in the future.

Slavery and charity: Tobias Rustat and the African companies, 1662–94

Abstract The links between enslavement and charitable giving in the late seventeenth century were deep and have become newly controversial. This article considers Tobias Rustat (1608–94), a royal servant and a long-term investor in the Royal African Company and other trading companies involved in the transatlantic slave trade, who gave prolifically to English educational and religious institutions from the 1660s. It uses previously unstudied archival evidence to analyse Rustat’s involvement in the trade in enslaved people alongside his charitable giving, demonstrating that both activities should be understood through his distinctive social networks. In doing so it argues for an approach to the contested legacies of slavery's connections to philanthropy that foregrounds the social, political and commercial networks of donors.