Although slavery is now commonly recognized as an immoral practice, its history is rarely explored in depth. The general public tend to blame Eurocentrism ("white superiority") as the main proponent of slavery. This is a very superficial interpretation of the issue, because only one facet of the issue is discussed. Slavery traces all the way back to Ancient Mesopotamia civilizations, and the textbook examines the path of slavery in a less emotional way, claiming that the event was an inevitable catastrophe rather than a product of prejudice. As stated by Eric Foner, "prejudice by itself did not create North American slavery."
Slaves had always been treated with cruelty. Throughout history all across the globe, slaves had been captives of war or victims of discrimination. In primitive civilizations in which survival was the constitution, slavery was seen as a conventional practice. If you were defeated or did not have the ability to survive, then it was natural for you to be a slave. This reasoning saw no flaws in the disorderly framework of ancient civilizations.
As the Europeans established their own definition of being "civilized", many aspects of their society became superfluous. They were able to translate material quantities into currencies which can be used consistently, and therefore have a clearer definition of profit. The proportional relationship between profit and labor is obvious, so slavery was used to further one's economic status.
It can therefore be concluded that slaves were treated equally - with the same cruelty - regardless of their race. Of course, the notion of "white supremacy" did factor into the more intense mistreatment of black and Indian slaves, but constitutionally speaking, slaves of all races possessed the same rights. Furthermore, they had greater opportunity to gain freedom than any of the slaves in previous historic periods due to the subtle liberal qualities of European civilization during colonial times.
So what event in history widened the gap between white slaves and slaves belonging to other ethnic groups? What caused the disappearance of white slaves? It doesn't make sense that a society which depended so heavily on labor just suddenly abandoned a significant demographic of slave labor, especially since the transportation of slaves was a cost to be considered. Foner argues that the dramatic demographic shift in slavery initiated along with migration from England to Virginia. Colonization of Virginia was highly profitable to the English government, especially during the time of rapid urbanization, population boom, and political instability. However, there was a misconception of Virginia as a "death trap" (Foner). In order to counter this widespread impression of Virginia, white authorities sought to improve the status of white slaves, shifting their attention and favor to the white demographic more than ever before. This caused the enslavement of white people to decrease drastically over time, and therefore resulted in the rapid increase of black and Indian slaves.
By providing this chronological description of the "rise of slavery", a significant component of racism is discovered - politics. Discrimination against the indigenous was a political issue as it was a moral and religious issue. Furthermore, this clears up the common misconception that slavery was an event which suddenly occurred along with the colonization of Africa and the development of the Triangular Trade. Slavery is not morally justified, but I argue that it is a natural phenomena. It could not be prevented due to the harsh nature of the earliest civilizations. It is not a product of prejudice, but a product of our struggle for survival.
I really liked your blog Leo and your message is one that I haven't considered before. I think one thing you could have mentioned earlier in your blog are the beliefs of the ancient greeks regarding slavery. For example, we often think of Aristotle as very liberal and ahead of his time, but he too believed that people were born into slavery and that slavery was only natural.
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ReplyDeleteSurprisingly, the Ancient Greeks saw slavery from a more liberal point of view than the Europeans during the Early Modern Era. They saw slavery as a natural phenomenon because those who are unfit in the society natural falls into subordination. This is true even in our capitalist society, just that the idea of "subordination" is no longer compared with slavery. I have addressed this precisely while explaining the origins of slavery in primitive civilizations. This discussion brings up an interesting point, though, which is the liberal reasoning behind subordination and its evolution in history. I have previously claimed in this comment that the Ancient Greeks were more "liberal", but that is really due to the lack of constitution and structure holding up a civil society during that time. The Ancient Greeks were unable to comprehend the idea of liberty, because their population was not immense enough to possess such advanced sociopolitical concepts. For instance, if an oppressive force is governing a population, that population could easily unite and rebel, and the event would be considered trivial in comparison to a revolution involving 20 million people. In the other hand, the expansive population of Europe during its most unstable times introduced many unprecedented factors, causing social, political, and economic components of a society to be combined without clear distinction. One could argue that slavery at this point was given greater meaning than a natural phenomenon. Prejudice, religion and industrial advancements all factored into the establishment of slavery, making it even stronger and stripping it from its "liberal qualities". Men no longer had an equal chance of becoming slaves. One can argue that this is a good thing, but this ultimately meant that the concept of subordination was encapsulated and constrained by societal norms. This introduced greater oppression, in spite of how evolved society was during this time in comparison to the ancient civilizations. Thus, I do not think slavery as unjust, but rather its superfluous connotations that violate the human rights.
ReplyDelete"It can therefore be concluded that slaves were treated equally - with the same cruelty - regardless of their race."
ReplyDeleteCan you explain why this claim follows from your previous statements? I do not disagree with this statement, but I'm not sure why this is a result of Europeans establishing a notion of being civilized, or of slavery resulting from being defeated or not being capable of survival.
I also think that, wrt primitive civilizations, slavery resulting from being defeated in war could represent an aspect of prejudice against races/nationalities as well. I assume that when you refer to "being defeated" when talking about what could lead to slavery, you mean being defeated in wars or possibly rebellions. Although I am not very familiar with conflicts among ancient societies, I would think that when two groups analogous to nations come into conflict, they would likely have different cultures and slightly different appearances. I am not sure if the concept of race existed during the period of "primitive civilizations," but I think that this difference in culture and appearance could be considered analogous. I would also think that slaves resulting from war would be treated differently than slaves who only became that way from lacking the ability to survive (on that note, I'm not quite sure what "not having the ability to survive" would constitute). In particular, I think that there would be different levels of prejudice towards the incompetent within one's own society, compared to people subjugated from other societies.
Furthermore, from the way you described, I think that people from other defeated societies would be more likely to become slaves than people from one's own society, i.e. there would be a bias towards slavery from foreign "countries." This is because the slaves from one's own society would mostly be incapable of surviving on their own, but virtually everyone (as in not just the people incapable of surviving on their own) in a foreign society would be eligible for slavery in one's own society, provided that this foreign society was defeated. I think that this itself is a form of nationalistic prejudice, which I could see evolve into racial prejudice by the time of European colonization. I would think that the legal/"constitutional" difference which you describe between white and black slaves (correct me if this is the wrong interpretation) did not appear only because of Virginia's colonization. Rather, based on your descriptions of some of the potential causes for slavery in primitive civilizations, I would think that this discrimination with slaves of different nationalities was inherent in the causes of slavery from the beginning.
Hi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about how prejudice can accumulate through the defeat of a group of people. This is why it is so important to differentiate between primitive models of society and modern society. Although the transition between these two phases are gradual, and I am sure the manifestation of prejudice has already initiated long before pre-modern European society, the difference in the extent of discrimination is important to be noticed. This indicates that other factors, in addition to the accumulating racial bias, were introduced between these two eras. The colonization of Virginia was certainly not an initiating factor of discriminative slavery, but it fully illustrates the point of new factors being introduced to slavery in response to social, economic, and political conditions of society. "It can therefore be concluded that slaves were treated equally - with the same cruelty - regardless of their race." This statement is made simply to create a contrast between slavery in ancient civilizations and European society during colonial times. The very formation of civilization can be argued as a contributing factor to prejudice and its role in slavery. It is therefore meaningless to argue the inherent quality of human beings to form groups and identities. Nonetheless, it is very important to demonstrate how ancient civilizations lacked structural complexity to enhance the prejudicial qualities of slavery as the more modern European society did.
You are right about the development of prejudice, which I have not considered in my statement. Thank you for your clarification.
I respectfully disagree that slavery is a natural phenomena. It did not exist in several regions of the world before the concept of white supremacy, which caused slavery of "inferior" races. One example of this is in indigenous communities, where equality was widespread.
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia,
DeleteIn fact, slavery is a common phenomena in indigenous communities. African societies keep slaves. Native American tribes often enslave captured enemy tribesmen. Most indigenous communities actually have no concrete conception of equality. In fact, there is no political debate on the morality of slavery in indigenous populations. It can therefore even be argued that the "indigenous people" is more familiar with the concept of slavery than Europeans. White supremacy is certainly a primary factor of slavery, but it is naive to define slavery in terms of European enslavement when it is, actually, a more widespread phenomena in comparison to applications of "equality".