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Slavery was invented in the United States (Allegedly)

What I have heard more often is that America invented the absolute connection between race and slavery. The theory is that all American slaves were black, and in some southern states, all black people were slaves, no free black people allowed.

Which of course completely ignores the Creoles in New Orleans, but then the French had a fairly relaxed attitude to this kind of thing.

For example, Joseph Bologne (Wikipedia), conductor of the first performances of Haydn's 'Paris Symphonies' was the descendant of a planter and his slave and if the portraits are correct he took after his mother in regards coloring, which would imply that at least in his case it was not an impediment.
 
New Orleans was a little bubble of something else within the south. For the most part, all blacks were slaves and all slaves were black is true in the Antebellum south. Black freedmen existed but effectively, not in the south. There were even cases of free blacks getting arrested and auctioned as escaped slaves.

New Orleans was different than the rest of the south in several respects.
 
My 1976 university 'Modern History' course (Arts elective in a science major) concerned itself with the period from the Renaissance to the Indistrial Revolution and included nothing about slavery.
Curious. My inter cert history course in the '80s discussed it (though not great in depth), covering the involvement of the Dutch, English and American traders with emphasis on the triangular trade and the value of the trade to cities like Bristol.
 
Was just pointed to this video on youtube. The person who made it (Jeff Holiday) has also appeared on the League of Nerds podcast to discuss Black Salve/Miracle Mineral Solution (aka Bleach) and may be appearing in the future to discuss Anti-Vaxxers.

This video however does not deal with that, but does deal with the consequences of what was described in the Textbook League article I linked to earlier. I will also add that I am a little uncomfortable about some of the tactics he uses, but I think that he does have a good point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daF5fuXL4wg
 
What I have heard more often is that America invented the absolute connection between race and slavery. The theory is that all American slaves were black, and in some southern states, all black people were slaves, no free black people allowed.

I don't think that is completely correct, but it is perhaps less wrong. There was certainly a lot of black slavery in South America and the Caribbean, but I don't know whether or not that existed alongside free black people in the same areas.

Earlier nations had slaves, but tied slavery to warfare, conquest, and debt. They did not place entire races in the category of "slave", and often had mechanisms (sometimes very difficult) where slaves (or their children) could obtain freedom. Race-based perpetual hereditary slavery seems somewhat unique to the Americas.

Then again, there are those who also think Indentured Servitude was a colonial invention.. While "Indentured Servitude" includes a wide range of conditions from "probably not slavery" to "definitely slavery", I find it hard to believe that is was an invention of the British Colonies. My guess is that indentured servitude is nearly as old as book-keeping itself. Once some humans learned to make loans, other humans learned the hard way what it takes to pay them off.
Indentured servitude not far removed from pure slavery, was also quite common in Spanish New World territories in the 16th Century. Of course this was done as part of civilizing the native population and making sure they worshiped the 'right' God, the 'right' way.
 
Was just pointed to this video on youtube. The person who made it (Jeff Holiday) has also appeared on the League of Nerds podcast to discuss Black Salve/Miracle Mineral Solution (aka Bleach) and may be appearing in the future to discuss Anti-Vaxxers.

This video however does not deal with that, but does deal with the consequences of what was described in the Textbook League article I linked to earlier. I will also add that I am a little uncomfortable about some of the tactics he uses, but I think that he does have a good point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daF5fuXL4wg

What's with these YouTube celebrities? Do they all have to stretch into odd-ball to get viewers?

Beyond that, it's getting harder and harder to watch anything on Youtube, home of the strawman and someone whose argument is pointing out the strawman. Not what I'd describe as a cycle of virtue.
 
Curious. My inter cert history course in the '80s discussed it (though not great in depth), covering the involvement of the Dutch, English and American traders with emphasis on the triangular trade and the value of the trade to cities like Bristol.

Well, it was long ago but I can't recall anything about it being covered. Spent more than half the course discussing The Renaissance. I got very tired of trying to write down Italian names to research later.

Industrial Revolution was basically "coal/steam power, mass production, labour laws".

I got a B+. I was a physics major.
 
Earlier nations had slaves, but tied slavery to warfare, conquest, and debt. They did not place entire races in the category of "slave", and often had mechanisms (sometimes very difficult) where slaves (or their children) could obtain freedom. Race-based perpetual hereditary slavery seems somewhat unique to the Americas.

Hello? The Hellots of Sparta would most definitely disagree about the non-existence of ethnic perpetual hereditary slavery in their times.

Not only weren't the hellots not even considered as part of the same population, but there was a state of perpetual warfare between Sparta and them. Faced with the legal dillema that killing outside of warfare ought to be a crime, the Spartan solution was to be eternally at war with their slaves, so they can kill anyone without any philosphical problems. Each year, the first act of the newly elected Ephors (think, like the Roman consuls, but more than 2) was to formally declare war on the slaves.

The only way out of that slavery was feet first. Quite literally. Each year a number were apparently selected to be freed and elligible to become spartans... except as they'd soon find out, that meant: if they can survive a fight against actual Spartan full-time warriors in full combat gear. Invariably they got slaughtered.

So, yeah, if anyone thinks that ethnic based perpetual craphole was an USA-only thing... tell them Sparta called. They managed to make an even worse hereditary craphole, some 2000 years before there even was an America.
 
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I think it is troubling that young people in college still think that Ben Franklin was a president. It might be trivial to some, but if they think that, it exposes a lack of knowledge about what he WAS involved in. His contribution to USA history is relevant, so if they don't know the history of his contributions, that implies that they don't know anything about Jefferson, Adams, etc.

ETA: I was getting off topic, but as to the OP, the USA certainly didn't invent slavery, but they were late to the party forbidding it. It sincerely makes me sad that no one reads anymore.

Ha! If the British had defeated the American colonialists, slavery in America would likely have been terminated much earlier when the Brits outlawed it across their colonies. As it was it continued on formally in South America well past the war between the states.
 
I dunno. It kinda seems like you and SG are criticizing American college students for a) being unfamiliar with the Bible, and b) not accepting it as an accurate historical record.

I mean, maybe if the story of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt was given as much weight in high school history curricula as is the story of Africans enslaved in America, these kids would get to college with a much more complete picture of slavery through the centuries.

Is that what you're saying? Because it's starting to look like that's what you're saying: Kids should pay more attention to the Bible as literally true, and maybe schools should do a better job teaching the Bible to them as literally true.

Never. Keep in mind that this being America, more time is taken up with US History regardless of the topic and outside of AP classes World History where it is taught is tiny dips in the pool of same. That's why I quit worrying about it as a topic in school and read the Durant's Story of Civilization one summer.

For the unfamiliar: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Civili...r=1-1&keywords=history+of+civilization+durant
 
Yes, all of it!!! And marked all that referred to the history of Porn/related. As I note from time to time it is a field I know well.
 
For instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

But, of course, the US was not a part of the British Empire in 1833.


Timeline in various countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

Pretty much. This is why the Underground Railroad ultimately terminated in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Beyond the legal claims of slave-recovery bounty hunters who were still operating with some impunity in the Northern states.


ETA: link to [Africville], Nova Scotia.
 
Hello? The Hellots of Sparta would most definitely disagree about the non-existence of ethnic perpetual hereditary slavery in their times.

Not only weren't the hellots not even considered as part of the same population, but there was a state of perpetual warfare between Sparta and them. Faced with the legal dillema that killing outside of warfare ought to be a crime, the Spartan solution was to be eternally at war with their slaves, so they can kill anyone without any philosphical problems. Each year, the first act of the newly elected Ephors (think, like the Roman consuls, but more than 2) was to formally declare war on the slaves.

I sometimes read the characterized defined as serfs rather than slaves. So:

1) What is the difference between a slave and a serf?


I have read about the fall of the Roman Empire. The historian that I read claimed that serfs replaced slaves. However, I don't see the difference.

Not to mention that Spartans often killed heliots as a 'rite of passage'. The adolescent Spartan male was supposed to live on his own for about a year. He would kill a heliot. In a way, the heliots were sometimes considered 'game'.

The brutality of the Spartans makes me think this is real slavery. However, you have to hand it to the Spartans. They weren't hypocrites when it comes to slavery (serfdom?).

Serfdom was certainly a very persistent institution. It persisted right through the Middle Ages. Russia had serfs even longer than the rest of Europe. If we include serfdom. I did learn about European serfdom in school.
 
Originally serfdom was nowhere near as bad as slavery.
The idea was that a serf was beholden to the local lord. In exchange for a certain amount of work, they would be protected by said lord. The lord also had a series of legal obligations to his serfs.
The problem was, that as time went by, those obligations became less and less, whereas the required work rose more and more (from 1 day per week to near full time).
 
Originally serfdom was nowhere near as bad as slavery.
The idea was that a serf was beholden to the local lord. In exchange for a certain amount of work, they would be protected by said lord. The lord also had a series of legal obligations to his serfs.
The problem was, that as time went by, those obligations became less and less, whereas the required work rose more and more (from 1 day per week to near full time).

And that's just since the Reagan era!
 
I remember there being strange gaps in my school's history curriculum. We were definitely taught that the ancient Greeks had slaves, but we were only really taught about the Athenian model. I only learned about the Helots on my own later. Discussion of serfdom was vague and I recall being confused about it until I did some independent reading on the subject.
 
1) What is the difference between a slave and a serf?

S slave is owned by his master, has no personal freedom and has no right to own property. A serf is bound to serve his master, but has personal freedom and has the right to own property. The master of a serf owns a portion of the serfs' labor, but a master of the slave owns the person itself.

The two are utterly incomparable.

McHrozni
 
S slave is owned by his master, has no personal freedom and has no right to own property. A serf is bound to serve his master, but has personal freedom and has the right to own property. The master of a serf owns a portion of the serfs' labor, but a master of the slave owns the person itself.

The two are utterly incomparable.

McHrozni

If they can not own property then why are there records of slaves buying their own freedom?

It is far more complex than that, and in large part you are defining many traditionally identified slaves as not being real slaves. Take debt bondage for example.
 
If they can not own property then why are there records of slaves buying their own freedom?

They can own property, they just don't have the right to. The property of a slave can be confiscated at will by a master. Serfs are in a (marginally) better position.

It is far more complex than that, and in large part you are defining many traditionally identified slaves as not being real slaves. Take debt bondage for example.

True, the definition I use is much stricter than what is still typically permissible to understand as slavery. Debt bondage is barely distinguishable from chattel slavery, but it is fundamentally more moral (or maybe better: less immoral). It's also something that is supposed to end after a set period of time. It's not exactly a poster child for human rights, but it's not comparable to capturing human beings and selling them as cattle either.

McHrozni
 
They can own property, they just don't have the right to. The property of a slave can be confiscated at will by a master. Serfs are in a (marginally) better position.



True, the definition I use is much stricter than what is still typically permissible to understand as slavery. Debt bondage is barely distinguishable from chattel slavery, but it is fundamentally more moral (or maybe better: less immoral). It's also something that is supposed to end after a set period of time. It's not exactly a poster child for human rights, but it's not comparable to capturing human beings and selling them as cattle either.

McHrozni

This means that only slaves who started of by being captured count as slaves. So with say roman slavery we have to distinguish between the ones who ended up as slaves by conquest and those who started off as roman and got enslaved through another means even if they did not.
 
This means that only slaves who started of by being captured count as slaves. So with say roman slavery we have to distinguish between the ones who ended up as slaves by conquest and those who started off as roman and got enslaved through another means even if they did not.

Not really, debt bondage differs from such slavery in a key aspect: it's set for a term, until the debt is repaid. As such a debtor slave is in an inherently better position than a person captured or born into slavery, who will remain a slave for life and whose status will be inherited by future generations. The day to day life may not be significantly different, but future prospects could hardly be more different.

Slavery isn't a word we should use lightly. Some leftard activists stretch it beyond all reason to encompass all forms of debt and wage labor. While serfdom is obviously much closer to slavery, I still consider it too much of a stretch to be reasonable. As far as I'm concerned, a slave is a person who is owned by another person, with all the rights ownership entails. A large proportion of serfs' labor is owned by another person, but the person is free otherwise. I'm sure some debt slaves would historically be slaves even under that definition, but I'm sure not all of them would. Debt bondage is a form of exploitation that can amount to slavery, but doesn't automatically equal slavery. The same goes for indentured servitude, medieval apprenticeship and many other examples. Some cases amounted to slavery, but the practice itself didn't amount to slavery.

McHrozni
 
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You can sell a slave as an individual, you can only sell the land the serf is bound to.

Thanks. This helped the most of all the answers.

So according to you, the lord can't move the serf off the land he works. The serf can't leave the land that he was born on, but he can't be forced off it.

So the lord can't break the family up. The lord could do practically anything else that he likes to the serf. He can beat up the serf for not doing enough work. He can even sell the land that the serf is on.

So potentially the serf has a stable family. The lord can't sell the man to another lord and keep the wife. The lord may be able to rape the wife on the wedding night by threatening the serf. However, the serf has to get his wife back. She is part of the land, too. A slave can lose his wife forever just on the master's whim. She is just a piece of property, too.


The lord owns the land. However, the serf possesses the land. The serf gets to stay on the land until death.

The lord can kill the serf. However, the serfs family possesses the land. They bury their dead nearby. So even the serf's graveyard is on the lords land. The serf family is on the land. serf may get to be buried on the land. So the serf's body eventually becomes part of the lord's land. The serf can't be removed, whatever else the lord does to him.

The lord can't force the serf to do any other job than farming, or maybe mining. Whatever the serf does has to have something to do with the land that he is bound to. So the lord can't tell him to dig a ditch somewhere on someone else's property. The lord can't contract out the serf's services if the service is on another piece of land.

Sounds to me like serfdom at its worse is as physically brutal as slavery on average. All the beatings, all the rape, all However, the serf has far more social stability than the slave.

In times of economic stress, the life of a serf is far more secure than the life of a slave. The lord can desperately sell the land to whatever psychopath has the money. However, the lord can't break up the family. Nor can he force the serf to do any other job but work the land.

A serf has a very definite job description, compared to the slave. The slave is owned. So the owner could require him or her to do all sorts of personal services. The lord requires his serf to do one specific thing usually tied to the land. The lord can up his requirements of that one service and force a barter for that personal service. However, that takes time. So the lord can't get up on any arbitrary morning and say to the serf, 'Give me that personal service'. The lord has to get a bit crafty. The slave owner only needs a whim to get that same personal service immediately.
 
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Sounds to me like serfdom at its worse is as physically brutal as slavery on average.

Yes, there is some overlap in this regard. At it's worst, a serf is little better off than a slave. This wasn't standard practice however, and the life of a serf wasn't actually horrible for the most part. It was tolerable, and it was in the interest of the lord to be such, peasant uprisings are an unnecessary expense and don't bring you any good ransoms.

McHrozni
 
Thanks. This helped the most of all the answers.

So according to you, the lord can't move the serf off the land he works. The serf can't leave the land that he was born on, but he can't be forced off it.

So the lord can't break the family up. The lord could do practically anything else that he likes to the serf. He can beat up the serf for not doing enough work. He can even sell the land that the serf is on.

So potentially the serf has a stable family. The lord can't sell the man to another lord and keep the wife. The lord may be able to rape the wife on the wedding night by threatening the serf. However, the serf has to get his wife back. She is part of the land, too. A slave can lose his wife forever just on the master's whim. She is just a piece of property, too.


The lord owns the land. However, the serf possesses the land. The serf gets to stay on the land until death.

The lord can kill the serf. However, the serfs family possesses the land. They bury their dead nearby. So even the serf's graveyard is on the lords land. The serf family is on the land. serf may get to be buried on the land. So the serf's body eventually becomes part of the lord's land. The serf can't be removed, whatever else the lord does to him.

The lord can't force the serf to do any other job than farming, or maybe mining. Whatever the serf does has to have something to do with the land that he is bound to. So the lord can't tell him to dig a ditch somewhere on someone else's property. The lord can't contract out the serf's services if the service is on another piece of land.

Sounds to me like serfdom at its worse is as physically brutal as slavery on average. All the beatings, all the rape, all However, the serf has far more social stability than the slave.

In times of economic stress, the life of a serf is far more secure than the life of a slave. The lord can desperately sell the land to whatever psychopath has the money. However, the lord can't break up the family. Nor can he force the serf to do any other job but work the land.

A serf has a very definite job description, compared to the slave. The slave is owned. So the owner could require him or her to do all sorts of personal services. The lord requires his serf to do one specific thing usually tied to the land. The lord can up his requirements of that one service and force a barter for that personal service. However, that takes time. So the lord can't get up on any arbitrary morning and say to the serf, 'Give me that personal service'. The lord has to get a bit crafty. The slave owner only needs a whim to get that same personal service immediately.

Much of this was untrue. Mediaeval times were surprisingly law abiding. All of these were torts and the serf (or family) could have taken (and did) the lord to court. The lord to do 'harm' to a serf would have had to go to court. The lord did have a right to labour (so many weeks) this would have been for taking in the harvest, maintaining the lord's buildings, maybe even a military duty. The service could be viewed as rent and might be paid off in money rather than labour. Droit de seigneur in mediaeval europe is a myth, wives being property were the property of her husband, and like other property protected under law. Some of the earliest english laws are around the property rights of serfs, e.g. recognising that there was no right of entry into a serf's dwelling, this is the origin of the concept that an Englishman's home is his castle. Feudalism had reciprocal rights and serfs could enforce these on their lord or he would be subject to punishment.

Since the jury was likely to be other local landholders, getting a court to side for the serf may have been difficult, but a landholder who was 'letting the side down' may have (and did) lose cases brought by his serf.
 
Much of this was untrue. Mediaeval times were surprisingly law abiding. All of these were torts and the serf (or family) could have taken (and did) the lord to court. The lord to do 'harm' to a serf would have had to go to court. The lord did have a right to labour (so many weeks) this would have been for taking in the harvest, maintaining the lord's buildings, maybe even a military duty. The service could be viewed as rent and might be paid off in money rather than labour. Droit de seigneur in mediaeval europe is a myth, wives being property were the property of her husband, and like other property protected under law. Some of the earliest english laws are around the property rights of serfs, e.g. recognising that there was no right of entry into a serf's dwelling, this is the origin of the concept that an Englishman's home is his castle. Feudalism had reciprocal rights and serfs could enforce these on their lord or he would be subject to punishment.

Since the jury was likely to be other local landholders, getting a court to side for the serf may have been difficult, but a landholder who was 'letting the side down' may have (and did) lose cases brought by his serf.

Furthermore, it was a feature of England not to require military service of serfs, but all other able-bodied men had to be available for military service. Serfs weren't just peasants with no rights and no prospect. Their rights could be violated and their options for recurse weren't all that great by modern standards, but for the vast majority of cases their lives and prospects were incomparably better than those of slaves.

McHrozni
 
Not really, debt bondage differs from such slavery in a key aspect: it's set for a term, until the debt is repaid. As such a debtor slave is in an inherently better position than a person captured or born into slavery, who will remain a slave for life and whose status will be inherited by future generations. The day to day life may not be significantly different, but future prospects could hardly be more different.

And if you are born into debt bondage, remember this is an intergenerational activity in many places. You can be in debt bondage from the day you are born, it applies not just to the person who created the debt but their offspring as well.

But still totally not slavery.
 
Not really, debt bondage differs from such slavery in a key aspect: it's set for a term, until the debt is repaid.

And if you are born into debt bondage, remember this is an intergenerational activity in many places. You can be in debt bondage from the day you are born, it applies not just to the person who created the debt but their offspring as well.

But still totally not slavery.

Debt slavery still exists in Nepal: Kamaiya. I don't use the word "slavery" lightly when I use it to describe kamaiya. The debt is often structured such that it can never be paid off. They charge high interest rates and force the debtor to work the debtee's farm - then charge him for room and board. The debts can be inherited, bought, and sold, and the debtor (and his family and descendants) is stuck with it. Kamaiya and other kinds of involuntary debt bondage have been illegal for a generation in Nepal, but are still common in some areas, I would guess that analogues also occur in isolated pockets of India, Pakistan, and Bhutan.

The catch is that not all bonded labor is structured this way. Most bonded labor is structured in a way that clearly does not equal slavery, but some kinds of bonded labor really are just slavery under a different name.
 
And if you are born into debt bondage, remember this is an intergenerational activity in many places. You can be in debt bondage from the day you are born, it applies not just to the person who created the debt but their offspring as well.

But still totally not slavery.

Look, again: debt bondage can and sometimes does amount to slavery. That is not a general feature of debt bondage however, and not all cases of debt bondage can be said to amount to slavery.

I explicitly said so in the post you were quoting, but you deleted that part:
Debt bondage is a form of exploitation that can amount to slavery, but doesn't automatically equal slavery.

Is this really so hard to grasp?

McHrozni
 
The catch is that not all bonded labor is structured this way. Most bonded labor is structured in a way that clearly does not equal slavery, but some kinds of bonded labor really are just slavery under a different name.

Yes, precisely. Calling all types of bonded labor as slavery really dilutes the word into becoming meaningless. Where I come from it's fairly common for an employer to pay for a portion of your (usually postgraduate) education, and you agree to work for that employer for a set amount of time afterward, receiving the same pay and benefits as someone else who isn't bound by such education contract. You just aren't allowed to cancel it, without paying a fairly outrageous sum of money, often several times in excess of what the education usually costs.

That's a form of bonded labor, which is rather uncontroversial by any standard. It's certainly not slavery.

McHrozni
 
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Yes, there is some overlap in this regard. At it's worst, a serf is little better off than a slave. This wasn't standard practice however, and the life of a serf wasn't actually horrible for the most part. It was tolerable, and it was in the interest of the lord to be such, peasant uprisings are an unnecessary expense and don't bring you any good ransoms.

McHrozni

As usual, when talking about a thousand years and a VERY large surface, things could vary a lot. People shouldn't confuse high medieval England with, say, 18'th century Russia, for example. The two are very different extremes.

In Russia, Tsar Peter The Great "emancipated" all slaves into serfs, but basically reduced the little rights all serfs had to slave levels. So basically in everything but name only, he enslaved all serfs.

This resulted in such extremes as that could just buy large numbers of slaves and put them on literal death marches to St Petersburg, IN CHAINS, to build him a grand palace. In fact, he conscripted 40,000 serfs PER YEAR, which works out to about one for every nine to sixteen serf households in Russia at the time. Why so many per year? High mortality rate. No, really, he worked about as many to death per year, plus the losses on those death marches, etc. You know, fun times.

Oh, and they had to provide their own food for the road and tools for their work.

But generally, things varied a lot across the vast expanse we're talking about. While for example in England they preferred to work things out in money pretty early, in Russia they rather preferred to be paid in work. (Yes, some paid the obrok in money instead, but generally they were only about a quarter of the population in the agricultural areas.) It was also entirely unregulated (before 1797) how much the lord has to pay or get paid, and you weren't exactly free to go look for other lords to work for. The barschina, i.e., corveé of Russian serfs increased steadily over centuries, to the point where foreign travellers to Russia in the 18'th century were consistently appalled by the onerous work obligations imposed on the peasants ON TOP of having to work the alloted land (because they had to subsist on the crop from that allotted land.)

In an 1797 ukaz (decree) of the tsar, a corvee of 3 days a week was decreed to be enough. Remember, these are dusk to dawn days, so we're talking about roughly the equivalent of a modern 40 hour week... ON TOP of having to work the allotted land. And I have a feeling that the decree wasn't because the lords were charging too little, if you get my drift.

So, yeah, serfdom could be basically every bit as bad as slavery, depending on the time and place. In fact, it could be worse than slavery in, say, Ancient Egypt.
 
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