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Slavery is an unforgettable dark period in human history, it is an important stage in the development of human society, the evolution of Western slavery is a complex and rich historical process, it has gone through thousands of years of development, from the initial simple slavery to later racial slavery, and finally to the abolition of slavery.
This article will explore the evolution of slavery in the West, from the origins of slavery, the development and decline of slavery, and the abolition of slavery.
The origins of slavery
The origins of slavery in the West can be traced back to ancient civilizations. In the ancient world, slavery existed in many civilized societies, such as ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and ancient Greece and Rome, and the slavery of these societies had different characteristics and institutional arrangements, but what they had in common was that slaves were the lowest stratum of society, regarded as property and goods rather than human beings.
There are many theories about the origins of slavery in ancient times, but one of the more common ideas is that slavery originated in war. In ancient times, wars were constant, and the victorious side usually captured the defeated side as slaves.
Over time, the sources of slaves became more diverse, with some being sold into slavery, some forced into slavery, and still others forced into slavery because of debt.
Slavery reached its peak during the Greco-Roman period, when slaves were widely used in various fields such as production, agriculture, mining, construction, and household chores. Slaves were regarded as property and goods, without any human rights and freedoms, their lives and bodies were completely controlled by their masters, and in the Greco-Roman period, slavery was the basis of socio-economic organization and an inevitable product of civilized society.
The disintegration of ancient slavery began in the Middle Ages, during which the European economy began to shift to a subsistence economy based on agriculture, slavery was gradually abolished, and at the same time, medieval Christian ideas also had an impact on slavery.
Christian doctrine holds that every human being is an equal being created by God, and therefore slavery is considered immoral and inconsistent with Christian doctrine.
However, during the Renaissance, with the economic boom of Europe and the beginning of colonial exploration, private slavery reappeared. Private slavery in this period differed from public slavery in ancient times in that it was private property owned by individuals or trading companies.
Slaves were used to grow cash crops, mining, and other labor, and private slavery during this period was widely used on the American continent, especially in the Spanish, Portuguese and British colonies.
The development of private slavery caused considerable controversy. Some believed that slavery was legal because it was in line with the economic and social conditions of the time, while others believed that slavery violated human rights and was inconsistent with Christian teachings, and in the late 18th century, with the rise of the Enlightenment and human rights ideas, slavery gradually became a social and political issue.
In the 19th century, the abolition of slavery became a global movement, in the United States, slavery became one of the main points of contention in the Civil War, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln promulgated the Emancipation Proclamation of All Slaves in Union Territory, declaring the freedom of all slaves in federal territory, and in 1865, the United States passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
In other regions, the abolition of slavery was also promoted. The United Kingdom passed the Abolition Act in 1833, France passed the Abolition Act in 1848, and Brazil abolished slavery in 1888.
The development of slavery
The development of slavery in the West can be divided into three stages: ancient slavery, medieval slavery, and modern slavery.
Ancient slavery began in the 7th century BC during the ancient Greek and Roman periods, during which slavery was the basis of socio-economic organization and an inevitable product of civilized society, slaves were usually prisoners in war, or poor people who sold themselves or were forcibly sold, and they were often forced to perform manual labor such as agriculture, mining, construction, and iron smelting.
The advantage of the ancient slavery system was that slave labor was cheap and could promote economic development, but the disadvantage was also very obvious, slaves had no human rights, not only could not enjoy freedom and democracy, but also could not enjoy any form of education and training, so slaves were not only economically exploited, but also socially excluded and discriminated against.
Medieval slavery refers to the European system of slavery from the 5th century to the 15th century AD, during which slavery was influenced by the fall of the Roman Empire, the Reformation, and urbanization, and slave owners, usually nobles and churches, owned large numbers of slaves in estates and monasteries. These slaves were usually employed in agriculture, animal husbandry, handicrafts and services.
Unlike ancient slavery, medieval slavery emphasized subordination, believing that the relationship between slave and master was a gifted and immutable relationship.
In the Middle Ages, slavery gradually declined, partly because of the development of agricultural technology, which made land more efficient use, and partly due to the rise of urbanization, where city dwellers needed free labor to maintain economic activity.
Modern slavery refers to slavery in Europe from the 16th century to the 19th century, during which private slavery reappeared with the beginning of colonial expeditions, and Spain and Portugal established a large number of colonies in the Americas, using local residents and African slaves as labor, thus creating great wealth.
Slavery was very common in the Americas and the Caribbean and was known as the triangular trade. African slaves were forcibly transported to the Americas and the Caribbean, and then forced to work in cultivation and mining, and slave owners considered them private property that could be bought, sold, used and punished at will, and the rise of slavery led to huge losses in the economic and social development of the African continent.
However, slavery came under fire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the rise of anti-slavery movements, as well as the spread of the ideas of freedom and equality during the French Revolution and the American Revolution, pushed for the abolition of slavery.
In 1807, Britain banned the slave trade, followed by other European countries and the United States, and slavery was abolished in the United States until 1865.
Slavery in the West took thousands of years to develop, but in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with the rise of anti-slavery movements, slavery began to decline.
The rise of the anti-slavery movement
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, anti-slavery movements began to emerge in Europe and the United States, with the core idea of opposing human slavery and exploitation and advocating that all people should have free and equal rights, represented by William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and William Lloyd Garrison.
The leaders of these anti-slavery movements actively promoted the ideas of freedom and equality everywhere and tried to gain political and economic support, and important achievements of these movements included the prohibition of the slave trade in Britain in 1807, the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, and the remarkable progress of the anti-slavery movement in the United States, especially during the Civil War.
The rise of the industrial revolution is also one of the reasons for the decline of slavery, with the rapid development of industrialization, machines began to replace human labor, and slavery can not adapt to this new mode of production, industrialization brings production efficiency and technological progress, greatly reducing the cost of manual labor, which makes the economic benefits of slavery gradually reduced, leading to slave owners abandoning this system.
One of the reasons for the decline of slavery was the rise of liberal ideas, which advocated individual liberty and equal rights and opposed exploitation and oppression.
The spread of these ideas, especially during the French Revolution and the American Revolution, promoted the spread and popularization of the ideas of freedom and equality, and the popularization of these values led to more and more people beginning to oppose slavery and call for its abolition.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Europe's economy began to shift from predominantly agricultural to predominantly industrial, and this economic change led to a rapid development of global trade, followed by an increase in the flow of goods and capital.
In the past, the development of slavery was closely related to agricultural production, but under the new economic system, the development of industrialization and commercialization made the existence of slavery more and more unsustainable.
In the United States, the intervention of the federal government also had an important impact on the development of slavery, and in 1850, the United States passed the Fugitive Slave Act, requiring all escaped slaves to be returned to their masters, which made slavery face greater criticism and opposition, and during the Civil War, the federal government also actively intervened to promote the abolition of slavery.
Slave revolts and revolts
The development of slavery was also often challenged by slave uprisings and revolts that largely contributed to the decline of slavery, most notably the Black Haitian Revolution of 1804.
Led by the black leader Toussaint Louvetour, he overthrew French colonial rule and established the independent Republic of Haiti. This revolution became an important symbol of global anti-colonialism and slavery.
With the rise of the anti-slavery movement and the spread of liberal ideas, slavery was abolished worldwide, beginning in the Spanish colonies, followed by European countries such as Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and finally the United States.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the abolition of slavery on a global scale became an important event in human history, marking the development of human society in the direction of greater freedom and equality.
The emergence of racial slavery
Western racial slavery refers to the system of colony construction and production activities by using Africans as slaves in the process of European exploration and colonization, and the emergence of Western racial slavery is gradually formed in the process of European exploration and colonization, and its history can be traced back to Portugal in the late 15th century.
At the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese began to trade and colonize the coastal areas of West Africa, they found that there was a large amount of gold and slaves in the interior of Africa, and began to use Africans for the slave trade, and the Portuguese trafficked Africans to Europe and colonies to be used as labor such as plantations and mines.
In the 16th century, with the expansion of European exploration and colonization, racial slavery gradually became a commercial activity, and countries such as the Netherlands, Britain, and France joined the slave trade to sell Africans to the Americas for large-scale cultivation, mining, and other productive activities.
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the development of slavery reached its peak. At that time, the scale and extent of slavery was unprecedented, and in the colonies of North and South America, black slaves accounted for a large proportion of the total population, widely used in agricultural and mining production activities, and slavery became an important economic basis in the process of European exploration and colonization.
In racial slavery, Africans were regarded as irreplaceable tools of production, deprived of all freedom and dignity, slave owners could treat and abuse slaves arbitrarily, slaves lived and died by masters, they had no human rights, the emergence of slavery led to the depopulation and cultural destruction of the African continent, and at the same time left a deep imprint on the socio-economic development of the colonies.
At the same time as the emergence of racial slavery in the West, some people began to oppose the existence of slavery, including slaves and free blacks, white Christian groups, legal and human rights movement organizations, and so on.
With the rise of the anti-slavery movement, more and more people began to oppose slavery, call for the abolition of slavery, and propose a series of reform proposals, which eventually became the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, which put great pressure on the existence of slavery.
The evolution of slavery in the West is an important stage in the history of human society, the origins of slavery can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia around 4000 BC, and the emergence of racial slavery is a dark history in the New World.
With the rise of industrialization and capitalism, slavery became less and less economical and efficient, and at the same time caused moral and human rights controversy, and finally, slavery was completely abolished under the condemnation of the international community, and slaves were freed.