What is slavery

Human Trafficking Definition
“A criminal activity in which people are recruited, harboured, transported, bought, or kidnapped to serve an exploitative purpose, such as sexual slavery,
forced labour, or child soldiery.”
Who in this room thinks
that slavery ended
in the 1800s?

Slavery Today – Bigger than Ever
Intro Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS-0CHXfyIk&list=PLC09B50A6C8AB88A3
Australian Context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx99hzKj4iE
The modern slave trade generates nearly $32 billion each year.
It is estimated that 27 million slaves exist in the world today.
80% are female & 50% are children.
That’s more than twice as many slaves as there were at the height of the Atlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century.

Why does slavery still exist?
Today we will look at the history of slavery and particularly the role of slavery in creating our modern world through the movement of large numbers of people.
Slavery continues because it continues to provide an economic function and is very profitable for slave traders.
By understanding the social and economic causes and effects of slavery, we can understand the reasons to oppose it and how to make it unprofitable.

History of Slavery
When did slavery start?
Slavery has existed since ancient times.
In Ancient Egypt, captured soldiers were enslaved
It became common in Africa after the Bantu migrations spread agriculture to all parts of the continent.

History of African Slavery
African law did not recognize individual land ownership so wealth and power in Africa only came from controlling the human labor that made land productive.
Slaves were a form of investment and a sign of wealth.

Capture
of
Slaves
As European demand grew, African chieftains organized raiding parties to seize individuals from neighboring societies.
Some tribes launched wars specifically for the purpose of capturing slaves
Captured slaves were force-marched to holding forts along the west African coast before being loaded on ships.

European Slave Trade 1500-1870
When Europeans arrived in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 15th Centuries, the slave trade was a well-established feature in African society
A system for capturing, selling, and distributing slaves had been in place for over 500 years
With the arrival of the Europeans and the demand for slaves for plantations in the Americas, the slave trade expanded dramatically

Slavery Expands to the New World
As diseases like malaria reduced the native populations in South and Central America, the Spanish began relying on imported slaves from Africa.
The earliest slave ships to the New World occurred in the early 16th Century (1518).
By the early 17th Century, the British had introduced slaves to North America.

Triangular Slave Trade
The demand for labor in the New World stimulated a profitable three-legged trade.
European manufactured goods, especially cloth, iron and firearms, went to Africa where they were exchanged for slaves
The slaves were then shipped to the Caribbean and Americas where they were sold for cash or bartered for sugar or molasses
The ships then returned to Europe loaded with American raw materials.
Video:

Crash Course History: The Atlantic Slave Trade.

Typical Triangular
Trade Route

Middle Passage
Crews attempted to keep as many slaves alive as possible to maximize profits, but treatment was extremely cruel
Some slaves refused to eat and crew members used tools to pry open their mouths and force-feed them
Sick slaves were cast overboard to prevent infection from spreading
During the early days of the slave trade,
mortality rates were as high as 50%.
As the volume of trade increased and
conditions improved (bigger ships, more
water, better nourishment and facilities),
mortality eventually declined to about 5%.

Above is a picture of a typical slave ship from the Middle Passage.
Slaves were forced to lie in chains with barely 50 cm space between them.

Arrival,
Branding &
Selling of Slaves
On arrival, the slaves were taken off the ship and placed in a pen.
They were washed and had their skin covered with grease or tar to make them look healthy (and therefore more valuable).
Slaves were auctioned to the highest bidder and would be branded with a hot iron to permanently identify them .

Plantation Economics
Plantations relied almost exclusively on slave labor supervised by small numbers of European managers.
Apart from sugar, plantations produced crops like tobacco and cotton.
High profits from the plantations would not have been profitable if wages had to be paid
Brazilian sugar mill in the 1830s

Conditions on Plantations
Disease, brutal working conditions, and poor sanitation and nutrition resulted in high mortality rates (the average life expectancy for slaves in Brazil was 23 years).
Owners imported mainly male slaves and allowed few to establish families which resulted in low reproduction.
To keep up the needed numbers, plantation owners imported a steady stream of slaves
Of all slaves delivered to the western hemisphere, about 50% went to Caribbean destinations.
About 33% went to Brazil.
Smaller numbers went elsewhere in South and Central America.

Slavery in North America
Diseases took less of a toll in North America and living conditions were usually less brutal.
Plantation owners imported large numbers of female slaves and encouraged their slaves to form families and bear children.
Only about 5% of slaves delivered to the western hemisphere went to North America.

Volume of the Slave Trade
Late 15th - 16th Century… 2,000 Africans exported each year
17th Century… 20,000 per year
18th Century… 55,000 per year
1780s… 88,000 per year
All told, 12 million Africans were transported to the western hemisphere via the Atlantic Slave Trade
Another 4 million died resisting capture or during captivity before arriving at their destination

Forms of Resistance
Work slowly
Sabotage
Runaway
“Maroons” gathered together and built self-governing communities
Revolt
Slaves outnumbered the owners and supervisors so revolt was always a threat
While causing much destruction, revolts were usually able to be suppressed because the owners had access to arms, horses, and military forces

Resistance:
Saint-Dominique (Haiti)
The only revolt to successfully abolish slavery occurred on the French sugar colony of Saint Dominique in 1793
The slaves declared independence from France, renamed the country Haiti, and established a self-governing republic in 1804
Francois-Dominique Toussaint was one of the military leaders of the Saint-Dominique revolt

Abolitionists
Key Figures who led pushed for the abolition of slavery included:
Former Slaves
Olaudah Equiano
Politicians
William Wilberforce
Religious Leaders
John Wesley
Revolutionaries
Simon Bolivar

Former Slaves: Olaudah Equiano
Equiano was originally from Benin and was captured by slave raiders when he was 10.
He spent 21 years as a slave and eventually saved up enough money to buy his freedom.
In 1789 he published The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano.
He sold the book throughout Britain and actively campaigned to abolish the slave trade.

Politicians: William Wilberforce
Elected to British Parliament in 1780.
Delivered a stirring abolitionist speech to the House of Commons in 1789.
Repeatedly introduced the Abolition Bill until it passed in 1807.

Religious Leaders: John Wesley
Founder of the Methodist Church
Published Thoughts Upon Slavery in 1774
On his deathbed he was reading Equiano’s narrative

Revolutionaries: Simon Bolivar
Inspired by George Washington and Enlightenment ideas, Bolivar took up arms against Spanish rule in 1811
He freed slaves who joined his forces
Provided constitutional guarantees of freedom for all residents of Gran Columbia (Venezuela, Columbia, and Ecuador)

Timeline for Abolition of
the Slave Trade
1803: Denmark abolishes slave trade.
1807: Britain abolishes slave trade.
1807: U.S. passes legislation banning slave trade, to take effect 1808.
1810: British negotiate an agreement with Portugal calling for gradual abolition of slave trade in the South Atlantic.
1815: At the Congress of Vienna, the British pressure Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands to agree to abolish the slave trade.
1817: Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty prohibiting the slave trade.
Although the trade in slaves had ended, those people already sold into slavery were not yet free.

Slavery Continues
Abolishing the slave trade did not end slavery.
British ships patrolled the west coast of Africa to halt illegal trade.
The last documented ship that carried slaves across the Atlantic arrived in Cuba in 1867.

Timeline for Abolition of Slavery
1813: Gradual emancipation adopted in Argentina.
1814: Gradual emancipation begins in Colombia.
1823: Slavery abolished in Chile.
1824: Slavery abolished in Central America.
1829: Slavery abolished in Mexico.
1831: Slavery abolished in Bolivia.
1833: Abolition of Slavery Act passed in Britain.
1842: Slavery abolished in Uruguay.
1848: Slavery abolished in all French & Danish colonies.
1851: Slavery abolished in Ecuador.
1854: Slavery abolished in Peru and Venezuela.
1863: Emancipation Proclamation issued in the U.S.
1863: Slavery abolished in all Dutch colonies.
1865: Slavery abolished in the U.S. as a result of
the end of the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln, the President who abolished slavery in USA

Impact of Slave Trade in Africa
Mixed
Some states like Rwanda largely escaped the slave trade through resistance and geography
Some like Senegal in west Africa were hit very hard
Other societies benefited economically from selling slaves, trading, or operating ports
As abolition took root in the 19th Century some African merchants even complained about the loss of their livelihood
On the whole the slave trade devastated Africa
“Door of No Return” on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal

Impact of Slave Trade in Africa
The Atlantic Slave Trade deprived Africa of about 16 million people and the continuing Islamic slave trade consumed another several million.
Overall the African population rose thanks partly to the introduction of more nutritious food from the Americas
Peanuts were one of several crops introduced to Africa from the Americas

Australia’s Slave Trade
“Blackbirding”

What was ‘blackbirding’ and why did it come into existence?
Even though slavery was abolished in the 1830s, people were still captured and enslaved.
From the early1860s there was a demand for cheap labour for plantations in Fiji and Queensland.
Ship captains could profit from capturing South Sea Islanders, transporting them and selling them to sugar planters on the Australian coast.
This was known as ‘Blackbirding’

How were Islanders kidnapped?
They sank the canoes of curious islanders who paddled out to see the ships and trade fruit and fish.
They enticed islanders with beads and axes.
Blackbirders used force and trickery to get the islanders on board their ships.
Raiding parties would go and take people from the beaches and villages, using their guns to fight off resistance.

Dangers
of the
voyage
Once imprisoned in the hold, terrified islanders travelled up to 1600 km.
The food on board was strange and the water often stagnant.
The blackbirders were greedy and brutal.
Some captives were injured, became sick and either died or were killed and were thrown overboard.

Arriving in Queensland
On arrival, islanders were sold and forced to work long hours in the cane fields.
Those who worked on inland farms struggled to cope with the cold climate
They had no way of contacting their families.

The Scale
of the System
From 1863-1875 10 500 islanders were blackbirded.
In total, between 1859 and 1900 more than 100 000 Pacific Islanders were ‘recruited’.
Most (62 500) went to Queensland
About 5 000 went to Peru in South America.
The rest went throughout the Pacific Islands.

The End of Blackbirding
Following the public trial of Dr James Murray for shooting and killing 60 islanders on the brig Carl, public opinion put pressure on to end the slave trade.
From the mid 1870s the trade was replaced by a more regulated system of indenture with islanders agreeing to work in Australia for a fixed period of time.
Many argued that this just continued some of the worst features of blackbirding. The system officially ended in 1901 with the establishment of the White Australia Policy.

Slavery Today:
Despite the official abolition of slavery by the 1870s, illegal human trafficking and slavery is the fastest growing criminal industry today.
The US Government has identified eight major types of modern day slavery or human trafficking:
1. Forced Labour 5. Involuntary Domestic Servitude
2. Sex Trafficking 6. Forced Child Labor
3. Bonded Labour 7. Child Sex Trafficking
4. Debt Bondage of Migrant Laborers 8. Child Soldiers
The estimated that the total yearly profits generated by the human trafficking industry are around $35 billion dollars
View brief video:
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/multimedia.html?vf=/documents/video/psa/HT_PSA_Better_Future_2002_60s.flv