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Chattel slavery is defined as "the enslaving and owning of human beings and their offspring
as property able to be bought sold and forced to work without wages as distinguished from other
systems of forced unpaid or low-wage labor also considered to be slavery." Was chattel slavery
among the Africans by the Europeans unique? Which cultures enslaved the most people? Which cultures
practiced slavery the longest? Which slave trade had the most slaves during their history?
Hello I'm Colin Heaton a veteran of the United States Army and Marine
Corps former history professor book author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History
thank you [Music]
Many believe that European enslavement of Africans was unique and the largest slave trade in history.
They used the term "chattel slavery" denoting the method in the United States specifically.
This ignores the fact that this was not unique to the North American experience.
South America also had the practice with the Spanish and Portuguese. Was it unique to the
Europeans? History says no and in fact this is a myth. Enslaving people in chains for forced labor
owning them as property as well as their offspring was practiced long before the European powers
even first set foot in West Africa and European Slavs were the primary targets for enslavement in
Eastern and Central Europe for several thousand years by many empires. It is often believed that
the word "slave" was derived from the Latin word for "slav" as the Roman Republic and later the
Empire expanded into Eastern Europe Slavs were a primary target for their slave trade. In addition
the Slavs were themselves enslavers of others to include Byzantine Greeks as stated by historian
Igor Froyanov. Many scholars believe that the word slave has its origins in old Greek "Leia" meaning
"to plunder" or "taking booty" as well as "conquer and take". There is also the Greek etymology
for the word "Sklabos" being a derivation of "Sklabenos" which translates as Slavic originally
as a self-reference for the Slavic people as "Sloveninu". However Slavs had also been slaves
of the ancient Macedonians and Ancient Greeks as well as the ancient Bulgars. Likewise the
Byzantine Empire that succeeded the Western Roman Empire also took Slavs as slaves and therefore the
word was used in the Greek Lexicon. These slaves were in fact in generational servitude under the
Byzantines just as serfdom was also generational later throughout Europe and these were Christians
basically enslaving other Christians. But Muslims were prevented from enslaving other Muslims
but non-Muslims were fair game. The Romans took their slaves not just for agricultural labor but
also for brothels and for entertainment in the Coliseum starting in the First Century A.D. Many
became gladiators while many more were simply used as public entertainment and fed to wild animals.
When the Huns arrived in Eastern Europe around 376 A.D and while not slavers as such they did
take hostages and many of these were Slavs. Slavs not being a unified people and just a collection
of scattered peoples were easy to conquer and enslave. The Moors from Spain and North Africa
took Slavs into captivity during the 7th century and beyond. Otto the Great in the 9th century
captured pagan Slavs and sold them into slavery. The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks used the same method
against their African and European slaves. In fact 20 percent of their populations were slaves. In
the mid 14th century Ottoman Sultan Murad I built an army of slaves referred to as the Kapikulu".
The "devsirme" system allowed for promotion and advancement if they converted to Islam such
as within the Janissary Corps. Other slaves were kept for hard labor and basically worked to death.
It is believed by many historians that Sultan Mehmet II established the first open commercial
Ottoman slave market in Constantinople in the 1460s following the model already used
throughout Turkey replacing the former Byzantine slave market. Historian Nicholas de Nicolay states
that "there were slaves of all ages and both sexes often displayed naked to be thoroughly
checked and this was true of children and young women for potential buyers." For 600 years the
Ottomans practiced the largest slave trade in history and sometimes it was brutal. Historian
Madeline C Zilfi chronicles that "under both Arab and Ottoman rule black Africans were
considered inferior to European and Caucasian slaves and therefore less valuable," therefore
expendable. Many slaves served on Ottoman ships the oared galleys. Life was brutal and often short
as these slaves were not considered to be valuable as they were easily replaced, unlike the black
slaves from Africa who were considered quite valuable to the English, Portuguese and Spanish
colonial powers. In particular to the Muslims they were almost worthless but many people want
to do a comparison between the Atlantic African slave trade and other forms of slavery. When it
comes to sheer volume the Arabic and Ottoman slave trades lasted 900 years longer and enslaved tens
of millions more than the 13 to 14 million taken from Africa by the Europeans. More sub-Saharan
Africans were sold to the Islamic world than to Europe and the Western Hemisphere combined. There
were more Europeans enslaved by North Africans than there were sub-Saharan Africans enslaved
and sent to the Western Hemisphere. This was slavery based upon race so it was not created
by Europeans. It was also based upon religion. Non-muslims as I said before were targets. In
fact the Europeans were very late to the party and basically amateurs when it came to slavery.
The Spanish and Portuguese were the most effective taking over 90 percent of the Africans for their
colonial empires starting in the mid-15th century. The English actively entered the slave trade over
a hundred years later. Millions of Muslim slaves were Slavic Christians among many other Christian
ethnic groups. However what is of Interest was that if Christians or other non-Muslim groups
paid tribute basically paying taxes or bribes then this often prevented the taking of slaves in most
cases. It was a protection racket. This was also true of the Ottomans for the most part but not
necessarily for the Arab cultures who still extracted tribute but often still raided for
slaves all over Europe and East and Central Africa such as the East African and Barbary slave trades.
Slavery for life was not unusual and the children of slaves inherited that status in many cases.
Punishments in their society ranged from impaling, flogging, burning, hanging, and beheading. All
were normal punishments in Muslim culture but for a slave to escape and be recaptured
or simply charged with a crime these punishments, execution by any means were standard procedures.
This was mainly due to the vast numbers of potential slaves that cost nothing to acquire and
were worked to death in various ways. Ottoman and Arab slavers took their slaves from territories
they either raided or had conquered requiring no expense for obtaining free labor. A century
after the western societies ended legal slavery, the Young Turks adopted an anti-slavery stance
in the early 20th century as stated by historians Clarence Smith and William Gervase. Sultan Abdul
Hamid II's personal slaves were freed in 1909 but members of his dynasty were allowed to keep
their slaves and finally Mustafa Kamal Ataturk ended legal slavery in the Turkish Republic.
However Turkey waited until 1933 to ratify the 1926 League of Nations convention on the
suppression of slavery. Nonetheless illegal sales of girls were reportedly continued at least into
the early 1930s and the legislation explicitly prohibiting slavery was not adopted until 1964. In
other Muslim countries slavery also lasted longer than in the west with Saudi Arabia finally ending
legal slavery in 1962. Legal slavery lasted in the Islamic world from the 6th Century well into the
20th century. Muslim slavers operated from Europe, Africa and Asia to the Indian Ocean which involved
hundreds of millions of people being slaves. Yes Muslim slave trading was the greatest in
history and it still exists today only it is not openly practiced nor endorsed by any government.
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