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Definition: Slavery |
SlaveryNoun1. The state of being under the control of another person. 2. The practice of slaveholding. 3. Work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "slavery" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
Synonyms: SlaverySynonyms: bondage (n), thraldom (n), thrall (n), thralldom (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Slavery is involuntary servitude enforced by violence. It predates every institution of ownership and authority, and its definition has changed over time to reflect those institutions in every society. It is sometimes an expectation associated with other relationships, such as marriage and other family relations, military service, or debt relationships. See debt slavery.
The article on abolitionism deals in detail with the 19th century advocacy to abolish formal slavery, in first Britain and the British Empire and later the United States.
The 1926 Slavery Convention describes slavery as "...the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..."
The modern conception of slavery is simply that of an individual whose movements (and usually most of their activities) are under the total control of another. The slave is the one who cannot leave without explicit permission, and who will be returned to the 'owner' or 'master' or overseer or controller if they stray or escape. Typically this is today accomplished through tacit arrangements with local police and other authorities - by masters with some hold over them, or status as landowners or other wealth.
Slavery is in all countries considered to be a criminal activity, outlawed by UN conventions. However some states such as Burma and Sudan do facilitate the institution of slavery, according to anti-slavery groups such as Free the Slaves.
In the most common conception of slavery, one person is treated as the chattel property of another person, providing slave labour from birth to death. This is not the most common relation in modern slavery. Capture of modern slaves is normally accomplished by deception or fraud - usually of the young, who are taken from family by slavers who offer them money and some promise or story that this represents advances on wages in some respectable job, or, simply kidnap the children. The slaves are usually not worked to death, but at some point usually escape or are released, often because they are of no further use. For instance, in Thailand, slave prostitutes are thrown onto the street as soon as they test positive for HIV - usually about three years after they are bought at the age of 13 or 14. Thus modern slaves are often called disposable people (see also economics of slavery section below).
It is quite common for a slave to be told that they are working off a debt, but to have no access to an accounting for that debt, and no right to take any lower-paying or less supervised employment. These people may be considered slaves if they are under the impression that challenging these conditions, or leaving in protest of them, would lead to serious bodily harm.
Historically, slaves were often those of a different ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race (Animal rights and Great Ape personhood advocates would also include species) from those who enslaved them, but in general such slaveries were short. It has been relatively rare in history for an entire ethnic group to be held as slaves for more than a couple of generations. In most such cases intermarriage, granting of liberty, right to buy one's own freedom, have caused slave and slave-owning populations to merge.
Societies characterized by poverty, population pressures, and cultural and technological backwardness are frequently exporters of slaves to more developed nations. Today most slaves are rural people forced to move to cities, or purchased in rural areas and sold into slavery in cities. These moves take place due to loss of subsistence agriculture, thefts of land, and population increases.
Slavery is almost always a matter of economics - in effect, those with poor birthright or bad luck in any society have sometimes been forced to thrown themselves on the mercy of those with better birthright and luck, or simply been forced to provide service to those who had power and were willing to use it to subordinate others.
Historical examples include the Slavs and various African societies, such as the Ibo of Nigeria (see below for deatils). These were sometimes what we would today consider prisoners of war.
Individuals could also find themselves condemned to slavery as a result of being convicted of crimes.
For centuries, the Slavic people of Eastern Europe were the primary source of slaves for Europe and the Near East. Because of this, the word for slave in numerous European languages is derived from the word for Slavs—the English word being a clear example.
Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean cultures was a mixture of debt-slavery and the enslavement of prisoners of war. Undoubtedly a majority of slaves were condemned to agricultural labor and lived hard lives.
Greek and Roman urban slaves, as opposed to agricultural slaves, seem to have had some chance at manumission. In Rome, slaves were organised as a social class, and some authors found in their condition the earliest concept of proletariat, given that the only property they were allowed to own was the gift of reproduction. Slaves lived then within this class with very little hope of a better life, and they were owned and exchanged, just like goods, by free men. They had a price as "human instruments"; their life had not, and their patron could freely even kill them. There was however a sort of class of freedmen and freedwomen, called liberati, in Roman society at all periods. These people were not numerous, but Rome needed to demonstrate at times the great frank spirit of this "civitas", so the freed slaves were made famous, as hopeful examples. Freed people suffered some minor legal disabilities that show in fact how otherwise open the society was to them—they could not hold certain high offices and they could not marry into the senatorial classes. Their children, however, had no prohibitions.
Much of the wealth of classical Athens came from its silver mines, which were worked by slave labor under extremely inhumane conditions.
Most of the gladiators were often slaves. One of them, Spartacus, formed an army of slaves that battled the Roman armies in the Servile War for several years.
The Latin poet Horace, son of a freedman, served as a military officer in the army of Brutus and seemed headed for a political career before the defeat of Brutus by Octavian and Antony. Though Horace may have been an exceptional case, freedmen were an important part of Roman administrative functions. Freedmen of the Imperial families often were the main functionaries in the Imperial administration.
The beginnings of Christianity did not seriously change slavery. Though the Christian leaders often called for good treatment for slaves and condemned the enslavement of Christians, the institution itself was not questioned. The shift from chattel slavery to serfdom in medieval Europe is otherwise an economic rather than a moral issue.
The institution of slavery pre-existed Islam in the Arab world, and was permitted under the laws of Islam. Manumission was encouraged, though not required; however, it was forbidden to free slaves against their will, to prevent them being turned out to starve in hard times or when they were sick or old. Usually, only prisoners of war or the children of slaves could be slaves; however, there were exceptions from time to time, one of the most notable being the practice of devsirme, by which people were accepted as payment of taxes. As there was usually an exploitable peasant population to perform agricultural work, the demand for slaves usually was more for specialised forms of service—eunuchs, artisans, concubines, janissaries etc. This often led wealthy people to have their children trained in valuable skills like carpet making or gardening, in case ill fortune ever made them captives; without that value of their own, if they could not be ransomed they would simply have been killed.
In Al-Andalus, Slavic slaves (saqaliba) were trained in the public administration. Some of them even ruled the taifa of Denia.
Race had no impact on slavery in Arabia under Islam. Islam as a political movement was often a liberating force for those held in racial slavery. However, like other ancient cultures, Islamic rulers made a custom of enslaving those defeated in war. Mere conversion to Islam did not automatically result in manumission, either. As those peoples—notably the Turks—became Muslims, their use as slaves did not end immediately. The Islamic world bought and captured slaves from Europe and Africa on a large scale for roughly a thousand years.
The institution of serfdom in medieval Europe was weaker than chattel slavery; serfs were obligated to serve or work the land for their master, but were not chattel property. Serfdom persisted in Eastern Europe until the mid-19th century, when Russian czar Alexander II emancipated the serfs in 1861. See also feudalism and guild.
Slavery was common and widespread throughout Africa into the 19th century. The Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in South Africa. Britain, which held vast colonial territories on the continent (including South Africa), made the practice of slavery illegal in these regions. Ironically, the end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors. This action is what today may be called an instance of cultural imperialism, albeit being one of the less mal-intentioned manifestations of the phenomenon.
The nature of the slave societies differed greatly across the continent. There were large plantations worked by slaves in Egypt, the Sudan, and Zanzibar, but this was not a typical use of slaves in Africa as a whole. In some slave societies, slaves were protected and almost incorporated into the slaveowning family. In others, slaves were brutally abused, and even used for human sacrifices. Despite the vast numbers of slaves exported from Africa, it is thought that the majority of African slaves remained in Africa, continuing as slaves in the regions where they were first captured.
Prior to the 16th century, the bulk of slaves exported from Africa were shipped from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar became a leading port based on this trade. Arab slave traders differed from European traders in that they would often capture slaves themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into the continent. They also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of female slaves over male slaves. This reflected their desire for household and sexual slaves rather than slaves to work on plantations.
The African slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured in West Africa and shipped to the colonies of the New World (triangular trade).
As a result of the Spanish War of Succession, Britain obtained the monopoly (asiento de negros) of transporting African Negroes to Spanish America.
It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to thirteen million people were shipped as slaves from Africa, of whom some 15 percent died during the terrible voyage. The great majority were shipped to the Americas, but some also went to Europe and the south of Africa. While much of the slave trade in Africa was related to external protagonists, an internal slave trade unrelated to non-Africans did exist.
The demographic impact of the slave trade on Africa is an important question, regarding which consensus remains elusive. Some historians conclude that the total loss—persons removed, those who died on the arduous march to coastal slave marts and those killed in slave raids—far exceeded the 65-75 million inhabitants remaining in Sub-Saharan Africa at the trade's end. Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas (cassava, maize) would have limited general population decline to particular regions at particular times—western Africa around 1760-1810 and Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa female captives were taken in preference, for domestic and dynastic reasons, with many male captives being a "bycatch" who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them. So the balance and timing of the two demographic sorts of market could make a difference.
Slavery persists in Africa above all other continents. Mauritania abolished slavery only in 1981, but several human rights organizations are reporting that the practice continues there. The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin. In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In the Sudan slavery continues as part of an ongoing civil war.
Slavery in the Americas during the 17th century was an institution that made little distinction as to the race of the slave or the free man. But by the 18th century, the overwhelming number of black slaves was such that white and Native American slavery was less common. Slavery under European rule began with importation of white European slaves (or indentured servants), was followed by the enslavement of local aborigines in the Caribbean, and eventually was primarily replaced with Africans imported through a large slave trade as the native populations declined through disease. Most slaves brought to the Americas ended up in the Caribbean or South America where tropical diseases took a large toll on their population and required large numbers of replacements.
In Pre-Columbian MesoAmerica the most common forms of slavery were those of prisoners-of-war and debtors. People unable to pay back a debt could be sentenced to work as a slave to the person owed until the debt was worked off. Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free.
In the Incan Empire, commoners were subject to a tax, the mita, that they paid working on public infrastructure.
Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with local Native Americans.
Initially, the Spanish maintained the mita directing it to silver mining at Potosí.
However, as these populations shrank due to imported European diseases, African slaves began to be imported.
During the colonial epoch, slavery was a mainstay of the Brazilian economy, especially in mining and sugar cane production. Because of the low cost of slave-produced Brazilian sugar, British colonies in the West Indies were unable to match the market prices of Brazilian sugar. This led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil to end this practice. Slavery was legally ended by the "Lei Áurea" (Golden Law) of 1888.
In the early 1990s evidence of illegal "forced labor and debt bondage" amounting to slavery was unearthed in the Amazon region. The Brazilian government has since taken measures against such activities, although concerns continue to be expressed that more stringent steps may be required. In 1995, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced a new series of measures to force compliance with the anti-slavery statues.
In September of 2002, a report to the Ministério de Trabalho (Ministry of Labor), stated that between 1995 and 2001 approximately 3,500 slave labourers had been freed, and that it was estimated that 2,500 people remained in such conditions at that time. (See [1], Source: "O Globo" Online ("País tem 2,5 mil trabalhadores escravos"-"Country has 2.5 thousand slave workers"))
The first slaves brought to the English colonies on the continent were landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Slavery in the United States ended irregularly. Slavery was legal in most of the 13 colonies, and was ended in many of the states later called "Free States" only after the turn of the 19th century. For instance, slavery was not abolished in New York state until 1827, and even then only absolutely abolished for those born before 1799. Those born between 1799 and the passage of the law were under conditional slavery.
In 1806 the United States passed legislation that banned the importation of slaves, but not the internal slave trade, and the involvement in the international slave trade or the outfitting of ships for that trade by U.S. citizens. Though there were certainly violations of this law, slavery in America became more or less self-sustaining. Several slave rebellions took place during the 1700s and 1800s including the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831. The importation of slaves into the United States was banned on January 1, 1808.
Influential leaders of the abolition movement (1820-60) include:
In the slave-holding colonies of British North America slavery was first abolished in Upper Canada (now the southern part of Ontario; slavery was officially abolished there in 1810, although slavery had probably disappeared before then (see John Graves Simcoe). Slavery had not been an important part of the Upper Canadian economy; most slaves were servants. In the decades before the American Civil War and especially after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law, Canada became the destination of choice of runaway slaves to escape to freedom.
Slavery's origins are simply too old to recount. So, too, are movements to free large or distinct groups of them. Moses led Israelite slaves from ancient Egypt in the Biblical Book of Exodus - possibly the first detailed account of a movement to free slaves, although clearly not accepted at face value as real history in all particulars.
In England in 1772 the case of a runaway slave named James Somerset came before the Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield. Basing his judgement on Magna Carta and habeas corpus he declared - "Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.". It was thus declared that the condition of slavery could not be enforced under English law. However, little effort was made towards enforcing the judgement, and slaves continued to be held in Britain for years to come.
In 1787 humanitarian campaigners in Britain founded the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The "slave trade" consisted, not of slavery in Britain, but rather of trafficking in slaves by British merchants operating in British colonies and other countries. Shares of stock in companies engaged in that trade was legally bought and sold in England. The anti-slave-trade movement in Britain had support from Quakers, Baptists, Methodists and others, and reached out for support from the new industrial workers. The primary leader of the fight against slavery in Britain was William Wilberforce.
France never authorized slavery on its mainland, but authorized it in some of its overseas possessions. On February 4, 1794, Abbé Grégoire and the Convention abolished slavery. It was re-established in 1802 by Napoleon, and in the end abolished in 1848 under the Second Republic.
The "Abolition of the Slave Trade Act" was passed by Parliament on March 25, 1807. The act imposed a fine of -L-100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within the British Empire, but the trade continued and captains in danger of being caught by the Royal Navy would often throw slaves into the sea to reduce the fine. In 1827 Britain declared that particiption in the slave trade was piracy and punishable by death. On August 1, 1834 all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was finally abolished in 1838. After 1838, the 'British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society' worked to outlaw slavery overseas and to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traders pirates and pursuing them. This organization continues today as Anti-Slavery International.
Sierra Leone was established as a country for former slaves of the British Empire back in Africa. Liberia served an analogous purpose for American slaves.
The goal of the abolitionists was repatriation of the slaves to Africa.
Trade unions as well didn't want the cheap labor of former slaves around.
Nevertheless, most of them stayed in America.
Slaves in the United States who escaped ownership would often make their way north to Canada via the "Underground Railroad". The Underground Railroad was a grassroots organization, loosely and informally organized.
The 1926 Slavery Convention, an initiative of the League of Nations, was a turning point in banning global slavery.
Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly,
explicity banned slavery.
The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery was convened to outlaw and ban slavery worldwide, including child slavery.
In December 1966, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
which was developed from the Universal Declaraction of Human Rights. Article 8 of this international treaty bans slavery.
The treaty came into force in March 1976 after it had been ratified by 35 nations. As of November 2003,
104 nations had ratified the treaty.
In June 1997, Tony Hall, a Democratic representative for Dayton, Ohio proposed a national apology by the U.S. government for slavery. This was at a time when the Catholic Church in France apologised for its silence and begged "forgiveness for Catholic inaction as regime sent Jews to their deaths in '40s".
At the World Conference Against Racism, Durban, the US representatives walked out on September 3 2001 on the instructions of Colin Powell. His statement only concerns the conference discussion of Israel who also walked out. However the South African Government spokesperson said "The general perception among all delegates is that the US does not want to confront the real issues of slavery and all its manifestations."
At the same time the British, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese delegations blocked an EU apology for slavery.
The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued across the world. E.g. The Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action Plan.
According to the British Anti-Slavery Society, "Although there is no longer any state which recognizes any claim by a person to a right of property over another, there are an estimated 2.7 million people throughout the world mainly children in conditions of slavery." They further note that slavery, particularly child slavery, was on the rise in 2003. According to a broader definition used by Free The Slaves, another advocacy group, there are 27 million people in slavery today, spread all over the world. This is, also according to that group:
As noted above, there have been movements to achieve reparations for those held in involuntary servitude, or sometimes their descendants. There is a growing modern movement to donate funds achieved in reparations efforts not to the descendants of those held as slaves in prior generations, but instead to donate them to those freed from slavery in this generation, in other countries and circumstances.
In general, reparation for being held in slavery is handled as a civil law matter in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since slaves are exactly those people who have no access to the legal process. Systems of fines and reparations paid from fines collected by authorities, rather than in civil courts, have been proposed to alleviate this in some nations.Definition
Who becomes a slave
Origin of the term
History of Slavery
Slavery in the Mediterranean World
Slavery in the Bible
See Sabbatical year, Onesimus in addition to the details of the Book of Exodus.Slavery in Rome and Greece
Slavery in the Islamic World
Slavery in Medieval Europe
Slavery in Africa
Slavery in Colonial America
Slavery among indigenous people of the Americas
Slavery in the Spanish New World Colonies
Slavery in Brazil
Slavery in North America
The 1860s saw the end of slavery in America. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was a symbolic gesture that ended slavery nowhere, but only proclaimed freedom for slaves within the Confederacy. However, the proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal and it was implemented as the Union retook territory from the Confederacy. Slaves within the United States remained enslaved until the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December of 1865, 8 months after the cessation of hostilities in the Civil War.International Abolitionist Movements
Apologies
Economics of slavery
As a result, the economics of slavery is stark: the yield of profit per year for those buying and controlling a slave is over 800% on average, as opposed to the 5% per year that would have been the expected payback for buying a slave in colonial times. This combines with the high potential to lose a slave (have them stolen, escape, or freed by unfriendly authorities) to yield what are called disposable people - those who can be exploited intensely for a short time and then discarded, such as the prostitutes thrown out on city streets to die once they contract HIV, or those forced to work in mines.Reparations
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Slavery."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Exertion | Labor, work, toil, travail, manual labor, sweat of one's brow, swink, drudgery, slavery, fagging, hammering; limae labor; industry, industriousness, operoseness, operosity. |
Servant | Badge of slavery; bonds. |
Servility | Noun: servility; slavery; (subjection); obsequiousness; Adjective: subserviency; abasement; prostration, prosternation; genuflection; (worship); fawning; Verb: tuft-hunting, timeserving, flunkeyism; sycophancy; (flattery); humility. |
Subjection | Noun: subjection; dependence, dependency; subordination; thrall, thralldom, thraldom, enthrallment, subjugation, bondage, serfdom; feudalism, feudality; vassalage, villenage; slavery, enslavement, involuntary servitude; conquest. |
Break in, tame; subject, subjugate; master; tread down, tread under foot; weigh down; drag at one's chariot wheels; reduce to subjection, reduce to slavery; enthrall, inthrall, bethrall; enslave, lead captive; take into custody; (restrain); rule; drive into a corner, hold at the sword's point; keep under; hold in bondage, hold in leading strings, hold in swaddling clothes. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | The Blacks were sold into slavery and the Indians almost wiped out. (The Tomorrow People; writing credit: Brian Finch) Abe Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery, right? (Zoolander; writing credit: Drake Sather; Ben Stiller) But then you start to think about starving kids, little girls sold into slavery, women whose sex is sewn up God created murder out of pure kindness. (Coup de torchon; writing credit: Jean Aurenche; Bertrand Tavernier) And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong. (The Civil War; writing credit: Ken Burns; Ric Burns) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Slavery of Foxicus (1914) In Slavery Days (1913) Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery (1998) White Slavery (1991) Bound for Slavery (1983) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Joseph Cinquez, the brave Congolese Chief, who prefers death to slavery, and who now lies in jail . . . Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Emancipation Ordinance of Missouri. An ordinance abolishing slavery in Missouri. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Slavery in Belgium. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Celebration of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia by the colored people, in Washington, April 19, 1866 / sketched by F. Dielman. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Relics of slavery days. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Chart of the world, on Mercator's projection. Illustrative of the impolicy of slavery. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | We French workers warn you - defeat means slavery, starvation, death / Ben Shahn. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Slavery still exists! : the Anti-Slavery Society still exists!. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Help fight compulsory unionism -- the new slavery. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | War is the second worst activity of mankind, the worst being acquiescence in slavery. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Edmund Burke | Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil. |
Euripides | But this is slavery, not to speak one's thought. |
John Quincy Adams | Where annual elections end where slavery begins. |
John Ruskin | The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it. |
Lucius Annaeus Seneca | A great fortune is a great slavery. |
Mikhail A. Bakunin | If there is a state, then there is domination, and in turn there is slavery. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson | Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys. |
Seneca | Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery. |
Thomas Fuller | Serving one's own Passions is the greatest Slavery. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
John Locke | 1690 | He that is master of himself, and his own life, has a right too to the means of preserving it; so that as soon as compact enters, slavery ceases, and he so far quits his absolute power, and puts an end to the state of war, who enters into conditions with his captive. (Second Treatise of Government) |
Amendment to US Constitution | 1795-2004 | Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (reference) |
Communist Manifesto | 1848 | It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. (reference) |
United Nations | 1948 | No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Thus, during those nineteen years of torture and slavery, did this soul rise and fall at the same time. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Senegal | On August 18, the Government's Division of Criminal Investigation questioned Alioune Tine, the head of RADDHO, following his criticism of President Wade's stance on the issue of reparations for slavery. (references) |
Economic History | Gambia, The | A 1906 ordinance abolished slavery. (references) |
Angola | Portugal's primary interest in Angola quickly turned to slavery. (references) | |
Indigenous People | Bolivia | Some rural indigenous workers are kept in a state of virtual slavery by employers who charge them more for room and board than they earn. (references) |
Gabon | NGO workers visited more than a dozen villages and found that most Pygmies there lived in conditions tantamount to slavery, working on plantations for "masters" for one plate of rice and a few cents per day. (references) | |
Minorities | Mauritania | However, southern-based ethnic groups and Black Moors have manifested little racial solidarity socially or politically, and racial differences did not contribute either to historical slavery or to the persistence of its vestiges and consequences among southern-based ethnic groups. (references) |
Political Economy | Cameroon | Slavery reportedly persisted in northern parts of the country. (references) |
Libya | There have been reports of slavery and trafficking in persons. (references) | |
Sudan | CEAWC has traced and retrieved more than 500 abducted children and women from slavery. (references) | |
Travel | Mauritius | The following are fixed: New Years, January 1 and 2; Abolition of Slavery, February 1; Independence Day, March 12; Labor Day, May 1; and Christmas, December 25. The remaining holidays are religious festivals whose dates vary. (references) |
Worker Rights | India | Persons sometimes are sold into virtual slavery. (references) |
Ethiopia | There were no reports of slavery within the country. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | Provisions were put in place to deal with slavery! |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Thomas Jefferson | 1801-1809 | There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. |
James Madison | 1809-1817 | The answer, with an explicit declaration that the United States preferred war to tribute, required his recognition and observance of the treaty last made, which abolishes tribute and the slavery of our captured citizens. |
James Buchanan | 1857-1861 | What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to apply this simple rule, that the will of the majority shall govern, to the settlement of the question of domestic slavery in the Territories. |
Abraham Lincoln | 1861-1865 | One section of our country believes slavery is 'right' and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is 'wrong' and ought not to be extended. |
Benjamin Harrison | 1889-1893 | Mill fires were lighted at the funeral pile of slavery. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Slavery" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Slavery" is used about 466 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 466 | 12,650 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "slavery": abolish slavery ♦ abolishing of slavery ♦ abolition of slavery ♦ badge of slavery ♦ chattel slavery system ♦ slavery to ♦ supporter of slavery ♦ white slavery. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "slavery": Anti-slavery. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
slavery | 1,481 | consensual slavery | 23 |
slavery picture | 192 | abolition of slavery | 23 |
slavery history | 111 | slavery in the united state | 22 |
white slavery | 89 | poem slavery | 21 |
american slavery | 57 | foot slavery | 20 |
slavery in america | 55 | end slavery | 20 |
reparation for slavery | 54 | pic slavery | 20 |
sex slavery | 44 | slavery in sudan | 19 |
black slavery | 43 | slavery today | 17 |
civil war slavery | 37 | slavery in africa | 17 |
african slavery | 34 | line slavery time | 17 |
sexual slavery | 34 | roman slavery | 16 |
african american slavery | 32 | beginning slavery | 16 |
slavery photo | 30 | law slavery | 15 |
up from slavery | 29 | slavery story | 12 |
modern slavery | 28 | slavery during the civil war | 12 |
slavery in the south | 26 | female slavery | 12 |
slavery image | 24 | slavery woman | 12 |
day modern slavery | 24 | from slavery to freedom | 12 |
slavery toilet | 23 | jefferson slavery thomas | 12 |
abolishment slavery | 12 | ||
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "slavery"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | skllavëri (bondservice, servility, servitude, thraldom, thrall), robëri (captivity, serfage, serfdom, serfhood, servitude), punë e rëndë (drudgery, elbow grease, moil, slog, swot, toil, travail). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | كدح (drudge, drudgery, elbow grease, fag, grub, hard work, labor, labour, moil, plod, proletarianize, slave, slog, sweat, sweat blood, swot, toil, travail, work hard), عبودية (bondage, captivity, enslavement, obsequiousness, serfdom, servitude, subjection, subservience, thraldom, thrall, yoke), إستغلال العبيد, إستعباد (enslavement, prostration, servitude, subjection, subjugation, subservience), إسترقاق (bondage, servitude), رق (melt, serfdom, servitude, spare, thrall). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | робство (bondage, bondservice, enslavement, fetter, serfage, serfdom, servitude, thrall, thralldom, vassalage), робия (drudgery, servitude), тежка работа (donkey work, elbow grease, fag, grind, job, labor, labour, moil, murder, plod, task-work, toil, warm work). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 奴隶制, 奴隸制度 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | otroctví (bondage, enslavement, servility, servitude, thraldom), otrocká práce, otroèina (drudgery). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | VN-Vrijwillig Fonds voor de Slachtoffers van Slavernij (UN Voluntary Fund on Contemporary Forms oF Slavery), conventie inzake slavernij (Slavery Convention), Aanvullend Verdrag inzake de afschaffing van de slavernij... (Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | بندگی (Bondage, Servitude), بردگی (Bondage, Servitude). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | orjuus (bondage, servitude). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | esclavage. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Sklaverei (bondage, servitude), Knechtschaft (bondage, servitude, thralldom). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | σκλαβιά (servitude). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | שעבו" (bondage, enslavement, enthrallment, lien, mortgage, serfdom, subjugation), עב"ות (bondage, serfdom, servility, servitude). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | rabszolgaság (bondage, chattelism, servility, servitude, thraldom, yoke), rabszolgamunka (drudgery), lélekölő munka (drudgery, grind). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | perbudakan (bondage, enslavement). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | schiavitù (servitude, subject, subjugate, thrall). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 隷" . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | どれいせいど, れいじゅう (sacred beast). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 노예 도. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | sleabaght (thraldom), slauaght, deyrsnys (bondage, enslavement, high price, serfdom, subjection), bondiaght (bondage, captivity). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | averyslay submissão total, trabalho de escravo, escravidão (bondage, captivity, drudgery, enslavement, servitude, thraldom, thrall), escravatura. (various references) sclavie (bondage, helotism, servitude, thralldom, yoke), sclavagism, robie (bondage, captivity, chain, servitude, thraldom, yoke). (various references) рабство (bondage, bondservice, captivity, serfage, serfdom, serfhood, servitude, servitudes, slavishness, thraldom, thrall, thralldom, vassalage, yoke). (various references) daorsainn (bondage, dearth). (various references) ropstvo (bondage, enslavement, peonage, serfage, servility, servitude, thraldom, thrall). (various references) esclavitud (bondage, enslavement, peonage, servitude, thrall). (various references) träldom (bondage, serfage, serfdom, serfhood, servitude, thraldom, thrall), slaveri (bondage, bondservice, servitude). (various references) kulluk (peonage, peonism, service, servitude, vassalage), kölelik (bondage, enslavement, enthrallment, enthralment, peonage, peonism, serfage, serfdom, servility, servitude, thraldom, thrall, thralldom, villainage, villeinage), esir tutma, esaret (bondage, captivity, enslavement, enthrallment, enthralment, servitude, thraldom, thralldom), angarya (angary, corvee, drudgery, fag, fatigue, fatigue duty, forced labor, sweat, task), ağır iş (drudge, drudgery, gruelling, hard work, moil, plodding, taskwork). (various references) рабство (bondage, captivity, enslavement, serfage, serfdom, serfhood, servitude, thrall, vassalage), рабоволодіння, важка підневільна праця, догідництво. (various references) sự nô lệ sự chiếm hữu nô lệ sự lao động vất vả, cảnh nô lệ, công việc cực nhọc (mill, toil), bợ đỡ (adulatory, faltteringly, fawning, reptile), đầy nước dãi ton hót. (various references) caethwasiaeth, caethwasanaeth, caethiwed (bondage, captivity). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | famulatus, servitia, servitium, servitus, servitute, servitutem, servituti, servitutis. (various references) |
| Late Latin | 300-700 | servitudo. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "slavery": antislavery. (additional references) | |
| |
"Slavery" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Claverie, lavery, salaver, sallery, salvere, salvery, Saverio, saverys, selivery, slavary, slaveer, slavely, slavey, slavory, slavrey. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "slavery" (pronounced slā"verē) |
| 4 | -ā" v er ē | bravery, Savory, unsavory. |
| 3 | -v er ē | Calvary, delivery, discovery, every, ivory, livery, ovary, reverie, silvery, thievery. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-l-r-s-v-y" | |
-1 letter: lavers, layers, ravels, relays, salver, serval, slaver, slavey, slayer, sylvae, velars, versal. | |
-2 letters: arles, aryls, avers, earls, early, eyras, lares, laser, laver, laves, layer, lears, leary, leavy, lyase, lyres, rales, ravel, raves, reals, relay, resay, salve, saver, sayer, selva, seral, slave, slyer, sylva, vales, valse, veals, vealy, velar, years. | |
-3 letters: aery, ales, ares. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-l-r-s-v-y" | |
+1 letter: aversely, layovers, overlays, virelays. | |
+2 letters: adversely, overplays, severally, severalty, valkyries. | |
+3 letters: abrasively, aversively, observably, ravenously, shrievalty, viscerally. | |
+4 letters: antislavery, assertively, caressively, cavernously, marvelously, observantly, pervasively, serviceably, universally, veraciously, versatilely, versatility. | |
+5 letters: aggressively, cadaverously, intervalleys, overanalyses, overanalysis, overanalyzes, overclassify, persuasively, severability, transitively, transversely, universality, vesicularity. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 6C 61 76 65 72 79 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... .-.. .- ...- . .-. -.--. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01101100 01100001 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S l a v e r y |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 006C 0061 0076 0065 0072 0079 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)53786788718491 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Historic 10. Quotations: Fiction 11. Quotations: Non-fiction 12. Quotations: Spoken | 13. Quotations: Speeches 14. Usage Frequency 15. Expressions 16. Expressions: Internet | 17. Translations: Modern 18. Translations: Ancient 19. Derivations 20. Rhymes | 21. Anagrams 22. Orthography 23. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
