History of slavery
“Slave Trade” redirects here. For the slave trade between Europe, Africa and the New World in the 16th to 19th centuries, see Atlantic slave trade.
The history of slavery traces the history of the slave trade from ancient times to the present. Slavery is a legally recognized system in which people are legally considered the property or chattel of another. A slave had few rights and could be bought or sold and made to work for the owner without any choice or pay. As Drescher (2009) argues, “The most crucial and frequently utilized aspect of the condition is a communally recognized right by some individuals to possess, buy, sell, discipline, transport, liberate, or otherwise dispose of the bodies and behavior of other individuals.”In the American colonies and other places, an integral element was frequently the assignment of children of a slave mother to the status of slaves – born into slavery.Slavery under this definition does not include other forced labor systems, such as historical forced labor by prisoners, labor camps, or other forms of unfree labor, in which laborers are not legally considered property.

Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as it is developed as a system of social stratification. Slavery typically also requires a shortage of labor and a surplus of land to be viable.David P. Forsythe wrote: “The fact remained that at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom.”While slavery has existed for thousands of years, the social, economic, and legal position of slaves was vastly different in different systems of slavery in different times and places.

Although slavery is no longer legal anywhere in the world,human trafficking remains an international problem and an estimated 29.8 million persons are living in illegal slavery today.

Origins
Europe
Africa
The Americas
Asia
Oceania
Abolitionist movements
Bibliography