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History of slavery

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If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
~ James Russell Lowell

The History of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day.

Quotes

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Early history

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  • Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day
    Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.
    • Homer, Odyssey, bk. 17, l. 392. Pope's translation (1725)
  • Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
    • Exodus 21:16 (ESV)
  • Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
    • Isaiah 58:6 (KJV); the passage in bold was used by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address
  • Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
    • Ephesians 6:5 (NIV)
  • There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
    • Galatians 3:28 (NIV)

First millennium

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  • Zosime, cursed with serfdom from the womb,
    Found Life in Death, and freedom in the tomb.

Middle Ages

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  • Na he, that ay has levyt fre,
    May nocht knaw weill the propyrte,
    The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,
    That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome.
    • John Barbour, The Brus (c. 1375), ed. W. M. Mackenzie (1909), p. 7

16th and 17th centuries

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  • One Cartwright brought a Slave from Russia, and would scourge him, for which he was questioned: and it was resolved, That England was too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe in.

18th century

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  • From the first dawn of life unto the grave,
    Poor womankind’s in every state a slave.
  • If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?
    • Mary Astell, Some Reflections upon Marriage, 3rd ed. (1706), preface
  •      Knock off the chains
    Of heart-debasing slavery; give to man,
    Of every colour and of every clime,
    Freedom, which stamps him image of his God.
  • Are you a man? Then you should have an human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as compassion there? Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the great God deal with you, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands. And at that day it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you!
    • John Wesley, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774), collected in Works, vol. 10 (1827), p. 503
  • Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.
    • Edmund Burke, Speech "On Conciliation with America" (22 March 1775)
  • We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
  • Slaves cannot breathe in England, if their lungs
    Receive our air, that moment they are free;
    They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
  • The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it.
  • I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to do it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.

19th century

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  • We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
  • Resolved, That the compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell; involving both parties in atrocious criminality, and should be immediately annulled.
    • William Lloyd Garrison, adopted by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Fanueil Hall (27 January 1843); F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, vol. 3 (1889), p. 88
  • If there breathe on earth a slave,
    Are ye truly free and brave?
    If ye do not feel the chain,
    When it works a brother's pain,
    Are ye not base slaves indeed,
    Slaves unworthy to be freed?
  • They are slaves who fear to speak
    For the fallen and the weak;
    They are slaves who will not choose
    Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
    Rather than in silence shrink
    From the truth they needs must think;
    They are slaves who dare not be
    In the right with two or three.
  • I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
  • A Christian! going, gone!
    Who bids for God's own image?—for his grace,
    Which that poor victim of the market-place
    Hath in her suffering won?
  • Our fellow-countrymen in chains!
    Slaves—in a land of light and law!
    Slaves—crouching on the very plains
    Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!
  • What! mothers from their children riven!
    What! God's own image bought and sold!
    Americans to market driven,
    And bartered as the brute for gold!
  • No more slave States and no more slave territory.
    • Salmon P. Chase, Resolutions Adopted at the Free-Soil National Convention (9 August 1848)
  • Cotton is King; or Slavery in the Light of Political Economy.
    • David Christy, title of book (pub. 1855), the phrase "Cotton is King" was later used by James H. Hammond in the U.S. Senate in March 1858, and Governor Manning of South Carolina, in a speech at Columbia, S.C. (1858)
  • I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others. When I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
    • Abraham Lincoln, in an address to an Indiana Regiment passing through Washington (17 March 1865); Roy P. Basler (ed.) Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 8 (1953), p. 361
  • I say, Archbishop, what do you think I'd have done about this slavery business, if I'd had my own way? I'd have done nothing at all! I'd have left it all alone. It's all a pack of nonsense! Always have been slaves in all the most civilised countries; the Greeks and Romans had slaves; however, they would have their fancy, and so we've abolished slavery; but it's a great folly.
    • Lord Melbourne (d. 1848) to Richard Whately, quoted in E. Jane Whately (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, vol. 2 (1866), pp. 451–2
  • The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.

20th century

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  • Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do.
  • It [Chinese Labour in South Africa] could not, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.
  • If my present theme were the institution of slavery in general, I should endeavour to show that it has been a mighty instrument not for evil only, but for good in the providential order of the world. Almighty God, in His mysterious ways, has poured down blessings even through servitude itself, by awakening the spirit of sacrifice on the one hand, and the spirit of charity on the other.
    • Lord Acton, Historical Studies and Essays (1907), pp. 135–6
  • The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.
  • That state is a state of Slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him.
    • Eric Gill, "Slavery and Freedom", Art-nonsense and Other Essays (1929)
  • War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
  • The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.
    • M. K. Gandhi, Non-Violence in Peace and War (1949), vol. 2, ch. 5
  • In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead. In the nineteenth century inhumanity meant cruelty; in the twentieth century it means schizoid self-alienation. The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.
  • In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

21st century

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  • Torture was necessary to maintain slavery. It was integral to slavery. You cannot have slavery without some torture or the threat of torture; and you cannot have torture without slavery. You cannot imprison a free man for ever unless you have broken him; and you can only forcibly break a man's soul by torturing it out of him. Slavery dehumanizes; torture dehumanizes in exactly the same way. The torture of human beings who have no freedom and no recourse to the courts is slavery.

See also

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Wikipedia
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