Talk:White slavery

Irish slaves

There is one category of White slaves missing here: the Irish who were enslaved during the Oliver Cromwell era. Is there a relevant article that can be linked to for them? Epa101 (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The page actually makes a rather poor disambiguation target. The term "white slavery" has one common meaning (the early 20th century moral panic) and numerous others where it's used as a very rare synonym. I tried rewriting the page in line with MOS:DAB and had such trouble that I just turned it into a main stub. The two main uses seem to be the moral panic and the Arab slave trade, so I've used this page and a {{for}} to try to sort that out. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the article should not simply list every example of white people being slaves (and, anyway, as far as I know the Irish were never enslaved by Cromwell), but I think the current article is misleading. The concept of white slavery as not purely a moral panic about "purported kidnapping and sexual slavery of American women" or an offshhot of the Yellow Peril. It existed earlier in the UK, where the term was used to refer to sexual exploitation and trafficking in the 1880s. Prior to that the term was associated with white concubines (see Circassian beauties) in Middle Eastern harems. There is a clear progress from concubines/sex-slaves > sexual trafficking > prostitution. And academics who oppose modern popular fantasies about innocent girls abducted and forced into prostitution often use the term "white slavery" to refer to the mythic aspect of these beliefs in modern politics [1]. I think the article should cover this full set of interrelated meanings. Paul B (talk) 17:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The whole terminology is weird and used very loosely; for me and right now the point is this page is about white slavery as a moral panic, since this use seems to be the most common. If you can find sources that elaborate on a different meaning (I looked for a bit and didn't come up with much) then it would be good to either create the page or create a White slavery (disambiguation) page. I have no real objection to either better disambiguation or renaming, it's just that this was the best I could do with the sources I could find after a bit of digging. The page can't be about white people who we think were enslaved or something similar - that's original research. There has to be reliable sources discussing a particular idea known as "white slavery".

The white concubines idea seems to be covered in the Arab slave trade article. The original first bullet of the page before I edited it seemed to refer to prostitution as "white slavery", but not referring to a specific people. White was seen as the opposite as, or to be distinguished from, black slavery (i.e. African people being imported to the Americas to be used as hereditary slaves). The article can only cover the full set of meanings if there is evidence that most scholars agree with your progression. I certainly see it as something that makes sense, but again that's original research. If the term genuinely did evolve in this way, and we can reference it, then the article certainly should be rewritten to clarify. If you can put up some more sources that demonstrate your point, we can start integrating and rewriting. This whole thing got started because I was having such trouble figuring out what kind of white slavery actually existed to disambiguate! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:56, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

If you'd like to know where I got the idea that Cromwell had enslaved some of the Irish, it was in Clive Foss's The Tyrants book, Quercus, London, 2006, page 89: "Thousands of Irish were sent as slaves to the West Indies, and Catholic landlords were expelled in favour of Protestants." I know that The Tyrants is a populist book, but Clive Foss is a professional historian. Epa101 (talk) 16:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Summary style

I'm commenting here in reply to an invitation from WLU posted on my talk page.

I agree that this topic is too large for a disambiguation page, but on the other hand, the term has been used for so many different ideas that some sort of disambiguation is needed. So I recommend using WP:Summary style, with an overview, evolution of the use of the term, and a short section for each use with links to the main articles - most uses already have Wikipedia articles, though this process might turn up some that don't. For those, the summary section could suffice for now and later new articles can be made if expansion is warranted. The section would probably best be in chronological sequence, though other schemes could work also.

Here's an initial suggestion for the layout - these are just some of the uses I've found, there are more:

• lead - describe range of uses and a brief history of the term's evolution, including the moral panic; mention that present day use of the term is deprecated other than for historical contexts and mention some of the more modern terms (ie, human trafficking)
• sections:
  • evolution of the term p134 p1847 p539 & 490 various pages various pages p116
    • synonym for forced prostitution p541
  • 1600s-1800s eastern europe and mideast [2] [3]
  • 1800s-early 1900s - white slavery - real & imagined; moral panic (& even some international treaties related to this)
  • late 1900s in the Balkans [4]
  • late 1900s to the present middle east
    • forced prostitution p541
    • Child camel jockey
    • the US State Dept 2003 Country Assessments for Armenia notes that according to the 2002 Trafficking in Persons Report, "white slavery operations" exist between Armenia and Persian Gulf states
    • there are news reports that describe women trapped in persian gulf states by having their passports revoked; these reports can be researched for reliability and to see if the term is used in that way
  • late 1900s to present day - in connection with narcotics trafficking (I've heard of this but don't currently have sources)
  • present day worldwide (there are various Wikipedia articles that can apply, the question is to find sources that make the connection with the term)
    • human trafficking in general (the USA state dept report mentioned above verifies this use of the term in present day)
    • sexual slavery, ie forced prostitution
    • child sex tourism
    • etc...

Those are some initial ideas, I'll have to leave the development of the article to others for now. Hope it's helpful. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:46, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

So essentially focussing on the term rather than any single definition or use of the term. Interesting, and quite fruitful in my regard. I don't know if I'll have time to address this in the near future, but I think it's a good way of addressing the issues with the page. Great idea! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Emma Goldman speech

Could you add this good speech by Emma Goldman on the cause? http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/goldman/aando/traffic.html Stars4change (talk) 08:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to express my objection

In regards to "...full-scale, hereditary system of slavery that had been imposed on black people in the Americas, Europe and Africa."
Slavery had long been practiced in Europe and the MidleEast before the exploration of the African continent and the discovery of the new world and the European exploitation of African people. Slavery, much it seems to the surprise of many in the US, is not restricted or dependent on racial traits.
If the intention is to be selective refer to it as African Slave Trade and start by pointing out that even before Europeans made a stride in Africa, slavery was already prevalent there, human labor was always a resource and a trade commodity. --79.168.6.93 (talk) 03:07, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The sentence is confused, since there was no "hereditary" slavery based on race in Europe or Africa, though European countries certainly ran such systems in their colonies. There was link between race and slavery in North Africa, but it was not systematic. Paul B (talk) 17:52, 29 September 2011 (UTC)