Talk:Slavery

Devşirme system and slavery

Devşirme system is a forced assimilation system, as explained in the wikipedia article. They are two different concepts, the people who were undergone devşirme process could be the architects or army generals. They are not same thing. Please try to give some other examples for Ottomans if you are willing to mention the slavery in Turkey.

Big error in the Rubinstein citation (#45)

The article says approx 6 million slaves were killed by other blacks in tribal war, referencing the Rubinstein book, but this statement is misplaced. According to the book, that number refers to blacks killed over the entirety of slavery in Africa, NOT among those brought to the America's. Post arrival slave warfare was limited to escapees, which the Rubinstein book alludes was never more than 5% of all surviving slave arrivals in the entire America's. Meaning the actual number of slaves killed from tribal warfare in America (escapees and maroons) would have to be some number less than 300,000, which is the total number of escapees post-arrival. Nowhere near 6 million, which would be a 50% rate of all slaves to arrive.

ThujaTsuga

I think most people interpreted the statement correctly despite the awkward physical context placement. Still the line could be moved or annotated to be a comparison of numbers of African shipped to other continents as slaves versus numbers killed outright by tribal warfare during the same time period.

My guess is that the omitted point of the comparison is that with rare exception Europeans did not make Africans into slaves. Slaves were a product of Africa tribal warfare and a long standing continental export going back to pre-Roman times. European direct action being limited primarily to occasional coastal village raids during the peak demand for slaves -- due to practical reasons like small ship crew sizes versus intended slave cargo and the risk of death in combat. Thus the effect of European demand for slaves on Africans was probably a slight increase in warfare near coasts and an offsetting greater chance of capture versus execution during tribal warfare. (I suggest only a slight increase because tribal warfare still kills a million or so today - the inclination to fight cruelly is ingrained in the tribal system.) The most tragic downsides of slavery in the Americas versus staying a slave in Africa (no European interference) was often the shipping process itself and the loss of opportunity to escape or eventually be released to return to your tribe (assuming your tribe survived).

But such institutions as slavery become infamous rather than ordinary conditions of life when societies in later stages of technological-social development exploit the social standards of labor from societies at less developed stages.

So the anthropological perspective is that slavery was seen as a valid and effective economic survival option for societies during stone and bronze age development (much of Africa until relatively recently). Serfdom can be a vital economic option for the larger nations still in late bronze age, iron age and early industrial age because agriculture and technology are still labor intensive and marginally profitable. And we still see some of that today because technological change may require only a few years BUT social traditions will tend to lag sudden jumps in technological levels by 3-5 generations as people in power resist changes to the way they were raised and trained. Thus society updates occur only after the death of most of that last generation who were children under previous technological conditions and often also after the retirement from power of all who were trained by that last generation (after retirement of the final students of that last political professor/practitioner of the prior technological age). 72.182.3.3 (talk) 22:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Abolishment Addition

• It would be appropriate to include a note regarding Cyrus’ Cylinder which decreed the abolishment of slavery in the Persian Empire. It is well known that slavery still existed in parts of Persia, but I do not believe that Cyrus expected all his subjects to comply. However such a directive in that day and age is extraordinary. The abolishment of slavery and freedom of religion, was for example the reason why the Jewish slaves of Babylon were set free by the Persians and enabled to rebuild Jerusalem. Nevertheless, somebody should include a paragraph about the Cylinder. 07:10, 28 September 2012‎ User:155.205.201.45

Its uncertain as to whether this actually enabled the freeing of foreign slaves and practice of foreign religions since the text of the cylinder specifically refers to local regional peoples and religions. historically the sacking of cities quite often resulted in the escape of foreign slaves. While the cylinder certainly did not hurt Jewish prospects for return to home, the cylinder was not written until AFTER the Babylon walls were repaired (referenced in the text). Restoring order and repairing the walls likely took many weeks. Considering how organized the Jewish people were they may have been long gone and almost home. So the original cylinder was probably written solely to add to regional support by freeing local peoples and their religions (owners probably probably already being opponents as members of the previous power structure). However the cylinder probably became de facto policy covering foreign slaves who had already escape due to the expense using ancient armies especially when sent long distances into foreign lands...plus of course the politics of war weariness and needing the army locally to suppress other political opportunists and rebels for a few years. So keep in mind that the Biblical quotation was made many years later and may have been intended as merely a broad political explanation of why Jews decided they could rebuild without fear of an army eventually following their escape. When such tales are written down at the end of life or by a later generation from tales heard...specific details often become blurred or lost. "We escaped without opposition due to the chaos and numerous dead among owners and government members" can easily become "we were released and walked proudly out the gates in peace". Both situations are equally miraculous. But one summary tale seems more complete and dignified in only a few words. The other has a tendency to get bogged down in questions about confusing/disputed/lost details like how groups dashed through streets and snuck out gaps in the walls carrying what food water and liberated valuables that they could -- and how many owners died, who left first, etc. 72.182.3.3 (talk) 23:22, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Mention of Psychiatric Slavery?

Thomas Szasz wrote a book called Psychiatric Slavery and references the term psychiatric slavery which I think that he likely coined. Some of his books have their own articles even (Liberation by Oppression and The Myth of Mental Illness at least). Might it be appropriate to mention his coining of the term and the idea in at least one sentence in the article if not a whole sub-section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Ten (talk • contribs) 19:34, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

A single word for freer of slaves

Abolitionist is a 19th century term that applies to political activism in general. Is there a better word to describe the liberators of slaves? CensoredScribe (talk) 15:18, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Hm, where is it used for political activism in general? Certainly in the US it exclusively refers to slavery; what's the international connotation if otherwise? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, the freeing of individual slaves is known as manumission. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:36, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the issue is that you can be an abolitionist without actually freeing any slaves. John Brown and Lincoln actually freed slaves and were called "liberators." I think Jpgordon is right for the *legal* freeing of individual slaves, in which case the person who did it would be a "manumitter" (a word which, much to my surprise, is actually in the OED, first attested in 1774).— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:44, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Category:Slave owner does not exist!!!

I created Category Fictional slave owner however Ryulong and others are opposing my creation of a category for historical slave owners. There is a discussion on the administrators noticeboard bout this. CensoredScribe (talk) 22:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

See WP:ANI#CensoredScribe's categories on discussion on how CensoredScribe is inappropriately making dozens of categories of questionable quality. CensoredScribe, this is not the page to make this sort of discussion, either.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 15:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Failed verification

As of 06:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC), the article is semi-protected and says: "In 2010 in Brazil more than 5,000 slaves were rescued by authorities as part of a government initiative to eradicate slavery." But the source given in the article does not support this.

I suggest somebody change the source to http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/03/brazil-slavery-poverty-farm-workers#box and the article sentence to "In 2010 in Brazil, 4,634 slaves were rescued by authorities as part of a government initiative to eradicate slavery." --82.83.81.195 (talk)

There is some inaccuracy here. Both the indicated sources say that these slaves were freed in 2008; and this is a slightly cleaner link to the Guardian article. In this edit I've kept the BBC source, added the Guardian source, changed "In 2010" to "In 2008", changed the number of slaves to "about 5,000" to reflect the conflict between the sources and re-worked the rest of the sentence for sense and accuracy. Thanks for reporting that something was up. Nortonius (talk) 09:48, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 February 2014

At the end of the first paragraph, it states that Maritania was the last country to outlaw slavery, which was in 2007. This is wrong. The United Kingdom was the last country to outlaw slavery, which was in April 2010. Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (which came into effect on 6/4/10) Please edit this to include the actual facts. Nh1204 (talk) 11:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The British Slavery Abolition Act 1833 is already mentioned in the article. However I've no idea right now what to make of "Mauritania was the last jurisdiction to officially outlaw slavery (in 1981/2007)" in that sentence. Nortonius (talk) 12:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Right, it's apparent that the British outlawed slavery in some capacity in 1833. Your request is considered original research, unless you can provide a reliable source stating "England was the last country to outlaw slavery" or something to that effect. What you're doing, is taking a primary source then making your own comparison between the dates of different acts and the interpretation of "outlawing slavery" to deduce that Maritania was not the last country. You may be right, but it's still a violation of WP:OR to make such changes without an actual source making such a declaration. Scoobydunk (talk) 17:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Slavery was long illegal--that is no one could legally be a slave in Britain. what Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 did was different. it made it a crime to hold a person as a slave (for example a domestic servant in modern London) Rjensen (talk) 03:43, 10 February 2014 (UTC).

The Slavery Abolition Act states: "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves" (soource: http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm) it further says that "who may hereafter...be brought, into any part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, shall from and after the passing of this Act be absolutely and entirely free" (same source).

It was only ever illegal to bring slaves from other countries, not to make a slave within the United Kingdom. The Act only mentions slaves from Colonies, not any person made a slave within the United Kingdom.

No other part of law preventing the possession or keeping of a slave was enacted until 2009, which came into force in 2010. Until then, it was legal to have a slave within the United Kingdom, as long as it was not brought in from other territories.

You need to familiarize yourself with WP:OR and WP:RELIABLE. Your interpretation of the act is not suitable for adding or removing information from the article. You need a reliable secondary source that makes the argument you are trying to make. If you have a scholarly journal or peer reviewed published journal that says England didn't abolish slavery until 2010, then that's something that can be used as a reliable source for making changes to the entry. From cursory research, it appears other sources say that the Slavery Abolition Act did make slavery illegal in England with the exception of its East India Company or something to that extent. Scoobydunk (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2014

Hello, could you please delete the following text:

"In modern mechanised societies, there is less need for sheer massive manpower; Norbert Wiener wrote that "mechanical labor has most of the economic properties of slave labor, though ... it does not involve the direct demoralizing effects of human cruelty."[11]"

This text basically promotes slavery by not showing any awareness of its unacceptability. It would seem as though people stopped owning slaves because they didn't need them anymore, whereas a variety of reasons could be presented as to why owning slaves is immoral and against human rights.

Thank you so much, VR

Vricci (talk) 03:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Right now, I've merged that paragraph with the one before it as the two seem to go together. If that sentence is deleted, the whole paragraph should go. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. I'm going to say that would be a contentious change to make because I feel you are basically asking for the article to be CENSORED... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 04:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Technical 13, I wouldn't say it's a case of censorship. Vricci is right in that it may be a case of balance. The intro states there is now less need for slaves but there is no mention that it is now seen as immoral to have slaves. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:59, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• NeilN, the quote seems neutral to me, as it doesn't say that it is moral or right to have slaves either. It only says that slaves have been have been replaced by machines. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 05:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Technical 13, the quote is fine but does the lede properly reflect why slavery has diminished in the last century? The quote proposes one reason. I think it should be taken out or text be added about the perceived moral unacceptability of slavery. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:15, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I think the lede reflects why slavery has diminished just fine. I think that taking that part of the equation out or adding text about the social perception of morality would leave the lede unbalanced towards social and mental opinions instead of being based on physical mechanical fact. Perhaps some further input from some other editors would be useful here. I leave it to your discretion to request assistance from DRN or one of the Village pumps. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 05:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Vricci here. Norbert Weiner doesn't know anything about economics, sociology, or anything that would qualify him to opine on slavery. The quote does in fact take a purely instrumental view of slavery that is certainly amoral (typical for Weiner, in my opinion) and is at least plausibly offensive. Be that as it may, I think anyone wanting to keep the quote ought to make an argument as to why Norbert Weiner's opinion, out of all the zillions of people we could quote, should have so much weight as to be in the lead section of this article. Weiner did a lot of interesting mathematics, but he certainly never learned to shut his mouth when he didn't know what he was talking about.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:37, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

. I agree with alf laylah wa laylah. The Weiner statement is historically illiterate and is not a reliable souerce. It suggests that one major reason slavery ended was that mechanical tools replaced sheer physical labor. That was never true for any actual abolition events. For example cotton picking machinery came into use in the 1940s (not the 1840s). Historians are all agreed that the mechanical cotton gin (invented about 1800) INCREASED slavery in the US. Rjensen (talk) 06:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

So being bold, I removed the paragraph which included the sentence mentioned in the edit request. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 06:51, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Tea pickers sold into slavery

Possible source for modern slavery in India: The tea pickers sold into slavery Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:40, 2 March 2014 (UTC)