I figure that the first slave rebellion probably followed the beginning of slavery by less than a minute–but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m wondering what the evidence is for the first group or person who objected philosophically to the concept of slavery, who considered slavery to be evil. Is there anything in ancient religions or in ancient philosophy that we would recognize as anti-slavery? Or do you have to get into the eighteenth century before you find such ideas?
Daniel
In a course I took on Roman history, the professor said that no one that he knew of in classical times (i.e., pre-500 A.D.) believed in abolishing slavery. Even the cases we know of where slaves escaped from their masters weren’t really slave rebellions. Spartacus and his followers weren’t trying to end slavery. They were trying to escape from Roman fule to somewhere where they themselves could be free, but they didn’t much care about the fact that other people were still enslaved.
Yeah–that’s why I distinguished between slave rebellions and abolitionists. I wonder, though: were there any Buddhist sects that disapproved of slavery? Any gnostics? Any Jewish communities?
Daniel
The earliest abolitionist organizations were founded in Britain in the 1780s.
Euripides in his play Hecuba (circa 424 BC) discusses slavery, saying:
I’ve read other translations that use “evil” rather than “cursed”.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Slavery and Christianity.
If you’re defining abolitionist organization as an organization founded deliberately for abolitionism, yeah, that’s probably true. But if the Catholic church condemned slavery in the sixteenth century, that’s a definite earlier cite for a group of the sort I’m wondering about. The Hecuba play is very interesting, but I can see how that might be talking about the wretched condition of the slave, rather than about the immorality of the institution.
Daniel