# Whence came Western European/American slavery?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 12, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656 "2004-04-12T20:07:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/1 "2004-04-12T20:07:46Z")
This is actually a GQ question, but I suspect that there will be sufficient differing opinions and schools of thought that it will end up a GD, so I’ll post it here.
My question is - why did Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century traders and plantation owners suddenly decide to solve their labor shortage problems with slavery? My knowledge of the development of Western Europe from, say, 1200-1600 is not exhaustive, but it is extensive, and as far as I can tell, slavery had been extinct in western Christendom for centuries. Serfdom was alive and kicking, but serfdom is a whole 'nother kettle of fish - while many of its effects resembled slavery, its intellectual underpinnings were very different. Most importantly for this discussion, there was (i) no actual ownership of humans by other humans in serfdom, (ii) no assumption that serfs were less than human, and (iii) serfs retained (at least in theory) certain rights.
Sua
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### Author:  [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/2 "2004-04-12T20:34:28Z")
Well, except it hadn’t really been extinct. Certainly traders in Mediterranean Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc. had been involved in the slave trade with Arab and North African countries, where slavery was alive and well. Especially Spain with its Moorish influences. I would also be shocked if these traders didn’t have a few slaves themselves.
Most wealthy European families in urban areas had a slave or two kept around as domestic servants.
In the early Renaissance, I believe that sugar cane plantations on Crete and maybe Cyprus began to use slave labor more and more. It was a natural solution to the problem of labor costs. Slaves would have been the cheapest source available.
Keep in mind this wasn’t racial slavery. While some were black Africans, many were also Arabs and Slavs.
Essentially, slavery never died, it just became rare outside of a few wealthy urban families. Why buy new slaves when you have serfs to do the labor for basically the same price? It came back into play when new plantations were being set up and the owners needed large amounts of cheap labor. There was already a slave trade set up, so there was no real difficulty in finding them either.
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### Author:  [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/3 "2004-04-12T20:47:31Z")
Then the next question is, **Neurotik,** is why do his
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/4 "2004-04-12T22:19:27Z")
> [@SuaSponte](#):
>
> Then the next question is, **Neurotik,** is why do his
It proved to be very cost-effective way to produce high-value, high-labor crops. The whole system was pioneered by the Portuguese for sugar plantations on Madeira and from there exported to the New World. The earliest slaves on the Atlantic sugar plantations ( which were cleared and planted at an appallingly high casualty rate, just as the later Brazilian and Caribbean plantations ) appear to have been the usual eclectic medieval mix ( criminals, captured soldiers that couldn’t pay ransom or were of the wrong religious persuasion, purchases from the Trans-Saharan/North African slave trade, captured Guanches on the Canary Islands, etc. ). This quickly shifted to the more cost-effective and steady supply from West Africa.
- Tamerlane
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/5 "2004-04-12T22:22:12Z")
I think it started on Madeira. Might have been the Azores. I don’t have my references immediately at hand, but it was one, the other, or both.
- Tamerlane
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/6 "2004-04-13T01:19:55Z")
It should also be remembered that while classic chattel “bought and sold” slavery as existed in Roman times was uncommon in 15th century Europe, various other forms of servitude were widespread.
Minors were more or less the property of their parents, as were unmarried women of any age, and were often assigned to new guardians as a financial deal. A young unmarried woman could find herself traded off like a horse to become a stranger’s wife, in return for various considerations to her family. (If she was lucky; if she was really unlucky, she could find herself sold to a pimp.) Apprenticeship was not merely an education, but closer to indentured servitude.
Servants in noble households usually received nothing but bed and board for their labor, and the idea that the “lower classes” owed their “betters” loyalty and subservience didn’t really die out until post WW1! Sailors especially were often not free to leave their employment at will, at least until their ship returned to its home port or a contracted term of service expired, and “shanghaing” was common. And as Tamerlane pointed out, there were always condemned criminals, and prisoners of war,
In short, “Master” was often more than simply a polite form of address. And consider that all of the above occured between people who were theoretically bound to respect one another as fellow “Christians”! Pagans, meaning Muslims, African and American tribespeople, and even Lithuanians as late as the 14th century, were considered something closer to intelligent animals than people. So the reintroduction of chattel slavery was really more of a commercialization of what had been an ongoing informal social institution. The biggest change was in the gradual abolishment of servitude by Europeans, while condemning Africans to a hereditary slave caste.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/7 "2004-04-13T01:37:00Z")
> [@SuaSponte](#):
>
> This is actually a GQ question, but I suspect that there will be sufficient differing opinions and schools of thought that it will end up a GD, so I’ll post it here.
>
> My question is - why did Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century traders and plantation owners suddenly decide to solve their labor shortage problems with slavery? My knowledge of the development of Western Europe from, say, 1200-1600 is not exhaustive, but it is extensive, and as far as I can tell, slavery had been extinct in western Christendom for centuries. Serfdom was alive and kicking, but serfdom is a whole 'nother kettle of fish - while many of its effects resembled slavery, its intellectual underpinnings were very different. Most importantly for this discussion, there was (i) no actual ownership of humans by other humans in serfdom, (ii) no assumption that serfs were less than human, and (iii) serfs retained (at least in theory) certain rights.
>
> Sua
I can’t give you any date, because I don’t remember them (it was at the beginning of the XVI° century, anyway), but both the french and Spanish monarchs at least passed laws which specificaly allowed slavery in their new colonies, since, as you stated, it previously wasn’t in their kingdoms.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/8 "2004-04-13T01:40:07Z")
> [@Neurotik](#):
>
> .
>
> Most wealthy European families in urban areas had a slave or two kept around as domestic servants.
I would want some cite for that. Never heard about such a thing, which would have been according to you a common occurance in Renaissance’s Europe.
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### Author:  [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/9 "2004-04-13T02:05:31Z")
> [@clairobscur](#):
>
> I would want some cite for that. Never heard about such a thing, which would have been according to you a common occurance in Renaissance’s Europe.
Of course.
[http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REN/BACK.HTM](http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REN/BACK.HTM)
> [@](#):
>
> The market in human slave labor in southern Europe began as early as the 12th century. Initially the Spaniards were the key trafficers in human life, but as the Italian city-states grew, their demand for slaves also grew and they became one of the largest consumers of human slaves.
> **[Enslavement Didn't Go Away When the Western Roman Empire Fell](https://www.thoughtco.com/chains-in-medieval-times-1788699)**
>
> When ancient society evolved into medieval society, enslavement didn't disappear. Take a look at the persistence of enslavement in the Middle Ages.
> [@](#):
>
> In the earliest part of the middle ages, slaves could be found in many societies, among them the Cymry in Wales and the Anglo-Saxons in England. The Slavs of central Europe were often captured and sold into slavery, usually by rival Slavonic tribes. Moors were known to keep slaves and believed that to set a slave free was an act of great piety…
> …When the Bishop of Le Mans transferred a large estate to the Abbey of St. Vincent in 572, ten slaves went with it…A transaction between Ermedruda of Milan and a gentleman by the name of Totone recorded in 725 the price of 12 new gold solidi for a slave boy (referred to as “it” in the record). 12 solidi was much less than the cost of a horse…In 1488, King Ferdinand sent 100 Moorish slaves to Pope Innocent VIII, who presented them as gifts to his cardinals and other court notables.
Those little bits are footnoted in the above cite.
[http://www.nbufront.org/html/FRONTalView/ArticlesPapers/CMcIntyre\_SlaveSystem1.html](http://www.nbufront.org/html/FRONTalView/ArticlesPapers/CMcIntyre_SlaveSystem1.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Throughout the Middle Ages, a regular trade in slaves and a form of slavery existed that included Blacks from Central Africa, Mongols and whites from the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.17 The Christian, Jewish and Islamic traders of Southern Europe and Northern Africa found steady sources. Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Byzantine Empire received Moslem slaves. North Africans received Christian slaves.18
>
> Once kept alive by the Moslems’ demand for enslaved whites, the European demand for enslaved humans gradually decreased. Depots existed in Lyons, Verdun, Civitavecchia and elsewhere. An eastern route carried Slaves from Kiev and the Crimea by way of Byzantine to the Mediterranean. Using the non-European route over the Caucasus Mountains, merchants carried the captive Slavs and Circaccians to the Abbasid Caliphate. The North and East African routes provided enslaved Blacks for the Ottoman Empire, which the Moslems controlled exclusively. Italian cities played a very large role in this trade.
> [@](#):
>
> The enslavement of humans served as a strong source of income to all Mediterranean ports in the Middle Ages. Crusaders had brought back many Nubian captives as their personal servants, and almost every king in Europe displayed enslaved Blacks in court.
[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1066serfs3.html](http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1066serfs3.html)
Anyway, it seems that the Black Death and the subsequent destruction of large swathes of serfs and peasants helped fuel the demand for slaves - since large numbers of cheap labor had been wiped out.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/10 "2004-04-13T04:09:04Z")
Also, don’t forget the Romany, who were slaves in Moldova, at least, until 1864.
> [@SuaSponte](#):
>
> Then the next question is, **Neurotik,** is why do his
The American slave trade and slavery in the Americas gets so much more attention, because, first of all, it’s so much larger than European slavery, and secondly, because it took on a specific racial identity. Sub-Saharan Africans came to be seen as natural slaves…that there was something inherent about them making them slaves. You didn’t really see that attitude in Western Europe or the Med. up to that point.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/11 "2004-04-13T04:29:45Z")
It was two aspects of a single phenomenon; the European expansion into global trade and colonization. One result was the settling of the Americas and other colonies. Another result was the trans-oceanic trade in human beings.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/12 "2004-04-13T11:31:20Z")
> [@Neurotik](#):
>
> Of course.
Ok. I bite my tongue concerning your first cite. And I did dig up another cite (in french, so I’m not going to give a link), stating that indeed slavery reappered in Europe during the second half of the XV° century, and especially in southern Europe, due to a deficit in manpower (florishing economy, new discoveries at a moment when europe had been depopulated by the great plagues), and slave traffick included : turks, bosnians, russians, blacks,moors, either captured or bought to the turks. It also states that though rare before, slavery never _completely_ dissapeared in Europe.
As for the second cite, I don’t think it’s relevant, since it applies to the early middle-ages -“dark ages” a period during which I had no doubts slavery existed (hence its name) but which a millenium away from the era we were talking about.
By the way, while searching for the exact dates when the french/spanish kings allowed slavery, I found the following informations concerning, instead, the church :
-1435 : Pope Eugene IV condemn the enslavement of the Canary islands indigenous, but doesn’t condemn slavery in itself
-1454 : In the bull “Romanus Pontifex” , Pope Nicolas V allow the king of Portugal to reduce to slavery all saraceens and all pagan people that its armies could conquer.
-1493 : Pope Alexander IV allows the king of Spain to enslave the non-christian indigenous from the americas who are at war with christian powers.
I also found that the spanish catholic kings stated in 1512 that only cannibal people could be taken in slavery. In 1517, Carlos I allowed the seizing of slaves in Africa in order to allievate the sufferings of the american indians.
Par la bulle Romanus Pontifex, Le Pape Nicolas V, autorise le roi du Portugal à réduire en esclavage tous les Sarrasins et les peuples païens que son armée pourrait conquérir.
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### Author:  [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/13 "2004-04-13T12:50:16Z")
Some of the vessels that sailed in the Armada in the 1580’s were galley ships manned by slaves. Whether these were black , Arab or European slaves I do not know.
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### Author:  [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/14 "2004-04-13T13:50:53Z")
As **Rayne Man** notes, slavery never exactly disappeared from Christendom/Europe. Galley slaves (generally POWS) were common throughout the Mediterranean world. \*\*Clairobscur[/] reports that the use of captured non-Christian forced labor was certainly considered okay by the church.
Necessity. Vast profits available to those who could focus enough labor on sugar or tobacco plantations throughout the New World. But while land was dear and labor cheap in Europe by this point, it worked the other way in the new world. Plenty of land available and this availability of land and its cheapness also made free labor prohibitively expensive- why farm for someone else when by moving a few dozen miles west or to the mainland rather than staying on a sugar island you could own your own farm. Using native labor was problematical as the natives were vulnerable to old world diseases and generally had an easier time finding friends to help them once they escaped.
I recently read the book An Imperfect God: George Washington, his Slaves, and the Creation of America, which deals among other things, with the birth and development of slavery in Virginia up through Washington’s presidency. Initially the labor force consisted of white indentured servants and blacks imported from Spanish regions. Initially pious Virginians commuted slavery for previously baptised blacks to indentured servitude. Later the House of Delegates passed laws saying that this was unnecessary. In the Caribbean conditions were harsh enough that constant imports of additional slaves were required. In the US a self-sustaining slave culture was developed - a wealthy planter could hope to increase his labor force through reproduction as much as through the purchase of slaves.
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### Author:  [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/15 "2004-04-13T14:24:19Z")
Just heard on NPR this morning that the Portugese started trading African slaves in Europe in c. 1440, with the transatlantic trade starting in the 1500’s.
Okies, I accept that slavery hadn’t actually died out in western Europe. My next question is, why the hell haven’t I heard of it before? As I stated in my OP, I’m relatively well read in this area, and I haven’t seen anything before this. Heck, I just finished _A Distant Mirror,_ Barbara Tuchman’s incredibly (perhaps overly) detailed history of 14th Century western Europe, and there isn’t a peep about slavery in western Europe.
Mass amnesia amongst historians? An attempt to gloss over a nasty aspect of European history? Given the multinidous (sp?) nasty aspects of European history addressed in intimate detail by numerous historians, why is this particular nasty aspect ignored in most histories of the time period?
Sua
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### Author:  [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/16 "2004-04-13T18:03:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> My next question is, why the hell haven’t I heard of it before? As I stated in my OP, I’m relatively well read in this area, and I haven’t seen anything before this. Heck, I just finished A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s incredibly (perhaps overly) detailed history of 14th Century western Europe, and there isn’t a peep about slavery in western Europe.
You still don’t quite “get it”. The presence of slavery is not what was noteworthy. Its the abolition of slavery that was revolutionary. In _every_ large-scale society since the dawn of time, slavery has existed in soime form or another. It’s not particularly nasty: its perfectly normal. Frankly, the modern notion that slavery is a terrible, horrible thing that is extemely strange and twisted, by the standards of nearly everyone who ever lived.
In Europe, the economics and social structure dictated that slavery would not be useful or economical except in very limited terms. It was not useful, ergo rarely used. No one’s hiding it: it simply was not comparablke to serfdom as an important economic practice.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/17 "2004-04-13T19:29:52Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#):
>
> You still don’t quite “get it”. The presence of slavery is not what was noteworthy. Its the abolition of slavery that was revolutionary. In _every_ large-scale society since the dawn of time, slavery has existed in soime form or another. It’s not particularly nasty: its perfectly normal. Frankly, the modern notion that slavery is a terrible, horrible thing that is extemely strange and twisted, by the standards of nearly everyone who ever lived.
> .
Still I wonder the same thing than \*\* suaSponte \*\*. How comes I never read a chapter in some book titled “the evolution of slavery in Europe during the late middle-ages”? Or noticed some graph with the estimated number of slaves in Florence during the XV° century? I mean, I’ve read whole chapters about compared agricultural productivity in cistercian abbeys, statistics about the given names in some obscure province during the XI° century or such things, but slavery totally slipped off my radar…
It’s not because something always existed that historian forget to mention/comment it. I mean, there has always been wars, too…Probably I’m less educated than I believed, but still. Historians really don’t seem very interested in this issue.
I would have bet good money that you couldn’t have found a slave in Madrid in 1400.
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### Author:  [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/18 "2004-04-13T20:00:49Z")
> [@clairobscur](#):
>
> How comes I never read a chapter in some book titled “the evolution of slavery in Europe during the late middle-ages”?
I think that although it makes sense to distinguish slavery from serfdom in general the difference between those groups was very small for all practical purposes. Although the origins of the groups were different their legal status was so similar that slaves did not play an important role in society on their own. Later in America the point was that the status of slaves differed significantly from ordinary citizens. In medieval europe being unfree “personal property” was the norm.
It is also not true that you never hear from european slaves. Just days ago I watched a documentary on the crusades of the Teutonic Order against the Lithuanians, “europe’s last heathens”, and how captured slaves were distributed among the participating knights for free while everybody else had to buy them.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/19 "2004-04-13T21:42:39Z")
> [@kellner](#):
>
> I think that although it makes sense to distinguish slavery from serfdom in general the difference between those groups was very small for all practical purposes. Although the origins of the groups were different their legal status was so similar that slaves did not play an important role in society on their own.
Well…Their origins wasn’t that different, since “serf” comes from “servus” meaning slave. AFAIK, serfs were the “descendants” (I don’t necessarily means in the biological senses) of both slaves and “free” (to a limited extend) colons (in the late empire sense), whose status became indistinguishable over time.
And the personnal status has always been an important issue, even when the difference was small for most purposes. Certainly important enough to be worth some comments.
> [@](#):
>
> It is also not true that you never hear from european slaves. Just days ago I watched a documentary on the crusades of the Teutonic Order against the Lithuanians, “europe’s last heathens”, and how captured slaves were distributed among the participating knights for free while everybody else had to buy them.
Yes, yes, I don’t doubt it. The fact that it took me a couple minutes to find relevant cites is enough of a proof. My last post was more of a rant coming from my frustration of being so completely ignorant on this issue, especially while _believing_ I wasn’t. Just ignore it.
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### Author:  [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-came-western-european-american-slavery/239656/20 "2004-04-13T23:36:52Z")
> [@clairobscur](#):
>
> Still I wonder the same thing than \*\* suaSponte \*\*. How comes I never read a chapter in some book titled “the evolution of slavery in Europe during the late middle-ages”? Or noticed some graph with the estimated number of slaves in Florence during the XV° century? I mean, I’ve read whole chapters about compared agricultural productivity in cistercian abbeys, statistics about the given names in some obscure province during the XI° century or such things, but slavery totally slipped off my radar…
Same here. It wasn’t even until I googled for the exact answer that I found out slavery was still around in Europe during that time - even though I figured that some of the Italian traders might have had some because they inevitably would have been involved in the Arab slave trade going on.
That would definitely be an interesting book. Or an interesting thesis for someone still in school. Maybe if i go back…
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