slavery essay

slavery essay

The Abolition of Slavery

1. Introduction

Here, then, is how we should now start to think about the story of the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and system. What I have called the mechanics of abolition were only a part, and a relatively inconsequential part, of a process with much wider dimensions and longer-term significance. The crucial reason why the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves were to be possible was that powerful interests and ideologies which had once been heavily committed to the preservation and defense of slavery now came to perceive that abolition would be more in their interests. Abolition was not some great moral crusade suddenly launched by the conscience of the British people. It was the result of a new pattern of interest and ideology, generated for the most powerful social groupings of the late eighteenth century, and peculiarly attuned to their characteristic ways of thinking and doing. The key to this lay with the idea of what I shall call the ‘improvement’ of the British race and polity. It was the greatest of all historical ironies that the crime against humanity and reason which was ‘Negro slavery’ should have helped to usher in an age whose dominant ethos was one of ‘improvement’, and whose main consequence for Western civilization was the remaking of its thought and practice in the image of modern science. But the links between slavery and improvement were much closer than they appeared, for modern science arose in the first instance as the servant of Western expansion and power, and slavery was commonplace to the society which ‘improved’ itself by colonizing the new, found lands. And the ‘improvement’ of modern science included among other things a reconceptualization of what it was to be human, a vision of humanity which, thrown into the form of a racial hierarchy or a theory of progress, has been one of the recurrent stumbling-blocks of Eurocentric philosophy and social thought in the two centuries since the Enlightenment. Now in their own day the Huttonian Scots and their English counterparts had little practical use for the ‘Negro’ in their ‘improvement’ of the British polity. At the same time the long-term impact of abolitionist ideas about ‘Negro’ and ‘improvement’ was to be far, wider, deeper, and often more malign than the abolitionists ever imagined. But the abolitionists themselves could have no conception as to how such history would turn out. All that they knew was that their society was in pain of becoming grossly inconsistent in a matter of Christian precept and natural right, and it is this inconsistency which held the dialectic of self-interest and humanitarian idealism which made abolition possible.

2. Historical Background

In order to properly understand a crime so heinous as the enslavement of Africans, it is necessary to analyze the circumstances of the African continent at the time of the initial contact with Europeans. The first point to realize is that the sixteenth century was a time of rapidly expanding European imperialism. The Spanish and Portuguese, having already established a strong military and technological advantage in the Reconnaissance and Crusades of the previous centuries, were able to make the most of a technological edge in western naval capabilities to provoke an unprecedented westward spread of European influence.

Spain, as a result of conquests by Hernando Cortez and Pizzaro, was now the most powerful nation in Europe and through its ambassador to the Pope, Alexander VI, had entered negotiations with Portugal to divide the world outside of Europe into two zones of influence. This was in effect a partition of potential new Asian territories into Spanish and Portuguese spheres, and the areas of influence were later confirmed and more specifically defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas. With this treaty, another global political factor was added to the African slave trade.

In addition to the commencing of these Spanish conquests in the New World, the occupation of the Canary Islands was a pivotal event in the ignominious history of slavery. The Spanish captured La Gomera, and then ten years later, in 1483 or 1484, they took the remaining six islands. The conditions of initial subjugation and later forced labor of the native inhabitant Guanches created an early form of the plantation economy based on slavery, through which land was worked by natives from a lower social class who were deprived of freedom. It provided an ill omen for the future role of Africans in the New World, for it proved that slavery was an institution with feasible potential and with economic and legal precedent in Spanish territories.

In search of a direct legal justification for the enslavement of Africans, one might look to the Papal Bull issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1454 to King Alfonso V of Portugal, which enabled elaborated Papal consent of the sort only available in the hierarchical world of centralized Western Christendom. The Bull and its derivative briefs sanctioned the conquest of pagans and enemies of Christ, and their subjugation into perpetual servitude. This moral warrant to enslave non-Christians of course led to debate over the question as to the Christianity of Africans, which was the focus of later work by Spanish theologians such as Sepulveda and Las Casas.

3. Abolitionist Movements

The northern colonies continued to rely on imported African labor to meet their economic needs. But due to the large influx of white laborers in the southern colonies, race-based slavery declined in the north but not in the south. Slavery followed the Civil War, and the United States abolitionists attempted to end it in the Sectional and Reconstruction eras.

The Atlantic slave trade gradually increased during the 16th through the 18th century. The first African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Due to the lack of European workers and the declining economy in the colonies, the white landowners needed more labor to meet the colony’s needs and maintain their position. So, they sought out African laborers who were available, experienced, and could sustain the harsh working conditions better than the indentured white servants.

4. Emancipation Proclamations

When large numbers of slaves began to flee to Union lines, there was widespread confusion as to what to do with them. It was General Benjamin Butler who achieved military policy in regard to runaway slaves, not considering them contraband of war and demanding Masters to come and recover them. Three days later, Butler retracted this order using the Proclamation as his excuse, and so the runaways could be considered captives of war. The freedom of the contraband captives made available a large number of potential soldiers for the Union and so escalated the war into the abolition movement.

The significance of the Emancipation Proclamation is a subject that is highly debated. The Confederate Secretary of State claimed that it stopped precious peace prospects. According to Lincoln, the Proclamation was “a necessity of war, to weaken the enemy.” The decision of when to enforce the proclamation is key in that it was made public after the Union won the battle at Antietam. This was so European powers could not aid the Confederacy, and so the enforcement would not seem an act of desperation. The freeing of the slaves in the South also made it so there was no possibility of a compromise for the South and the Union on the subject of reconstruction that did not involve freeing the slaves.

During the American Civil War, the Union’s authority was tested as seven Southern states left the Union and declared their own Confederacy. The Confederacy was seen by the Union as a treasonous entity, and against it, they went to war. The motivations and the war aims of the Union and the Confederacy were not the same, however. “The United States were never on such false principles,” Jefferson Davis claimed, “as when it said all men are created equal.” The Union declared itself in alliance with black freedom, and to prove its declaration, it issued a number of gradual emancipation treaties, and in the long run, black soldiers were enlisted into the Union forces.

5. Legacy and Continuing Impact

While the victims of slavery have been left with a fragile social structure, it is no secret that the nations who partook in the slavery have flourished. Compare the situations of African and Western nations today, and it is almost unbelievable that an act of enforced migration has led to such disparity in the development of nations. Typically, the richer a Western nation is today, the more reliant that nation was back in the days of slavery. The money made by selling slaves or produce from slave labor has led to a great economic divide between the descendants of slave nations and the descendants of slaves themselves. Steps have been made to bridge this divide, as seen in the creation of the EU-ACP, and its predecessor the Lome Convention. These organizations attempt to promote the development of former European colonies and lend aid to the world’s poorest nations, yet as a gesture it can be said that it is not enough considering the lasting impacts of slavery.

It is too often heard that slavery was not a “black and white” issue. In this 21st century, the present consequence of this can be seen in the division between whites and blacks in nations such as the USA and Brazil. While the colored population today is free from enforced labor, it is clear that many are still incarcerated in a metaphorical sense. The socio-economic status of these persons is too often lower than their white counterparts, and it could be argued that this state of affairs is a product of the discrimination the Europeans held against their slaves. This idea of discrimination is especially prominent in Africa itself. After colonialism, many African tribes felt that they had been discriminated against by the white ruling class. This led to war, and while the white rulers are now gone, there is still often tension in these nations between the different tribes. The origins of this tension hark back to the days when Africans first encountered foreigners and sold members of other tribes into slavery, in essence, a crime that was against humanity itself.

The issue of slavery is a wound that has yet to truly heal. For the nations that participated in the triangular trading system, the consequences of slavery still resonate till this day. That is not to say that the impacts of the European trans-Atlantic slave trade were all negative on the nations involved. A case can be made that the Caribbean is as it is today because of the enforced migration of millions of Africans. But there can be no doubt that the legacy of slavery is something that still affects both the descendants of the victims and the nations who partook in the crime.