Five Thousand Years of Slavery Read online

  Text copyright © 2011 by Marjorie Gann and Janet Willen

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938446

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Gann, Marjorie

  Five thousand years of slavery / Marjorie Gann, Janet Willen.

  Includes index.

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-151-9

  1. Slavery – History – Juvenile literature.

  I. Willen, Janet II. Title.

  HT861.G35 2011 j306.3’6209 C2009-905868-5

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  Design: Leah Springate

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to the memory of our parents, Aaron and Alice Lowenstein, who taught us by example that all people are created equal.

  AUTHORS’ NOTE

  For historical accuracy, we have kept the original spelling, punctuation, and capitalization of the people we quoted unless we needed to make a slight change for clarity. Sometimes we have also included comments by people who used words or sentiments that are offensive to us. Obnoxious as they are, these statements reveal to us the racial prejudices used to justify slavery.

  Many place names have changed through the years. Depending on the context, we either replaced the earlier name with today’s or indicated the modern name in brackets. Place names in the maps correspond to those in the text, and so the maps do not match a specific period of time.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We are grateful to the many scholars and antislavery experts who helped us to understand how slavery worked in the past and how it operates today. First and foremost, our thanks go to Professor Martin Klein of the University of Toronto, whose extensive knowledge of world slavery guided our research and who generously read and commented on our manuscript. Kevin Bales, president and co-founder of Free the Slaves, gave us an expert’s insight into the complexity of modern slavery. Thanks, too, to Professor Lara Braitstein, McGill University, Montreal, for her assistance with understanding Buddhism; to Natalie Zemon Davis, professor of history emeritus from Princeton University and currently associated with the University of Toronto, for opening our eyes to John Gabriel Stedman’s account of the slave Quassie; to Andres Dobat, PhD, Aarhus University, for reading the sections on the Vikings; to Muriel Guigue of the International Cocoa Initiative, Stephanie Mannone of Free the Children, and Laura Germino, of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, for checking the material relating to their organizations for accuracy; to Rabbi Edward Elkin, First Narayever Congregation, Toronto, for helping us to contextualize biblical law and Hebrew practice; to Kent Hackmann, professor emeritus, University of Idaho, for reviewing the chapter on South America and the Caribbean; to Randy J. Sparks, professor and chair, Department of History, Tulane University, and author of The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Odyssey, for answering our questions about the Robin Johns; to Professor Ehud R. Toledano, Holder, University Chair for Ottoman Studies, Department of Middle East and African History, Tel Aviv University, for his helpful suggestions on Ottoman slavery; to James F. Warren, professor, Southeast Asian Modern History, Murdoch University, and author of Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity, for guiding us through the Sulu Zone; and to Marcia Wright, professor of history (emerita), Columbia University, New York, and author of Strategies of Slaves & Women: Life-stories from East/Central Africa, for helping to place the stories of Msatulwa Mwachitete and Meli in their cultural and historical context, and Terence Walz of Lilian Barber Press for granting us permission to print excerpts from these narratives. Of course, any errors or misinterpretations are entirely our own.

  Special thanks are due Francis Buk, who arrived in the United States with a forged Sudanese passport that incorrectly spelled his name Bok, and reclaimed his parents’ name when he became a U.S. citizen in 2007. Buk generously shared the story of his enslavement and escape with us. We hope that his experiences, as told here and in his memoir, Escape from Slavery, will inspire our readers to join the fight to wipe slavery off the face of the earth.

  Our thanks to the people at Tundra Books – to Kathy Lowinger, who saw the potential in our proposal and helped to shape our ideas into a readable story; to Kathryn Cole, who remained unflappable despite the book’s inevitable birth pangs; to Lauren Campbell, who chased down permissions for many elusive images; and to Gena Gorrell, whose eagle eye spotted things we would surely have missed.

  Our love and thanks to our families – Mark, Andy, Deborah, Eleanore, and Joey – for their support and encouragement, and to the many friends who lent us books, referred us to websites, sent us articles, and lifted our spirits.

  Finally, we are grateful to all those slaves who bravely told their stories so their plight would not be forgotten.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Authors’ Note

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  TO BE A SLAVE

  1 KINGS, PHARAOHS, AND PROPHETS

  The Ancient Near East

  2 REBELLION AND REVENGE

  Ancient Greece and Rome

  3 SAINTS AND VIKINGS

  Europe in the Middle Ages

  4 IN THE REALM OF THE QUR’AN

  Slavery under Islam

  5 CARAVANS, CANOES, AND CAPTIVES

  Africa

  6 EXPLORERS, LABORERS, WARRIORS, CHIEFS

  The Americas

  7 THE TREACHEROUS TRIANGLE

  South America and the Caribbean

  8 “THE MONSTER IS DEAD!”

  British Abolition

  9 IN THE LAND OF LIBERTY

  North America

  10 CIVIL WAR, CIVIL RIGHTS

  The United States

  11 BLACKBIRDERS, COOLIES, AND SLAVE GIRLS

  Asia and the Southern Pacific

  12 SLAVERY IS NOT HISTORY

  The Modern World

  TO BE FREE

  Time Line

  Sources

  Photo Sources

  Index

  “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

  – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, April 4, 1864

  TO BE A SLAVE

  Francis felt honored and excited. His mother was sending him to the marketplace to sell hard-cooked eggs and peanuts, with only the older village children to watch out for him. Francis was just seven years old, but he knew his mother was giving him a big responsibility. He was determined to make her proud. She handed a bigger boy the buckets of food to carry, but Francis took them from him. If I am big enough to go to the market without my parents, he thought, I am strong enough to carry two pails.

  The market was crowded, and pungent odors of fresh meat and fish, frui
ts, vegetables, and tobacco filled the air. People were chattering and bargaining and joking. Suddenly the mood changed. Smoke began rising from a nearby village. Sellers hastily packed up their goods. Before Francis and the other children could decide what to do, men on horseback galloped into the marketplace, their firearms blasting and their swords slashing. Everyone was terrified.

  By the time the attack was over, the sun was setting. A man grabbed Francis, dropped him into a basket tied to a donkey’s back, and rode off with him. When they finally stopped at a clearing, Francis recognized children from the marketplace, crying and clinging to each other. Another man, big and bearded, hoisted Francis onto his horse and set out into the night. Francis was terrified and confused. Where were they going? Who was this man?

  Francis found out when they reached a farm. The man, Giemma, was greeted by his wife. The couple watched and laughed as their children, by way of welcome, beat Francis with sticks until his skin burned.

  Francis had become Giemma’s slave. His new master put the boy to work as a cowherd. Sometimes when Francis was in the forest with the cattle, Giemma sent armed riders to spy on him. If they reported that the child had done something wrong, Giemma would beat him.

  At first Francis could not speak Giemma’s language, but he listened carefully so that he could learn. One day he was able to ask Giemma a question: “Why does no one love me?” Giemma did not answer. Francis tried again. “Why do you make me sleep with the animals?” For two days Giemma said nothing, but then he replied, “Because you are an animal.”

  The years went by, and Francis grew up without a kind word or gesture. “I’d been longing to see someone … come one day and give me a smile and actually say ‘hello’ or ‘How did you sleep last night?’ ” he explained later, “but I never heard such things.”

  But he did remember how his father had called him muycharko, which means “twelve men,” because even as a small boy he had worked hard. “He said when I am a grownup, I will do something that twelve men can do.” He consoled himself by thinking of his mother’s kindness. “When you’re alone, you’re not really alone, because God is watching you,” she had told him.

  Slavery – ownership or absolute control of one person by another – has been the fate of millions of people like Francis for over five thousand years. In this book you’ll read about warrior kings who boasted of the captives they brought home from battle to build lavish royal palaces, and about a humble Egyptian shepherd who rented out his slave girl in exchange for some new clothes. You will read about the slaves who died in silver mines in Ancient Greece, and others who organized revolts in Ancient Rome. You’ll read Viking poems that describe slaves as ugly, deformed creatures, and hear of a rebellious slave in Renaissance Italy who had her nose and lips cut off. From medieval Arab travelers you’ll learn about slave raids in Africa before Europeans arrived there. The accounts of European explorers will tell you how some Native Americans were forced into slavery, and how others sacrificed slaves to their gods. Former slaves will describe what it was like to cross the ocean in a slave ship in the 1700s, and slave owners will explain how they managed the slaves on their sugar plantations.

  Much has been written about the abolition of slavery in the Americas, but we know a lot less about slavery in the world we live in today. Today’s freed slaves – who have worked everywhere from factories in China, to farms in Sudan, to tomato fields in Florida – tell of the tricks used to lure them away from their homes and families, and their miserable working conditions and mistreatment.

  Slavery is in some ways always the same, whenever and wherever it is practiced. It wrenches people away from everything dear to them – homeland, language, family, and friends. It strips them of the right to choose their work, their amusements, their friends, their clothes, and sometimes even their names. Above all, it denies the fact that every human being has feelings of love and a need to be loved. If we are to put an end to slavery in the world we live in, the first step is to learn about it.

  CHAPTER 1

  KINGS, PHARAOHS, AND PROPHETS: THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

  Some say that the oldest story ever written down is the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, a four-thousand-year-old tale of gods, kings, love, and slavery.

  He is king, he does whatever he wants,

  takes the son from his father and crushes him,

  takes the girl from her mother and uses her,

  the warrior’s daughter, the young man’s bride,

  he uses her, no one dares to oppose him.

  Even in this ancient tale, the people cry out against slavery:

  Heavenly Father, Gilgamesh – noble

  as he is, splendid as he is –

  has exceeded all bounds.

  The people suffer from his

  Tyranny, the people cry out …

  Father, do something, quickly before the people

  Overwhelm heaven with their heartrending cries.

  We don’t know what work the sons and daughters were forced to do, but we know that they suffered.

  What is it like to be a slave, to have no control over what happens to your body, how you spend your time, where you live, or whom you live with? The answer depends on where slavery is practiced and who is practicing it. But whatever form it takes – and there are many forms – slavery has been woven into our history since the earliest times.

  Slavery was part of life in Mesopotamia, the region we now call Iraq, where our recorded history begins. For over 1,500 years, Mesopotamia saw the rise and fall of mighty kingdoms: first Sumer and Akkad, and later Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south. The kingdoms were powerful, their rulers were warlike, and they built their empires on the backs of slaves.

  The Sumerian kings brought home more and more foreign captives to work in their palace workshops, and even as soldiers in their armies. Although Sumer disappeared thousands of years ago, the long lists of male and female war captives survive, carved on clay tablets.

  This Sumerian panel, known as the Standard of Ur, was discovered in the Royal Cemetery in the ancient city of Ur. It shows a victorious army marching its captive soldiers naked to the king, who holds a spear. Notice the elegant chariots.

  Photo Credit 1.1

  The Great Empires of Assyria and Babylonia

  Centuries passed, and Sumer and Akkad gave way to the empires of Assyria and Babylonia. Like the others before them, they went to war often, and when they did, they brought back captives. Soon they had huge slave workforces. The cruel Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II advertised his brutality on large carved tablets. After one expedition he bragged that he was returning from war with 460 horses, 2,000 cattle, 5,000 sheep, the sister of the defeated ruler, and the daughters of the ruler’s rich nobles, as well as 15,000 other people.

  These captives built the Assyrians’ legendary city, Nimrud, with its five-mile (8-km) wall, grand palace, botanical gardens, and zoo. But slaves were not just laborers in Assyria; some were musicians, domestic servants, temple or library workers, sailors and soldiers for the annual spring military campaigns, charioteers, or grooms for the cavalry’s horses. Slaves even worked as healers and as scholars. By the end of the Assyrian Empire, slave markets were dotted around the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.

  Just as people have taken one another as slaves from the earliest times, history also shows us that people have risked everything to escape slavery. Babylonian accounts tell of slave uprisings and runaway slaves and owners who did whatever they could to hold onto their “property”: they made their slaves wear clay or metal tablets on chains, or burned their names or symbols into the flesh of their slaves.

  THE CODE OF KING HAMMURABI OF BABYLON

  “If a man has stolen a child, he shall be put to death.”

  This anti-kidnapping law can be found in one of the earliest and most complete legal codes of ancient times – the Code of Hammurabi. As ruler of the city-state of Babylon, Hammurabi brought many of the surrounding city-states under his power. He
had this code of law carved into a black stone pillar taller than a man, so all his subjects could see it.

  If a physician heal[s] the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man, the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.… If he is a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.

  Laws like these limited the owner’s power over his slave. He could not get away with killing a rebellious slave – all he could do was cut off his ear. This may have had less to do with the sanctity of the slave’s life than with the value of the slave to society. For the same reason, helping a slave to escape, or protecting a runaway slave, was punishable by death.

  Egypt, Land of the Pharaohs

  In the early years of Egyptian history – what is known as the Old Kingdom – a form of forced labor called corvée was practiced. The pharaoh owned all the land, so every person who farmed it was his tenant. When the pharaoh’s tenants weren’t needed on farms, they had to work on construction projects in exchange for food and clothing. These were the workers who built the magnificent pyramids. Though they had little choice about the work they did, they weren’t slaves – they could own their own homes and, most important, nobody could sell them.

  But as time went on, the line between free and forced work was more sharply drawn. A laborer who tried to escape his corvée work could be punished with enslavement, together with his whole family. Though this document is thousands of years old, it is still chilling:

  Order issued by the Great Prison in year 31, third month of the summer season, day 5, that he be condemned with all his family to labor for life on state land, according to the decision of the court.

  Foreign Slaves

  Like the empires that went before, Egypt had a growing appetite for war, and with each victory soldiers brought home foreign captives to become slaves. One warrior boasted: