Origins of American Slavery

Author(s): Philip D. Morgan

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 AMERICA |ontheVluildi>lj^Ll|B|

Origins of American Slavery

Slavery is often termed "the peculiar institution," but it was hardly ued simply by using classical names), the notion that slaves could pos
peculiar to the United States. Almost every society in the history sess a peculium (a partial and temporary capacity to enjoy a range of
of the world has experienced slavery at one time or another. The goods), the common pattern of making fugitive slaves wear a metal col
aborigines of Australia are about the only group that has so far not lar, to clothing domestic slaves in special liveries or uniforms. The Life
revealed a past mired in slavery?and perhaps the omission has more of Aesop, a fictional slave biography from Roman Egypt in the first cen
to do with the paucity of the evidence than anything else. To explore tury C.E., is revelatory of the anxieties and fears that pervade any slave
American slavery in its full international context, then, is essentially society, and some of the sexual tensions so well displayed are redolent
to tell the history of the globe. That task is not possible in the available of later American slavery. Yet, of course, ancient slavery was funda
space, so this essay will explore some key antecedents of slavery in North mentally different from modern slavery in being an equal opportunity
America and attempt to show what is distinctive or unusual about its condition?all ethnicities could be slaves?and in seeing slaves as pri
development. The aim is to strike a balance between identifying con marily a social, not an economic, category. Ancient cultural mores were
tinuities in the institution of slavery over time, while also locating sig also distinctive: Greeks enslaved abandoned infants; Romans routinely
nificant changes. The trick is to suggest preconditions, anticipations, tortured slaves to secure testimony; and even though the Stoics were
and connections without im prepared to acknowledge
plying that they were neces the humanity of the slave,
sarily determinations (i). neither they nor anyone else
Significant precursors in the ancient world ever se
to American slavery can be riously questioned the place
found in antiquity, which of slavery in society. Aris
produced two of only a hand totle, after all, thought that
ful of genuine slave societies some people were "slaves by
in the history of the world. A nature," that there were in
slave society is one in which effect natural slaves (2).
slaves played an important Arabs and their Muslim
role and formed a signifi allies were the first to make
cant proportion (say, over 20 use of large numbers of sub
percent) of the population. Saharan black Africans. They
Classical Greece and Rome developed a long-distance
(or at least parts of those en slave trade, which began
tities and for distinct periods in the seventh century and
of time) fit this definition lasted into the twentieth. It
and can be considered mod delivered many millions of
els for slavery's expansion Africans across the Sahara
in the New World. In Rome Desert, Red Sea, and Indian
in particular, bondage went This illustration?"In the Slave Market of Cairo"?appeared in Egypt 8c Nubia: From Drawings Ocean to North Africa, the
hand in hand with imperial Made on the Spot by David Roberts ... (1846-1849) and demonstrates the long history of the Mediterranean, and Per
expansion, as large influxes slave trade in North Africa and the Middle East. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress sian Gulf. Although over a
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-4043.)
of slaves from outlying areas much longer period of time
were funneled into large and comprising far more fe
scale agriculture, into the latifundia, the plantations of southern Italy males, the number of Africans exported via these trans-Saharan or In
and Sicily. American slaveholders could point to a classical tradition of dian Ocean slave trades probably equaled, or even outmatched, those of
reconciling slavery with reason and universal law; ancient Rome pro its trans-Atlantic counterpart. The pre-existence of these export trades
vided important legal formulas and justifications for modern slavery. facilitated Atlantic trade: systems of slave marketing were already in
Parallels between ancient and New World slavery abound: from the place. So numerous were black Africans at certain times and in certain
dehumanizing device of addressing male slaves of any age as "boy," the places that they were able to launch massive slave revolts?in 869, for
use of branding and head-shaving as modes of humiliation, the comic instance, in what is now southern Iraq, where the so-called Zanj (who
inventiveness in naming slaves (a practice American masters contin came from the Swahili Coast and lands further north) worked in large

OAH Magazine of History July 2005 51

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gangs draining marshlands. While the Qufan and Islamic Law were gan colonizing the Atlantic islands off their coasts, first using as slaves
essentially color-blind and while Muslims enslaved many so-called Guanche natives of the Canary Islands. The Spanish and Portuguese
"white" people, medieval Arabs came to associate the most degrading enslavement of the Berber-like Canary Islanders is a prelude to the later
forms of labor with black slaves. The Arabic word for slave, ^abd, came fate of Caribbean, Mexican, Central American, and Brazilian Indians.
to mean a black slave. Many Arab writers had racial contempt for black Furthermore, the Atlantic islands of Madeira and Sao Tome became
people, and the racial stereotypes of the medieval Middle East were forerunners for the spread of racial slavery and sugar plantations in
probably transmitted to the Iberian Peninsula (3). the New World. Admittedly, Madeira's slave forces were limited, its
As the long-standing trans-Saharan slave trade reveals, slavery properties often small, and small farmers and sharecroppers supplied
existed in sub-Saharan Africa long before the Atlantic slave trade. In much of its cane. Nevertheless, by the end of the fifteenth century it
some?perhaps most?places, slavery tended to be a minor institution, was Europe's largest producer, and its model would be the one later
with the slave able to pass in time from alien to kin member; in oth followed by Brazilians, who soon became the Atlantic world's major
ers, most notably a number of Islamicized regimes, slavery was more suppliers of sugar, and who drew directly on the expertise of Atlantic
central, with violence, economic exploitation, and lack of kinship rights Islanders. From the late fifteenth century to the mid-sixteenth century,
more evident. In large part because Africa was underpopulated, a broad Sno Tome?situated in the Gulf of Guinea?imported more African
spectrum of dependent statuses, with slavery just one variant, existed; slaves than Europe, the Americas, or the other Atlantic islands com
and slaves played a wide range of roles from field workers to soldiers, bined. Particularly in the universality of slave labor, Sao Tome was the
from domestics to administrators. The ethnic fragmentation of sub-Sa nearest approximation to an American prototype (7).
haran Africa meant that there were few states strong enough to prevent As slavery underwent a resurgence in southern Europe, it gradu
opportunistic African kings or merchants profiting from slave raiding. ally disappeared from the northwestern part of the continent. Economic
Those kingdoms that opposed exporting slaves did not have the means changes help to explain this development, but perhaps more important
to stop the traffic. Lacking an overall religious or political unity, Afri were cultural constraints. Over the course of the Middle Ages, Chris
cans could enslave other Africans because the concept of African-ness tians always committed awful atrocities on each other, but increasingly
had no meaning. Accustomed to tropical climates, inured to agricul they avoiding enslaving one another. Apparently, a sense of unity had
tural labor, and reared in a harsh epidemiological environment, sub emerged in Christian Europe that effectively barred the enslavement of
Saharan Africans made productive slaves (4). those deemed fellow Europeans. Christianity's long struggle with Islam
As Europe's economy began to expand in the tenth and eleventh no doubt played a major role in this development. That from 1500 to
centuries, attention focused on the rich Mediterranean region. By the 1800, Muslims enslaved well over a million Western Europeans, many of
twelfth century, various Crusader states had been established at the east whom were subsequently ransomed and celebrated as symbols of free
ern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Venetian and Genoese merchants dom, was a major element in the growing sense that Europeans should
pioneered the development of these conquered Arab sugar-producing never be slaves. Nevertheless, these so-called free-labor nations would
regions and began supplying them with slaves. They first victimized the develop some of the harshest slave regimes in the Americas. As David
Slavic inhabitants of the Dalmatian Coast and then transported Circas Brion Davis puts it, "it is an astonishing paradox that the first nations in
sians, Georgians, Armenians, and the like from the Black Sea region. the world to free themselves of chattel slavery?such nations as England,
At this time, the Latin word for people of Slavic descent, sclavus, became France, Holland, and even the Scandinavian states?became leaders dur
the origin of the word slave in English (and in French esclave, in Span ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in supporting plantation
ish esclavo, and in German sklave), and replaced the non-ethnic Latin colonies based on African slave labor." He likens this divide to a primitive
term servus. In Europe in the Middle Ages, then, the slave population Mason-Dixon line, "drawn somewhere in the Atlantic, separating free
was predominantly "white." Sugar production gradually spread from soil master-states from tainted slave soil dependencies" (8).
the eastern Mediterranean, through Cyprus and Sicily, to Catalonia in This paradox illumines the unpredictability of events in the Ameri
the west; and the white slave trade followed in its wake. This trade mir cas. No European nation embarked on New World ventures with the
rored the later trans-Atlantic version, with its complex organization, intention of enslaving anyone. They had no blueprint, but rather pro
permanent forts, and long-distance shipment by sea to multinational ceeded haphazardly and pragmatically. Their first resort was to forced
markets. When in 1453 tne Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, Indian labor (the encomienda, or a semi-feudal system of tributary la
Christian Europe was cut off from its major source of slaves. The only bor), as the Tainos found to their cost on Hispaniola. To make up for
available alternative became sub-Saharan Africans (5). the rapid decline of these earliest Indian laborers, over the course of the
Two sources of African labor were then available. First, the Arab sixteenth century Spanish conquistadors first raided islands such as
caravan trade across the Sahara, long in existence, gathered impetus to the Bahamas and then shipped more than fifty thousand Indian slaves
provide more black slaves to Libya and Tunisia and then to the western from Central America to Panama, Peru, and the Caribbean. Similarly,
Mediterranean region. Second, Genoese capital and technology aug from roughly the 1530s to the 1580s, the Portuguese in Brazil relied on
mented Portuguese sea power, and from the 1440s onward the Por Indian slave labor to produce sugar. Early South Carolina resorted to
tuguese began importing significant numbers of black African slaves Indian slaves who, in the first decade of the eighteenth century, com
into Lisbon via the Atlantic. Still, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centu prised one-third of the colony's slave labor force. From 1670 to 1715 an
ries, North African and Muslim slaves exceeded black slaves in Iberia. active Indian slave trade saw as many as 50,000 Indians from the Caro
Nevertheless, by the early seventeenth century black slaves numbered linas and Florida sold to the West Indies and to the Northern mainland
about 15,000 or 15 percent of Lisbon's population. This influx of African colonies. There were basic problems, nevertheless, with using Indians
slaves into Iberia owed much to a transfer of personnel and knowledge as slaves. First, Indians regarded any kind of agriculture as work fit only
from the Black Sea-Mediterranean slave nexus to that of an emerging for women. Second, European opinion was decidedly ambivalent about
Atlantic system (6). enslaving Indians, as the famous debate in Spain in 1548 between Juan
Sugar production meanwhile was making its way westward in Gines Sepulveda and Bartolome de las Casas revealed. Most important,
search of fresh lands. Thus by the late fifteenth century the Iberians be Indians were remarkably susceptible to Old World diseases. Indian

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 JL

slaves were not able to survive long enough to be profitable. Suffering is a complicated subject and space will not permit a full accounting
catastrophic losses, Indian labor literally wasted away. On Hispaniola, here. Ancient Greco-Roman art and writing offers caricatures of black
the Taino Indians, numbering perhaps 500,000 pre-contact, were al Africans, although their relative scarcity is perhaps most telling. Medi
most extinct a half-century later; in central Mexico perhaps 15 million eval images of Africans ranged from the black magis to agents of the
Indians in 1500 fell to just 1.5 million a century later. The scale of the Devil. In various settings?in medieval Europe where peasants were of
disaster is staggering (9). ten depicted as "black' because of working in the sun and in close prox
Consequently, Europeans faced a huge labor shortage. The Ottoman imity to dirt, or in modern Russia where noblemen even claimed that
Turkish empire blocked access to Black Sea or Baltic captives. European Russian serfs had black bones?blackness and debasement had a long
nations no longer enslaved Christian prisoners of war. Some dreamers connection. In western culture the color black evokes a highly negative
talked of enslaving the poor, or other marginal groups, but the practical symbolism, conjuring up images of death and sin. While these pejora
and principled problems of reviving European slavery were considerable. tive associations existed, European ambivalence toward sub-Saharan
Another expedient was the transportation of convicts, but their numbers Africans seems the dominant response. Medieval Europeans did not,
were never sufficient. Temporary bondage?indentured servitude?was for example, automatically associate the biblical Ham with Africa; Asia
the most obvious and most widely used other option, particularly in the was often identified with Ham and his "Curse" was also used to justify
early years, but servants, if they survived, eventually became free and in European serfdom and the enslavement of Slavs. Nevertheless, however
any case most servants would not travel to the areas where most labor it happened, slavery became indelibly linked with people of African de
was needed. Ihus, al scent in the Western
most by default, Afri hemisphere. The dis
can slaves proved by honor, humiliation,
far the best available and bestialization
labor supply. Conse that were universally
quently, from 1500 to associated with chat
1820 almost 9 million tel slavery merged
African slaves left for with blackness in
the New World, com the New World. The
pared to less than 3 racial factor became
million whites. In one of the most dis
terms of migration, tinctive features of
the New World was slavery in the New
more black than white World (12).
(10). New World slav
The center of grav ery's other most dis
ity of slavery did not, tinctive aspect was its
however, immediately highly commercial
shift to the western character. While it
shores of the Atlantic. is true that planta
Not until 1700 did Afri tions?that is, large
ca earn more from the agricultural enter
export of its slaves than prises, managed for
it did from precious profit, producing a
metals and spices. In crop for export, with
addition, not until the a hierarchically strati
late seventeenth cen In Brazil, enslavement of Indians gave way to the enslavement of Africans, until emancipation in 1888.
Brazilian Africans are pictured here in "Peddlers or Hawkers from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1819-1820," fied labor organiza
tury did black slaves tion?existed outside
from Henry Chamberlain, Views and Costumes of the City and Neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from
in the New World out the New World, yet
Drawings Taken by Lieutenant Chamberlain, Royal Artillery, During the Years 1819 and 1820, with Descriptive
number white slaves Explanations (London, 1822). they reached their
in the Old World (then apogee there. The
located primarily in the Islamic Middle East, North Africa, and Russia). economies of scale, the expansion in unit size, the almost exclusive
White slaves in the Maghrib became so numerous that they mounted se use of black slaves, a highly regimented and commodified labor force,
rious rebellions?in 1763 in Algiers four thousand Christian slaves rose and a system of close management all raised profit levels significantly.
and killed their guards, making it "perhaps the largest slave revolt in the Such a productive system placed enormous demands on its laborers.
Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds between the end of the Roman Empire As early as the 1630s a visitor to a Jesuit-owned sugar plantation in
and St. Domingue rebellion" (11). Brazil vividly describes the unbearable horror of what had transpired:
If the sheer availability of African slaves and the lack of available "People the color of the very night, working briskly and moaning at
alternatives is the primary explanation for the development of racial the same time without a moment of peace or rest, whoever sees all the
slavery in the New World, did racism have nothing to do with it? Did confused and noisy machinery and apparatus of this Babylon, even if
anti-black racism or proto-racism point particularly to African slaves they have seen Mt. Etna and Vesuvius will say that this indeed is the
to supply the immense labor demands of the New World? Or did rac image of Hell" (13).
ism intensify only after long-term interaction with black slaves had oc Variations over time and space existed within New World slavery.
curred? Was it there from the beginning or was it a consequence? This Three stand out. First, although all New World regions imported more

OAH Magazine of History July 2005 53

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African men than women (thereby in part explaining the harshness of Endnotes
New World slavery because of the policing problems associated with i. The term "peculiar institution" became commonplace among Southerners
in the nineteenth-century United States: Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar
large gangs of men), over time, the gender ratio among New World
Institution: Slavery in the Ante-bellum South (New York: Knopf, 1956).
slaves became increasingly balanced. In that regard, the North Ameri
2. Moses I. Finley, "Slavery," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,
can slave population is most notable, because, as its number of slave in David L. Sills and Robert King Merton, eds. (New York: Macmillan,
women increased the most rapidly, so it became one of the few self-re 1968) 14: 307-13; Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, reprint
producing slave populations in world history. This early and rapid natu (Hammondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1983, 1980) 9, 96, 102, in, 113-14; Keith
ral increase explains why North America received such a small percent Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves: Sociological Studies in Roman History, vol. 1
age of the overall transatlantic slave trade?about 5 percent. Second, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Hopkins, "Novel Evidence
North America was also distinctive in being much less tolerant of racial for Roman Slavery," Past & Present, 138 (1993): 3-27; Keith Bradley, Slavery
and Society at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 12-13,
intermixture than Latin America or the Caribbean. Once again demog
87; Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge:
raphy?particularly the ratio of white men to white women (more bal
Cambridge University Press, 1996); Keith Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave:
anced in North America than in Latin America and the Caribbean), and The Truth of Fiction," Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000): 110-25. For
the availability of black women?was a crucial part of the explanation, studies that explore the classical legacy over a long sweep of time, see
but also important were the role of the Church and cultural mores, David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, NY:
based as much in Old World patterns of racial coexistence or segrega Cornell University Press, 1966), especially 29-90, and William D. Phillips
tion. The Spanish had mixed with Muslims for centuries; the English Jr., Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade (Minneapolis:
had created a Pale in their settlement of Ireland. Only in North Amer University of Minnesota Press, 1985). In addition to the sanctions for slavery
that the classical literature of antiquity provided and that assumed new force
ica did the extremely arbitrary concept of "Negro"?denoting anyone
during the Renaissance, the religious undergirding for slavery evident in the
with allegedly visible African ancestry?assume such a marked stigma.
Hebrew and Christian Bibles ideally should be explored.
Third, the chances of gaining freedom varied from one society to the 3. Ralph A. Austen, "The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade: A Tentative Census," in
next. Except for the period surrounding the American Revolution, the Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn, eds., The Uncommon Market:
North American colonies, and later the states, imposed the severest Essays in the Economic History of Atlantic Slave Trade (New York: Academic
restrictions on the chances of a slave becoming free. Again, demog Press, 1979), 23-76; Austen, "The Mediterranean Islamic Slave Trade out of
raphy?the proportions of whites and blacks in the population?has Africa: A Tentative Census," Slavery & Abolition 13 (1992): 214-48; and his
some explanatory power as do economic and cultural forces (14). most recent, "Slave Trade: The Sahara Desert and Red Sea Region," in John
Middleton, ed., Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara (New York: Scribners,
North American slavery itself was hardly of a piece. The range en
1997) 4: 103; Pier Larson, "African Diasporas and the Atlantic" (unpublished
compasses New England's intimate "family slavery," the Mid-Atlantic's
paper, 2004); Ghada Hashem Talhami, "The Zanj Rebellion Reconsidered,"
mixed forms of slavery and servitude, the Chesapeake's patriarchal, small International Journal of African Historical Studies 10 (1977): 443-61; Alexandre
plantation, mixed farming and tobacco, heavily native-born form of slav Popovic, The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq in the Hlrd-IXth Century, trans.
ery, and the lowcountry's impersonal, large plantation, rice and indigo, Leon King (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998); Bernard Lewis, Race and
more heavily African system of slavery. In addition, various borderland Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (New York: Oxford University
forms existed: from a fluid world of interracial alliances in the Lower Press, 1990). For newer works on Ottoman and Islamic slavery, see Ehud R.
Mississippi Valley to a flexible one of fugitives and ex-slaves in Spanish Toledano, Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 1998); Shaun E. Marmon, ed., Slavery in the Islamic
Florida to one in which Indian slaves were transformed from symbols of
Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998); Minra Tora and John
alliance into commodities of exchange in French Canada (15).
Edward Philips, eds., Slave Elites in the Middle East and Africa: A Comparative
Racial slavery played an intrinsic and indispensable part in New Study (London: Kegan Paul International, 2000); John O. Hunwick and Eve
World settlement. The institution was no abnormality, no aberration, Trout Powell, eds., The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam
no marginal feature; rather, its development is the grim and irrepress (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2001); and Paul Lovejoy, ed., Slavery on the
ible theme governing the development of the Western hemisphere. Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2004).
The truly distinctive features of North American (and to varying de 4. Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff, eds., Slavery in Africa: Historical and
grees, New World) slavery were its racial bedrock and its thoroughly Anthropological Perspectives (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1977); Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and
commercial character. Increasingly, the stark polarity between free
African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); John
dom and bondage became glaringly evident, for the debasement of
Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400
slaves liberated others to take control of their destiny and to dream of 1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Paul E. Lovejoy,
liberty and equality. This profound contradiction lay at the heart of the Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, 2nd. ed. (Cambridge:
United States, a country conceived in freedom but based on slavery. Cambridge University Press, 2000).
The American dream always had its dark underside. Yet the dream 5. Charles Verlinden, "L'Origine de 'sclavus-esclave,'" Archivum latinitatis
ers would eventually try to rid themselves of the nightmare?with con medii aevi 17 (1943): 97-128; Verlinden, LEsclavage dans I'Europe medievale,
siderable prodding from the victims, it might be added. Unlike other Vol. 1: Penisule Iberique?France (Bruges: De Tempel, 1955); Vol. 2: Italie,
Colonies Italiennes du Levant, Levant Latin, Empire Byzantin (Ghent: 1977);
previous forms of slavery, the New World version did not decline over a
and Verlinden, The Beginnings of Modern Colonization: Eleven Essays with an
long period, but came to a rather abrupt end. The age of emancipation
Introduction, Yvonne Freccero, trans. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
lasted a little over one hundred years: beginning in 1776 with the first 1970). For newer work on medieval slavery, see Ruth Mazo Karras, Slavery
antislavery society in Philadelphia, through the monumental Haitian and Society in Medieval Scandinavia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
Revolution of 1792, and ending with Brazilian emancipation in 1888. 1988); David A. E. Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign
An institution that had been accepted for thousands of years disap of Alfred Until the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1995);
peared in about a century. One last watershed, therefore, is the unprec Steven Epstein, Speaking of Slavery: Color, Ethnicity, and Human Bondage
edented novelty and speed of the abolitionist moment (16). in Italy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001); and Sally McKee,
"Inherited Status and Slavery in Late Medieval Italy and Venetian Crete,"
Past ScPresent 182 (Feb. 2004): 31-53.

54 OAH Magazine of History July 200s

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 A
6. A. C. de C. M. Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and
Hannaford, Freedmen
Race: in
The History of an Idea in the We
Portugal, 1441-1555 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Woodrow Press, 1982);
Wilson Hugh
Center Press, 1996); the essays i
Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870
Differentiating (Newin the Early Modern Wor
Peoples
York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 21-24, 48-86. Quarterly, 3d Ser., 54 (January 1997): 3-252; David M
7. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, The Canary Islands after of the
Ham:Conquest:
Race and The Making
Slavery in Early Judaism, Christiani
of a Colonial Society in the Early Sixteenth CenturyNJ:(Oxford, UK:University
Princeton Clarendon Press, 2003); and the bes
Press, 1982); Stuart B. Schwartz, ed., Tropical Babylons:
Davis,Sugar
"The and the Making
Origins of Anti-Black Racism in the N
of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680 (Chapel Hill: University
Inhumanof North Carolina
Bondage: The Rise and Fall of New World Sl
Press, 2004), especially 1-26,42-84, 201-236. For
13.more on Fogel,
Robert Sao Tome, which
Without Consent or Contract: The R
requires more study, see Tony Hodges and Malyn Newitt,
Slavery (NewSao Tome
York: and 1989); Schwartz, ed., Tro
Norton,
Principe: From Plantation Colony to Microstate (Boulder,
14. Frank CO: Westview Press,
Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen: The Negro in
1988) and Robert Garfield, A History of Sao Tome Island,
Alfred1470-1655:
A. Knopf, The Key Carl
1946); to N. Degler, Neither Black
Guinea (San Francisco: Mellen Research University RacePress, 1992).
Relations in Brazil and the United States (New Y
8. David Brion Davis, "Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives,"
15. For American
some examples, see William D. Piersen, Black Y
Historical Review 105 (April 2000): 458, and his Challenging the Boundaries
of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Centur
of Slavery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 14;
University ofRobert C.
Massachusetts Press, 1988); Gra
Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery
Root in
andthe Mediterranean,
Branch: African Americans in New York a
the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800 (Basingstoke,(Chapel
UK: Palgrave MacMillan, of North Carolina Press, 1
Hill: University
2003). For more on the development of freedom andCounterpoint:
Slave slavery, see David
Black Culture in the Eighteenth-
Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge:(Chapel
Lowcountry CambridgeHill: University of North Car
University Press, 2000) and Sue Peabody, There Are No Slaves
H. Usner, in France:
Indians, The
Settlers, & Slaves in a Frontier Excha
Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the AncienMississippi
Regime (New York:
Valley Oxford
before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University
University Press, 1996). 1992); Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florid
9. Carl Ortwin Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley University
Illinois of California
Press, 1999); and Brett Rushforth, "'A Litt
Press, 1966) and Irving Rouse, The Tainos: Rise e[ The
Decline of the
Origins of People
Indian who
Slavery in New France," Willi
Greeted Columbus (New Haven, CT: Yale University 3dPress, 1992);
Ser., 60 William
(October L. 777-808. To this list migh
2003):
Sherman, Forced Native Labor in Sixteenth-Century of
Central America
aboriginal (Lincoln:
slavery see Theda Perdue, Slavery and t
University of Nebraska Press, 1979); Stuart B. Schwartz,
Society,Sugar Plantations
1540-1866 in
(Knoxville: University of Tenness
the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (Cambridge:
A. Starna Cambridge
and Ralph Watkins, "Northern Iroquoian S
University Press, 1985); Alan Gallay, The Indian(Winter
Slave Trade:
19 91): The Rise
34-57; andof
Leland Donald, Aboriginal Sl
the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717Coast (New Haven,
of North CT: Yale
America (Berkeley University of Cali
University Press, 2002); Joyce E. Chaplin, "Enslavement of Indians
16. Slavery, in Early
however, continued in Africa until abo
America: Captivity without the Narrative," in Elizabeth Mancke
abolitionist and Carole
moment was rather prolonged and slave
Shammas, eds., The Creation of the British Atlanticbeen termed
World a "slow The
(Baltimore: death."
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 75-121; for a recent discussion of
Sources
Indian population decline, see David S. Jones, "Virgin Soils Revisited,"
William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 60 (October 2003):
Blackburn, Robin.703-42.
The Making of New World Slavery. From the Baroque to the
10. David Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America: An Economic
Modern, 1492-1800. London: Verso, Analysis
1997. Covers all the European slave
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Timothy Coates,
systems in the Americas "Convict
and connects them to the advent of modernity.
Labor in the Early Modern Era," in David Eltis and
Brooks, Stanley
James L.
F. Captives & Engerman,
Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the
eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery (forthcoming); David
Southwest Borderlands. Eltis,
Chapel "The
Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment,"
2002. Reveals the importance of slavery and slave-raiding to the intercultural
William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 58 (January 2001):
exchange networks17-46.
that emergedTwo good
in the early American Southwest.
microhistories of the transatlantic slave trade are:Carretta,
Robert Harms,
Vincent, The
ed. Unchained Diligent:
Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the
A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (New York: Basic
English-Speaking World ofBooks, 2002)
the Eighteenth Century. Lexington: University
and Randy J. Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar: PressAn Eighteenth-Century
of Kentucky, 1996. Features such black voices as Briton Hammon,
Atlantic Odyssey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
Phillis Wheatley, 2004).
Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Banneker,
n. David Eltis and William G. Clarence-Smith, "White Servitude,"
and Venture Smith. in Eltis and
Engerman, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery
Conrad, (forthcoming).
Robert Edgar, comp. Children of God'sFor
Fire: A Documentary History of
slavery compared to other forms of coerced labor, see
Black M. L.inBush,
Slavery ed., Serfdom
Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. An
and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage (London: Longman, 1996);
excellent source book Stanley
for the American slave L.
society that received the most
Engerman, ed., Terms of Labor: Slavery, Serfdom,Africans.
and Free Labor (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); and Bush, Servitude in Modern Times
Davis, David Brion. Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery. Cambridge, MA:
(Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2000). Harvard University Press, 2003. The first short essay in the volume is a
12. Frank M. Snowden Jr., Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the
superb introduction to theGreco-Roman
origins of New World slavery, but it should be
Experience (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press complemented
of Harvard University
by a number of other books by this great historian of New
Press, 1970); Snowden, Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient
World View recommend
slavery. I particularly of Blacks his Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Benjamin
Fall of New World Slavery. Isaac, The University Press, forthcoming.
New York: Oxford
Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the
Press, 2004); Jean Devisse and Michel Mollat, eds., The Image
Mediterranean, ofCoast,
the Barbary theandBlack
Italy, 1500-1800. Basingstoke, UK:
in Western Art, Vol. 2: From the Early Christian Era to the
Palgrave 'Age 2003.
Macmillan, of Discovery"
A useful reminder that slavery arose and
(Cambridge, MA: Menil Foundation, 1979); Paul flourished
Freedman, Images of
in the Mediterranean worldthe
at the same time as across the
Medieval Peasant (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
Atlantic. Explores 1999), of
the dimensions 133-73,
white slavery and slave life.
300-03; Peter Kolchin, Unfree Labor: American Drescher,
Slavery and
Seymour and Russian Serfdom
Stanley L. Engerman, eds., A Historical Guide to World
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Slavery. New 1987),
York: Oxford 170-73;
University Press, 1998. A useful reference work
Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro,
that covers most regions where slavery was important, together with topical
1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
examinations ofPress,
the subject. 1968); Ivan

OAH Magazine of History July 2005 55

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 JL

Eltis, David. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000. A stimulating exploration of the paradox that the
northern European countries most renowned for their commitment to
individual freedom created the harshest systems of slavery in the New World.
-et al, eds. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM,
CD-ROM. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Contains information on
27,233 transatlantic slaving expeditions. An expanded, on-line version (with Gary W. Reichard
information on 35,000 voyages) should be available by 2008.
Fmklelman, Paul and Joseph C. Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Chair and Project Editor,
Slavery. 2 vols. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1998, Another California State University, Long Beach
useful reference work that covers similar ground to the volume edited by
Drescher and Engerman, but is more comprehensive in nature,
Joyce E. Chaplin
Finley, M. I. Ancient Slavery and Modem Ideology, reprint. Harmondsworth, UK:
Penguin, 1983,1980. An exploration of the emergence, functioning, and decline Harvard University
of the slave societies of classical Greece and classical Italy, with comparisons to
New World slavery, by the greatest historian of andent slavery. Ted M. Dickson
Fredrkkson, George M. Racism: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Providence Day School, Charlotte NC
University Press, 2002. An authoritative introduction to the subject
Handler, Jerome S. and Michael L. Tuite Jr., "The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave
Life in the Americas: A Visual Record," <http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/ Michelle Forman
Slaveryx Contains about 1,000 pictorial images of slavery in Africa and the Middle!?wry (VT) Union High School
Americas, arranged thematically.
Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery, 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. A
Michael Grossberg
good general account by a historian alert to comparative history.
Lewis, Bernard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. New Indiana University
York: Oxford University Press, 1990. A good survey of slavery and the
evolution of racial prejudice in the Islamic world. David Robert Huehner
Miers, Suzanne and Igor Kopytoff, eds. Slavery in Africa: Historical and
Anthropological Perspectives. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977. University of Wisconsin,
The long introduction on slavery as an "institution of rnarginality" is a Washington County
classic, and many of the individual essays on particular regions and groups
are stimulating. Lee W. Formwalt
Miller, Joseph. C.? ed. Slavery and Slaving in World History: A Bibliography, igoo
1996, 2 vols. Armonk, NY: M. E, Sharpe, 1999- The most comprehensive Organization of American Historians
work of its kind. Annual updates are available in the journal Slavery &
Abolition. The entire bibliography is being prepared for internet access Michael Johanek
as a searchable database by the Virginia Center for Digital History at the
The College Board
University of Virginia.
Morgan, Philip D. "African Americans" in Daniel Vickers, ed., A Companion to Colonial
America. Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 138-71. A concise, up-to-date survey of Kevin B. Byrne
the black experience in early America, with an extensive bibliography. Organization of American Historians
Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. The best general survey of slave
Uma Venkateswaran
systems in sixty-six societies, written by a sociologist.
Phillips, William D. Jr. Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade. Educational Testing Service
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. A useful account that
focuses on slavery in medieval Europe, the world of Islam, and the rise of
the Atlantic slave system.
Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400
1800. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A provocative
account that emphasizes African agency in the development of slavery and
the transatlantic slave trade.

Philip D. Morgan is the Sydney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Ameri
can Revolutionary Era at Princeton University. He is the author of Slave
Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake
ORGANIZATION OF
and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, igg8)
AMERICAN HISTORIANS
and co-editor (with Sean Hawkins) of Black Experience and the Empire:
The Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2004). He would like to acknowledge in particular the assistance of
David Brion Davis, who generously sent him two early chapters from his
rCollegeBoard
forthcoming manuscript, 'Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of New Advanced Placement
World Slavery/' Program

56 OAH Magazine of History July 2005

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