Little-known facts about slavery

Slavery - one of the most controversial topics today. On the one hand, all agree that this phenomenon is not acceptable in society, on the other hand, few people know, that it was much more difficult and worse than in the movies. Slaves with the same success could be the people regardless of skin color and special slave bred dogs and were willing to justify himself than anything, and even created a special Bible. But first things first.

1. Missionary "The Bible slaves"

Some slave owners brought their slaves and brought them to Christianity. However, they could not allow them to read the Bible, because in this book, there are a few passages, branding slavery. Slavers found a way around it by removing most of the chapters of the Old Testament, and a huge chunk of the New Testament. As a result, the light appeared trimmed the Bible, which they called "Parts of the Holy Bible, selected for the Negro slaves in the British West Indian islands," or as it is commonly called today, "Slave Bible." At the same time those fragments which did slavery normal practice (for example, the part where Joseph was kept in slavery in Egypt) were abandoned in the Bible. But such passages as the Israelites escape from their oppressors in Egypt, they had been removed, as the white slave traders feared that it might encourage the slaves to revolt.

In fact, the slaves in Haiti revolted against their white masters and drove them for three years before the first "Slave Bible" was released. The creator of "Slave of the Bible" is unknown. Some sources indicate that the book could be the work of white plantation owners, who have used it, to prevent their slaves from even thinking about the uprising.

2 dogs for hunting runaway slaves

runaway slaves used to be difficult to track down, and quite dangerous fish. Therefore, plantation owners have found a solution: to breed vicious dogs only for hunting down escaped slaves, attack them and capture. Naturally selected strong and aggressive breeds such as beagles and bulldogs that could tear a man to pieces (and later brought out a special breed - Cuban mastiff that died out after the abolition of slavery in Cuba). In fact slavers often allowed dogs maim captured runaway slaves. Moreover, the dogs were trained to present slaves.

3. The first slave owner was black

It is generally accepted that slavery emerged in the US, when the first 20 slaves arrived in Virginia in 1620. This is only partly true, because these people really were not slaves. They were hired servants, that is, were to serve as a host for several years, after which they returned to freedom. While slavery flourished under the contract. Many people, including the poor white, often sold to the slave-owner a few years of his life. Although black is indeed often sold into slavery under the contract, he returned to freedom after the implementation of the agreements.

Anthony and Mary Johnson were two hired servants, who arrived in the US in the 1620s. They later married and brought his own hired servants, one of whom was a man named John Keysor. In 1654 or 1655 Keysor and Anthony Johnson (black) ended up in a Virginia court because of disagreements over slavery on Keysora contract. Keysor argued that the end of its life, because it has finished testing of the agreed seven or eight years, plus worked for seven years. Anthony insisted that Keysor still his hired servant. The court ruled that Anthony can hold Keysora lifelong slavery, which in fact made him the first slave. White owners hired servants soon turned to the courts, with the same requirements and were able to turn their hired servants in lifelong slaves. In 1661, a few years after the trial in the case Keysora and Anthony, Virginia formally legalized slavery.

4. And White became slaves

When it comes to slavery, usually remembered transatlantic slavery, that is, slaves who were transported from Africa to the United States by ship across the Atlantic Ocean. But it was only a form of slavery. Elsewhere thrived other forms of slavery, and in the role of victims were often white. For example, a form of slavery was in the Berber corsairs, who lived along the coast of modern North African countries around 1600 AD. Berber corsairs were often Muslims, although their composition also included English and Dutch pirates.

In contrast to the transatlantic slave trade, the Berbers raided all, including Muslims. Men kept like slaves and women were sold as a concubine. Male children forcibly converted to Islam and eventually drafted into the Ottoman army of slave housing. Barbary corsairs captured in captivity passengers traveling on ships in the Mediterranean Sea. Later they switched to raids on coastal villages in England, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. In 1631, they captured the entire population of Baltimore in Ireland and led him into slavery. Raids became so frequent that many European coastal townspeople fled into the country in order to escape from the pirates.

The slave trade began to decline only in the XVII century, when European naval forces began to attack the Berber pirates on the high seas. To have attacked the pirates directly on their territory XIX century, the United States and Europe, navies. This forced them to stop enslaving European Christians, although they continued to make inroads into other areas.

5. The slaves as currency

Prohibition in 1808 the transatlantic slave trade was to be a victory for the black slaves and the anti-slavery movement in the United States. But "something went wrong". Until this decision depended on slave people captured or bought in Africa. After the ban, they began to breed slaves directly to the United States. They began to encourage slaves to give birth to as many children as possible. Many slave owned breeding farms, which contained several male slaves with many slave-women. Their children became slaves at birth and remained on the farm until he grew up and started to not work.

Breeding slaves was particularly popular in Virginia, which quickly became a major exporter of slaves in the other colonies. Slaves were the main product of the state at the time. They quickly became a kind of currency, and were considered more valuable than gold. In 1860, slaves in the United States estimated at $ 4 billion. For comparison, the whole currency of the United States at that time was worth 435, $ ​​4 million, and all of the outstanding gold and silver valued at 228, 3 million dollars.

Some slavers also pledged their slaves, and then formed the banks that have converted mortgages into bonds, sold all over the world - even in regions where slavery was illegal.

6. The flight from the slaveholder was considered a mental disorder

Samuel Cartwright was a doctor on the slaveholding South, USA. He supported slavery, and even used the medicine and science to justify it. In 1849 he was appointed head of the State Committee of the State of Louisiana, which was asked to document the disease of African Americans. Cartwright, presented his report, which was titled "Disease and physical features of the Negro race." He argued that the inferior black and white.

According to Cartwright, blacks had a small brain, the nervous system is immature and sensitive skin, all of which makes them good servants. He added that Black will never be happy if he is not a slave. Cartwright added that slaves sometimes suffer from drapetomania, a mental disorder that causes them to flee from their masters. The term "drapetomania" was formed from the Greek words "crazy" and "runaway slave". Cartwright wrote that slaves who plan to escape, often become "sullen and dissatisfied without cause." However, caught fugitive slaves "can be cured, snatching from them the devil and amputating their toes."

7. Laziness - the lot of psychopaths

Cartwright did not stop at that invented drapetomania. He also claimed the existence of another fictional mental disorder, which he named "dysesthesia aethiopica", which allegedly made slaves lazy. Cartwright said that dysesthesia aethiopica often occurs when the skin is less sensitive. It allegedly forcing black slaves to work sluggishly, as if they were sleepy. According to the doctor, the disease most often affect the free blacks, not slaves, because the free blacks were not the owners, who could take care of them. However, he added that this disease can be cured by washing numb the skin with soap and water and then clean it with oil.

8. The condemned could rent as slaves

Slavery was completely illegal at the end of the American Civil War. This has become a problem for the South, which has quickly become unstable because its economy depended on slavery. But the former slave traders quickly found a loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment - the one that abolished slavery. The law allowed slavery and involuntary servitude as "punishment for the crime." Southern states began arresting blacks indiscriminately. Many have even been arrested for ... unemployment.

"crime" punishable by a huge fine, which negros could not pay because they were unemployed. Therefore, they are planted in jail and rented out to private companies, which use them for manual labor. More than 200,000 blacks were victims of "rent prisoners" of such a system. The conditions were horrible, as in the days of slavery. Leased convicts to carry out dangerous work in inhuman conditions. They were also beaten, shackled and loaded knife wounds. The word "convicted" and "negros" at the time were considered synonymous.

9. Freed blacks were kidnapped and sold into slavery

"Underground Railroad" appeared several years before the Civil War. It was a network of houses and shelters operated by free blacks and white people opposed to slavery. With this secret system of runaway slaves get help from the South to the anti-slavery North. Soon there was also a "Contact Underground Railroad," by which fugitive slaves and free blacks kidnapped in the north to the south and sold as slaves. The kidnapped free blacks often have difficulty in trying to prove that they were free, because courts often dismissed them as a fake documents. White could only prove that black was a free man.

10. The Africans sold Africans into slavery

The Africans are no less eager to sell other Africans into slavery. Rabotorgovcheskie ships going to Africa were from gaining a hold full of slaves. Most traveled along the coast of Africa, where they bought slaves from local tribes living in the area. Slaves were often prisoners of war captured after the attacks on rival tribes. African leaders on the coast changed slaves to European weapons, allowing them to capture new territories. In the conquered lands they conquered new slaves, who were also exchanged for weapons. And the cycle continues. The slave trade was the reason that many West African tribes took part in a series of deadly wars several centuries ago. When Africa began trading with Europeans began in the XVI century, the slaves had not yet sold. First, African rulers sold only in ivory and gold, changing them for European goods. However, they soon began to trade slaves.