The Evolution of Slavery

[kevikens]

I recently read a book on ancient Rome (The Romans) and one of the chapters was on slavery within Rome, both during the Republic and Empire periods. What surprised me was that over a period of several centuries the institution saw evolutionary changes within Roman Law on the status, condition, and treatment of their slaves. Like with our own institution of slavery, readers are often surprised at what they discover about the institution. In late Roman Law if a slave were given "peculium", a small sum of money for extra labor, he could purchase property with it and his owner was not permitted to interfere with its use or disposal. If a slave purchased his own slave, while remaining one himself, the owner of the first slave could not claim the "usufruct" (enjoyment of property) of his slave's slave. Roman lawyers seem to delight in cases like this but they ultimately formed a code of law (Theodosian and later Justinian) that influenced later slavery in the Middle Ages in those parts of Europe that inherited Roman Law, and this influenced codes of slavery in Spain, Portugal, France and their later colonies in the New World, but not in England whose English Common Law was not based on Roman Law.

What intrigued me about this was how over a period of time the institution of slavery seemed to be becoming more humanized as it continued, that is the slaves acquired rights that would change the institution from one where slaves had no rights, to one where they had a few rights and ultimately to one where they could appeal to the law for protection. It seemed like serfdom and peonage morphed from chattel slavery in a kind of evolutionary process, at least in Western Europe, to something approaching a limited freedom. Which brings us to slavery in British America.

From the limited records kept on this in early America it seems that the very first slaves brought into Virginia were considered to be more like indentured servants than slaves and some of the first 1619 slaves were freed upon their indentures being fulfilled. For a variety of reasons, perhaps their inability to survive in an English oriented society, African indentureship was longer than for others. In the 1660's Virginia and Maryland had laws making African indentureship lifelong and at that point slavery became lawful by statute law. In the 18th Century slaves had few, if any rights at all. By the 19th century some of the Southern States had passed laws limiting what owners could, and could not do to their slaves. Perhaps the evolutionary changes in the institution that had taken place in Rome and western Europe were beginning to be seen in America.

I am no expert on the treatment of the enslaved in Ante Bellum America but I would like to pose the hypothetical question to readers that if there had been no civil war in America, were there any signs in the mid 19th century South that American slavery would have morphed into a kind of peonage that would have in time brought about the kind of legal equality we now have, and without war as the catalyst necessary to bring it about.

 

[leftyhunter]

I recently read a book on ancient Rome (The Romans) and one of the chapters was on slavery within Rome, both during the Republic and Empire periods. What surprised me was that over a period of several centuries the institution saw evolutionary changes within Roman Law on the status, condition, and treatment of their slaves. Like with our own institution of slavery, readers are often surprised at what they discover about the institution. In late Roman Law if a slave were given "peculium", a small sum of money for extra labor, he could purchase property with it and his owner was not permitted to interfere with its use or disposal. If a slave purchased his own slave, while remaining one himself, the owner of the first slave could not claim the "usufruct" (enjoyment of property) of his slave's slave. Roman lawyers seem to delight in cases like this but they ultimately formed a code of law (Theodosian and later Justinian) that influenced later slavery in the Middle Ages in those parts of Europe that inherited Roman Law, and this influenced codes of slavery in Spain, Portugal, France and their later colonies in the New World, but not in England whose English Common Law was not based on Roman Law.

What intrigued me about this was how over a period of time the institution of slavery seemed to be becoming more humanized as it continued, that is the slaves acquired rights that would change the institution from one where slaves had no rights, to one where they had a few rights and ultimately to one where they could appeal to the law for protection. It seemed like serfdom and peonage morphed from chattel slavery in a kind of evolutionary process, at least in Western Europe, to something approaching a limited freedom. Which brings us to slavery in British America.

From the limited records kept on this in early America it seems that the very first slaves brought into Virginia were considered to be more like indentured servants than slaves and some of the first 1619 slaves were freed upon their indentures being fulfilled. For a variety of reasons, perhaps their inability to survive in an English oriented society, African indentureship was longer than for others. In the 1660's Virginia and Maryland had laws making African indentureship lifelong and at that point slavery became lawful by statute law. In the 18th Century slaves had few, if any rights at all. By the 19th century some of the Southern States had passed laws limiting what owners could, and could not do to their slaves. Perhaps the evolutionary changes in the institution that had taken place in Rome and western Europe were beginning to be seen in America.

I am no expert on the treatment of the enslaved in Ante Bellum America but I would like to pose the hypothetical question to readers that if there had been no civil war in America, were there any signs in the mid 19th century South that American slavery would have morphed into a kind of peonage that would have in time brought about the kind of legal equality we now have, and without war as the catalyst necessary to bring it about.

Unless one could find evidence of any state legislative attempts to broaden the rights of slaves in any slave state the answer would be no.
Leftyhunter

 

[WJC]

From the limited records kept on this in early America it seems that the very first slaves brought into Virginia were considered to be more like indentured servants than slaves and some of the first 1619 slaves were freed upon their indentures being fulfilled. For a variety of reasons, perhaps their inability to survive in an English oriented society, African indentureship was longer than for others. In the 1660's Virginia and Maryland had laws making African indentureship lifelong and at that point slavery became lawful by statute law. In the 18th Century slaves had few, if any rights at all. By the 19th century some of the Southern States had passed laws limiting what owners could, and could not do to their slaves. Perhaps the evolutionary changes in the institution that had taken place in Rome and western Europe were beginning to be seen in America.

I am no expert on the treatment of the enslaved in Ante Bellum America but I would like to pose the hypothetical question to readers that if there had been no civil war in America, were there any signs in the mid 19th century South that American slavery would have morphed into a kind of peonage that would have in time brought about the kind of legal equality we now have, and without war as the catalyst necessary to bring it about.

Judging from your discussion of Slavery in America, the 'evolution' seems to have been the reverse of that in Rome. As you point out, the first Black slaves were not unlike white indentured servants. Over a period of time, Blacks lost whatever rights- or hope of rights- they had.

 

[Pat Young]

I recently read a book on ancient Rome (The Romans) and one of the chapters was on slavery within Rome, both during the Republic and Empire periods. What surprised me was that over a period of several centuries the institution saw evolutionary changes within Roman Law on the status, condition, and treatment of their slaves. Like with our own institution of slavery, readers are often surprised at what they discover about the institution. In late Roman Law if a slave were given "peculium", a small sum of money for extra labor, he could purchase property with it and his owner was not permitted to interfere with its use or disposal. If a slave purchased his own slave, while remaining one himself, the owner of the first slave could not claim the "usufruct" (enjoyment of property) of his slave's slave. Roman lawyers seem to delight in cases like this but they ultimately formed a code of law (Theodosian and later Justinian) that influenced later slavery in the Middle Ages in those parts of Europe that inherited Roman Law, and this influenced codes of slavery in Spain, Portugal, France and their later colonies in the New World, but not in England whose English Common Law was not based on Roman Law.

What intrigued me about this was how over a period of time the institution of slavery seemed to be becoming more humanized as it continued, that is the slaves acquired rights that would change the institution from one where slaves had no rights, to one where they had a few rights and ultimately to one where they could appeal to the law for protection. It seemed like serfdom and peonage morphed from chattel slavery in a kind of evolutionary process, at least in Western Europe, to something approaching a limited freedom. Which brings us to slavery in British America.

From the limited records kept on this in early America it seems that the very first slaves brought into Virginia were considered to be more like indentured servants than slaves and some of the first 1619 slaves were freed upon their indentures being fulfilled. For a variety of reasons, perhaps their inability to survive in an English oriented society, African indentureship was longer than for others. In the 1660's Virginia and Maryland had laws making African indentureship lifelong and at that point slavery became lawful by statute law. In the 18th Century slaves had few, if any rights at all. By the 19th century some of the Southern States had passed laws limiting what owners could, and could not do to their slaves. Perhaps the evolutionary changes in the institution that had taken place in Rome and western Europe were beginning to be seen in America.

I am no expert on the treatment of the enslaved in Ante Bellum America but I would like to pose the hypothetical question to readers that if there had been no civil war in America, were there any signs in the mid 19th century South that American slavery would have morphed into a kind of peonage that would have in time brought about the kind of legal equality we now have, and without war as the catalyst necessary to bring it about.

In Ed Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told he says that it was changing in a good way for the owner. Torture was more frequently applied to encourage higher rates of production netting larger returns.

 

[wausaubob]

Unless it was proven otherwise, I would conclude that the conditions for slaves in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi were very bad. I do not believe the slave population was self sustaining in those areas. The age and sex distribution, in those states, is also an interesting issue, in those states.

 

[kevikens]

Did Southern states, say circa 1850, permit owners to punish recalcitrant slaves with a death penalty. I mention this because in Rome that was one of the changes that took place, that is in early Rome an owner could kill his slaves with impunity but by the late empire it became unlawful for the owner to inflict a death penalty on a slave.

 

[kevikens]

Unless it was proven otherwise, I would conclude that the conditions for slaves in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi were very bad. I do not believe the slave population was self sustaining. The age and sex distribution is also an interesting issue, in those states.

Do you know if they had been improving in the Southern states further north?

 

[CW Watch & Sword Guy]

In Ed Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told he says that it was changing in a good way for the owner. Torture was more frequently applied to encourage higher rates of production netting larger returns.

I concur. Baptist makes a very strong case that American Slavery was growing more industrialized and impersonal, with increasing subdivision of labor, and "scientific" management practices. Personalized production quotas for individual slaves would slowly be increased in order to ensure for the owner the absolute maximum of health-destroying physical labor output from his "property." Quotas were enforced by measured torture regimens in which the number of lashes inflicted was based on the size of the quota shortfall. The changes in the conditions of Southern slave labor in that period reflected concomitant changes in Northern industrial labor conditions, but they did so in a horrifyingly distorted magnifying mirror.

At the same time, a large forced migration was taking place in the 1850's, filling the roads with coffles of slaves en route from the depleted soils of the Tidewater to the more profitable slave fields further south and west. Spouses, parents and young children often were separated in the process. Thus the slave population was shifting geographically precisely towards the areas where the new harsher, more brutal control practices were spreading, and it was shifting demographically to become more concentrated in fewer, more powerful hands. A small slaveholder probably knew all of his slaves by name, and at least something about each one of them. Large slaveholders, many of whom were absentees who left the management of their estates to overseers, did not. Apart from the ones he might choose to rape, they were mostly just numbers to him. They were just monetized pieces of equipment.

 

[WJC]

We can't dismiss the objective of many to expand slavery further. After all, this was arguably the major complaint slaveholders had with Lincoln.
But they were not content with expansion to the existing US territories: they looked to Mexico, Cuba and Central America as candidates to include in their slave empire.
An indication of how slavery might have evolved is the way in which it changed once outlawed by the 13th Amendment. Slavery was reinstituted under a different name through Black Codes, Jim Crow and segregation. On the basis of that alone, it seems highly unlikely that slaveholders would have allowed Blacks free participation in society had there not been the disruption of their system by the Civil War.

 

[CW Watch & Sword Guy]

Unless one could find evidence of any state legislative attempts to broaden the rights of slaves in any slave state the answer would be no.
Leftyhunter

Since slaves could not testify against whites in a court of law, any "rights" given to them would have been largely theoretical, anyway.