Looking Into Origination of Chattel Slavery Research Paper

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Origination of Chattel Slavery

Traditional slavery, mostly referred to as chattel slavery, is almost certainly the least common among all forms of traditional slavery. In the words of the American Anti-Slavery Group, in Mauritania-where a ban was legally placed on slavery in 1980-about 90,000 dark-skinned Africans were still owned by the Muslim Berber communities. Though the Mauritanian Africans became Moslems over 100 years ago, and the Qur'an prohibits enslaving fellow Moslems, race in Mauritania seems to be a more influential factor than the religious doctrines. The main uses of such chattel slaves were for sex, labor, and breeding, and they were often exchanged for trucks, guns, camels, and money. The offspring of these chattel slaves remain owned by their masters. And even the community of free slaves, a tribute is mostly paid to their former masters, who equally maintain some inheritance rights over their freed slaves' properties (Singh, n.d). In Sudan, there is a reintegration of slavery in the society, following the war that has ravaged the country in the last 12 years. The Moslem north has been fighting the Southern Christians and Animists. In the Arabic language, Sudan simply means, Land of the black Africans, and for several centuries, black Africans have been facing abduction in Sudan by the Arabian slave trade masters. According to Anti-Slavery Group researchers, there has been a revival of the racially-based slave trade, where armed northern rebel groups carry out raids on southern civilian suburbs in search of slaves. Reports made to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights have emphasized the racial part of such acts: the victims are solely individuals who belong to the Nuba Mountains' indigenous tribes (Dark-skinned Africans). Arab militias armed by the government are known for their practices of killing the men and enslaving the women and children as their personal possession or march them to the north and have them sold or auctioned off (Singh, n.d).

Events Promoting the Ideological Foundation of Chattel Slavery

Dual events that took place in the Caribbean as well as American areas occupied by the British must be viewed as a contributing factor towards chattel slavery's conceptual basis. The very first event took place in Barbados, while the second event took place at South Carolina. It is noteworthy that Slavery had been instituted in Barbados during 1636, but it took the colonists about 30 years to acquire their legal foundation. Certainly, the Barbadian 1661 Slave Code was the very first code slavery's legal foundation for the British in the Island. It was adopted by South Carolina in 1696 and introduced the fundamental guidelines or rules guiding slavery for British American slavery. 10 years prior to this, in 1686, South Carolina instituted a slave's spot as a freehold possession implying that such a person used as a personal property and cannot be transferred to another estate or sold. This could be likened to another concept referred to as "serfdom" during medieval times in Europe. As a matter of fact, as soon as the ideas of the Barbadian Slave system had been adopted by South Carolina, the Africans had already been dishonored to chattel, which gave the slave master total control and ownership.

In fact, the South Carolina legal system implied that the enslaved mullatoes, Africans as well as the Native Americans can be purchased at any time and sold by the owner just like every other property and their off-springs will additionally live by the same conditions. A much more refined conceptual sense implies that a chattel will continue to produce another chattel, even when it was two individual producing another individual (Miers, 2003; Ewald, 1992).

In 1662, Virginia drafted its own unique law, thereby creating the chattel condition for the Africans on the condition that they would remain slaves as long as they lived, as well as that, their nature as slaves were to be automatically transferred to their children. The statute implied that Every child born here is going to be held free or bond, depending on the status of the child's mother (Hening, 1819, 3:252). Though, the Maryland colony in 1664 provided that any free English woman who marries a male slave must become a servant to her husband's master for as long as her husband lived; and that every issue involving such a free-born woman shall remain slaves like their father (Hening, 1819, 3:252).

So, in many cases, the mother's condition, if she was free-born and white, was enslaved to subject the children to perpetual enslavement.

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They would become, like their father, a chattel. This shows that a great game had been played there. The slave masters were quite aware that Africans being humans can marry whites or bear children together, but to sustain the ideological ploy, there was need to redefine these situations in the slave system. A free white woman might become black due to her marriage to a black man. Nevertheless, having children from a black woman might not make a white man black, though the children were regarded as chattel (Black History Resources Working Group, 1997; Miers, 2003).

Foundations of Slavery in America

Before the Europeans intervened, slavery in Africa and some other places, though in a different way, sawwar prisoners and criminals enslaved, and people became slaves to escape hunger during famine. While the African context of slavery could be very brutal, African slaves retained their social and economic values and brought values to their masters. African slaves were still seen as part of the society and people in their own rights (Miers, 2003). In contrast, people sold into Transatlantic Slave Trade were viewed as chattel to be traded at any time. The only value they had was in monetary form. Consequently, enslaved Africans received routine tortures (e.g. beaten, whipped, chained, branded, etc.); they were separated from their families and given new names. It was rare for any of the millions of slaves that crossed the Atlantic Ocean to return to Africa (Ewald, 1992).

During the seventeenth century, North American Europeans resorted towards slaves from Africa as a more affordable, and abundant source of labor than their local labor (who were, by and large, poor and underprivileged Europeans).

When a Dutch ship arrived with 20 Africans at the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia, after 1619, there was a wide spread of slavery all over the American colonies. Though no accurate figure is available, it is estimated that about 7 million Africans were transported to this Novel World as slaves in the eighteenth century, thus depriving Africa some of its ablest and healthiest population (Black History Resources Working Group, 1997).

Between the 17th and 18th century, black slaves were the workers on tobacco, indigo and rice plantations in the southern coast. Following the American Revolution (1775-83), most colonist (especially in the North, were slavery that held no importance to the economy) started linking black slaves' oppression to their own British oppression, and called for the abolition of slavery. When the war ended, however, slavery had a tacit acknowledgement of the institution, where each slave was counted as 3/5 of an individual with regards to taxation and representation in congress, which guaranteed the right to reclaim any individual held to labor or service (Walvin, 1992).

No one can give an accurate number of African slaves who died before making it to the New World. About 20% of slaves died during transit due to poor diet, dirty environment, brutal beatings, etc. At the peak of the slave trade in the 18th century, about 80, 000 slaves were transported by Europeans to the New World annually (Walvin, 1992). About 10 million slaves were transported successfully, which was almost equal to the whole population of Britain in 1800. However, most of these slaves worked until they died. Most slaves sent to the Caribbean and the Americas were used for cane cutting on sugar plantations. This means they spent roughly 14 hours per day, 6 days a week, doing hard labor under intense heat during harvests (Black History Resources Working Group, 1997). The combination of exposure to foreign diseases, inadequate food and hard labor, meant that nearly one out of three Africans died within 3 years of living in the Caribbean. Owners of plantations in the British West Indies felt unconcerned about this at first, because they could always buy new slaves as it was cheaper than breeding them. Saying, the slaves were given worse treatment than animals in the Caribbean, would be an understatement (Black History Resources Working Group, 1997).

Slaves working in the antebellum south made up about 1/3 of the entire southern population. Most of the slaves lived in small groups or on large farms; most slave masters owned below 50 slaves. A system of restrictive rules governed the existence of these slaves as their masters sought to ensure they were 100% dependent on them. They were banned from getting any form of education. They.....

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