SLAVERY 



5405 



SLAVS 



us that in Homer's time slaves were kindly 

 treated, but that they were purchased from 

 pirates and were sometimes of higher birth 

 than their masters. Later it was customary for 

 men in poverty to sell their children or publicly 

 ibandon them, and for debtors to sell them- 

 selves for their debt; but Plato and his follow- 

 ers declared that one Greek ought never to 

 make a slave of another. Like Aesop, who is 

 said to have been a tutor, slaves could hold po- 

 sitions of responsibility, and could sometimes 

 purchase their freedom. 



In Rome slavery flourished as long as the 

 egions continued their conquests. Wealthy 

 men maintained large numbers of slaves re- 

 3ruited from war, piracy and a special slave 

 ;rade, and some authorities believe that at the 

 leight of the empire there were three slaves to 

 every single freeman. Slaves were often given 

 :heir liberty and sometimes rose to greatness, 

 is did Terence and Epictetus. The advent of 

 Christianity had less to do with the end of 

 Roman slavery than the stoppage of the 

 sources from which slaves were drawn. There 

 vas in fact no sudden shift from slavery to 

 Teedom, but a gradual change into serfdom. 



Modern Revival of Slavery. Just before the 

 middle of the fifteenth century Portuguese ex- 

 Dlorers in Africa were given several black slaves 

 n ransom for Moors whom they had captured, 

 md the Portuguese began the capture and 

 ;ransportation of negroes into Europe. In 1516 

 Charles V of Spain gave permission to carry 

 daves into the colonies, and so profitable did 

 ;he trade prove that several of the nations en- 

 gaged in it. By the time of the American 

 Revolution the British were carrying more than 

 half of the blacks that were brought to the 

 Western world. 



Though Denmark was the first nation to 

 decree the end of the slave trade, in 1792, it 

 was in England that the great fight against it 

 was begun. The English Quakers started the 

 movement in 1729; their American brethren, 

 in 1696. Through the efforts of Thomas Clark- 

 son and William Wilberforce, the House of 

 Commons passed a bill against the trade in 

 1792, but the Lords did not approve the step 

 until 1808, in the very same month in which 

 the United States prohibited the further im- 

 portation of Africans. 



The history of slavery in the United States 

 can best be studied through the list of related 

 topics given below. Franklin, Adams and 

 Hamilton from the North and Jefferson and 

 Madison from the South opposed it, and Wash- 



ington, though he owned slaves, freed them in 

 his will, previously declaring in his farewell 

 address that it was among his "first wishes to 

 see some plan adopted by which slavery in this 

 country may be abolished by law." 



In Haiti, where there were sixteen blacks and 

 one mulatto to every white, the slaves re- 

 volted against the French in 1791 and estab- 

 lished a republic. Great Britain freed all 

 slaves in her colonies in 1833, and other Euro- 

 pean nations gradually followed. Most of the 

 South American republics declared all men free 

 from the beginning of their independent ex- 

 istence, but Brazil did not take the step until 

 1871. 



Slavery has never ended in Mohammedan 

 countries, and an illicit trade is still carried on 

 in Africa. Dean C. Worcester, formerly Secre- 

 tary of the Interior for the Philippines, claims 

 that slavery still exists in remote sections of 

 those islands. C.H.H. 



Consult Merriam's The Negro and the Nation; 

 Woodson's The Education of the Negro Prior to 

 1861; George's Political History of Slavery. 



Related Subjects. The following articles in 

 these volumes have a bearing on the subject of 

 slavery. The majority deal with United States 

 history, but a few have a more general signifi- 

 cance : 



Lecompton Constitution 

 Lincoln, Abraham 

 Mason and Dixon's Line 

 Missouri Compromise 

 Phillips, Wendell 

 Reconstruction 

 Serfs 

 United States, subtitle 



History 



War of Secession 

 Wilberforce, William 

 Wilmot Proviso 



Abolitionists 



Brown, John 



Compromise of 1850 



Confederate States of 

 America 



Crittenden Compromise 



Dred Scott Decision 



Emancipation Procla- 

 mation 



Fugitive Slave Laws 



Garrison, William Lloyd 



Helots 



Kansas-Nebraska Bill 



SLAVONIA, slavo'nia. See CROATIA AND 

 SLAVONIA. 



SLAVS, slahvz, or slavz, or SLAVONIANS, 

 slah vo ' ni anz, the general name of a group of 

 peoples forming a branch of the Aryan family, 

 who live chiefly in Eastern Europe and Siberia. 

 They number approximately 184,000,000, ac- 

 cording to recent estimates, and include Rus- 

 sians, Poles, Wends, Czechs (Bohemians and 

 Moravians), Slovaks, Slovenians, Croats, Serbi- 

 ans, Bulgarians, Montenegrins and the peoples 

 of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are some- 

 what shorter than the average Aryan, and have 

 broad heads, pale white, swarthy or light brown 

 skin, and brown, gray or black eyes. For 

 many centuries the Slavs, who were slower in 

 developing than most of the other peoples of 



