Slavery

Although it is something very sad, it is impossible to cover the fact that from past times to the present, slavery has existed within different regions , and under different cultures and societies . It is even sadder to know that his slavers tried not to hurt him too much as this reduced his value. Although it is a very dark chapter in the history of humanity , this is something that should not be hidden but rather studied in depth in order to completely eradicate slavery , which continues to exist to this day.

Definition

Slavery is defined as a purchase within all the legal margins of a human being having total disposition of it without any reproach. This can demand any action and this must comply with it to the letter , in turn, no right or duty is granted on the part of the buyer towards his slave. The title of being a human being is taken away from him and the slave is given the property name .

Characteristics of slavery

When we talk about slavery there are many characteristics that we could take to describe it, so below are the most relevant of them:

• Studies have shown that people of color have an innate rejection of their colored offspring.
• The country that most specialized in choosing the best slaves was Portugal, which had countless men who dedicated themselves to this work.
• For a slave to be free, he had to pay double what his purchase cost or receive full freedom from his owner, however, this was not safe since many men took these papers from him and made them their slaves .
• When talking about basic conditions for a slave, he only contemplated old clothes, a scarce plate of food and only a little water a day.
• Slaves who work as domestics had to comply with a series of regulations or mandates imposed by their owners. Among the most common were not looking into the eyes of the owners and never giving an opinion unless asked.
• The continent where there were more slave buyers was in America , and the United States who bought the most of all of these.

Source

The origin of slavery dates back to the first peoples where the slave was represented within legal frameworks as a figure seen as a commodity to which a person could choose as a certain inflow of fixed money and also a certain relevance within society .

At first it was even presented as a gift that was brought to kings as a token of appreciation. In turn, it is from here that the different social prejudices of today are born due to the fact that there was a great ethnic difference between the slave owners and the slaves .

History

Throughout the first developed civilizations different approaches were given to what was considered as slavery, for example the illustrious author of literary works such as ” The Iliad ” and ” The Odyssey ” Homer , establishes the prisons of war as slaves at the disposal of the military while in Mesopotamian, Asian and Indian societies, farmers were considered slaves.

It is around the time of the discovery of America where slavery is really established as a trading system, since despite the fact that the aborigines who  survived the conquest were taken as slaves, they did not cover all the need for the hand of construction site.

This is also why America has great cultural diversity , since both Central America, as well as its northern and southern parts, constantly received slaves from specific regions of Africa.

Types of slavery

When talking about slavery and its types, these are separated by the work that they will perform. These are divided into 4:

Slaves for forced labor

They were the most purchased within the 3 types, these were mostly in the field working as pickers of fruits, vegetables, cotton, among others. As well as loading items of great weight such as skins, saddles and others which their owners did not want to carry.

Bondage slaves

They are those slaves bought by the people of higher income and they served within the various domestic tasks , from ironing, washing and cooking, to raising children and preparing certain personal toilets for their owners.

Slaves of a purely sexual nature

As their name implies, they were simply slaves bought by wealthy men in order for them to satisfy their sexual need.

Entertainment slaves

These slaves were bought by tavern owners to make fights within a circle where they bet, by circus owners to entertain the public, and by the occasional theater owner in order to carry out maintenance work.

Causes

The main reason why slavery is formally established is because it was much more profitable to buy slaves who had a life expectancy of about 5 to 10 years, for which you would only have to pay once to have to hire various people for whom you were going to have to pay them for their work.

In addition, a slave was totally expendable so they were sometimes bought in batches and it did not matter that some did not meet the life expectancy . At the same time, they were not allowed to have sexual relations since it would reduce their effectiveness at work.

Consequences

For the slave buyers , this did not present any type of problem in the future, however, today it is a total violation of human rights . In turn, due to the large number of slaves in America, it suffered as a consequence a fusion between its cultures, completely breaking the original customs.

For their part, the countries from which the majority of slaves were brought have not been able to recover until today from the human losses due to the sale of slaves.

Slavery by continent

When talking about slavery there are 3 (Continents) important poles to talk about:

Africa

Although it is quite sad, Africa was the supplier of slaves , being the same kings and chiefs of the towns and villages who negotiated with the slaveholders and sold them at low prices in order to survive within their native country in the case of the bosses, and in the case of the kings to continue maintaining their luxuries.

America

When it comes to the cusp of the slave market, it is all thanks to the pre-Columbian civilizations which bought any slave that was brought to them , since this young continent was a total rough diamond from which the maximum benefit should be taken.

Europe

This continent had the best slavers in the world, they had a well-established system which consisted of caged carts, boats conditioned for their transport and small groups of about 30 men who were in charge of the “ dirty ” work.

Slavery today

Although slavery was abolished centuries ago, and after the French Revolution the universal rights of the human being were established , slavery continues to exist today, especially in the European and Asian continent. This is logically a totally illegal trading system.

It is currently known as human trafficking, which in turn is also linked to trafficking in women. This is seen most of all present in countries like China where children and adolescents are kidnapped to work forcibly within giant companies without any remuneration.

For its part of the little information that is had within North Korea, it is known that there is a legion of women called ” the legion of pleasure “, which are nothing more than an army of women from 16 to 23 years old who they work as sex slaves for the generals.

Examples

Something that is currently being highly attacked are trafficking in women, which are crimes organized by Russian, Roma and Chinese mafias, who seek through offers deceptive promotions ( this includes from trips to free concerts, as well as knowing to men online ) to attract young people who come from America and European countries in order to kidnap them and sell them in a private market as sex slaves.