What is slavery?
Slavery is the work regime in which men and women are forced to perform tasks without receiving any kind of remuneration.
Furthermore, enslaved people have their freedoms restricted, as they are considered the property of their masters and can be sold or exchanged as merchandise.
This type of labor was widely used in Brazil, but also in different parts of the world during different periods.
Currently, the slave regime is illegal, however, there are still many workers who live in conditions similar to slavery.
Origin of the slave system in the world
Slave labor is a practice that permeates world history. Its origin is related to the wars and conquests of territories, where the defeated peoples were subjected to forced labor by the conquerors.
As far as is known, the beginnings of slavery come from the Middle East (Old East), but people in the Americas such as the Maya also served as captives.
Such activity was part of all ancient civilizations such as the Assyrians, Hebrews, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, their characteristics varying depending on the context of each place.
The last place to officially abolish slavery in the world was Mauritania, making the practice illegal only in 1981.
What was slavery like in antiquity?
The Greek and Roman civilizations are considered foundational pillars of contemporary Western societies. Thus, to understand how slavery happened in antiquity and in the world, it is necessary to analyze how this regime occurred in those places.
Greece emerged around 2,000 years a. Ç. and was constituted by nomadic peoples. There, around 500 to 700 years a. C., the so-called city-states (or cops). Athens and Sparta were the most significant cops Greeks, where slavery was a reality.
Slavery in Athens
In Athens, the prevailing system allowed decision-making power to remain only in the hands of free men and owners, that is, a small portion of the population.
The workers in that society were prisoners of war who were turned into slaves. Those who wanted to pay off debts could also be slaves. It was established that during a stipulated period the individual would provide services without remuneration to clear his debt.
In the cities, they performed various types of work, from domestic services to skilled professions, and in the countryside, they performed agricultural and mining tasks.
In the case of the mining and land workers, their lives were consumed in strenuous loads of manual labor and their living conditions were the worst possible.
Domestic slaves, however, lived in somewhat better circumstances and could buy their freedom if they could.
In any case, slaves, foreigners and women were not considered citizens.
Slavery in Sparta
Sparta was a city constituted by a militarist regime, where Spartan citizens, both men and women, received a training focused on war.
In that city, slavery was a state practice, which means that the enslaved did not have a specific owner. These people were called helots and have been subjugated since the Spartans conquered the place and came to dominate the population.
Helots performed all kinds of tasks, from agricultural to domestic, and were also acquired through wars or trade.
Slavery in Ancient Rome
Rome was a power in antiquity, and around the 1st century BC. a., had already conquered diverse territories.
Roman society was divided between patricians, commoners and slaves. The patricians were the holders of power and property. The commoners were the workers of the land, small merchants and artisans.
Slaves were people acquired through conquests or even human commerce.
Their functions were related to agrarian work, but there were also slaves trained as gladiators, musicians, jugglers, scribes.
Gladiators were forced to fight each other to the death or face ferocious animals. The lives of these men had no value to society, as their function was to guarantee entertainment for the Roman population.
One of these fighters was Spartacus, a man who rebelled against the situation to which slaves were subjected and managed to gather a large number of people to form an army to fight for the end of the slavery. After two years, the slave legion was contained by Roman soldiers and massacred.
Slavery in the Americas and Brazil
The slave system extended beyond antiquity and developed in different regions.
Modern slavery begins with the discovery of the Americas and colonization of this continent by the Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, English, Dutch and Swedes. It was the first time in history that the justification for the domination of people was racial motivation.
Thus, in the colonized territories of the American continent, slavery was a reality independent of the European country that occupied it. Initially with the enslavement of native peoples and, later, with the arrival of thousands of Africans, who were forcibly uprooted from their places of origin.
African labor was also used in the USA, in North America, especially in cotton plantations, in the 18th and 19th centuries, being abolished in 1863.
Indigenous slavery in Brazilian territory
In Brazil, when the Portuguese landed in 1500, a movement of approximation and domination of the indigenous peoples who lived here began.
In this way, mainly between 1540 and around 1570, the indigenous population was subjugated and enslaved, being used in the extraction of pau-brasil, in agricultural work and in other tasks.
However, several factors contributed to this workforce being replaced. Among them the intense mortality due to epidemics acquired from the whites and the fact that these populations are difficult to control because they know the territory and the forests.
African slavery in colony Brazil
The slavery of the African population was a profitable way that Portugal found to supply the workforce in Brazil.
In this way, individuals of different ethnicities were brought to Brazil through the slave trade, on ships crammed with people in inhumane conditions.
Arriving here, these people were sold with the objective of working in the most varied functions.
They worked both in the sugarcane and coffee plantations, as well as in mining, construction, domestic and urban services.
The conditions to which these individuals were subjected were so precarious that, depending on the type of service performed, the average life of a slave was around 10 years. Furthermore, punishments were frequent and were part of the structure of domination.
To learn more about the subject, read: slavery in Brazil
Rebel movements and the end of slavery in Brazil
There was resistance from the enslaved population in Brazil. Black men and women who managed to escape captivity organized themselves into quilombos.
Quilombos were communities made up of runaway Africans as well as other marginalized people. There it was possible for them to exercise their beliefs and live in harmony. Similar organizations also took place in regions of Spanish America.
In Brazil, the best known grouping was the Quilombo dos Palmares, who had Zumbi dos Palmares in the lead.
After benefiting too much from the black workforce, the Portuguese government was pressured by England to abolish slavery in its colonies.
Once independence was proclaimed, the British continued to insist on the need to abolish slave labor. Internally, rebel and abolitionist movements arise, some laws are created with the aim of extinguishing slavery. Until 1888, the Golden Law was signed, prohibiting the practice that lasted for about 4 centuries.
Anyway, even freed, black workers remained in precarious conditions and without employment opportunities, as they were replaced by immigrant labor.
You may also be interested: Quilombos
Contemporary slavery: works analogous to slavery
Even though it is an illegal activity, today work models similar to slavery persist in many parts of the world. It occurs when workers are placed in situations where their freedom is withdrawn, whether by coercion, violence or supposed debts.
We can cite India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan as countries that have a large number of people in this situation. Work in textile industries is an example of where slavery is employed in these places.
However, this reality is present all over the world, including in European countries, with sexual exploitation, for example.
In Brazil, work analogous to slavery is concentrated in rural areas, but also in civil construction. Most of those affected are men between 15 and 40 years old, illiterate or semi-illiterate.
The sad legacy of slavery in Brazil
Today, Brazil reaps the fruits of slavery, the main one being inequality.
Unfortunately, there is still oppressive behavior against blacks, a consequence of structural racism. In addition, it is possible to see that most people who belong to the less favored classes are black.
Racism is evident in many situations, black youth are the biggest victims of murders, for example.
The prison population is also mostly black, as well as the contingent of unemployed or under-employed people in the country.
Black women are the ones who most die from unsuccessful abortions or are imprisoned due to the criminalization of the practice. They are also the ones who suffer most from obstetric violence, that committed during childbirth.
Therefore, it is the duty of Brazilian society to observe and understand its past in order to organize itself in search of a harmonious coexistence and collectivity, where all people have equal opportunities.
The State also has an important role, having to create public policies that can favor the end of inequality and solve this historic debt with the black people.
You may also be interested in: Racism
