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so early as the eighth century; and it is alleged to have been general about the middle of the fourteenth, and was near expiring in the sixteenth, when the discovery of the American continent, and the eastern and western coasts of Africa gave rise to the introduction of a new species of slavery. It took its origin from the Portuguese, who, in order to supply the Spaniards with persons able to sustain the fatigue of cultivating their new possessions in America, particularly the islands, opened a trade between Africa and America for the sale of Negroes, about the year 1508. The expedient of having slaves for
- ↑ Liber homo, &c. the title of freeman was formerly confined to the nobility and gentry who were descended of free ancestors.—Burgh’s Political Disquisitions, vol. iii. p. 400, who cites Spelman’s Glossary, voc. Liber homo.
c. 14. with all deference to sir Edward Coke, who says they mean a free-holder, I understand as meaning a free man,[1] as contradistinguished from a villein: for in the very next sentence the words et villanus aiterius quam noster,” occur. Villeins must certainly have been numerous at that day, to have obtained a place in the Great Charter. It is no less an evidence that their condition was in a state of melioration.
In Poland, at this day, the peasants seem to be in an absolute state of slavery, or at least of villeinage, to the nobility, who are the land-holders.
