SLAUGHTER HOUSES. 228 SLAVERY. Birmingliam, England, in 1898; also Maltbie, MunicipaW Functions (New York, 1898), and Shaw, Municipal Government in Continental Eu- rope (ib., 1895). SLAVE COAST. A geographical name for a division of llie foast of Upper Guinea, washed by the Bight of Benin. It owes its name to the ac- tive slave trade whieh was formerly carried on in this region. See DAHOMEr; Benin. SLAVERY (from slave, from OF. Fr. esclai-e, from MHG. slace, sklave, Ger. Sklave, slave, Slav; originally referring to Slavs taken bj' the Germans in war). Legally, that status of an individual or individuals characterized by the perpetual and almost absolute loss of personal and political liberty; socialh/, an institution de- fined by law and custom similar to patria potes- tas, comitatus, clientela in personal dejiendenee and to villeinage, vassalage, serfdom, servitude, and apprenticeship in personal and economic subjection and common incidents, but distin- guished from them as the most absolute and in- voluntary form of human servitude. The slave is the property, chattel or real, of his master, and cannot participate in the civil right of personal freedom, though, except in strict Roman law, he may enjoy limited personal rights. Slavery represents a stage in social or industrial organization and development. It probably coin- cides with the beginnings of settled agricultural tribal life, but its ultimate origin is in depen- dence resulting from inequality of capacity or opportunity between individuals or sets of indi- viduals brought into competitive relations. ^^'hether recognized by common, statutory, or international law, slavery is a developing status varying its character in place and time as defined by local law and custom. Slavery, either by his- toric contact, slave trade, or independent origin, existed anciently among Babylonians, Assyrians, Eg^'ptians, Hebrews, Persians. Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, and in India, China, and Africa. It is interpreted in ancient monuments and literature and locally defined by law. Philosophic justifi- cation of slavery, ancient and modern, rests his- torically upon natural subjection and dift'erence of race or creed, or both. But nationals as well as barbarians, heathen, and heretics have been enslaved by all races. Classical philosophy, He- brew and other ancient religions, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism sanctioned the institution, but its essential sanc- tion rested in law defining the status and its incidents. Of the chief sources of slavery (cap- ture in war, man-stealing, purchase, birth by a slave parent, and action of law), capture was most prevalent in early society. Hebrew, Greek, and Roman slavery, recruited from all these sources, more often than modern slavery, applied to a subject the equal or superior of his master. An extensive slave trade with the ^Mediterranean islands, Asia Minor, Africa, or Southern Europe aided to fill Athens, Corinth, ^3!;gina, and Italy with vast nundjers of slaves, numbering often thrice the free men. At Sparta conquered helots, owned by the State but let to individuals, num- bered seven to one Spartan, The incidents of Greek, Roman, and American slavery are strikingly similar, but Rome's war- like and organizing genius gave the institution greater legal definiteness and harshness. In each country the slave was sold, hired, seized for debt. and treated as his master's property, chattel or real. He was controlled by whipping, branding, fetters, exile, or by the tie of mutual afl'ection in the family of which he was one. He had cus- tomary limited rights of marriage, property, maintenance, contract, religion, and personal se- curity and sanctuary (in Greece). Post-Homeric Greece, the later Roman Empire, and some Amer- ican colonies of the eighteenth century legalized his right to life and limb. Previously Roman slaves were 'things' in the master's doniinien potestas, subject to life and death, torture, muti- lation, crucifixion, gladiatorial combat, and work in mines under drivers ; but were, like American slaves, superior to Greek in having greater oppor- tunity to obtain their freedom, Greek and Roman freeilmen gradually became free men. Classical and American slave labor was pra>dial, domestic, industrial, clerical, and public. Rome denied slaves civil or military service. Many Greek and Roman slaves entered learned profes- sions. Italian latifundia worked by slaves de- stroyed free-hold yeomanry and increased, with harsh treatment, danger of servile insurrection. Serious revolts occurred in Greece and Rome, and later in the West Indies, but North America suH'ered only minor local insurrections, such, for instance, as Gabriel's Insurrection (q.v. ) and Nat Turner's Insurrection. ( See Turner, N.^t. ) The closing of Roman conquest, jns naturale, and Christianity, modified the rigid chattel concep- tion of jus civile and jus gentium, and law gave the slave personality and protection. Finally Justinian enlarged the colon!, men personally free but tied to the soil like sei'fs. 'Thereafter slavery, the chief labor system since the Punic Wars, though practiced by Rome's Teuton con- querors, was gradually replaced in mediivval Europe by feudal vassalage, villeinage, or serf- dom, particularly where German and Roman life came in close contact. Serfdom persisted to modern times, surviving in Russia until 1861. See Serf. Slaverv' and the slave trade, continued by media-val Venice, the Saracens, Tatars, Turks, and African tribes, were freshly extended by Mo- hammedans in Africa and Asia, who made sub- ject alike Christians, heathen, whites, and blacks. Negro slavery was a long established African trilial custom with debtors, criminals, vagrants, and captives. The commercial expansion of Por- tugal incidentally began the African slave trade in modern Europe and America. Through kid- napping and from Moorish slavers Prince Henry of Portugal received negro slaves in 1442, and two years later began the European slave trade from the west coast of Africa. For a half cen- tury Portugal monopolized the traffic, which finally embraced the Spanish possessions in America, where Indian slavery established by Spain was exterminating the natives. Spain en- tered the slave trade in 1517: the English (under •Tohn Hawkins) in 1553, and France in 1G24: they were followed by Holland. Denmark, and the American colonies. The market was the West-European countries and their colonies in America, particularly the Spanish West Indies. England finally took the lead in the commerce, granting from the time of Elizabeth to 1670 five separate patents for its monopoly to favored mer- chants and companies. Between 1712 and 1749 the exclusive sujjply of the Spanish colonies was
