Sherwood Callaway
\nHIS 141, Blog Post 3<\/p>\n

The institution of slavery as it existed in the American south would have been wholly unfamiliar to someone living in the 15th century. In the early modern world, Europeans abstained from slavery entirely, celebrating the \u201c\u201cnon-enslavability\u201d of Christian whites.\u201d Africans only enslaved prisoners of war and debtors. Islamic states throughout the Mediterranean traded captives from the Black Sea area. The ancient Romans had operated similarly, refusing to make distinctions based on race, religion, etc.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn chapter 4 of Inhuman Bondage, author Davis investigates the origins of race-based slavery, a comparatively peculiar phenomenon. Jacob Newton suggested in his blog post that \u201ca revival in classical learning\u201d was responsible for rationalizing this kind of servitude. I would argue that there exists no classical precept that supports such a claim. Even the Gallic tribes, who were considered barbarians and defeated by Caesar, we\u2019re only enslaved as prisoners of war. Rather, it is the Christian tradition, which dominated early modern Europe, that established the ideological foundation for race-based slavery. For example, the biblical \u201cCurse of Ham\u201d set a precedent for racial distinctions. The ancient Hebrewes enslaved their Canaanite enemies, and Europeans felt a similar \u201cneed to enslave \u201coutsiders\u201d.\u201d Because of the darkness of their skin, Africans appeared dirty, uncivilized, and foreign. For the Portuguese in Brazil especially, the process of Christianizing these people became a particularly popular justification.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn the same chapter, Davis also supports the ideas of historian David Eltis, who argued that plantation slavery was an economic inevitability: a natural \u201cnext step\u201d for the European economy, and a predecessor of \u201cthe efficiency, organization, and global interconnectedness of industrial capitalism.\u201d The political and commercial environment of the early modern period made African slave labor a particularly appealing concept. Ironically, if not for religion and morality, the institution of slavery could have expanded infinitely for the want of profit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sherwood Callaway HIS 141, Blog Post 3 The institution of slavery as it existed in the American south would have been wholly unfamiliar to someone living in the 15th century. In the early modern world, Europeans abstained from slavery entirely, celebrating the \u201c\u201cnon-enslavability\u201d of Christian whites.\u201d Africans only enslaved prisoners of war and debtors. Islamic … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Davis, Chapter 4: The Origins of Race-Based Slavery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,93,167,245,246,274],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bondage","tag-davis","tag-inhuman","tag-race","tag-race-based","tag-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}