Whenever there is work to be done, there are two options: People do it themselves or find someone else to do it for them. If they are unable to do it themselves for several reasons, such as they do not know how, are physically unable or are just plain too lazy, then the natural inclination is, again, find someone else to do it.

Back in the days of the Hunters and Gatherers there is very little evidence of slavery. Observation of primitive societies such as the Australian aborigines seems to support this theory. The condition of one person owning another, as property, is a human invention that probably had its origins about the time the Hunters and Gatherers moved on to becoming more of a pastoral society. The person enslaved is deprived of all rights and freedom. The English word "slave" comes from Slav, indicative of those people who were brought from that region into servitude.

Initially, the slave was probably treated more like a servant in the household, tending flocks and working in fields or mines. As the societies moved into more of a market economy, slave status degenerated into that of a profitable commodity to be bought and sold.

Throughout most of history, slavery evolved into numerous forms with variations; indentured service, contract labor and debt bondage. These forms imply some degree of voluntary effort on the part of the persons involved. It is doubtful however that they had any idea of what they were getting into. "Slavery" has had many disguised faces and names; child labor, white slavery, in which girls or women were "bought" into prostitution or even marriage; serfdom, peonage and of course prisoners of war.

References to pederasty are found in the literature of all societies from time immemorial. Pedophilia is as ancient as mankind itself and, without a doubt the most foul form of slavery. Although illegal in present times it flourishes not always sub rosa in all walks of life as reflected on internet sites.

Generally, slaves are forced into involuntary servitude by being traded during commercial traffic or as a result of capture in military operations. Another source of slaves is punishment for crimes such as convicts assigned as galley slaves on ships. The direct sale by parents or chieftains was and to a certain extent still is a way that slaves are initially obtained. Contrary to what has been a common misconception, breeding slaves has not been a frequent occurrence. The master was more interested in the immediate use of labor. He had little interest in supporting and waiting for the offspring to grow up to become productive.

One master could transfer a slave to another master. The only possible way a slave could gain freedom was when the master granted "manumission", even if the slave had found a way to purchase his liberty. World wide through history, the laws governing slavery have always varied. The beginning of slavery did not distinguish slaves racially or culturally as it did later. Circumstances could condemn anyone to bondage. Under the law, a slave was not a human being but a "head" as in a herd of cattle. A slave had no legal rights or recourse whatsoever.

In ancient Egypt c. 2686 BC, prisoners of war were a chief source of slaves. Before slavery, originally the captives were simply slaughtered. The Egyptians were not particularly hospitable toward any people that were not Egyptian. So non-Egyptians were promptly killed or enslaved.

Invariably the slaves were the property of the Pharaoh. Private ownership of slaves came later especially in the Roman Empire. The Egyptians did not traffic in the import and export of slaves, as did the Assyrians and Babylonians. It is interesting to note that wherever that kind of traffic began, an empire began to decline.

Sanctioned by Jewish law as spelled out in the book of Exodus in the Bible, a Hebrew slave had to be freed after six years. But in the interim if the slave took a wife, she and any of her offspring remained slaves. However, in ancient Greece the children of slaves were seldom permitted to live. Further, as commodities to be bought and sold, slaves were often considered as investments.  Brokers had a thriving business renting out slaves.  The Greeks and the Phoenicians are credited with the expansion of slave traffic, although their laws governing slavery were not as inhuman as were the Roman and Arabic.

A master cannot be a master without a slave. A slave cannot be a slave without a master. Mutual interdependency sets in and drains the strength of both. Only free people can grow and prosper.

In ancient times it was not uncommon for slaves to carry on business under the careful scrutiny of their masters. These slaves excelled as bankers, merchants, administrators and even professionals as well as skilled craftsmen and artisans; often owning slaves of their own. Legally, their status remained as the property of their masters however.

For centuries, slavery as a human institution was accepted as natural and never called into question. Slaves were excluded from military service but occasionally were offered the prospect of freedom in exchange for enlistment. As a rule, slaves were forbidden to enter the clergy or clerical orders.

From the Golden Age of Plato's Republic to the Vikings of the Dark Ages in the North, children were taught that the gods ordained social class. Only the heathen without faith would dare to challenge divine decree. Greek philosophers began to debate the matter of slavery, as being against the laws of nature but did not go so far as to advocate abolition. The Romans acknowledged that slavery was contrary to nature, but went on to spell out the laws governing the practice.

Christian theologians recognized that all human beings were equal in the eyes of God. None-the-less, in this life on earth, masters were admonished to be kind to their slaves and slaves to obey their masters. Constantine legally sanctioned the sale of newborn infants and justified a master beating his slave even if it resulted in death. St. Thomas Aquinas believed slavery was the result of the original sin of Adam and necessary for some to do the work so that others were free to look after them.

Reflecting the spirit of the times, people could espouse contradictory views for expediency. Not so very different from our times is it.

Islamic laws were similar to those of Christian laws with a few variations. Slavery was slowly evolving into serfdom in Christian countries. The numbers of slaves were more numerous in Islamic countries than in Christian. No Moslem could be enslaved thus the only source of slaves was capture, trade or the children of slaves. The child of a master and slave woman was born free. Slaves could marry and their offspring could be educated if they showed promise. In time, many slaves were integrated into all walks of life although their social status was always that of a slave.

There is a traditional story of four Jewish Rabbis who sailed from Italy in 860 AD and were captured by Moslems and sold into slavery. Two of them were sent to Spain, one to Tunisia and one to Egypt. Each of them eventually earned his freedom and established an academy. This was another way that Judaism was spread around the Mediterranean.

During the Crusades, the Christians took Moslem prisoners of war into slavery and the Moslems did the same. Slaves of Christians went into wealthy households; gangs of slaves onto large estates or in mines. The practice was similar for Moslems with two major exceptions. Women were sent to the harems as concubines and men were castrated into eunuchs. Occasionally some of the women became legitimate wives.

The arts of music and dancing were more fully developed and performed by women slaves for the amusement of rich households. Slaves were the performers in plays as actors. In addition to attending to the harems, eunuchs often attained high positions. The Mamlūk slave dynasty that lasted for over two hundred fifty years is perhaps the most famous example.

Roman law granted the master power of life and death over the slave. Apparently, such occurrences did not happen frequently. At first the slave was too valuable a commodity to waste except in extreme circumstances. Slaves were allowed to be educated and even obtain property, thus making it possible for them to gain their freedom.

Over time, however, the slaves became so cheap that they were used in the Roman Colosseum as gladiators against each other, or as victims in the celebrated contests with wild animals for the amusement of the general population. The number of slaves gradually increased to the point that by the time of Justinian, the slaves outnumbered the free population almost three to one.

At the height of Roman power, the legions were bringing home hoards of slaves as their spoils of war. As the empire began to decline due to rebellion from the natives of provinces or other invading "barbarians", the supply of new slaves began to dry up and the price was driven up. Old or sick slaves had to be cared for, which was a poor return on the master's investment.

Justinian's Code paved the way for medieval feudalism when he made serfdom legal. As the Roman Empire was winding down, slaves belonged not to a single master but to the land of huge hereditary estates, latifundia, and could not be sold separate from the land.

This practice continued especially in Russia with the slaves being called "serfs". "Serf" is derived from the Latin word, servus, denoting a person in servitude. Serfdom had been common in China and Japan since time immemorial. The evolution of social thinking seems to be a human characteristic not confined to any national borders.

The master provided housing, food and clothing. The difference between a serf and a peasant was that the latter rented a small plot of land on the estate that he tended for his own subsistence. The serf was technically a slave. The peasant was legally free but economically bound to the land.

Collectively, serfs and peasants were known as coloni and were prevalent during the feudal times of the Middle Ages in Europe. Both the serf and the peasant were under the protection of the master from outside forces. In return the master required loyalty and service. In times of war, the peasant could be required to serve in the lord's military forces. The serf was not. Free Jews were not allowed military service either.

Christian law prohibited Jews from holding Christian slaves and Jewish law forbade them to use Jewish slaves even if they paid them. So the Jewish peasant had to hire free labor to work on his little patch of land, which made it almost impossible to find and keep farm labor. Consequently, Jews did not engage in agriculture very much and in time gravitated to urban areas.

Both the serf and peasant worked the lands of the master. The main difference between serf and peasant was that the peasant was free to leave his own piece of land or his village without the lord's permission. The serf never could. The social status of both feudal lord and coloni was determined by heredity and therefore, self-perpetuating.

In order to maintain the feudal system, it was essential to keep the huge estates intact. The land was never divided between or among heirs. The eldest son inherited the estate. If there were subsequent sons, the second became a knight or soldier, the third, a priest or monk. Of course, daughters were married off whenever possible to unify or solidify the large estates. Thus, the social hierarchy, for the feudal lord and his family as well as that of the coloni, was locked into a rigid structure. From birth, the destiny of all offspring was pre-determined, whether they eventually liked it or not.

There were three obligations that kept the coloni dependent on the lord. Each one was required to pay a "head tax" to the lord. The payment was nominal but was symbolic in that, in this way the coloni acknowledged dependency on the lord. The second requirement was that the lord had to grant permission for marriage outside the social group of the lord's estate. This was an important aspect since heredity through the mother determined status. Upon death, giving some or all of any inheritance to the lord was the last responsibility. These three were the primary legal obligations, although they varied and were supplemented by a bewildering myriad of others depending on the region and local customs.

The lord also required both serf and peasant to tithe one tenth of his produce or labor to the Church. Between the sixth and eighth century, foundlings were often left on the steps of a church. Those children were raised as ecclesiastical serfs.

The decline of serfdom in Western Europe was not necessarily due to humane altruistic motives. As centralized governments arose in urban areas, there was a demand for a taxpaying labor force. The governments hoped to weaken the powerful landowners. The Plague Epidemic of 1350 drastically reduced the populations in favor of the serfs and peasants. Revolts also contributed to the disintegration of serfdom as an institution. The economic status of the freed people did not improve dramatically but their social status was elevated considerably.

Not so in Eastern Europe. Wars that depleted the peasant population were more frequent and costly in Russia and Balkan Countries than in Western Europe. The wars increased the power of the nobility of large estates at the expense of centralized governments. At the same time a huge shortage of grain was taking place in Western Europe. The boyers, the wealthy landowners, took back the peasant lands to increase their cultivated lands, creating an immense demand for labor.

Finally Emperor Joseph II ended serfdom in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the Eighteenth Century on humanitarian grounds. In 1861, Russia's Alexander II not only freed the serfs but gave each one a piece of land.

Corvée, or statute labor, was and is a method of short-term enforced labor. By law, one able bodied male per household is drafted for labor on public works such as roads for relatively short periods of time, usually ten to fifteen days a year. This was common practice in Europe but more or less abolished after the French Revolution.

The Janizaries (Janissary or Janizary) were of a slave organization created by the Turkish Ottoman Sultan Orkhan early in the fourteenth century. Once a year he recruited and personally trained about one thousand boys between the ages of ten and twelve. They were chosen from his Christian prisoners of war from the Balkan Provinces for their physical characteristics and intelligence. After six years of intense instruction they formed an elite and almost invincible army. Since they were subject to strict regulation including celibacy, they had no home and no family; their only life was that of the army. These were the Janizaries who wreaked havoc in Turkish invasions of southeastern Europe.

These bold warriors were often involved in palace coups and the usual intrigues, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Janizaries revolted against the westernized reforms of the army being instituted by Muhamud II. The sultan attacked the rebels and ordered cannons to fire into the barracks. The Janizaries who were not killed in the assault were executed.

A similar thing happened in Egypt with quite a different outcome. The Mamlūk (Mamelūke) Dynasty was founded on treachery. mamlūk means "owned". Originally the Mamlūks were Turkish or Mongol slaves who were used as palace guards but soon became a large contingent corps of Islamic armies in the ninth century. Begun by a caliph in Baghdad, the practice was soon commonplace throughout the Moslem world.

The Mamlūks had a reputation for being strong and fearless fighters. As their numbers rose in rank, Mamlūk generals either deposed or murdered the caliphs and seized power. They kept the caliphate as a symbolic authority, but the real power was in the hands of the Mamlūk generals. By the thirteenth century, the Mamlūks had established their own dynasties of sultans in Egypt and India.

When the last legitimate Egyptian sultan died in 1249, his widow and a former slave, Aybek, conspired to murder her stepson and for her to ascend the throne herself. This was an affront to the masculine pride of the Moslem leaders, so they chose Aybek as co-monarch. The queen married Aybek but held onto the crown. When he tried to usurp power, she had him murdered too. Eventually she was beaten to death by some of Aybak's woman slaves.

Still Aybek had managed to marshal enough support from Mamlūk generals to found this dynasty that lasted for over two-hundred-fifty years. These slaves skillfully ruled Egypt and for a time, Syria. The self-proclaimed Mamlūk Sultan, al-Malik Baibars (1260-1277) was originally a Turkish slave. He is credited with routing the Mongols from Egypt and Syria and possibly saving Europe in 1260.

It was the Mamlūks who defeated the Franks, thus driving the final Christian Crusaders from Palestine. Baibars is ranked with Saladin and Harun al-Rashid in Moslem traditional honor.

The Mamlūks proved to be as able in administration as they were in military exploits. They excelled in public works, libraries, schools, and especially for the thirty mosque-tombs they created; many of which are still standing. The period of 1250-1300 marked the zenith of medieval glory in Egypt with Cairo as the richest city west of the Indus River.

The Ottomans were victorious over the Mamlūks in 1517 thus reducing Egypt and Syria to provincial states within the empire. The Mamlūk sultanate was extinguished but their elite class continued to exert influence. They recruited replacements in their ranks from the slave markets and put them through apprentice training to gradually infiltrate Ottoman control. As the Ottoman Empire began to decline, the Mamlūks were once again in a position to hold power over the government and the army.

Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798. Guess who were there to greet him? The Mamlūk state and army. In one of the battles between Napoleon and the Mamlūks, cannon balls shot off the nose and trimmed the beard of the Sphinx. However, the Mamlūks were massacred and utterly destroyed in 1811 by the new Moslem ruler of Egypt, Muhammad 'Ali Pasha.

There were several slave dynasties in India. One, the Mui'zzi line of sultans, lasted for over a hundred years in Delhi. Slavery in India was a complex part of the social structure dating back to before the twelfth century BC and recorded in the Laws of Manu. The Sudra, the "untouchable", was the lowest stratum of social standing; his only hope of improved rank was death and reincarnation.

From the beginning of the Middle Ages, Moslems continued to practice slavery. The Koran's teaching was that giving a slave freedom was an act of piety and the former slave was integrated easily into the community. Conversion to Islam was also a means of obtaining liberty. Islamic law clung to the Biblical Levitican Law that automatically, by virtue of birth, the child of a slave mother was always a slave.

The Moslem Arabs embarked on raids of piracy on commercial ships in the Mediterranean, taking all aboard as captives into slavery. Their bases of operation were along the infamous Barbary Coast, the states west of Egypt in North Africa. The English, French and Dutch formed a coalition to eradicate the Arabic slave traders. In 1816 about 3,000 Christian slaves of Western European origin were freed from Algiers in those operations.

Later the Europeans did an about face and began trading with the Arabs. At first it had to do with gold from Dahomey, now Benin. A territory of sub-Saharan French West Africa, Dahomey has an interesting history.

Uncommon in sub-Saharan African societies, Dahomey was the kingdom of an autocratic king with absolute power, Gesu (1818-58). The kingdom had a strict structure of social class with the royalty at the top, then commoners and finally slaves. Each male official in the king's organization had an equal female counterpart. The kingdom was in perpetual war, partially to acquire territory but also to continually replenish its prisoners of war for the slave trade. The female soldiers, when not fighting in the field, were palace guards. The Europeans called these women warriors "Amazons".

When the English ended the slave trade in 1840, Gesu switched his exports from slaves to palm oil. He kept the slaves instead to tend to the palm groves. Gesu negotiated a treaty with France in 1851. But the oil was not nearly as profitable as the slave trade had been.

When Gesu died in 1858, his son succeeded him and resumed the slave trade, especially with the Arabs. As a result, both the French and the English interceded in 1863 and by 1893, after a military campaign, France established Dahomey as a protectorate.

The slave trade was not confined to Dahomey. The Arabs had caravans that traversed from the lower Niger River with palm oil and then ivory and black slaves from all over Central Africa. The caravans had been bringing their wares across the Sahara Desert to the Barbary Coast ports for a long time. From there they were shipped to Arabia, Persia, western India and other Moslem countries. The African tribal chieftains obliged the slave traders by capturing either prisoners of war or kidnapping their own people and herding them to the depots on the Slave Coast.

In 1442, Prince Henry the "Navigator", a Portuguese explorer, was sailing along the Barbary Coast. He had agreed to return some captured Moors for the ransom of ten black slaves. He took the slaves to the Iberian Peninsula. Some fifty years later their slave descendants were transported to Haiti in the Caribbean Sea.

It was less than two years later that a syndicate was formed at Lagos on the West African Coast of Nigeria and the European slave traders were in business. By 1460, Portugal was importing 700-800 slaves a year. The traders justified their practice as bringing the "savage heathen" to Christian Civilization in order to convert them and save their souls. The fact that untold slaves died en route to Christianity from the appalling conditions of capture and delivery was not addressed.

England joined into the slave trade in 1662. Charles II granted a charter to the Royal Adventure Trading Company to procure 3,000 slaves a year for the sugar cane industry in Barbados, British West Indies. The slave industry mushroomed after that. The Asiento Treaty of 1713 between Spain and England designated 4,800 slaves a year to be delivered with a duty the equivalent of $40.00 imposed on each slave. One-fourth of the profits were divided between the Spanish and British monarchs. The numbers of slaves sent to the West Indies and especially Cuba and Jamaica soared.

The so-called Slave Coast came to extend on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, Africa from the Niger River Delta and Lagos, Nigeria to the Volta River in what is now Togo and Benin. Spain, Portugal, France, Denmark, Sweden and Germany all at times had interests in the area, but it evolved into primarily Afro-British and Afro-Dutch operations.

Slavery was not an extensive institution among the indigenous peoples of North and South America although Cortez found many slaves of both sexes in what is now Mexico City. Attempts to coerce native Indians into labor were fraught with problems. The Indians either revolted or vanished into the forests. Further, the Roman Catholic Church, with its missionaries to convert the Indians was at loggerheads with the Conquistadors' wish for cheap labor.

The Indians were exploited shamefully nonetheless, whereby the Conquistadors devised a way to force poor and uneducated Indians into plantations and mines. Their form of slavery became peonage, which extended in time, beyond the United States abolition of slavery.

In the Caribbean, whole populations of Indians succumbed to diseases brought to them by Western explorers, not only Spanish, but also that of other Northern European countries. Those aboriginal peoples simply became extinct. A Catholic Bishop appealed to the Spanish King Charles I on behalf of the Indian people and recommended instead that Spanish Colonists bring African slaves with them.

In 1517, the monarch approved a measure in which a Spanish nobleman was licensed to take a certain number of black slaves to the New World with the proviso that duty should be paid to the royal coffers. An act of compassion toward the indigenous Indians from the Catholic Bishop resulted in the expansion of one of mankind's most merciless institutions - the slavery of sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cotton plantations.

Another form of slavery in colonial times and later was called indentured service. Both men and women were recruited from western European countries and their transportation was paid across the Atlantic in return for a number of years of service after which they were free. Colonial laws provided some protection for the indentured people and in some instances it took the form of apprenticeship. So the conditions depended on the aptitudes of the individual and the magnanimity of the master.

Early in the seventeenth century the first African slaves were brought to the American Colonies. These were considered indentured servants for a certain number of years and were then freed to work land of their own. But in the last half of that century colonial legislation distinguished between the black and white populations. In 1662 statutes resurrected the ancient Mosaic Law determining that the black children of a black mother were either slave or free depending on the mother's status.

The first cargo of only twenty black slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619. The rate of slave shipment escalated at an astonishing rate throughout the country. It has been estimated that more than fifteen million slaves were ultimately brought from Africa to the colonies. Slaves were scattered throughout the country with approximately two percent of the total population in New England in bondage. By 1790, New York City boasted a total population of 83,000 with one out of four households containing at least one slave.

However, the vast majority of slaves were in the south with some masters owning a hundred or more. The plantation economy was dependent on slave labor and thus, was the principal cause of the growth of slavery in the colonies.

Since time immemorial, the possibility of slave revolt was always a danger. The slave traders and owners took inhuman precautions to avoid any possible escape or rebellion. The slaves who endured and survived their journeys into bondage were much more likely to rebel because they had known freedom. The risk was worth it to them since they had nothing to lose, even life itself.

The slaves born into captivity were much more docile. They knew no other way of life. This acceptance made them more dependent on their masters and less likely to revolt. Throughout the Civil War, most remained passive and some even fought on the Confederate side!

Trade stations were set up along the Gambia River on the African Gold Coast. The price paid for each captive varied from rum to a string of cowry shells or from twenty to forty pounds of iron. The bargaining also involved twelve or so yards of cotton cloth. However, the average slave was sold in the colonies for roughly $100 about the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1754 George Washington paid $260 for a male slave.

The "Golden Triangle" of the slave trade began in a European port as ships set sail for the African coast, loaded with the bargaining goods to be exchanged for slaves. The second side of the triangle was the transport of human cargo across the ocean to stockades of the slave markets in the Western Hemisphere. The ships were then loaded with products from plantations for the return voyage to Europe, the third side of the triangle.

One of the most profitable items was molasses to be distilled into rum. Along with firearms and other merchandise, rum was used to buy more slaves as the trade triangle was repeated. The enterprise was efficient and extremely lucrative at each juncture.

The captives were tied to each other with leather straps and brought to the stations from only heaven knows where. Some were forced to walk up to a thousand miles from the interior of Africa. Of course, those too infirm or weak were left by the wayside. It took from three to ten months for the captives to reach the Coast. This leg of their journey was known as the first of three passages.

At the depot on the Slave Coast, the slave boat captain selected the ones to be transshipped after a doctor had examined them to determine which were fit enough to withstand the rigors of the voyage across the Atlantic. Some were branded before they were put aboard. The old and unfit were rejected.

In time, special slave ships were constructed to carry the human cargo. The dimension of the cargo space to carry between 300 and 500 slaves is a matter of record. The ship was designed for maximum use of space for the largest number of human beings. These ships had two decks and the space for the cargo was known as the "'tween decks". The space was five feet, two inches in height. The captives were lain on their backs in the "tween decks".

The men in pairs, with shackles on their ankles, were put in chains fastened onto the decks. On average, the allotted space for each man was five and one half feet long. The women and children were not put in irons however. Many of the captives were kept on the ship for extended periods of time until the full complement of the cargo had been filled.

The sea voyage across the Atlantic lasted between six and ten weeks, depending on the destination as well as weather and other factors. This was known as the infamous "Middle Passage". With barely enough food and water to keep body and soul together, total immobility, no sanitation and fetid ventilation, it is unimaginable the kind of misery the people endured. There is little doubt that the least of their problems with disease would have been wretched seasickness. Of course, many, many of them died en route.

When they did reach the destination harbor they were sent off to the slave markets to be kept in "pens" until purchased. This was the third and final passage into slavery. These poor souls were thrust into a strange land, not knowing a word of the language and yet expected to be productive labor. It has been estimated that on average, out of every hundred captives from the heart of Africa to the slave quarters and fields of their new masters, less than half survived.

The conditions of slavery were morally acceptable to most societies down through the ages.  To our way of thinking, in our time, these practices are grisly and utterly repugnant.  Perhaps we humans are making some progress after all.

Those who exercise hatred or acts of cruelty against the weak, the helpless, the old, free or enslaved, ultimately diminish themselves whether they are found out or not. Why? When any human being is denied basic dignity, then the one inflicting the deeds denies his own humanity.

When decent people became aware of the details of this odious practice, they began agitating to put a stop to it. But it took well over two hundred years to accomplish it legally. In 1696, The Quakers in Pennsylvania and in England were among the first to call attention to the plight of the slaves.

Julia Ward Howe was born in New York and lived in Boston after her marriage. She was an author and reformer involved in the anti-slavery movement with her husband. Her other passions included women's suffrage, prison reform and international peace. She wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in 1862.

The Danish government stepped in to outlaw slavery in any of its territories in 1792. England followed with legislation prohibiting the import of any more slaves into British lands or colonies in 1807. Further, in 1833, England freed all the slaves and allotted twenty million pounds compensation to the planters for their lost labor.

When the United States Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin among others wanted to abolish slavery. Opposition from representatives of Southern plantation states prevented it. The compromise reached was that in twenty years it would be abolished. It was hoped that prohibiting import of slaves would cause slavery to fade away.

Thomas Jefferson, by then President of the United States delivered the following message to Congress on December 2, 1806:

"I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of that period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the un-offending inhabitants of Africa and which the morality, the reputation and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe."₁₃

A bill was passed in March 1807 prohibiting further import of slaves but did not address the status of those already living in bondage in the United States. As we all know, passage of a bill does not preclude illegal activity continuing under the radar despite the vigorous energies of law enforcement. Blockade running was rampant in English and other European ports. Jean Lafitte, the infamous pirate of Louisiana and the Caribbean continued slave smuggling among his many other enterprises.

The Civil War officially and legally ended slavery in the United States, with the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. Owners of slaves were not compensated as they had been in England. The war raged on though, no longer on the battlefield but in the halls of debate, with the Southern slave owners charging that the "wage slaves" of Northern Industries were no better off than outright slaves had been before the war. Karl Marx also referred to "wage slaves" in reference to the labor force in capitalistic societies.

The Southern State Legislatures became quite creative in enacting laws to keep the former slaves in subservient status. Poll Taxes to restrain voting, segregation in schools, churches and all manner of "Jim Crow" practices prevented full enfranchisement for all its citizens.

Legislation was enacted that made it possible for a return to slavery under the guise of "criminal". Black men were arrested on minor misdemeanors and given sentences far more harsh than the offenses warranted. The practice is continued in a milder degree today as "racial profiling".

The local governments and businesses could then use the cheap or even free convict labor for any projects they wished. There were no restrictions. The convicts could be forced to work 16 to 18 hour days, six or seven days a week under deplorable conditions, often far worse than their days on the plantations. A return to the days of Jean Valjean's Les Misérables.

As we all know, it is very expensive to sue or appeal in any court. Without education, knowledge of their constitutional rights and/or resources, the convicts had no choice. Occasionally, a few cases did wind their way through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court. The doctrine of "State's Rights" to determine legislation not superseded by Federal Law usually prevailed.

Then there is the matter of lynching carried out by the Ku Klux Klan. These and other wholly illegal activities were carried out in secret in order to intimidate and prevent the former slaves from attaining their rightful equality. Those practices were quite effective in terrorizing the black population and keeping them from even attempting to assert their rights.

For three centuries, the development of three continents was built and shaped on the backs and bodies of African slaves. By the late nineteenth century it had finally come to an end but the effects extended well into the twenty-first century. The aftermath is yet another chapter in this history.

Similar practices occurred with Chinese and Indian contract laborers who were called "coolies". Their circumstances often were quite harsh. Extreme poverty in Asia encouraged free labor immigration throughout the world. There was usually some degree of kidnapping and fraud involved. "Shanghaied" is a verb describing just such maneuvers. The Chinese and Indian governments tried to protect their national citizens with legislation but little success.

"Peonage" was the same in Mexico. Once this kind of labor had signed a contract, it was forever in debt to the "company store" for subsistence on meager wages. Contract labor became debt bondage.

After World War I, two international organizations took up the question of slavery: The Allied Powers (England, France, the United States, Italy, Belgium, Japan and Portugal) at the Saint-Germain-en-Lave Convention in 1920 and the League of Nations in 1924. This was similar to the present day United Nations. Both of those early organizations collapsed with the onset of World War II.

Bear in mind that women were not given full enfranchisement in the United States until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. It was not unanimous. Three-fourths of the states confirmed it and Tennessee rescinded its approval five days later. (To put it in perspective, this was only nine years before I was born!)

The abolition of slavery as a matter of national policy is somewhat confined to the Western World. Undoubtedly, pockets of slavery still exist around the world, especially where extreme poverty prevails. Mercenary aspects aside, it is possible to suppose that faced with a choice between starvation for their children, parents could opt for the hope that even being sold into slavery would afford a better life. Sham adoptions fall into this category. Having to make such a wrenching decision is unimaginable.

The preferred form of slavery in the twentieth century by a number of nations has been forced labor for political or religious reasons. The Nazi regime in Germany carried slavery to the ultimate extreme of brutality. Tens of thousands of political and religious prisoners were herded into slave labor camps. Members of the Communist and Social Democratic political parties as well as Jews - men, women and children - were the primary Nazi targets. Six million Jews were "exterminated". These captives were literally worked to death and/or taken off to crematory ovens. The detailed horrors of the concentration camps have been well documented and are beyond the comprehension of civilized people.

The same thing happened in the Soviet Union particularly under the Stalinist regime. Counter-revolutionary offenses, whether proven in court or not, were punishable by being sent to concentrations camps, Gulags, in the northern U.S.S.R. and Siberia. Like the Nazi camps, the conditions were hideous. These prisoner-slaves were used in fishing, gold mining and large-scale work projects such as the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal. After World War II, even Soviet soldiers, who had "allowed" themselves to be captured by Germans, were sent off to the camps. These inhuman policies continued well into the mid-1950's.

The key word here is "Dictatorship", whether extreme right political philosophy as the Nazi regime was or the extreme left of the Soviet Union. Unrestricted power inevitably leads to horrendous abuse.

After World War II the United Nations was formed in 1948 to address just such atrocities as only one of its many responsibilities. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 in which all forms of involuntary servitude were abolished worldwide.

The exploitation of child labor as well as women sold into marriage as a form of slavery is still found. Passed on to heirs, debt bondage persists and it is nearly impossible to escape this cruel form of slavery. The United Nations disclosure of Soviet slave labor conditions helped to bring about some reforms. The UN is now the international watchdog to ferret out slavery. It quietly continues to investigate and make recommendations. It can only succeed with the cooperation of nations around the world.

Seventeen years later, the United States legally caught up to the UN with The Civil Rights Act of 1964. This legislation marked a significant turning point toward righting the wrongs brought on the whole of society by slavery.

A high opinion of one's own worth, as exhibited by the pride of ownership of the master, is manifested outwardly as superiority that does not engender the respect of the slave. Fear perhaps, but not respect. The inner shame of the slave may be exhibited externally as submissiveness and inferiority. But in time, that shame turns into seething resentment that can explode at any time regardless of consequences. When people are under physical compulsion to deliver work not of their own choosing and without incentive, the overall rate of production drops. In all aspects of human interaction, the arrogance of power always engenders hatred.

Somewhere in the ten volumes of "The Story of Civilization" by my favorite historians, Will and Auriel Durant, they wrote:

"Wherever, in the history of civilization, woman has ceased to be an economic asset in marriage, marriage has decayed; and sometimes civilization has decayed with it." (Please note however, that Auriel was not acknowledged as co-author until the seventh volume although she worked at her husband's side from page one of the first volume.)

As we have seen throughout history, women and their children were singled out for a life of perpetual slavery. Wives have served as slave labor.

There is wide discrepancy between Social Security benefits for men and their wives based on the husband's earned income. Statistics show that women live longer than men do and some women are thrown into destitution when their husbands die and the combined benefits are lost. The drop is significant. That assumes that those women did not work for wages outside the home.

As for the women who do work outside the home as well as raise children, wages have always been notoriously lower for women doing comparable work as their male counterparts. It follows that Social Security benefits for the women will be lower.

And then there are the single mothers working to support their children at a minimum wage. When a man fathers a child, he has a financial responsibility at the very least to care for that child. This says nothing about the moral responsibility to provide the child with an admirable role model. When are men going to step up to the plate and support their children at least financially while they are racking up Social Security benefits for their own retirement?

Is the human race making any progress here? Well, so far religion has eliminated human sacrifice to gods. Governing entities in the form of laws are getting rid of most of the practices of slavery that once went unquestioned. Still, it would be naïve to think there are no yawning gaps between the law and reality.

Why is it that once an odious practice gets going and becomes so firmly entrenched as part of the ethnic and cultural heritage for lengthy periods of time that it is sanctioned and thus perpetuated by laws and religious institutions? Then, why does it becomes so very difficult to eliminate it from the thinking of otherwise rational and moral people?