Slavery

"The Raja of Cannanore, the only Muslim ruler on the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, was not known ever to have declared a jihad. Nevertheless, a report of 1793 noted that Mapila Muslims were kidnapping Hindu children to sell to European traders, especially in the Dutch port of Cochin."

"When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Kasim, and enquiries were made about every captive, it was found that Ladi, the wife of Dahir, was in the fort with two daughters of his by his other wives. Veils were put on their faces, and they were delivered to a servant to keep them apart. One-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside ; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number, and the rest were given to the soldiers."

"He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependants and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children. It is said that when the fort was captured, all the treasures, property, and arms, except those which were taken away by Jaisiya, fell into the hands of the victors, and they were all brought before Muhammad Kasim. When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Dahir's sister's daughter, whose name was Jaisiya.' They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of K'ab, son of Maharat. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before God, offered thanksgi-vings and praises, for, he said, he had in reality obtained all the wealth and treasures and dominions of the world."

"When Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sind, he took captives wherever he went and sent many prisoners, especially women prisoners, to his homeland. Parimal Devi and Suraj Devi, the two daughters of Raja Dahir, who were sent to Hajjaj to adorn the harem of the Caliph, were part of a large bunch of maidens remitted as one-fifth share of the state (Khums) from the booty of war (Ghanaim). ... In Sind itself female slaves captured after every campaign of the marching army, were married to Arab soldiers who settled down in colonies established in places like Mansura, Kuzdar, Mahfuza and Multan. The standing instructions of Hajjaj to Muhammad bin Qasim were to “give no quarter to infidels, but to cut their throats”, and take the women and children as captives. ... Obviously, a few lakhs of women were enslaved and distributed among the elite and the soldiers."

"[Besides, wherever Muhammadan rule existed slavery was developed,] “and during the centuries of misrule and oppression, through which Bengal passed, slavery was accepted by the Hindus as a refuge for their troubles. Delhi court obtained not only its slaves [in thousands, as for example under Firoz Tughlaq] but also eunuchs from the villages of Eastern Bengal [a wide-spread practice which the Mughal Emperor Jahangir tried to stop). The incursions of Assamese Maghs, the famines, pestilences and civil wars...drove them in sheer desperation to sell their children as Musalman slaves”. ... [The Census of India Report of 1901 says that ] “the tyrannical Murshid Kuli Khan enforced a law that any Amal, or Zamindar, failing to pay the revenue that was due...should, with his wife and children, be compelled to become Muhammadans", but the practice was much older as vouched by the Bansliastnriti."

"For example, after Rawar was taken Muhammad Qasim “halted there for three days during which he massacred 6000 (men). Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.” Later on “the slaves were counted, and their number came to 60, 000 (of both sexes?). Out of these, 30 were young ladies of the royal blood… Muhammad Qasim sent all these to Hajjaj” who forwarded them to Walid the Khalifa. “He sold some of these female slaves of royal birth, and some he presented to others.” Selling of slaves was a common practice... In Brahmanabad, “it is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but according to others sixteen thousand were killed”, and their families enslaved. The garrison in the fort-city of Multan was put to the sword, and families of the chiefs and warriors of Multan, numbering about six thousand, were enslaved.... In the final stages of the conquest of Sindh, “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”. Obviously a few lakh women were enslaved in the course of Arab invasion of Sindh."

"The unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demand of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children who were carried away as slaves."

"[The Mughals maintained] “a large army for the purpose of keeping people in subjection… No adequate idea can be conveyed of the sufferings of the people. The cudgel and the whip compel them to incessant labour… their revolt or their flight is only prevented by the presence of a military force.”"

"“At most periods of her history India, though a cultural unit, has been torn by internecine war. In statecraft, her rulers were cunning and unscrupulous. Famine, flood and plague visited her from time to time, and killed millions of her people. Inequality of birth was given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generally hard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisation were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient lawbook are their rights so well protected as in the Arthasastra. No other ancient lawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants…There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity.” (pp.8-9)]."

"First of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come and sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing… the Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives, sons of Maliks etc. On the second day the durbar is held in a similar fashion after Asr. Female singers are brought out… the Sultan distributes them among the Mameluke Amirs. On the third day relatives of the Sultan are married and they are given rewards."

"I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins."

"After this I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold."

"Generally, white slaves were worth more than blacks. Popular lore which ascribed to slaves of different origins certain virtues or defects also influenced buyer preferences and, indirectly, prices. Many of these popular attitudes were written up by the eleventh century Eastern Christian physician, Ibn-Butlan, in a slave trader’s vade mecum. Indian women, in his view, do not make good slaves but “are excellent breeders of children.” Their men are reputed to be “good house managers and experts in fine handicrafts” but die at an early age."

"Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured during the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq."

"The slaves added to the growing Muslim population of India."

"There are two trade marts on the land route between Hindustan and Khurasan; one is Kabul, the other, Qandhar... from Hindustan, come every year caravans... bringing slaves (barda) and other commodities, and sell them at great profit..."

"This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a slave."

"Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Regarding slavery nothing needs to be said. It stands abolished now by law. But while it existed much of its support was derived from Islam and Islamic countries. (228-230)"

"...150,000 were carried away (as captives) ; 100,000 were killed."

"At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Wazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest. In India female captives are low-priced because they are dirty and know nothing of the town manners. Even those who are educated can be had at a cheap price ; no one, therefore, stands in need of buying the captive girls."

"In India, Islamic rulers, such as the sultans of the Delhi sultanate (1206–1526), used enslavement as a form both of extracting revenues and of punishment, not least for not paying taxes. Fiscal factors were to the fore and territorial expansion was in part financed by the sale of slaves... The continued dynamism of successive Islamic societies produced fresh bouts of conquest that led to new sources of slaves. Thus, on the eastern end of the Islamic world, Mahmud of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul (r.971–1030), whose empire stretched from the River Oxus to the River Indus, launched numerous raids into northern India from the 990s, annexing the Hindu state of Sahi to the east by 1021. Religious factors played a role in his attacks, which in 1022 extended far down the Ganges valley and in 1026 into Gujarat. Chroniclers claimed that his campaign of 1024 yielded over 100,000 slaves. Such numbers fed a major slave trade into Central Asia, Persia and Iraq, as well as bringing wealth to the army. The Delhi sultanate (1206–1526), established by Qutb-ud-din Aybak, who had been a military slave of the Churid Sultan Muizz u-Din, so that it is sometimes referred to as the Slave Dynasty, in turn, used Turkic slave soldiers from Central Asia as well as local Hindu soldiers. This sultanate took part in largescale slave raiding in India.... The campaigns in India of the Mughals and the Deccan sultanates produced many Hindu slaves, some of whom were sold on to Central Asia and Persia... In India, the Mughals enslaved rebels and those deemed rebels, for example, Hindus who rejected attempts at proselytism, as at Benares in 1632. Those captured in Mughal campaigns were often given to the troops for their use or for them to sell. Enslavement was also the fate of peasants who could not meet their taxes and rents, with men, women and children often sold to Muslim lords as a consequence. Further south in India, enslavement was used by the Deccan sultanates, notably Bijapur and Golconda, in suppressing opposition. These major Muslim states campaigned extensively into southern India and enslaved Buddhists, Hindus and others. Thus, in the 1640s, Golconda seized much of the state of Vijayahagara and Bijapur that of Mysore. However, the Mughal conquest of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda in the 1680s led to the end of military slavery there... India was also a source of slaves, for example with girls taken to Afghanistan and the Middle East and, from the mid-seventeenth century, forced labour moved to plantations in the Dutch-ruled coastlands of Sri Lanka."

"In Hindustan British rule has abolished slavery, but it nevertheless exists in noble families, where the slaves seem willingly to assent to their condition of bondage."

"Noon had not arrived when the Musulmans had wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of God, killing 15,000 of them, spreading them like a carpet over the ground, and making them food for beasts and birds of prey. Fifteen elephants fell on the field of battle, as their legs, being pierced with arrows, became as motionless as if they had been in a quagmire, and their trunks were cut with the swords of the valiant heroes... The necklace was taken off the neck of Jaipal, - composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold, of which the value was two hundred thousand dinars; and twice that value was obtained from necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners, or slain, and had become the food of the mouths of hyenas and vultures. Allah also bestowed upon his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five hundred thousand slaves, beautiful men and women. The Sultan returned with his followers to his camp, having plundered immensely, by Allah's aid, having obtained the victory, and thankful to Allah. This splendid and celebrated action took place on Thursday, the 8th of Muharram, 392 H., 27th November, 1001 AD."

"I don't think we can imagine what slavery has done to the people here, it goes very deep, these things take a very long time long, even the opposition to colonialism has traces of it. Here it was quite late, 1830, but a little further west, slavery lasted 3 to 4 centuries, 40 to 60 million people are estimated, were moved from here, to America, that's no small thing, you would say that is an African holocaust."

"The selling and enslaving of the human species is a direct violation of the natural rights alike vested in them by their creator, and utterly inconsistent with the avowed principles on which this, and the other states have carried on their struggle for liberty."

"Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed him as he passed by, and said, "If you had learnt to eat these vegetables, you would not have been a slave in the palace of a tyrant." But Aristippus replied, "And you, if you had known how to behave among men, would not have been washing vegetables.""

"I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery."

"I will not, I cannot justify it."

"Plato defined a slave as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. This condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense. It is found wherever men are engaged in activity which is socially serviceable, but whose service they do not understand and have no personal interest in."

"Conquer thyself. Till thou hast done that, thou art a slave; for it is almost as well to be in subjection to another's appetite as thine own."

"Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. [...] Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

"The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us. They were brought here in chains and held in the communities where they are now chiefly found by a cruel slave code. Happily for both races, they are now free."

"How great was the temptation to use... slaves of the state as easily expendable pioneers may perhaps be judged by the fact that in an age of machinery prisoners of war have been worked to death in railway building, in Europe as well as Asia. Secondly, the city of Rome under the early empire, with perhaps 200,000 slaves in a total population of less than a million, is an outstanding instance... for example, 660 slaves maintained the 280 miles of aqueducts which gave a daily water supply of 38 gallons a head. Finally, there was the exploitation of slave labour in mining, which was used to enrich the kingdom of David and Solomon as well as the fifth-century Athenian democracy and spread as far west as Roman Spain: this won the metals, on which technical progress largely depended, by methods that stretched manpower to exhaustion. We lack the details, but Diodorus Siculus in the reign of Augustus writes that in the Spanish silver-mines the strongest workers were the most unfortunate, because they were the slowest to die."

"Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities?"

"For the prime design of society is the extension of the operation of law, and the equal treatment and protection of the citizens. Slavery, therefore, being the negation of law, cannot arise from law, or be compatible with it. As far as slavery prevails in any community, so far must that community be defective in answering the purposes of society. And this we affirm to be in the highest degree the case of our colonies. Slavery, indeed, in the manner wherein it is found there, is an unnatural state of opression on the one side, and of suffering on the other; and needs only to be laid open or exposed in its native colours, to command the abhorrence and opposition of every man of feeling and sentiment."

"If the Negroes, numbering one-eighth of the population of these United States, would only cast their votes in the interest of the Democratic Party, all open measures against them would be immediately suspended and their rights as American citizens recognized. But as to the real results of such a state of affairs, and speaking in behalf of those with whom I am conversant, I can only say that we love freedom more, vastly more, than slavery. Consequently, we hope to keep clear of the Democrats! I say to the entire membership of the Democratic Party, that upon your hands rests the blood of the loyal men of the south. Disclaim it as you will; the stain is there to prove your criminality before God and the world in the day of retribution."

"It is a sad state of affairs when we have a culture that rightly hates slavery and looks back upon our history of enslaving an entire people group with revulsion and horror and yet, apparently, cannot see that we are doing the exact same thing with a different group of people. We have dehumanized the unborn and turned them into legal property to be kept or discarded at the whim of the 'owner' just as we did for blacks in the days of slavery. It was a shame then and it is a shame now. It must stop. We have to recognize and protect the inherent human rights of all human beings, regardless of race, age, gender, disability, or location."

"The middle of the fourth millennium B.C. is the period at which Neolithic society in the great eastern river valleys developed the first form of civilization. ...For understanding how the impressive technological achievements of the early civilizations were brought about, it is important to notice that, even when the tiller of the soil was regarded as a free man rather than as a serf, forced labor on public works was commonly exacted (in Egypt it was still customary when de Lesseps began to dig the Suez Canal)... we may trace from this period the growth of slavery, which had its origin at the stage when it first paid to keep captives alive because their work was worth more than their keep. Every war produced its quota of human plunder; traders, too, dealt rapidly in a commodity that could carry itself to market; and within the community enslavement was commonly the fate of the criminal and the debtor. Slaves of the god or of his temple and of the king or of his state provided a numerous body of workers, sometimes well trained and often cruelly exploited, while throughout ancient history almost every reference to agriculture or industry in civilized countries must be taken to imply the employment of slaves, usually in small numbers, alongside farmers and craftsmen enjoying different degrees of personal freedom."

"Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil."

"“Can you teach slavery without it being psychologically violent to the children? The answer is no, violence will occur and is expected,” he said. “The key is the recognition of white supremacy and [of] the humanity of black people that helps aid in the complexity of the subject.”"

"While the rest of the western world followed an historic trajectory dedicated to abolishing slavery and bringing an expanded meaning to the concepts of human rights and participatory democracy, the south marched off in an opposite direction. The Confederacy was a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are not created equal, and that the government's job is to preserve and ensure that inequality."

"Although they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave."

"It is utterly impossible for us, as finite beings, with the utmost stretch of the imagination, to conceive the depth and immensity of the horrors of slavery."

"Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition."

"Now, a man who becomes the slave of another does not give himself; he sells himself, at the least for his subsistence: but for what does a people sell itself? A king is so far from furnishing his subjects with their subsistence that he gets his own only from them; and, according to Rabelais, kings do not live on nothing. Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king takes their goods also? I fail to see what they have left to preserve."

"The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death?"

"From whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: “I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like.”"

"Grotius and the rest find in war another origin for the so-called right of slavery. The victor having, as they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back his life at the price of his liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate because it is to the advantage of both parties. But it is clear that this supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the state of war."

"What we’ve been hearing from the panelists is how the global food system works right now... It’s based on a radical denial of the economic rights of poor people... We’ve just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty. Yet we don’t seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870, King Leopold of Belgium created a slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government of Belgium ran the colony for another 50 years. In 1961, after independence of the DRC, the CIA then assassinated the DRC’s first popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, and installed a US-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years. And in recent years, Glencore and other multinational companies suck out the DRC’s cobalt without paying a level of royalties and taxes. We simply don’t reflect on the real history of the DRC and other poor countries struggling to escape from poverty. Instead, we point fingers at these countries and say, “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you govern yourselves properly?”"

"Poor Daniel was lame in the hip, and could not keep up with the rest of the slaves; and our master would order him to be stripped and laid down on the ground, and have him beaten with a rod of rough briar till his skin was quite red and raw... This poor man's wounds were never healed and I have often seen them full of maggots…He was an object of pity and terror to the whole gang of slaves, and in his wretched case we saw, each of us, our own lot, if we should live to be as old.""