MICHAEL HILL outlines the practices of human slavery through history and suggests that it is now our turn to take action in abolishing it yet again. 

Paul’s Letter to Philemon in the New Testament has a revolutionary message. Philemon was a wealthy Christian and clearly a good friend of Paul. Paul is unusually careful in broaching a delicate topic to him. One of Philemon’s slaves, Onesimus, has run away from his owner and taken refuge with Paul in Rome. During that time Onesimus has become a Christian and has been baptised. Paul is returning him to Philemon, no longer just a slave but as a brother in Christ.

The message for Philemon is that baptism is totally transforming. Onesimus has become a new person. So how is Philemon going to treat him now? In the Roman world there were literally millions of slaves as the whole economy of society was based on slavery. A slave had no rights. He or she was the property of the owner, who could punish an unsatisfactory slave even to the extent of taking their life. And for the slave to abscond was a seriously punishable offence.

Origins of Slavery

Wars, slavery and instances of cruelty appear in all the earliest historical records. The Sumerians in the third millennium before Christ had slaves. Slavery probably began as a consequence of war between peoples. The victors either put the vanquished to death or enslaved them. The development of agriculture created surpluses of food so slaves could be fed. In return, they were made to do much of the hard manual work, the females being employed as domestic workers. The development of mining and quarrying simply increased the demand. If prisoners of war did not provide sufficient numbers, then piracy could provide an alternative supply.

The Pharaohs needed thousands of slaves to build their pyramids.

Roman society depended on slavery — as Paul’s letter indicates — as did the Greeks.

The Greeks had a highly enlightened culture, yet they still took slavery for granted. Plato left five slaves in his will and Aristotle owned 14. No one seemed to question whether it was ethical to treat another human being as a commodity to be bought and sold like a cattle beast.

The coming of Christianity did not significantly change this. It was certainly seen as a virtuous thing to treat slaves well. Slaves were often set free by the Romans: they became “freedmen”. Slaves could purchase their freedom or were given it for services rendered and this became more common with the spread of Christianity.

Callixtus at the end of the second century had been a slave and became Pope. The Emperor Diocletian had been born a slave.

Decline of European Slavery

In the course of time the institution of slavery declined. The evolution of the feudal system in mediaeval Europe saw the end of slavery in agriculture, although the so-called serfs at the bottom of society were scarcely any better off, except that they could own land and come and go as they liked.

However, the galleys in the Mediterranean continued to be propelled by galley slaves, usually captured Africans or prisoners of war.

Trade in African Slaves

However the ending of slavery in Europe did not halt the evil in other parts of the world; it simply displaced it. Business entrepreneurs in England, France and Spain established the incredibly lucrative Atlantic slave trade.

The wealth of the city of Liverpool was founded on this trade, with hundreds of ships every year engaged in the transport of human cargo from Africa to the Caribbean, to the southern states of the USA and to parts of South America.

The voyage of the slavers formed a triangle. Ships set out from Liverpool with cotton goods and all manner of manufactured articles. On the coast of Africa these items were traded for slaves, who were then carried across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and the Americas. Those slaves who survived the murderous conditions of the notorious “middle passage” — mortality was on average 25 per cent — were then sold on for the sugar and tobacco, cultivated by the slaves. This was then carried back to Liverpool.

Vast fortunes were made by the English aristocracy who owned the ships and plantations, but little publicity was given to the barbarity and cruelty rife in those ships and plantations. The wealth generated by this trade created an entrenched vested interest, opposing any attempts to improve the lot of slaves or challenge the system. “Out of sight, out of mind”.

Even the Quakers were for a time supporters of the trade: they needed the sugar to make their chocolate.

English Campaign Against Slavery

The campaign in England to do away with slavery arose from Methodist reformers known as the Clapham Circle, whose leaders were Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce.

Clarkson was an intrepid and courageous researcher who amassed the damning evidence of the heinous crimes against humanity clandestinely carried out by the slavers.

Wilberforce was the political voice who used all the evidence to campaign and persuade the House of Commons — over 45 years. Eventually he succeeded in getting the legislation passed, firstly to ban the trade itself on British ships (in 1807) and then finally to abolish slavery in all British possessions (in 1834).

Wilberforce was driven by his ardent Christian faith. He was a gifted orator, regarded as the finest speaker in a golden age of parliamentary oratory. When the 1807 Bill was before the House of Commons Wilberforce spoke for three hours and it is said that his audience at the end was still hungry for more.

The campaigning of the Clapham Circle was also successful in mobilising public opinion, bombarding Parliament by petitions with thousands of signatures demanding an end to the slave trade. Of course, success in England did not mean other countries would also abolish slavery, but such was the influence of Britain after the end of the Napoleonic Wars that it was only a matter of time before the rest of Europe followed suit.

American Campaign Against Slavery

The campaign for the abolition of slavery in America goes back to the powerful advocacy of Benjamin Franklin. The American Civil War was fought largely over the slave issue and the final abolition was one of the achievements of Abraham Lincoln. Sadly, the proper emancipation of black Americans had to wait until the campaigning of Martin Luther King, who was assassinated in 1968.

The banning of slavery in the West represented the ending of an evil tradition thousands of years old. It was an immense achievement. Is there a lesson for us today? In fact, we have a modern parallel in the outlawing of nuclear activity by the Lange Labour government. Such political actions have to be based either on a sound philosophy or the lessons of the Gospel. And for a society to change successfully there needs to be a reliable political process and a consensus accepting the rule of law.

Trafficking Today

Today we are aware that slavery and human trafficking have erupted again across the world — for the sex industry, work-forces and for profit. As of old it is a well-organised, clandestine and very profitable industry. Our contemporary challenge is to establish a commonwealth of nations where the principles of human freedom for every person are upheld fiercely. This is what we want from our Churches and Faiths. And it is what the United Nations must take on if all people are to have freedom, respect and opportunity.

Published in Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 209 October 2016.