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Concept
History of slavery
Summary
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of enslaved people have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.
Slavery has been found in some hunter-gatherer populations, particularly as hereditary slavery, but the conditions of agriculture with increasing social and economic complexity offer greater opportunity for mass chattel slavery. Slavery was institutionalized by the time the first civilizations emerged (such as Sumer in Mesopotamia, which dates back as far as 3500 BC). Slavery features in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC), which refers to it as an established institution.
Slavery was widespread in the ancient world in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa. It became less common throughout Europe during the Early Middle Ages, although it continued to be practised in some areas. Both Christians and Muslims captured and enslaved each other during centuries of warfare in the Mediterranean and Europe. Islamic slavery encompassed mainly Western and Central Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, India, and Europe from the 7th to the 20th century.
Beginning in the 16th century, European merchants, starting mainly with merchants from Portugal, initiated the transatlantic slave trade. Few traders ventured far inland, attempting to avoid tropical diseases and violence. They mostly purchased imprisoned Africans (and export commodities including gold and ivory) from West African kingdoms, transporting them to Europe's colonies in the Americas. The merchants were sources of desired goods including guns, gunpowder, copper manillas, and cloth, and this demand for imported goods drove local wars and other means to the enslavement of Africans in ever greater numbers. In India and throughout the New World, people were forced into slavery to create the local work force.
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Ontological neighbourhood