Although racism was used as a justification for slavery after the American Revolution, in the old world, slavery was not caused by racism but instead, slavery rigidly defined racism after it was institutionalized. Slavery in the Old World had tremendous impacts on the enslavers and the enslaved. In the Old World, sugar and cotton played a big role in the economy and how planters treated their slaves. Because they needed to meet the intensive labor standards for growing sugar, they had to use means that they could not justify in the end. First of all, in the Old World, because slaves held important jobs such as public servants and craftsmen, their race did not matter to the slaveholders. Secondly, To maximize profit and increase productivity planters bought slaves rather of employing day laborers. Subsequently, in Old World slavery the people who were enslaved were not chosen because of their race, instead, it was simply a matter of the availability, socioeconomic standard and if they were native to the country or empire they were enslaved from.
Although racism was used as a justification for slavery after the American Revolution, in the old world, slavery was not caused by racism but instead, slavery rigidly defined racism after it was institutionalized. First of all, in the Old World, because slaves held important jobs such as public servants and craftsmen, therefore their race did not matter to the slaveholders. Kevin Reilly, the author of Is Racism Universal or Recent, states that “Black people, especially, were viewed favorably by the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans”(12). In fact, some Africans were even frequently praised for their beauty, fighting ability, and civilization. Because they were not viewed as inferior to other people working as slaves, they could not have been discriminated against before they were used for manual labor.
Furthermore, Reilly goes on to say that “Since slaves could not be identified as a single physical type, the Romans did not develop racist ideas about slavery”(13). Reilly reinforces the idea that slaves were not seen as inferior because, in the Roman era, slaves could have many different characteristics, therefore, they could not be identified as one single race and people could not discriminate against slaves. Moreover, in the Old World, slaves held many jobs. “In ancient Mesopotamia, slaves were used chiefly as domestic servants, agriculture workers, or craftsmen”(Kagan, 150). Since the average person only had 1-2 slaves, slaveholders worked alongside their slaves, if the slaves had a job in agriculture. When slaveholders worked alongside their slaves, they were being ‘degraded’ to the same level of work as those who worked for them.
Additionally, slavery in the old world was not linear. In other words,“…in Africa slavery was rarely linear and hereditary over the courses of generations”(Berlin, 53). If slavery was not passed on from generation to generation, then people had rights that protected them from random transfer into slavery. Berlin later states that some slaves rose to positions of power and became soldiers and administrators. From these positions, slaves could be partially sometimes fully incorporated into the community. Comparatively, when there was no discrimination against slaves, people got along with them very well. “…the absence of racial prejudice led to high rates of intermarriage and absorption of slaves into the general population”(Spodek, 494). Spodek refers to the Islamic people when he says this and even though slavery in the Islamic world was different than slavery in Europe, Muslims still enslaved large groups of people which made it more likely for them to develop discriminatory ideas, however, this did not happen.
Therefore, because slaves in the Old World held important jobs and, eventually, were integrated into regular society, race was did not matter to slaveholders in a way that would be destructive to their relationship. To maximize profit and increase productivity planters bought slaves rather of employing day laborers. Chattel slavery, which is slavery that is passed down and hereditary, was not only supported by European monarchs but it was also very popular in the old world. In this form of slavery, slaves were also treated as property degrading their status. According, William Belgrove, author of A Treatise Upon Husbandry or Planting, a sugar plantation of 500 acres of land would require 300 slaves and “A proper room to confine disorderly negros”(Document 6). The note at the bottom of the page says that the average cost for a day laborer was 14 pence a day amounting to about 18 pounds a year. Instead of having to pay people daily planters only had to pay a one-time-fee which was more fiscally responsible. In fact, planters were so “[E]ager for the profits that sugar mills produced, [they] drove their slaves hard, pushing mortality rates to horrific heights and leaving slaves few opportunities to establish families, participate in independent economies, or create lives of their own”(Berlin, 53).
When slaves had cost such little money planters had the freedom to push the slaves as hard as they wanted thus causing racist feeling towards them. They realized that it would be cheaper for them to work slaves to their limits until they died of exhaustion than to pay for proper housing, food, and other necessities. The reason slaves were put to work in poor conditions, however, was because of sugar. When sugar was first introduced into the old world it was so addictive that “…once touching the nerves of taste no person was ever known to have the power of relinquishing the desire for it”(Mosely, Document 3b). The money planters earned from growing a crop in such high demand was directly related to buying more slaves. The more slaves they bought, the more money they had and with that money, they did things to expand their ‘empire’ even more.
Eric Williams, Author of Capitalism and Slavery, took note that Charles Long, the man with the largest plantation in Jamaica, owned more than 14,000 acres of land. Similarly, Robert Hibbert and John Gladstone both had well over a thousand slaves which were eventually freed and their families received 31,120 and 85,600 pounds in compensation. Not only does this mean that slaveowners left a huge dent in the economy because of their slaves but they also precedented many things, such as the way they treat their slaves, for the generations of slaveowners to come. Additionally, in Atlantic slavery the people who were enslaved were not chosen because of their race, instead, it was simply a matter of the availability, socioeconomic standard and whether were native to the country or empire they were enslaved in. It was hard to pin the people who had been enslaved because when Africans were undergoing vast changes during the time of the slave trade many of them took a name for themselves.
Soon after chaos created by the slave trade–many manmade disasters broke out such as wars, abductions, etc. “African peoples moved frantically within the continent. families, villages, and nations that had been decimated joined with one another, embracing new identities from the fusion of once distinct people.”(Berlin, 51). Additionally the migrants themselves evolved. They learnt new languages, made new friends and enemies and slowly assimilated into other societies. The reason Europeans turned to Africa for their slaves, however, was simply the accessibility of them. When the crusades were going on during the 12th century, crusader states had been established at the eastern side of the medditerranian.People who were enslaved were not chosen at random, but the process wasn’t entirely linear either. Race had nothing to do with the matter of who was enslaved. In fact, “Elizabethan attitudes towards African blacks did not constitute racism and cannot explain the origins of slavery in North America”(Campbell and Oakes, 76).
The Elizabethan era refers to the period of time when Queen Elizabeth I was the monarch of England; to be exact, it was from 1558 to 1603. This was the prime time for moving slaves across the Atlantic to have them work on sugar plantations. People living in England during the Elizabethan era saw skin color as a consequence for climate and subject to change. They didn’t think that Africans’ race meant that Africans were inferior to them and that this was unchangeable. When one was discriminating against a particular race, the English thought it was cultural curiosity caused by their environment.
