SLAVERY, an institution, state or condi tion by which certain persons (slaves) are held as the property of other persons (slaveholders) ; also the condition of a human being who is held as the property or chattel of another, who is absolute master of his body and service, sub jecting him wholly to his will and domination. The system is one of great antiquity and was early practised among the Hebrews. It existed among the Assyrians from the earliest recorded times, among the Babylonians, Chinese, Egyp tians and all the ancient peoples. The primi tive religions appear to have all sanctioned the institution. Slaves were obtained by capture, purchase and by breeding. They were often controlled by whipping, branding and were at times subject to cruel punishments and death at the whim of their masters. The females were used without their consent, and beautiful girls and women were sold often at public auction. The slaves of the ancient Romans were either captives or debtors who were unable to pay. In Rome the slave had originally no rights. He could be put to death for the smallest misdemeanor. Slaves were exceedingly numer ous, and latterly almost monopolized all the various handicrafts and occupations, those of the clerk, the doctor and the literary man in cluded. In the time of Augustus a single per son is said to have left at his death over 4,000 slaves. Hosts of slaves were employed in the gladiatorial exhibitions. Slave revolts occurred in 134 and 102 B.C. in Sicily, and a revolt in Italy led by the gladiator Spartacus in 73 a.c. was put down with considerable difficulty. Slaves, however, were often set at liberty, and these freedmen were a well-known class in Rome. But it was not until the time of the em pire that any great change took place in the condition of the slaves. Augustus granted the slave a legal status, and Antoninus took away from the masters the power of life and death over their slaves.
The early Christian Church did nothing to suppress slavery, and slavery and the slave trade continued to exist for 1,000 years in the Christian nations of Europe that arose on the ruins of the Roman Empire. It was not until
the 13th century that the severity of slavery began to decline in Europe. The Koran ex pressly permits the Moslems to acquire slaves by conquest, but this method of acquiring slaves was not resorted to until the Crusades. Previous to the Crusades they kept negro slaves imported from Africa. Latterly the Moham medans began to obtain white slaves not only by war but also by purchase, Rome being the centre of the trade. The Mohammedans of the Barbary states also obtained white slaves by piracy in the Mediterranean. The superiority of the white races in war, and the comparative helplessness of African blacks, led to the com mon practice of invading African coasts and capturing men and women during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
After slavery had become largely reduced in Europe, it had a new birth in the American colonies of European origin. The Portuguese were the first to hunt negroes in the interior of Africa for use as slaves in the colonies. The first shipment of negroes to the New World took place in 1503, when the Portuguese landed some in Santo Domingo. The first shipload of slaves to the United States was landed at Jamestown, Va., in 1619. From that time to the 19th century a traffic in negroes across the Atlantic was carried on by all the Christian co lonial powers. Slavery in the British posses sions was abolished in 1838, £20,000.000 ster ling being paid in compensation to the slave holders; but it was not abolished in her West Indian colonies until 1839, and in India in 1843. Sweden abolished in 1846, France in 1848, Holland in 1859, Brazil in 1871, Porto Rico in 1873 and Cuba in 1880; African protec torates in 1897 and 1901, the Philippines in 1902. Mohammedan countries and Portuguese de pendencies still cling to the institution in 1918.