Slavery is a terrible thing …
“Slavery has existed for millennia in varying forms in all parts of the world. Affecting all races, gender and age groups.”
“The oldest known slave society was the Mesopotamian and Sumerian civilisations located in the Iran/Iraq region between 6000-2000BCE.”
“Egypt was also another civilisation whose economy also depended on slavery.” (History Press, UK) “There were no slave markets and any transaction of buying or selling slaves had to be overseen by government officials.”
“There is also the famous biblical narrative of the Exodus whereby the Israelites were led to freedom by Moses with archaeologists theorising that this may have happened in the New Kingdom period (1550-712 BC).” (History Press, UK)
On the Americas continent, “The Maya [c. 250 – c. 1697 CE] and Aztec [1300 to 1521] took captives to use as sacrificial victims.” (Resendez)
Slavery existed in North America long before the first Africans arrived at Jamestown in 1619. (Harvard University Press) “Slavery was practiced by the Native Americans before any Europeans arrived in the region.”
“People of one tribe could be taken by another for a variety of reasons but, whatever the reason, it was understood that the enslaved had done something – staked himself in a gamble and lost or allowed himself to be captured – to warrant such treatment.” (Mark)
“Native American tribes were incredibly diverse, each with their own culture, and far from the cohesive, unified civilization they are often represented as under the umbrella term ‘Native American’ or ‘American Indian’.”
“Each tribe understood itself as inherently superior to others and although they would form alliances for short periods in a common cause, or for longer periods as confederacies, they frequently warred with each other for goods, in the name of tribal honor, and for captives, among other reasons.”
“Men, women, and children taken captive were then enslaved by the victorious tribe, sometimes for life”. (Mark) “Indigenous slavery long predated the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. … In the 15th century, Portugal became the first European nation to take significant part in African slave trading.” (College of Charleston)
“By the 1480s, Portuguese ships were already transporting Africans for use as slaves on the sugar plantations in the Cape Verde and Madeira islands in the eastern Atlantic.” (Britannica)
“By the 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the early trans-Atlantic slave trade on the African coast. … When English, Dutch or French privateers captured Portuguese ships during Atlantic maritime conflicts, they often found enslaved Africans on these ships, as well as Atlantic trade goods, and they sent these captives to work in their own colonies.” (LDHI, College of Charleston)
“There was a class of people in the Hawaiian Islands who were called kauwā, slaves. … The people who were really and in fact kauwā were those who were born to that condition and whose ancestors were such before them.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)
“[T]he Paramount Chief (Ali’i Nui) fulfilled the role of father to this people … At the other extreme of the social order were the despised kauwā, who were outcasts …”
“… compelled to live in a barren locality apart from the tribesmen or people “belonging to the land” (ma-ka-‘aina-na), and whose only function and destiny was to serve as human sacrifices to the Ali’i’s war god Ku when a Luakini or war temple was dedicated in anticipation of a season of fighting.” (Handy & Pukui)
“When in need of a victim for human sacrifice at the war temple a priest would go to the boundary of the kauwā reservation and summon a victim. The man summoned could not refuse.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)
Kepelino gives a description of kauwā under the title ‘The Slave Class,’ as follows: “The slaves or kauwā were people set apart from the rest and treated like filthy beasts. They could not associate with other men. They were called ‘corpses,’ that is, foul-smelling things.”
“They were not allowed to marry outside their own class. If they were married and bore children to one not a slave, then all those children would have their necks wrung lest disgrace come to the family and the blot be handed down to their descendants.”
“The slaves were considered an evil here in Hawaii. They increased rapidly, – a thousand or more there were. They continued to give birth from the time of their ancestors until the present time, they could not become extinct.”
“The slaves were so tabu that they could not bare their heads but must cover themselves with a wide piece of tapa with great humility and never look up.”
“They were so tabu that they were not permitted to enter the house-lot of other men. If they wished for anything they came outside the enclosure and spoke. But to the place of their Chief who was their master they were at liberty to go.”
“There were slave lands in every district of the islands, as, for example, Ka-lae-mamo in Kona on Hawaii, Makeanehu in Kohala, and so forth.” (Kepelino)
“When the ancient system of kapu was abandoned in Liholiho’s reign, the humiliation of the kauwā ended, and they merged with the maka‘ainana gradually over the years.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)
