Blackwell Reference Online

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Slavery constitutes the unconditional servitude of an individual usually acquired by purchase and often legally described as chattel or a tangible form of movable property. An ancient form of subordination and labor organization, slavery has been practiced at some time or the other by most social groups around the world. The tradition of slavery is extremely old. Nevertheless, the variants of slavery in the American hemisphere were unusual in many respects. In the Americas slavery became identified with immigrant Africans. It constituted major international commerce involving Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It transformed the economy of the Americas as well as the demography, ecology, and culture of many regions. American slavery was closely identified with property rights, and with social segmentation resulting in mutually reinforcing social cleavages in the more developed slave societies of the hemisphere.From ancient antiquity slavery constituted an important dimension of social and occupational organization (Finley 1998). The word originated with the sale of Slavs to the Black Sea region sometime during the ninth century and continued to exist in European society until the nineteenth century. Enslavement became the principal source of labor during the process of European colonization (Vieira 2002). Within Europe, however, slavery transformed itself into serfdom, a system of ... log in or subscribe to read full text