/u/textandtrowel

I didn't realise slave raiding and trading was much of a thing under Charlemagne, though I did know of slavery existing in the Empire. How big was raiding and trading on the Empire's behalf? Were the slaves in the Empire mostly captured in Charlemagne's campaigns, or were they purchased from external sources? Could slaves gain their freedom and, if so, what was their status after being freed?

Also, reading through some sections of the Polyptych of Irminon that have been translated into English, I've noticed that a number of free women were married to slave men. Why would free women marry slave men? What advantages did it gain them?

Edit: A third and final question: what books or articles would you recommend from your area of study?

/u/sunagainstgold

What were the main sources of slaves for the late medieval Atlantic slave trade, who traded them, where were they traded to, and what, if anything, were they traded for/what did the slavers use as cargo for the return journey.

Was there any flow of slaves from the Mediterranean back into the Atlantic, or was it only one way?

So. What was Robert E. Lee complicity in the slave raiding that went on during the invasion of Pennsylvania?

I've always been curious how the people who were shipped to America ended up as slaves. Were the Europeans attacking/kidnapping Africans, or did they buy slaves from other Africans? Who was the average slave before he/she became a slave? Was it common to have slaves in Africa at the time? How did they look at slavery there?

To start things rolling, I'm looking for any good readings on slave transport, broadly stated. I'm a big fan of Robert Harms' The Diligent (2002), which tells the story of a single slave voyage from an amazing variety of perspectives. I especially like the balance that Harms strikes between the experience of the captors and the experience of the captives, and I'm interested in doing a comparative study focused on the captor/captive experience of Viking-Age ships and towns. But that means I need to deepen my knowledge of the Atlantic (or other) transportation systems—any recommendations are welcome!

/u/Georgy_K_Zhukov, /u/uncovered-history

I'm doing a research paper on the influence of slaves on American BBQ. I was wondering if either of you could offer some information on slave diets, or had some primary source documents such as recipe books or the cuts of meat that were given to slaves. Ideally, I would like to trace back the roots of Texas or New Orleans bbq to their slave roots and how over time southerners and slaves shared this style of cooking.

/u/sunagainstgold do we know of any late Byzantine or Greek under Ottoman or Venetian occupation involved in the trade?

Here in Brazil we learn in the history classes that the african slave trade was much more due to its extremely lucrative nature than anything else. Was money the core reason for their slavery after all? Did europeans initially believe themselves superior to the people of Africa in the late 15th/early 16th century?

Also, was slavery a thing in continental Europe in the High Middle Ages? If so, who was enslaved by whom and for what purpose?

In the US: How did Native Americans acquire African slaves? Steal them from plantations, capture escaped slaves or were they actually allowed to purchase them at auction?

I wonder if anyone can talk about the practice of slavery under Arab empires. I know there was an African and a European version of slavery. How did the two differ? In what ways did it differ from the American slave trade?

Did Brazilian slave owners ever discover the truth about capoeira? And were there any similar situations in other slave communities, in regards to a hidden development of martial arts?

Thank you Panelists for taking time to answer our questions today.

I would like to know if you can explain how slavery worked in the Viking Kingdoms. Was it common for slaves to be treated well as we see in TV and movies or was slavery under the Vikings more brutal and 'typical'?

I hope I'm not too late! I'm always somewhat taken aback by threads like this one involving questions on the Latin Mediterranean slave trade that often peter out with users agreeing that the definition of "Slave" and modes of servitude and bondage in Western Europe are too ambiguous to discuss uniformly, seeing as even people with extensive knowledge on the society and culture of premodern Europe only ever encounter references to enslavement in passing.

So my question is, what did the "Latin" slave trade look like in the mediterranean in the pre-modern era, if there was one at all? When was it most florid and why did it peter out?

Who worked Potosi? Were they legally slaves? Did the distinction make a practical difference for their living and working condition?

First off, thank you all for taking the time to do this! I wanted to ask about slavery, in the Mediterranean, around the 16th century - a subject i am shaky on so i hope you will forgive me for any errors in my asking.

How did views and the practice of slavery differ between Europe and the Ottoman Empire at this time?

How did religion, notably Christianity or Islam, affect the treatment, handling, and collection of slaves?

I have the impression that there were a number of jobs (rowers aboard a galley for example) that were so thoroughly unpleasant that it seems as though the humanity of a slave during this time meant just as little as what was seen in the Atlantic slave trade. Is this a misapprehension?

Thank you again!

My question might not be best suited for this AMA panel, but I will try my luck with it anyway. This question is directed towards /u/textandtrowel however everyone else who might have an answer is welcome to contribute.

Couple of months ago I was reading about the connection between English word for a slave and the Slavs. What I read was that, because there were a lot of Slavs taken prisoner and sold as slaves, that is why the word slave comes from the name used for Slavs. Also a lot of other European languages use a similar word for slaves.

Back then I did some more digging and found some more opinions on how the word slave doesn't actually come from the word used for Slavs.

Now my question is what is the most likely truth regarding this, since I read some conflicting opinions about it. Did the word used for slaves in a lot of European countries come from the word used for Slavic people or is there some other origin of this word?

Thank you for you answers in advance.

Can you explain what the Medieval Islamic Slave Trade was and add some misconceptions the public has of it due to people soapboxing political agendas online? Thanks!

I've always been interested in slavery in medieval Europe (I mean, the latter middle ages, 1000-1400-ish). What we learned in school always made it seem like slavery just wasn't a thing in Christian Europe; there were serfs of course, who might have to do unpaid labour, but they weren't bought and sold. And yet, this isn't really true. In the 11th century, a Bishop was complaining about the monstrous Bristol slave trade. Venice made a lot of money selling slaves. And I think maybe the Byzantines had slaves? I also read about Scottish slave raids on England. So, in Christian Europe between say, 1100-1400, were Christians enslaving each other? What did they do with said slaves? How common was it? I have these bits of knowledge that don't fit the "no slavery" idea, but no context to put them together.

Who is the earliest abolitionist known to history? Who was the first person we know of to argue that slavery is wrong in principle?

Engerman, Fogel, Time on the Cross... When it came out in the '70s, it was obviously hugely controversial, and I have a few questions!

First, with regards to TotC, there was obviously HUGE pushback against parts of the thesis, which, as far as I'm aware, has pretty much been rejected, but am I mistaken that this is only for parts? The main issues from what criticisms I've read relate to their comparisons of the quality of life and treatment of the slaves. Does the work still stand up well in other aspects, especially the aspect of the study concerning profitability/viability?

Which brings me to the second question, about Fogel and Engerman themselves, namely, how was (has) their later work been generally recieved? It seems that both continued to write on American slavery from an economics focus, in some regards responding to the critics of TotC, and also as new works, and I've seen other works by them cited approvingly, so am curious about their later careers given the 'bang' which brought them into the public eye.

I'm sorry that I might be asking out of your fields, but I'm fairly interested in the Barbary Pirates and the slaving they did. Are there any good sources you recommend on the topic that are fairly objective?

Also, I remember seeing an engraving in which Christian slaves were rescued from the Barbarians(...?). I vaguely remember how shocked the rescuer was at finding Christian slaves. Was the enslavement of Christians something that was truly viewed with disgust in European society at that time? If there was a negative reaction at the time, were they at least aware of the irony at the fact that Africans were still being used as slaves, but that society didn't seem to care (from what I've assumed)? Here is the image, by the way. Apparently it's from 1815

/u/textandtrowel The Icelandic Sagas, written in 13th and 14th century but feature stories occurring much sooner, frequently mention slavery. They quite often depict a strong personal relationship between a slave and its owner or the immidiate family of the owner - they seem to be seen as lesser family member. Would that make sense in actual slavery as an institution in 10th century Scandinavia?

What were the price trends of slaves (and different kinds of slaves) in the United States from Revolution until the Civil War?

How did mechanization and other factors affect slave prices?

Did any slave holding society prohibit corporeal punishment of slaves? Would such a slave system even work?

What kind of advantages did the 4 loyal Northern slaveholding states get in their abolition of slavery that made their economic transition easier than the South, if any? How did that work out for them?

Are there studies / books on Southern slave masters and their sexual relations with their slave women? How about on the children born of these relations?

/u/freedmenspatrol can you talk about the extent that the fear of new Free States limited Manifest Destiny and other plans for American expansion? And I've even heard it said that if not for the fear of new states north of the Mason-Dixon line, Canada may have joined the US. Is there any truth to that?

How did slavery work in societies other than new-world settler colonies? In particular, I have the perception that slavery in the ancient world was somehow a less permanent economic condition. What did slavery mean in societies where it was not defined along such explicitly racial terms?

What was slavery in the Far East like?

I have a question that may be a bit out of left field. I am aware that Portugal had an network of outposts and colonies in Southeast Asia like Macau, Gao, and Malacca. I believe there are accounts of the Portuguese selling locals into slavery abroad, like taking a Japanese woman and selling her in Gao for example. Can anyone go into detail about these operations and the scope that they reached?

Sorry to being late. I hope /u/sunagainstgold and /u/textandtrowel won't mind me to ping them.

I've that perception that slavery in the Christian and Muslim worlds during the Middle Ages was something that officially you didn't inflict to those who were sharing your religion. Is that idea based in reality or is it a misconception? If there is a basis for that idea, how well that theory corresponded to the practice, and what kind of justifications were given for the mismatch?

I'm really late to the party, but I was wondering: What ever happened in the case where a slave got sick or injured? Would they have been seen by a human doctor or veterinarian (by my understanding there were​ perceived physiological differences between slaves and their owners, due to the slaves being considered sub-human)? Or would have they been seen at all?

I'm asking more about the US, but this question also applies to other historical settings.

I'd like to ask what, if anything, we know about slavery in East Asian and Southeast Asian societies, i.e China / Japan/ Korea / Thailand / Indonesia / Myanmar?

My own cursory readings of Chinese history is that slavery did exist and at one time was quite common in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but by the time of the Qin/Han period that mass slavery was largely a thing of the past. However household slavery appears to have persisted into the Ming.

Yet this doesn't appear the case in Korea, where up to 30% of the population may have been enslaved as late the 1400s.

Do we know any reasons why slavery's prevalence was different from place to place in East Asia?

Also, does anyone know anything about slavery in Russia, and if this translated into the system of serfdom, or if they developed separately?

How much did different particular kinds of slaves cost in the Barbary markets in the mid to latter 16th century?

Don't know if it's too late to submit a question, but here goes:

I remember hearing, I don't know where, that in Latin America, slave marriages were recognized because in the Catholic Church marriage is a sacrament, so any two Catholics could get it, including slaves, whereas in the U.S. slave marriages weren't recognized by the government because marriage was viewed as a contract and slaves couldn't make contracts, at least without their master's consent. I also remember the article I was reading saying it didn't make all that much practical difference for slaves, though, but I can't remember why (perhaps because families were still broken up?).

Is this accurate? I could be misremembering. Thank you.

EDIT:

Any other discussion on slave marriages and slave resistance to breaking up their families would also be appreciated.

Damn. I missed this AMA. Oh well, better late than never. This is for /u/textandtrowel

Where do you stand on the marxist notion of a Slave/Ancient Mode of Production? All the late antique and early medieval literature I've been reading questions its existence at all as a primary mode, which means all we're really left with is feudal and capitalist mode.

Does the lack of existence of a global slave mode cause problems for marxian economic theory? Or is there a version of some form of a "slave mode" of production still surviving in marxian thought?

Was there a difference in how the slave society operated on Haiti that differentiated it from other French colonies with a heavy slave presence? Was Haiti significant because of its relative size? Did it spark slave revolts or changes in how slavery was run in the Caribbean in general?

How did the relationship between overseers and slaves differ, compared to plantation owners and their slaves? In the Caribbean, and Deep South, on the larger plantations, I assume most slave owners would have delegated most free-slave interactions to overseers? Such as whipping slaves or withholding privileges and the like? Did the plantation owners have a lack of insight on the brutality needed to maintain slavery? I'm not sure how to phrase this, but basically, what was the difference in views on slavery between the "managers" on large plantations, and the owners?

Are there any broad maps or resources available to the public which outline the geographical and chronological realities of slavery throughout the centuries? I.e. Delineating where the given sources/destinations for slaves were in a given century.

I understand the existence of a slave trade in Iberia, in the Black Sea, in the Red Sea, and across the Atlantic, but it's difficult to wrap my head around which of these trades co-existed and which did not.