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Authors: Bernard Lewis

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The present volume incorporates most of what was said in my early treatments. This has, however, been extensively revised, expanded, and recast,
and a considerable body of new material added, including several new chapters, making it a new book dealing with a related but different topic. I have
also added a documentary appendix, translated, where necessary, from the
original languages. Some of the documents included in the French edition
have been omitted, as they are already available elsewhere in English in print.
Others have been added, including several translated for this purpose.

There remains the pleasant task of thanking those who have, in various
ways, contributed to the completion of this book. My thanks are due to the
authorities of the Public Record Office, the India Office Records, and the
British Library in London; the Topkapi Saray Museum in Istanbul; the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; and Mr. Arthur A. Houghton, for permission to
reproduce documents and pictures in their possession. Crown copyright mate rial in the Public Record Office and the India Office Records is reproduced by
permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

I am indebted to David Goldenberg, John B. Kelly, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh,
and Michel Le Gall for suggestions and help of various kinds. Above all, I
would like to record my profound gratitude and appreciation to my assistant
Leigh Faden, for her untiring and highly effective work in the preparation and
numerous revisions of my text, to my research assistant Jonathan Berkey,
whose scholarly knowledge and unstinting efforts in many ways lightened the
labor of both research and writing and improved the quality of the results, and
to both of them for preparing the index. Whatever faults and errors remain
are entirely my own.

August 1989

 

1. Slavery,
3

2. Race,
16

3. Islam in Arabia,
21

4. Prejudice and Piety, Literature and Law,
28

5. Conquest and Enslavement,
37

6. Ventures in Ethnology,
43

7. The Discovery of Africa,
50

8. In Black and White,
54

9. Slaves in Arms,
62

10. The Nineteenth Century and After,
72

11. Abolition,
78

12. Equality and Marriage,
85

13. Image and Stereotype,
92

14. Myth and Reality,
99

Notes,
103

Documents,
141

Sources of Illustrations,
170

Index,
173

 
 

In 1842 the British Consul General in Morocco, as part of his government's
worldwide endeavor to bring about the abolition of slavery or at least the
curtailment of the slave trade, made representations to the sultan of that
country asking him what measures, if any, he had taken to accomplish this
desirable objective. The sultan replied, in a letter expressing evident astonishment, that "the traffic in slaves is a matter on which all sects and nations have
agreed from the time of the sons of Adam . . . up to this day." The sultan
continued that he was "not aware of its being prohibited by the laws of any
sect, and no one need ask this question, the same being manifest to both high
and low and requires no more demonstration than the light of day."'

The sultan was only slightly out of date concerning the enactment of laws
to abolish or limit the slave trade, and he was sadly right in his general historic
perspective. The institution of slavery had indeed been practiced from time
immemorial. It existed in all the ancient civilizations of Asia, Africa, Europe,
and pre-Columbian America. It had been accepted and even endorsed by
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as other religions of the world.

In the ancient Middle East, as elsewhere, slavery is attested from the very
earliest written records, among the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and other ancient peoples.` The earliest slaves, it would seem, were
captives taken in warfare. Their numbers were augmented from other sources
of supply. In pre-classical antiquity, most slaves appear to have been the
property of kings, priests, and temples, and only a relatively small proportion
were in private possession. They were employed to till the fields and tend the
flocks of their royal and priestly masters but otherwise seem to have played
little role in economic production, which was mostly left to small farmers,
tenants, and sharecroppers and to artisans and journeymen. The slave popula tion was also recruited by the sale, abandonment, or kidnapping of small
children. Free persons could sell themselves or, more frequently, their offspring into slavery. They could be enslaved for insolvency, as could be the
persons offered by them as pledges. In some systems, notably that of Rome,.'
free persons could also be enslaved for a variety of offenses against the law.

Both the Old and New Testaments recognize and accept the institution of
slavery. Both from time to time insist on the basic humanity of the slave, and
the consequent need to treat him humanely. The Jews are frequently reminded, in both Bible and Talmud.' that they too were slaves in Egypt and
should therefore treat their slaves decently. Psalm 123, which compares the
worshipper's appeal to God for mercy with the slave's appeal to his master, is
cited to enjoin slaveowners to treat their slaves with compassion.5 A verse in
the book of Job has even been interpreted as an argument against slavery as
such: "Did not He that made me in the womb make him [the slave]? And did
not One fashion us both?" (Job 31:15). This probably means no more, however, than that the slave is a fellow human being and not it mere chattel.' The
same is true of the much-quoted passage in the New Testament, that "there is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."' These and similar verses were
not understood to mean that ethnic, social, and gender differences were unimportant or should be abolished, only that they conferred no religious privilege. From many allusions, it is clear that slavery is accepted in the New
Testament as a fact of life.' Some passages in the Pauline Epistles even endorse it. Thus in the Epistle to Philemon, a runaway slave is returned to his
master; in Ephesians 6, the duty owed by a slave to his master is compared
with the duty owed by a child to his parent, and the slave is enjoined "to he
obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh, in fear and
trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ." Parents and masters
are likewise enjoined to show consideration for their children and slaves.' All
humans, of the true faith, were equal in the eyes of God and in the afterlife
but not necessarily in the laws of man and in this world. Those not of the true
faith-whichever it was-were in another, and in most respects an inferior,
category. In this respect, the Greek perception of the barbarian and the
Judeo-Christian-Islamic perception of the unbeliever coincide.

There appear indeed to have been some who opposed slavery, usually as it
was practiced but sometimes even as such. In the Greco-Roman world, both
the Cynics and the Stoics are said to have rejected slavery as contrary to
justice, some basing their opposition on the unity of the human race, and the
Roman jurists even held that slavery was contrary to nature and maintained
only by "human" law. There is no evidence that either jurists or philosophers
sought its abolition, and even their theoretical opposition has been questioned. Much of it was concerned with moral and spiritual themes-the true
freedom of the good man, even when enslaved, and the enslavement of the
evil freeman to his passions. These ideas, which recur in Jewish and Christian
writings, were of little help to those who suffered the reality of slavery."'
Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, claims that a Jewish sect actually renounced slavery in practice. In a somewhat idealized account of the Essenes, he observes that they practiced a form of primitive communism, sharing homes and property and pooling their earnings. Furthermore,

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