All Fun and Games

Wanton cruelty in the treatment of slaves was forbidden by the Code of Hammurabi, one of the most famous of ancient documents. It was promulgated in the King's name in Babylonia sometime between 2100 and 1800 B.C. The code, however, stipulated that slaves were to be branded on the forehead and forbidden to hide or mask the mark. (source)

Slavery was a universal institution throughout ancient times. For instance, it was never questioned in the Old Testament or New Testament. (source)

In ancient Egypt, slaves are known to have been murdered to accompany their deceased owners to the afterlife. (source)

The first person on record to denounce slavery as an evil was Euripides. He wrote in his play Hecuba, "That thing of evil, by its nature evil,/ Forcing submission from a man to what/ No man should yield to." (source)

Around the year 1000, the world's largest slave market was in Dublin, run by Vikings.

One of the many causes of the decline of the Roman Empire may have been their use of slave labour. While the ancient Greeks had many impressive scientific and mathematical achievements, they never succeeded in applying any of their discoveries to any practical use, partly because slave labour was cheaper and easily available. By the end of the second century A.D., the ancient world's lack of industrial technology and labour-saving machines started to make it impossible for the Roman Empire to maintain both its military and a healthy civilian population.

St. Patrick (circa 385–461), who in his youth had been enslaved in Ireland, was the first prominent historical figure to speak out against the institution of slavery.

In ancient China, some slaveowners appointed their male slaves as their heirs if they had no natural offspring. (source)

Slavery ended in Western Europe in the 7^th century, when a British girl, Bathilde, was taken as a slave and sold to Clovis II, King of the Franks (638–655). Clovis fell in love with and married her. After the king died, Bathilde, acting as regent for their three young sons, outlawed slavery. She was later canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. (source)

Between 7 million and 10 million slaves were brought to the New World from Africa. (source)

Russia was essentially founded as a by-product of slave raids by Vikings travelling between Scandinavia and the Byzantine Empire in the ninth century. (source)

The word slave comes from Slav, the name of a group of Eastern European peoples. In antiquity, Germanic tribes captured Slavs and sold them to the Romans as slaves. The Latin word for slave, addict, has become the English word for someone dependent on something harmful. (source)

While serving in Congress, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill that would prohibit slavery in any future state admitted to the United States. This measure, which could have later prevented the American Civil War, was defeated by a single vote. (source)

Slavery came to an end in the British Empire on August 1^st, 1834, when legislation passed in 1833 took effect. The legislation specified an apprenticeship scheme for the freed slaves that in some cases caused them to be treated harsher than before, but the last of slavery in any form in the Empire came to an end by August 1^st, 1838. The legislation also compensated slave-owners with £20,000,000; the slaves received nothing besides their freedom. (source)

In ancient Rome, many freed slaves were rich and some achieved high positions in government. (source)

In Mesoamerica, slaves were often used as porters in the absence of draught animals. (source)

In Korea, prior to the middle of the 18^th century, between ¹/₃ and ½ of the population were slaves. (source)

In the year 1086, around 10% of the population of England entered in the Domesday Book were slaves, with the percentage as high as 20% in some places. (source)

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this state." Thus read the state of Michigan's constitution in 1850. Inadvertently, it legalized slavery as an appropriate punishment for crime. Not until 1963 was the comma shifted from its position after servitude to a position after slavery, and slavery was once again outlawed in the state. (source)

Perhaps the worst law ever passed by the United States federal government was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Legislation concerning fugitive slaves had been around since 1793, but the new act gave law enforcement officers in the Northern States carte blanche to pursue and arrest fugitive slaves, and even to force civilians to help. Slaves so captured would be shipped back south, without being able to defend themselves or produce evidence that they were not in fact slaves. Furthermore, the arresting officer received a bounty of $10 for each slave returned. Despite the significant incentives to catching slaves, only around 300 slaves were captured and returned between 1850 and 1861. The only real effect that the Fugitive Slave Act had was to exacerbate bad feelings between the southern and northern states, which would lead to the U. S. Civil War in 1861. (source)

In 1853 Illinois passed a law that required any black entering the state and staying more than ten days to pay a fine of $50. If he could not pay, the black could be sold into slavery for a period commensurate with the fine. (source)

The Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves. Issued by Abraham Lincoln to take effect on New Year's Day 1863, the proclamation freed only slaves in the areas controlled by the rebel Confederate government, where Lincoln had no authority to enforce it. (source)

At the end of the American civil war, Northern general Ulysses S. Grant owned four slaves while fighting for the North (who opposed slavery) against the South (who were in favour of slavery). He refused to free his slaves at the end of the war, when he was forced to do so by law. His counterpart in the South, general Robert E. Lee, was morally opposed to slavery and had freed his slaves in the late 1840's, believing that "slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any society, a greater evil to the white man than the black". (source)

The country of Liberia was founded as a voluntary haven for freed American slaves. The land was purchased from tribal chiefs in 1822 by the American Colonization Society, the price including among other things a box of beads, three pairs of shoes, a box of soap, a barrel of rum, and 12 spoons. (source)

In the early 16^th century, Native Americans were enslaved by the Spanish in the New World. In 1517, missionary Bartolomé de Las Casas, sickened by this enslavement, was the first to suggest bringing Africans to the New World as slaves. He regretted this suggestion almost as soon as he had made it. (source)

In the second half of the eighteenth century, slavery was dying out in not only the northern but also the southern United States. The man indirectly responsible for its perpetuation was Eli Whitney, whose cotton gin, invented in 1793, was so efficient that it injected new life into the stagnant southern economy, dooming blacks to another 70 years of slavery. (source)

Patrick Henry, an American political leader famous for his quote "Give me liberty, or give me death", owned 65 slaves at the time of his death in 1799. (source)

In Thai, one shows politeness by using the word "slave" for "I". (source)

Slaves have almost always been used where they would be cheaper and more productive than hired workers. Therefore, in societies that made significant use of slaves, including ancient Rome and the southern United States, there was usually a free lower class that would find it very difficult to find work and would become so impoverished that their living standards would often be lower than that of the slaves. (source)

According to estimates by anti-slavery groups, there were 27 million slaves in the world at the start of the 21^st century, more than in any other historical period, despite modern international attention around slavery. (source)