‘Some of the Spanish Fork people remember Venus as being tall, very polite and quiet and always immaculate in her dress. She had a great desire to go to the temple, and when she found that the temple was closed to Negroes, she scratched her arm until it bled and said: See, my blood is as white as anyone’s.’ [The Negro Pioneer, p523] Confused, board post 5th August 2009, ‘Indian and Negro Slavery in Utah – Venus’ Plight’ citing George D Smith editor ‘An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton’ (An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, 1995
Transforming itself suddenly from a problem of abandoned plantations and slaves captured while being used by the [Southern] enemy for military purposes, the movement became a general strikes against the slave system on the part of all who could find opportunity. The trickling streams of fugitives swelled to a flood. Once begun, the general strike of black and white went madly and relentlessly on like some great saga. W E B du Bois
Freedom and slavery constitute an antagonism. There is no need for me to speak either of the good or of the bad aspects of freedom. As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America ...
All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it openly into the New World. Karl Marx, letter to Pavel Annekov December 1846
Slavery is a very longstanding joyful Christian tradition. Pastor Deacon Fred Smith, interview Sex, Drugs & Religion 2010
The Bible gives advice on how you should keep your slaves. Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God
What Eden have they torn you from? The Borgias s1e4: Lucrezia’s Wedding, Cesare to South American slave, Showtime 2011
One third might have been slaves ... Even some slaves had slaves. Professor Mary Beard, Meet the Romans III: Behind Closed Doors, BBC 2012
Slavery like conquest was one of the pillars on which the Roman Superpower stood. Rome Revealed: Ancient Superpower s1e2
Slaves: this building suggests a part of the Roman world that’s been largely invisible. Slaves are everywhere in the ancient Rome. Households, businesses, even government. They make up 30% of Italy’s population. And yet because the Romans treat them like a commodity rather than people we have very little written record of their lives. Rome Revealed s1e3: Doomsday Pompeii, National Geographic 2010
Every master feared his slaves. Rome: Power and Glory s1e4: The Grasp of Empire, Discovery 2010
The slave army soon grew into a 70,000 strong force. ibid.
The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death? Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract ch4
From whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: ‘I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like.’ ibid. ch4
Howard’s book on penal reform was published in 1777. And Clarkson’s essay on slavery in 1776. Kenneth Clark, Civilisation 13/13: Heroic Materialism, BBC 1969
It’s reckoned that over nine millions slaves died from heat and suffocation in those holes on the way to America. A remarkable figure even by modern standards. ibid.
Ancient Greece was a civilisation built on the backs of slaves. Michael Scott, Who Were the Greeks? BBC 2013
The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery. Chinua Achebe
Anytime from 1500 to 1807 if you wanted to get seriously rich, you went into the people-moving business. Demand for slaves in the Caribbean started astronomically and went up – just too good an opportunity for British investors to miss. James Burke, Connections s2e8: Separate Ways, BBC 1994
I’ve been through two slave revolts, boy. They always end the same way: the Masters in power and the slaves dead. Game of Thrones s4e4: Oathkeeper, old slave, HBO 2014
1771: Habeas Corpus had served Englishmen well. Could it now deal with an horrific abuse which the English were inflicting on others? The Thames docks. A legal document is raced down to a ship that is about to set sail with its cargo for Jamaica ... The cargo a slave named James Somerset ... gives the prisoner the power to compel his jailer to justify his imprisonment. A realisation swept across the slave trade. The very legality of slavery itself was going to be tested in court. The Strange Case of the Law II: The Story of English Justice: The Pursuit of Liberty BBC 2012
In his judgment Lord Mansfield said that the state of slavery is of such a nature so odious that the English common law could never accept it. ibid.
One single writ of Habeas Corpus had released not just one man from bondage but was to mark the start of freedom for all the 15,000 slaves then in England. ibid.
An English missionary who led the fight against slavery in the Caribbean – Thomas Burchell. Reverse Missionaries I, BBC 2012
The Church of England’s shameful secret: the files that reveal its role in slavery. Portillo’s State Secrets IX, BBC 2015
In the eighteenth century chains had many different uses ... As capitalism expanded it co-opted the world for its workforce and it didn’t care how it got them. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 7/8: Industry and Empire, BBC 2012
How did Cuba become a hub of the slave trade? … Cuba bears the scars of 500 years of foreign occupation. The Cuba Libre Story s1e1: Breaking Chains, Netflix 2016
Off the coast of east Africa – Pemba – that locals say is haunted ... Pemba Island was once the largest slave trading outpost on the East African coast. Destination Truth s2e2
Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt. Genesis 37:28
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:
And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. Exodus 1:13&14
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments. Exodus 6:6
Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.
And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.
And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.