Slavery

Slavery is a form of forced labor where a person is compelled to work for another (sometimes called "the master" or "slave owner"). Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (such as wages) in return for their labor.
Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed to varying extents, forms and periods in almost all cultures and continents. In some societies, slavery existed as a legal institution or socioeconomic system, but today it is formally outlawed in nearly all countries. Nevertheless, the practice continues in various forms around the world.
Freedom from slavery is an internationally recognised human right. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
According to one theory, the word slave, in Modern English, originates from the Middle English sclave which first appears around 1290. The spelling was based on Old French esclave, from the Medieval Latin sclavus and ultimately from the Byzantine Greek sklabos (from sklabenoi). The spelling of English slave, first appears in English in 1538. The term originally referred to various people from Central Europe.
Thralldom is an archaic synonym for slavery, and thrall a synonym for slave.

Abolitionist movements

Three Abyssinian slaves in chains. Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.

From the title page of abolitionist Anthony Benezet's book Some Historical Account of Guinea, London, 1788

Photographed in 1863 – Slave endured harsh treatment. The scars are a result of a whipping by his overseer, who was subsequently removed by the master.
Slavery has existed, in one form or another, through the whole of recorded human history — as have, in various periods, movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves. According to the Biblical Book of Exodus, Moses led Israelite slaves out of ancient Egypt — possibly the first written account of a movement to free slaves. Later Jewish laws (known as Halacha) prevented slaves from being sold out of the Land of Israel, and allowed a slave to move to Israel if he so desired. The Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed about 539 BC by the order of Cyrus the Great of Persia, abolished slavery and allowed Jews and other nationalities who had been enslaved under Babylonian rule to return to their native lands. Abolitionism should be distinguished from efforts to help a particular group of slaves, or to restrict one practice, such as the slave trade.
There were celebrations in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom through the work of the British Anti-Slavery Society. William Wilberforce received much of the credit although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Thomas Clarkson. Wilberforce was also urged by his close friend, Prime Minister William Pitt, to make the issue his own. After the abolition act was passed these campaigners switched to encouraging other countries to follow suit, notably France and the British colonies.
Between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard. Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.
Abolitionist press in the United States produced a series of small steps forward. After January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited, but not the internal slave trade, nor involvement in the international slave trade externally. Legal slavery persisted; and those slaves already in the U.S. would not be legally emancipated for another 60 years. The American Civil War, beginning in 1861, led to the end of chattel slavery in the United States.
On December 10, 1948, the General Assemble of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 states:

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.-jackson hurst-70.123.126.167 (talk) 14:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC).


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