Coercive Labor Systems

1. Coercive Labor Systems By: Rachel Nostrant And Earl DeMott

2. Section 1: Passage 1 • Read the passage and take notes on the following slide

3. Slavery and Cotton “Cotton culture was almost the an afterthought in the development of the South’s agricultural economy. The old colonial staples had been tobacco, rice, and indigo; and at the end of the Revolution only a few planters raised the long-staple sea-island cotton, which was limited largely to the Carolina coast. So long as this situation existed, thoughtful Southerners, Washington and Jefferson among them, regarded slavery as an evil which could and would be swept away eventually. As a French visitor wrote, “they are constantly talking about abolishing slavery, and of contriving some other means of cultivating their estates.” Then, in 1793, a Connecticut Yankee named Eli Whitney altered irrevocably the South’s economy and its attitude toward slavery. His invention of a gin that separated the lint from the seeds of the upland, short-staple cotton gave immediate commercial value to that variety, and overnight cotton was being sown and harvested on an unprecedented scale. As the world’s textile mills gobbled up everything they could produce, planters looked westward for new land, to the black prairies of Alabama and the loess soil of Mississippi. At the same time the value of black slaves to work the crop skyrocketed. As long as virgin acreage was available there was no need, men thought, to practice careful tillage, and soon the eastern fields were worn out and eroded. By 1834 the Western states led in the production of cotton; by 1850 this area was the world’s greatest cotton-growing region. Cotton was king—or so it seemed.” From: Bruce Catton: Picture History of the Civil War, 1960., p. 29

4. Notetaking from a passage From the passage on the previous slide, write 5 lines of notes, with no line going over 10 words. - - - - -

5. Section 2: Definitions • Slave: • a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant • Origin: • English word slave derives from Old French and Medieval Latin from the medieval word for the Slavic people of Central and Eastern Europe • Earliest written records = the Code of Hammurabi (c.1700 b.c.e.)

6. Definitions • Indentured Servant: • placed under contract to work for another over a period of time • included redemptioners, victims of religious or political persecution, persons kidnapped for the purpose, convicts, and paupers

7. Definitions • Serf: • person in a condition of servitude, required to render services to a lord, commonly attached to the lord's land and transferred with it from one owner to another • Found in: • England • France • Medieval Europe

8. Passage 2…part 1 “Concerning the trade on this Coast, we notified your Highness that nowadays the natives no longer occupy themselves with the search for gold, but rather make war on each other in order to furnish slaves. . . The Gold Coast has changed into a complete Slave Coast.” William De La Palma, Director, Dutch West India Co., September 5, 1705 The history of the European seaborne slave trade with Africa goes back 50 years prior to Columbus' initial voyage to the Americas. It began with the Portuguese, who went to West Africa in search of gold. The first Europeans to come to Africa's West Coast to trade were funded by Prince Henry, the famous Portuguese patron, who hoped to bring riches to Portugal. The purpose of the exploration: to expand European geographic knowledge, to find the source of prized African gold, and to locate a possible sea route to valuable Asian spices. In 1441, for the first time, Portuguese sailors obtained gold dust from traders on the western coast of Africa. The following year, Portuguese explorers returned from Africa with more gold dust and another cargo: ten Africans. Forty years after that first human cargo traveled to Portugal, Portuguese sailors gained permission from a local African leader to build a trading outpost and storehouse on Africa's Guinea coast. It was near a region that had been mined for gold for many years and was called Elmina, which means "the mine" in Portuguese. Although originally built for trade in gold and ivory and other resources, Elmina was the first of many trading posts built by Europeans along Africa's western coast that would also come to export slaves. The well-armed fort provided a secure harbor for Portuguese (and later Dutch and English) ships. Africans were either captured in warring raids or kidnapped and taken to the port by African slave traders. There they were exchanged for iron, guns, gunpowder, mirrors, knives, cloth, and beads brought by boat from Europe.

9. Passage 2…part 2 When Europeans arrived along the West African coast, slavery already existed on the continent. However, in his book The African Slave Trade, Basil Davidson points out that slavery in Africa and the brutal form of slavery that would develop in the Americas were vastly different. African slavery was more akin to European serfdom --the condition of most Europeans in the 15th century. In the Ashanti Kingdom of West Africa, for example, slaves could marry, own property and even own slaves. And slavery ended after a certain number of years of servitude. Most importantly, African slavery was never passed from one generation to another, and it lacked the racist notion that whites were masters and blacks were slaves. By the start of the 16th century, almost 200,000 Africans had been transported to Europe and islands in the Atlantic. But after the voyages of Columbus, slave traders found another market for slaves: New World plantations. In Spanish Caribbean islands and Portuguese Brazil by the mid 1500s, colonists had turned to the quick and highly profitable cultivation of sugar, a crop that required constant attention and exhausting labor. They tried to recruit native Americans, but many died from diseases brought by Europeans, such as smallpox, diphtheria, and tuberculosis. And the Indians who survived wanted no part of the work, often fleeing to the countryside they knew so well. European colonists found an answer to their pressing labor shortage by importing enslaved workers from Africa. By 1619, more than a century and a half after the Portuguese first traded slaves on the African coast, European ships had brought a million Africans to colonies and plantations in the Americas and force them to labor as slaves. Trade through the West African forts continued for nearly three hundred years. The Europeans made more than 54,000 voyages to trade in human beings and sent at least ten to twelve million Africans to the Americas. From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr1.html That Terrible Transformation, PBS.org

10. Notetaking on Passage 2 Find 5 topic sentences that would be most significant. - - - - - Combining Passage 1 and 2, what would be a good thesis statement regarding Coercive labor systems? -

11. Section 2 Questions • Make a chart denoting the similarities and differences between slavery, serfdom, and indentured servitude? • How does the concept of African slave trade (i.e. Africans trading Africans) defy definition?

12. Section 3: Systems • Manorialism: • vesting of legal and economic power in a lord, supported economically from his own direct landholding and from the obligatory contributions of a legally subject part of the peasant population under his jurisdiction • Medieval Europe, originated from the Roman Empire

13. Systems • Colonial American • could not marry without the permission of their owner, were subject to physical punishment, and saw their obligation to labor enforced by the courts. To ensure uninterrupted work by the female servants, the law lengthened the term of their indenture if they became pregnant. But unlike slaves, servants could look forward to a release from bondage

14. Systems • Universal: • Spain, Portugal, American Colonies, etc. • Under most forms of governments • Democracy, monarchy, etc. • Race related: • African American • Mixed bloods • Indians • Religious captives

15. Passage 3…part 1 Alexander II Liberator April 29, 1818 – March 13, 1881 Abolishing serfdom and reforms in Russia Alexander now began to think of bringing an end to serfdom – an immense task advocated by many liberal intellectuals but fiercely opposed by landowners. But he pushed ahead with the reform and in 1861 Russia became one of the last countries in Europe to shake off serfdom. The emancipation law itself was an enormously long document of nearly 400 pages. Trying to balance the interests of both the proprietors and the peasants, it stated that Russia’s 22 million serfs were now free but didn’t make them land owners. Instead, they had to buy or rent the land from their former masters. In the end, few were pleased. For the nobles, the step was unwelcome, for the peasants the long-awaited freedom brought disappointment. The land was often priced higher than its real value and millions found themselves in hopeless poverty and debt. Still, the change spurred other innovations – education and judicial reforms followed, an elaborate scheme of local self-government in large towns and rural districts was set up. The economy was boosted, railway construction boomed, trade soared, banks and factories sprang up across the country.

16. Passage 3…part 2 But together with political openness the Empire saw the rise of the nationalistic movements. In 1863 the so-called January Uprising flared up in Poland. It was suppressed after eighteen months of fighting, thousands of Poles were executed or deported to Siberia, many estates were confiscated and a much tighter Russian control over Poland was imposed. Untimely assassination Alexander’s reforms were drawing more and more criticism. For some his extraordinary efforts to change his country were too much while others believed he didn’t go far enough. Alexander became a victim of numerous murder plots – one dramatic assassination attempt followed another. In February 1880 Alexander announced that he was considering granting the Russian people a constitution. But the plan never went ahead. On March 13, 1881 the Tsar’s carriage was bombed in the streets of St. Petersburg by members of a revolutionary organization People’s Will. He emerged shaken but unhurt and wanted to see the site of the explosion and check on the wounded Cossacks that accompanied him. As he made his way over, another terrorist threw his bomb. Fatally wounded, Alexander died an hour later. A reformer, a warrior, a diplomat and a man of tragic fate, Alexander II has gone down into history as the Liberator Tsar. From: http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/the-romanov-dynasty/alexander-ii-liberator/?gclid=CMLl7vGIzakCFcV_5QodoUU8NA Prominent Russians: Alexander II Liberator

17. Notetaking on Passage 3 What similarities and differences can you draw when looking at the Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln) and the Emancipation Manifesto (Alexander II)? What other comparisons can you make regarding these two leaders? What conclusion can you draw regarding the abolition of coercive labor systems?

18. Section 3 Questions • What form of Coercive Labor Systemgoes with Manorialism? • With the mit’a system? • With the Islamic Slave Trade? • With the Coolies? • With the Sugar Plantations in the Caribbean?

19. Thanks to: • Dictionary.com • Wikipedia.com • The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War, Bruce Catton, 1960. • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr1.html That Terrible Transformation, PBS.org • http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/the-romanov-dynasty/alexander-ii-liberator/?gclid=CMLl7vGIzakCFcV_5QodoUU8NA Alexander II Liberator, Russiapedia.rt.com