I’ve been learning about the enslavement of Indigenous people in the Americas via this ep of my fave podcast: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/the-other-slavery/
And Andrés Reséndez’s 2017 book ‘The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America’ https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-other-slavery-andres-resendez?variant=39936147849250
At one point Reséndez states that there can be no colonialism without slavery.
And of course I thought about Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Reséndez explains how the enslavement of indigenous people is closer to the model for modern day slavery (from incarcerated people working in prisons to people trafficked for sex) than the enslaving of African people in the Atlantic slave trade. The enslaving of Africans was more an aberration from this older form of slavery.
What is the definition of slavery?
It’s about labour and bodily autonomy. Nations like the USA were built on unpaid labour – of indigenous people and of transpoted African people and their descendants.
The details can vary a little, but essentially you are not paid for your labour, you cannot end your contract (if you have one at all), and there is the threat of physical violence*. There are often other factors like being unable to leave (eg they might keep your passport), a mother’s slavery being inherited by her child, and having a more general lack of bodily autonomy. It’s not always the case, but enslaved people are also often bought and sold as property (an alternative might be your ‘contract’ for your labour being bought and solved…. but this contract is not owned or negotiated by you).
In Australia, Aboriginal people were/are not able to live where they chose, were not paid for their labour, were not able to choose who they married or when they had children, and were not able to keep and raise their own children. Many of these conditions are still present for Aboriginal people.
12.5 million African people were enslaved in the Atlantic slave trade, and it was legal throughout the colonised world from the 16th to 19th centuries (the ending of slavery depends on the country). It necessarily involved the transportation of people, and very careful records were made of this transportation and marketing of human beings.
Reséndez estimates between 2.5 and 5 million indian people (in Mesoamerica, or Mexico, Central America, Brazil and the rest of South America) were enslaved between the 16th and 19th centuries. Slavery was not legal in these cases, at this time, and most of these people were enslaved in the countries of their birth (though not always in the same geographic area). The records of this trading in humans is not as complete, but it is certainly available.
More than 42 million people are estimated to be subjected to slavery today in a host of countries, including Australia and the United States, as well as those colonising nations. It is not legal.
British colonists invaded Australia in 1788.
Protection Acts in each state strictly limited the rights of Aboriginal people to travel, work, marry, raise children… Aboriginal people were granted Australian citizenship in 1948. In 1967 laws were changed so that they could officially be counted in the census.
Slavery was ‘abolished’ in the USA in 1863, yet it has continued in various forms. The increasing scale of privatised prisons and mass incarceration (primarily of people of colour) and role of incarcerated people in mandatory labour continues a long history of convict leasing in that country.
*I have understated the significance of ‘physical violence’ under slavery. It was (and is) truly horrific. It’s also something important to learn about, but to read with care. I would match it with reading about the ways in which people resist slavery. Because when there is slavery, there is always resistance.
Note:
There are a number of good books and sources writing about the ways in which Australia’s white government (we could just say ‘Australia’s government’ there) has benefitted from slavery since the 1700s, and how colonial powers like England, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, etc benefitted from slavery, including individuals who did not personally enslave people.
There’s also a new book out by Ryan Butta called ‘Blackbirding: A Reckoning with the Australian Slave Trade‘ whose recent publicity owes a lot to the Betoota Advocate of all things. This addresses the history of kidnapping and enslaving Pacific Islander people in Australia (particularly in Queensland) in the 19th and 20th centuries.
And of course, there are quite a few publications discussing the unpaid, forced labour of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on properties (as ranch hands and jackaroos), as domestic labourers (maids, cooks, cleaners, gardeners etc), and in brothels.
White Australians don’t like talking about any of these things. Or even admitting they happened. I did about a year or two of research into rural women’s associations in 2001/2002, and remember hearing stories from elderly country people about the ‘blacks’ who worked on Qld farms in the 1950s.
They do occasionally talk about convicts and convict labour, but rarely in terms of slavery.