University:
Tyler Junior College
Course:
HIST 1301 | History
Academic year:

2024
Views:

268

Pages:

1
Author:

Dave D.

LIFE AND LABOR IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD HIST 1301 | History Slavery and Serfdom Chattel slavery, in which a person is owned by another and is negotiable, was practiced in very few locations worldwide by the end of the eighteenth century. Before the Second Industrial Revolution started, slavery had already been outlawed in a few countries. It was formally done by Japan in the fifteenth century. In 1834, Britain outlawed slavery in its entirety and stopped the slave trade. When slavery was outlawed in France in 1848, almost all slaves in the Caribbean were set free. The Penal Code of 1861 in India penalised anybody who tried to enslave other people. The United States and the Netherlands were two of the last developed countries to outlaw slavery; the US did so in 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, and the Dutch had freed slaves in the South American colony of Suriname in 1863. Following their independence battles in the early nineteenth century, the majority of Latin American countries abolished slavery. But Brazil, whose economy is based mostly on agriculture, has long rejected the demands of reformers for liberation. The nation ultimately gave in to pressure in 1850 from Great Britain, its main trading partner, which had taken on the moral obligation of outlawing slavery globally shortly after freeing its own slave population. Brazil abolished the slave trade and enacted legislation in 1871 releasing all future children born to enslaved mothers. It was declared in 1885 that all enslaved persons would become free at turning sixty. Slavery was finally outlawed entirely in 1888. Brazil's choice was affected by a number of reasons in addition to British pressure. Many White troops were impressed by the Afro-Brazilian combatants during Brazil's 1864– 1870 war with Paraguay and were reluctant to recapture runaways as a result of the enslaved men's valiant performance on the battlefield. Many White Brazilians likewise thought that if their country had a sizable African-American population, it would never be able to industrialise and advance. For them, ending slavery was the first step towards building a more mostly White Brazil. Moreover, serfdom essentially vanished in the latter part of the 1800s. Unfree peasants known as serfs were obligated by law to labour the land they lived on, which belonged to someone else. Nearly every serf left in Europe belonged to Russia. Eleven million were owned by private individuals, and the state possessed between twelve and thirteen million. In 1861, Tsar Alexander II outlawed serfdom in Russia. But the lives of the serfs were not always made better by this. Despite being freed, they still had to work for their owners for another two years. After that, they were permitted to stay on the lands they had laboured on, but they had to pay a hefty price for them. Domestic serfs—previous domestic workers—were not granted land. Serfdom persisted for a few more decades in various regions of the Russian empire.