History of slavery

The history of slavery spans nearly every culture, nationality, and religion and from ancient times to the present day. However the social, economic, and legal positions of slaves were vastly different in different systems of slavery in different times and places.

Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1860 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as it is developed as a system of social stratification. Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as almost every other civilization. The Byzantine–Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe resulted in the taking of large numbers of Christian slaves. Slavery became common within the British Isles during the Middle Ages. The Dutch and British played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade, especially after 1600. David P. Forsythe wrote: "The fact remained that at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom."Denmark-Norway was the first European country to ban the slave trade in 1802

Although slavery is no longer legal anywhere in the world,human trafficking remains an international problem and an estimated 25-40 million people are living in illegal slavery today. During the 1983-2005 Second Sudanese Civil War people were taken into slavery. Although Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007, in Mauritania it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are currently enslaved, many of them used as bonded labor. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao plantations in West Africa; see the chocolate and slavery article.

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