2088320A History of Slavery and its Abolition — Section 5: Sources of SlaveryEsther Copley

SECT. V. — THE SOURCES OF SLAVERY.

If liberty is the birthright of every human being, in what manner have persons become slaves? This is a very natural question. We should think liberty so dear a blessing, that every one would most strenuously maintain and defend it, and watch against every thing that might endanger it. Fellow feeling, we should think, would also prompt every man to defend this sacred right of his neighbour against encroachment; and that, if an attempt should be made to enslave one man, the whole neighbourhood would rise to defend or rescue him; and that thus slavery must be of very rare occurrence, and its extensive prevalence absolutely impossible. This, however, is very far from being the true state of the case.

Among the causes of slavery may be mentioned—

  1. Crime.—On account of their crimes, some persons have been condemned to labour in a state of slavery for a limited time, or for the remainder of life.
  2. Captives taken in war have been either detained and employed as slaves in public works, or sold to individuals, or appropriated by the captors for their own private use, as any other part of the booty taken in war. Persons thus becoming slaves, have often been redeemed from captivity by a ransom paid by their friends; or exchanged for other captives, restored to their own country, and set at liberty.
  3. Debtors have sometimes sold themselves to their creditors, either for a limited time, or for life.
  4. A vast proportion of slaves have been made so by the treachery of man. They have been enticed by stratagem, or seized by violence, and sold into captivity. Even parents have sold their children in this manner.
  5. Children born of parents in a state of slavery, being destitute of the means of claiming the native liberty of man, have inherited the slavery of their parents, and become the property of their possessor; and thus slavery, when once incurred, has been perpetuated from generation to generation.