Define Slavery Definition

Summary 6

Anna Kim 2015461011

1. Who are slaves? How can we define the slave? What are differences between slave society and slave-owning society?

It is hard to determine who are slaves because each culture has its own differences in understanding the term who are slaves. Also, it depends which social structure a particular country has. According to different vocabularies, the word “slave” is explained in different ways and often vocabularies have several explanations. For example, Oxford vocabulary determine slave as “a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them” or “a person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation”, while third meaning is different “a person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something”. So, from here we see that first definition is more related to the past, for those who did not had land and worked for landlord. In the second definition is more for modern times exploitation (but can be applied to the past as well), when people illegally work or work too much, when now many countries according to human rights do not allow people to work particular number of hours. Slave can work 17-19 hours and sleep only 4-5 hours, while it is prohibited. Third meaning is more about dependency. It can be poor person or weak person who became

Buying slaves was also illegal. Medieval Europe had less slaves than America or Asian countries had. However, still we should remember that Britain actively participated in slavery trade. Not much of exploitation but there were people for service who received salary or food. There was different situation in Viking age on the North of Europe, during Vikings slaves were the people of weaker countries (in other words, it was more political slaves) but Northern Europe is the first who abolished slave