Extension and Tension (Drescher, chap. 3)

I. Iberia--initiates the African slave trade

A. Rationalization for slave trade

1. Roman law--just war is legal basis of enslavement

2. war against infidel was just war

a. acquisition of African lands seen as war against Islam

b. Papal permission to Spain and Portugal for enslavement of non-Christians

3. Idea extended to Africans--concept that Africans were "natural slaves"

Question: What were two ways Europeans rationalized freedom for themselves, but the acceptability of slavery for Africans

B. Europeans distinguish between "making" and "having" slaves

1. American Indians were under European power--wrong to make subjects slaves

a. Spanish monarch outlaws Indian slavery

2. Africans were beyond European power--acceptable to have alien, infidel slaves

II. Beyond the Line

A. North of Iberia, Europeans adopted the "freedom principle"

1. northern Europeans thought of their lands as free from slavery

2. did not mean they opposed overseas slaving

B. French had special slave codes applying only to colonies

C. In Holland, private companies allowed to manage their own colonial activities

1. practical decision to disconnect religion from social status--baptism no longer meant freedom

2. Dutch legal scholars ignored issue of slavery

D. English accepted the economic need for slavery

1. Georgia experiment in convict labor fails to compete with slave labor

Question: Explain what Drescher means by the phrase "out of metropole, out of mind." (p. 71)

III. Finessing the Line

A. English recognized need to have two legal systems: one for home and one for colonies

1. freedom principle for home; bondage principle for colonies

2. Lands under parliament--free; Crown colonies permitted laws different from English common law

B. Exemplified in John Locke's contradictory views

1. In Two Treatises on Governmernt--finds slavery unacceptable

2. In Fundamental Constitutions for Carolina, affirmed the rights of human property

Question: What can be learned from the contradiction in Locke's writings about slavery in his Treatises on Government and his Carolina Constitutions?

C. Justifications for different rules "beyond the line"

1. Climate: slavery necessary in tropical climates

a. whites can't take it in harsher climates

b. people in warm climates are naturally lazy: must be forced to work

c. discussion in Germany about transporting Jews to tropics

2. Racial stereotypes of black inferiority

3. religious ideas more important than naturalistic racial ideas

a. infidels subject to slavery

b. curse of Ham not really important idea as such