Challenge: Europeans do not practice slavery after 14th Century

Yes ofcourse. But please keep the scale in mind:

what scale the russians had alot more people in slavery then how ever small the amount of black africans who were enslaved. Anyone non Nobility was pretty much a slave. The ottoman empire everyone was a slave of the ruler

I have no illusions of the ability to erradicate slavery. In places it also excists today :(

also slavery will exist as long as someone is stronger then the other and has no problem with making them do what they tell them.
 
Hmm, wont solve the problem with the historical practices from the reconquista.

It could change them. If you reduced the slave supply from the Caucasus and Eastern Europe (lots of slaves came from the Balkans because they 'clearly' were Bogumil heretics), especially Muslim slave markets would suck up more Asian supply. The demand for Muslim slaves from the Western Mediterranean could pick up as fewer of the Eastern goods reach Italy, making captives more profitably sold than kept. As a result, the island plantations are run not with slaves but with indentured servants and/or serfs, which is then expanded to the New World.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor
It could change them. If you reduced the slave supply from the Caucasus and Eastern Europe (lots of slaves came from the Balkans because they 'clearly' were Bogumil heretics), especially Muslim slave markets would suck up more Asian supply. The demand for Muslim slaves from the Western Mediterranean could pick up as fewer of the Eastern goods reach Italy, making captives more profitably sold than kept. As a result, the island plantations are run not with slaves but with indentured servants and/or serfs, which is then expanded to the New World.

Are you saying that the Iberians imported muslim slaves as a part of the reconquista? I tought that it was only the local muslimes that were enslaved :confused:
 
Are you saying that the Iberians imported muslim slaves as a part of the reconquista? I tought that it was only the local muslimes that were enslaved :confused:

Quite correct, the Iberians 'produced' Muslim slaves (both from the peninsula and North Africa) the same way the Muslim opposition produced Christian ones. THey had no need to import them. But OTL, they were mostly kept and put to work. If ATL they could be exported more profitably (Italy imported large numbers of slaves by medieval standards), there might not be enough surplus slave labour around to make a plantation system possible in the early colonies.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor
Quite correct, the Iberians 'produced' Muslim slaves (both from the peninsula and North Africa) the same way the Muslim opposition produced Christian ones. THey had no need to import them. But OTL, they were mostly kept and put to work. If ATL they could be exported more profitably (Italy imported large numbers of slaves by medieval standards), there might not be enough surplus slave labour around to make a plantation system possible in the early colonies.

So instead of putting them to work in Iberia, they are exported?

Would not this still give the Iberians a history of slavery. If you are used to trade them, it seems to me a short way to later "employ" them.
 
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Thanks, even tough tha article seemed a "little" anti-english... :confused:

Ah yes, I forgot to mention: most of those articles are not quite neutral.

(...and maybe I should have read that article a bit more carefully, but my computer recently developed a nasty habit of crashing without warning at random moments...)
 
Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) outlaws slavery as being un-Christen because it is practiced by those "despicable Muslims". This becomes doctirine in the Roman and Greek churches by 1502. Martin Luther and the other Protestants follow suit when they split from the church.

That might be doable, although I could imagine some Protestants citing Paul's letters to say that the Catholics are going against God's Word by trying to outlaw slavery (the Reformed theologian John MacArthur, for example, says that slavery is Biblically permissible).

Anti-Muslim sentiment (particularly lurid accounts of Christian girls being sold into sexual slavery in harems) might be a good way of whipping up anti-slavery sentiment, although one wonders if communications in that time would be up to the task of generating a mass movement against slavery in Europe.
 
So instead of putting them to work in Iberia, they are exported?

Would not this still give the Iberians a history of slavery. If you are used to trade them, it seems to me a short way to later "employ" them.

The Iberians will have a history of slavery because all of Europe does. Pretty much almost all of the world does. But if slaves are in high demand elsewhere, their prices will rise, and if that happens to the point that stocking plantations with them, then a different model of raising sugarcane will be found. that means that the slave plantation can't be exported to the Caribbean because it's not there to export.

Of course it could still happen - some smart bugger is liable to read his Columella - but argricultural chattel slavery is not a given this way. Especially if you can establish an opposed model that works even reasonably well.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor
@carlton_bach

Most interresting discussion. But Im afraid your solution requires a POD a little too early. I could be wrong ofcourse...

Regarding Iberians I see a Papal bull as a solution, but OTL saw the Pope trying but beeing unsuccessfull. Could work ATL with stronger commitment tough.

Does anyone have any ideas how to avoid the practis in protestant/reformed colonies?

One thing I could think of would be more religous based colonies and less merhchant based efforts.

And how would a North America develope without slavery? Indentured servants are ok. Would it develop much the same, but slower and less profitable?
 
@carlton_bach

Most interresting discussion. But Im afraid your solution requires a POD a little too early. I could be wrong ofcourse...

I'm not sure. The emergence of the plantation slavery system was a phenomenon of the 15th century, immediately following the establishment of the Atlantic colonies as sugar-growing ventures, and it came to be due to a scarcity of willing colonists, a growth market for sugar as a cherished commodity, and a supply of slaves at reasonable prices. If you dry up the supply at that point in time, you could force the hand of the locatores to find alternative sources of labour.

Regarding Iberians I see a Papal bull as a solution, but OTL saw the Pope trying but beeing unsuccessfull. Could work ATL with stronger commitment tough.

Bear in mind the popes also forbade bullfighting. How well did *that* work out?

If you had a strong current in the church (not just a pope) opposed to slavery on principle, that could do the trick, but IMO getting that requires a POD well before the fourteenth century. The medieval church was perfectly reconciled to the existence of slavery.

Does anyone have any ideas how to avoid the practis in protestant/reformed colonies?

One thing I could think of would be more religous based colonies and less merhchant based efforts.

The Protestant colonies adopted the slave system because they had seen it work. The pioneering effort was made in the 15th century by Spanish and Portuguese, everyone else just copied a winning design. Of course they *could* come up with it on their own, but there's no reasopn why they should, especially if there is an alternative model to copy.

And how would a North America develope without slavery? Indentured servants are ok. Would it develop much the same, but slower and less profitable?

I believe the development could be quite radically different. For one thing, the emphasis would shift. For well over a century, when the governments of Europe talked 'America', they meant the sugar islands. Certainly Massachussetts Bay and Quebec were all very nice, and Virginia was a genuinely profitable place (though, like Potosi, there could be but one Virginia), but if you were looking to make serious money in the Americas what you had to do was grab a Caribbean island, import some blacks and grow sugarcane. If that capital went into European settlement (of serfs or tenants/servants) instead, that would divert manpower from other settlement colonies and reduce the overall population especially of continental North America. If it didn't come into being at all, that capital will have to go elsewhere. Where it will go is anyone's guess, but the slave-sugar-trade was one of the money machines that fuelled much of Europe's prosperity in the 17th and 18th century. Finding something similar will not be easy.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor
I'm not sure. The emergence of the plantation slavery system was a phenomenon of the 15th century, immediately following the establishment of the Atlantic colonies as sugar-growing ventures, and it came to be due to a scarcity of willing colonists, a growth market for sugar as a cherished commodity, and a supply of slaves at reasonable prices. If you dry up the supply at that point in time, you could force the hand of the locatores to find alternative sources of labour.

Yes this is true. But AFAIK one of the reasons the Iberians turned so fast into slavery on the Atlantic Colonies, Carribean and LAtin America was the historical background inherited from the reconquista

Bear in mind the popes also forbade bullfighting. How well did *that* work out?

Concur

If you had a strong current in the church (not just a pope) opposed to slavery on principle, that could do the trick, but IMO getting that requires a POD well before the fourteenth century. The medieval church was perfectly reconciled to the existence of slavery.

Medieval yes. But from the second half of the 15th century the Pope on sevral occations tried to interfere.

Also several if not most, priest in the first wave in the Carribean/Latin America vocaly stood up against slavery. It was not until a local class of clercks was established that the church willingly played along

The Protestant colonies adopted the slave system because they had seen it work. The pioneering effort was made in the 15th century by Spanish and Portuguese, everyone else just copied a winning design. Of course they *could* come up with it on their own, but there's no reasopn why they should, especially if there is an alternative model to copy.

I do not entierly agree here. Was it not the Virginian/Carolina colonies with english aristocrats and their historical background that established slavery?

In the Carribean I sertainly agree to the pioneering effect tough.

I believe the development could be quite radically different. For one thing, the emphasis would shift. For well over a century, when the governments of Europe talked 'America', they meant the sugar islands. Certainly Massachussetts Bay and Quebec were all very nice, and Virginia was a genuinely profitable place (though, like Potosi, there could be but one Virginia), but if you were looking to make serious money in the Americas what you had to do was grab a Caribbean island, import some blacks and grow sugarcane. If that capital went into European settlement (of serfs or tenants/servants) instead, that would divert manpower from other settlement colonies and reduce the overall population especially of continental North America. If it didn't come into being at all, that capital will have to go elsewhere. Where it will go is anyone's guess, but the slave-sugar-trade was one of the money machines that fuelled much of Europe's prosperity in the 17th and 18th century. Finding something similar will not be easy.

In the sugar islands I agree. Sadly little else to do to make things go around.

But OTL slavery was established in Virginia/Carolina before in the Carribean???
 
Calton- that could be fairly interesting TL with your ideas...

And if I rememebr correctly, you have already one attempt at different colonization of Americas under your belt.
 
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Calton- that could be fairly interesting TL with your ideas...

And if I rememebr correctly, you have already one attempt at different colonization of Americas under your belt.

Two (Dorestad and The Vivaldi Journeys), but I have nowhere near enough time for these things ATM. :(
 
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