MAY 1st, 2024 | NICK EDWARD

Meet The Original Slaves, Who Weren't Black

The word itself tells the story.

The ravaged landscape of etymology, where the bones of history lie bleached and weathered, a testament to the brutal indifference of time. And amidst this desolate terrain, a word stands as a monolith, a word that whispers secrets of a forgotten past: slave.

It is a term that has become synonymous with the transatlantic trade and African Americans, with the shackles and chains that bound their bodies, with the whip and the lash that scourged their backs. But the roots of this word, like the roots of an ancient and gnarled tree, stretch far deeper, into the dark recesses of European history.

For it is a little-known fact, obscured by the mists of time, that the word slave originates from the ethnic designation "Slav". The Slavs, a group of Indo-European peoples, inhabited the vast expanse of Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, from the Elbe to the Volga. They were a diverse and fractious people, comprising various tribes and Principalities, bound together by a shared linguistic and cultural heritage.

In the early Middle Ages, as the Roman Empire crumbled, the Slavs found themselves at the mercy of their more powerful neighbours. The Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the various Germanic tribes that roamed the continent, all exploited the Slavs, reducing them to a state of bondage. The Slavs were sold into slavery, forced to toil in the fields and mines, and to fight in the wars of their conquerors.

The Latin term for these enslaved Slavs was "Sclavus," a designation that would eventually give rise to the Old French "esclave," and thence to the Middle English "slave." The word, in other words, is a testament to the fact that the Slavs were, for centuries, the primary source of slaves in Europe.

This dark chapter in European history has been largely forgotten, relegated to the dusty shelves of academic obscurity. But the evidence remains, etched into the parchment of historical records. The Byzantine Emperor, Constantine Porphyrogennetos, writing in the 10th century, noted that "the Slavs are always slaves, whether they be captured in war or purchased."

The irony, of course, is that the Slavs, who were once the primary victims of slavery, would eventually become perpetrators of the same institution. As the Ottoman Empire expanded into Eastern Europe, Slavic peoples, such as the Bulgarians and the Serbs, would be reduced to slavery once more.

Thus, the word slave stands as a monument to the cyclical nature of human cruelty, a reminder that the victims of history can all too easily become its perpetrators. It is a word that whispers secrets of a forgotten past, a past that is both familiar and, yet, utterly alien.

The Jews

The ravaged scrolls of history, where the ink of suffering bleeds through the parchment, a testament to the unyielding cruelty of humanity. And amidst this desolate terrain, a people stand as a beacon, a people who have borne the weight of bondage, their names etched into the ledgers of slavery: the Jews.

In the earliest records of time, the Jews were already acquainted with the bitter taste of slavery. The Babylonian Captivity, that great cataclysm of ancient Israel, saw the people of Judah hauled in chains to the banks of the Tigris, their city laid waste, their Temple reduced to rubble. The weeping and wailing of the exiles, as they sat by the rivers of Babylon, their harps hung on the willows, is a lament that echoes through the ages.

But it was not only the Babylonians who held the Jews in bondage. The Romans, those masters of imperial conquest, would later enslave the Jews, forcing them to toil in the mines and quarries of the empire. The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, writing in the 1st century CE, documented the horrors of Jewish slavery, describing how the Romans, having taken Jerusalem, sold the inhabitants into slavery, and sent them to various parts of the world.

The Middle Ages, that period of darkness and superstition, saw the Jews of Europe reduced to a state of virtual slavery. The ghettos, those cramped and fetid enclaves, were little more than urban prisons, where Jews were forced to live in squalor and fear. The blood libels, those monstrous fabrications, led to waves of pogroms and massacres, as Christian mobs torched Jewish quarters, slaughtering men, women, and children.

And then, of course, there was that transatlantic slave trade again, that great shame of human history, in which Jews, along with Africans and others, were bought and sold like cattle. The Portuguese, those masters of the slave trade, would sometimes forcibly convert Jews to Christianity, before selling them into bondage in the Americas.

Oddly, many Jews and Africans themselves participated in the slave trade as merchants.

The Sumerians

In the city of Lagash, nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates, a kingdom rose to prominence in the 25th century BCE. The Sumerians, those ingenious architects of civilization, left behind a legacy of clay tablets, inscribed with the cuneiform script, a testament to their bureaucratic zeal.

Among these tablets, the earliest known records of human slavery are found, a grim accounting of lives bought, sold, and bartered. The Sumerian King, Urukagina, in his code of laws, circa 2350 BCE, legislated the treatment of slaves, a tacit acknowledgment of their existence.

In this dry, administrative story, we find the earliest echoes of human bondage, a practice that would haunt humanity for millennia to come. The Sumerians, in their quest for economic efficiency, reduced human beings to commodities, to be traded and exploited.

Thus, in the cradle of civilization, we find the first faint whispers of human slavery, a practice that would spread like a contagion, infecting the ancient world. The Sumerians, those pioneers of humanity, had unleashed a darkness that would haunt their descendants, a reminder that even in the most enlightened of eras, humanity's capacity for cruelty and exploitation knows no bounds.

Among the Sumerians' history, those weathered relics of a bygone age, stands as a testament to the indelible mark of human slavery, a stain that would persist for millennia, a reminder of the darkest aspects of our collective past.