The Emergence and Evolution of Slavery Legislation in Antebellum Louisiana

Louisiana emerged from the periphery of the American colonies to form a powerful commercial and economic center. The state’s development of sovereignty, wealth, infrastructure, and legislation relied heavily on the unsalaried labor of Enslaved individuals. The chattel slave market particularly shaped the state’s government structure and character. Slavery legislation developed with the influence European legal traditions. Beginning with the enactment of the French ordonnance, Code Noir, and finally the Spanish oartacion. These legislative forces influenced the drafting and enactment of the Louisiana’s first Civil Code in 1808. This Code married the ideals of French, Spanish, Roman, and English legal traditions. It established Enslaved individuals position as subordinate, expendable property. This legal commodification of human beings occurred over centuries and continues to persist as a barrier for equality and justice for all. The legal legacy of slavery legislation in the United States continues to impact the field in the present moment.

Beyond the Atlantic Paradigm

This article investigates the causes of the resilience of slavery in the region of Tahoua in the Republic of Niger in the West African Sahel. It attributes slavery’s lingering vitality to the semi-autonomous evolution of slavery and abolitionism in this region. It illustrates the historical processes through which, following colonial legal abolition, slavery in Tahoua started being challenged, but not effectively eradicated. The article shows that slavery and abolitionism in the Nigerien Sahel are rooted in different historical processes and discursive genealogies than those that led to the development of colonial abolitionism and international law on slavery and trafficking. It advocates appropriate historical contextualization of slavery-related phenomena in regions where European abolitionism was initially tied to imperialism. In such regions different groups engaged critically with European attitudes toward local slavery. Following decolonization, the rise of Nigerien abolitionist movements was informed both by integration in international humanitarian networks and by engagement with the specific forms of slavery prevalent in local society.

The Archaic Greek World

This chapter examines the role of slavery in the worlds of Homer and of Hesiod, and asks what historical conditions these portrayals might reflect. It provides a critique of the current orthodoxy, developed by M. I. Finley, which holds that the emergence of a ‘slave society’ in Greece occurred in the sixth century BC. Slavery is shown to have underpinned elite fortunes at least as early as 700 BC. A different model of the evolution of slavery in the Greek world is set out, in which different regions diverged from the ‘Homeric’ model to differing degrees and for different reasons.