Slavery in Spain

Spanish slavery can be traced to the Phoenician and Roman eras. In the 9th century the Muslim Moorish rulers and local Jewish merchants traded in Spanish and Eastern European Christian slaves. After the "discovery" of the "New World", the Spanish colonialists decided to use it for commercial production and mining because of the absence of trading networks. The Native American population was used for this labor but they died in large numbers as a result of war, diseases, exploitation and social disruptions. Meanwhile, the need for labor expanded, such as for the production of sugarcane. The problem of the justness of Indian slavery was a key issue for the Spanish Crown. Bartolomé de las Casas was concerned about the fate of the natives and argued in 1516 that white and black slaves should be imported to the Indies to replace the Amerindians. African slaves did have certain advantages over native slaves as being resistant to European diseases and more familiarity with agricultural techniques. This preference led to the development of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Charles V, Emperor, abolished the enslavement of natives by decree on November 25, 1542, in his Leyes Nuevas New Laws. This bill was based on the arguments given by the best Spanish theologists and jurists who were unanimous in the condemnation of such slavery as unjust; they declared it illegitimate and outlawed it from America—not just the slavery of Spaniards over Indians—but also the type of slavery practiced among the Indians themselves. The labor system of Encomienda was also abolished in 1550. However these laws did not end the practice of slavery or forced labor immediately and a new system began to be used repartimiento and mita in Peru. Eventually this system too was abolished due to abuses. By the 17th century, forced indigenous labor continued illegally and black slave labor legally.

Pre-unification

Spain consisted of several different nations: different categories of people were enslaved in each, and slavery was conducted under different regulations. Slaves were used for services and employed in various ways such as employment "in domestics, artisans an assistance of all kinds". In the time frame of the Roman times to the Middle Ages, the percentage of the slave population was minimal. "Slaves probably made up less than 1 percent of the population in Spain." "Slavery was cross-cultural and multi-ethnic" and, in addition to that, slavery played an important role in the development of the economy for Spain and other countries.

Roman laws

The idea that slavery was based on race was and continues to be one of the biggest misconceptions about slavery in Spain. Phillips Jr. William D. in The History of Slavery in Iberia, challenged the idea that race was not the key to determine who was enslaved, but instead religion. Roman laws existed, subjugating slavery which included the sources of slaves, their conditions, and possibility of liberation. In addition, the "normal pattern" was to prohibit people from enslaving someone within their same religion. The Romans made large use of slave gangs for agriculture and other purposes.

Visigothic slavery

The Visigoths practiced slavery before they came to Iberia, and continued to practice it after arrival, using a system of slavery similar to that of the Romans, with some modifications. Their sources of slaves were similar to those of the Romans, as were their rules for treatment of slaves and manumission. Until their conversion from Aryan Christianity, the Visigoths had no hesitance to enslaving Catholic Christians. A notable difference in their usage is that unlike the Romans, who only used them in the military in support roles, the Visigoths used slaves as active fighting troops.

Slavery in al-Andalus

During the al-Andalus (also known as Muslim Spain or Islamic Iberia), the Moors controlled much of the peninsula. They imported white Christian slaves from the 8th century until the end of the Reconquista in the late 15th century. The slaves were exported from the Christian section of Spain, as well as Eastern Europe (Saqaliba), sparking significant reaction from many in Christian Spain and many Christians still living in Muslim Spain. The Muslims followed the same technique as Romans to capture slaves; seeking cities to ally with them. Soon after, Muslims were successful, taking 30,000 Christian captives from Spain. In the eighth century slavery lasted longer due to “frequent cross-border skirmishes, interspersed between periods of major campaigns.” By the tenth century, Byzantine Christians in the eastern Mediterranean were captured by Muslims. Many of the raids designed by Muslims were created for the fast capture of prisoners. Therefore, Muslims restricted control in order to keep captives from fleeing. The Iberian peninsula served as a base for further exports of slaves into other Muslim regions in Northern Africa.

At the time of the formation of al-Andalus, Mozarabs and Jews were allowed to remain and retain their slaves if they paid a head tax for themselves and half-value for the slaves. However, non-Muslims were prohibited from holding Muslim slaves, and so if one of their slaves converted to Islam, they were required to sell the slave to a Muslim. Mozarabs were later, by the 9th and 10th centuries, permitted to purchase new non-Muslim slaves via the peninsula's established slave trade.

The saqaliba slavery during the Caliphate of Cordoba is the perhaps most well known in al-Andalus. The slaves of the Caliph were often European saqaliba slaves trafficked from Northern or Eastern Europe. Male saqaliba could be given work in a number of tasks, such as offices in the kitchen, falconry, mint, textile workshops, the administration or the royal guard (in the case of harem guards, they were castrated), while female saqaliba were placed in the harem.

The harem could contain thousands of slave concubines; the harem of Abd al-Rahman I consisted of 6,300 women. The concubines (jawaris) were educated in accomplishments to please their master, and many became known and respected for their knowledge in a variety of subjects from music to medicine. A concubine who gave birth to a child attained the status of an umm walad, which meant that they could no longer be sold and were to be set free after the death of their master.

Slavery in Christian Iberia

In the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia, slavery existed as well, originally as a continuation of Visigothic practices. Though enslavement of Christians was originally permitted, over the period from the 8th to the 11th centuries the Christian kingdoms gradually ceased this practice, limiting their pool of slaves to Muslims from al-Andalus. Unlike the routine use of large slave gangs under the Romans, slavery in the medieval north mostly provided supplements to the workforce of free laborers and temporary labor for special projects. Male slaves also might be servants or agents, while female slaves often were domestics and concubines.

With the phasing out of Christian slavery, the Christian kingdoms passed through a period where most slaves would come from military campaigns in the Muslim south. In the western kingdom of Castile, this remained the dominant pattern throughout the Middle Ages. The pool of slaves was only expanded in the second half of the 15th century when the Castilians and Portuguese began their nautical probes down the Atlantic coast of Africa, through which sub-Saharan African slaves were first introduced in larger numbers into Europe.

In eastern Iberia, in Aragon with its coastal centers of Barcelona and Valencia, slavery evolved in the later Middle Ages. Rather than acquire their slaves primarily by war in Iberia, they instead joined in a burgeoning common slave market of the Christian Western Mediterranean, with the slaves largely taken in military campaigns by the Italian states against the peoples of the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, as well as north of the Black Sea. The imported slaves were non-Christian, or at least non-Catholic, and mostly females who would serve as domestics, referred to as ancillae, and sometimes concubines, within the households of the growing urban centers of eastern Iberia. They were encouraged to convert, and were more frequently manumitted than in the western states. Aragon also supplied tens of thousands of slaves to these slave markets following their conquests of Muslim Majorca and Minorca.

Christian states prohibited their Jewish and Mudéjar residents from owning Christian slaves. As an unintended consequence, this increased the Muslim slave-owners' resistance to assimilation, their faith being reinforced by exposure to slaves from countries where Islam was dominant.