Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia

Epilogue: The Wider Extensions of Iberian Slavery

Epilogue: The Wider Extensions of Iberian Slavery The long history of slavery in Iberia from ancient to modern times has unfolded in this book, beginning with the Romans, passing through the Visigothic period, viewing the Islamic and Christian portions of the peninsula during the Middle Ages, and tracing developments in the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal well into the early modern period and to the end of slavery in Iberia. Some experiences of the people who lived as slaves in those periods remained constant: they were owned, their personal and working lives were at the command of their owners, and many of them sought freedom though not all attained it. Complexity, nonetheless, is the key to full understanding of the lives of slaves. The conditions of their lives and their responsibilities varied widely, depending on the period and its politics, their location, the occupations and inclinations of their owners, and the skills they had or could acquire. Many enslaved people were domestic servants, a fact that led a number of scholars to assume that role to be the predominant and almost exclusive assignment for slaves in the Mediterranean world. That assumption in turn led to a line of argument that Old World slavery was not a particularly harsh system but one in which slaves were part of extended families and occupied places and roles in the household not too different from those of its free servants , who were also governed paternalistically by the (usually) male head of the household.1 Such a positive image persisted, despite the many challenges it brought forth. One critical voice was that of Iris Origo, presented in a classic article now well over a half century old.2 Origo’s title tells it all: “The Domestic Enemy.” Her concept of domestic enemies stressed the tensions among the free and unfree members of the household and notably between the master’s wife and the women slaves. Slaves and masters frequently lived with tension and dread. Slaves feared the masters’ extensive powers to bully, coerce, and punish. Masters, despite their ostensible power, were still uneasy in the knowledge that 147 The Wider Extensions of Iberian Slavery they could be attacked or even killed by their discontented slaves. Households with slaves were seldom happy homes.3 The older emphasis on domestic slavery was mistaken on other grounds as well. By no means were all slaves in Iberia domestic workers, nor did they all live in the same household as their owners. Throughout the entire historic span, many slaves lived outside the owners’ homes. Examples included the shepherds and mine workers in Roman times; the business agents found frequently in Roman Hispania and Islamic al-Andalus and in much smaller numbers in Christian Iberia; and slaves rented out by their owners as seasonal agricultural workers, as artisans in skilled crafts, and as wet nurses. Slaves such as these could live independently, communally with their fellow slaves in rural or urban spaces, or in the households of those who rented their labor. Even those slaves who resided in their owners’ households could work in any number of non-domestic tasks within or beyond the home. Two major means produced slaves. Children born to slave mothers were slaves, with some notable exceptions discussed earlier. Natural increase by itself did not replenish or even maintain the ranks of slaves; new slaves had to be brought into the system if the numbers were to remain steady or to grow. We saw the usual methods by which free people became slaves: capture in raids or in warfare. If these captives fell victim to martial actions in or near Iberia, they were traded locally. Others arrived in Iberia via routes of the slave trade, over which they were taken for long distances from their homelands and from the point of their enslavement. We have looked at other means by which free people fell into captivity and servitude, including debt slavery, self-sale, or the sale of free children by abductors or even by their own parents. These other means, I have argued, produced relatively few slaves. Most slaves were born into their status or enslaved through violent actions. Enslaved people lived subjected to the dictates of their owners, who legally had extensive leeway in how they treated and employed their slaves, in the punishments they could inflict upon them, and in the ways they could sell or otherwise transfer their ownership. Women slaves, who were a majority in most places and in most periods, had...