Slavery in India
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/4/22
When Ziegenbalg baptized the five slaves on May 12, 1707, the first Protestant church in Tranquebar, purely meant for the South Indian Christians, began to take shape.29 [Germann, 1883, 529 f.: The three male slaves received their baptismal names as "Friedrich, Christian and Conrad." They were the servants of Johann Sigismund Hassius (1704-1716), the Danish Governor in Tranquebar. One woman was Sophia. She was a slave belonging to the tax collector Diedrich in Tranquebar. The fifth baptized person was Hetwiga, a slave girl belonging to Eidzil Abigael Bergs, the widow of the Danish pastor living in Tranquebar. Thus the first members of the Protestant church were slaves of Europeans... Most of the converts received German baptismal names... Ziegenbalg's servant Cepperumal was baptized with the German name Andreas... By August 1708, there were about 102 church members in the Jerusalem church. Most of them were slaves of Europeans in Tranquebar; a few however were free Tamil people who became Christians along with the members of their families... In 1713, there were 126 Tamil Christians in Tranquebar, who formed the nucleus of an alternate socio-religious community [???] ... they followed the prescribed Danish liturgy... they adopted as part of their Christian life certain Tamil habits connected with marriages and funerals [???]... Ziegenbalg... informed them that the Tamil Christians had freedom to wear any dress, eat any food and observe any good social behavior. However, they would not apply holy ash on their foreheads, wear the beads around their neck, have extravagant marriage processions and use the Tali... without the symbol of Tali no Tamil marriage would be complete... the church music was followed a certain system of South Indian tunes that the Tamil children used in their schools to learn new lessons...
He did not want complete social and cultural dislocation of the converts... This conversion does not mean either changing one's name or exchanging the place of worship (e.g., church instead of temple) or total break with the social dignity, code of honor, cultural identity, way of dressing and eating [???]... No Tamil person was required to become a German in order to express his/her Christian faith. [???]...
A German church should not be transplanted in the South Indian context, rather the seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ should be planted in Tranquebar so that an Indian Christian church could emerge [!!!]...
Within the church community the women enjoyed a special status of equality and freedom to make their own decisions. [???]...
[ B]oth women and men to sit together in worship services, and participate together in the Eucharist....both women and men had an equal opportunity to learn reading and writing, claim their rights and exercise their responsibility in a divided community ... The church as an alternate socio-religious institution helped its members to regain their human dignity, re-interpret the meaning of being created in the image of God, find ways to alleviating poverty and illiteracy, live a good human life and seek to achieve a higher quality of social wellbeing. [???]
-- Genealogy of the South Indian Deities: An English translation of Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg's original German manuscript with a textual analysis and glossary [Christian Propaganda], by Daniel Jeyaraj
Before describing the work of Ringeltaube, who can fairly claim the title of pioneer for Travancore — the scene of by far the greatest successes in the way of converts hitherto achieved by the Society in India— we will sketch the country and people in the words of Travancore's literary missionary, the Rev. Samuel Mateer2 [The Land of Charity, pp. 2, 3, et seq.].'The distinct castes and subdivisions found in various parts of Travancore are reckoned to be no less than eighty-two in number. All these vary in rank, in the nicely graduated scale, from the highest of the Brahmans to the lowest of the slaves. Occasional diversities, arising from local circumstances, are observable in the relative position of some of these castes. But speaking generally, all, from the Brahman priests down to the guilds of carpenters and goldsmiths, are regarded as of high or good caste; and from the Shanar tree-climbers and washermen down to the various classes of slaves, as of inferior or low caste....
'The Sudras were originally the lowest of the four true castes, and are still a degraded caste in North India. But in the South there are so many divisions below the Sudras, and they are so numerous, active, and influential, that they are regarded as quite high-caste people. The Sudras are the middle classes of Travancore. The greater portion of the land is in their hands, and until recently they were also the principal owners of slaves. They are the dominant and ruling class. They form the magistracy and holders of most of the Government offices — the military and police — the wealthy farmers, the merchants, and skilled artisans of the country. The Royal Family are members of this caste....
'The Ilavars, Shanars, and others form a third great subdivision of the population. These constitute the highest division of the low castes. . . . The Ilavars and Shanars differ but little from one another in employments and character, and are, no doubt, identical in origin. The Shanars are found only in the southern districts of Travancore, between the Cape and Trevandrum; from which northwards the Ilavars occupy their place. These are the palm-tree cultivators, the toddy drawers, sugar manufacturers, and distillers of Travancore. Their social position somewhat corresponds to that of small farmers and agricultural labourers amongst ourselves....
'The Shanars of South Travancore are of the same class as those of Tinnevelly, and in both provinces they have in large numbers embraced the profession of Christianity. Their employment is the cultivation of the Palmyra palm, which they climb daily in order to extract the sap from the flower-stem at the top. This is manufactured into a coarse dark sugar, which they sell or use for food and other purposes. The general circumstances of the Shanar and Ilavar population in Travancore, especially of the former, have long been most humiliating and degrading. Their social condition is by no means so deplorable as that of the slave castes, and has materially improved under the benign influence of Christianity, concurrently with the general advancement of the country.
'The slave castes — the lowest of the low — comprehend the Pallars, the Pariahs, and the Pulayars. Of these the Pariahs, a Tamil caste, are found, like the Shanars, only in the southern districts and in Shencotta, east of the Ghauts; but they appear to be in many respects inferior to those of the eastern coast. Their habits generally are most filthy and disgusting. The Pulayars, the lowest of the slave castes, reside in miserable huts on mounds in the centre of the rice swamps, or on the raised embankments in their vicinity. They are engaged in agriculture as the servants of the Sudra and other landowners. Wages are usually paid to them in kind, and at the lowest possible rates. These poor people are steeped in the densest ignorance and stupidity. Drunkenness, lying, and evil passions prevail amongst them, except where of late years the Gospel has been the means of their reclamation from vice, and of their social elevation.'
... It was to this earthly Paradise, but rendered loathsome by the ignorance, cruelty, superstition, and pride of man, that the steps of Ringeltaube were providentially directed. His journal for 1806-7 describes how at Tuticorin the call to enter it came to him: —'When in the evening, sitting in the verandah of the old fort (formerly the abode of power and luxury, now the refuge of a houseless traveller, and thousands of bats suspended from the ceiling), enjoying the extensive prospect, and communing with my own heart, and the God to whom mercies and forgivenesses belong, something frightened me by falling suddenly at my feet, and croaking, Paraubren Istotiram, i.e. God be praised; the usual words our Christians pronounce when greeting: I rejoiced to see an individual of that tribe among whom I had been so anxious to labour. Entered into conversation with him, as well as I could, to ascertain his ideas about religion, but was soon nonplussed by his stupidity. I could not force a word from him in answer to my plain questions, which he contented himself literally to give back to me. With a sigh, I was forced to dismiss him.'
This interview, unsatisfactory as it was, with a degraded and ignorant Shanar, strengthened the desire which already possessed Ringeltaube to reach Travancore...
Prior to Ringeltaube's departure a successor, Mr. Charles Mead, had been appointed....'During the two years after Mead and Knill's arrival, about 3,000 persons, chiefly of the Shanar caste, placed themselves under Christian instruction, casting away their images and emblems of idolatry, and each presenting a written promise declarative of his renunciation of idolatry and determination to serve the living and true God. Some of these doubtless returned to heathenism when they understood the spiritual character and comprehensive claims of the Christian religion, but most remained faithful and increasingly attached to their new faith....
The missionaries were the friends of the Resident, and connected with the great and just British nation. Hopes were perhaps indulged that they might be willing to render aid to their converts in times of distress and oppression, or advice in circumstances of difficulty. Moreover, the temporal blessings which Christianity everywhere of necessity confers, in the spread of education and enlightenment, liberty, civilization, and social improvement, were exemplified to all in the case of the converts already made. The kindness of the missionaries, too, attracted multitudes who were accustomed to little but contempt and violence from the higher classes, and who could not but feel that the Christian teachers were their best and real friends. What were these to do with those who thus flocked to the profession of Christianity? Receive them to baptism and membership with the Christian Church, or recognize them as true believers, they could not and did not; but gladly did they welcome them as hearers and learners of God's word. The missionaries rejoiced to think that the influence for good which they were permitted to exert, and the prestige attached to the British nation in India, were providentially given them to be used for the highest and holiest purposes. They did not hesitate, therefore, to receive to Christian instruction even those who came from mixed motives, unless they were evidently hypocrites or impostors.
... The broad features of the work are alike in both Northern and Southern India; but during the century Christianity found more fertile soil in the south among the low-caste section of the Tamil, Telugu, and Canarese countries, than along the valley of the Ganges; it received a much more cordial welcome among the devil-worshippers of Travancore than among the haughty Muhammadans of the north....
A somewhat detailed description of this district may serve for many others in central Southern India.
The majority of cultivators are comparatively poor, but seem quite contented with their lot. So long as the wants of the day are supplied, they think little of the future. Their greatest trouble is (like small farmers in England) the payment of taxes! They rise before dawn and go out to their fields, where they labour more or less all day. The morning meal is generally the cold remains of the previous night's supper, the latter being as a rule the only meal cooked. A piece of white cloth round his loins and another round his head form the only attire of an ordinary cultivator. His wife is equally simple in her mode of life. One or two cloths, ear-rings, and nose-rings, more or less costly, as the husband's circumstances admit, together with the Thali (sign of marriage, answering to our ring), form all her possessions. The children up to ten years or more go in a state of nudity, relieved perhaps by a piece of string round the waist. The ravika or jacket is worn generally by Musulmanis and by women of high castes, but rarely by the lower orders, except above the ghats, where the colder climate makes it necessary. The wealthier classes dress more richly in public, but in their houses their attire is very scanty. The people as a rule are well-made and often handsome.
The great bulk of the people, including cultivators, artisans, and pariahs, though nominally ranging themselves among the followers of Vishnu and Siva, worship certain village gods and goddesses, remnants of aboriginal pre-Aryan cult, the most popular of which is Mari-amman, the goddess of small-pox and other ills that flesh is heir to; and hence she is propitiated on the coming of every calamity by the sacrifice of fowls, sheep, and goats. A rude temple to this goddess is found in every village and hamlet of any importance; and there are hereditary priests to officiate before her. If a village be too small to support a priest, his services are divided between two or three villages. All classes and religionists believe more or less in the doctrine of metempsychosis or transmigration of souls....
The Malas have frequently to encounter opposition from caste people when it is known they wish to become Christians. Mr. Johnston says: 'This spirit of antagonism on the part of the Sudras and others does not, I am inclined to think, arise so much from their feeling any concern whether the Malas become Christians or not, as from their dislike to seeing them raised to a better position than they had before, their children educated and capacitated for other employment than what fell to their lot heretofore.'...
It must be borne in mind that Christianity has, throughout the century, exercised comparatively feeble influence on the one hand in modifying the heathenism and caste tyranny of the Government, and on the other in winning the adherence and self-denial of members of the higher castes. That is, until quite towards the close of the century the adherence of large numbers of Shanars and Pariahs to Christianity has left practically untouched the currents of life in Travancore, which most directly and powerfully affect public opinion and Government action....
A letter from the pen of Mrs. Mault illustrates in the first place the skill with which the early missionaries endeavoured to make their missions self-supporting, and in the second, gives a dark picture of the grievous hardships with which those whom they tried to benefit had to contend. The lace-making described in this letter has continued to the present day, and is noted all over India. The slavery, happily, came to an end in 1854. The letter is dated June 2, 1830.'In the year 1821, to assist in defraying the expenses of the school, lace-making was introduced on a small scale, and from that time to the present, greater facilities for disposing of the lace being afforded, it has been gradually enlarging; the profits of which, together with subscriptions from England for the support of twenty-two girls, and occasional donations realized in this country, enable us at the present time to provide board and education for sixty children.
'To be able to read well is conceived to be of great importance; no girl is therefore allowed to turn her attention to other pursuits till she can read the New Testament, when she is permitted to enter one of the working classes, if her time is not too nearly expired to admit of it. These classes consist of those who make lace, and those that learn plain needlework; the number employed at the former is twelve, and that of the latter is seven, which are kindly superintended by Mrs. Addis. As the people of this country have not yet arrived at such a state of civilized improvement as to require needlework, and as we are too remote from European stations to obtain work thence, but little can at present be done in this department beyond the wants of the school and our own families. In reference to lace-making, it may be remarked that to the proceeds of this branch the school is indebted for more than half its support; and, could a more regular supply of materials from the liberality of British Christians be calculated on, the number of workers would be immediately increased, and the school augmented in proportion.
'Many of these poor children are orphans without a friend to care for them, who, but for this asylum, would be left to perish in ignorance, vice, and wretchedness: a friendless child in this unfeeling land is an object pitiable beyond expression. Moreover, not a few of these girls are slaves; and it is our wish that they should, if possible, obtain their freedom while they are in the school, that, when they leave it, they may go free. No arguments are necessary to prove the importance of this measure, when it is stated that slavery as it exists in this kingdom is in some respects worse than that of the West Indies, inasmuch as the owner feels himself under no obligation to provide for his slaves any longer than it is convenient to employ them, hence he calls them to work during seed-time and harvest, and then dismisses them to gain for themselves and children a scanty and uncertain pittance in the best way they can, till the returning season. As the owner takes no notice whatever of the children of his slaves, till they are old enough to work, it is easy to account for some of this unfortunate class being in the school; and some faint idea may be formed of the sensations of a poor girl, when her master appears to take her away, from the following instance. An interesting girl, apparently about eleven years of age, was discovered near our premises in a state of exhaustion through hunger. She was brought in and supplied with food, and as soon as she recovered strength, she told us she was a slave, but, owing to her master denying her sufficient for sustenance and severely flogging her, she had run away; her emaciated frame and the marks on her body abundantly confirmed her statement. It was with the greatest reluctance she informed us where her owner resided; even the mention of his name seemed to make her tremble.
'In eight or ten days a stern-looking man made his appearance, and demanded his slave. The girl, who had heard of his approach, had hid herself; but when she found she could conceal herself no longer, she came and begged in the most feeling manner, that he might not be allowed to take her away. Every effort possible was used to induce him to give her up, and a sum more than her estimated value was offered him, but in vain; he was unmoved, his iron heart had no relentings. "I want not your money, but my slave," said he, as he walked away with her. No sooner was the poor girl seen following her master to his home, than the school-girls rushed out, and with tears entreated for her release, but all was unavailable. This, my dear friends, this is the slavery from which we wish to see all delivered, that are trained up in our school.
'The plan adopted to secure the freedom of the slave scholars is to teach them in preference to others to make lace, and as soon as their earnings amount to more than their support, to allow them a small portion of their work, to reserve for the purchase of their liberty. Eight girls have gained their freedom by industry, since they have been here, and others are labouring in prospect of soon doing so.
'The instruction that has been received here has been the means of raising two female schools in the villages near, besides the attendance of many girls in our other schools; and we hope that in time many of our scholars will find openings in their native places to impart instruction to their own sex. Experience and observation teach us not to overrate the advantages of instruction. Education may be given, and religious principles inculcated, but these alone will not change the heart, for that is the work of the Spirit of God; nevertheless we are encouraged to use the means, and to exercise faith in the divine promises.'
... Mr. Whitehouse, after eight years' experience in Nagercoil, sent home under date of March 5, 1851, a statement of the condition of the Travancore Mission after nearly half a century's work, so clear and so important as to deserve permanent record. So far as we know it has never been printed before: —'The origin, continuance, and increase of many of our congregations are to be traced to oppression. People have been driven to Christianity by fear, and not drawn to it by conviction. They came, not because they think that the religion taught is true, but because they think those who teach it have influence with the ruling powers in the country, and are therefore able to protect them. Thus any body of religionists, whether Papists or Mohammedans, or any thing else, provided they be thought to have power and willingness to protect and aid those who embrace the faith they teach, would meet with considerable success in gathering professed converts; and the more liberty of conduct the teachers will give their converts, the more will flock to them. A proportion is often to be noticed between the degree of oppression and the number of converts newly presenting themselves. And in certain months in the year, when the demand of the Government upon the people in making preparation for heathen festivals is very burdensome, the number of those who seek exemption by embracing Christianity is the greater....
'Such are the materials on which we have to work, and they for the most part belong either to the Shanar or Pariah caste. If we were more lax in discipline, if Christians were left to learn or not, and to act just as they please, and if caste distinctions were recognized, more of the higher caste natives would join us; but as we make the Scriptures the rule for practice, and the acquirement of Christian knowledge absolutely necessary, and disregard and discountenance caste distinctions, only a few of those who are considered of higher caste have embraced Christianity. No missionary but one who has been brought up in the country, and has been constantly used to caste distinctions, or who has looked very superficially at the subject, can fail to see the chilling and contracting influence of caste, and how counteractive it must prove to the warming and expanding power of Christianity. Those churches in India where caste is recognized are very graveyards of Christian hopes....
I cannot say that the time is surely near when India will be the Lord's. I cannot understand how some can say so. It is true we have numbers, but numbers of what class of people, — the lowest, the poorest, and the most degraded, people who have little or no influence in the country, people who have everything to gain and nothing to lose by becoming Christians. We have numbers, but even among them only a small minority feel the power of the truth. How then can it be said that India will soon be the Lord's, when the mass of the people, the intelligent, the wealthy, and the influential, though they may in many cases assent to the truth of Christianity, feel nothing of its power?
... Mr. Whitehouse, who by his skill, energy, and perseverance did much to revolutionize for good the system of training in the seminary over which he presided, and in the schools throughout Travancore, further emphasizes the unsatisfactory character of the mission in a letter dated August 30, 1852. In this letter he expresses views which the experience of the last fifty years goes far to confirm: —... [T]he scope for persecution has been greatly narrowed lately by the "Lex Loci" Act. While a large number of the young men educated in these institutions will reject idolatry as absurd, it is to be feared that many will find rest in a frigid deism, yet we may expect that the number of those who will go on to know and trust in the Lord will increase, and thus they will by degrees form a body who after a time will be tolerated and then received as a part of general native society.
'But I see no such prospect for Travancore, as things are now going on. There is no spirit of inquiry on any subject among the natives, whether high or low. Though all the Shanars and Pariahs in the country were to become Christians, there would be no sensation among the influential classes. The case is just this: a Christian mission was commenced in Travancore by persons supposed to have power and influence; hundreds of oppressed outcasts, accounted to be the dregs of society, fled to it as a great charity and asylum, and not as an institution designed to improve the spiritual condition of the people. A field for effort was at once presented to the missionary, and his time and strength were expended in giving instruction to persons who did not care about the instruction and only wanted the protection of the missionary. Agents from the same classes were employed to teach the people, who themselves needed to be taught, who because of their position in society hardly dared to speak to those of high caste, and who were unable to meet any but the most feeble of the arguments, or answer any but the simplest inquiries of heathens and others about Christianity. Even now very little is done among the higher classes. A few schools have been established among them, which must always be conducted by high-caste masters, and which would be instantly deserted if low-caste men were appointed to the office. The almost undivided attention of the missionaries is given to the protection and oversight of the Christian congregations, and the result is a large circle of professing Christians, four-fifths of whom would be heathens or anything else to-morrow if they thought they would better their condition by it; and, connected with this, a great expense for the support of readers whose capabilities are very small, and whose instructions are sought for by only a small minority.
... In 1851 Mr. Mead, who had been associated with the mission for thirty-five years, for the most part at Neyoor, married a young Pariah, and thus destroyed at a stroke his influence and usefulness. He retired from the Society's service the same year. Somewhat similar circumstances led to the retirement of Mr. Cox from Trevandrum in 1861....
About 1855 persecution by the Sudras again broke out, and in 1856 matters were so serious that pressure was brought to bear upon the Madras Government to intervene. This Lord Harris did, and the rajah promised to do what he could to improve matters. But unhappily the British Resident, General Cullen, was a man with no sympathy towards Christian work; and having resided in India for nearly fifty years, had practically ceased to be an Englishman and had become nearly a Hindu. Only with great difficulty could he be induced to exert any useful influence. The origin of the troubles was the same as that which had caused an outbreak at an earlier date, in 1827 — the indignation and anger of the high-caste people at the education and beneficial influences brought to bear upon the low-caste and the out-caste population. The old indecent heathen law required women of low caste to go about naked down to the waist. Naturally the Christian native women were taught to disregard this custom, and about 1856 many had begun to wear the 'upper cloth' which distinguished women of the higher castes from those of the lower. The proclamation of the Queen's supremacy, either through ignorance or design, was twisted for a time into a declaration against the continuance of Christian work. The police and lower officials were very bitter and oppressive against all Christians. Men were beaten, imprisoned, and often falsely condemned; chapels and schools were destroyed; the clothing of women was torn from them in the markets and in the streets. After a long controversy between the rajah's officials and the missionaries, who were very reluctantly compelled to invoke the aid of the Madras Government, Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was then governor, promptly and effectively interposed. On July 26, 1859, a proclamation appeared stating that there was no objection to Shanar women dressing in coarse cloth and tying it round their shoulders. In 1864 another proclamation extended this right to women of the Ilaver and all lower castes. In this grudging way the native Government yielded to pressure. For a time Christian natives were thus prevented from wearing fine cloths, and from wearing them in a manner not openly conveying an acknowledgement of inferiority. Time has, to a large extent, abolished the grievance. During 1858 and 1859, so great was the excitement aroused by these events, that about 3,000 persons renounced heathenism for Christianity....
In 1890 there were seven missionaries, eighteen ordained native ministers, 174 male and 67 female evangelists and catechists, 279 congregations, 21,706 baptized persons. 6,004 church members, 321 schools (of which 32 were for girls), 10,869 boy scholars and 3,779 girls. The local contributions amounted to 15,441 rupees....
It is true that the individuals for the most part belong to the lowest classes in the social grade, but such is the uplifting and ennobling influence of Christianity and education that the Shanar and Pariah classes are now beginning to possess a determining influence upon public opinion and social life. The Brahman and the Sudra still despise them as inferiors, but they are disagreeably surprised at times to find the Christian Pariah rivalling them in education and in capacity for public service.
-- The history of the London Missionary Society, 1795-1895, by Richard Lovett, 1851-1904
The early history of slavery in India is contested because it depends on the translations of terms such as dasa and dasyu.[1][2] Greek writer Megasthenes in his work Indika, while describing Mauryan empire states that slavery was banned in Indian society.[3] However, some sources suggest that slavery was likely to have been a widespread institution in ancient India by the lifetime of the Buddha (sixth century BCE), and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period.[1]
Slavery in India escalated during the Muslim domination of northern India after the 11th-century, after Muslim rulers re-introduced slavery to the Indian subcontinent.[1] It became a predominant social institution with the enslavement of Hindus, along with the use of slaves in armies for conquest, a long-standing practice within Muslim kingdoms at the time.[4][5][6] According to Muslim historians of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire era, after the invasions of Hindu kingdoms, Indians were taken as slaves, with many exported to Central Asia and West Asia.[1][7] Many slaves from the Horn of Africa were also imported into the Indian subcontinent to serve in the households of the powerful or the Muslim armies of the Deccan Sultanates and the Mughal Empire.[8][9][10]
Slavery in India continued through the 18th and 19th centuries. During the colonial era, Indians were taken into different parts of the world as slaves by various European merchant companies as part of the Indian Ocean slave trade.[10][11] Over a million indentured labourers (referred to as girmitiyas) from the Indian subcontinent were transported to various European colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas to labour on plantations and mines.[12][13] The Portuguese imported Africans into their Indian colonies on the Konkan coast between about 1530 and 1740.[14][15] Slavery was abolished in the possessions of the East India Company by the Indian Slavery Act, 1843.[1][16][17][18]
Slavery in Ancient India
The term dāsa and dāsyu in Vedic and other ancient Indian literature has been interpreted by as "servant" or "slave", but others have contested such meaning.[1][19] The term dāsa in the Rigveda, has been also been translated as an enemy, but overall the identity of this term remains unclear and disputed among scholars.[20]
According to Scott Levi, it was likely an established institution in ancient India by the start of the common era based on texts such as the Arthashastra, the Manusmriti[21] and the Mahabharata. Slavery was "likely widespread by the lifetime of the Buddha and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period", however he elaborates that the association of the Vedic Dasa with 'slaves' is "problematic and likely to have been a later development".[1]
Upinder Singh states that the Rig Veda is familiar with slavery, referring to enslavement in course of war or as a result of debt. She states that the use of dasa (Sanskrit: दास) and dasi in later times were used as terms for male and female slaves.[22] In contrast, Suvira Jaiswal states that dasa tribes were integrated in the lineage system of Vedic traditions, wherein dasi putras could rise to the status of priests, warriors and chiefs as shown by the examples of Kaksivant Ausija, Balbutha, Taruksa, Divodasa and others.[23] Some scholars contest the earlier interpretations of the term dasa as "slave", with or without "racial distinctions". According to Indologists Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, known for their recent translation of the Rigveda, the dasa and dasyu are human and non-human beings who are enemies of Arya.[24] These according to the Rigveda, state Jamison and Brereton, are destroyed by the Vedic deity Indra.[24] The interpretation of "dasas as slaves" in the Vedic era is contradicted by hymns such as 2.12 and 8.46 that describe "wealthy dasas" who charitably give away their wealth. Similarly, state Jamison and Brereton, the "racial distinctions" are not justified by the evidence.[24] According to the Indologist Thomas Trautmann, the relationship between the Arya and Dasa appears only in two verses of the Rigveda, is vague and unexpected since the Dasa were "in some ways more economically advanced" than the Arya according to the textual evidence.[25]
According to Asko Parpola, the term dasa in ancient Indian texts has proto-Saka roots, where dasa or daha simply means "man".[26] Both "dasa" and "dasyu" are uncommon in Indo-Iranian languages (including Sanskrit and Pali), and these words may be a legacy of the PIE root "*dens-", and the word "saka" may have evolved from "dasa", states Parpola.[26] According to Micheline Ishay – a professor of human rights studies and sociology, the term "dasa" can be "translated as slave". The institution represented unfree labor with fewer rights, but "the supposed slavery in [ancient] India was of mild character and limited extent" like Babylonian and Hebrew slavery, in contrast to the Hellenic world.[27] The "unfree labor" could be of two types in ancient India: the underadsatva and the ahitaka, states Ishay.[27] A person in distress could pledge themselves for work leading to underadsatava, while under ahitaka a person's "unfree labor" was pledged or mortgaged against a debt or ransom when captured during a war.[27] These forms of slavery limited the duration of "unfree labor" and such a slave had rights to their property and could pass their property to their kin, states Ishay.[27]
The term dasa appears in early Buddhist texts, a term scholars variously interpret as servant or slave.[28] Buddhist manuscripts also mention kapyari, which scholars have translated as a legally bonded servant (slave).[29] According to Gregory Schopen, in the Mahaviharin Vinaya, the Buddha says that a community of monks may accept dasa for repairs and other routine chores. Later, the same Buddhist text states that the Buddha approved the use of kalpikara and the kapyari for labor in the monasteries and approved building separate quarters for them.[30] Schopen interprets the term dasa as servants, while he interprets the kalpikara and kapyari as bondmen and slave respectively because they can be owned and given by laity to the Buddhist monastic community.[30] According to Schopen, since these passages are not found in Indian versions of the manuscripts, but found in a Sri Lankan version, these sections may have been later interpolations that reflect a Sri Lankan tradition, rather than early Indian.[30] The discussion of servants and bonded labor is also found in manuscripts found in Tibet, though the details vary.[30][31]
The discussion of servant, bonded labor and slaves, states Scopen, differs significantly in different manuscripts discovered for the same Buddhist text in India, Nepal and Tibet, whether they are in Sanskrit or Pali language.[31] These Buddhist manuscripts present a set of questions to ask a person who wants to become a monk or nun. These questions inquire if the person is a dasa and dasi, but also ask additional questions such as "are you ahrtaka" and "are you vikritaka". The later questions have been interpreted in two ways. As "are you one who has been seized" (ahrtaka) and "are you one who has been sold" (vikritaka) respectively, these terms are interpreted as slaves.[31] Alternatively, they have also been interpreted as "are you doubtless" and "are you blameworthy" respectively, which does not mean slave.[31] Further, according to these texts, Buddhist monasteries refused all servants, bonded labor and slaves an opportunity to become a monk or nun, but accepted them as workers to serve the monastery.[31][30]
The Indian texts discuss dasa and bonded labor along with their rights, as well as a monastic community's obligations to feed, clothe and provide medical aid to them in exchange for their work. This description of rights and duties in Buddhist Vinaya texts, says Schopen, parallel those found in Hindu Dharmasutra and Dharmasastra texts.[32] The Buddhist attitude to servitude or slavery as reflected in Buddhist texts, states Schopen, may reflect a "passive acceptance" of cultural norms of the Brahmanical society midst them, or more "justifiably an active support" of these institutions.[33] The Buddhist texts offer "no hint of protest or reform" to such institutions, according to Schopen.[33]
Kautilya's Arthashastra dedicates the thirteenth chapter on dasas, in his third book on law. This Sanskrit document from the Maurya Empire period (4th century BCE) has been translated by several authors, each in a different manner. Shamasastry's translation of 1915 maps dasa as slave, while Kangle leaves the words as dasa and karmakara. According to Kangle's interpretation, the verse 13.65.3–4 of Arthasastra forbids any slavery of "an Arya in any circumstances whatsoever", but allows the Mlecchas to "sell an offspring or keep it as pledge".[34] Patrick Olivelle agrees with this interpretation. He adds that an Arya or Arya family could pledge itself during times of distress into bondage, and these bonded individuals could be converted to slave if they committed a crime thereby differing with Kangle's interpretation.[35] According to Kangle, the Arthasastra forbids enslavement of minors and Arya from all four varnas and this inclusion of Shudras stands different from the Vedic literature.[36] Kangle suggests that the context and rights granted to dasa by Kautilya implies that the word had a different meaning than the modern word slave, as well as the meaning of the word slave in Greek or other ancient and medieval civilizations.[37][verification needed] According to Arthashastra, anyone who had been found guilty of nishpatitah (Sanskrit: निष्पातित, ruined, bankrupt, a minor crime)[38] may mortgage oneself to become dasa for someone willing to pay his or her bail and employ the dasa for money and privileges.[37][39]
The term dasa in Indic literature when used as a suffix to a bhagavan (deity) name, refers to a pious devotee.[40][41]
Slavery in Medieval India
Slavery was brought during the medieval era with the Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent.[5][6] Wink summarizes the period as follows,
Slavery and empire-formation tied in particularly well with iqta and it is within this context of Islamic expansion that elite slavery was later commonly found. It became the predominant system in North India in the thirteenth century and retained considerable importance in the fourteenth century. Slavery was still vigorous in fifteenth-century Bengal, while after that date it shifted to the Deccan where it persisted until the seventeenth century. It remained present to a minor extent in the Mughal provinces throughout the seventeenth century and had a notable revival under the Afghans in North India again in the eighteenth century.
— Al Hind, André Wink[42]
Unlike other parts of the medieval Muslim world, slavery was not widespread in Kashmir. Except for the Sultans, there is no evidence the elite kept slaves. The Kashmiris despised slavery. Concubinage was also not practised.[43]
Islamic invasions (8th to 12th century AD)
Andre Wink summarizes the slavery in 8th and 9th century India as follows,
(During the invasion of Muhammad al-Qasim), invariably numerous women and children were enslaved. The sources insist that now, in dutiful conformity to religious law, 'the one-fifth of the slaves and spoils' were set apart for the caliph's treasury and despatched to Iraq and Syria. The remainder was scattered among the army of Islam. At Rūr, a random 60,000 captives reduced to slavery. At Brahamanabad 30,000 slaves were allegedly taken. At Multan 6,000. Slave raids continued to be made throughout the late Umayyad period in Sindh, but also much further into Hind, as far as Ujjain and Malwa. The Abbasid governors raided Punjab, where many prisoners and slaves were taken.
— Al Hind, André Wink[44]
In the early 11th century Tarikh al-Yamini, the Arab historian Al-Utbi recorded that in 1001 the armies of Mahmud of Ghazni conquered Peshawar and Waihand (capital of Gandhara) after Battle of Peshawar (1001), "in the midst of the land of Hindustan", and enslaved thousands.[45][46] Later, following his twelfth expedition into India in 1018–19, Mahmud is reported to have returned to with such a large number of slaves that their value was reduced to only two to ten dirhams each. This unusually low price made, according to Al-Utbi, "merchants came from distant cities to purchase them, so that the countries of Central Asia, Iraq and Khurasan were swelled with them, and the fair and the dark, the rich and the poor, mingled in one common slavery".
Delhi Sultanate (12th to 16th century AD)
See also: Turkish slaves in the Delhi Sultanate
During the Delhi Sultanate period (1206–1555), references to the abundant availability of low-priced Indian slaves abound.[1] Many of these Indian slaves were used by Muslim nobility in the subcontinent, but others were exported to satisfy the demand in international markets. Some slaves converted to Islam to receive protection. Children fathered by Muslim masters on non-Muslim slaves would be raised Muslim. Non-Muslim women, who Muslim soldiers and elites had slept with, would convert to Islam to avoid rejection by their own communities.[47] Scott Levi states that "Movement of considerable numbers of Hindus to the Central Asian slave markets was largely a product of the state building efforts of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire in South Asia".[1]
The revenue system of the Delhi Sultanate produced a considerable proportion of the Indian slave population as these rulers, and their subordinate shiqadars, ordered their armies to abduct large numbers of locals as a means of extracting revenue.[6][48] While those communities that were loyal to the Sultan and regularly paid their taxes were often excused from this practice, taxes were commonly extracted from other, less loyal groups in the form of slaves. Thus, according to Barani, the Shamsi "slave-king" Balban (r. 1266–87) ordered his shiqadars in Awadh to enslave those peoples resistant to his authority, implying those who refused to supply him with tax revenue.[49] Sultan Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296–1316) is similarly reported to have legalised the enslavement of those who defaulted on their revenue payments.[49] This policy continued during the Mughal era.[6][50][51][52][53]
An even greater number of people were enslaved as a part of the efforts of the Delhi Sultans to finance their expansion into new territories.[54] For example, while he himself was still a military slave of the Ghurid Sultan Muizz u-Din, Qutb-ud-din Aybak (r. 1206–10 as the first of the Shamsi slave-kings) invaded Gujarat in 1197 and placed some 20,000 people in bondage. Roughly six years later, he enslaved an additional 50,000 people during his conquest of Kalinjar. Later in the 13th century, Balban's campaign in Ranthambore, reportedly defeated the Indian army and yielded "captives beyond computation".[53][55]
Levi states that the forcible enslavement of non-Muslims during Delhi Sultanate was motivated by the desire for war booty and military expansion. This gained momentum under the Khalji and Tughluq dynasties, as being supported by available figures.[1][53] Zia uddin Barani suggested that Sultan Alauddin Khalji owned 50,000 slave-boys, in addition to 70,000 construction slaves. Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq is said to have owned 180,000 slaves, roughly 12,000 of whom were skilled artisans.[6][48][53][56][57][58] A significant proportion of slaves owned by the Sultans were likely to have been military slaves and not labourers or domestics. However earlier traditions of maintaining a mixed army comprising both Indian soldiers and Turkic slave-soldiers (ghilman, mamluks) from Central Asia, were disrupted by the rise of the Mongol Empire reducing the inflow of mamluks. This intensified demands by the Delhi Sultans on local Indian populations to satisfy their need for both military and domestic slaves. The Khaljis even sold thousands of captured Mongol soldiers within India.[6][56][59] China, Turkistan, Persia, and Khurusan were sources of male and female slaves sold to Tughluq India.[60][61][62][63] The Yuan Dynasty Emperor in China sent 100 slaves of both sexes to the Tughluq Sultan, and he replied by also sending the same number of slaves of both sexes.[64]
Mughal Empire (16th to 19th century)
The slave trade continued to exist in the Mughal Empire, however it was greatly reduced in scope, primarily limited to domestic servitude and debt bondage, and deemed "mild" and incomparable to the Arab slave trade or transatlantic slave trade.[65][66]
One Dutch merchant in the 17th century writes about Abd Allah Khan Firuz Jang, an Uzbek noble at the Mughal court during the 1620s and 1630s, who was appointed to the position of governor of the regions of Kalpi and Kher and, in the process of subjugating the local rebels, beheaded the leaders and enslaved their women, daughters and children, who were more than 200,000 in number.[67]
When Shah Shuja was appointed as governor of Kabul, he carried out a war in Indian territory beyond the Indus. Most of the women burnt themselves to death to save their honour. Those captured were "distributed" among Muslim mansabdars.[50][failed verification][68][failed verification][69][70] The Augustinian missionary Fray Sebastian Manrique, who was in Bengal in 1629–30 and again in 1640, remarked on the ability of the shiqdār—a Mughal officer responsible for executive matters in the pargana, the smallest territorial unit of imperial administration to collect the revenue demand, by force if necessary, and even to enslave peasants should they default in their payments.[68]
A survey of a relatively small, restricted sample of seventy-seven letters regarding the manumission or sale of slaves in the Majmua-i-wathaiq reveals that slaves of Indian origin (Hindi al-asal) accounted for over fifty-eight percent of those slaves whose region of origin is mentioned. The Khutut-i-mamhura bemahr-i qadat-i Bukhara, a smaller collection of judicial documents from early-eighteenth-century Bukhara, includes several letters of manumission, with over half of these letters referring to slaves "of Indian origin". In the model of a legal letter of manumission written by the chief qazi for his assistant to follow, the example used is of a slave "of Indian origin".[71] Indian slaves continued to be sold in the markets of Bukhara well into the nineteenth century.[citation needed]
The export of slaves from India was limited to debt defaulters and rebels against the Mughal Empire. The Ghakkars of Punjab acted as intermediaries for such slave for trade to Central Asian buyers.[66]
Fatawa-i Alamgiri
Main article: Fatawa-e-Alamgiri
The Fatawa-e-Alamgiri (also known as the Fatawa-i-Hindiya and Fatawa-i Hindiyya) was sponsored by Aurangzeb in the late 17th century.[72] It compiled the law for the Mughal Empire, and involved years of effort by 500 Muslim scholars from South Asia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The thirty volumes on Hanafi-based sharia law for the Empire was influential during and after Auruangzeb's rule, and it included many chapters and laws on slavery and slaves in India.[73][74][75]
Some of the slavery-related law included in Fatawa-i Alamgiri were,
• the right of Muslims to purchase and own slaves,[74]
• a Muslim man's right to have sex with a captive slave girl he owns or a slave girl owned by another Muslim (with master's consent) without marrying her,[76]
• no inheritance rights for slaves,[77]
• the testimony of all slaves was inadmissible in a court of law[78]
• slaves require permission of the master before they can marry,[79]
• an unmarried Muslim may marry a slave girl he owns but a Muslim married to a Muslim woman may not marry a slave girl,[80]
• conditions under which the slaves may be emancipated partially or fully.[75]
Export of Indian slaves to international markets
Alongside Buddhist Oirats, Christian Russians, Afghans, and the predominantly Shia Iranians, Indian slaves were an important component of the highly active slave markets of medieval and early modern Central Asia. The all pervasive nature of slavery in this period in Central Asia is shown by the 17th century records of one Juybari Sheikh, a Naqshbandi Sufi leader, owning over 500 slaves, forty of whom were specialists in pottery production while the others were engaged in agricultural work.[81] High demand for skilled slaves, and India's larger and more advanced textile industry, agricultural production and tradition of architecture demonstrated to its neighbours that skilled-labour was abundant in the subcontinent leading to enslavement and export of large numbers of skilled labour as slaves, following their successful invasions.[59][82]
After sacking Delhi, Timur enslaved several thousand skilled artisans, presenting many of these slaves to his subordinate elite, although reserving the masons for use in the construction of the Bibi-Khanym Mosque in Samarkand.[83] Young female slaves fetched higher market price than skilled construction slaves, sometimes by 150%,[84] as they could be kept as sex slaves.[6]
Under early European colonial powers
According to one author, in spite of the best efforts of the slave-holding elite to conceal the continuation of the institution from the historical record, slavery was practised throughout colonial India in various manifestations.[85]
17th century
Slavery existed in Portuguese India after the 16th century. "Most of the Portuguese," says Albert. D. Mandelslo, a German itinerant writer, "have many slaves of both sexes, whom they employ not only on and about their persons, but also upon the business they are capable of, for what they get comes with the master."
The Dutch, too, largely dealt in slaves. They were mainly Abyssian, known in India as Habshis or Sheedes. The curious mixed race in Kanara on the West coast has traces of these slaves.[86]
The Dutch Indian Ocean slave trade was primarily mediated by the Dutch East India Company, drawing captive labour from three commercially closely linked regions: the western, or Southeast Africa, Madagascar, and the Mascarene Islands (Mauritius and Reunion); the middle, or Indian subcontinent (Malabar, Coromandel, and the Bengal/Arakan coast); and the eastern, or Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea (Irian Jaya), and the southern Philippines.
The Dutch traded slaves from fragmented or weak small states and stateless societies in the East beyond the sphere of Islamic influence, to the company's Asian headquarters, the "Chinese colonial city" of Batavia (Jakarta), and its regional centre in coastal Sri Lanka. Other destinations included the important markets of Malacca (Melaka) and Makassar (Ujungpandang), along with the plantation economies of eastern Indonesia (Maluku, Ambon, and Banda Islands), and the agricultural estates of the southwestern Cape Colony (South Africa).
On the Indian subcontinent, Arakan/Bengal, Malabar, and Coromandel remained the most important source of forced labour until the 1660s. Between 1626 and 1662, the Dutch exported on an average 150–400 slaves annually from the Arakan-Bengal coast. During the first thirty years of Batavia's existence, Indian and Arakanese slaves provided the main labour force of the company's Asian headquarters. Of the 211 manumitted slaves in Batavia between 1646 and 1649, 126 (59.71%) came from South Asia, including 86 (40.76%) from Bengal. Slave raids into the Bengal estuaries were conducted by joint forces of Magh pirates, and Portuguese traders (chatins) operating from Chittagong outside the jurisdiction and patronage of the Estado da India, using armed vessels (galias). These raids occurred with the active connivance of the Taung-ngu (Toungoo) rulers of Arakan. The eastward expansion of the Mughal Empire, however, completed with the conquest of Chittagong in 1666, cut off the traditional supplies from Arakan and Bengal. Until the Dutch seizure of the Portuguese settlements on the Malabar coast (1658–63), large numbers of slaves were also captured and sent from India's west coast to Batavia, Ceylon, and elsewhere. After 1663, however, the stream of forced labour from Cochin dried up to a trickle of about 50–100 and 80–120 slaves per year to Batavia and Ceylon, respectively.
In contrast with other areas of the Indian subcontinent, Coromandel remained the centre of a sporadic slave trade throughout the seventeenth century. In various short-lived expansions accompanying natural and human-induced calamities, the Dutch exported thousands of slaves from the east coast of India. A prolonged period of drought followed by famine conditions in 1618–20 saw the first large-scale export of slaves from the Coromandel coast in the seventeenth century. Between 1622 and 1623, 1,900 slaves were shipped from central Coromandel ports, like Pulicat and Devanampattinam. Company officials on the coast declared that 2,000 more could have been bought if only they had the funds.
The second expansion in the export of Coromandel slaves occurred during a famine following the revolt of the Nayaka Indian rulers of South India (Tanjavur, Senji, and Madurai) against Bijapur overlordship (1645) and the subsequent devastation of the Tanjavur countryside by the Bijapur army. Reportedly, more than 150,000 people were taken by the invading Deccani Muslim armies to Bijapur and Golconda. In 1646, 2,118 slaves were exported to Batavia, the overwhelming majority from southern Coromandel. Some slaves were also acquired further south at Tondi, Adirampatnam, and Kayalpatnam.
A third phase in slaving took place between 1659 and 1661 from Tanjavur as a result of a series of successive Bijapuri raids. At Nagapatnam, Pulicat, and elsewhere, the company purchased 8,000–10,000 slaves, the bulk of whom were sent to Ceylon while a small portion were exported to Batavia and Malacca. A fourth phase (1673–77) started from a long drought in Madurai and southern Coromandel starting in 1673, and intensified by the prolonged Madurai-Maratha struggle over Tanjavur and punitive fiscal practices. Between 1673 and 1677, 1,839 slaves were exported from the Madurai coast alone. A fifth phase occurred in 1688, caused by poor harvests and the Mughal advance into the Karnatak. Thousands of people from Tanjavur, mostly girls and little boys, were sold into slavery and exported by Asian traders from Nagapattinam to Aceh, Johor, and other slave markets. In September 1687, 665 slaves were exported by the East India Company from Fort St. George, Madras. Finally, in 1694–96, when warfare once more ravaged South India, a total of 3,859 slaves were imported from Coromandel by private individuals into Ceylon.[87] [88] [89][90]
The volume of the total Dutch Indian Ocean slave trade has been estimated to be about 15–30% of the Atlantic slave trade, slightly smaller than the trans-Saharan slave trade, and one-and-a-half to three times the size of the Swahili and Red Sea coast and the Dutch West India Company slave trades.[91]
