Do you know why slavery reappears through out history? Can rebirth of slavery from overpopulation adversity be stopped? 

Slavery has demonstrated a frightening ability to return throughout history in many different places and times. Discover rich history and cultural wisdom that Dahomey's King and others can teach. Join using light from the past  to improve our shared future. Join to build better understandings of slavery, guided  by many who have come before. Share sources that delve deeper into global slavery toward the goal of ending the scourge of slavery for all time.

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Why slavery reappears?

In this plate the King of Dahomey condenses slavery to its very roots in overpopulation adversity. Can we fill in the details?

Our biology of overpopulation

Darwin concluded that "More individuals of every species are born than can possibly survive." The result? "Frequently recurring struggle(s) for existence." Darwin clearly recognized repeated struggles accompanying growth in numbers among animals and plants.

Why do struggles reappear? Because all momentarily-successful life tends to reproduce beyond available life support.

Imagine lacking overpopulation as a universal characteristic of life of every species. That means an existing generation's numbers will shrink in the following generation. After that, each succeeding generation will be smaller still. This rinse and repeat yields extinction.

Life forms simply cannot persist, cannot pass through the seive of survival without that one universal quality of all momentarily-successful life, the ability to overpopulate. No species will long remain without ability to grow in numbers beyond all available life-support resources.

We humans seem theoretically smart enough to do the very careful, deliberate, intentional management of our own numbers necessary to maintain achieve sustainability. To maintain what's left then of paradise, creation, Eden. History records a few attempts.

Many golden-rules yield legitimacy to existing religions, philosophies, and other human belief-systems. Do all such rules commit dedicated members to defang overpopulation threats to sustainability? Who am I to pretend that an omnicient, all-powerful god shouldn't erect life using universal rules of overpopulation? Like any good mother, he gave us golden-rules to guide our handling of unversal overpopulation.

But human history more obviously bleeds with adversarial violence. Has evolution pre-programmed humans to view overpopulation threats as problems cause by too many "others?"

What is overpopulation?

By one definition, underpopulation describes good times when we all enjoy resources ("milk and honey" in Judeo Christian Islamic  writings) so plentiful that every extra pair of hands makes all of us more comfortable!

In contrast, overpopulation simply means times we have people enough that some start thinking we'd be better off without "others."

So why do some people start thinking we'd be better off without all those "others?" Surely, "frequently recurring struggle(s) for existence" are a reason. Surely, shortages of "milk and honey" we can blame on "others" would be another reason.

Surely, our deeply dangerous human "us-or-them" psychological drives that envelop possessiveness, hatred, and worse, provide a raft of reasons. "If it comes down to feeding my children or their children..." Fill in the blanks, anyone?

Do overpopulation's "struggles for existence" explain why slavery reappears?

As humans outrun life support babies are born faster than jobs. Joblessness translates into shortages of water, food, shelter, other supports and joys of life. Overpopulation poverty spreads. Conceptions beyond support worsen stress.

Overpopulation emigration begins as frustrated, hungry people seeking "lands of milk and honey" attempt escape from overpopulating, overpopulation-ruined lands of their birth. All hope for something better. Who can't blame them. Whose fault was it they were conceived into a world where "two many explain why slavery reappears?"

Since overpopulation is a universal quality of all momentarily-successful life, expression of needs and greeds -- qualities themselves shaped by past evolution pressurized by bouts between adversaries -- become increasingly vicious. Competition becomes brutal, fierce, and deadly.

Why slavery reappears with prisoners of war.

Prisoners of war are typically among the first to suffer slavery as overpopulation worsens. Deadly threats encourage notions that we'd be better off without all those pesky adversaries. If natives die leaving us to enjoy lands and resources they'd claimed, are we better off (in a pre-nuclear age)?

Toss a dart hard at a good history book and the point will likely yield an example of humans acting on such notions.

Harvard's Orlando Patterson identifies "social death" of slavery as a complete repudiation, dishonor, and stripping of meaningful status from persons targeted. Where can social death be found among existing civilizations today?

Prisoners of war (POWs) are obvious examples of the "social dead." Other examples include prisoners by crimes and prisoners by debt.

Why slavery reappears with prisoners  by crime.

Capitally punishable and other felons are imprisoned as a matter of course. As people-to-resource ratios worsen, should inmate work be required to cover the cost of penalties earned?

As overpopulation stresses increase, should inmate work benefit tortured societies as a whole? WWII factories were located next to concentration camps, as we'll explore. Modern slavery.

Why slavery reappears with prisoners by debt.

Can't pay owed debts? Debtor's prisons have been momentarily repudiated during relatively good times in some wealthy nations. Even so, historic practices and even current practices can be found around the globe today. Debtors may be enslaved to work off the debt or on theories such as, "if I have to organize their life then I should benefit accordingly.

The word "momentarily" is used above because laws, events, and circumstances change constantly over time, especially as driven by that universal tendency to eventually overpopulate all available resources.

But slaves have been emancipated during relatively good times in some wealthy nations?

True. Oceans of thanks to so many heroic, caring, thoughtful pathfinders.

Circumstances develop again and again showing that slavery reappears.

"There are more slaves today than at any other time in human history. Oversupply makes slaves cheap. Very cheap. While in the 1850s, a slave cost the equivalent of $35,000-$50,000, a human life today averages $90. This not only makes them a small investment, it makes them...not worth the effort to maintain. Modern slaves are disposable because they have become replaceable."

"The enormous population explosion over the past three decades (in 1998) has flooded the world's labor markets with millions of impoverished, desperate people."  This "glutted the world with potentially enslavable people" making them cheap and replaceable.  See the first chapter of Kevin Bale's 1998 book titled, Disposable People, New Slavery in the Global Economy.

Should disposable slaves be our new normal?

Should offshored slavery be allowed to hide from those of us who benefit while blissfully unaware?

Shouldn't we know why slavery reappears?

Western post-1865 preoccupations focus on despicable experiences of slavery. To understand original causes of slavery we must widen our focus. Until we know why slavery reappears again and again, past emancipation-from-slavery gains will never be safe.

Our experts have taught us this. Harvard's Orlando Patterson documents that "Slavery has existed all over the world." "Slavery has existed all over the planet for thousands of years, with black, white, yellow and other races being both slaves and enslavers,"  Stanford's Thomas Sowell taught.

"One of the most remarkable features of Western civilization is the critical role of slavery at almost all the high points of its development, from ancient Greece to the rise of industrial capitalism," Patterson reports in his premise.

Dahomey's King corrects an important oversight. Many North Americans today view slavery as solved by emancipation. Blame Southern state "others." But United States' nightmares with slavery seem part of a far larger human tragedy?

Harvard and PBS' Henry Louis Gates, Jr., reminds that an estimated 12.5 million African people were sold into global slavery between 1525 and 1866. After travel-suffering killed 1.8 million 10.7 million enslaved. "How many of the 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000."  North American slavery is only a tiny part of a far larger human tragedy.

Lets look closer at re-occuring predicaments that nudge, trigger, and move societies from initial sustainable paradise to institutionalization of slavery.

Why slavery reappears: African Slave Coast prisoners of war

As numbers grow, grass may seem greener on "their" side of the valley? If they are nomadic or colonizing people they may hail from distant regions where language developed different. Then, we cannot understand "them."

As resource pressures grow, may we increasingly hunger for lands and resources free of "them?" May they feel likewise?

Violent takings of lands and resources yield prisoners of war.

POWs typically become captives in the act of destroying lives, loved ones, cultures, gods, and everyone and everything else captors value. POWs are despised and feared mortal enemies.

Between the 1500's and 1866 as many as 20% of black slaves sold into the global slave trade came from Dahomey, Africa. In the 1840's, Dahomeh's King Ghezo denied British efforts to abolish slavery with these words.  "[T]he mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…  The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth."

Along African slave coasts, empires burdened by their own growing numbers recruited powerful, hungry armies. Resources and boundaries were desperately fought over. Prisoners of war were taken as dangerous, combat-ready veterans. Overpopulation logic suggested their execution. After all, freed POWs would simply return to killing more captors. Releasing prisoners would just strengthen enemy forces. Captors regarded POWs as socially dead. Overpopulation had rendered them dangerous outsiders.

Before 1492, enslavement in Black African societes had become a way to extract some usefulness from POWs willing to make themselves worth the trouble. Execution remained the alternative.

After 1492, Europeans wished to benefit from "new world" lands and resources taken from natives. Black empires were offered cannons, muskets, money, and other weaponry for POWs, criminals and bankrupts who local Kings would otherwise have executed or sacrificed. Global slave markets expanded.

Join Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Jr. is footnoted in the image-plate above. In Gates' powerful Youtube video linked below, Gates understandably found his visit with the modern King of Dahomey "unsettling." After all, generations before, predecessors of Dahomey's modern figure-head emperor had sold Dr. Gates' ancestral family into slavery.

By the time Gates visited King Agoli-Agbo's Court surrounded by the Kings' servants, supporters, petitioners, and others, the British Slavery Abolition Act 1833 had become law. Still, Dr. Gates' taped personal reactions help us imagine earlier times when the likes of King Ghezo and slave-seller Francisco Felix de Souza dealt with the most pressing reality of their time. What can you do with so many prisoners of war. Judge for yourself.

Captors quickly claimed moral high ground. "Unstead of killing POW's we let them live! As slaves we send these dangerous enemies away where they'll be forced to do useful work. They won't be killing more of our people. Selling enemies gets us better weapons for defending ourselves and our lands and resources from antagonistic "others." And those better weapons help us take their lands and resources as we grow our own families per commands of our own gods! After all, our enemies only threaten us because it is they who cannot learn to live within their means!"

Gates' shines light on the life of Brazilian/Dahoman Don Francisco de Sousa. After supporting Dahomey King Ghezo's successful coup against the Ghezo's brother, Ghezo appointed Don Francisco  as the King's Viceroy of Ouidah. Don Francisco would negotiate the King's massive slave trade sales. Henry Louis Gates' filmed interview of a senior member of Don Francisco's extended family exposed claiming of the moral high ground by slave-traders.

Staggering enrichment of all involved in the slave trade -- other than those enslaved -- goes without saying.

As numbers rise among competing empires, Emperor wannabees have often asked, "What can we do with all our hungry surplus people?" Organize militarily to defend our life supports against predator - neighbors? Plunder resources from "alien foreigners?" Enslave foreign overpopulation to benefit our people? Enslave foreign overpopulation to support aggression against alien foreigners? Enslave subgroups within our own people who we can define as "others" among those whose support we'll need to stay in power?

Among African Coast victims "frequently occuring struggles for existence" among overpopulating people often determined who would be enslaved, who would enslave, who would continue to survive. As elsewhere around the world overpopulation sets the stage for competition. Competition sets the stage for slavery.

The phrase "overpopulation slavery" would be redundant if it did not capture reality at the root of human slavery. As to original causes of slavery, is there any other form of slavery other than overpopulation slavery?

Why slavery reappears: Roman prisoners of war

"It is estimated that more than 100 million people were enslaved" in the millennium during which the Roman Empire rose and fell."  Exact numbers will never be known but single digit must have been of the utmost important to every dear person added.

How were Roman slaves enslaved?

From many possible examples lets consider The Cimrian-Roman war between 115 - 101 BCE. Cimbri, Teutones, and other Germanic tribes were "facing overpopulation partly due to climate change and flooding". At the outset their home territory had been coastal lands in what is now known as Northern Denmark. Unable to feed themselves from They would criss-cross Europe in giant, lumbering wagons with families and farm animals for next 14 years finding Europe "full settled." Some who survived their pillaging and looting joined their desperate search for underpopulated lands of milk and honey.

Eventually Cimbrians approached Rome from the North at a time when Romans thought they would be better off without these dangerous "others." Legions were sent to stop the newcomers.

Cimbrians thought they would be better off without the Roman "others" sent to stop them. So in 113 BCE Cimbrians destroyed 20,000 soldiers of Consul Carbo at the battle of Noreia. The slaughter likely took place in modern Alpine Austria.

Another 80,000 Roman soldiers were killed at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BCE. Cimbri-Teutones' typical use for POW-slaves was as sacrifices to gods.

Rome's next try at eliminating unwanted Cimbri-Teutones "others" applied new strategies and military reforms developed by experienced veteran Consul Gaius Marius. Teutones had separated from the Cimbri to attack Rome from the West as the Cimbrians worked their way through the Alps to attack from the Northeast. Marius, outnumbered in 102 BCE, managed to destroy Teutones tribes before enslaving those who surrendered including the Teutones leader, Teutobod.

By 101 the Cimbri finally approached through the Alps. Marius met them near Vercellae in modern Northern Italy. "The Cimbri had delayed their offensive believing the Teutones would soon join them. However, Marius told them that they need not worry about their Teutone brothers, saying, 'They already have land, and they’ll keep it forever; it was a gift from us.' He then brought out leader Teutobod in chains."

Once dust settled over the Battles of Vercellae, Rome had ridded themselves of their "others" problem, enslaving survivors including women and children who had not committed suicide.

Julius Caesar's made short words describing similar enslavements in 57 BCE. His Commentaries on the Gallic War of his enslavements of the Atuatuci (near Belgium's city, Tongeren) quite simply. "About 4,000 of the men (Atuatuci soldiers) having been slain...Caeser...sold the whole spoil (people) of that town. The number of 53,000 persons was reported to him by those who had bought them."

Overpopulation is a driver of human violence and slavery. As humans outnumber our sustainability, our needs repeatedly drive some to start thinking we'd be better off without adversarial "others." We even invent categories of "others" whose deaths will either make room for our us, free plunder for us, or whose slave labor will make our lives easier.

Why slavery reappears: Axis prisoners of war

Axis forces are estimated to have enslaved 20 million people during WWII years. Germany, Japan, and Italy supported war efforts with extractive forms of extinction-by-slavery. Nazi depopulation for lebensraum cleared land as Third Reich maternal Iron Cross awards encouraged conceptions to grow the Nazi base at the expense of others. Population-aggressive policies quickly became  front and center.

Aly's famous Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State fills in details. German working class economics were bootstrapped by enslaving others including Jews, political enemies, foreign countries, always seeking lands and life support resources at the expense of "others."

Among latter day abolitionists, can there be any greater, more important value than sustainability against overpopulation?

Why slavery reappears: Ukranian prisoners of war

"For centuries, Ukraine has been known as 'the breadbasket of Europe.' This title is entirely accurate given that Ukraine is home to around a quarter of the world’s super-fertile 'chernozem' or 'black soil.'

"The untapped potential of Ukraine’s agricultural sector is staggering. The country boasts around 42 million hectares of agricultural land. At present, 32 million hectares are cultivated annually, representing an area larger than Italy. Given the size and fertility of the country’s farmland, together with the vast scope for increased harvests and greater efficiency through ongoing modernization, it is no exaggeration to state that Ukraine can feed the world."

No wonder Russia is enslaving Ukrainians at gunpoint to dig front-line trenches for Russian soldiers. No wonder, despite anti-slavery writings including those overwhelmingly important goals of Geneva Conventions, Russia tries to hide their rebirth of slavery on the Eastern Front.

Why slavery reappears around the world

Has any lasting group of human animals ever achieved sustainability capable of supporting all people forever?

Have many formerly wealthy nations ultimately failed at supporting their own rising numbers?

Could Uncle Sam do better than admire China's "later-longer-fewer" population policies? Might Washington D.C. make Lady Liberty happy by encouraging numbers sustainable for all time?

Name a place in the world. Absent sustainability is there any basis for thinking overpopulation slavery cannot be reborn there?

Understanding why slavery reappears is a necessary first step to ending slavery for all time.

Most North Americans, many friends believe wistfully that slavery has been ended for all time. The Emancipation Proclamation shouted an affluent young democracy's admirable goal of ending domination of one man by another. We thank you, Abraham Lincoln, MLK, along with so many other beloved people who gave so much. Thanks to you, we today have our opportunity today to make even freedoms sustainable!

Laws written in the wake of that great Emancipation Proclamation will last only as long as underpopulation affluence is sustained.

A good start was abandoned decade after 1970. Not even the National Security Study Memorandum 200 could make headway.

Violence remains the dominant way humans deal with overpopulation. And we have nuclear, biological, chemical, and other suicidally-intelligent weapons now.

To make that happen, how should love be in our world now?

Buzzie, our buzzard friend, might take the bright side. "The longer some Humies think there are too many "others," the better for us buzzards!"

Buzzie, our buzzard friend feels good 'cause buzzard futures look good!