The Shadow of the Century of Lights

In the mid-seventeenth century a new ideological and cultural current begins to take shape in Europe, it is about the Illustration .This new current advocated knowledge, detachment from superstitions and use reason as form of knowledge.The idea of ​​dissipating the shadows of humanity through the light of knowledge and reason, made the eighteenth century known as the Age of Lights .But where there is light, there are also shadows, today we will deal with The Shadow of the Age of Lights , which occurred in colonial Europe in the Age of Lights, which was the shadow of the eighteenth century.

Index of the article

The Shadow of the Century of the Lights | Ideological Context

The Illustration began in the mid-seventeenth century, mainly in France, England and Germany, from here it spread throughout Europe. The Illustrated movement had its peak during the 18th century , being able to mark an end date with the French Revolution.

If we want to know what was the starter of this new thought, maybe we should look for the answers in the new scientific and technological advances , such as the calculator, the use of steam for transport, the first microscope, etc.Illnesses were not divine punishments, they were the product of infections, but how much more could be explained through knowledge?
During the 17th century the new religious interpretations that had given rise to the protest tismo, they become more and more asphyxiating, while the formerly called philosophers now thinkers, begin to wonder if there will be no other interpretation of events outside of religion, based on knowledge.

Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Protestantism.Time of religious tension.Photo by Martin Luther.
The search for knowledge and knowledge will move all fields and estates of 18th-century society, or Age of Lights .
The concept is born of history as a series of concatenated facts, history follows a time line, not as until now that they were treated as mere isolated events.The birth of the French Encyclopedia , got the knowledge and science more advanced is reflected in this writing and that quickly, this knowledge and thoughts spread so much or for the old world as for the new.

In the Encyclopedia included both literary articles and drawings of the new technologies
The concept of equality, the Rousseau Social Contract and the Essay on the origin of inequality is born.Ideological is based on the condition of equality between all men and the best form of government is the election of a representative , this will govern for all and at the moment in which does not fulfill its mission, another representative may be elected.

Contract Social de Rousseau
The Marxist ideas on the distribution of goods, on common ownership and the benefit of all against the enrichment of few, begins to move the population of l XVIII century. Anti-Slavery movements arise throughout Europe.

The Shadow of the Age of Lights | Slavery

With all these clues you will have already guessed that the shadow of the century of lights was slavery .But what do we call slavery?.This is a legal condition that an individual has by reason by birth, debts, by sentence or by conquest. The slave lacks all kinds of rights and becomes the property of another person.The "owner" may use the slave for whatever he wants, you will even have total availability about your life.

Slavery Types

Within slavery we can cite two types :

• Domestic: In domestic slavery, the slave or servant performs household chores, in addition to related auxiliary duties.
• Production: The slave by production responded to an economic factor, productivity.It is the slaves who perform the toughest tasks, usually linked to the primary sector, with mining and production of the most prominent places being lands.

Ways to achieve freedom

A slave rarely achieved freedom, but to achieve this there were also two ways:

• Manumision: The slave obtained freedom by the simple desire of the owner.
• Freedom payment: The payment or economic rescue freed a slave from his condition, for this it could be the slave himself who paid his own freedom, provided he was able to collect the requested amount or someone could pay his freedom, at the price the owner stipulates.Sometimes the figures were practically unattainable if the slave provided good returns.

The Shadow of the Age of Lights | Brief History of Slavery

Unfortunately when we look back in history, we realize that slavery has its origins practically since man is man.

In Antiquity

The facts found are those that appear in the first written sources and in this way we must move to the Mesopotamic civilizations, passing through Egypt, including Greece, where the term democracy was born.

The slave trade for the extraction of silver and for work in agriculture, was already a common practice in Classical Greece of Pericles.

But the use of slaves n or were restricted only to work in the mines or the field , the products manufactured by them were also highly appreciated, from a commercial point of view.

Rome

Rome and its imperial expansion, was an inexhaustible source of prisoners by conquest.Each conquered town was a workforce for the I work in the mines, fields, galleys, etc.The status in ancient Rome of a family is mediated based on the number of slaves that they had at their service, so domestic slaves began to become fashionable, the more the better.This fact caused the life of the domestic slave to be somewhat more comfortable.

Two slaves wearing wine jugs wear typical slave clothes and an amulet against the evil eye in a necklace

The figure of the specialized slave , with the conquests of the territories and the collection of war booties, among the people who became slaves were doctors, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, teachers, etc.

Another type of slaves that deserve a separate chapter is that of the Gladiator .Most of the gladiators came from the defeated armies, so most of them do not know how to work the field, since they had been trained for war.they even professionalized their gladiator status, even receiving their freedom based on their great fights in the circus.

Feudalism

The fall of the Empire Roman, I also mean the fall of slavery.The absence of conquests and the appearance of a new religion like Christianity He succeeded in modifying the slave vision, although not for this reason it disappeared.

Arriving in the third century, where labor to work the field began to be scarce, landowners were forced to change their mentality, now they needed to link their slaves to the land, in order to ensure production.These new slaves were gradually getting their "little" rights.

They got the owner to grant them a small piece of land where to work and establish a family nucleus.In this way the slave felt owner and would work the land improving their productivity.

Over time, these little owners would be able to match their status to that small free owners that because of taxes, wars, etc., and that had been damaged and impoverished.A new social class is born the settlers.

The colonists were former impoverished free landowners seeking the protection of a more powerful lord in exchange for giving up their lands that would also continue to work, so the figure of appears in the High Middle Ages servant of the gleba .These without losing their freedom, will always be linked to the earth.

Other civilizations outside Europe such as the Arab civilizations, also developed an active system of human commerce during this feudal era, all in spite of Coran recommending the manumision , that is, at the wish of the owner.

With the arrival of the Spaniards to the American continent, there is a new uptick or resurgence of slavery. Native Americans were not prepared for hard physical labor, such as work in the mines.This together that by Christianizing the Indigenous they automatically became subjects of the crown, so they could not be considered slaves , I encourage a new trade.

But if the natives cannot carry out the hard work, who could do it.For their replacement, African slaves, stronger and more resistant were used, these were supplied by Muslim merchants.Practice that began in 1601 and which quickly Portugal joined to use the African slave population in their co lonias in Brazil, making Lisbon the largest slave center in Europe in the 17th century.In later centuries, the rest of European countries would do the same.

Lakes in the Portuguese Algarve retains this building used as Slave Market

England found a good lucrative way of doing business, the slave trade.From the old continent came the manufactured products to the African factories, where these goods were exchanged for slaves or" ebony ". These slaves were transported to the American continent where they exchanged for colonial products such as tobacco, sugar, etc., back these colonial products were sold in Europe, this is what came to be called triangular trade.

The Shadow of the Century of Lights | The Abolition and the Age of Enlightenment

With the new enlightened ideas and thanks to the diffusion of these, it caused the appearance of a movement opposed to slavery and the trafficking of human beings Curiously in the place where the slavery business was most lucrative as it was Great Britain, it was the place where more abolitionist movements appeared.

The revolution of Haiti
In soon abolitionist ideas spread throughout the continent.Little by little the figure of the slave was suppressed, until in 1770, slavery was suppressed in the colonies of Great Britain, France and Portugal.The revolution of Haiti made this the first American colony free from slavery.

Countries like France abolished slavery in their colonies in the year 1791, a year later Denmark did it.In Great Britain and the US: they abolished it in 1807, shortly after Holland joined.But it would not be until 1833 when Britain decreed the abolition not only of the metropolis but a total abolition.

• Great Britain: 1833
• France: 1848
• Netherlands: 1848
• United States: 1865 (Civil War)
• Spain: 1870

The Arabian Peninsula: 1962 Mauritania: 1980
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