Talk:Slavery in Romania

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A fact from Slavery in Romania appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 18 March 2008.

[edit] US abolitionism

I saw that image on US slavery and I realized that Achim noted another link to the US abolitionist movement: in 1853, Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in Iaşi, (Coliba lui Moşu Toma sau Viaţa negrilor în sudul Statelor Unite din America), translated by Theodor Codrescu (it was the first American novel to be translated to Romanian) and with a foreword study on slavery by Mihail Kogălniceanu. bogdan (talk) 23:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

By all means, add it! I think this tidbit goes best under "Legacy", somewhere after the original works written around this. We could also use this in the MK article, methinks. Dahn (talk) 23:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hancock's book

Ian F. Hancock, Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution, Karoma Publishers, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1987, ISBN 0897200799

is found online at http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/pariah-contents.htm and it has a couple of chapters on the issue of slavery in Romania. bogdan (talk) 00:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Right on! I was just looking over some other google books resources. Btw, the article does not mention a very important fact. Namely that, except for the Byzantine precedent, the two principlaities were the only part of the world to enslave the Roma. I suppose Achim mentions this too. Dahn (talk) 00:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Achim says that in both the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, the Roma had a situation similar to the one of ţiganii domneşti in Romania. He also notes that the Roma slaves in Corfu were turned into serfs by the Venetians when they occupied the island.

Nevertheless, I found on google a book talking about "Gypsy slavery in Britain", arguing that it has "New research into the forcible export of Gypsies from Britain during the 17th and 18th centuries and of their sale in the slave markets of the Western colonies." Not sure how reliable is such a book, which appears to be self-published, too...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Gypsy-Slavery-Caribbean-Americas/dp/1903418038

bogdan (talk) 00:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hm. Then I guess the authors who say "alone in C and E Europe" mean to say "alone in C and E Christian Europe". Though i have to say that Venetian serfdom may be racially biased, but it presumably is a different kind of institution, while the Ottomans (and rulers of Muslim world in general) were enslaving everybody and anybody, without favoring any. Oh and, yeah, that last book is most likely not a WP:RS. Dahn (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, Ian Hancock also talks about Roma slavery in England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal and Russia:

While the enslavement of Roma in the Balkans is the most extensively documented, Gypsies have also been enslaved at different times in other parts of the world. In Renaissance England King Edward VI passed a law stating that Gypsies be "branded with a V on their breast, and then enslaved for two years," and if they escaped and were recaptured, they were then branded with an S and made slaves for life. During the same period in Spain, according to a decree issued in 1538, Gypsies were enslaved for perpetuity to individuals as a punishment for escaping. Spain had already begun shipping Gypsies to the Americas in the 15th century; three were transported by Columbus to the Caribbean on his third voyage in 1498. Spain's later solucion americans involved the shipping of Gypsy slaves to its colony in 18th century Louisiana. An Afro-Gypsy community today lives in St. Martin's Parish, and reportedly there is another one in central Cuba, both descended from intermarriage between the two enslaved peoples. In the 16th century, Portugal shipped Gypsies as an unwilling labor force to its colonies in Maranhão (now Brazil), Angola and even India, the Romas' country of origin which they had left five centuries earlier. They were made Slaves of the Crown in 18th century Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, while in Scotland during the same period they were employed "in a state of slavery" in the coal mines. England and Scotland had shipped Roma to Virginia and the Caribbean as slaves during the 17th and 18th centuries; John Moreton, in his West India Customs and Manners (1793), describes seeing "many Gypsies (in Jamaica) subject from the age of eleven to thirty to the prostitution and lust of overseers, book-keepers, negroes, &c. (and) taken into keeping by gentlemen who paid exorbitant hire for their use."

bogdan (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hm. Yes, we should add from that source two. Perhaps confront what Guy says with Hancock's study? "However, Roma slavery is also attested in other parts of the world between the 16th and 18th centuries etc." Dahn (talk) 01:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Someone big

It just dawned on me that this article is missing a big name: Ştefan Răzvan! Dahn (talk) 01:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, of course! :-) bogdan (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You know, I never noticed: a Wallachian Rom freed from slavery gets to rule over Moldavia... I'm sure Anittas would find this the most unnerving tidbit of all. Ah, I so miss his speeches... not. Dahn (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As I know it he was not Wallachian but Turkish. It says so in Wikipedia's article on him too. para15000 (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)