Forji Amin, George ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3087-0296 (2023) People as Property : the Transatlantic Slave Trade, International Law, and the Making of the New World. In: International Law and the History of Resource Extraction in Africa. Routledge

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Abstract

This chapter illustrates how the transatlantic trade founded a peculiar rigid concept of bondage based on race, for the purposes of value-making. It shows how the toleration of the institution of slavery prompted and codified many doctrines on trade and property rights hence merging the drive of political economy with the vision of international law between the 16th and 19th centuries. The chapter highlights the different frameworks according to which classical publicists—reading from ancient statutes and literature—justified both the trade and institution of slavery. The centrality of the definition of both slavery and slave trade rests in the structural reduction of a human being from an inherent status of personhood into a merchandise chattel—a thing or property that can be owned and controlled at will by another person asserting a right of ownership. The uniqueness of jus gentium’s conception of slavery was the official legitimation of the institution of slavery with respect to property rights but distinct from natural law.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	Published
DOI:	10.4324/9781003265740-3
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DT Africa J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration J Political Science > JX International law J Political Science > JZ International relations K Law > K Law (General) K Law > KZ Law of Nations
School/Department:	York Business School
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/13651

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