During the Golden Age of Piracy (roughly 1650–1730), men under black flags were raiding and plundering ships across the Caribbean. We remember them as violent men, stealing and wreaking havoc on European lives.

Through another lens, though, pirates were something entirely different. The New World they tormented was filled with slaves, and a lot of the ships they attacked were filled with imprisoned Africans. To the Africans on those ships, the pirates weren’t just criminals—they were liberators, and they heralded the arrival of a better life.

10 The First Buccaneers Were Escaped Slaves

When we think of pirates in the Caribbean, white faces usually come to mind. We picture people like Blackbeard or Samuel Bellamy—Europeans buccaneers who raided other white men. The first buccaneers in recorded history, though, had dark skin. The record in question is the journal of a French sailor who, on the coast of Hispaniola, met two men he describes as “a mulatto and a negro.”

The men told him that they sustained themselves by poaching livestock. This wasn’t a confession of shameful sins; the men were making a sales pitch. Sailors’ lives were hard, and they were trying to recruit him and his sailors to join them in their pirating lives.

It worked. By the time the Frenchman returned to his ship, six of his crew had disappeared. His white crew had abandoned him, leaving the ship to serve under two black pirates.

9 Pirates Targeted Slave Ships

Pirates didn’t just attack any ship they saw. When they raided a ship, it was to make a profit, so they picked ones that were worth their while. No type of ship, though, was a bigger target for pirates than slave ships.

The pirates weren’t particularly concerned about African rights; they just wanted the ships. Slave ships were extremely useful for a pirate crew. They were usually fast as well as large, which gave them a lot of space to keep and feed their crew.

The most famous pirate ships in history were captured slave ships. Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge and Samuel Bellamy’s Whydah were both stolen from slavers and turned into feared pirate vessels.

8 Pirates Freed Slaves

When a pirate crew captured a slave ship, they got a whole new crew. Often, they’d go into the lower decks, set the slaves free, and encourage them to join. This didn’t always happen. Some would just make the Africans slaves of their own, and some would do even worse. Black Bart, for example, once burned 80 slaves alive inside of a ship.

His cruelty, though, was an exception to the norm. Most pirates tried to avoid killing anyone if they could and didn’t bother trying to sell human cargo. Pirates were criminals, and it was difficult and dangerous for a criminal to sell to a slave trader, so they often just let the African slaves join their crew.

Escaped slaves would become pirates, too. In the early days of slavery, many slaves escaped. Some joined the maroons, which were communities of escaped slaves who survived by hiding in the mountains. Others, though, would meet up with pirate crews instead and join life on the sea.

7 Almost Every Pirate Ship Had Black Crewmen

The records we have of pirate crews show that almost every ship had at least a few black pirates in the crew. In most cases, black pirates made up more than just a couple of scattered crew members. They were a big presence on pirate ships. In fact, an estimated 25 to 30 percent of pirates were black.

In some ships, the rate was much higher. Many ships had a majority black crew, including some of the most famous and notorious pirates of all. Blackbeard, for example, had 60 black crew members on a ship of 100 men. Some crews were almost entirely black. One record describes a pirate ship with 50 men, only one of whom had white skin.

6 Pirates Gave Voting Right To Africans Centuries Before Civil Rights

Pirate captains weren’t dictators. The only time they had absolute command over their crew was during a raid. The rest of the time, the ship was run democratically, with every person on the ship free to have a voice in how it was run.

Captains were elected, and every member of the crew was given a vote. They would also draw up articles with strict rules on how to live together and how to punish offenders. This means that in the 17th century, there were free and equal African-Americans voting for their leaders—but only on pirate ships.

5 Blackbeard’s Lieutenant Was An African Chieftain

Some black pirates rose up to high ranks and led crews of white men. One of them is legendary today: Black Caesar, the infamous pirate who ended up in Blackbeard’s crew.

Black Caesar was a chieftain in Africa until he was tricked and lured onto a slave ship. By chance, the slave ship was struck by a hurricane, and Black Caesar and white a crewman were the only ones to escape alive. Stranded at sea, the two men decided to lure in passing ships, rob them, and take them over. Soon, Black Caesar was leading his own pirate crew.

In time, he joined Blackbeard, but he kept a high rank. He was a lieutenant, one of the most important people on the ship. He was put in command of several white pirates, and Blackbeard trusted him with his life.

4 Black Pirates Could Curse Out White People

The inherent racism that pervaded European culture in the 17th century doesn’t seem to have existed on pirate ships. Black crew members didn’t have to be polite or well-mannered around their white crewmen. They could be as rude as they wanted.

One white sailor reported that after his ship was taken by the pirate Stede Bonnet, his crew was coerced into joining them. When he refused, a black pirate started cursing him out. He told the white sailor that he should be forced into slavery. The black man ended his tirade yelling, “You should be used as a negro!”

Stede Bonnet took the black pirate’s side. He heard the commotion, came over, and joined the black pirate in cursing the white man out. Then he did exactly what was suggested: He made the white man the black man’s slave.

3 Sea Shanties Started Out As Slave Songs

All the sea shanties that we link to pirates should actually be linked with something else: black slaves. According to one theory, sea shanties never would have existed without the influence of African music.

Some scholars claim that parts of sea shanties seem to be borrowed from African songs. It’s more than just similar sounds; some of the earlier sea shanties actually use the pidgin language of early African slaves, suggesting that they might have been written by Africans or adapted from their music.

The multiracial crews on board of these ships, they believe, would have come up with sea shanties through collaboration. The Africans on board sang while they worked, and the white crew members heard them and started to adapt their songs into songs of their own.

2 Captured Pirates Were Sold Back Into Slavery

When an escaped African slave made it into a pirate crew, he had every reason to stay. Pirates gave them freedom and equality, and if they were separated from their brothers at sea, they’d find themselves back in chains.

One pirate on Samuel Bellamy’s crew was a black Miskito native named John Julian. On Bellamy’s ship, he was the pilot and one of the most important and respected people in the crew. When the ship crashed, though, all that changed. As soon as Julian was captured, he was sold into slavery, soon finding his way into the servitude of John Quincy, the grandfather of President John Quincy Adams.

Julian managed to escape and even killed a bounty hunter who was trying to catch him. In the end, though, he didn’t get away. The pilot was caught and executed because he refused to become a slave.

1 Slavery Boomed When The Golden Age Of Piracy Ended

Pirates actually made a difference. The slave trade economy was crippled by pirate raids. Bringing slave ships to the New World became incredibly dangerous and costly, and pirate raids made life Hell for the slavers. According to Marcus Rediker, slavery in the New World didn’t have a chance until the pirates were gone.

The Golden Age of Piracy ended, according to some, when the pirate Black Bart died. Within ten years, slavery was booming, and England had more slaves than any other country in the Western world. Pirate raids on slavers and their ships were the one thing that held the slave trade back. Once they were out of the way, slavery came into full swing.

Pirates didn’t set out to make the world a better place—but in a strange way, they actually did.

Slavery stretches back as long as human civilization (or perhaps even longer) and stretches forward to the 21st century (the current slave population is somewhere north of 20 million). Runaways, known as “maroons,” have set up fascinating communities known for their unique cultures and dogged military resistance. They’ve also been prone to hardship, and even in modern times, their history has been defined by hostile relations with national governments and a struggle for land rights.

10Cimarrones, Panama

The presence of Cimarrones in the Panamanian isthmus was first recorded in the 1520s, when slaves slipped away from convoys traveling between ports on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. In the 1550s, a ship carrying a Mandinko slave named Bayano was wrecked off the coast, and Bayano was then elected “King of the Blacks.” He spent the next five years harrying the Spaniards by preying on mule convoys carrying gold and silver. The Spanish eventually realized they couldn’t defeat the Cimarrones on their own terrain and instead settled on treachery. At a supposed peace negotiation, they poisoned several of Bayano’s followers. The king himself was exiled to Peru and later Spain.

Shortly thereafter, in 1572, the Cimarrones proved crucial allies in the privateering ventures of Sir Francis Drake. A group of 30 maroons guided Drake’s forces through the jungle, enabling him to ambush multiple mule trains, making off with much booty. The unnerved Spanish consequently launched several expeditions against the Cimarron settlements before coming to an agreement whereby the Cimarrones received a blanket pardon and their own self-governing settlement. In return, they were compelled to send back any future fugitive slaves and couldn’t ally with foreign powers.

9Siddis Of India

While the history of East African slaves in India may go back to 628, they first arrived in large numbers in the 12th century. They were employed mainly in military roles, and in the 15th century, an Abyssinian briefly reigned as a sultan in Bengal. Malik Ambar was later a respected prime minister and mercenary general in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

One particular group of Abyssinian Siddis came into control of Janjira in the 1490s, either seizing it in their own right or being appointed governors by a local ruler. Supposedly, they Trojan-horsed their way in, with their leader disguising himself as a merchant and then smuggling soldiers into the fortress in boxes. They quickly became the chief naval power on the northwest Indian coast, enriching themselves as mercenaries and pirates and through transporting hajj pilgrims.

Over the following two centuries, they operated in a loose alliance with the Mughals and fended off Portuguese, Dutch, English, and Maratha attacks before finally being defeated by the British in 1760 and accepting British suzerainty in the 19th century.

8Black Cherokee

Actually, there are no black Cherokee. This is the opinion of the Cherokee themselves; they implemented a requirement of proven descent from a “Cherokee by blood” to claim citizenship and suffrage in 1983, but this was ruled unconstitutional by the nation’s Supreme Court in 2006. Unperturbed, they simply amended the constitution via a referendum. This amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court and expelled 3,000 freedmen. These are the descendants of the Cherokee slaves integrated into the tribe by law at the conclusion of the American Civil War, and the decision cuts them off from food aid and medical services.

Early in their history the Cherokee were known to accept escaped slaves into their tribe. But contact with the United States (particularly the Southern United States) and the Cherokee’s subsequent assimilation saw them adopt white racial prejudices. The richer Cherokee also employed African slaves and sided with the Confederacy—Cherokee Brigadier-General Stand Watie was among the last Confederate officers to surrender.

The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy, as it has come to be known, is a fascinating issue that blends questions of tribal sovereignty, civil rights, the distribution of federal aid, voter turnout (only 8,700 of 35,000 eligible voters took part in the referendum), and the desire to paint over a slave-owning past. The timing of the decision, just before a narrowly decided election for principal chief, also raises eyebrows.

7Bushinengues, Suriname, And French Guiana

In Suriname, the sugar plantations were overwhelmingly situated on rivers, with slaves easily able to flee into the surrounding forest and swamp. Over time, they organized themselves into tribes who regularly raided plantations in search of weapons, ammunition, women, and food, with such success that most signed treaties with the Dutch by the 1760s.

That decade also saw the rise of the belligerent Boni maroons, who carried out a concerted guerrilla war for 30 years. The Boni ultimately migrated into French Guiana and only signed a treaty with the Europeans in the 1860s, after a century of intermittent warfare. Back in Suriname, the maroon population grew substantially, and the six tribes today make up 10 percent of the country’s population. In doing so, they have often resisted the modernization and resettlement attempts of the central government and military, culminating in a six-year guerrilla war from 1986–1992. More recent years have seen them try to assert their land rights in the face of mining and hydroelectric projects.

6Jamaican Maroons

The Jamaican Maroons have their genesis in the Spanish abandonment of the island in 1655, wherein many slaves fled into the mountainous interior as the British occupied Jamaica. Here, they coalesced into two groups, the Leeward (in the west) and Windward (in the east) tribes.

Over the following several decades, relations with the British remained tense. The British resented the harboring of runaways and undermining of their authority. Regular slave rebellions further destabilized the situation, as did the growth of the Maroon population and consequent demand for land. This boiled over into open conflict in the 1720s, but the Maroons proved skilled in guerrilla warfare, using the terrain to their advantage.

In 1739, they came to a negotiated peace with the British. This stipulated that the Maroons would capture and return runaways and defend Jamaica against foreign invasion. In return, their freedom and land rights were recognized, and they were allowed to govern themselves.

Peace was maintained until 1795. Spooked by the slave revolt in Haiti, the belligerent British governor elected to punish one maroon group, Trelawney Town, for minor infractions. Though no other maroon communities came to their aid, Trelawney’s 300 maroons (and a few hundred runaways) held out against 10-to-1 odds for eight months. When finally defeated by sheer weight of numbers and an intensive fort-building program (plus, the British brought in hunting dogs), some 500 maroons were deported to Nova Scotia. Unused to the climate and farming conditions, they quickly grew restless and were sent to newly established Sierra Leone.

5Fort Mose, Florida

In 1693, King Charles II of Spain (otherwise known for being ridiculously inbred), issued an edict granting freedom to fugitive slaves seeking refuge in St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida. This weakened their English rivals (the runaways came from the Carolinas) and strengthened themselves by marshalling the ex-slaves’ support and military power. The importance of defending sparsely populated Florida is reflected in the preconditions a fugitive had to accept: to protect St. Augustine, swear loyalty to Spain, and convert to Catholicism.

The British grew increasingly incensed, sending agents to demand the return of their property and initiating a series of raids and counter-raids. This occurred especially during Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession. When these proved insufficient, Georgia was established to serve as a slave-free buffer state.

In 1738, the increasingly assertive freedmen were given their own autonomous settlement at Fort Mose, the first of its kind. Its population soon numbered 100. The following year, hostilities with England resumed in the War of Jenkin’s Ear, and the English, after suppressing a rebellion of their own slaves, attacked Florida. As a result, the freedmen were forced to withdraw from Fort Mose to play a pivotal role in defending St. Augustine, serving under black officers and receiving pay equal to their Spanish comrades. Fort Mose was then retaken in a devastating surprise attack that forced the British invaders to withdraw.

In the long run, however, the British attained Florida in 1763 at the conclusion of the French and Indian (or Seven Years’) War. The freed black community evacuated to Cuba.

4Palmares, Brazil

Palmares was founded in 1605, allegedly by an Angolan princess who escaped slavery. It came to consist of 10 large settlements and up to 30,000 people. This number is roughly equal to the population of British North America at the same time and was ruled over by a “great lord” or king, governed according to a mishmash of central African customs. By the 1630s, the ruler was Ganga Zumba, and Palmares continued to flourish in the face of Portuguese and Dutch pressure.

An eyewitness to a Dutch expedition in 1645 described the towns of New and Old Palmares as being surrounded by stakes and gates sealed by fallen trees. It had a range of buildings including churches, smithies, and fountains.

The constant strife, however, took its toll on Ganga Zumba. In 1678, he agreed to a treaty with the Portuguese, obliging him to stop accepting fugitive slaves and acknowledge Portuguese suzerainty. This compromise was rejected by Ganga Zumba’s military commander or nephew Zumbi, who chose resistance. Zumba died, possibly of poison, shortly thereafter. Zumbi then managed to fend off six consecutive Portuguese attacks from 1680–1686 before Palmares finally fell in 1694 and was destroyed in its entirety.

Despite the defeat of Palmares, maroon communities known as quilombos remained widespread in Brazil. Some 700 are identified today. Since the 1980s, they’ve been steadily working to attain legal title to their lands.

3Great Dismal Swamp Maroons

The charmingly named Great Dismal Swamp of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina consisted of 3,200 kilometers (2,000 mi) of tangling vegetation over marshy ground with an array of bears, snakes, and wildcats. Its apparently inhospitable nature meant it was largely left alone by early European settlers and served as a haven for escaped slaves from the late 1600s through to the Civil War. Having established themselves on small patches of higher ground in the swamp’s interior, the maroon population soon grew to anywhere between a few hundred and 2,000.

However, by the latter decades of the 18th century, the tides of economic progress affected even the isolated and foreboding Great Dismal Swamp in the form of roads, timber companies, and a canal. Perhaps surprisingly, the maroons were partially integrated into this wider economy and found work on lumber operations, construction gangs, and as mule-drivers. In doing so, they worked alongside slaves, some of whom stayed in the swamp after purchasing their freedom.

In the Civil War, the two sides competed for control of the Great Dismal Canal, which was eventually secured by the Union with help from black troops. Later campaigns in the area saw the maroons provide provisions and scouts for the Union troops and launched guerrilla campaigns into North Carolina. Following emancipation and the close of the war, the swamp was largely abandoned.

2Miskito Sambu, Nicaragua

In either 1641 or 1652, a Portuguese slave ship sank off the Mosquito Coast in Central America, but a sizeable number made it ashore. Here, they were integrated into the local Miskito, forming their own distinct ethnic sub-group. The Miskito Sambu (or Zambos), and eventually rose to command the tribe and the coast.

They also struck up an enduring connection with England, partly because a Miskito chief had sent his son, Oldman, to visit England during the reign of King Charles. They adopted the institution of monarchy and were ruled over by a series of kings with firmly British names, like Peter, Edward, Robert, George, Andrew, and even a Prince Wellington. The first of these, King Jeremy (first attested in the last decade of the 17th century) was at least part African, and so were his successors.

The affinity with Britain was confirmed by an official treaty of friendship and alliance in 1740 as well as the British establishment of a protectorate over the coast. It was in this guise that the Miskito harried Spanish territory with some success during the American Revolutionary War, but Britain’s ultimate defeat compelled them to withdraw from the protectorate in 1787. Following the independence of Spain’s colonies, both Honduras and Nicaragua asserted loose control over the Miskito, and Nicaragua annexed the place outright in 1894. The Miskito, many of whom are English-speaking and Protestant, have sometimes had troublesome relations with their new governments, and fought against the Sandinista government in the 1980s. In doing so, they teamed up with the Contras, who are famous for receiving illegal funding from Ronald Reagan.

1Black Seminoles

As we have seen, Florida was an attractive destination for many runaway slaves, but not all settled under Spanish authority. Instead, some established their own communities among the Seminole. Here, they lived in their own towns but gave the Seminole an annual tribute and served as translators in negotiations with Europeans.

Eventually, however, tensions with America over runaway slaves resulted in open conflict. Future president Andrew Jackson invaded in the First Seminole War (1817–1818), and Spain ceded Florida to the United States. This also saw a small group of black Seminoles flee the area to settle on Andros Island in the Bahamas, where their community endures to this day. Despite their initial victory, the Americans remained covetous of Seminole land, and their demand that the Seminole move west of the Mississippi River triggered the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). The maroons were a key factor in the dogged resistance encountered by the US Army, stirring up one of the largest slave revolts in US history.

Nevertheless, the Americans emerged victorious (though it cost the lives of 2,000 soldiers and up to $60 million), partly by exacerbating divisions between the black and Indian Seminole. Most were deported to Indian Territory. Dissatisfaction with conditions here led several hundred black Seminoles to take up a Mexican offer to serve as border guards in 1849. Most of these were enticed back in 1870 to serve as Indian Scouts for the US Army, setting up a unit that would last until 1912 and win four Medals of Honor.

However, the US government reneged on a promise to give them land, mainly due to disputes over whether black Seminoles were entitled to Indian land. Some returned to Mexico as squatters, and others re-joined their compatriots in the Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma.

Finally, following the disbandment of the Scouts in 1912, the 200–300 remaining black Seminoles settled in Brackettville, Texas next to the fort they’d been stationed in. Unfortunately, as with the Cherokee, the black Seminoles have subsequently faced questions over their right to claim Seminole citizenship and the benefits it entitles and have been involved in bitter legal disputes.

Tyler Parsons is a socially maladjusted degenerate loafer struggling with the lack of meaning (or even noticeable emotion) in his life. Email him or look him up on Facebook.

Slavery, one of America’s greatest tragedies, caused immeasurable suffering and loss of human life. The Stanford prison experiment is frequently cited when people discuss the brutality demonstrated by humans with power. But we don’t need to look any further than our own history for these examples.

10 Interesting Facts You Never Knew About Slavery

Slaves could be punished for any number of “offenses,” including theft, laziness, running away, or even speaking their native language. By some accounts, enslaved people were even disciplined for sport. Here are 10 of the most horrible punishments recorded for slaves in America.

Warning: This content contains graphic descriptions of various physical abuses and tortures and may act as a trigger to sensitive individuals. Great care has been taken to respect the lives and histories of the people represented as slaves. Please read at your own discretion.

10 Whipping

In America, slaves, including pregnant women and children, were often whipped as punishment. The famous image of the slave “Gordon” (aka “Whipped Peter”) reveals that the skin on his back was raised with a lattice of scars from brutal and repeated whippings.^[1]

However, some owners did not stop there. When their slaves’ wounds began to heal, these owners ordered that the wounds be split open and that products such as red pepper and turpentine be applied to the gashes. According to some accounts, one owner ground a brick into rubble and dust, mixed it with lard, and had it rubbed into the wounds of a slave.

9 Mutilation

Slaves were often expected to work in exceptionally difficult physical conditions, especially in the fields or on cotton plantations. Other slaves worked in their masters’ homes and were expected to be “well-groomed” and “clean.” These slaves often had lighter skin or “better speaking skills.”

Either way, it would make sense for slaves’ bodies to be protected and maintained. However, this rarely happened.

Particularly in cases where slaves had fought each other or resisted their owners or overseers, it was common for owners to order bodily mutilation. Sometimes, it involved cutting off an ear or slicing at the flesh. More severe examples included amputating limbs, gouging out eyes, cutting hamstrings, or even castrating both males and females.^[2]

In many cases, the victims did not receive medical treatment. Some died from infection, blood loss, and other complications.

8 Brandings

Branding refers to searing the flesh with a heated metal instrument. This type of torture was typically done to denote ownership.

Large companies often branded their slaves to make them easily identifiable and to prevent the theft and resale of slaves. Eventually, these brands were used as bodily evidence to refute claims from larger companies that the practice had never occurred.

In Louisiana, a “Code Noir” permitted the branding of slaves as punishment for running away. By 1840, New Orleans had developed the largest slave market in America, which placed innumerable people under this decree.^[3]

Particularly in the South, branding was a common punishment for running away. Often, a letter or other identifiable mark was seared onto the slave’s face. This usually prevented that person from being assigned to any house or serving work.

7 Smoked Alive

Eventually, various slave states passed laws regarding the maintenance, well-being, and rights of slaves. Theoretically, this should have given slaves some protection from cruelty and abuse. In reality, these laws were rarely enforced. Some accounts describe how different methods of punishment and abuse became more popular in different states.

Escaped slave William W. Brown discussed a common practice used in Virginia. He described an owner who had his slaves bound and whipped in the smokehouse. Then he created a fire from tobacco stems to suffocate and “smoke” the slaves as further punishment.^[4]

6 The Hogshead

Former slaves may offer the most harrowing accounts of slave abuse and torture. Moses Roper was born of his African and Native American mother, who was a slave to his English father. After Moses escaped his bondage, he wrote a book about his life. He explicitly outlined various tortures and indignities that slaves in America had to suffer.

Moses recounted the sport and pleasure that some owners took in corporal punishment. He described a slaveholder who hammered nails into a hogshead (large barrel) and left the nail points protruding inside. His slaves were stuffed into these barrels and rolled down long, steep hills while the owner and other slaves watched.^[5]

10 Slaves Who Became Roman Catholic Saints

5 Suspended Beneath A Cooking Fire

Harriet Jacobs also escaped slavery and wrote about her exploits. She described falling into the “possession” of a slave owner who sexually harassed her on a regular basis despite the protests of his wife. To avoid him, Harriet hid in the crawl space in her grandmother’s ceiling for seven years before fleeing to England.

In another harrowing account, Harriet told of a slaveholder who lived close to her. He had hundreds of slaves. His favorite punishment was to tie up a slave, suspend him above the ground, and start a fire above him. A fatty piece of pork was cooked by the fire. Then the burning fat dripped onto the bare skin of the slave.^[6]

4 Demotion Or Sale

Although this type of punishment may seem less significant than the previous horrors detailed here, it could mean the difference between life and death for a slave. George Washington was a declared fan of whipping and other corporal punishments for slaves. But he also supported the demotion of slaves who did not work hard enough and the sale of repeat runaways.

Many slaves who worked in less physically demanding conditions, such as in the house or in a skilled trade, could be demoted to work in the fields. This resulted in harsher physical conditions, more demanding physical work, and often more violent treatment from owners and overseers. In the worst cases, slaves were sold at cheap prices to owners who were known to treat their slaves poorly or even work them to death.^[7]

3 Public Burnings

Punishments were often made public. Other slaves were forced to watch as a warning that they should “behave” or be disciplined the same way. At times, other owners or people from nearby towns came to watch as a form of entertainment. After slavery was abolished, public lynchings and hangings continued into the 20th century.

One horrific method of punishment was public burning. Slaves were either tied to a stake or above a fire. Some slaves fainted or passed out from smoke inhalation before the fire began to consume their bodies. But many were tortured by the flames before they finally died.^[8]

2 Long-Term Chaining

The use of chains is well-documented throughout the history of slavery. It began on slave ships where captured Africans were shackled together in the hulls of the vessels. Long-term chaining was often meted out to repeat runaway slaves. They were chained to their workstations or to other slaves.

In some cases, long lines of slaves were shackled together to perform menial tasks in unison. This was the origin of the chain gangs that became infamous in US prisons.

One woman who became notorious for her maltreatment of slaves—even by 19th century standards—was Madame Delphine LaLaurie. Various investigations were undertaken to determine the condition of her slaves until a fire broke out in her home in 1834.

An elderly female slave, who served as a cook, supposedly started the blaze in a suicide attempt. She had been shackled to the stove with the cooking fire. Afterward, several slaves were discovered in horrific conditions in the LaLaurie attic. Suspended by their necks, they were standing with their limbs chained in a way that stretched and tore them.^[9]

1 Forced Reproduction

Slaves frequently endured severe sexual harassment and assaults, including rape. There were no laws to prevent this.

Women who became pregnant as a result of this abuse rarely received any medical care or special treatment. On the contrary, they were often handled more harshly by their masters’ wives. Effectively pimped out by their owners, male slaves were also abused and forced to sleep with various women.

Following the US Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which became effective in 1808, a shortage of slaves occurred in the South. The internal slave market boomed, which increased the demand for black people. As a result, slaves were often bought and sold based on their “childbearing” capabilities. They were forced to have sex with other slaves to produce more children.^[10]

Usually, slaves could choose with whom they would have children. But matchmaking records exist that were based on physical characteristics.

Top 10 Misconceptions About American Slavery

About The Author: Brittany is a freelance writer from New Zealand. She spends most of her time traveling, reading, and connecting with different cultures. With a professional background in mental health and addictions, she is always on the lookout for new research and breakthroughs.

Slavery came to an end in 1865, and the world never had to deal with the ugliness of forced labor ever again. Sadly, only part of that sentence is true. The sad fact is, only the African Slave Trade ended in 1865, and modern slavery isn’t just on the rise . . . it’s far larger in scope than in the past.

SEE ALSO: 10 Ways American Slavery Continued Long After The Civil War

Modern estimates of slavery suggest as many as 40,000,000 people are trapped in one type of forced labor or another. While men and women are often equally forced into slavery, children are often the most victimized. They have had their dreams and their childhood stolen.

Because it’s so widespread, the average person benefits from it, whether they like it or not. A lot of what we think of slavery stems from the 19th century, but modern slavery is different in many ways; it’s dynamic, affects a wide swathe of people, and is used to make the products and services we take for granted.

10 Seafood

The United States and the rest of the western world enjoy seafood from around the globe, but it’s not always caught by people who are willing or paid for their labor. Often, people desperate for work answer advertisements suggesting great pay and benefits for positions working on fishing boats, and though the offers may appear to be too good to be true to some, others fall victim to a trap. Bloomberg published an article back in 2012 titled, “Slaves Put Squid on Dining Tables From South Pacific,” which detailed the process by which desperate people find themselves in a modern version of indentured servitude they cannot escape.

The drive for seafood slavery is all about American and other western demands for more seafood. The demands on the fishing industry has increased steadily since the mid-1990s, and despite a reduction in global stocks, demand has risen, which in turn leads to cuts in cost. Sadly, those cuts are often in the form of slave labor, and the people trapped on those vessels are often subjected to dangerous and often deadly conditions, which are exacerbated by their isolation on the open sea. Slavery in the market isn’t limited to the boats, and many people are working without pay in seafood processing plants and throughout the aquaculture industry.

What You Can Do—To reduce global seafood slave labor, you need to ensure your seafood comes from a reputable source. Research where you get your seafood, and never purchase from a company that receives its catch from a dubious source.^[1]

9 Cannabis

Like other drugs, marijuana is not free from the crimes of slave labor, and despite growing popularity and legality around the world, there are an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 victims of slavery working in the United Kingdom’s cannabis industry. Children are often brought into the industry from outside of the U.K., most often from places like China and Vietnam. One sixteen-year-old victim who was trafficked into the cannabis industry said of the man who took him, “I remember asking the man who took me there if I could leave because I didn’t like it, but he threatened to beat me or starve me to death.”

Children are used in the industry, in part, because they are easily convinced that their families will be killed if they don’t do what they’re told. Most live in squalid conditions, and they are denied basic human rights, including an education. Many of the children enslaved in this way are kept from the public, but some are forced to work outdoors where people drive by without suspecting anything is wrong. One of the biggest problems is, if a child is caught up in a drug bust, they can be charged with committing a crime, which is exactly what happened to the sixteen-year-old victim quoted previously. “The police charged me with drug offenses, and I was sentenced to 18 months in a young offenders’ institute.”

What You Can Do—There will always be a market for slaves where a demand for illegal drugs exists. If you live in a place where cannabis is illegal, don’t buy it. Doing so keeps the demand in place, keeping slavery alive. Alternatively, you can lobby your government to decriminalize marijuana, as many states in the US have done.^[2]

8 Fashion

One of the biggest abusers of modern slavery across the globe is the garment industry. Throughout much of Asia and Africa, people are forced into slave labor to provide the world with cheap, easy, and abundant fashion garments and accessories. Because fashion is one of the most labor-intensive industries around, a relatively small, yet skilled amount of people are forced to work long hours to produce huge quantities of products. The countries that make up the G20 imported $127.7 billion in fashion garments the Global Slavery Index identified as being “at-risk” of production from slave labor.

The people who are working to make the rest of the world look trendy are often subject to little or no pay, forced unpaid overtime, dangerous conditions, and a degraded economy due to an inability to compete. One of the biggest problems with the industry is overproduction. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that the fashion industry produces around 53 million tons of fiber each year, but 70% of that ends up in landfills. Overconsumption leads to overproduction, and that increases the risk and use of slavery, which means most everyone reading this has benefited from it at least once in their lives without ever realizing it.

What You Can Do—There are several steps the average person can take to undercut the use of slave labor in the fashion industry. First, wear what you have and don’t buy new items when you don’t need them, which is also good financial advice. Find out where and how your clothes are made. If a company is suspected of using slave labor, don’t buy from them and instead, support ethical producers who pay their employees a fair wage.^[3]

7Firefighting

When the United States outlawed slavery via the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a single phrase was written into it, allowing for the continued enslavement of prisoners. That line reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” Essentially, this means a person can be forced to work as slave labor, often called “prison labor” by the state or federal government, and they have taken advantage for more than 150 years. Prisoners are given work to do while in custody, but they are often paid so-called “slave wages,” amounting to pennies on the hour. While many people feel that they no longer deserve to be exempt from slave labor because they broke the law, just as many people are on the opposite side of the argument, arguing for their basic human rights.

One of the ways millions of people benefit from this form of labor is in the fighting of California’s yearly wildfires. Inmates who volunteer for firefighting work are paid $1 an hour, plus an additional $2 per day, and while they are both volunteers, and are compensated, the dangerous conditions and lack of proper financial compensation is tantamount to slave labor. “Today, more than 2,000 volunteer inmate firefighters, including 58 youth offenders, are battling wildfire flames throughout CA. Inmate firefighters serve a vital role, clearing thick brush down to bare soil to stop the fire’s spread.”

What You Can Do—While everyone should practice the safe use of matches and other implements that can cause wildfires, there are some things a regular person can do to help. Volunteer at your local fire department, and while this won’t stop prison labor in terms of firefighting, it will help the people fighting the fires and reduce the need for prison labor. Additionally, you can petition the California government to stop the use of penal labor, specifically focusing on dangerous activities like firefighting.^[4]

6Batteries

Yes, the battery in your cell phone or electric car may have sent some cash into the pockets of slave traffickers, and the problem is growing as demand for lithium and cobalt increases. Most of us think of batteries as a simple modern convenience, but they rely on the mining of mass quantities of lithium and cobalt with the need expected to double before 2024. Mining anything is difficult and dangerous work, but the mining of these two elements, specifically for use in batteries, often use child labor and results in the undermining of local land and water rights, which harms the local environment, leading to widespread disease and malnourishment among indigenous populations.

Just in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, there are an estimated 40,000 children forced into slave labor working to pull cobalt out of the ground. Not only are many of the kids working in the mines underpaid or not paid at all, the conditions are terrible, amounting to little more than human rights abuses. Children as young as six-years-old have been found working in the mines, where they are forced to work without safety equipment, which would protect them from toxic dust.

What You Can Do—Unfortunately, it’s difficult to determine whether or not your battery has been made from cobalt or lithium sourced via slave labor. The best way to fight against this ongoing problem is to raise awareness with large electronic firms, so their products aren’t being made with materials from known or suspected sources of slave labor. Check with Amnesty International for more information.^[5]

5 Diamonds

Diamonds are one of the most heavily trafficked gemstones in the world, and because they come from locations often embroiled in a civil war, some diamonds have been labeled as “conflict” or “blood diamonds.” The term has become popular in the 21st century to specifically refer to diamonds mined in Angola, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau, all of which have had horribly catastrophic civil wars in recent years. The mining of diamonds in these areas often goes to fund an ongoing insurgency, hence the name, but the conflicts aren’t the only thing that makes these diamonds a problem. Many of the indigenous people caught up in the region are forced to mine the diamonds as slaves, which make the gems particularly problematic.

Many of the enslaved people forced to collect diamonds are children, and the ones who aren’t sent to the mines are often sent to war. This has been especially problematic in Sierra Leone, which has been second-to-last on the UN Human Development Index. Of course, that’s not the only example, as thousands have been enslaved and killed in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, even when there is no conflict present.

What You Can Do—Never buy a diamond sourced from the countries listed, and ask where your jeweler sources their diamonds before making any purchases. Fortunately, there are plenty of sources that use legitimate labor, but if you’re still unsure, look into another gemstone, cubic zirconia, or a manufactured diamond.^[6]

4 Coffee

Coffee has long been a staple of the modern world, and many people can’t imagine going a single day without their beloved cup of Joe. Sadly, it’s due to the massive demand for coffee that a rise in production has pushed many in South America into slave labor. If you think there’s no way that the coffee you buy has been sourced from slave labor, you’re probably right, but not always. In September 2018, it was determined that a Brazilian coffee plantation previously certified to be slave-free by Starbucks, was found to have 15 enslaved people trapped in conditions analogous to modern slavery.

One of the largest groups of people employed illegally in the coffee industry probably won’t surprise anyone: it’s children. Because Brazillian coffee workers earn only 2% of the retail price of the product they help bring to market, many have pulled their children from school to put them into working cultivation. This results in a recurring problem, seeing as a higher education leads to better wage-earning jobs, but the children forced to cultivate coffee for no money often fall victim to the same problems their parents faced when they were children, leading to a cyclical problem.

What You Can Do—When you buy coffee, ask where it’s sourced. If the Brazilian example above is any indication, any plantation could become a perpetrator of forced labor, so continue to ask and research the places your coffee comes from before making a purchase.^[7]

3Gold

Gold has been a major economic commodity since the beginning of human history, and like anything inherently valuable, it’s subjected to the same pressures of supply that put many of the items on this list. Gold slavery is a significant problem since mining gold has moved into some of the least-developed and poorest nations in the world. This leads to a reduction in regulation, worker safety, child labor laws, and human rights. Gold slavery is one of the most widespread forms of slavery, and it can be found in places like North Korea, but it is also prevalent throughout Africa, South America, and Asia.

Thousands of people work in mines around the world to pull near-microscopic amounts of trace gold from the ground—the work is difficult, dangerous, and often the result of a form of indentured servitude. In order to mine the gold, the workers are required to pay for their equipment, and any gold they mine goes toward that payment, but the system is rigged such that they will never pay it off, resulting in their enslavement. Others are trafficked into gold mining where they receive only food until they pay back their trafficker as much as nine grams per week for up to two months before they’re let go… and they are the lucky ones. Gold mining doesn’t produce the shiny metal solely for the jewelry industry, and because it’s used in numerous electronics devices, you may have slave-mined gold in whichever device you’re using to read this article.

What You Can Do—It’s difficult to find out whether or not your electronics contain gold sourced from slave labor, but there are places you can check. Just as you should with diamonds, ask your jeweler where their gold is sourced, and make sure whatever purchases you make come from informed decisions.^[8]

2 Chocolate

Sadly, one of the best foods on the planet is sometimes sourced through slave and/or child labor in numerous countries, including Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria. In Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, there are an estimated 2.3 million children who work in the cocoa fields, many of them do so against their will with no pay, which results in widespread poverty. The problem is well known to all the major candy companies, including Nestlé, Hershey, Cargill, ADM, and Barry Callebaut, all of which admitted accountability in 2002, but the problem persists.

The average earnings of a cocoa farmer in Western Africa amount to around $2 per day, which is little to nothing when it comes to taking care of families. Like the people tricked into working the seafood industry, many unsuspecting people are taken in by traffickers, and they may never escape the brutal conditions of their enslavement. Since cocoa makes up a significant percentage of many poor African nation’s exports, the demand for cheap/unpaid labor continues to grow.

What You Can Do—Like the rest of the products on this list, you want to do some research before purchasing cocoa you consider suspect. For the most part, the brands listed above have made strives to limit sourcing from places that use slave labor, but more can be fone. Do some research if you’re concerned, and stay informed about your purchases.^[9]

1The Adult Industry

Don’t jump the gun; we’re not suggesting our readers patronize prostitution; rather, adult content found online and in magazines. Let’s face it, it isn’t one of the largest industries on the planet if nobody is buying it, but there’s a serious problem with adult content due to human trafficking, which is one of the most pervasive forms of slavery in the world today. The victims are men, women, and children who make up nearly a quarter of enslaved people worldwide. It is estimated that as many as 4,500,000 people are in some form of forced sexual slavery as of 2010, and the problem continues to grow.

Simple pictures advertising something considerably benign like a cam show or call-in “party line” may use images of people who had no say about being photographed or used in such a way while many of the models in those same shows may not be there by choice. Thousands of those same people are forced to do things with men (and women) against their will, and the most vulnerable people subjected to this practice are young runaways. They are picked up by traffickers in the United States and across the globe where they are forced to do things against their will in horrific conditions, often requiring them to ‘perform’ dozens of times a day.

What You Can Do—There are organizations all over the world that work to stop the practice of using enslaved people in the online adult industry. You may not be able to tell yourself, so it doesn’t hurt to check with a nonprofit or government agency to ensure you aren’t viewing something online that is the result of human trafficking.

Ultimately, the most important thing anyone can do if they suspect someone is being used in one form of slave labor or another is to alert the authorities.^[10]