Colonialist Slavery Techniques and Torture Were Used During the Transatlantic Slave Trade and are now Used on Non-Human Animals in Animal Agriculture

By: Jessica A. Chapman

The definition of slavery is “a civil relationship in which one person has absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty of another.”[1] Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and the United States were some of the leading countries that established and perpetuated the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th Century through the 19th Century.[2] In 300 years, citizens of these colonizing countries enslaved approximately 12 million African people,[3] and exploited them in various ways for work in the Caribbean, North America, Dutch Guiana, and Brazil, as labor for sugar, tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo, and other crop plantations; labor for animal agriculture; labor for domestic affairs; and labor as seafarers.[4] The transatlantic slave trade existed purely for the economic benefit of many Europeans and Americans.[5]

Conditions for slaves were dehumanizing; slave owners subjected slaves to physical and sexual abuse.[6] Slave traders increased their supply of slaves through “slave breeding,” a practice slave owners employed in which they forced young slave women to have as many children as they were physically able.[7] Consequently, children were born into the slave trade,[8] separated from their parents,[9] and experienced high mortality rates.[10] Additionally, female slaves served as “wet nurses” to their owners’ (non-slave) children.[11] Slave overseers and owners chained slaves into small quarters in which slaves could not move or breathe properly.[12] Slaveowners branded their slaves and physically mutilated them as forms of punishment.[13] For most slaves, their enslavement and the inhumane conditions in which they worked and lived, ended at their death, which was frequent because of the slavery system’s high mortality rates for all ages.[14] European and American legal systems prevented slaves from gaining rights or receiving protection from these degrading and coercive practices.[15]

Operations – particularly those of the large-scale farming (factory farming) industry[16] – that use animals as resources, employ the same methods of control, abuse, and exploitation that slave traders and slave owners used throughout the transatlantic slave trade. For instance, many large-scale farming operations use “confined animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) in order to maximize profits.[17] In CAFOs for chickens,[18] many operation owners put, at minimum, four egg-laying hens into compact battery cages that are absent of space for the hens to move or stretch.[19] Many owners separate newborns from their mothers[20]; confine growing pigs and male calves (for instance) in quarters too small for them to be able to move[21]; and brand and physically alter (mutilate) animals through debeaking, de-horning, tail docking, and castration procedures.[22] To increase the amount of animals farm owners can sell for profit, many owners forcibly artificially inseminate female non-human animals,[23] which myriad humans would argue is a form of sexual abuse if they were to experience the same act. Additionally, operators have developed techniques to increase the number of children non-human farm animals give birth to per pregnancy and the frequency of their pregnancies, in order to increase production yields.[24] These strategies are not unlike the previously mentioned practice of human slave breeding. And, a conceivable analogy exists between human mothers who purchase cow or goat milk to substitute as human milk for their infants, with the use of slave owners’ use of slaves as wet nurses for their children. Like human child slaves, millions of non-human animals are born into the agriculture industry and experience high mortality rates because their respective owners do not have a financial use for them (i.e. male chicks[25]). Like humans who experience shortened lives in slavery,[26] most non-human animals only live a few years, despite their longer life expectancies in natural environments.[27] Lastly, like the 12-20 million humans who died as a result of the transatlantic slave trade to support slaveowners’ profits, the animal agriculture industry kills billions of animals each year for profit, to support human consumption of meat and animal byproducts.[28]

Though many critics claim the argument to compare human slavery and non-human animal slavery is offensive,[29] the conditions that both populations of sentient beings experience are the same. And, the countries that have the largest animal agricultural operations are many of the same countries that popularized and financially benefitted from the transatlantic slave trade: The United States and countries that belong to the European Union. However, countries that may not have been involved in the transatlantic slave trade, but that have increased their financial and political power in the last century, adopted and established Western intensive animal agricultural practices, including Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, India, China, and Brazil.[30]

Many historically colonialist countries smoothly transitioned from applying the methods of controlling, abusing, and exploiting human slaves onto non-human animals. The motivations for profit that fueled the transatlantic slave trade and the motivations for profit that currently fuel large-scale farming practices are the same. Furthermore, the European and American legal systems that successfully oppressed human slaves are eerily similar to the current legal structures that prevent animals in agriculture from having rights and protections from pain, suffering, and the preservation of their interests.[31] For instance, the American legal system did not recognize slaves as legal persons, but rather as property, and the current American legal system does not recognize non-human animals as legal persons, but rather as property.[32]

Various entities have connected human slavery and humans’ use of non-human animals for profit as being the same operation with two different names.[33] The United Nations recognizes that humans have interests to live fulfilled lives that are free from pain and suffering, humans have interests to preserve their family and community structures, and humans have interests to preserve their bodily integrity.[34] Research shows that non-human animals also experience pain and suffering, engage in activities that support their ability to lead fulfilled lives,[35] have established family and community structures,[36] and so – with nearly the same body parts as humans – should have the right to preserved bodily integrity. Continuing to induce non-human animals into forms of slavery for capital gain perpetuates exploitive practices modern society publicly condemns and criminalizes.[37]

This article urges countries that established effective, long-standing slave trade practices to truly end slavery and exploitation of other beings by ceasing their use of transatlantic slave trade practices on non-human animals. Modern society evolved at the end of the 19th Century and acknowledged European and American slave practices were abhorrent.[38] Abolitionists’ grassroots efforts and politicians’ efforts helped change legislation at that time in history to criminalize human slavery because those societies were willing to progress their ethical and moral development. Through activists’ grassroots efforts and through legislative and legal evolution,[39] society is continuing its cultural evolution and recognizing that treatment of non-human animals in the same conditions that slaves in the 16th – 19th centuries endured is morally and ethically repugnant.

European and American countries, in collaboration with all countries that use non-human animals as resources, but that may not have led global slave trades, could make a concerted effort to end non-human animal slavery through innovative legal measures. These legal measures could criminalize exploitation of all non-human animals, and disincentivize economies that people base on animal products. The very countries who popularized and then condemned human slavery have the power and would receive the recognition of being truly evolved societies if they criminalized the slave labor practices humans impose on myriad sentient beings. Traditionally colonialist countries pride themselves on being “civilized.” However, the inducement of slavery on sentient beings is the antithesis of a “civilized” culture. Historically colonialist countries have initiated many trends that other countries followed. Therefore, historically colonialist countries have the power to initiate a trend of kindness and compassion to all sentient beings, which other countries would likely adopt. The international eradication of slavery of non-human animals would establish a globally humane culture and embody the concept of equality the modern world claims to have achieved.

Author’s note: Though the transatlantic slave trade ended in the late 1800s, human slavery still exists throughout the world and supports myriad industries.[40] Therefore, everyone – from grassroots activists to the average consumer – should consciously act to end all forms of slavery for humans and non-human animals, by practicing conscientious consumerism and executing diligent research to ensure their personal and professional activities do not support exploitive and abusive practices that condemn other beings to indefinite servitude.

#transatlantic slave trade #slavetrade #slavery #modernslavery #animals #factoryfarming #farmanimals #animalagriculture #agriculture #animalslavery #food #exploitation #animalexploitation #colonizers #confinement #abuse #control #change #empowerment #freedom #liberation #animalliberation 

[1] Slavery, TheLaw.com Dictionary (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://dictionary.thelaw.com/slavery/. The term slavery is a weighted and triggering word for many people whose ancestors experienced this atrocity. For purposes of this article, the term “slavery” is used because another word to discuss the same acts of aggression and oppression towards non-human animals does not currently exist. However, people whose ancestors experienced the traditional view of slavery should be given the voice and power to offer alternative words for modern animal “slavery” that does not trigger or offend them, if triggering and offense does occur from comparing human slavery to animal slavery.

[2] Thomas Lewis, Transatlantic slave trade, Britannica (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.britannica.com/topic/slave-trade.

[3] However, other estimates approximate 20 million people died through the transatlantic slave trade. See Joe Carter, 5 Facts about the transatlantic slave trade, ERLC (Aug. 17, 2018), https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/5-facts-about-the-transatlantic-slave-trade.

[4] Thomas Lewis, supra note 2; Slave labor, U.N. Educ., Sci. & Cultural Org. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0056; Dr. Alan Rice, Life on plantations, Revealing Hists. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the-arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/articles/life-on-plantations.html; Steven Mintz, Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade & Slavery, Gilder Lehrman Inst. of Am. Hist. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-now/teaching-resource/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery.

[5] See, e.g., U. of Miami, Overview Essay: The Slave Trade, Slave Resistance: A Caribbean Study (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/slave_trade/slave_trade.html.

[6] See id.

[7] Slavery in the United States, Britannica (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-American/The-Civil-War-era.

[8] Colleen A. Vasconcellos, Children in the Slave Trade, Child. & Youth in Hist. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/141.

[9] Steven Mintz, Childhood &Transatlantic Slavery, Child. & Youth in Hist. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/57.

[10] Id.

[11] See, e.g., Documenting the American South, A Negro Nurse (1912), https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/negnurse/negnurse.html.

[12] See, e.g., U. of Miami, supra note 5.

[13] See, e.g. Becky Little, Details of Brutal First Slave Voyages Discovered, History (updated on Mar. 21, 2019), https://www.history.com/news/transatlantic-slave-first-ships-details; Transatlantic slave trade, openDemocracy (Mar. 19, 2007), https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/slavery_4446jsp/; The Transatlantic Slave Trade, Real Hists. Directory (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), http://www.realhistories.org.uk/articles/archive/translantic-slave-trade.html.

[14] See U.N. Educ., Sci. & Cultural Org., supra note 4.

[15] Id.

[16] For the brevity of this article, this discussion does not address other industries that exploit non-human animals for profit, including research, retail, and entertainment. However, non-human animals experience equivalent exploitive and abusive conditions in these consumerist industries as well.

[17] See, e.g., Inhumane Practices on Factory Farms, Animal Welfare Inst. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://awionline.org/content/inhumane-practices-factory-farms.

[18] Though this article mentions CAFOs for hens, large-scale farm owners may use CAFOs for any animal they raise and sell for meat and/or animal byproducts.

[19] See Bruce Friederich, The Cruelest of All Factory Farm Products: Eggs From Caged Hens, Huffington Post (Dec. 6, 2017), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eggs-from-caged-hens_b_2458525. To note, the European Union has outlawed battery cages, though most states in the United States still legalize them. Id.

[20] See, e.g., U. of Veterinary Med., Vienna, Early Separation of cow and calf has long-term effects on social behavior, Sci. Daily (Apr. 28, 2015), https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150428081801.htm.

[21] See, e.g., Animal Welfare Inst., supra note 17. Half the population of slave infants died before their first birthday because of malnutrition. Comparatively, young calves whom veal operators raise, die before their first birthday and are malnourished yet overweight so they produce the classic color of veal meat. See Steven Mintz, supra note 4; Peter Singer, Animal Liberation 130-136 (HarperCollins Publishers, 4th ed. 2009). Each practice of inducing malnutrition occurred for the benefit of the slave owner or farm operators’ capital gain. To note, some veal farmers claim they have changed their practices to increase calf nourishment. See, e.g., Today’s Veal, VEAL FARM (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.vealfarm.com/veal-farming/.

[22] See, e.g., Animal Welfare Inst., supra note 17.

[23] See, e.g., Artificial Insemination, Agric. for Impact (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://ag4impact.org/sid/genetic-intensification/livestock-breeding/artificial-insemination/, and Is Your Food a Product of Rape?, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.peta.org/features/rape-milk-pork-turkey/.

[24] See, e.g., Frank Aherne & Roy Kirkwood, Factors Affecting Litter Size, Pig Site (Feb. 16, 2001), https://thepigsite.com/articles/factors-affecting-litter-size; see generally Peader G. Lawlor & P. Brendan Lynch, A review of factors influencing litter size in Irish sows, 60 Irish Veterinary J. 359 (2007).

[25] See, e.g., What happens with male chicks in the egg industry? RSPCA (updated on Aug. 22, 2019), https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-happens-with-male-chicks-in-the-egg-industry/.

[26] See, e.g., Health History: Health & Longevity Since the Mid-19th Century, Stan. Sch. of Med. (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://geriatrics.stanford.edu/ethnomed/african_american/fund/health_history/longevity.html.

[27] Non-human animals are killed and sold for meat, or collapse from the exhaustive practices of resource extraction (i.e. milk and egg collection). Cattle have a natural life expectancy of 20 years, but live 8 months to 5.5 years in the agricultural and retail industries, depending on the role the agricultural industry imposes on them; pigs have a natural life expectancy of 20 years, but they live six months to three years in the agricultural industry; chickens have a natural life expectancy of eight to 15 years, but live one day to 20 months in the agriculture industry; sheep have a natural life expectancy of 20 years, but live three months to seven years in the agriculture and retail industries; rabbits have a natural life expectancy of six to 14 years, but live 60 days to three years in the agriculture industry; and geese have a natural life expectancy of 15 years, but live eight to 23 weeks in the agriculture industry. The Life Expectancy of Farm Animals, Four Paws (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.four-paws.us/campaigns-topics/topics/farm-animals/life-expectancy.

[28] At the time of drafting this article, statistically 9,934,222,952 animals died, in the United States alone, for meat or animal byproduct consumption. See Annual U.S. Animal Death Stats, animalclock (last visited Mar. 6, 2020 2:11PM), https://animalclock.org/.

[29] See, e.g., Ashitha Nagesh, Vegans need to stop comparing the treatment of animals to slavery, Indep. (June 14, 2015), https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/meat-free-monday-vegans-need-to-stop-comparing-the-treatment-of-animals-to-american-slavery-10319301.html.

[30] Abayomi Jegede, Top 10 Largest Meat Producing Countries In The World, Daily Recs. (Jan. 1, 2019), http://www.thedailyrecords.com/2018-2019-2020-2021/world-famous-top-10-list/world/largest-meat-producing-countries-world-beef-exporting-10-top/14456/.

[31] See Written Declarations, ESDAW-EU (last visited Mar. 8, 2020), http://www.esdaw-eu.eu/written-declarations.html (listing current declarations, which are aspirational and not mandatory law, to address European animal welfare standards), and Animal Welfare Act 7 U.S.C. § 2132(g) (excluding “farm animals, such as, but not limited to livestock or poultry, used or intended for use as food or fiber, or livestock or poultry used or intended for use for improving animal nutrition, breeding, management, or production efficiency, or for improving the quality of food or fiber” from the United States’ federal definition of “animal”).

[32] See, e.g., Paul Finkelman, Slavery in the United States: Persons or Property?, in The American Experience: Blurred Boundaries of Slavery 105 (Duke University 2012) (explaining the American legal system’s traditional view on slaves as property), and see generally Gary L. Francione, Reflections on Animals, Property, & the Law & Rain Without Thunder, 70-WTR L. & Contemp. Probs. 9 (2007) (discussing animals as property in the American legal system). The Animal Welfare Act does not recognize animals who live in the agriculture industry as legal animals who warrant protection from abuse that the law has criminalized should a companion animal receive that same form of abuse. See 7 U.S.C. § 2132(g).

[33] See, e.g., Karl Jacoby, Slaves by Nature? Domestic Animals & Human Slaves, Slavery & Abolition 15, 89-99 (1994); and see generally Marjorie Spiegel, The Dreaded Comparison: Human & Animal Slavery (3rd 1997).

[34] See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, U.N. Doc. A/RES/217(III) (Dec. 10, 1948) [hereinafter Universal Declaration of Human Rights].

[35] See, e.g., Margaret Rose & David Adams, Evidence for Pain & Suffering in Other Animals, in Animal Experimentation, 42-71 (Langley G. eds. 1989); Jonathan Balcombe, Animal Pleasure & its moral significance, 118 Applied Animal Behav. Sci. 208, 208-16 (2009).

[36] See, e.g., Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Social structure matters in species conservation, PhysOrg June 15, 2015), https://phys.org/news/2015-06-social-species.html.

[37] See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, supra note 34.

[38] See id.

[39] See, e.g., Cal. Health & Safety Code § 25990.

[40] Some of the countries that have the largest populations of modern slaves include North Korea, Eritrea, Burundi, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Mauritania, South Sudan, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Iran. Slavery Today: Countries With The Highest Prevalence of Modern Slaves, worldatlas (last visited Mar. 6, 2020), https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-modern-slaves-today.html. However, modern human slavery exists in Western countries, including the United States. See, e.g., Edward Helmore, Over 400,000 people living in ‘modern slavery’ in US, report finds, Guardian (July 19, 2018), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/19/us-modern-slavery-report-global-slavery-index.