Final Questions, Comparative Slavery 2017

On the final you will be given 3 of the following questions, and asked to write an essay on the one of your choice

1) Based on your readings, how would YOU define slavery? Please show how your definition is useful and appropriate by relating it to at least two of the following: labor systems in Babylon, Ancient Greece/Rome, Islamicate Slavery, Atlantic slavery, and slavery in the modern world.

2) As we read, Patterson did not believe that military slaves were actually slaves at all. Do you agree with this assessment? Your answer should include a definition of slavery (yours or someone else’s) as well as examples drawn from military slavery in the Middle East and/or India.

3) What is the relationship between slavery and race? Defend your overall statement with evidence drawn from at least two of the following: labor systems in Babylon, Ancient Greece/Rome, Islamicate Slavery, Atlantic slavery.

4) What relationship, or relationships, have you observed between slavery and religion? In other words, how has religion influenced the practice of slavery? Your answer should discuss at least two of the case studies listed above.

5) “While slavery was not initially an economic institution, especially in the Ancient and Medieval eras, economics became more crucial to the system of slavery by the early modern and modern era.” To what degree do you agree with this statement? Your answer should consider at least one ancient or medieval slavery example (Babylon, Ancient Greece/Rome, early Indian, early Islamicate) and at least one more recent example (Atlantic, later Islamicate, modern slavery).