Slaves translates the Greek douloi, and indicates subjection and usually bondage. In biblical times slavery was common and much abused. In both Greek and Roman cultures, most slaves had no legal rights and were treated as commercial commodities. Roman citizens came to look on work as beneath their dignity, and the entire empire gradually came to function largely by slave power. Slaves were bought, sold, traded, used, and discarded as heartlessly as if they were animals or tools. Considerate masters such as Pliny the Elder, who was deeply grieved over the death of some of his slaves, were exceptional.

The Roman statesman Cato said, “Old slaves should be thrown on a dump, and when a slave is ill do not feed him anything. It is not worth your money. Take sick slaves and throw them away because they are nothing but inefficient tools.” Augustus crucified a slave who accidentally killed his pet quail, and a man named Pollio threw a slave into a pond of deadly lamprey eels for breaking a crystal goblet. Juvenal wrote of a slave owner whose greatest pleasure was “listening to the sweet song of his slaves being flogged.”

The Enlightenment and evangelical religion were two forces opposed to slavery. Quakers, Moravians, and Methodists were among the first voices of opposition. Efforts by leaders such as Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and William Wilberforce led to the prohibition of slave trade in Great Britain (1807) and the British Empire (1827). Then slavery was abolished (1833).

The importation of slaves ended in the United States (1808). Quakers, revivalists, and abolition societies opposed the institution. The Presbyterian General Assembly (1818) condemned slavery, insisting that Christians should work for its extinction.