Tag Archives: slavery

Russian Serfdom and American Slavery

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While the two systems of human bondage appear significantly different, they are more similar that most realize.  At the basis for both systems was the shortage of labor.  For the Russian system, this was less prominent until the Mongol period.  Mongolian conquest, Mongolian centralization of the state, and plague  caused population shifts, forcing the nobility to largely abandon the indentured servitude systems that had been used for centuries, replacing it with serfdom, where the workers tied to land, rather than an individual.  The United States, in contrast, continued Europe’s tradition of using slaves, primarily from Africa as the main source of labor.  As the British colonies expanded, the need for exported labor grew drastically.  Driven by differences in race and a disconnect between the slave and the master that was not so distinct in Russia, American Slavery tied the slave to the owner, and were not considered human, but only as property.  As slaves were seen as property in the United States, entire businesses for created around the transportation of new Africans to the Western Hemisphere, as well as Europe.  In Russia, since slaves were not owned by an individual, and the importation of humans was not present, the concept of a business surrounding the selling of slaves was unknown to the Russian nobility.

It was not until the mid 1800’s for both nations for their own respective forms of slavery were to be abolished.  In Russia, serfdom was seen as inhumane since the enlightenment, but was unable to find an alternative to nobles’ source of labor for working the land.  This caused serfdom to be practiced for another century after the enlightened ideals became prominent.  Similarly in the United States, the issue of finding alternative labor also proved difficult for plantation owners.  This was in addition to the blacks being seen as inferior to their white masters. This was not seen in Russia’s system.  There was a rapidly expanding abolitionist movement among a wide range of social classes.  The debate on whether or not slavery should continue was one of the main reasons the Civil War occurred.

If Russia also had a shortage of labor, why did they not import slaves from other areas, especially when there was a lot of economic potential in the business?

How significant is the fact that it took much longer for the two nations than Britain and other European countries to abolish slavery/serfdom?

Russian Serfdom

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When first coming to the understanding of serfdom in Russia, many draw comparison to slavery in the Americas; however, there are subtle differences between these two institutions.  Although both were instilled for agricultural labor, slavery had always set humans as the property of their owners.  Serfdom, on the other hand, tied serfs to the land, which in turn tied them to the owners of that land, be them nobles, the church, or the tsar, himself.  Slaves were never permitted to leave their masters unless they had been granted freedom, as they were physical property.  As serfs were not property but tied to the land, landowners viewed them as necessary in order to cultivate the land they owned and pay taxes to the state.  As a result, many landowners would try to lure serfs away from their neighbors, especially during times of famine, disease, peasant uprisings, and war, when there was a shortage in the population, and therefore of labor.

Furthermore, over time, regulations around serfdom gradually became stricter.  For example, serfs at one point were essentially free persons, and were initially given the liberty to move at their own will to better land with a better landowner.  However, as previously mentioned, this caused an upset among landowners, complaining they could not pay off taxes without the manpower necessary to work their land. Eventually, serf movement was restricted to a two-week period around St. George’s day.  This restriction proved ineffective to keeping serfs bound to their original land. In 1649 serfs were prohibited from moving totally.  Recovery periods were extended to four years, then to five years, and eventually there was no cut-off for recovering serfs who fled their lands.  Even when serfs could leave, landowners did what they could to keep them in their lands by giving loans for the serfs to pay off over time and even charging exit fees which would increase by the number of years a serf was in a certain land.

While serfdom was not necessarily slavery, it still an institution which oppressed the majority of the Russian population.  Though it ended only four years before the abolition slavery in the United States, it was deemed a necessary evil for many a Russian monarch in order to keep nobles appeased, and had been in existence for centuries longer than American slavery ever was.

Serfdom and American Slavery

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There are interesting parallels between Russian serfdom and the form of slavery found in the Americas. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Russian serfdom changed dramatically. The beginning of the 16th century brought economic prosperity to Russia, but from the 1560’s into the early 1600’s Russia was struck by many brutal periods of chaos that combined to cause large reforms in serfdom. These reforms drastically restricted the movement of the serfs and turned serfs from peasants into property.

In the second half of the 16th century, Russia was affected by regime changes, instability, revolts, foreign interventions, crop failure and famine, and a government that didn’t have the strength or organization to provide for or protect the peasantry. The combination of these factors led to a steep decline in living conditions and prosperity for the peasants. Many of the peasants became slaves or criminals, but the majority packed up and left their homes to try and find better living conditions. The mass migrations of agricultural workers caused a great strain on the nation as a whole, as it could barely support the needs of the population.

Serfdom in Russia had become necessary due to the lack of labor and the Russian government instituted laws that rapidly took away the remaining freedom of the serfs. Slavery in the American colonies was used because of a lack of sufficient population for the necessary agricultural work. Both American slavery and Russian serfdom were used to compensate for an insufficient population of agricultural workers, but they also were similarly maintained by the respective governments for a time. The American government allowed slaves to be owned by specific people or households that typically required them to be stationary and work on farms and orchards, and the Russian government created laws that prevented serfs from leaving the land that they worked.

Russian serfdom and American slavery had some key similarities. Primarily, the usage of slaves/serfs to perform agricultural work, rather than work in secondary or tertiary industries. The main difference between them comes from the necessity of their existence. Slavery in the Americas was important because of economic reasons, but serfdom in Russia was necessary at the time in order to keep the nation functioning and stable.

Russian Serfdom and American Slavery

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As an American Studies major, I found Peter Kolchin’s The Origin and Consolidation of Unfree Labor to be absolutely fascinating. Kolchin’s purpose in the introduction we read is to delineate the similarities and differences between the causes and realities of Russian serfdom and American slavery. Kolchin begins by detailing the origins of Russian serfdom. Serfs originally had freedom to move around the country; however, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century this right was restricted and eventually abolished because serf migration caused too much disruption and therefore decreased the amount of agricultural labor being performed. In America at the end of the seventeenth/beginning of the eighteenth century, Africans brought through the slave trade replaced English indentured servants as the main source of labor. Because slaves worked for life and reproduced, they were more economically beneficial than indentured servants, who only worked for several years, whose children were not automatically enslaved, and who therefore always had to be replaced.

Kolchin then provides a discussion of why slavery occurred, arguing that, at least in Russia and America, a surplus of land and a small amount of laborers led land owners to force people into working for them. Kolchin finally cites the two main differences between American slavery and Russian serfdom: first, American slaves were “aliens,” of a different nationality, race, and religion to their masters, while Russian serfs were almost always the same nationality and had similar customs; and second, American slaves did all of their work for their masters, paying them nothing and receiving some sustenance in return, whereas Russian serfs paid their Lords rent, worked part-time for their them and part-time cultivating their own land.

I thought that Kolchin’s point on Russian serfs not being racially different from their Lords to be very interesting. He explains that, while many Americans imagined a United States without blacks, Russia depended upon its outsiders, defining them not as outsiders, but as “the people.” Still, as serfdom continued over centuries, the class lines hardened between noble and serf, so that “nobleman and peasant seemed as different from each other as white and black, European and African” (Kolchin 45). This implies that the distinction between the serf and the noble came to be considered as innate, and not merely a consequence of who owned the land. To me, this section brings up the question of race. “Race” was socially constructed to justify the maltreatment of certain individuals who looked different–based on skin color, eye shape, etc.–from others. I wonder if Russian serfs were ever thought to be a different “race” from the nobles (similar to how Africans were a different “race” from Europeans) as a justification for the enslavement. Or, was race simply not as much of an “issue” in Russia as it was in America?