Are slave rebellions justified?

[EphelDuath]

How should Catholics view people like Spartacus?

 

[jfoges]

How should Catholics view people like Spartacus?

If Spartacus did not have the right to revolt against his masters, then what right did Moses have to lead his people out of slavery?

 

[Newbie2]

How should Catholics view people like Spartacus?

Heros.

Great movie, BTW.

 

[thistle]

If Spartacus did not have the right to revolt against his masters, then what right did Moses have to lead his people out of slavery?

Moses had the right because God asked him to lead his people out of slavery.
I haven’t heard that God spoke to Sparticus!

 

[jfoges]

Moses had the right because God asked him to lead his people out of slavery.
I haven’t heard that God spoke to Sparticus!

Don’t you think slavery being wrong had something to do with God asking Moses to lead his people out of slavery?

 

[EphelDuath]

There’s a difference there, though. The only Egyptians who died were specifically killed by the hand of God. But a slave rebellion implies that it’s men killing other men. Is this a “Just War”?

 

[wynnejj]

How about the story of Onesime, the slave who ran away from Philemon? He was told to return in the New Testament.

 

[Pro_Domina]

There are only two ways slavery is legit.

The first is voluntary.

The second is a war situation. If an enemy combatant is captured and his life is spared (considering it is just war, though at the the thought, just by Natural Law too I think) then the one who spares it has rights over him.

 

[Pro_Domina]

And it depends on the effect afterwards.

Injustice but with order is superior to Justice with chaos.

If it is convinient to remain a slave, then the person must.

St. Paul is even clear on that.

 

[Wirraway]

How about the story of Onesime, the slave who ran away from Philemon? He was told to return in the New Testament.

slavery in the ancient world was magnitudes different than slavery in Haiti, location of a successful slave revolt, or the American ante-bellum South (or the functional equivalent post Civil War). I don’t know what Paul would have said about slavery in the modern world, but I sure wouldn’t counsel anyone to return to the plantation.

I’m sure someone here could justify a slave rebellion under the just war doctrine. slavery considers its victims as property, and that is way beneath any concept of human dignity.

 

[Wirraway]

And it depends on the effect afterwards.

Injustice but with order is superior to Justice with chaos.

If it is convinient to remain a slave, then the person must.

St. Paul is even clear on that.

slaves in St. Paul’s time were valued members of a household, could own property (even other slaves), were often trusted managers and agents, could possibly buy their freedom. life on a deep South plantation in 1859 was unspeakable and degrading.

I prefer Lincoln’s take, from the Second inaugural address

"Yet, if God wills that [the Civil War] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

 

[Pro_Domina]

The Civil War was more about other things than slavery.

The South still had aristocratic, organic and even a Catholic way of life that opposed to industrial,egalitarian. athiest North.

So they burned them to the grown. For slavery to stop is a natural process. The indians were not expected to clothe themselves the day they were baptized. Nor are entire milenia of slavery to change in a couple of years.

And it was only in protestant countries that slaves were treated like dogs. In Catholic countries most slaves stayed after they were free because they were treated well.

 

[Wirraway]

The Civil War was more about other things than slavery.

that’s a non-sequitur.

The South still had aristocratic, organic and even a Catholic way of life that opposed to industrial,egalitarian. athiest North.

uh… ok. yeah.

So they burned them to the grown. For slavery to stop is a natural process. The indians were not expected to clothe themselves the day they were baptized. Nor are entire milenia of slavery to change in a couple of years.

either slavery was an evil that should have been ended or it was not. you don’t seem to think it was all that bad, an astonishing conclusion. slavery and all of its attendant evils was not going to end by any process short of war, in fact, recent agricultural inventions gave it new life in the mid-19th century.

native americans did an ok job of clothing themselves prior to baptism.

And it was only in protestant countries that slaves were treated like dogs. In Catholic countries most slaves stayed after they were free because they were treated well.

here, enjoy reading about slave revolts in the new world, notice how many were in nominally Catholic countries by the way it was the protestant brits who ended the slave trade by naval interdiction.

 

[Pro_Domina]

I am not for slavery. I am against the Civil War.

And the English were the ones who treated indians and blacks like trash.

In Latin America things were different.

 

[Pro_Domina]

And the Native Americans had a heck of a lot of changes from the times of the Aztecs and Mayans my friend.

 

[Wirraway]

I am not for slavery. I am against the Civil War.

the war ended in 1865. that was over 143 years ago. what is there to be against?

And the English were the ones who treated indians and blacks like trash.

correcting this would take days. regardless, it was the protestant English who ended the transatlantic slave trade.

In Latin America things were different.

slave revolts in Latin America, from the same source just cited and which you did not bother reading:

1519 Africans revolt in Spanish Hispaniola
1522 Revolt in Puerto Rico
1530 Revolt in Mexico
1550 Revolt in Panama and Peru
1630-1697
Thousands of enslaved Africans establish Palmares, Brazil
1639
First British West Indies African revolt (Providence Island)
1655 Revolt of 1,500 Africans in Jamaica
1663-1739 Nearly 76 years of insurrections by enslaved Jamaicans
1674 Revolt in Barbados
1687 Revolt in Antigua
1691 First revolt in Haiti
1760 Major revolt in Jamaica led by “Tackey”
1765 Revolt by enslaved Africans in Honduras
1768 Discovery of revolt plot on St. Kitts
1773 Enslaved Jamaicans in major revolt
1791-1803
Some 500,000 enslaved Africans successfully revolt in Haiti
1796 Enslaved Africans revolt in St. Lucia
1801 Revolt of enslaved Africans in Guadeloupe
1823 Major slave revolt in Guyana
1828-1837 Revolt of enslaved Africans in Brazil
1831 Revolt of enslaved Africans in Antigua
Major revolt in Jamaica, led by Samuel Sharpe
1844 Revolt of enslaved Africans in Cuba
1848 Revolt of enslaved Africans in the Virgin Islands

 

[miguel]

…I’m sure someone here could justify a slave rebellion under the just war doctrine…

It seems plausible to me. Although one would have to somehow equate “the nation or community of nations” below with the rebelling slaves. If that’s possible, all 4 criteria for “legitimate defense…” must “at one and the same time” be satisfied.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**2309 **The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
  These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

 

[jfoges]

There are only two ways slavery is legit.

The first is voluntary.

The second is a war situation. If an enemy combatant is captured and his life is spared (considering it is just war, though at the the thought, just by Natural Law too I think) then the one who spares it has rights over him.

If it is voluntary then is it really slavery?

 

[jfoges]

The Civil War was more about other things than slavery.

The South still had aristocratic, organic and even a Catholic way of life that opposed to industrial,egalitarian. athiest North.

So they burned them to the grown. For slavery to stop is a natural process. The indians were not expected to clothe themselves the day they were baptized. Nor are entire milenia of slavery to change in a couple of years.

And it was only in protestant countries that slaves were treated like dogs. In Catholic countries most slaves stayed after they were free because they were treated well.

Pro Domina, it says you are writing from Rome, so I assume you are Italian. As an American let me tell you that the Civil War was 100% about slavery. The South seceded from the Union because Southerners were extremely racist and were terrified at the thought of having their black slaves as equal citizens who might want to marry with their daughters. Yes, the fear of black and white interracial marriage was at the heard of the slaveowners fears. Many historical writings attest to this.

In Latin American catholic countries slavery was not a good thing either. There were many slave revolts in those places and black latinos today will not say that their ancestors “enjoyed” slavery.

 

[Nickkname]

How should Catholics view people like Spartacus?

Yes. Saint Paul tells slaves to be obedient to their masters out of love and in the same breath he tells masters to treat their slaves as they would their own brothers. True freedom is in Christ, so we should not be the slaves of one another but of the Lord our God.