How and why did critics and defenders of transatlantic slavery draw on ancient Greek and

Roman sources to support their arguments?

Sources from Ancient Greece and Rome became a staple in arguments criticising and
defending transatlantic slavery. Opponents of slavery alluded to the virtues of the ancient
world as being antithetical to the practice and proponents pointed to slavery as one of the
foundational institutions of these societies' which allowed it to intellectually and culturally
blossom. The ‘positive good’ that slavery was depicted as stemmed from Aristotelan
thought, and sources from both ancient Greece and Rome were utilised to
This essay will explore the intersections between pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments to
demonstrate how and why antiquity occupied a contested and central space in these
debates. The ancient world was used as a paradigm for whether slavery was could be
morally justified. Paradoxically, the antecedents the pro-slavery and anti-slavery positions
laid in antiquity.

In the antebellum South, the rising tide of abolitionist sentiment was countered through
cohere legal and ethical justifications for slavery. In order to cast slavery as a ‘positive good’,
it needed philosophical underpinnings which the ancient world could provide. Aristotle
extensive writings on slavery were used as an ideological viewpoint in pro-slavery
arguments. His views on slavery being innate to human life were acculturated into the 19 th
century, as arguments around biological determinism struggled to hold weight. They found
this through the concept of natural law, with American social theorist George Fitzhugh
claiming, ‘the moral and physical world is but a series of subordinations, and the more
perfect the subordination, the greater the harmony and the happiness.’ 1 The notion that the
master-slave relationship is innately prosperous for society is an adaptation of Aristotle’s
writings on natural law. Monoson likens the similarity between the two viewpoints, which
‘insist on the coincident nature of the interests of master and slave.’2 Antiquity had been
used to thrust the defence of slavery as a ‘necessary evil’ to a ‘positive good.’ This
paternalistic argument was a bastion for Southern propagandists who further drew parallels
to the classical world and their slave practices. For example, the role of violence used by
masters in subjugating slaves was trivialised not only as what ‘presupposed the inferior
status of black people,’ but as the actions of someone trying to enforce authority within
their own household.3 The Southern plantation owners used ancient Rome’s legal concepts
to consolidate the authority they had over their slaves.
An 1849 judicial ruling cited this precedent, ruling the murder of a slave by his master
justified as the latter is the pater familias ‘who is legally and morally bound to enforce
subordination among his slaves.’4
1
George Fitzhugh, Canniballs All! Or Slaves without Masters!, ed. By C. Vann Woodward, (Harvard University
Press, 1988), p.205
2
S. Sarah Monsoon, Recollecting Aristotle: Pro-Slavery Thought in Antebellum America and the Argument
of Politics Book I, in Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood by Richard Alston, (Oxford
University Press, 2011), p.251

3
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Buying Freedom: The Ethics and Economics of Slave Redemption, (Princeton
University Press, 2007), p.255
4
Chronicling America, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026897/1849-03-21/ed-1/seq-2/
#date1=1777&index=0&rows=20&words=familias+master+pater&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&dat
e2=1870&proxtext=pater+familias+master&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
By looking to the Ancient Rome for its social constructs,

Writers such as

Contemporary supporters of slavery in the U.S looked to the ancient world for a legal and
ethical explanation for slavery. Aristotle’s philosophical teachings on the subject acted as an
ideological blueprint for such rationalisations, with Monoson describing the thesis of
‘Politics’ as nature producing ‘a plurality of sorts of people’ and who vary in their ‘moral and
political importance.’

https://www.ushistory.org/us/27f.asp

The book ‘Cotton is King’ is a synthesis of pro-slavery arguments and uses Ancient Rome as a
model for the U.S. to emulate through their model of slavery.
‘the everlasting works of Rome were created by the labor of slaves’ p.615