Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas
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Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas
The Code of Hammurabi
The Code of the Nesilim
The Bible

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Introduction of SlaveryThe Origins of Race-based Slavery

The Code of the Nesilim (Hittites), c. 1650-1500 BC

3. If anyone smite a free man or woman and this one die, he shall bring this one and give two persons, he shall let them go to his home.

4. If anyone smite a male or female slave, he shall bring this one also and give one person, he shall let him or her go to his home.

6. If anyone blind a free man or knock out his teeth, formerly they would give one pound of silver, now he shall give twenty half-shekels of silver.

8. If anyone blind a male or female slave or knock out their teeth, he shall give ten half- shekels of silver, he shall let it go to his home.

17. If anyone cause a free woman to miscarry, if it be the tenth month, he shall give ten half-shekels of silver, if it be the fifth month, he shall give five half-shekels of silver.

18. If anyone cause a female slave to miscarry, if it be the tenth month, he shall give five half-shekels of silver.

20. If any man of Hatti steal a Nesian slave and lead him here to the land of Hatti, and his master discover him, he shall give him twelve half-shekels of silver, he shall let it go to his home.

21. If anyone steal a slave of a Luwian from the land of Luwia, and lead him here to the land of Hatti, and his master discover him, he shall take his slave only.

24. If a male or female slave run away, he at whose hearth his master finds him or her, shall give fifty half-shekels of silver a year.

31. If a free man and a female slave be fond of each other and come together and he take her for his wife and they set up house and get children, and afterward they either become hostile or come to close quarters, and they divide the house between them, the man shall take the children, only one child shall the woman take.

32. If a slave take a woman as his wife, their case is the same. The majority of the children to the wife and one child to the slave.

33. If a slave take a female slave their case is the same. The majority of children to the female slave and one child to the slave.

34. If a slave convey the bride price to a free son and take him as husband for his daughter, nobody dare surrender him to slavery.

36. If a slave convey the bride price to a free son and take him as husband for his daughter, nobody dare surrender him to slavery.

98. If a free man set a house ablaze, he shall build the house, again. And whatever is inside the house, be it a man, an ox, or a sheep that perishes, nothing of these he need compensate.

99. If a slave set a house ablaze, his master shall compensate for him. The nose of the slave and his ears they shall cut off, and give him back to his master. But if he do not compensate, then he shall give up this one.

170. If a free man kill a serpent and speak the name of another, he shall give one pound of silver; if a slave, this one shall die.

194. If a free man pick up female slaves, now one, now another, there is no punishment for intercourse. If brothers sleep with a free woman, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment. If father and son sleep with a female slave or harlot, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment.

Source:
From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1901), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 9-11.


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