The emergence of slavery: critical notes on a bio-sociological model of historical explanation

• Autor(a) principal: Rollo, José Henrique
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Acta Scientiarum. Human and Social Sciences (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://www.periodicos.uem.br/ojs/index.php/ActaSciHumanSocSci/article/view/20928
• topic: slavery; history of anthropological ideas; history of sociological ideas; bio-sociology; escravidão; história das ideias antropológicas; história das ideias sociológicas; biossociologia

One of the various explanations for the origins of slavery proposed in the last two centuries is that there exists a logical and historical co-relation between the evolution of the means to obtain food and the discarding of the anthropophagic consumption of prisoners of war. Since the victors disposed of more protein resources, they decided not to kill the vanquished ones but use them as slaves. During the 1950s and the 1960s, the French economist Maurice Lengellé wrote a series of articles (some with Michel Cepède) to present a bio-sociological interpretation of this idea. He supported his thesis by making a distinction between ‘symbiotic’ slavery and slavery proper (or ‘parasitic’ slavery). Current assay synthesizes his main ideas and inserts them within a wider set of contemporary anthropological and sociological conceptions on the origins of slavery.