Slavery in Romania

[4] While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, the bulk of them came from south of the Danube at the end of the 14th century, some time after the foundation of Wallachia.

[11] The very first document attesting the presence of Roma people in Wallachia dates back to 1385, and refers to the group as aţigani (from athinganoi, a Greek-language word for "heretics", and the origin of the Romanian term ţigani, which is synonymous with "Gypsy").

[12] The document, signed by Prince Dan I, assigned 40 sălaşe (hamlets or dwellings) of aţigani to Tismana Monastery, the first of such grants to be recorded.

[16] As a consequence of this, British sociologist Will Guy describes Romania as a "unique case", and one of the fort main "patterns of development" in what concerns the Roma groups of the region (alongside those present in countries that have in the recent past belonged to the Ottomans, Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire).

[25] Medieval society allowed a certain degree of social mobility, as attested by the career of Ștefan Răzvan, a Wallachian Roma slave who was able to rise to the rank of boyar, was sent on official duty to the Ottoman Empire, and, after allying himself with the Poles and Cossack groups, became Moldavian Prince (April–August 1595).

[26] The Roma were considered personal property of the boyar,[27] who was allowed to put them to work, selling them or exchanging them for other goods and the possessions of the slaves were also at the discretion of the master, this form of slavery distinguishing itself from the rumâni, who could only be sold together with the land.

[32] Similarly, boyar-owned lăieși were required to gather at their master's household once a year, usually on the autumn feast of Saint Demetrius[23] (presently coinciding with the October 26 celebrations in the Orthodox calendar).

[33] Initially, and down to the 15th century, Roma and Tatar slaves were all grouped into self-administrating sălaşe (Old Church Slavonic: челѣдь, čelyad') which were variously described by historians as being an extended family, a household or even a community.

[34] Their leaders, themselves slaves, were known as cneji, juzi or vătămani, and, in addition to sorting legal disputes, collected taxes and organised labour for the owners.

[35] Occasionally, the larger slave communities elected themselves a başbulibaşa, who was superior to the bulibaşi and charged with solving the more divisive or complicated conflicts within the respective group.

[36] The system went unregulated, often leading to violent conflicts between slaves, which, in one such case attested for the 19th century, led to boyar intervention and the foot whipping of those deemed guilty of insubordination.

[38] The Orthodox Church (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople), itself a major slaveholder, did not contest the institution of slavery,[39] although among the early advocates of the abolition was Eufrosin Poteca, a priest.

[40] Occasionally, members of the church hierarchy intervened to limit abuse against slaves it did not own: Wallachian Metropolitan Dositei demanded from Prince Constantine Ypsilantis to discourage his servants from harassing a young Roma girl named Domniţa.

[42] Like many of the serfs in the two principalities, slaves were prone to escape from the estates and seek a better life on other domains or abroad, which made boyars organize search parties and make efforts to have them return.

[45] A small section of the native Roma population managed to evade the system (either by not having been originally enslaved as a group, or by regrouping runaway slaves).

[23] According to Djuvara, Roma housemaids were often spared hard work, especially in cases where the number of slaves per household ensured a fairer division of labour.

This practice was banned by Constantine Mavrocordatos in 1763 and discouraged by the Orthodox Church, which decreed in 1766 that "although they are called gypsies [i.e. slaves], the Lord created them and it is indecent to separate them like cattle".

[51] During several periods in history, this kind of intercourse was explicitly forbidden: In Moldavia, in 1774, prince Alexander Mourousis banned marriages between free people and slaves.

[53] Marital relations between Roma people and the majority ethnic Romanian population were rare, due to the difference in status and, as Djuvara notes, to an emerging form of racial prejudice.

[57] In 1775, Bukovina, the scene of the 1821 incidents, was annexed from Moldavia by the Habsburgs, and inherited the practice of slavery, especially since the many monasteries in the region held a large number of Roma slaves.

The boyars loudly pleaded their case to the authorities of Bukovina and Galicia, arguing that the banning of slavery was a transgression against the autonomy and traditions of the province, that bondage is the appropriate state for the Roma and that it was for their own good.

In Wallachia, a memorandum written by Mitică Filipescu proposed to put an end to slavery by allowing the slaves to buy their own freedom.

The Wallachian Cezar Bolliac published in his Foaie pentru Minte, Inimă şi Literatură an appeal to intellectuals to support the cause of the abolitionist movement.

[75] By the 1850s, after its tenets were intensely popularized, the movement gained support from almost the whole of Romanian society, the issues of contention being the exact date of Roma freedom, and whether their owners would receive any form of compensation (a measure which the abolitionists considered "immoral").

[76] In Moldavia, in December 1855, following a proposal by Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, a bill drafted by Mihail Kogălniceanu and Petre Mavrogheni was adopted by the Divan; the law emancipated all slaves to the status of taxpayers (that is, citizens).

The measure was brought about by a personal tragedy: Ghica and the public opinion at large were scandalized when Dincă, the slave and illegitimate child of a Cantacuzino boyar, was not allowed to marry his French mistress and go free, which had led him to murder his lover and kill himself.

[78] In Wallachia, only two months later, in February 1856, a similar law was adopted by the National Assembly,[79] paying a compensation of 10 galbeni for each slave, in stages over a number of years.

Nevertheless, the dispute ended after the Romanian Principalities adopted a liberal capitalist property legislation, the corvée being eliminated and the land being divided between the former boyars and the peasants.

[84] After the emancipation, the state institutions initially avoided the usage of the word țigan (gypsy), when needed (such as in the case of tax privileges), the official term being emancipat.

Translated by Theodor Codrescu and first published in Iaşi in 1853, under the name Coliba lui Moşu Toma sau Viaţa negrilor în sudul Statelor Unite din America (which translates back as "Uncle Toma's Cabin or the Life of Blacks in the Southern United States of America"), it was the first American novel to be published in Romanian, and it included a foreword study on slavery by Mihail Kogălniceanu.