Slavery in Romania - Emergence of The Abolitionist Movement

Emergence of The Abolitionist Movement

The moral and social problems posed by Roma slavery were first acknowledged during the Age of Enlightenment, firstly by Western European visitors to the two countries. According to Romanian Djuvara: "There is no foreign visitor not to have been horrified by the sight of Gypsies in the Principalities."

The evolution of Romanian society and the abolition of serfdom had no effect on the Roma, who, in 19th century, were subject to the same conditions they endured for centuries. It was only when the Phanariote regime was changed, soon after 1821, that Romanian society began to modernise itself and various reforms were implemented (see Regulamentul Organic). However, the slavery of the Roma was not considered a priority and it was ignored by most reformers.

Nevertheless, the administration in the Danubian Principalities did try to change the status of the state Romas, by attempting the sedentarization of the nomads. Two annexes to Regulamentul Organic were drafted, "Regulation for Improving the Condition of State Gypsies" in Wallachia in April 1831, and "Regulation for the Settlement of Gypsies" in Moldavia. The regulations attempted to sedenterize the Romas and train them till the land, encouraging them to settle on private estates.

By the late 1830s, liberal and radical boyars, many of whom studied in Western Europe, particularly in Paris, had taken the first steps toward the anti-slavery goal. During that period, Ion Câmpineanu, like the landowning brothers Nicolae and Ştefan Golescu, emancipated all his slave retinue, while boyar Emanoil Bălăceanu freed his slaves and organized for them the Scăieni Phalanstery, an utopian socialist community. In 1836, Wallachian Prince Alexandru II Ghica freed 4,000 domneşti slaves and had a group of landowners sign them up as paid workforce, while instigating a policy through which the state purchased privately owned slaves and set them free.

The emancipation of slaves owned by the state and Romanian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox monasteries was mentioned in the programme of the 1839 confederative conspiracy of Leonte Radu in Moldavia, giving them equal rights with the Romanians. 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 1848 generation, which studied in Western Europe, particularly in Paris, returned to their countries with progressive views and a wish to modernize them following the West as an example. Slavery had been abolished in most of the "civilized world" and, as such, the liberal Romanian intelligentsia viewed its slavery as a barbaric practice, with a feeling of shame.

In 1837, Mihail Kogălniceanu published a book on the Roma people, in which he expressed the hope that it will serve the abolitionists. During the 1840s, the intellectuals began a campaign aimed at convincing the slaveholders to free their slaves. 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. From just a few voices advocating abolitionism in the 1830s, in the 1840s, it became a subject of great debate in Romanian society. The political power was in the hand of the conservative boyars, who were also owners of large numbers of slaves and as such disagreed to any reforms that might affect them.