Slavery in Romania - Presence in Neighboring Regions

Presence in Neighboring Regions

The slavery of the Roma in bordering Transylvania was found especially in the fiefs and areas under the influence of Wallachia and Moldavia, these areas keeping their practice of slavery even after they were no longer under Wallachian or Moldavian possession. The earliest record of Roma in Transylvania is from around 1400, when a boyar was recorded of owning 17 dwellings of Roma in Făgăraş, an area belong to Wallachia at the time. The social organization of Făgăraş was the same as in Wallachia, the Roma slaves being the slaves of boyars, the institution of slavery being kept in the Voivodate of Transylvania within the Kingdom of Hungary and in the autonomous Principality of Transylvania, being only abolished with the beginning of the Habsburg domination in 18th century. For instance, in 1556, Hungarian Queen Isabella Jagiełło confirmed the possessions of some Recea boyars, which included Roma slaves. The deed was also confirmed in 1689 by Prince Michael I Apafi.

The estates belonging to the Bran Castle also held a large number of slaves, around 1500 at the beginning of the 16th century, the right of being a slaveholder being probably inherited from the time that the castle was owned by Wallachia. Areas under the influence of Moldavia also held slaves: for instance, it is known that Moldavian Prince Petru Rareş bought a family of Roma from the mayor of Bistriţa and that other boyars also bought slaves from Transylvania. However, only a minority of the Transylvanian Roma were slaves, most of them being "royal serfs", under the direct authority of the King, being only required to pay certain taxes and perform some services for the state, some groups of Roma being given the permission to travel freely throughout the country.

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 number of Roma living in Bukovina was estimated in 1775 at 800 families, or 4.6% of the population. Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor issued an order abolishing slavery on June 19, 1783, in Czernowitz, similar to other orders given throughout the Empire against slavery (see Josephinism). The order met the opposition of the large slaveholders: the Romanian Orthodox monasteries and the boyars. 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. It took a few more years until the order was fully implemented, but toward the end of the 1780s, the slaves officially joined the ranks of the landless peasantry. Many of the "new peasants" (as they were called in some documents) remained to work for the estates for which they were slaves, the liberation bringing little immediate change in their life.

After the eastern half of Moldavia, known as Bessarabia, was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812 and later set up as a Bessarabia Governorate, the slave status for the Roma was kept. Slavery was legislated in the "Establishment of the organisation of the province of Bessarabia" act of 1818, by which the Roma were a social category divided into state slaves and private slaves, which belonged to boyars, clergy or traders. The Empire's authorities tried the sedentize the nomadic state slaves by turning them into serfs of the state. Two villages were created in Southern Bessarabia, Cair and Faraonovca (now both in Ukraine) by settling 752 Roma families. However, things did not go as expected, the state of the villages "sank to deplorable levels" and their inhabitants refused to pay any taxes. According to the 1858 census, in Bessarabia, there were 11,074 Roma slaves, of which 5,615 belonged to the state and 5,459 to the boyars. Slavery, together with serfdom, was only abolished by the emancipation laws of 1861. As a consequence, the slaves became peasants, continuing to work for their former masters or joining the nomadic Roma craftsmen and musicians.