Early economies without slavery.

[Jungly]

In my story there is a major conflict about slavery with one country supporting it and one country declaring it an abomination. What I wanted to know is if there are any models of ancient non slavery economies I could work of. Also are there any relatively mild forms of slavery that the second country could operate under while still disproving of the more intense forms.

 

[Gryphos]

With regards to 'mild slavery' you should look into Ancient Rome. There slaves were more like servants that you happened to not pay.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

With regards to 'mild slavery' you should look into Ancient Rome. There slaves were more like servants that you happened to not pay.

That's not entirely accurate. It depended very much on the class, education level, and value of the slave in question as to how they were treated. And even then we're talking about a person's value as property - should something happen to devalue that property, their treatment could reasonably be expected to suffer.

 

[Gurkhal]

With regards to 'mild slavery' you should look into Ancient Rome. There slaves were more like servants that you happened to not pay.

That's a very great simplfication of the issue, lke A. E. Lowan said.

There were as you mentioned household slaves who happend to work within the household, but they could still be beaten, killed or raped without any moral or legal problem for the owner. And then you have the slaves out on the fields belonging to the patricians' mansions who most certainly were worked to death on a regular basis since the Roman conquests ensure that new populations were almost always taken into slavery to fill the demands for new slaves. And yes, that system suffered when large-scale Roman conquests stopped.

Roman slavery covers a whole great spectrum.

If you want little or no slavery I would suggest looking at Egypt where I don't think that slavery ever became really big, although it most likely existed - this isn't any of my best fields so someone else can probably fill you in better.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

If you want little or no slavery I would suggest looking at Egypt where I don't think that slavery ever became really big, although it most likely existed - this isn't any of my best fields so someone else can probably fill you in better.

Sorry, I'll have to stop you there, too. Egypt was built on the back of a major slave economy - especially if you want to believe the Biblical record.

It's very difficult to look to any ancient civilization and not find a slave economy. It was simply a logical extension of the "Us versus Them" dynamic that enabled a world population permanently one bad harvest from wide spread starvation to slaughter their neighbors for food. After all, since "they" aren't "us" then they aren't really people, and therefor they can be killed or used as beasts of burden or anything else we have the power to make them do. The shift away from this philosophy being both logical and practical only came with better and easier farming methods which reduced the danger of starvation, so only in the past couple hundred years.

 

[Butterfly]

I've done some research since the thread came up. Every major historical civilisation seems to have used slaves in some way. Right through from the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Saxons, Vikings, Japan, China, Byzantium, Aztecs... I haven't been able to find one that hasn't used slaves, and can't think of many more to look at.

 

[Nihal]

The Incas didn't use slavery. They had a corvée system in place called mit'a and they would reallocate families and whole villages if they deemed necessary—which was also part of their consolidation strategy, instead of relying on pure military strength. In return the government would provide for these workers' families while they were absent, take care of the security of the community, distribute food in hard times and organize feasts. This workforce was used mostly on community projects, like building roads, houses, terraces and aqueducts. Military service was also mandatory.

It's a society worth studying, their brilliancy in administering their economic and human resources made them one of the biggest empires, with a superior road network and cities as large (but more orderly and clean) as the ones found in Europe at that time.

 

[Jabrosky]

If you want little or no slavery I would suggest looking at Egypt where I don't think that slavery ever became really big, although it most likely existed - this isn't any of my best fields so someone else can probably fill you in better.

This link might shed some light.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Guess who's got JSTOR access? According to Walter Rodney's "African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave-Trade":

Not only did the Upper Guinea Coast have a lengthy association with the Atlantic slave-trade, beginning in the I460's and extending over four centuries, but it is also a very useful exemplar as far as the present problem is concerned, because the so-called African 'slavery' was known to be widespread in this region during the colonial period . . . Sometimes, what obtained was a quasi-feudal exploitation of labour by a ruling elite, who received the greater portion of the harvest. More often than not, however, the 'domestic slaves', as they have been categorized, were members of their masters' households. They could not be sold, except for serious offences; they had their own plots of land and/or rights to a proportion of the fruits of their labour; they could marry; their children had rights of inheritance, and if born of one free parent often acquired a new status. Such individuals could rise to positions of great trust, including that of chief.

Rodney goes on to argue that, since there are no records of slavery in the region when Europeans first arrived, Europeans may have been the ones to introduce slavery. (It's a very old paper, and I'm not an expert on the subject, so I don't know if his thesis has been proved or disproved. Still, it's a good jumping-off point for fantasy.)

P.S. This and other papers repeatedly reference a very old book, Ashanti Law and Constitution by R.S. Rattray. Apparently, Rattray studied slavery as practiced by the Ashanti, and concluded that it was much less oppressive than slavery as we know it. It might be worth tracking down a copy if you can find one.

 

[Gurkhal]

Sorry, I'll have to stop you there, too. Egypt was built on the back of a major slave economy - especially if you want to believe the Biblical record.

You are free to stop me, but I disagree with you. As far as I know slavery was not really big in Egypt. Most monuments for example were built by conscripted farmers and professional craftsmen.

And yes, I generally take the Bible with a grain of salt. I don't deny that there is historical useful texts in it, but I don't think that it speaks much about Egypt's economical system.

It's very difficult to look to any ancient civilization and not find a slave economy. It was simply a logical extension of the "Us versus Them" dynamic that enabled a world population permanently one bad harvest from wide spread starvation to slaughter their neighbors for food. After all, since "they" aren't "us" then they aren't really people, and therefor they can be killed or used as beasts of burden or anything else we have the power to make them do.

I agree entirely although slavery as a way to produce food gav way to using serfs during the Middle Ages. Also one should note that people have been perfectly willing to enslave their own cultural groups across all the time that slavery was practiced. For example as a way to pay a debt or to avoid starvation. Considering other people to be "not really people" seems like a much more recent way to look at things than being found in, for example, ancient Mesopotamian.

Thanks for the link, Jab.

 

[Feo Takahari]

@Gurkhal: According to "Islam, Archaeology, and Slavery in Africa" by J. Alexander, there's been a slave trade in the Nile region at least since Roman times. (Which, to be fair, were certainly later than the time of the Israelites . . .) Wikipedia also mentions slavery during the Thutmosid dynasty, though it doesn't provide any sources.

 

[Gurkhal]

@Gurkhal: According to "Islam, Archaeology, and Slavery in Africa" by J. Alexander, there's been a slave trade in the Nile region at least since Roman times. (Which, to be fair, were certainly later than the time of the Israelites . . .) Wikipedia also mentions slavery during the Thutmosid dynasty, though it doesn't provide any sources.

I'm not arguing against the presence of slaves in Egypt, ok. I'm arguing that the entire economy wasn't run primarily on slave labor. There's a big difference there.