Slavery and the Economy in T2k

[Apache6]

The majority of Africans enslaved were captured by African tribal chieftains. Originally they would have been what we would call POWs as well as the 'spoils of war' from conquering neighboring tribes.

Arabs and Europeans both traded goods (either manufactured goods (knives/axes/pots/spear points/firearms/shot and powder) or the classic Rum was used as trade goods. They usually pulled into port and offloaded the trade goods and unloaded the slaves who were being held in preparation for the sale.

After the chieftains learned that there was a profitable market for their captives, it was not uncommon for "military" expeditions to be launched primarily for the purpose of capturing slaves for trade.

Sometimes Arabs or black Muslims would undertake expeditions into Africa with specific intent to capture slaves themselves. The North African Corsairs were notorious for raiding the Mediteranean Europe (and rarely the Atlantic Coast of France and England/Ireland). They were after booty, specifically including women and child slaves, though they would take ships and anything else of value as well.

Unfortunately we have recent real world examples to use as well. Over the last 20+/- years, in Darfur (South Sudan) , "Muslim militias" have enslaved thousands of people (mostly women and children) as part of their ethnic cleansing of certain regions. Likewise ISIS admits to taking slaves in their operations against Christian, Yazdi, and Shia populations.

ISIS is clearly using the ideal of taking women as slaves as a recruiting tool, unfortunately it's an effective one appealing to the large numbers of young men in sexually repressed Sunni cultures. The fact that older/wealthy men often have more than one wife, including those MUCH younger than them, contributes to dissatisfaction among the young men.

[Raellus]

I'm currently reading a history the Vikings (Children of Ash and Yew) and just started the chapter on slavery. The Vikings were notorious slavers.

Just prior to the dawn of the "Viking Age", during the middle of the 6th century A.D., there was a "nuclear winter" event believed to have been caused by 2-3 massive volcanic eruptions occurring within a few years of one another. This might have inspired the mythical Fimbulwinter- the "Mighty Winter" preceding the Armageddon-like Ragnarok of Norse mythology.

To make a long story short, IRL there was a pretty significant die-off in Scandanavia (50% of the total population, perhaps more) mostly due to crop failures caused by several years of reduced sunlight and lower average temperatures caused by huge quantities of volcanic particulates lingering in the upper atmosphere (an estimated 87 cubic kilometers!). This die-off, greater than that caused by the Black Death and the 30 Years War combined (!), led to the collapse of most social institutions in Scandanavia, resulting in, or greatly exacerbating, a period of warlordism, in which strongmen preyed on the weak and/or fought amongst each other for scarce resources. Slavery was almost certainly practiced in Scandanavia before the 6th century A.D., but it really picked up in the years immediately following the "Fimbulwinter" period.

It's not hard to extrapolate parallels between the "Fimbulwinter" and warlordism of 6th century A.D. northern Europe and a literal nuclear winter affecting early 2000s Europe.

From a purely economic standpoint, when there is high demand for labor, and low supply thereof due to few willing providers, there's an incentive for slavery.

Historically, slavery has been fairly common in pre-industrial societies requiring a lot of manual labor. After the TDM, most of the world would have been flung back into pre-industrial levels of manufacturing, construction, and agricultural technology. Labor intensive undertakings such as large-scale farming, fortification-building, rubble-clearing and settlement reconstruction would all require large quantities of labor. With a shortage of willing workers due to the effects of WWIII, there would be an economic incentive for slavery. Roving bands of armed men- of which there would be plenty by the winter of 2000-2001 could make a living mounting slave-taking raids and trading their chattel to rebounding polities (like Krakow, for example). They would also probably keep some slaves themselves, to perform various camp duties, act as porters, etc.

I think a lot depends on how dog-eat-dog one wants their T2kU to be.

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[LoneCollector1987]

Originally Posted by Apache6

Sometimes Arabs or black Muslims would undertake expeditions into Africa with specific intent to capture slaves themselves. The North African Corsairs were notorious for raiding the Mediteranean Europe (and rarely the Atlantic Coast of France and England/Ireland). They were after booty, specifically including women and child slaves, though they would take ships and anything else of value as well.

They went even more north.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimaey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestmannaeyjar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Abductions
In 1627, three Arab pirate ships from the Ottoman-controlled Barbary Coast raided several towns on the south coast of Iceland and outlying islands.
They had earlier raided the east of Iceland and Murat Reis from Salé in
The 1627 raid was not the first one. In 1607, both Iceland and the Faroe Islands were subjected to a slave raid by the Barbary pirates, who abducted hundreds of people for the slave markets of North Africa.Morocco had commanded another raid in Grindavík in June of that year.

[castlebravo92]

Labor shortages usually produce better working conditions for labor. This was the case after the Black Plague decimated populations in Europe - generally serfdom conditions were relaxed and this is what led to the gradual replacement of serfdom in the first areas where the Enlightenment took root.

Where you tend to get slavery is where the work is highly dangerous or backbreaking or both, but insufficient surplus from the work is created to incentivize workers to voluntarily take on the work. During the Roman Republic and Empire, they literally worked slaves to death in the mines.

Should probably break the slavery into types, as well.

1. Chattel slavery (people are considered the legal property of the slave owners, able to be bought and sold, children born of slaves are born into slavery themselves)

2. Forced labor (being coerced against your will at the threat of violence)

3. Forced conscription (forced to serve in the military)

4. Peonage (involuntarily bound by contract to pay off debts)

5. Indentured servitude (voluntarily entered)

6. Sexual slavery

One thing to consider about slave markets is who is buying the slaves, and what are they paying for the slaves and how are the keeping the slavers from taking what they have?

A problem governments would have is too many mouths to feed. They probably wouldn't be in the market for buying slaves (although, in effect, I would expect most MilGov cantonments to be run like military slave camps where they just compel labor when they need it on the resident population). That leaves who for the buyers? Legitimate question, I'm curious what other folks envision.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

A problem governments would have is too many mouths to feed. They probably wouldn't be in the market for buying slaves (although, in effect, I would expect most MilGov cantonments to be run like military slave camps where they just compel labor when they need it on the resident population). That leaves who for the buyers? Legitimate question, I'm curious what other folks envision.

Some polities would have both a need for labor and resources to trade for it. For example, a settlement that can produce gunpowder could trade some for slave laborers. IIRC, Sandomierz, in Poland, had operating sulfur mines up until around 2000. In a Pirates of the Vistula PbP I ran years ago, the government of the city bought slaves from local marauder groups in exchange for gunpowder. It wasn't huge numbers- a dozen or so every few weeks, but enough to do the dangerous manual labor needed to extract sulfur from the ground. Attrition due to the dangerous, abusive working conditions would necessitate a fairly regular influx of replacements*. There were around 200 slaves in the city when the PCs arrived.

As you pointed out, acquiring slaves means adding more mouths to feed, but put some of them to work in agriculture and the surplus produced could feed both those ag workers and others employed at other tasks. IIRC, many of the Free City of Krakow's robotniki are employed in food production.

*In former 18th century African slave Olauda Equiano's autobiography, he claimed that British Barbados imported 20,000 slaves a year to replace those who'd died of overwork, abuse, illness, etc. I'm not suggesting this sort of scale for the T2kU, but rather pointing out how deadly slave work could be, and how such a market would require routine replenishment.

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[Drgonzo2011]

Slavery does exist in my games, but is much more of an edge case. This is a world in which a lot of people are armed to the teeth. Trying to enslave a bunch of people armed with AKs (or M16s or whatever) is going to end most slaving operations pretty quickly. It is also a world where so many people are going to be desperate for food and shelter, that the idea of having to buy people to serve as unwilling labor when there are masses of civilian survivors who are going to do it willingly seems like a bad investment.

That said, a group of slavers makes for useful black hats for the players to exercise their combat skills against. I have had a couple of instances where people were being kept against their will for labor, but it is more of a local thing - like one scenario in which a radical Christian group was enslaving non-Christians in their commune/cult compound - and not a part of the post-war economy (such as it is).