Slavery and the Economy in T2k

[Mahatatain]

Though the “slave hunter” encounter is clichéd with a slight tweak it can make perfect sense in the T2KU. If the hunters are working for someone who needs labour rather than trying to sell on their slaves then it makes a lot more sense – effectively they’re taking people to order rather than taking people for profit.

For example if you have a local warlord who has managed to reopen a coal mine and has “slaves” mining in it then it makes sense for him to send some of his guards out to “gather” further slaves. That might be through trickery into a form of indentured service or it might be simply a case of kidnapping people healthy enough to do the work (though they may subsequently be worked to death) and taking them back to the mine.

[Rainbow Six]

There may also be those sentenced to slavery after being convicted of a crime (justly or otherwise), making their servitude semi legitimate (how legitimate would be dependent on the legitimacy of the sentencing body).

IIRC the second series of the BBC series "Survivors" (the remake not the original) had an episode where one of the characters was sentenced to work in a mine after being found guilty of a crime (murder I think) in a kangaroo court.

[Raellus]

Forced labor using EPWs would also be fairly common, I'd imagine. In government-controlled areas, where labor for various reconstruction projects would be in high demand, I can see enemy prisoners of war being forced to work. With no end to the war in sight, this situation may very well look and feel like slavery. There is modern precedent: both the Nazis and the Soviets used EPWs as sources of manual labor both during, and in the case of the Soviets, after WWII.

IIRC, there's canonical mention of NATO POWs being used on government-owned farms around the Pol-Com capitol of Lublin, although I might have made that up myself. Either way, in my Poland campaign, I briefly introduced an American POW who'd been sent by the Lublin government to work on a Polish farm. They treated him very well, almost like part of the family. In essence, he was, working and living with them side by side full-time. This sort of thing was pretty common on German farms during WWII. Anyway, this NPC was free to move about the farm but he couldn't leave (Polish Army patrols would stop by from time to time to make sure that he was there and behaving himself). The players in my game talked him into leaving the farm with them, but he later ditched them and headed back to the farm on his own. His reasoning is that he was safe and well fed there, while this was not the case on the road.

[Silent Hunter UK]

It might well be worth looking at how things were done in the 'Triangle Trade' i.e. the legalised trans-Atlantic trade in the 17th-18th centuries.

[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.