Slavery and the Economy in T2k

[B.T.]

Right at the moment I'm working out an adventure for my FtF-group. During our last session we had an encounter with a group of slavers. The slavers were on horseback and had disguised themselves as ordinary merchants (Which, by the way is odd: How can anyone clearly spot the difference between traders and slavers, if the slavers have no slaves with them, anyway!?). It was a group of 5 persons with six horses. Because of the things happening, I thought, a group of slavers would not have slaves with them. I imagine, these 5 guys are some kind of scouts, checking for an easily to capture group of civilians, they could lay their hands on in the next few days. These 5 persons are propably a small patrol, belonging to a much bigger group, someplace in the area. The encounter had been roled for, as described in the basic rules.

Now, I can see, that slavers play a role in the economy of the T2k-universe, but there are some questions to bear in mind.

Slavers will not roam the countryside and capture anyone, who encounters them (Well, some would, but I doubt, that those would be very succesful!). Slavery is a risky business. You need some buyer, who is interested in using slave-labourers. And it makes no sense, to search for victims, if you had to transport those slaves over a longer distance.
If you have slaves to transport, you will have to feed them. If you don't, the price would be minimized. I think, this is the logic behind it: Slaves are intended to do hard labour - if they are in a bad shape, it is not a good idea, to buy them: They are to weak and can't cope with their tasks. The better the physical shape of a slave is, the higher the price, you will get for them.

I can imagine, that slavery would be some kind of "business on demand": The employer of slaves (Mostly a very nasty bastard, who might be the commander of a marauder force or a ruthless criminal, who got his hands on an old coal-mine or something similar.) would pay "slavers" for a specific hunt. This could be something like: "I need 20 to 25 strong individuals, fit for hard labour. These have to be here in about 10 to 14 days. I'm not going to pay for children or disabled."

So, the head of the slavers will have to do some economic math:
How many slaves may be transported, and by what means? Usually slaves would be tied up and walking by foot. Still some transport would be used for food, water and minimal shelter for the slavers.
How much food and water is required?
How many slaves can be handled with how many slavers? You have to guard your goods (= slaves), you will need some kind of scouting unit, to check/clear the way and you will need more guards, if the party stops for a night - ordinary guards, guarding the camp, and some people, who have a look after the captives!
And you should better have some heavy weapons with you, if you encounter some policing force or a kind of posse! Ammo and the weapons themselves have to be transported.
What would be the travelling speed of a slave chaingang? Does such a group make more than 10 to 15 km a day in a wooded region.
How is dealt with the personal hygiene/lavatory needs of the slaves???

Keeping all that in mind: How can the price of a slave be determined? Is he worth the price of an oxen or an uncattled horse? Would that be to expensive and the price for a slave less?
Would a slaver be in the mood to sell his goods to a bidder, who just wants to free the slaves? How could the price be calculated in that case?

As you can see, this thing is quite complicated. I could use some thoughts and suggestions. How have you dealt with slavers and slave economy in your adventures? And what is your opinion on this whole affair?

[Targan]

Broadly speaking, slavers would fall into 2 varieties, those who are catching and transporting slaves to sell to others, and those who are catching slaves for their own use or the use of their patrons.

The latter type of slavers may effectively bear official or quasi-official "letters of marque" from a government or military command authorising them to capture and indenture fugitives, outlaws, bandits, maurauders, escaped POWs etc. Keeping such captives well-fed and healthy may be a low priority, especially if the governing body receiving such slaves intends to work them to death anyway. Some slavers may not have official sanction or support from a government or military command but will receive bounties in cash or kind for appropriate sorts of captives to be handed over.

The former type of slavers would definitely find it in their best interests, commercially speaking, to keep their captives healthy. I don't know where your current campaign is set, BT, but the problem with being a slaver and slave trader in a place like Twilight War Poland is that the whole region is a hodge-podge of overlapping and shifting jurisdictions and depending on the jurisdiction slavery will be anything from openly embraced to frowned upon to highly illegal. Indeed, areas under martial law may punish slavers with death or effective slavery themselves.

Moving chain gangs of slaves through areas where slavery is illegal would be frought with danger for slavers. Hefty bribes placed in the right hands might mitigate the risk somewhat, as would travelling away from major roads and moving at night.

Just a few random thoughts.

[B.T.]

Hey, Targan,

thanks for your thoughts.

My actual campaign is set in Poland. And I think you are defenitely right. The slavers, I have in mind, would not be in some official service. I think about a "unit" of independend slavers/slave traders, who's patron is a local strongman. This patron should be "bad", so he's not a person, who has any legal right to slave or imprison persons.

And that's the reason, why I think about the whole organisation or infrastructure of such a group. The slavers will be aware, that they will get in deep trouble, if they encounter any military or militia unit. Therefore they will avoid major roads and will have to scout their way through the "bushland". Such a transport will certainly be more difficult, for slavers and their victims alike!
They will obviously try to avoid encounters with anybody.

I was a little disapointed: Paul has no prices for slaves on his page

[Legbreaker]

So here's a question. How did slavery start in T2K?
My guess is the initial "slaves" were enemy POWs pressed into service or disposessed refugees looking for food and shelter. As conditions deteriorated, the local "leadership" moved from employing the POWs and refugees with humane conditions, to outright slavery complete with barbed wire and chains.
Perhaps some areas started out with good intentions, but over a couple of years slipped into barbarity.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So here's a question. How did slavery start in T2K?

That's a bit of a trick question really, because slavery exists in the modern world in RL. In fact many people secretly kept as slaves in developed European countries are trafficked in from eastern Europe (and Asia, of course).

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

My guess is the initial "slaves" were enemy POWs pressed into service or disposessed refugees looking for food and shelter. As conditions deteriorated, the local "leadership" moved from employing the POWs and refugees with humane conditions, to outright slavery complete with barbed wire and chains.
Perhaps some areas started out with good intentions, but over a couple of years slipped into barbarity.

I'd agree with that assessment. There would have been some notable tipping points though, particularly in places like Poland. The Free City of Krakow's formalisation of its "Robotniki" program springs to mind, I'm sure that many criminal groups with an eye to the slave trade would've seen that as something of a "green light" for their own slavery endeavours.

[Bullet Magnet]

I realize this doesn't answer your question, but "slave" need not necessarily mean the classic hard labor/field hand type most of us (Americans at least) tend to think of. Another type of slave would rarely even need to get off her back.

Just one more thing to consider I guess.

[Legbreaker]

This is true, however post nuke there's likely to be move value in a strong back in the fields/mines/factories than one on their back.
This isn't to say there wouldn't be any, the soldiers/marauding scum need their "entertainment" afterall...
However, those used in that way are likely to very quickly loose what value they started out with as they are physically and expecially emotionally used up. The slaves in the mines might be in constant danger from rockfalls, mistreatment, and starvation, but at least they're not (usually) being sexually violated as well.

[Badbru]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So here's a question. How did slavery start in T2K?
My guess is the initial "slaves" were enemy POWs pressed into service or disposessed refugees looking for food and shelter. As conditions deteriorated, the local "leadership" moved from employing the POWs and refugees with humane conditions, to outright slavery complete with barbed wire and chains.
Perhaps some areas started out with good intentions, but over a couple of years slipped into barbarity.

Yup, that initial question and your answer was kind of like my initial response; Start by answering who needs or could use slaves in the first instance.

My answer would be just about any community but especially those with farming areas upon which they're trying to survive. You don't necessarily have to be evil to use slaves, desperate will do nicely. Most communities in Poland will have a reduced population, particularly on the male side of the equation, non mechanical farming is very labour intensive at seeding season and again at harvest season. I can see bands of slavers keeping slaves for their own use along these lines, but also to rent out rather than sell to nearby farming communities.

[B.T.]

I think, "enslavemant" of prostitutes would still be in the hands of (formerly) organized crime. From all I've heard about this, some illegal prostitution might not be called "slavery", but in fact it is IRL. Off course, some criminals could easily jump to this newer kind of business, espacially if contact to other cities/gangs survived until 2000.

A group of roaming slavers might have some good looking woman with them, for two reasons:
1. "Needs" of the slavers,
2. presenting this gem to a future patron as gift or bribe).

A 3rd reason might be the possibility to sell a single woman to whoever wants her. But I think, that would not be the main business interest of a slaver force, that normally provides working power to patrons in need of them.

[headquarters]

I think the sinister slaver / "whiteslavery villain" is a bit stereotypical - although he does belong in a campaign setting - by all means.

Its just that I think more ordinary folk would be slavers too. Picture a landlord or a farmer who has a surplus and the security to protect it. People will make contact and ask for loans, suppiort etc. Over time these people will be obligated to repay their debts to the local yeoman and his rifle toting cousins.

These guys are not slavers per se, they just ended up with locals being bound to work for them to pay of their debts - something that can turn in to a real "company store" affair where debt / payment spiral into an unbreakable circle for the debtor.

In the end the debtor end up a serf as years go by. The landlord might even be in real need of the payment / work effort from the "serf" if he has someone to support himself, and thus he cant give up his claim on payment for the debts either.

I think slavery might exist in secret on a small scale manya place in the T2K world. Sex slaves and workers that can toil away inndoors in a dank cellar come to mind.

just my 2 bits.

[Fusilier]

Nevermind the slaver parties hunting people... that shit just gets you or your merchandise killed and uses up resources.

Most slavery today is based on bondage labor. You're taken on as a worker and promised an income - usually a ways from home. Then when money never comes you find out you also can't leave. The method works extremely well and with the hoards of hungry and desperate refugees roaming about, I see no real need to change tactics and go hunting people.

Edit - I see HQ touched on this already.

[Rainbow Six]

Some good points already made in this thread.

As well as slavers who take their captives by force though, it’s also worth considering whether groups would exist who would attempt to take their captives by subterfuge. When some encounter threads were posted last year I started putting together a piece about a group that I entitled “People Smugglers”. Basically they were a smallish group (around six to eight strong) who travelled around southern Poland in a Soviet Army truck. The People Smugglers would claim to be able to smuggle into Krakow refugees who lacked any useful skills so would normally be turned away from the City by the Ormo – obviously the refugees would pay the Smugglers for this service, either in gold, barter goods, etc.

Unknown to the refugees however, the Smugglers have links with the City’s underworld, and those smuggled in find themselves “sold” into forced labour against their will.

I think it’s a variation on what Fusilier and HQ have already suggested and borrows from RL themes such as the Snakeheads who smuggle people from Asia to the West. The Slavers / People Smugglers have the benefit of not requiring additional manpower to guard their “cargo” as the cargo cooperates with the smugglers during the journey, removing many of the challenges BT outlined in his initial post – the refugees don’t need to be restrained, guarded, etc as they are being transported willingly...only when they emerge from the truck at the end of their journey does their fate become clear to them.

The People Smugglers also benefit from being paid twice - once by their patrons in the City, who pay for the "merchandise" and once by the refugees, who have unwittingly paid for their own transport into slavery.

[Raellus]

I agree that the idea of bands of unscrupulous and predatory "slavers" capturing civilians and selling them into bondage is a bit cliche. I'm sure, however, that it would likely happen on a small scale in relatively chaotic areas. I'm not throwing stones here- I'm guilty of using this device in my own campaign (an infamous NPC calling himself Damien the River Pimp).

I think that indentured servitude and de-facto serfdom would be far more common in the T2KU. It's really just a slightly grey shade of the conventional definition of chattel slavery. I can see desperate civilians agreeing to work for those who can afford to feed them, creating a binding indenture contract. IIRC, this is the situation in T2K Krakow with the Robotniki [sic?]. I suppose that some groups might hire bounty hunters to recover folks who break their indenture.

With the return of feudalism in some parts of the T2KU, serfdom would also make a comeback. In this case, civilians would agree to feed/serve their local warlord in exchange for "protection", essentially becoming serfs.

In any case, there might be instances where one local polity with a surplus of labor would attempt to trade some of that labor (without the consent of the labor force) for resources that they don't have. This practice, in effect, fits the conventional definition of chattel slavery. In this case, you would need parties to broker and transport these groups of involuntary laborers.

So yes, to make a long story short, some forms of slavery would be fairly common in the T2KU, but I doubt you would encounter too many parties of dedicated slave catchers.

[B.T.]

Thanks a lot, Gentlemen,

@Leg, HQ, Fusilier:
I completely agree. The mentioned kind of cliche-type "slave hunters" would not be the norm. To quote Raellus:

Originally Posted by Raellus

I agree that the idea of bands of unscrupulous and predatory "slavers" capturing civilians and selling them into bondage is a bit cliche. I'm sure, however, that it would likely happen on a small scale in relatively chaotic areas.

(...)

So yes, to make a long story short, some forms of slavery would be fairly common in the T2KU, but I doubt you would encounter too many parties of dedicated slave catchers.

And again, I agree: Those slavers would be the exception. But still I'd like to let my players enjoy a cliche adventure. Most of the gamers in my group are not that much involved in T2k. A cliche "Good vs. Bad" run would be a nice break from the "normal" T2k routine.

There may be reasons for slavers. Maybe this is a unit of marauding ex-soldiers, who just desparately need spares for a broken down veicle and the slave buyer can provide these spares. You've all bee in the gaming for some time: A GM can explain nearly everything. It is an opportunity, to flesh out a random encounter.


@ Rainbow6:
VERY intruiging idea. But I like it


Raellus mentioned "chattel slavery" in his above posting. Some of the problems would be very similar to the questions I asked in the starting post: How do those guys handle the transport of their slaves?

And: What about prices? In the threat on "Entertainment Pricing" I've got to know Damien, but there were no prices. Any ideas?

So far, this has been very fruitful. Keep your ideas/suggestions/critics coming!

[Fusilier]

Originally Posted by B.T.

I completely agree. The mentioned kind of cliche-type "slave hunters" would not be the norm.

It does make for an interest encounter or plot device.

[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.

-

[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.

-

[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).