Slavery in a made up world

Consider the concept of royalty, nobility, commoner, peasant and serf that was so prevalent in the world, not just Europe, up until the eighteenth century. There were no citizens; the people were subjects and it was all made well and good by the concept of divine right. i.e. the church endorsed it.

The nobles had more rights than the commoners. A noble had complete rule over the people on his land, and dispensed justice at his/her will. That wasn't referred to as slavery, but it is certainly not free will by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone arguing against the will of the lord was considered an outlaw and by their definition the bad person.

So having slavery doesn't in and of itself mean the culture is bad or evil, but it has to be agreed upon by the people. They allow it to happen so it is simply the natural order of things. Just like feudalism did it, you don't have to refer to the slaves as "slaves." They are a caste of people and everyone agrees to how the castes are ordered.

Michael Steven said:

So having slavery doesn't in and of itself mean the culture is bad or evil, but it has to be agreed upon by the people. They allow it to happen so it is simply the natural order of things. Just like feudalism did it, you don't have to refer to the slaves as "slaves." They are a caste of people and everyone agrees to how the castes are ordered.

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Obviously, there was a continuum of social status, and few people were truly free or self determining by our standards in a pre-modern, class-based society. We can even argue about whether or not people are truly free in the modern world. We all have to obey laws we don't agree with, for instance. And if our courts interpret the constitution so that people like me have fewer rights or protections than other kinds of people, then I can't do a heck of a lot about that either.

But I think it's specious to say that a free, land owning peasant or a craftsman, or a merchant was no different in status from a serf, or that even a serf was no different in status from a slave (one right serfs had, for instance, was to not be sold away from their families, since they were tied to the land. This is huge, and it's a basic human security slaves often lacked).

Because freedom/status exists in a graduated series of steps, and most people don't have 100% self determination, even in the modern world, slavery wasn't so bad?

I don't buy it. I think it always sucked to be a slave. Better than starving, perhaps, but it still sucked. To be a slave would be to live in constant fear. Some systems gave slaves more rights and protection than others, but when someone owns you, in the end, your welfare is based on their good will.

Even if the fear is simply, "My master is kind and my work for him fulfilling, but if he tires of me, he could sell me to another master, one who is cruel and asks me to do work I despise."

But people being what they are, they carry on and endure. And they try to find ways to feel like they have at least some control over their situation, even if it is illusory. Some rebel, some knuckle under, some live in denial, some jostle for position and status within their limited social strata. But in the end, the folks with the money and social status have a leg up when it comes to deciding what works for everyone else.

The question is how to portray this range of experiences and thoughts within the reality of your culture in a way that doesn't feel like modern folks in a 500 BCE setting but also doesn't make it seem like the author thinks slavery is no worse than being poor today.

I want to add that slavery is a lot more diverse a subject than a lot of modern people think. I've found in conversations about historical slavery that a lot of people tend to think about only the types practiced in the 1800's where a person of a single race was a slave, their children slaves and they would be slaves until they died.

A lot of cultures had different means and modes of slavery, there were different laws in different nations and the concept did vary from people to people.

For example, in ancient Israel, a slave could only be a slave for up to seven years. His/her spouse and children weren't slaves and couldn't be sold away from them. Slavery was also something willingly entered into, which does change some of the connotations. (Sure, I do understand duress and the like, but it still changes it IMO.)

In ancient Norway, one of the fastest ways to a high rank and position was to be a good slave. That could get you promoted to huskarl fairly quickly which, beyond not being able to quit was a secure position with lots of power and freedom.

If an area practicing slavery makes the setting seem evil to me depends a lot on thing such as how one becomes a slave (commercial, punitive, debt, captured, born) , how they stop being a slave (Promotion, time limited, release or escape) and what protections they have in the law and how stringently those protections are enforced. Also important are why those people are made slaves (commercial necessity, cultural norms, popularity wang measuring contest.)

And even though it was mostly bad, slavery did come with a few perks through the ages. It could be a way to pay for a benefit that was otherwise unobtainable. For example, some of my ancestors sold themselves so they could get to the Americas. It took them nearly eight years to work their way out, but they wouldn't have made it otherwise.

Other protections offered could be protections by the master's house, a fully belly and good clothes.

And before someone says it, no, I do think that most of the slavery practiced in the world was pretty terrible. Even in systems where the 'legal' side of slavery was pretty good, there were a lot of horrible realities. I.E. my ancestors mentioned up there were only supposed to be slaves for two years.

I think my point is that slavery doesn't always equal evil society. But it does give evil people more venues for their evil.

I've got an SF novel I've been fiddling with in which one of the characters is a slave. The current Empress reinstated old laws which allowed certain folks condemned to die to opt for a set amount of years in service as a slave.

It was a way for her to enforce a different law (in which the bulk of the military was being sentenced to death after participating in genocide under the previous Emperor) while avoid killing everyone off. But once it was back in effect, it was used to put other folks into slave-status as well.

But I would be hesitant to present "slavery" as anything other than a lesser of two evils (if not outright "evil") because it has typically been a way for one group of people to maintain privileges that other groups did not have access to.

Roxxsmom said:

When you write a novel, I think you have to consider who you're writing it for and why you're writing it.

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So true and conversely, when you write about another or even a fantasy other social world, it is best not to portray people as representatives of a culture and let that excuse their nasty habits. the slavery thing is like the human sacrifice thing -- just because the dominant elites want something to be the norm doesn't mean everyone accepts it. For example, I doubt people who were slaves ever had much feeling that being enslaved was their first choice for a destiny, even if it did (as say during Rome's expansion) happen to a significant percentage of the population.

Nivarion said:

In ancient Norway, one of the fastest ways to a high rank and position was to be a good slave. That could get you promoted to huskarl fairly quickly which, beyond not being able to quit was a secure position with lots of power and freedom.

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I have to correct some errors in this. Firstly, I assume you are talking about Viking Age Norway. Which is part of the Middle Ages. Secondly, Housecarls were specifically not thralls (slaves), as this article makes clear.
As can be seen from this article, thralls had no rights. And as also can be seen the system for being freed was a lot more complicated than you state.

I am Norwegian myself, and I think it is a shame that the slavery situation with the Vikings are mostly glossed over in works on Scandinavian history.
The Vikings were neither purely barbarian rapists and plunderers nor purely benevolent explorers and traders.
As with most of history, the real story is complex and many-faceted. We discovered America, but we also most likely brought with us the first slave(s) when we did.

Weirdmage said:

I am Norwegian myself, and I think it is a shame that the slavery situation with the Vikings are mostly glossed over in works on Scandinavian history.
The Vikings were neither purely barbarian rapists and plunderers nor purely benevolent explorers and traders.
As with most of history, the real story is complex and many-faceted. We discovered America, but we also most likely brought with us the first slave(s) when we did.

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I've got a lot of Norwegian ancestry, and I think it's a shame just how much of that history gets glossed over an ignored here in the States.

I read about the Viking age a lot, it's one of my favorite periods of history. but I don't remember where I read about slaves being promoted to housecarl. I'll see if I can find my source, cause it looks like it might be bad.

Nivarion said:

I've got a lot of Norwegian ancestry, and I think it's a shame just how much of that history gets glossed over an ignored here in the States.

I read about the Viking age a lot, it's one of my favorite periods of history. but I don't remember where I read about slaves being promoted to housecarl. I'll see if I can find my source, cause it looks like it might be bad.

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You shouldn't let it bother you that there were slaves kept in any particular region several hundred years, because there were slaves in all parts of the world until not that long ago.

I was trying to think of a time and place before 1500 CE where there was no slavery, but I can't think of any. Let me know, if I missed some peculiar culture. The African Pygmies might not have had slaves.

But it certainly it a shame that history is largely ignored in the U.S.

Nivarion said:

I've got a lot of Norwegian ancestry, and I think it's a shame just how much of that history gets glossed over an ignored here in the States.

I read about the Viking age a lot, it's one of my favorite periods of history. but I don't remember where I read about slaves being promoted to housecarl. I'll see if I can find my source, cause it looks like it might be bad.

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From what I've read (And I did a butt load of research for a novel) there were various ways to be freed -- but they were not common. A very good slave might indeed be promoted -- in the same way the Romans freed certain slaves -- or if you were very brave, but you relied on the whim of your master. That is kinda what slavery is all about -- your life revolves around someone else's whim.

Now, for me, and yeah I ain't normal, that means that many of us right now are slaves. To convention, to our bosses, to society, to the bank. To this or that. And when I write about slavery, that is what I am writing about -- we are all slaves now, it's just the chains are less visible. (yes, yes, I know -- that is nowhere near as bad as your actual slavery in the US or elsewhere. But I feel less than qualified to write about that, though I may very well allude to it/discuss it)

And that is what I meant earlier -- why is the OP writing about slavery? What do they want to say? Achieve? When I write about slavery I write about the chains that bind us all (in the west at least) but I might also write about historical slavery


What is the OP wanting to do? To say?

As someone mentioned up thread, a book that does a good job of portraying a kind of slavery in a speculative world would be Cherryh's Cyteen. In fact, any of her old books set in the Union-Alliance universe where the focus was on Union space and characters.

She did a great job (imo) of portraying a wide variety of characters who came off as believable human beings with a range of virtues and vices who mostly took the form the institution of slavery (involving mentally programmed clones) within their own society for granted, yet they were all touched by it in various ways.

There are other books that do a good job of portraying the people who live in societies with unsympathetic institutions like slavery or a rigid class structure etc. without making the characters "just like us," but also without making light of the issues these institutions create (including blind spots in many characters).

Mostly sane people reacting to the insanity of their times. But they still don't all react in the same way. Without being up on a soap box or creating cartoon villains or completely spineless victims, she does a good job of showing how it might affect people's deeper psyche.

I seriously doubt Cherryh or these authors think slavery (or whatever else they're portraying) is a good thing or want to return to a past (or create a future) where it exists the way it does in their books. Though of course, they could be, like Flibble, be creating a context where we think more objectively about the invisible chains that bind us in our own lives today. And I'd guess that good writers in the future will do the same when they write books set in our current times.

Think about the things that are invisible to most (or at least many of us) all the time today. How do we deal with the uncomfortable truths about these things when something brings them to our attention (since someone mentioned homelessness up thread, how about a homeless person begging on street corner). Does a person just not see it? Toss them some money, then go on our way? Do nothing, but spend some time thinking about it and wishing they knew what to do? Volunteering for a soup kitchen? Getting more involved politically? Thinking that it's all because the homeless people made bad choices and so must pay for them? Being angry at the homeless person for getting in their way?

All equally possible/plausible reactions that say something about who we are in the context of our society.

King Neptune said:

You shouldn't let it bother you that there were slaves kept in any particular region several hundred years, because there were slaves in all parts of the world until not that long ago.

I was trying to think of a time and place before 1500 CE where there was no slavery, but I can't think of any. Let me know, if I missed some peculiar culture. The African Pygmies might not have had slaves.

But it certainly it a shame that history is largely ignored in the U.S.

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Slavery can be a pretty diverse phenomena and even shade into other kinds of subjugation (in fact that word "subjugation" signifies a particular type of power relation).

For example being a "galley slave" (say in the Med in 1500) could be something that happened to you for committing a crime in France or getting sold in Tunis or getting captured at sea or on a raid and so on.

The fact that slavery in the US was so different from normal slavery is something that makes it very hard for naïve US writers and readers to understand the enormous range of possible master-slave relations. Of course even within the US slave-system there were an enormous range of possible relationships. I know of a supposedly enslaved set of extended families of black Americans who ended up holding a huge area of farm land as soon as it was legal for them to own anything at all. So what was their status just before they took over the region?

Something to keep in mind: slavery was primarily a work multiplier. A farmer, weaver, minor, or dyer with slaves could use their work for his profit.

Slavery was pretty much the norm for all of recorded history... until the Industrial Revolution. If your society has steam or some equivalent work multiplier, you need some reason for slavery to exist.

Poul Anderson wrote a few stories which had slavery extant in high-tech starfaring cultures, but it was a status symbol instead of a work multiplier; there was no economic basis for it.

Dave Williams said:

Something to keep in mind: slavery was primarily a work multiplier. A farmer, weaver, minor, or dyer with slaves could use their work for his profit.

Slavery was pretty much the norm for all of recorded history... until the Industrial Revolution. If your society has steam or some equivalent work multiplier, you need some reason for slavery to exist.

Poul Anderson wrote a few stories which had slavery extant in high-tech starfaring cultures, but it was a status symbol instead of a work multiplier; there was no economic basis for it.

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The slavery as "work-multiplier" imagery seems to be based on how slavery worked in the US at least in theory, though -- possibly somewhat paradoxically for the multiplier theory -- the more skilled a slave was the less they would be treated as a slave and the more they would be treated as a labor resource or even a management resource (slave drivers).

It seems closer to the truth to think of slaves basically as people who are to be expended or used up or used for sex. Certainly the Romans, Aztecs, galley slave keepers and Nazis seem to have had that in mind -- it was always just a step from slave to suicide-squad mine-clearance, or not being fed properly or being sacrificed or being condemned to sex slavery.

Dave Williams said:

Something to keep in mind: slavery was primarily a work multiplier. A farmer, weaver, minor, or dyer with slaves could use their work for his profit.

Slavery was pretty much the norm for all of recorded history... until the Industrial Revolution. If your society has steam or some equivalent work multiplier, you need some reason for slavery to exist.

Poul Anderson wrote a few stories which had slavery extant in high-tech starfaring cultures, but it was a status symbol instead of a work multiplier; there was no economic basis for it.

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Maxx said:

The slavery as "work-multiplier" imagery seems to be based on how slavery worked in the US at least in theory, though -- possibly somewhat paradoxically for the multiplier theory -- the more skilled a slave was the less they would be treated as a slave and the more they would be treated as a labor resource or even a management resource (slave drivers).

It seems closer to the truth to think of slaves basically as people who are to be expended or used up or used for sex. Certainly the Romans, Aztecs, galley slave keepers and Nazis seem to have had that in mind -- it was always just a step from slave to suicide-squad mine-clearance, or not being fed properly or being sacrificed or being condemned to sex slavery.

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I'd think it was a combination of the two. Sure, slaves were often viewed as expendable, but their purpose was to do work that the slave-owner couldn't do on his own and for cheaper than he could hire free men/women.

That's why even when "slavery" was abolished you still had sharecroppers who were given the privilege of working the land for the land owner for tiny portion of what they produced. The estates in Britain were similar, although in recent centuries the estate owners had some responsibility to look after those who worked on the estate.

Aggy B. said:

I'd think it was a combination of the two. Sure, slaves were often viewed as expendable, but their purpose was to do work that the slave-owner couldn't do on his own and for cheaper than he could hire free men/women.

That's why even when "slavery" was abolished you still had sharecroppers who were given the privilege of working the land for the land owner for tiny portion of what they produced. The estates in Britain were similar, although in recent centuries the estate owners had some responsibility to look after those who worked on the estate.

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I think this is an area where the US version of slavery tends to skew the idea of slavery into the more-or-less safe area of economic mythology. Of course even there, all is not economic rationality.

The Nazi use of slave labor is perhaps more instructive about slavery itself than the US plantation system is.

The Nazi use of slavery underscores it's use as a work multiplier. They had no compunction about eliminating those that couldn't work. The value was in the labor that could be provided by those living bodies. Whom they selected to be that labor was based on a bunch of screwy ideals, but they had camps in order to get work for free.

Maxx said:

Slavery can be a pretty diverse phenomena and even shade into other kinds of subjugation (in fact that word "subjugation" signifies a particular type of power relation).

For example being a "galley slave" (say in the Med in 1500) could be something that happened to you for committing a crime in France or getting sold in Tunis or getting captured at sea or on a raid and so on.

The fact that slavery in the US was so different from normal slavery is something that makes it very hard for naïve US writers and readers to understand the enormous range of possible master-slave relations. Of course even within the US slave-system there were an enormous range of possible relationships. I know of a supposedly enslaved set of extended families of black Americans who ended up holding a huge area of farm land as soon as it was legal for them to own anything at all. So what was their status just before they took over the region?

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The main difference in chattel slavery as practiced for a period of time in the U.S. was that it was a tremendous "work multiplier", and then it started being a work divider, because the cost of labor, capital cost and upkeep, became more than most slaves could produce. Other than that the kind of slavery in the U.S. was the same as some slavery since ancient times. In other times and places becoming enslaved and becoming manumitted were easier than in the U.S.

But it is true; the conditions of he slaves varied tremendously.

Aggy B. said:

The Nazi use of slavery underscores it's use as a work multiplier. They had no compunction about eliminating those that couldn't work. The value was in the labor that could be provided by those living bodies. Whom they selected to be that labor was based on a bunch of screwy ideals, but they had camps in order to get work for free.

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If slavery is simply a way of getting some work done then it is puzzling that the Nazis -- who had millions of people that could do some work -- only gradually achieved the notion of feeding their slaves or using prisoners of war. For example, the Nazis had 3 million Russian POWs in 1941. They allowed that 3 million to starve to death, but the next few hundred thousand that they captured they used as slaves and fed. What changed? Not the work to be done, but the idea of getting slave labor. If it was just a matter of work that needed to be done, they could have used the POWs. Instead it was necessary to create the institutional structures of a particular slavery and then fit that to the work. And as for who ended up enslaved -- over a million Frenchmen (who did get fed it seems) -- and that definitely fed into the resistance so that was not particularly economical since it added to the work of policing France.
Anyway, I think slavery always implies an agenda other than just getting some work done -- it implies a policy of subjugation allied to other ways of justifying and maintaining power. It implies trying to turn a pure power relation into something that makes at least a tiny bit of economic sense -- though I suspect not all that much.

SampleGuy said:

In an anime, Magi The Labyrinth of Magic, all the slave owners are bad, and the moral makes it sound like slavery is just bad, which is stereotypical.

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Ok, give me an (historical) example where it is purely good for all the slaves that explodes the stereotype

Yes, it can be nuanced. But I can't see many people advocating it as good So, er, what's your point here? You think it's morally OK?

If you want to explore the nuances of slavery, all well and good
But if you want to extol it is GREAT! FUN FOR ALL THE KIDS!....you may find you get a bit of push back. With good reason.

Sometimes stereotypes are right

Some individual slave owners may be good people caught up in a culture not of their making

That does not make slavery good.

And I think writers darned well should "worry" about how they portray slavery, just like they should worry about how they portray rape, torture, or bigotry in general in their worlds. Just because some of us are lucky enough to be from a background or to have had life experiences where these things are abstractions to us (so we can shrug and say, "eh, that's just how people were back then") doesn't mean every one of our readers will be.

SampleGuy said:

In an anime, Magi The Labyrinth of Magic, all the slave owners are bad, and the moral makes it sound like slavery is just bad, which is stereotypical. It's full of lazy ass writing about politics and whats right and wrong. I wished it focused more on action adventure.

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Of course message stories can be pedantic or heavy handed (though they don't have to be). I think modern readers all agree that slavery is evil, so you don't need to hit that with a two by four. If someone actually thinks slavery is a good, or even neutral thing, they're pretty hopeless anyway. You won't be able to convince them of anything.

And if you're just writing a good old rollicking adventure, set in a fairly tale past, then no, you don't need any kind of message. But if your stories have no social overtones at all, then why have slavery in them at all? Just make your fantasy culture "fun" and relatable to modern readers. Good old fashioned adventure stories aren't meant to be realistic anyway. They're escapism. Nothing wrong with that.

Once you throw grit and realism in, though, most readers will hold you to a higher standard.

If I'm reading a story with slavery, or rape, or sexism, or whatever, it will be uncomfortable. I expect it to be. What will make me chuck a book, however, is if I feel the author doesn't find it so, or if they're portraying these institutions as if they had no consequences. As if they actually thought the slaves were furniture, or were fun window dressing that says, "Ooooh, look, slave girls (or boys). How exotic!"

There are subtle ways to show the internal inconsistencies, hypocrisies, cognitive dissonances and so on that exist within characters who live in a world that requires such things of them.

I'd expect the same level of thought from a writer who sets their stories in the modern world, for that matter.

Mr Flibble said:

Some individual slave owners may be good people caught up in a culture not of their making

That does not make slavery good.

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QFT

Don't worry. Whatever you write will offend someone.

SampleGuy said:

I am not saying that slavery is good. It is wrong, but what if it isn't wrong in your own fantasy world? If people are going to be stubborn, then I guess all stories need cliche' morals about what is right and what is wrong.

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So you're saying you're trying to create a hypothetical situation where it wouldn't be wrong, or at least would be the best of many possible choices?

If so, the burden of evidence will be very much on you as a writer, and you'll still probably lose readers who are inclined (through their own background and experience) to empathize more with the slaves than their masters.

But this sounds like you're trying to write a story with a moral too, even if it's just "Look! Slavery could be the most ethical choice if [insert fantasy scenario]."

If the main character has a slave girl who he mistreats for his own pleasure, there should be a reason why he does it. Maybe he is a spoiled brat, or bullies treat him like crap, which makes him beat his own slave because he couldn't defend himself. Then maybe his slave tries to help him. Complexity.

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Yes, complexity and reasons are good. Maybe he even just does it because having absolute power over another is in of itself corrupting, and he's never known anything else. Every character should have reasons for doing what they do.

And I assume the slave is trying to "help" him be a better person so he doesn't abuse her anymore? Or maybe she's got a sort of Stockholm syndrome--the thing that makes people identify with their captors and abusers when they are the sole source of support/contact in their lives. Or maybe she's lived as a slave all her life, and she knows nothing else, so she believes it's her duty to love and help her master (much as abused kids often still love their parents or battered spouses are conditioned to love their abusers and think there's a way to exert control over their situation by changing their own behavior). Or maybe she's more cynical, and having such a high-status master gives her enviable standing with the other slaves, and being loved by such a master makes her position more secure.

Complexity, as you say. And this is something that's often missing from old-style fantasy where slavery and other unsavory institutions existed as window dressing. What did the victims feel, and how did they maintain their own sense of control and/or dignity?

And yes, of course some people will be kind to their slaves and some won't. That's the range of human behavior one sees when someone has rights over another, and social pressure makes a difference too. Just like some people hurt or neglect their animals in our world, and some don't. Just like some people hit their kids and some don't. And there may be laws or customs in place that place limits on whether or how hard masters can beat their slaves, just like there are laws that dictate how parents may discipline children (or laws dictating what we can do to animals). And you'll have to decide how those laws are enforced in your culture, or whether they really can be.

A big question in any slave-owning culture, I'd think, is how people exert their control and rights over other adult people who may be just as smart as they are and are likely to have reasons to become lazy, disagreeable or disobey, at least some of the time.

In a SF scenario, you can invent a technology to do this (in CJ Cherryh's universe, aberrent or unhappy Azi are given tape to "calm" or "reeducate" them," but in severe cases they are "humanely" euthanized with the same kind of sadness with which one might put a sick or intractable animal to sleep. In a magical world, is there some kind of magical control or coercion? Or is physical force or punishment warranted and allowed in some situations?

I can't really see a way of portraying these things that won't be sending some kind of message and make people uncomfortable, however. Again, if you don't want to raise uncomfortable questions that will make your readers think and feel uncomfortable things, then you need to leave uncomfortable things out of your stories.

And yes, as KN says, anything you write will bother someone. The point is to be aware of what you're doing and why you're doing it. Offend the right people for the right reasons.

King Neptune said:

Don't worry. Whatever you write will offend someone.

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How dare you assume someone will always be offended by anything we write! Are you saying people are oversensitive? That they read personal issues into things regardless of whether the author intended it or not? I'm a person, here, and I take offense to that stereotype!

Back to the OP - yes, browbeating readers with a simplistic This Is Bad/This Is Good message isn't great storytelling. And, yes, sometimes slavery in a culture "just is," for reasons the characters themselves may not know but can't really change/haven't been taught to question. As an author, though, you do know... or you should know. And, unless it's a very, very incidental detail in your world, you're going to have some trouble just sweeping it under the rug like it doesn't really matter when one class, race, or culture owns another. 'Cause history's done that an awful lot, and the rug's looking very lumpy these days...