History buffs - historical slave turnover question

For a long term campaign I am running, I was hoping to find out a historical ratio of slavery turnover. I am hoping to run a campaign that pits the PCs against evil minions of a nation that has extensive ties to the slave trading business.

But, I also want to impress upon them how awesome a task it is to defeat slavery everywhere. If this nation sells or trades 50,000 slaves per year – a vast majority human – to most nations on the planet, what would you say the amount that are still in slavery at the end of one year and then at the end of ten?

I was going to say that at the end of each year, about one slave in eight will have either died, escaped or had their slavery ended some other way (i.e., sold into slavery to pay off a debt, then debt is paid off after a year, or maybe a captured soldier returned when the war is over) So, assuming about one in eight per year, that leaves 43,750 slaves at the end of the first year and 13,154 of the original 50,000 sold in that first year still remain in slavery at the end of 10 years. Is this realistic? And, yes, I know you can heal up your big buff slaves to send them back in the mines, but clerics do not grow on trees in this world.

Note – not all nations that buy slaves will abuse them. Some honestly use them to work hard in the fields and then release them when their debt is paid, or some can be house servants for very long periods. Granted, many are abused and/or tormented, some can be gladiators and die quickly, and some can just be worked to death in the mines or whatnot.

Of course, there are another 50,000 sold the next year, and for each of the remaining 8 years. So, if my turnover of one in eight per year is okay, that would leave a little over 250,000 total slaves worldwide after ten years.

Or, should I use a steeper turnover rate? Maybe 25 percent per year? Or, maybe a steeper curve – 10% in year one, then 20% then 30%, then 40%?

The only number that I need as a constant is the 50,000 slaves per year. So, is 250,000 living slaves a good number, or should I say less than that, or more? Or, if I wanted 250,000 slaves, would I have to raise my starting number to say, 100,000?

NewJeffCT said:

The only number that I need as a constant is the 50,000 slaves per year.

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I'm not sure that's a reasonable number unless you have some specific reason for the slave trade to hit those sorts of numbers. According to this Wikipedia article, the trade in African slaves is averaged around 6000 people a year from the 10th to 19th centuries. At its peak it was as high as 90000 people per year, but that was driven by the colonization of the Americas (where, due to genocide of the Indian nations, there was a lot more land available than there were people to work it). So you'll probably need to come up with some event that's driving the slave trade.

I would say that the ratio of slave to master is what you need to worry aboute. If there are 250000 slaves, and there are actually about 100,000 masters, then it would be a sinch, slowly spread the word that a revolt is going amoung the slaves, then let all hell breack loose. The sides would be so uneven that you would never stand a chanc. Not only are there all of the slaves, but there are also the people that see that slavery is actually bad. The sides would be so off that the war would only last a few days with the proper revolt and coordination.

It also depends on the degree of the evil nation's disregard for life.

If the slaves are cheap to acquire - in other words, it would cost as much to buy a new coat as a new slave - then the turnover will be higher. They run away, they get killed, worked to death, etc. - if the human life is cheap, and the populace majority evil, then you'll easily go through 25 to 30% per year, I estimate.

On the other hand, if slaves are EXPENSIVE (say, equating buying several acres of land or a prize horse), then they will be cared for - the upkeep will be much less cost than buying new. Turnover rates will be lower, more effort to capture than kill runways, etc. because the cost would be worked off slower, and new incoming slaves would be fewer. I would even drop your rate from 1 in 8 to 1 in 10.

Palleomortis,

it's not 250,000 slaves in one place.

It might be 10 in one lord's castle, 20 working in a copper mine for a greedy merchant, while 10 are bought monthly for the next city's gladiatorial games, then 50 slaves and 20 concubines in the king's castle; while the next nation may have 100 in the king's castle; while each of the 5 dukes have 50; and each of the 20 barons have 20 slaves, etc...

Probably even lower than 1 in 10, unless there are a lot of escapes. Slaves were very expensive, and represented a major investment. Pricewise, they'd probably be equivalent to a fancy sportscar today, depending on how healthy and productive the slave was. You don't let something like that die just because you forgot to feed it vitamins every once in a while.

And in terms of trading numbers, remember that breeding, not importation, was the best method of getting new slaves. In fact, by the time slavery was abolished in the US, importation of slaves had been illegal for more than fifty years. Yet the actual number of slaves had grown significantly.

Henry said:

It also depends on the degree of the evil nation's disregard for life.

If the slaves are cheap to acquire - in other words, it would cost as much to buy a new coat as a new slave - then the turnover will be higher. They run away, they get killed, worked to death, etc. - if the human life is cheap, and the populace majority evil, then you'll easily go through 25 to 30% per year, I estimate.

On the other hand, if slaves are EXPENSIVE (say, equating buying several acres of land or a prize horse), then they will be cared for - the upkeep will be much less cost than buying new. Turnover rates will be lower, more effort to capture than kill runways, etc. because the cost would be worked off slower, and new incoming slaves would be fewer. I would even drop your rate from 1 in 8 to 1 in 10.

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The nation selling the slaves is an evil theocracy that follows a god that revels in slavery. However, the god doesn't care if the slave is sold to fight a lion in tonight's arena or if they are sold to be the king's butler, as long as they are enslaved.

That said, slaves are not something the common person can afford to buy. Mostly it's limited to the nobility, wealthy merchants, maybe some higher ranking military officials. Slavery laws run the gamut, but I would say that a majority of nations have laws that attempt to regulate the treatment of slaves. That said, how those laws are enforced is another matter... and, I'm sure if 14 year old Prince Spoiled Brat had a temper tantrum and kicked one of his slaves out the window, it would be "now don't do that again you naugty boy..."

What are your slaves doing?

How easy are they to replace?

How skilled are they?


If the nation has a theocratic "take slaves because you can" attitude then the supply is dependent on how succesful the nation is at trading / raiding / breeding. It sounds like from what you say that the main advantage to owning slaves is that setting is the status value rather than the economic return on the investment - would that be correct?

I think the question is far too broad to be answered.

What is the average lifespan of citizens of the culture when they aren't slaves? What percentage of the population is slaves? What legal rights do slaves have? Can slaves obtain status through thier masters to arrise to relatively high social positions? Can slaves buy thier freedom? What sorts of labor are slaves expected to perform? What is the social justification for slavery? What social customs might limit the degree with which slaves may be mistreated? Are slaves imported from foreign populations, or are a reasonably large percentages of slaves native to the local population? If the former, how difficult/expensive is it to obtain slaves? If the latter, what is the birthrate of the local population?

There is a world of difference between an educated slave working as a sensechal for a freeborn lord who is treated as a member of the household ranking only below the master's own immediate family members whose slavery is treated as a not ignoble estate which may in fact (should the gods will) befall the master if the fortunes of his city or estate wane and who in fact is of the same ethnicity of the lord and who has some legal standing in the laws of the nation, and a foreign imported slave whose slavery is justified under the prevailing belief that he belongs to a sub-human race and who has no legal rights and who has no standing with his master beyond that of disposable property and who is expected to preform dangerous, demanding, and degrading labor precisely because his life has little value. Likewise, there is a world of difference in being a slave in a society that can barely feed itself, and being a slave in a relatively prosperous society with adequate caloric intake.

It's worth noting that how harshly you treat your slaves is somewhat related to how easy they are to replace. The less valuable the slave is, the easier it becomes to rationalize whatever you choose to do. If on the other hand the birth rate in the society is low, there is a labor shortage, and slaves can't be obtained easily from an outside source, then slaves tend to start gaining status.

The best answer I could give you off hand, would be the suggestion to work out from the estimated life expectancies and infant mortality rates of medieval serfs the death rate among adult European serfs. This would give you a good estimate on the death rate of any moderately oppressed slave with a poor diet. From thier you could extrapolate death rates for other degrees of oppression and technology levels (most campaigns I've seen have standards of living that are well above medieval Europe). If I find such information, I'll update you with my conclusions.

For there, you could work out as a guess how many slaves obtain thier freedom each year. In most cases, this is a pathetically small sum or the institution would just cease to exist. As the feudal system started breaking down (say by the 17th century), many european slaves were indentured servants that legally had to be freed after laboring for a certain ammount of time. Many died before thier terms of service were up, but time limits on slavery will be the biggest factor in slaves being released if any are. Another example would by the 'Year of Jubilee' time limit proscribed for Jewish slavery in the bible. On the other extreme, you have serfs. The percentage of serfs that became free in a given year is so small as to be negligible. The percentage of plantation slaves that could buy thier freedom from 'generous' masters in the antebellum South is only slightly higher - though probably a good deal more were freed in a given year as 'acts of conscious' by slave holders plagued by feelings of guilt. Likely more than that escaped or where helped to escape. In soceities where slavery is the general by product of conquest, probably the single largest cause of slaves losing and earning thier freedom. Conquered peoples go off into bondage. Someone losses a battle, and slaves go free.

Thanks Celebrim - I realize it is not an easy question to answer. I honestly have no idea how many slaves are treated well vs bad across the various 30-40 kingdoms / nations / empires / city-states, as the laws vary by nation, as well as the enforcement of the laws. It really runs the gamut.

However, slaves are not so expensive it's like buying a top of the line Rolls Royce... but, it's also not like buying a Yugo, either. However, somebody like Bill Gates and his $50 billion or so of wealth can afford to buy almost 1.7 million Toyota Camrys if he so chose. And, some of these kings, queens and emperors are not poor.