History buffs - historical slave turnover question

[NewJeffCTHome]

Well, I should have been more specific. Captured soldiers & militia types do make up a good portion of the slaves. If 250 soldiers from this nation, along with 4-5 clerics of this evil god, raid a border town, I'm sure the few dozen among the town militia and the few professional soldiers in the town of 250 will be among the captured.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Though again, it is interesting to note that in many countries the taking of slaves was incidental to the causes of war - more often it was expansion rather than the taking of slaves that drove the slave economy. Though there were odd hiccups...

The slave trade in the U.S. was primarily commercial, which is to say that Dutch, English, and New England traders purchased people from slave markets rather than enslaved them personally, transported them, and resold them for a profit in the South. English traders were odd in that while slavery was illegal in England slaves were still stored as 'merchandise' in Liverpool warehouses... as long as they were being transported elsewhere keeping them for a time in England was legal.

Rome used the slave trade as a means to quash rebellion - if an area rebelled than the people were punished, and one of those punishments was slavery. And like the U.S. Rome purchased many of their slaves in foreign markets, asking few questions.

The Aztecs did raid their neighbors for slaves, and were raided in turn. This also served as a means of population control as a percentage of those taken as slaves were given up to the gods in sacrifice.

The Celts were known to raid for slaves, then to trade them back for slaves taken from their own... And often a slave was allowed to make his or her purchase, or to join the clan that took him or her. Slavery was also a punishment for criminals (as were some human sacrifices).

The Norse and their kin also made slave raids, but a slave (carl) was allowed to make his purchase if he could.

The French made slave raids from Canada into Maine, with the rationale that these were English colonists and therefor criminals... It was an act of war rather than a full fledged trade.

It is also worth noting that in many (but by no means all) slave taking cultures the worst treatments of slaves were illegal, though these laws were not always enforced. (One U.S. law limited the amount of lobster that one was allowed to feed to one's slaves - it was then considered a trash food, a giant sea going cockroach...) Many of the Southern plantations were in fact breaking the laws of their states in the treatment of their slaves. Though without punishment the mistreatment continued.

The Mongols and Turks on the other hand... The term 'salt mines' comes to mind...

The naval press of the English seamen can also be viewed as a form of temporary slave taking... though once taken they were paid the same as any other tar. And led to the War of 1812...

The Auld Grump

 

[Sigurd]

I would investigate slaves among the Anglo Saxons, the Irish and the Norse. The distinction between slave and master were less obvious and the culture spent less time demonizing slaves for their colour. One comment, I can't remember the source, was that after the Domesday book there were substantially more freed slaves among the Norse than among the Anglo Saxon.

The Norse had a system where the slave was allotted land for raising his own food. He could sell the food of that land and buy his own freedom. Slavery without obvious devision is much easier to overcome. The anglo saxon had no such system and their slaves were freed less often and produced less money. The cultures also had a tradition where honourable people, unable to pay their debts, sold themselves. This is cruel but honourable and presumably implies that when they had earned something like their value they should be freed.

Its a lot better than demonizing a visible minority. Raise societal respect for the slaves and you will weaken slavery.



Look at Leviticus 25 for a concept of 'Jubilee'

And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

Every fifty years the deity frees everybody. Great safety valve but it defeats arguements like "he's a slave because he's evil".

Some might willingly accept slavery if the deal was one they could accept or they were slaves of someone they deified. Most supplicants to powerful evil must supplicate themselves and accept slavery of a sort. Power before the rest in exchange for servitude to the on high.


S

Good luck.

This is a moral minefield, no offense meant to anyone.

 

[bubbalin]

Breeding...

Okay, I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if this was mentioned... but I may have a new complication for you...

People get it on, wherever they are. As such, you would also geta few more slaves appearing when the slaves have children. I assume that the culture we are talking about would then enslave these children. So, how many more slaves can you get through this?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Try to free slaves is great and all but it usually isn't done by force and is never done by building an ex-slave army. Nearly every slave army and revolt in history has been eventually and then brutally put down. Nearly always slavery isn't ended by a war but by gradual changes in society (the US Civil War is an exception).

But since this isn't D&D you don't free slaves by going to kings and trying to petition for change you do it by force. So I'd recommend trying to free slaves who know how to fight first and who want to be freed. Then when you start freeing slaves tell them they have to enlist in your cause (to free more slaves) or die.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Try to free slaves is great and all but it usually isn't done by force and is never done by building an ex-slave army. Nearly every slave army and revolt in history has been eventually and then brutally put down. Nearly always slavery isn't ended by a war but by gradual changes in society (the US Civil War is an exception).

The U.S. Civil War may not have been so much an exception as coincidental. The slave economy was already losing economic ground to an industrialized economy. In some ways there were two separate wars going on - the North was fighting (at least in part) to free the slaves, while the South was fighting for (at least in part) state rights versus federal law. Another complication was the goals of rich plantation owners versus the general interest of the Southern states involved in the War - There were Southern states that had more volunteers in the Army of the Republic than in the Army of the Confederacy, the wealthy land and slave owners pushing for rights that did not appeal to the rank and file of the state's citizens.

Even had the South freed the slaves it is likely that a war would have ocurred, though perhaps the North would have had fewer volunteers... (As it was the North relied a great deal on conscripts.)

The Auld Grump

 

[PaulGreystoke]

A few quibbles...

The U.S. Civil War may not have been so much an exception as coincidental. The slave economy was already losing economic ground to an industrialized economy.

There is some evidence to the contrary. The Southern slavery-rooted agrarian capitalistic system was by most measures quite competitive, so much so that many Northerners were secretly concerned that free labor couldn't compete with slave labor - despite their vocal public statements to the contrary. The belief that slavery would have withered away due to an inability to compete with an industrializing economy might be modern wishful thinking. Certainly slavery seemed to be extremely competitive in the sectors with which it is commonly associated - cotton & tobacco, the premier cash crops of the day.

It is also a misconception to think of the North before the Civil War as an industrial economy. Over 90% of Northerners worked in the agrarian sector. And very few of those who did work in the growing industrial economy did so in anything we would think of as a modern factory. Most industrial laborers in the North worked for firms employing less than 50 workers, employing little in the way of equipment, & effectively working as piece workers rather than as part of an assembly line. Industrial operations of the era were exemplars of the original meaning of "manufacture" - that is to make by hand. The true industrialization of the American economy was a post-war phenomenon.

In some ways there were two separate wars going on - the North was fighting (at least in part) to free the slaves, while the South was fighting for (at least in part) state rights versus federal law.

Of course, freeing the slaves wasn't officially a war aim of the North until the Emancipation Proclamation almost a year & a half after the beginning of the war. And there is little doubt that the vast majority of Union volunteers at the beginning were solely interested in saving the Union. They weren't fighting to free the Negro. But this attitude would change during the course of the conflict, so you are certainly right by the end.

As to Southerners fighting to preserve states' rights, this is true only to the degree that "states' rights" was a code word for slavery. The only right reserved to the states under question was the right of a state to declare that one man could hold another as his chattel - & the right of a state to defend that property right. It was fear that slavery rights would be under attack by a Republican administration that convinced ardent slave rights advocates to call for secession after the election of Lincoln.

While "states' rights" (ie slavery) was the driving consideration of the ardent secessionists in voting secession from the Union, it was only a notional concern to the men who volunteered to fight for the nascent Confederacy. Just as the Northern soldiers were primarily fighting to preserve the Union, Southern volunteers were fighting to protect their homes & way of life from what they perceived as "foreign" invaders.

Another complication was the goals of rich plantation owners versus the general interest of the Southern states involved in the War - There were Southern states that had more volunteers in the Army of the Republic than in the Army of the Confederacy, the wealthy land and slave owners pushing for rights that did not appeal to the rank and file of the state's citizens.

This is true in some states, but misleading in others. Many studies of the secession voting by state indicates that paradoxically, it was precisely the richest slaveholders who opposed secession at first blush. This is less surprising when one realizes that the biggest slaveholders had the most to lose in a war since they were so heavily invested in growing crops for export - an endeavor likely to be disrupted by war. The biggest slaveholders were also innately conservative, often having been adherents of the Whig party, while the fire-eating secessionists were usually middle class members of the Democratic party. In some states the richest slaveholders only reluctantly joined the secessionist movement when it became clear that it was going to happen anyway.

Even had the South freed the slaves it is likely that a war would have ocurred, though perhaps the North would have had fewer volunteers... (As it was the North relied a great deal on conscripts.)

Both sides relied heavily on conscripts, & the Confederacy did so first. After the first blush of volunteerism faded, both sides struggled to convince their citizenry to volunteer for the long & bloody conflict. Agreeing to serve for 3 years (& then eventually for the duration of the conflict) was an immense sacrifice to make, & both sides needed more men than were willing to make the plunge. Conscription (& the threat of conscription to get states to meet their quotas voluntarily) was a necessary device.

But if the Southern states had voluntarily freed the slaves, there would have been no war. There simply weren't enough other issues that divided the North from the South, as the history of post-war America shows. Really the major cause of division after the war was the war itself - that & the status of the Negro. Southerners were bitter about the defeat & were wholeheartedly opposed to what they perceived as a Northern attempt to integrate their societies, whole Northern political agitators worked up anti-southern sentiment by "waving the bloody shirt", constantly reminding the voters about those unrepentent Southern secessionists. Those few (primarily Northern) idealists who really wished for the freedman to get a fair shake in the South were defeated by crass political realities & the deep-rooted racism of the white American voter, both North & South. Sadly, this meant that Southern blacks who had labored under slavery, then briefly tasted the fruits of freedom, were soon shuffled into a century of second class citizenship under Jim Crow.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I will however take this time to point out that the belief that the South was losing ground to the industrial North was contemporary to the period, not merely a modern construct - whether or not the belief was true has little bearing on the existence of the belief, nor whether it was part of the South's motivations. I wish that I still had a list of primary sources to direct you to, but it has been decades since I took the courses. There were people in the South who believed that they were losing freedoms (not merely in the ownership of slaves) as well as being targetted by the Northern states in an undeclared economic war.

Yes, 90% of the North was agrarian, though a good deal of its economic strength was central to the industrialized cities. As always there was a concentration of wealth - 90% of the populace does not equal 90% of the wealth. Much of the success of industrialization did indeed follow the war - new methods used to bore cannon barrels proved effective in the creation of high pressure cylinders for steam engines. However the railroads were already having an enormous impact on the United States, with the North considerably more heavily tied by rail. Factory work was often seasonal, moreso in the South than the North, textiles relied heavily upon the crops and were the first industries to make major inroads in the South. And even there the North had a large number of textile mills so that the South saw a steady stream of commerce leaving their states and heading north.

The rivallry between North and South can be traced to before the Revolution, to Adams, Jefferson, and Lee, each of whom hated the others cordially. In fact Adams last words were "Jefferson still lives." (False as it happens, they died within a week of each other, with Jefferson dying first.)

There were also voices in the South to abolish slavery, or at least loosen its chokehold on the economy. Oddly some of those voices belonged to slave owners... They could not compete if they released their own slaves and their neighbors did not, but if all the slaves were released then they could remain competitive. And as you say, a fair number were reluctant to break up the Union, not merely a political choice - there were still some fears of England taking advantage of the weakness a war would cause in the States. Many people remembered the War of 1812, if not the Revolution. I am not at alll convinced that those fears were groundless, though they were not in any way realized that I know of.

I honestly believe that the war would have happened regardless of freeing the slaves, but that by not releasing the slaves the South chose to be the villains in the war. (Though some Southern states offered manumission to negroes who volunteered for military service.) And you are correct in that most Southern states had more volunteers in the Confederate Army than the Republic, the fact that there were any that differed shows that there was a lack of concensus.

The South did begin conscription first, but if I recall properly across the decades of my memory, it was not a unified decision - unlike the Union the draft was considered and ratified by the South on a state by state basis, less than half of the Confederate states had implimented it by the time the Union had unilaterally begun conscription. There were lynchings and riots in New York City, as some groups 'punished' the free blacks for causing the war. (People are idiots.) The Ku Klux Klan has its roots in the North as well as in the South, and sadly my home state was one of those places where it found fertile ground. (Again, people are idiots.) The south was a great deal less unified in its decision making than the North.

I think that the South was idiotic in opening fire on Fort Sumpter, and that by continuing the war for so long after their cause was lost they forfeited much of the sympathy that I, and many others, might feel for them.

For what it is worth I am a Northerner, have been all my life, and proud of it. At the time of the Civil War my ancestors were still in Ireland being persecuted by the English. My sympathies, for whatever they are worth at this far remove, lie neither with the North nor the South, but with the slaves.

The Auld Grump, fun argument.

 

[PaulGreystoke]

The Auld Grump, fun argument.

Agreed.

Obviously this a thread hijack of the first order, so I'll stop here. I agree with just about everything you stated in your last post. One the main lessons of history is that nothing is as simple as it seems in a textbook. The Civil War & the issues surrounding it are still open to debate & interpretation fully 7 score years later.

I will note one factual quibble: Adams & Jefferson died on the same day (July 4, 1826) - Jefferson dying only a few hours before Adams supposedly said the famous last words that you quoted. Although they had been bitter enemies during the respective Presidencies, they had buried the hatchet in their later years, as the old Federalist/Democratic-Republican issues that had divided them receded into memory, usurped by new issues, including slavery.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Agreed.

Obviously this a thread hijack of the first order, so I'll stop here. I agree with just about everything you stated in your last post. One the main lessons of history is that nothing is as simple as it seems in a textbook. The Civil War & the issues surrounding it are still open to debate & interpretation fully 7 score years later.

I will note one factual quibble: Adams & Jefferson died on the same day (July 4, 1826) - Jefferson dying only a few hours before Adams supposedly said the famous last words that you quoted. Although they had been bitter enemies during the respective Presidencies, they had buried the hatchet in their later years, as the old Federalist/Democratic-Republican issues that had divided them receded into memory, usurped by new issues, including slavery.

Yeah, I remembered that Jefferson died right before Adams, and thought that it was the same day, but I wasn't sure, and compromised with 'within a week'. (Technically true, but deliberately vague.) Neither one had much use for Lee. (Franklin even commented that 'nothing brings enemies together like a common foe' in regards to Jefferson and Adams in regards to Lee - who was the loudest proslavery voice in the comittee.

Jefferson was the first of the U.S. slave-owners that I can think of that advocated emancipation. I hadn't heard that Adams and Jefferson had buried the hatchet, and Adams last words still sound a tad bitter (if true, I do not remember my source). I will admit to hoping that it is true that they did though.

To get back on track - an Abolitionist group might be an interesting plotline - even when slavery is legal it may not be universaly accepted. And some of the Abolitionists used tactics very much akin to terrorists today. (John Brown coming to mind. Hmmm, an undead John Brown, who's body is a moulderin' but not in the grave...) They may have a good goal, but their means may be very unsavory indeed.

The Auld Grump