History buffs - historical slave turnover question

[TheAuldGrump]

Though they happened more often than most people are aware of, slave revolts and race riots aren't things that are covered very well in most history classes.

Though often they were a rebellion of a particular caste of slaves, gladiators being the best Roman example.

There was also what can only be called a 'strike' by the slaves working as scribes and tutors, I believe under Emperor Domation? Not an active rebellion, just not writing stuff down. If I recall properly they won - it was a matter of their materials being counted against the cost of their manumission. It was decided that since the finished product belonged to the slave's master or his patron then so did the cost of buying the writing materials. (Yes, it ended up going to court...)

The Auld Grump

 

[S'mon]

Time for the historians to pipe up again: What fraction of population consisted of slaves in some historical examples? How about the southern US in the 19th century, for example?

Mississippi was majority slave, averaged around 60%, according to the museum in the Jackson state capital building. They have a display with jars full of white, black and red marbles denoting the population in different eras.

If the slave population is a sizable majority of a country's population it will tend to become increasingly unstable or, like Sparta, dysfunctional. I reckon 80% slave is likely a practical maximum.

 

[boredgremlin]

Unless I'm missing something, which is altogether possible, yes it was succesful and no they shouldn't have kept the French around.

The basic time line is as follows:

Initial revolt under religious leader named Boukman: plantations are burned, French flee to coastal cities.

Francois Dominique Toussaint organizes military forces for slaves, I wish I knew more about how he organized this all I've seen is a theory that many of the slaves had been trained soldiers in Africa, and plays off interested European colonial powers against each other. Eventually he becomes consul of Haiti, apparently most of the action was on the Dominican Republic side of the island, and is beloved by both French and former slaves. Eventually Napolean decides to unseat him and sends an army to do so. Toussaint engages in a guerilla war, eventually making peace and keeping it until the French betray him. He dies in prison.

Under a new leader, Dessalines, the slaves resist French forces under Leclerc and then Rochambeau all three leaders pursued policies of attrocity. Supposedly the French just slaughtered anyone they found who wasn't French and Dessalines just slaughtered opposition. Either way it looks like both sides were actively destroying non-combatants. Rochambeau surrenders on November 28, 1803.

It looks like at least one of the deciding factors of the success of the revolution was that they did it during a time of great internal and external danger for France, Napolean wasn't in much of a position to support the French forces once he had sent them, though the initial government under Toussaint seemed like a pretty interesting compromise and success in its own right that France bungled horribly.

Here's a site, its spin is pretty obvious, but it's also nicely concise and has far less of it than you are generally likely to find on the internet.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/DIASPORA/HAITI.HTM

Here's something equally good from the other side:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0323/p15s01-bogn.htm

Interesting post. Nice historical facts and i like the sites. Heres my argument. Look at France now, western nation, solid economy, law and order prevailes, democratic, member of NATO a country that the world listens to.
Haiti. 3rd world craphole. 200 years and they still havent gotten it together. Desease is rampant, crimelords rule the streets, most of the world has never heard of them and their governments have been so corrupt that in recent decades marines have had to go in twice to quell the rioting, chaos and mass murders. And the UN once. Thats 3 international interventions to prevent complete anarchy in 20 years, just off the top of my head. How many has France had? Ever?
So in retrospect. Yes they were far better off with french rulers. As many mistakes as france makes its leaders are still better then the leaders that haiti has had.
But it works as a great example of what happens when slaves get a country. I guess uneducated, short sighted, rebel rousers dont make good politicians or peacetime leaders. If spartacus has succeeded he probably wouldnt have done any better. Organizing ordered retreats and hit and runs on civilians and totally outnumbered militia does not prepare you to run an economy, international diplomacy or civilian justice beyond battlefield justice. Which is very different. Just compare the US military UCMJ (uniform code of military justice) to the rules for civilian courts and you can see that even in the modern day there is world of difference between civilain justice and battlefield (military) justice.
Lol though back to the topic at hand..... I would base an evil slave empire on all the history and terrible rumours of ancient Sparta or fuedal Japan. You get a solid historical base and with the rumours plenty of super evil things to clear up any grey area for PC's killing slavers and even slave owners. Or for more modern things look at the most PC rumor mongering hippie site for colonial slavery in the America's you can find. And go with that. Dont overlook the cruelty of the spaniards to american indians in the south, south america, central america and the southwest US either. For a setting where a foreign people conquer and enslave the indigenous people the spaniards might be the best example in history for an evil empire.

 

[boredgremlin]

Or for a succesful example of slave revolt look at the american colonies. Many of the citizens of america were indentured servants trying to pay off the passage to america. Even the freeman here towards the end had no right to representation for taxes or laws. The only truly free land was in indian country, and they werent really free. The english government just left them alone so they would keep fighting the natives and not make deals with the french (before the french-indian war, it was so close to the war of independence that many veterans of the the french indian war fought in both wars.)
So in many ways the colonial americans were effectively slaves, even if they werent called slaves. Pick a historical culture that suits you campiagn world and go with it. These cultures spent hundreds of years working out the details. You can spend a few weeks doing it yourself and leave all kinds of holes (they thought they had it right the first time too) or base it off a solid historical society that suits your campaign and make a few adjustments for religion and magic.
And dont forget monsters. The spartan helots lived in thier own villages. If a group of ogres, demons or a dragon starting ravaging slave towns do you really think the spartans would care much until it hit a point where so many had died it actually affected the ruling class? Many monsters are smart enough to see the ruling class doesnt care about slaves and so prey on them instead. Vampires especially come to mind here. As a spartan warrior or roman legionaire are you really gonna go fight a vampire over a slave? My guess is hell no. For mass slavery in a D&D world you have to bear this in mind as well. Slaves are an easy target. They are rarely allowed any real weapons and besides gladiators (who were historically extremely rare, even in rome) they had no training.
So lets see. In a D&D setting your a monster preying on humans. One group of humans is intelligent (might know how to kill you), well armed, at least minimally trained, and if you hit them hard the government will come down hard on you.
Another group had no real weapons, just farm tools. No military training, and the government doesnt care unless you cut down thier work force enough to affect the higher class. Who would your band of orcs, vampires or anything in between go after? So in a callouse D&D culture the rate of slave death would be higher then in any real world setting.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Interesting post. Nice historical facts and i like the sites. Heres my argument.

snip

I think maybe you missed my point. Given that the response of Napolean's armies to the revolt was to slaughter anyone who looked like they might have been a slave it doesn't seem to me that they made a mistake in kicking the French out.

The rest is likely an argument for another time and another place. Suffice to say I think you should put a tad more consideration and research into such a large argument.

 

[boredgremlin]

Nope not one bit more. I see what they did then and how it turned out now. Intentions lmean nothing, thoughts and hopes mean nothing. What talks is results. The only relevent details are results. You cant want the best, and make the worst. You can be a selfish psycho (julias ceasar) and do good for those around you.
Still the rest holds though. An evil slave empire? romans, japanese or spaniards. Base it on one. Adjust for monsters and magic. See how it turns out.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Nope not one bit more. I see what they did then and how it turned out now. Intentions lmean nothing, thoughts and hopes mean nothing. What talks is results. The only relevent details are results. You cant want the best, and make the worst. You can be a selfish psycho (julias ceasar) and do good for those around you.

Well, I think my general counter-point would be that I don't really think you've considered the history of the results in question or how those results would change given the consequences of the actions you advocate. Causality is a complicated subject, as is French history.

My specific counter-point would be that if someone is killing you not fighting back based on the faith that said person will later lead you into greater prosperity than you are capable of doing yourself seems to be a rather non-sensical position since, having been killed, you won't be in a position to enjoy the fruits of said prosperity.

As another point, apparently the French had a pretty high turnover rate in their slave populations and were highly reliant on first generation migrant slaves. This seems to be a common point in both the Haitian and Roman slave revolts, so you might very well be looking at a similar explosion in the case of the hypothetical markets for the empire in question.

On a related note, NewJeff, how is this kingdom acquiring these slaves? The method matters a great deal as it determines what mix of cultural groups and experience the slaves in question will have. Are they selling them in lots? In homogenous cultural groups? Are they actively hunting slaves or taking them through some legal pretense? If this kingdom is exporting 50,000 slaves a year they must have something close to total market dominance in a lot of areas. It would be intersting to know what sort of customers they expect to have.

 

[NewJeffCT]

On a related note, NewJeff, how is this kingdom acquiring these slaves? The method matters a great deal as it determines what mix of cultural groups and experience the slaves in question will have. Are they selling them in lots? In homogenous cultural groups? Are they actively hunting slaves or taking them through some legal pretense? If this kingdom is exporting 50,000 slaves a year they must have something close to total market dominance in a lot of areas. It would be intersting to know what sort of customers they expect to have.

They get them in a variety of ways:
1) raiding neighboring nations & villages and mining encampments. They are at war with one of their neighbors, but their borders make it very difficult to mount a large scale invasion to overthrow their leaders, so it is mostly the good nation trying to find off 'snatch & grab' raids from the slavers. The mountains on their western border also contain valuable materials like gold, so it attracts potential slaves like a moth to a flame, too.
2) purchasing them from slavers/pirates & then turning around & selling them for more through their network of merchants worldwide. ("Oh, we just picked up a Chinese girl with green eyes, maybe my network in the capital knows of somebody that wants that specific type?" on a side note: Anybody remember where the Chinese girl with green eyes is from?)

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Chinese girl with green eyes is from Big Trouble in Little China.

Well, based on those methods their buyers should have less trouble in terms of revolt. Traditionally slaves were taken from prisoners of war, thus the significant number of Roman and Haitian slaves who had recieved military training in other cultures.

If they are selling through a boutique system, custom slaves to meet custom needs, the primary issue I see with ending slavery isn't so much legal as cultural. That is that these slave traders must have an extremely extensive and functional network. If slaves don't fill the pivotal niche in the economy that they did in the Roman or New World plantation systems then the legal resistance won't be so entrenched, but if the slave trading network is then you are going to have to put a huge amount of effort into cleaning it up even once it's illegal.

People might call it something different and disguise it in various ways and the slave trading economy as a whole might take a hit, but the chances of it becoming an underground movement in other cultures is pretty high. And that's a real danger given how hard it is to convince people that underground slavery is a problem in any culture.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, I think my general counter-point would be that I don't really think you've considered the history of the results in question or how those results would change given the consequences of the actions you advocate. Causality is a complicated subject, as is French history.

As is the history of other former french colonies. Even those that "kept the French around" until after WWII when they were granted independence aren't necessarily doing significantly better than Haiti. Some are. Others seem pretty similar to Haiti but it's French soldiers instead of American ones that go in to restore order every decade or so.

As another point, apparently the French had a pretty high turnover rate in their slave populations and were highly reliant on first generation migrant slaves. This seems to be a common point in both the Haitian and Roman slave revolts, so you might very well be looking at a similar explosion in the case of the hypothetical markets for the empire in question.

I would imagine that this is a pretty significant factor in the slave results. I'm not familiar with the details of the history, but it seems that, with large groups of more first generation slaves, you're bound to have a number of former leaders and educated individuals as well as some experienced soldiers (from the losing side, of course). You are also likely to have groups of people who know each other better than they know their masters and may well identify with each other across various groupings. If a slave on plantation A is a captured warrior and he hears that the chief of a neighboring tribe--who is known to be a fair general and was well respected--started a rebellion, that's a very different situation than if a slave on plantation A who has no experience in combat, training with weapons, or experience of life outside of slavery hears that a slave on platation B, who he's never heard of and knows nothing of started a rebellion. I would guess that the first generation slave is more likely to think "maybe he could pull it off; I can fight so maybe I'll run away and join him." I would guess that the slave in the second situation is more likely to think "I wonder what this will mean for me? Will the master be more harsh than usual to discourage revolt here?"