RE: slave exports

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 21:57:50 +1200


Gareth Martin:

>I was rereading chunks of the Lunar section of the weekend, and I noticed
>something I wanted to ask about. It mentions that Lunars have no
>"traditional rights to anothers labour" although I'm not sure exactly what
>this is meant to indicate,

Traditional nobility have some right to the labor of their subjects as part of their title (i.e. a Carmanian Hazar can demand that the serfs inhabiting a plot of land can work for him). The Lunars, having sprung out of nowhere, do not have this background and so resorted to enslaving people to acquire their labour. This became their favoured method.

>since they clearly do have the normal
>exchange-of-labour industries, IIRC.

Exactly what do you refer to? The corvee is a Dara Happan institution and is not controlled by lunars. The Lunar Latifundia are stocked with slaves and thus not traditional.

>Anyway, the text mentions that this
>has triggered the re-growth of the slave industry. Does this suggest that
>fairly large numbers of slaves are being rounded up from their most recent
>territorial acquisition, Sartar.

The numbers are not on the scale of the African Slave Trade. The Lunars probably limit themselves as to how many Sartarites and others they take each year, for I'm reminded of the anecdote that when Jerusalem fell, the price for jewish slaves took a downward plunge rivalled only by dot.coms.

>Is there an equivalent operation a toive in Sartar? Could the Dundealo or
>others have gone this way?

Part of the Dundealos is stated to have been enslaved.

--Peter Metcalfe

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