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Southern slave trade: Difference between revisions
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===Background=== | ===Background=== | ||
Slavery has been practiced in mainland [[Daxia]] for thousands of years, early use of slavery is understood to have been reserved for criminals, the average citizen could not be subject to the practice . There are copious archeological records and fragments that point to the widespread keeping of slaves by the elites of the Wa Hegemony and older polities. The fifteen tablets of Wa contain among them a royal edict from king Panshu condemning fourty convicted rapists to lifelong servitude to their victims as castrated slaves. The Xie dynasty first codified the use of slavery in the year 2350 BC during the reign of emperor Heise. This first code contained provisions that allowed local governments to sell prisoners of grave crimes such as murder, sodomy, treason and rape in the slave markets. The [[Code of Heise]] also allowed all citizens of the country to freely enslave any barbarians, if they could lay their hands on them and paid a fixed tax for every slave they had, every year. The code also allowed for the enslavement of people who were linguistically very similar to the [[Daxian people]] to the point they could be considered branches of one another, namely the Qifu and Tuang peoples were ancient peoples who lived closed to the Xie dynasty heartlands. When the Xie expanded at the expense of these ethnic cousins and their states, there erupted at court great debates about what should be done with the populations. One side argued that as non-Daxians they could be turned into slaves and put to work. The other side countered that being so similar to themselves it would be a great crime to make slaves of them, a crime akin to making a Daxian in good standing a slave himself. On this occasion the latter opinion won out and the Qifu and the Tuang were in the end not enslaved, they do fade from historical record eventually, subsumed into the greater whole of the Daxian nation long before the end of the Xie dynasty. | Slavery has been practiced in mainland [[Daxia]] for thousands of years, early use of slavery is understood to have been reserved for criminals, the average citizen could not be subject to the practice . There are copious archeological records and fragments that point to the widespread keeping of slaves by the elites of the Wa Hegemony and older polities. The fifteen tablets of Wa contain among them a royal edict from king Panshu condemning fourty convicted rapists to lifelong servitude to their victims as castrated slaves. The Xie dynasty first codified the use of slavery in the year 2350 BC during the reign of emperor Heise. This first code contained provisions that allowed local governments to sell prisoners of grave crimes such as murder, sodomy, treason and rape in the slave markets. The [[Code of Heise]] also allowed all citizens of the country to freely enslave any barbarians, if they could lay their hands on them and paid a fixed tax for every slave they had, every year. The code also allowed for the enslavement of people who were linguistically very similar to the [[Daxian people]] to the point they could be considered branches of one another, namely the Qifu and Tuang peoples were ancient peoples who lived closed to the Xie dynasty heartlands. When the Xie expanded at the expense of these ethnic cousins and their states, there erupted at court great debates about what should be done with the populations. One side argued that as non-Daxians they could be turned into slaves and put to work. The other side countered that being so similar to themselves it would be a great crime to make slaves of them, a crime akin to making a Daxian in good standing a slave himself. On this occasion the latter opinion won out and the Qifu and the Tuang were in the end not enslaved, they do fade from historical record eventually, subsumed into the greater whole of the Daxian nation long before the end of the Xie dynasty. | ||
During the era of strife that began with the fall of the Xie dynasty and its implosion into dozens of statelets fighting for survival, the temporary shattering of [[Daxia]]n identity into regional ones led to a widening of the use of slavery. To a citizen of the state Hua someone from the state of Zhao was no more Daxian than was a barbarian from beyond the White Waste, even if they looked the same and spoke the same tongue. The attitude varied by states and also over time, for example the state of Cao that would eventually triumph over all others did not enslave other Daxians but instead chose to cajole them into service; this policy decision was of pivotal importance to its eventual triumph as it was able to attract talented people from other states into its ranks without fear of enslavement or humilliation. | |||
===Zenith of the trade=== | ===Zenith of the trade=== | ||
===Decline of demand=== | ===Decline of demand=== | ||