Sanctuary Slavery
From DQWiki
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One of Sanctuary’s claims to infamy is the Slave Trade. It is said that slavery is illegal everywhere in the baronies except Sanctuary. This creates a lot of questions, such as "Who does Sanctuary trade slaves with", and "why don’t its neighbours stop it?". The reality is a lot more complex and grey.
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The Law
While slavery is illegal in most of the baronies, bondsmen, indentured servants, serfdom, press-ganging and conscription are all legal. Enslaving other races, such as orcs and goblins is also permitted. Through these and other methods, it is common for a lord to have a ready source of free labour.
The Opportunity
While this is very beneficial, there are times when a lord or bishop needs to pay scuttage to avoid taking to the field of combat, or to pay for skilled labour for a new castle or cathedral. Other times, there is need for a temporary increase in the raw labour pool, such as for planting while the militia are at war, or for mining, particularly successful harvests, or other peak-labour activities. It is strictly illegal to lend a neighbour a helping hand by providing some of one’s potentially idle or under-utilised hands for a nominal fee. Skilled specialists are also difficult to attract into the countryside, particularly for extended or very short-term work.
Sanctuary provides a means for the rapid redistribution of these pre-committed resources to optimise their utility at all times via a secondary labour market.
Markets
There are three main markets for slaves. One is the redistribution of already committed labour around the baronies, often on quite a localised scale. Another is the provision of professional services from sources in the baronies to other locales, either within the baronies, or in markets such as Arabie and the Lunar Empire. The third is the purchase of raw labour for the Sanctuary region, for field work and servants.
There are also specialist secondary markets for supplying sailors to visiting ships, to avoid press-ganging of locals; for the provision of gladiators for the games; and for placing children whose families are starving, into adoption in a wealthy family.
Labour Market Flexibility
It is legal to buy, sell or lease a contract for bondsmen in Sanctuary. This transaction, occurring as it does in a free town, is not bound by the laws of the place where the bondsmen are currently staying. This allows a lord to help a neighbour, and in return, the neighbour will at a later stage provide a similar service. The bondsmen are not ill-treated; indeed they are not left frustrated and idle, but instead giving satisfying and productive work. They are not usually over-worked or starved, as is often claimed about slaves – the lord has as much responsibility to them as to any other men in their service. A cruel lord may mistreat workers procured in this manner, but then they are likely to have mistreated the rest of their people as badly, and this cannot be laid at the door of either Sanctuary or slavery in general.
Social Mobility
In and around Sanctuary, rather than a feudal structure, the lands are controlled by mercantile interests. Without the feudal oaths binding the people to the land, the only source of reliable labour is slavery. Again, the slaves on the land are treated no better or worse than serfs, except that they have a higher degree of social mobility. The son of a field slave may be a bookkeeper, or bodyguard, and they always have an opportunity to buy or win their freedom. The hope of advancement inherent in the system of slavery is far more beneficial and inspiring than the guaranteed inter-generational toil of serfdom.
Rural Flight
In some countries, there is an unmet demand for specialist skills in entertainment, magic, and certain crafts. This may be because the educational infrastructure does not exist in the region, or because its reputation discourages casual travel to and from the country. Many rural areas suffer this skill-drain. These professions tend not to have a formal guild structure, and thus a lone practitioner feels rightfully nervous about entering a strange country or land to ply their trade. While not an ideal method, purchasing service contracts for professionals or trainees, often from their master or family, and establishing them in the places that are crying out for their skills, does address these needs. The specialist is providing a service that cannot be met locally, and is given transportation and shelter while they build up their business to a point where they have an opportunity to buy their contract and strike out on their own. It is true that some lands make exiting a contract difficult, and the more salubrious of the traders will warn a potential seller of these dangers. There is always the chance of a bad placement with emigration, but at least there is the chance of being transferred again if it doesn’t work out, and with the scarcity of the skills being provided, the horror-stories about mistreatment just don’t make economic sense.
Racial Integration
Some races, while nominally civilised, need strong boundaries for behaviour laid out for them. These particularly include orcs, and their lesser brethren the goblins. Individual orcs are aggressive and uncontrollable, while a hierarchical group of orcs, with strict discipline and set objectives, is an efficient and useful contributor to society. It is not uncommon for a orc chieftain to sell his band into slavery for a period, under his supervision. Defeated rivals, or small groups harassing human lands, are also better dealt with by turning them to work than driving them back into the hills or killing them. Slavery, with its civilising influence and opportunity to view human and elven society from within, has helped create a new urbane and mercantile strain of orc, who can fit in with his betters in society, and even rise to positions of power and influence.
Exile or Death
There are stories about the removal of business rivals, younger brothers, and competitors for inheritance. This does happen on occasion, but one needs to ask, who is at fault here? The buyer, for acquiring a skilled professional and placing them in an appropriate niche market, or the seller, for betraying their family, principles, and laws? Anyone who is prepared to sell a rival into slavery is equally prepared to leave them in a ditch. Slavery is merely a form of enforced exile, from which several people have famously returned and wreaked their revenge.
The Children of Slaves
Due to the variable-length contracts in slavery, most children born to slaves are not automatically enslaved themselves. Those born to indentured servants or bondsmen are automatically freemen. Those born to specialists are also often freed. A child brought up in a household will often be given free education and contact with those of a superior social class, giving them an edge when they may their way into the world. In far-off lands such as Arabie, these traditions differ, and a child may be in for a harsher life – but the social traditions of Arabie are hardly Sanctuary’s fault.
Cyclic and Temporary
It is said by its critics that slavery forces multiple generations into a life of denigration and abuse. However, the continual requirement for new slaves throughout the baronies is a testament to the temporary nature of the lifestyle, as each slave bought correlates to another who has won their freedom.
The Western Church and Slavery
One of the greatest critics of slavery in the west is the United Church of the Powers of Light. The United Church is against slavery for a number of reasons, both practical and theological.
- Slavery conflicts with the doctrine of free-will; however, serfdom, indenture, etc. do not.
- Slavery creates an ownership of man by man, which conflicts with teachings than man has power over beasts, and the angels over man.
- Slavery creates vast pools of mobile labour; rivalling the church labour tithes for flexibility in times of crisis, and reducing nobles’ dependence on church resources.
- Slavery has been used as a fund-rasing method by demonic cults.
- Slavery has been used as a source of victims and priests by demonic cults.
- Slaves need not (and usually may not) tithe labour to the church.
There is almost no advantage to the church in slavery – it already has the largest, most mobile, most educated, most obedient labour force in the west.
Summary
While not neccessarily the most fashionable trade in the world, slavery is more essential to the smooth and efficient running of the economies in the baronies than most hypocritical moralists and social commentators would wish to admit.
