The Slave Market ?

[Yaron P]

Hey everyone ! I have been troubled because I have a need for a slave market in my world and I don't don't know how to explain it , like what I want is a hardcore Slave market (no magical contract included) only chains which allow them theoretically escape but in some kingdoms they enforces this , that the kind of setting I have for my world's slave market .

 

[pmmg]

Why would this be harder to explain than anything else? What do you see in your head, and start trying describe it.

 

[skip.knox]

Don't overlook prisoners of war, which historically was the most common source for slaves.

 

[Gurkhal]

As mentioned above prisoners of war are most likely yo fill up the slave pens.

Most likely there will be a slave market in peace times as well but when there are successful wars carried out, supply will increase to a significant ammount. So if you need a bustling slave market, say that there's be a very recent and successful war which will explain the slave supply.

 

[Miles Lacey]

If you have a need for a slave market then you may need to think about a few things:

▪︎ What sort of people make up the slave population? Are they strictly prisoners of war or do they include non-combatants like children, the elderly and women as well? Do they include criminals?
▪︎ What are the slaves going to be used for? Some are likely to become domestic servants and cooks. Others are likely to be working in the fields or doing construction work like road building.
▪︎ What is done with unproductive or useless slaves like children, the weak, the sick and the elderly? Are they separated from, or sold with, the fit and healthy slaves? Are they simply left to die? Or are they sold separately from parents and other family members?
▪︎ Are the slaves likely to be sold and transported long distances? If so, this means the slave market will need to be located in a port or some other major trading place like a city and have purpose built holding facilities for them. If they're mostly intended for sale locally the market is likely to be both smaller and less refined than the major slave markets.

 

[Yaron P]

As mentioned above prisoners of war are most likely yo fill up the slave pens.

Most likely there will be a slave market in peace times as well but when there are successful wars carried out, supply will increase to a significant ammount. So if you need a bustling slave market, say that there's be a very recent and successful war which will explain the slave supply.

I see

 

[BearBear]

One take, vewer's discretion is advised.

I'm writing a grimdark novel, so this is what such a place would be in that world. I have seen other places, such as in "The Shield Warrior" you can count internment camps, concentration camps, hard labor camps, factories etc as places where slaves could be bought or traded.

Children, children everywhere. Lots of crying. Feet shuffling about. Dusty, musty, stale, cough inducing air, with the echo of coughing in the distance. Sniffling, yelling, the rattling of chains, terrified screams, a constant din of activity making sleep impossible, stained floors. Children coming and going in chains, emaciated and raspy whimpers. Dark, dank, damp with sticky floors and just dirt or old hay in places. Random piles of black stained sawdust, lots of flies, bugs skittering about, rats brazenly running between pens. A rancid smell of decaying flesh and unknown mixture of bodily fluids, worse than any cesspool or sewer, a place where even a cruel farmer's pigs would have better accommodation. Young poorly fed guards barely older than children themselves, marked as property, and for sale. An old one-eyed woman in rags pushes a cart of bowls both empty and ones filled meagerly with oddly shaped chunks of foul smelling meat and broth.

Look up American and global African slaves, and other races for farmwork and production. That was estimated to be on the order of $3 billion in profits in 1860. They had auctions and other holding cells but the slaves often died so selling them quickly and in bulk was more important than collecting them for retail sale.

Also look up WWI era, the Armenian Genocide, WWII Japanese Slave Brothels, and "Trafficking of minors for the sex trade", "for militia service", or "for mining", or "for sweat shops" or "for industry" or "for breeding" like any other livestock.

The means they're obtained may include:

- sold into slavery by relatives
- orphaned
- tricked with promises of work
- recruited by a supposed partner
- villiage raids
- school raids
- abducted
- runaways
- spoiles of war
- lower class
- bastards or otherwise illegitimate
- bred for this purpose
- rejected servants
- children of servants
- children of child servants
- children of incest

I consider myself something of a misanthropist when considering what has happened/is happening around the world in the slave industry. Which is over $150 billion in profits annually today. There was never an end to slavery, just an end to legal slavery in certain countries.

 

[Finchbearer]

I didn’t know that about POW’s - makes sense. When I think of slavery historically I do instantly think of women and children, sadly. I think we all know that slavery is a sensitive subject - perhaps the more fantastical or ancient the slave trade is the more freedom we have to write about it, because perhaps it’s far enough removed to talk about without much repercussion. Once we start writing about modern slavery then we do indeed need to have insight and empathy.

 

[Yaron P]

I didn’t know that about POW’s - makes sense. When I think of slavery historically I do instantly think of women and children, sadly. I think we all know that slavery is a sensitive subject - perhaps the more fantastical or ancient the slave trade is the more freedom we have to write about it, because perhaps it’s far enough removed to talk about without much repercussion. Once we start writing about modern slavery then we do indeed need to have insight and empathy.

I agree , it is a subject that needed to work with cautious

 

[pmmg]

My guess is, there is not a people on earth that has not at one time been slaves, and at another owned them. History is long, and slaves are not uncommon. As history moves forward, and peoples become more intergrated, slaves can come from further and further away.

Prisoner of war type slavery was kind of considered a mercy, cause the alternative was death....less merciful. For those types of slaves, I am not sure I would expect a permanent or especially cruel type market (not that they were not cruel). Chattel slavery would be more permanent, and was simply finding a group to be property, and not necessarily war prisoners. Criminals would probably get more cruelty, but not be common enough to make a market for.

A slave market for that I would think, would need....A port, a block or stage to present and sell them on, a warehouse to store (with cages), and a lot of mean people keeping them from acting up. There would also be a culture to support it, and maybe a culture that does not, and a it would likely be as awful as one can imagine.

I am not sure how to say, 'this is how you write it', I think they has to come somewhat from you. What do you imagine, and put it to paper.

 

[Queshire]

With prisoners of war I think there will be a big difference between if they're overseen by the military or not. Anything the military does to a prisoner of war they can expect others to do to their soldiers that have been taken as prisoners. That gives them an incentive to limit what's done to the prisoners (ideally.) However, imagine, I don't know? A Nazi soldier captured in WWII shipped off to work in a tire factory in America. I'd imagine they'd have a higher chance of tripping down some stairs or running into a doorknob as they say.