Slavery

Slavery is the practice of enslaving people, i.e. against their will and treated as property, to perform a variety of tasks without the owner of said person needing to give them compensation for their work. It is a seldom-debated topic in Drakonius, as it is seen as an unlawful and dehumanizing system in most parts of the world. All powers on Andoras outright ban slavery, prohibiting the auction, purchase, or transaction of people. Most of Doras Edrossi also does not practice it, but it is not technically illegal by most definitions. The only places that still openly practice slavery in 350 AC are the City-State of Thysia and the Village Territory of Folthysland, the latter being a colony of Thysian extremists who still follow the principles of Folthys Dimaeron, who believed in Edrossian superiority and Zaentovi inferiority. Folthysland has the most slaves per capita, but Thysia has more slaves overall.

Most slaves today are Zaentovi; it is very rare or even impossible to find a Drakonian or Edrossian slave in the modern era; however, this is not to say they never existed. Edrossian, Zaentovi and Drakonian slave alike populated the slave pool during the latter days of the Drakonian Empire, leading up until the Gladiator War when most of them revolted against Drakonia and eventually won, freeing all of Drakonia's state-owned slaves and crippling its economy, which later set the stage that led to the Dragon War, ultimately destroying the Empire and its thousands-year legacy.

Background

Early days of slave practice

Slavery as a practice in Drakonius started as early as the earliest traces of civilization, perhaps as old as humanity itself. Tribes would capture strong men and instead of executing them, one tribe whose name is lost to time had the idea of having them work for them, and if they refused, to also capture their family or kill them outright.

Slaves started out as being prisoners of war or men held for ransom, but as commerce progressed and trading livestock ceased to be an acceptable form of currency, slaves began to be bought. The strongest slaves would be worth the most, who could till fields for hours without tiring.

6th century BC; Gladiator's War and temporary death of slavery

Meanwhile, in Doras Edrossi, from the First Era up until about 550 BC, slavery was a booming practice that mostly rich farmers and crop tycoons would employ, but slaves were also used in pitfighting, theatre plays, gladiator battles, local amusement, and ridicule. A slave named Senzesuole, who was a gladiator and pitfighter of some renown, started a revolt that would ravage the slave trade forever and temporarily end slavery in Doras Edrossi proper for centuries. It was at this point that many slaves become racially divided from the Drakonians as well, with Zaentovi being the primary race of choice for slaves, as the Drakonians saw them as being beneath them.

In 548 BC, a slave revolt of some renown, known as the Gladiator War, broke out throughout the Drakonian Empire. It ended in 531 BC after a decisive, but pyrrhic victory, on the part of the slaves, who won their freedom, but lost almost 90% of their brethren in the fight, and in some parts of the empire, slavery continued to persist.

It is said that the slave armada started out 30 million strong, but a measly 100,000 men escaped the war alive. Drakonia, devastated without slaves to work their dragonsteel smithies and their massive crop business, descended into anarchy and two sides began to form; those who seeked to defend Drakonia and stick it out until the bitter end, and those who wanted the city-states to become independent, as they were millennia before. This conflict became known as the Dragon Wars, and it was a 3-decade long conflict that ended the Sixth Era and completely charred the Drakonian Peninsula and the city of Drakonia to the point where it was completely inhabitable. In a way, the loss of the slaves were what caused Drakonia to collapse so rapidly; they had depended on the slave work so much that without them, the infrastructure collapsed.

From the collapse of Drakonia to present day

Today, slavery persists, but in a drastically reduced form. In the early first century AC, Folthys Dimaeron, then the Magister of Thysia, led the First Thysian Campaign against the Zaentovi beginning in 83 BC, invading their territory and returning with Zaentovi prisoners, which consisted at times of entire armies. These slaves, which were seen as inferior and much propaganda was created by Dimaeron in order to push the agenda that the Zaentovi and Haajidi were lesser beings which were only worthy of manual slave labor. Although Folthys Dimaeron died 12 years after his initial campaign and never got to led a second, his followers, who were attracted to his assertive and tenacious manner of thought, led on Thysia's legacy as a slaver city-state for centuries. In 233 AC, Dormar Grunthys, the Magister of Thysia at the time, had led a successful 'nature expedition' to the north, and returned with a tribe full of Zaentovi. Instantly disregarded as 'childhood fantasy rubbish' by his peers, there were no official laws established against slavery, so Dormar went back the next month and captured more, and soon enough he had established a plantation on his own homestead, full of Zaentovi slaves working the fields. He cared little for what others thought, and instead relished in the increased commerce he received from not having to pay his workers in anything but meager sustenance.

While unpopular in Andoras and neutral in its stance on Doras Edrossi, Thysia remains the only city-state, and perhaps nation, to practice slavery and famously retrieved most of its 300,000+ slave force from Zaentovi survivors and prisoners of war left behind after the third War of Woods. As of present day, at least 15% of the population of Thysia consists of slaves.

Speculation

Worth discussing at a Dealing?

Slavery has never been a major topic at a Dealing except in 315 AC, when it was brought up that almost immediately after the Dealing of 310, Thysia had gone out and captured nearly an entire army of retreating Zaentovi to be put to work as slaves. The issue was given an 'indeterminate' stance by the Dealing Council and so it was left undiscussed. Slavery could potentially be a topic in a future Dealing, although stances are unlikely to change on it this generation until a potential major event that changes the majority's opinion occurs in the near future.