Killing Slavers

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Eh, the general historical pattern is "it's wrong to enslave people like me", with varying definitions of 'like me'.

This accurately describes the situation. Even the Greeks, who were some of the most enlightened thinkers of the Ancient World (arguably, the most enlightened), forthrightly stated that anybody not a Greek would have much better lives as slaves to Greeks.

...Except the Helots, of course. Most Greeks accepted that Helots deserved to be slaves. However, that probably came out of a sheer pragmatic desire to avoid starting a war with the bad-ass designated winners in Sparta.

[Black Leviathan]

I don't necessarily appreciate how mature my characters are about this topic. We've played games about being involved in the slaver industry and we've played games where characters were analogues of 1860's freed slaves. My players generally have characters who's outlook reflects the game world or when they contrast it it is played as an unpopular obsession. They understand that even if their characters find the facts of slavery hard to swallow there are consequences to upsetting the apple-cart of slave labor in an economy

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

I don't necessarily appreciate how mature my characters are about this topic. We've played games about being involved in the slaver industry and we've played games where characters were analogues of 1860's freed slaves. My players generally have characters who's outlook reflects the game world or when they contrast it it is played as an unpopular obsession. They understand that even if their characters find the facts of slavery hard to swallow there are consequences to upsetting the apple-cart of slave labor in an economy

You have good players ... assuming they're not finding some other way to be annoying.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by ericthered

In a recent game we had a roman praetor free and marry his former slave. The scandal was a big deal, but not campaign disrupting).

Originally Posted by malloyd

Is that historically possible? I don't think freedmen were permitted to marry free born citizens until Justinian - and I'm not sure they could *ever* have obtained the right of connubium required to marry those of old Latin status, which would've been required to stand for the office of praetor, right?

Possible?

In the 150s BCE, Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder) freed Salonia, his young slave, in order to marry her. Cato had not merely been a Praetor, he had been Consul.

And because of Cato the Elder's second marriage, to his former slave Salonia, his grandson and namesake, Caesar's famous foe, Marcus Porcius Cato Salonius, probably better known as Cato the Younger, was able to be born. The grandson of a former slave and in his lifetime, also became Praetor.

Not merely historically possible, but actually happened.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Eh, the general historical pattern is "it's wrong to enslave people like me", with varying definitions of 'like me'.

Most people historically have defined morality as "People like me." Even Mafioso have that part of it down pat, probably to much.

Enslaving people like me is an insult to every person like me. Why do you think Rome reacted that way about Lady Lucretia? She was treated as a slave by a foreigner and just to start with that implied that all Romans were slaves.

[Black Leviathan]

In one of our most popular settings there's a major guild that engages in slave trade. The horribleness of that ranges from involuntary career placement for professionals that are needed somewhere else to manacles and cages sold-on-a-pedestal slave trade. The problem is that this is a cultural practice in the game world and this guild is multi-faceted. They're the same guild that builds large buildings or rents mercenary soldiers, or knows how to mine resources or delivers the mail on some worlds. "Chainers" are despised even within the guild but they're a necessary evil in a feudal universe with high populations and very little technology.

I've had players who've fought against chainers, I've had players who've reluctantly sold people to chainers, I've had players who solved problems by selling people to chainers, I ran a pretty successful solo campaign where the player played a chainer.

I think the reaction people have to slavery depends a lot on the context and who the slave is. If slavers are taking a highly skilled doctor to a remote island where disease is wiping out the population, maybe they're not so evil. If they're taking you to work in a casino ship as a circus whore.. yeah you're going to shiv them.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Before the Civil War, there were significant numbers of black people who risked their lives to leave the plantations and travel to the North or to Canada to lived in freedom. The traffic in the other direction was negiigible. . .

I don't have the reference in front of me but I have seen historical work that contends that the "slave-catchers" of the South, working in the North, caught lots of African-Americans. Apparently even free Blacks, born in the North, were kidnapped, hauled South, and declared slaves by southern courts.

Oddly enough, even Caucasian children, poor & with a heavy tan, were adjudged Black and declared slaves.

Apparently this traffic (total) exceeded the numbers of Black slaves who escaped North.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

I don't have the reference in front of me but I have seen historical work that contends that the "slave-catchers" of the South, working in the North, caught lots of African-Americans. Apparently even free Blacks, born in the North, were kidnapped, hauled South, and declared slaves by southern courts.

Oddly enough, even Caucasian children, poor & with a heavy tan, were adjudged Black and declared slaves.

Apparently this traffic (total) exceeded the numbers of Black slaves who escaped North.

Even seen sources that agree with everything but the last statement, which I cannot confirm or refute.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Oddly enough, even Caucasian children, poor & with a heavy tan, were adjudged Black and declared slaves.

Well, under that 'one drop' 'logic', they were obviously Black...

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Well, under that 'one drop' 'logic', they were obviously Black...

Has anyone perhaps figured out how to filter black blood and white blood? And what is the precise quantity of a "drop"?