Sanctuary Slavery

This article expresses the opinion of an individual or group within the game world, and may not be entirely factual, or free of bias.

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.

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 commonly permitted. Through these and other methods, it is common for a lord to have a ready source of free labour. It is also not commonly known that slavery is illegal in Ranke, which includes Sanctuary.

The Opportunity

While outlawing slavery is morally just and beneficent, 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 a mobile labour force. 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 both fieldwork 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 when accusations of slavery are made - 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 the open labour market 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 a contractually-bound labour force. Again, the workers on the land are treated no worse than serfs, except that they have a higher degree of social mobility. The son of a field labourer may become a bookkeeper, or bodyguard, and they always have an opportunity to buy or win their contract. The hope of advancement inherent in the system of contractual labour 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 service 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. Contractual labour, 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 service is equally prepared to leave them in a ditch. Bonded service is merely a form of enforced exile, from which several people have famously returned and wreaked their revenge.

The Children of Labourers

Due to the variable-length contracts in the labour market, most children born into service are not automatically contracted themselves, although contracts are usually offered when they reach their majority. 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 an open labour market forces multiple generations into a life of denigration and abuse. However, the continual requirement for new workers throughout the baronies is a testament to the temporary nature of the lifestyle, as each contract bought correlates to another who has sought 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-raising 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. Yet Sanctuary does not stand opposed to the Western Church, or indeed any church; as explained above, Sanctuary neither condones nor practices slavery.

Summary

While not necessarily the most fashionable trade in the world, maintaining a flexible labour market 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.