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The earliest example I know is from Sumer. That would be the earliest example of institutionalized slavery, because that's (one of) the earliest forms of urbanized civilization. However, what's the story gleaned from pre history, can we give a date for when the targeted raid with the explicit goal to subjugate foreigners starts to appear?

MCW
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vectory
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    Welcome to HistorySE, vectory! What has your research shown you so far? Where have you already searched? Please help us to help you. You might find it helpful to review the site [tour] and [help]. You may improve your question to comply with site guidelines with an [edit] and the help of [ask]. Thanks! – MCW Nov 27 '18 at 01:59
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    Very likely the answer is "prehistory". What kind of nontextual artifacts would indicate the emergence of slavery, let alone the first raid? – MCW Nov 27 '18 at 13:18
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    Can you define what slavery is in the context of the question? (E.g., does bride kidnapping count or not? This would have existed among hunter gatherers; perhaps not in general, but in some cases.) Perhaps the reason for your earliest example being Sumer is that the Sumerians were among the first cultures to have written records. How would you know about a concept of slavery among prehistoric peoples of they did not write down their laws and culture in connection to this concept? – 0range Nov 27 '18 at 16:45
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    See also Is it true that slavery was endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa previous to the establishment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade? – sds Nov 27 '18 at 21:18
  • The official answer is, slavery (any work involving involuntary workers) is as old as time. It is an ugly past of the collective human experience. But fortunately, we are the first to be enlightened enough to understand and to fix it. Praised be to us. Now go and sleep soundly at night! – sofa general Nov 28 '18 at 18:17
  • @0range I asked my question to find answers to those questions as you frame them. For sake of an answer, its free for interpretation. The defining feature is "stealing" in my mind, yes, more so than how the subjugated ends up anyhow, although interfamiliar servitude is not unprecedented. That said, plain take-no-prisoners fights do not count, but waiting for harvest to be done before attacking, or demanding tribute, could be of interest. I tried to argue that slavery was stone old, in reference to proto-language exchange but couldn't back up the claim. Therefore, please define proto-slavery! – vectory Dec 11 '18 at 01:15
  • @vectory This would make the question extremely broad and any answer primarily opinion based. Such questions are, in turn, considered off topic on H:SE and for good reason. – 0range Dec 11 '18 at 13:04
  • The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. – MCW Aug 08 '20 at 23:25
  • I havent read it, but James Scott "against the grain" goes into the early history of agriculture and I think one of his claim is that early rulers would abduct neighbors to keep, not exactly as slaves but as subjects - avenue for research, and also worth considering in finding a definition of slavery – mart Aug 11 '20 at 05:36
  • When was marriage invented? :) :) :) – End Anti-Semitic Hate Feb 05 '21 at 01:58

2 Answers2

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Slavery became only possible when people got the means to keep slaves, which was after the neolithic revolution. Slaves need feeding, some care, they need to be properly locked up and guarded. That's a pretty big resource drain for hunter-gatherers.

Of course hunter-gatherers had plenty of nasty/dangerous jobs they'd love to give to slaves. But they lacked the means to do it. When people started to settle down and became agriculturalists they got the capacity to keep slaves.

This is in a nutshell what Guns, Germs and Steel goes into with much more detail.

@T.E.D.: herding societies are pastoralists. They have -usually- less resources, consequentially have less resources to keep slaves. Doesn't say that they didn't keep slaves. They kept less slaves because they lacked the resources to keep more.

Jos
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  • According to one theory slavery was necessary for the neolithic revolution as early farming gave less food for the work than hunting and gathering. – liftarn Nov 27 '18 at 10:10
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    That didn't answer the Q directly. A rope, e.g., hinders runaways effectively. Agriculture starts 9 kya ago at the latest. I'm not even talking about field workers. Cultures accosiated with Venus figurines had permanent cave dwellings 30 kya. It's hard to imagine a jump from nothing to sacrificing dozents in burials. Cattle raids and bride stealing correlate at least in bride pricing. Of course primitive exploits have to look a bit different. – vectory Nov 27 '18 at 10:58
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    Sources would improve this answer. – MCW Nov 27 '18 at 11:47
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    I believe there are examples of pre agricultural slave holding societies in the Americas, and possibly in Arabia. – MCW Nov 27 '18 at 13:20
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    Herding societies may not be "agricultural" by some standards, but they are still Neolithic or later. – T.E.D. Nov 27 '18 at 14:33
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It all depends on how you define slavery.

If by slavery you mean, prisoners with jobs. Then I am sure it predated history and global.

But if by slavery you mean, people are treated as livestock, bred like livestock, sold like livestock, and even their offsprings are slave.... then that is actually a tradition that is certainly not global. That kind of slavery seems to be a mostly Mediterranean and Middle Eastern tradition. And it seems the justification of such practices was generally based on religious principles....

sofa general
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    Sources would improve this answer. – MCW Nov 28 '18 at 15:50
  • What kind of sources would you need? – sofa general Nov 28 '18 at 15:51
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    Any source at all. – MCW Nov 28 '18 at 15:52
  • The livestock slavery history of the pharaohs and the abrhamic religions is well documented. Any grade school history book is full of it. And the same is absent (because it didn't happen) outside of those regions. (so no record of it) To this day, slavery apologists, culture/religion equalizers, history whitewashers, are still try to confuse the issue by broadening the definition of slavery to pretty much anything that involved harsh working conditions, and involuntary services. But that doesn't change anything, doesn't confuse anyone. It only exposes that person for what he/she is. – sofa general Nov 28 '18 at 15:54
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    You might be interested in the history of slavery in China, particularly the Shang dynasty of the second millennium BCE, which is neither a Mediterranean nor a Middle Eastern culture. – sempaiscuba Nov 28 '18 at 16:25
  • You might want to list some sources. You know it is hard to have livestock slaves without owning god. you need to have a god to tell you that those other guys are not even humans to make them livestock. (look at ISIS today... they have slaves and they own a god.)... We want to say child labor is slavery too, to equalize and whitewash the past. but history shows, god owning is the key to live stock slavery. – sofa general Nov 28 '18 at 16:26
  • God owning is a strange practice. Running around saying "god chose us" "god (allah) akbar( good)" "god gave us this" "god gave us that" ... Isn't it just so convenient that god never gave any non-god-owners anything. god never chose anyone else? And god only gives the god owners the rights to do whatever they want to the non-god owners? A true god, one would imagine might choose someone else that isn't us... or give stuff to people who aren't us. Hence, god owning religious beliefs is the root of livestock slavery. If you need proof just look at ISIS. They are still doing it. – sofa general Nov 28 '18 at 16:48
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    Shang Dynasty slavery sources? Certainly: Superficially, you have Wikipedia, obviously. For more detail, you could look up David N Keightley's PhD thesis, Public work in ancient China : a study of forced labor in the Shang and Western Chou, and - of course - there is the 4 volume Critical Readings on Global Slavery (esp pp 504–552) – sempaiscuba Nov 28 '18 at 23:30
  • Further, your view of slavery in Pharaonic Egypt seems rather outdated. While slavery certainly existed from at least the New Kingdom, the mass 'livestock slavery' concept you describe is not supported by the evidence. Perhaps those grade school history books should be replaced by Wikipedia, which does cite its sources. – sempaiscuba Nov 28 '18 at 23:39
  • Prisoners with job slavery is a global phenomenon. In fact prisoners without job is the invention of an advanced society. Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep 1 person incarcerated in a first world country? But livestock slavery is a uniquely roman-abrahamic tradition. Whether the egyptians should be included in the livestock slavery column or not, no one would ever fully know (we don't even know how they built the pyramid, why would we know how they paid for the labor?). But given that the egyptian gave rise to the other civilizations in the region, it is a reasonable guess. – sofa general Nov 29 '18 at 15:43
  • Slave trading. Slave markets. Slave breeding to produce more slaves (with desirable traits). These are things common, legal, and normal, only in certain parts of the world. So normal, in fact it only recently ended in some areas. It is still going on in parts of the world controlled by ISIS and other like minded groups. And does it matter what some whitewashing equalizers say here or anywhere else? It is pretty obvious who is still suffering the karmaric effects of these abhorrent practices. And more whitewashing will just perpetuate it. – sofa general Nov 29 '18 at 16:00