When was slavery outlawed in Westeros?

[Mithras]

I think this is an important question.

Andals were slavers in Essos. Even as slowly invading the Vale, they were practicing slavery.

Dywen Shell and Jon Brightstone, both of whom claimed the title King of the Fingers, went so far as to pay Andal warlords to cross the sea, each thinking to use their swords against the other. Instead the warlords turned upon their hosts. Within a year Brightstone had been taken, tortured, and beheaded, and Shell roasted alive inside his wooden longhall. An Andal knight named Corwyn Corbray took the daughter of the former for his bride and the wife of the latter for his bedwarmer, and claimed the Fingers for his own (though Corbray, unlike many of his fellows, never named himself a king, preferring the more modest style of Lord of the Five Fingers).

The First Men practiced thralldom, which is quite different than chattel slavery.

Thralldom was a common practice amongst the First Men during their long dominion over Westeros— further support for the ironborn having descended from the First Men.

Further, thralldom should not be conflated with chattel slavery as it exists in certain of the Free Cities and lands farther east. Unlike slaves, thralls retain certain important rights. A thrall belongs to his captor, and owes him service and obedience, but he is still a man, not property. Thralls cannot be bought or sold. They may own property, marry as they wish, have children. The children of slaves are born into bondage, but the children of thralls are born free; any babe born on one of the islands is considered ironborn, even when both his parents are thralls. Nor may such children be taken from their parents until the age of seven, when most begin an apprenticeship or join a ship’s crew.

However, we know for certain that the First Men abandoned the practice of thralldom at some point.

The Gardeners and the Hightowers were the first to cease paying tribute. When King Theon III Greyjoy sailed against them, he was defeated and slain by Lord Lymond Hightower, the Sea Lion, who revived the practice of thralldom in Oldtown just long enough to set the ironmen captured during the battle to hard labor strengthening the city’s walls.

This last event was most probably during the pre-Andal period, which means the practice of thralldom was abandoned by most of the First Men before the Andals arrived. So, the slaving Andals came to Westeros and in time, they took the local customs of the First Men.

[Reginald blackfield]

It was probably the absorbing of first men into Andal culture which caused slavering to become a taboo.

[Mithras]

Actually, the First Men (except the ironborn) abandoned thralldom long before the Andals came. When Andals came, they were slavers but apparently, they abandoned slavery in Westeros.

[Reginald blackfield]

Actually, the First Men (except the ironborn) abandoned thralldom long before the Andals came. When Andals came, they were slavers but apparently, they abandoned slavery in Westeros.

No,no you misunderstand me, I mean that elements of Andal culture entered due to influence from First men who were eventually Andalised.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Why do you assume the Andals to be slavers? Because one guy raped some women? That's not slavery, that is just plain old rape.

[Bronn Urgandy]

Why do you assume the Andals to be slavers? Because one guy raped some women? That's not slavery, that is just plain old rape.

A practice that hasn't exactly been given up in Westeros

[Bright Blue Eyes]

A practice that hasn't exactly been given up in Westeros

My point.

[Bronn Urgandy]

My point.

Sorry, I enjoy unnecessary elaboration. Must be the German in me.

[Mithras]

I am pretty sure that I read Andals attacking and enslaving people in Essos. I am trying to find that quote in TWOIAF.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Sorry, I enjoy unnecessary elaboration. Must be the German in me.

Tja, so isses.

[Poppa Chase]

I'm pretty sure Harren the Black had slaves. Could be wrong though.

[Lord Varys]

I don't think there is a line suggesting that Andals ever were slavers. The bedwarmer thing is just that, and it is still been done by pretty much any noble in Westeros.

But I'd put forth a case that 'thralldom' was not always different from slavery. Present-day thralls may have some rights, but I'd be really surprised if that was the case back before the Andals came (or before the Targaryen Conquest). The main reason why thralldom never developed into refined slavery would be that the rulers of Westeros were nothing but a feudal-based, essentially rural society of barbaric primitives which did not know or develop the city-states and great civilized empires like the cultures of Essos.

[Mithras]

I don't think there is a line suggesting that Andals ever were slavers.

Even before the coming of the Andals, the Wolf’s Den had been raised by King Jon Stark, built to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders and slavers from across the narrow sea (some scholars suggest these were early Andal incursions, whilst others argue they were the forebears of the men of Ib, or even slavers out of Valyria and Volantis).

There are indeed lines suggesting that Andals might be slavers in Essos. This was not the quote I was talking about though. I remember Andals taking slaves in Ib or Lorath. I am searching now.

[Lord Varys]

The quote you gave us right gives us two things 'raiders' and 'slavers'. The Andals would have been the former, the Valyrians and Volantenes the latter.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Even before the coming of the Andals, the Wolf’s Den had been raised by King Jon Stark, built to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders and slavers from across the narrow sea (some scholars suggest these were early Andal incursions, whilst others argue they were the forebears of the men of Ib, or even slavers out of Valyria and Volantis).

There are indeed lines suggesting that Andals might be slavers in Essos. This was not the quote I was talking about though. I remember Andals taking slaves in Ib or Lorath. I am searching now.

Sorry, but that's a damn weak excuse for a hint.

[David Selig]

25th of May, Year 1456 before Aegon's landing.

Any other questions?

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Thralldom is slavery. The difference is just semantics. The book is trying to tell themselves apart from those who practised slavery without actually being insulting. "Oh, they did it, not us... but it wasn't that bad!".

The Targaryen arrived to Westeros with their slaves, I don't see why the Andals wouldn't and kept them despite the customs in Westeros, just like the Boltons and the First Night. The book just doesn't want to admit it. That's what many historians do. Do you think there are many books around here admitting that the Incas or Aztecs treated their slaves and prisoners worst than the Spanish conquerors were to them when they slaved them?