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How come there are no slave revolts in the Free Cities?


Vaedys Targaryen

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In the books, we see that since Dany is coming, slaves in Volantis are beginning to rise up. While that is good, how come the slaves of all of the Free Cities have never risen up until now?

Slaves outnumber free people 3-1 in Lys, Myr and Tyrosh, and 5-1 in Volantis. These cities also have no real armies, as they rely on mercenaries, who are famously disloyal, and slave soldiers who can absolutely betray them if they would simply choose to. This makes the free people, te masters especially, of these cities basically sitting ducks.

But how come there have been no slave revolts in any of the Free Cities? Why do they only choose to fight back now that Daenerys is beginning to free slaves in Slaver's Bay, and not any time earlier?

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7 hours ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

But how come there have been no slave revolts in any of the Free Cities? Why do they only choose to fight back now that Daenerys is beginning to free slaves in Slaver's Bay, and not any time earlier?

I'd be surprised if there were never any slave revolts in the Free Cities. However, as we know from history, slave revolts have very rarely been successful. I can think of only one - in Haiti - where a slave revolt won and the slaves set up their own society.

There's lots of theories as to why that is, but the most convincing one for me is that while most slaves might be united in wanting their freedom, they rarely would have any idea what sort of system to put in its place (interestingly, Astapor is an in-world example of this problem). Most slaves will either have been born into slavery, and know nothing else, or captured from more primitive societies and have little knowledge of how to run things in a city like Volantis.

If you look at the Spartacus Revolt, they won victory after victory, but didn't really know what to do with it. Eventually they settled on a plan just to leave Italy. The idea of overturning the entire system of slavery and installing themselves in power never occurred to them.

What Dany provides is not only dragons and an army, but a ready-made ruler to install once they're free.

Added to all that, most people would much rather be set free by a liberator than liberate themselves. Being slaves their powerlessness is proven to them every day, the concept of them being able to free themselves would be completely alien to them. Someone coming along and striking their chains off for them might seem like their best hope.

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1 hour ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I'd be surprised if there were never any slave revolts in the Free Cities. However, as we know from history, slave revolts have very rarely been successful. I can think of only one - in Haiti - where a slave revolt won and the slaves set up their own society.

The Mamluks were pretty badass- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate_(Cairo) Though that's the Eastern type of slave where they can actually be quite high class anyway. I'm also pretty sure they didn't actually abolish slavery. 

Slavers in the real world, and I think we've had indications in the story too, have lots of ways of preventing slave revolt. Splitting people up and mixing cultures and languages makes organisation very difficult. 

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1 hour ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I'd be surprised if there were never any slave revolts in the Free Cities. However, as we know from history, slave revolts have very rarely been successful. I can think of only one - in Haiti - where a slave revolt won and the slaves set up their own society.

There's lots of theories as to why that is, but the most convincing one for me is that while most slaves might be united in wanting their freedom, they rarely would have any idea what sort of system to put in its place (interestingly, Astapor is an in-world example of this problem). Most slaves will either have been born into slavery, and know nothing else, or captured from more primitive societies and have little knowledge of how to run things in a city like Volantis.

If you look at the Spartacus Revolt, they won victory after victory, but didn't really know what to do with it. Eventually they settled on a plan just to leave Italy. The idea of overturning the entire system of slavery and installing themselves in power never occurred to them.

What Dany provides is not only dragons and an army, but a ready-made ruler to install once they're free.

Added to all that, most people would much rather be set free by a liberator than liberate themselves. Being slaves their powerlessness is proven to them every day, the concept of them being able to free themselves would be completely alien to them. Someone coming along and striking their chains off for them might seem like their best hope.

Well said.

Also, it is not clear that "slaves are united in wanting freedom", which is a big problem.

"Ghazdor's collar," the old man boasted. "Known him since we was born. I'm almost like a brother to him. Slaves like you, sweepings out of Astapor and Yunkai, you whine about being free, but I wouldn't give the dragon queen my collar if she offered to suck my cock for it. Man has the right master, that's better."

Tyrion did not dispute him. The most insidious thing about bondage was how easy it was to grow accustomed to it. The life of most slaves was not all that different from the life of a serving man at Casterly Rock, it seemed to him. True, some slaveowners and their overseers were brutal and cruel, but the same was true of some Westerosi lords and their stewards and bailiffs. Most of the Yunkai'i treated their chattels decently enough, so long as they did their jobs and caused no trouble … and this old man in his rusted collar, with his fierce loyalty to Lord Wobblecheeks, his owner, was not at all atypical." - Tyrion XI, ADWD

 

"The slave soldiers of Volantis were fiercely proud of their tiger stripes, Tyrion knew. Do they yearn for freedom? he wondered." - Tyrion VI, ADWD

 

"Goghor speaks for us all." The Spotted Cat wore a leopard skin across one shoulder. "The last time I was sold, the price was three hundred thousand honors. When I was a slave, I slept on furs and ate red meat off the bone. Now that I'm free, I sleep on straw and eat salt fish, when I can get it." - Daenerys II, ADWD

 

I'd speculate, that slave revolts are more or less common. Some slaves working in that mine or on that farm, revolt, escape, some get caught and are killed or tortured, others get their freedom, but never a revolt threaten the system or achieve something permanent.

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

The Mamluks were pretty badass- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate_(Cairo) Though that's the Eastern type of slave where they can actually be quite high class anyway. I'm also pretty sure they didn't actually abolish slavery. 

Fair point about the Mameluks. That was a situation where the military, right up to the general officers, were all slaves. Therefore they had the apparatus (the army) to seize power and simply take over the already existing structures. Still the point stands.

It’d be different for a general slave popular uprising, as they would have little to no organisation whatsoever.

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15 hours ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

But how come there have been no slave revolts in any of the Free Cities? Why do they only choose to fight back now that Daenerys is beginning to free slaves in Slaver's Bay, and not any time earlier?

Rebelling against professional killers without real weapons would be a suicide. After all most of those slaves could have chosen to die instead of living as a slave. Or they rather live than die. But with coming of a Dragonlady slaves chances to survive and beat their old masters are much better.

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^This. What attempts at uprising there may have been in the past, were probably swiftly - and brutally - crushed. Not having the infrastructure, leadership and organisation will leave the slaves in a bit of a complacent state. After all, if the slaves of Yunkai were to revolt, what's supposed to happen? They likely can't run the city themselves, and it's the only home most of them have ever known. The other cities would definitely boycott trade with uppity slaves, if they didn't just march in and snatch themselves some new slaves, if only to execute them lest their own slaves got ideas. The only reason the "emancipation" happens now is the arrival of an outside force with the military strength to prevent retaliation from the various flavors of Masters in Slaver's Bay. Even then, we see the freedmen mostly unwilling/unable to govern themselves, becoming easy prey to re-enslavement and even becoming slaves themselves.

Sidenote: Slave revolts in ancient Rome/Greece were pretty much never based in opposition to the institution of slavery. The slaves were merely against *being* slaves, as opposed to *owning* slaves. As far as we can see, the slave uprisings of antiquity never actually had an issue with the concept of slavery itself.

 

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8 hours ago, James Fenimore Cooper XXII said:

The masters would understandably avoid admitting this in public because they don't want other slaves to get inspired.

Why would the Maesters care? There's no slaves in Westros, and the institution is considered wrong.

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On 10/4/2018 at 2:31 AM, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Why would the Maesters care? There's no slaves in Westros, and the institution is considered wrong.

Masters, not maesters. Darn confusing terminology.

We know that Braavos was formed by escaped slaves, and that the Faceless Men arose among slaves, initially giving each other the gift of death until they started taking payments to kill masters. It's speculated that they caused the doom of Valyria. Like others mentioned, slave revolts weren't often very successful in our world's history. But the proportion of slaves in real societies typically wasn't as high as some of the numbers in the Free Cities, and they usually weren't used to provide armies (except in cases like the Janissaries, who were given as tribute and raised to be a military caste but not themselves up for re-sale afterward).

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On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 3:54 AM, FictionIsntReal said:

Like others mentioned, slave revolts weren't often very successful in our world's history. But the proportion of slaves in real societies typically wasn't as high as some of the numbers in the Free Cities, and they usually weren't used to provide armies (except in cases like the Janissaries, who were given as tribute and raised to be a military caste but not themselves up for re-sale afterward).

There are quite a few examples of slave soldiers as it goes. The Mamluks have already been mentioned. The Chela in India. The Ghilman in the Middle East. I think there are others.

I don’t know about the slave-master ratio in all ancient and Middle Eastern societies, but the Free Cities don’t strike me as being wildly out of proportion with slave-based societies in our world.

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Slave revolts is part of slavery.  It happened and it happens.  We are not told in the text but it happens.  

On 10/3/2018 at 6:36 PM, James Fenimore Cooper XXII said:

You can be sure there were slave revolts.  None succeeded.  The masters would understandably avoid admitting this in public because they don't want other slaves to get inspired.  They happened several thousands of years before CNN and the internet came along.  

 

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On 10/2/2018 at 7:27 PM, Vaedys Targaryen said:

In the books, we see that since Dany is coming, slaves in Volantis are beginning to rise up. While that is good, how come the slaves of all of the Free Cities have never risen up until now?

Slaves outnumber free people 3-1 in Lys, Myr and Tyrosh, and 5-1 in Volantis. These cities also have no real armies, as they rely on mercenaries, who are famously disloyal, and slave soldiers who can absolutely betray them if they would simply choose to. This makes the free people, te masters especially, of these cities basically sitting ducks.

But how come there have been no slave revolts in any of the Free Cities? Why do they only choose to fight back now that Daenerys is beginning to free slaves in Slaver's Bay, and not any time earlier?

None that succeeded.  They now see light at the end of the tunnel.  Hope.  She is somebody whom they can unite around while fighting for freedom.  There have been leaders before but these guys were slaves.  Slaves leading the slaves against their masters.  This is a different matter this time.  This is the first time in history in which a person of such lofty background and credentials have shown sincere interest in helping the slaves.  Mhysa is for real.  

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