A question of mine about the Free Cities slave trade

[Guest]

To what extent do the Free Cities engage in any hands on slave raiding? Or do they mostly stick to importing slaves from the Dothraki and Slaver's Bay, enslaving criminals and those in debts, and the impoverished selling themselves to escape poverty?

[Rhaenyra's Fool]

43 minutes ago, Otherdude said:

do they mostly stick to importing slaves from the Dothraki and Slaver's Bay, enslaving criminals and those in debts, and the impoverished selling themselves to escape poverty?

I think all of these are the main sources for slaves in the Free Cities. Two additional sources: when a Free City goes to war I'm sure I've read a reference to selling captives as slaves (maybe in Fire and Blood in the Daughters War?) Additionally, a smaller source of slaves is probably also citizens of the Free Cities like Racallio Ryndoon and Salladhor Saan (pirates) capturing people on their "adventures" and enslaving them. Aside from that I don't think the Free Cities run their own slave raids.

The one exception is when the Kingdom of the Three Daughters (Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh) take control of the Stepstones. They begin charging taxes/duties on ships passing through and the Lyseni also take pretty girls and boys to enslave in their pleasure houses. I don't think this is indicative of general behaviour, though, because I think the ship captains had begun to drift towards piracy by this point. 

[BlackDragon98]

The Free Cities have slavers but their activities are never supported by the governments of the Free Cities. An example from the books are the enslaved wildlings from Hardhome. I guess one could count that as a slave raid IMO.