Are the Ghiscari an Ethnic Minority

[Corvo the Crow]

We know that slaves outnumber free men in many cities in Essos, such as Lys, Myr and Tyrosh having three slaves for every freeborn

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In history, culture, custom, language, and religion, these three cities have more in common with one another than with any of the other Free Cities. They are mercantile cities, protected by high walls and hired sellswords, dominated by wealth rather than birth, cities where trade is considered a more honorable profession than arms. Lys and Myr are ruled by conclaves of magisters, chosen from amongst the wealthiest and noblest men of the city; Tyrosh is governed by an archon, selected from amongst the members of a similar conclave. All three are slave cities, where bondsmen outnumber the freeborn three to one. All are ports, and the salt sea is their life's blood. Like Valyria, their mother, these three daughters have no established faith. Temples and shrines to many different gods line their streets and crowd their waterfronts 

or Volantis having five slaves for every free man (note that it's not freeborn)

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Inside the Black Walls, Volantenes of the Old Blood still keep court in ancient palaces, attended by armies of slaves. Outside, the foreigners, freedmen, and lowborn of a hundred nations may be found. Seafarers and traders swarm the city's markets and harbors, together with slaves almost beyond count. It is said that in Volantis, there are five slaves for every free man—a disproportion in numbers matched only by the ancient Ghiscari cities of Slaver's Bay.

 

We know that cities of slaver's bay also have more slaves than free people, but from what we've seen so far and slavery being their main source of income , they obviously have a far higher ratio of slave to free men than any of the free cities at any given time so can we safely say that they form an ethic minority of sorts? 

[astarkchoice]

38 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

We know that slaves outnumber free men in many cities in Essos, such as Lys, Myr and Tyrosh having three slaves for every freeborn

or Volantis having five slaves for every free man (note that it's not freeborn)

 

We know that cities of slaver's bay also have more slaves than free people, but from what we've seen so far and slavery being their main source of income , they obviously have a far higher ratio of slave to free men than any of the free cities at any given time so can we safely say that they form an ethic minority of sorts? 

Hard to say as they themselves are supposedly mongrel race of the old ghicari and all their former slaves from all over

[Corvo the Crow]

1 minute ago, astarkchoice said:

Hard to say as they themselves are supposedly mongrel race of the old ghicari and all their former slaves from all over

They are supposedly a "mongrel race" but as opposed to the Braavosi who are also described as a "mongrel race", all of them share the same look. Even if they were a mongrel race, it has only to do with their genetics, it has nothing to do with them being an ethic group, many ethnic groups of our own world have quite mixed ancestry. Just to give some examples our own world, people of England (not Britain as a whole) are a mix of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes and the native Britonic people and to a much lesser extent "Danes" and Normans, in fact if I recall,Angles, Saxons and Jutes genetically made up at most about %35. Hungarians today are genetically closer to their Slavic and Germanic neighbours than the original migrators which themselves would be of mixed origin. South Slavic peoples are a mix of mostly the native peoples and the migrating Slavs and to a lesser extent others, such as the numerous Turkic groups that migrated to Bulgaria from Bulgars to Pechenegs and Cumans, perhaps also some Germanic peoples who may have remained. 

[astarkchoice]

42 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

They are supposedly a "mongrel race" but as opposed to the Braavosi who are also described as a "mongrel race", all of them share the same look. Even if they were a mongrel race, it has only to do with their genetics, it has nothing to do with them being an ethic group, many ethnic groups of our own world have quite mixed ancestry. Just to give some examples our own world, people of England (not Britain as a whole) are a mix of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes and the native Britonic people and to a much lesser extent "Danes" and Normans, in fact if I recall,Angles, Saxons and Jutes genetically made up at most about %35. Hungarians today are genetically closer to their Slavic and Germanic neighbours than the original migrators which themselves would be of mixed origin. South Slavic peoples are a mix of mostly the native peoples and the migrating Slavs and to a lesser extent others, such as the numerous Turkic groups that migrated to Bulgaria from Bulgars to Pechenegs and Cumans, perhaps also some Germanic peoples who may have remained. 

Yeah i suppose they are centuries removed from their ancestors.  So yeah def a minority.

Based on the planetos we know id expect a strong lhazareen % of population given they are the slavers easiest prey.   summer islanders would also make up a high % and to a lesser extent the naathi.

[Corvo the Crow]

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

Yeah i suppose they are centuries removed from their ancestors.  So yeah def a minority.

Based on the planetos we know id expect a strong lhazareen % of population given they are the slavers easiest prey.   summer islanders would also make up a high % and to a lesser extent the naathi.

Yes, I think Lhazareen and Naathi would make up a large percentage of all the slaves and therefore the entire population. Summer Islanders I’m not sure were we told of anything about them being made slaves in large numbers?

[Nathan Stark]

No.

[Corvo the Crow]

2 minutes ago, Nathan Stark said:

No.

State your reason perhaps?

[Craving Peaches]

I think they are in a situation similar to the Spartans - a minority in terms of numbers compared to the slaves/helots but they don't think of themselves as one because they don't 'count' the slaves as part of the group in the first place.

There might not be a 'majority' anyway as the slaves are from all over - we see Naathi slaves, Dothraki slaves, Lysene slaves, Lhazareen slaves etc. So population could look something like this: 30% Lhazareen, 20% Naathi, 15% Dothraki, 10% Lysene, 10% Ghiscari, 15% others; in which case there is no 'ethnic majority'.

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think they are in a situation similar to the Spartans - a minority in terms of numbers compared to the slaves/helots but they don't think of themselves as one because they don't 'count' the slaves as part of the group in the first place.

There might not be a 'majority' anyway as the slaves are from all over - we see Naathi slaves, Dothraki slaves, Lysene slaves, Lhazareen slaves etc. So population could look something like this: 30% Lhazareen, 20% Naathi, 15% Dothraki, 10% Lysene, 10% Ghiscari, 15% others; in which case there is no 'ethnic majority'.

That’s the best comparison.

The People of Sparta were the tiny number who were full citizens.

But in judging Sparta, we should consider the position of the typical inhabitant, who was a helot or dweller-around.

[Corvo the Crow]

56 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think they are in a situation similar to the Spartans - a minority in terms of numbers compared to the slaves/helots but they don't think of themselves as one because they don't 'count' the slaves as part of the group in the first place.

There might not be a 'majority' anyway as the slaves are from all over - we see Naathi slaves, Dothraki slaves, Lysene slaves, Lhazareen slaves etc. So population could look something like this: 30% Lhazareen, 20% Naathi, 15% Dothraki, 10% Lysene, 10% Ghiscari, 15% others; in which case there is no 'ethnic majority'.

Yes, I think this is a good guess and good of you to remind the Dothraki as different khalasars attack eachother and make slaves of eachother like Irri and Jhiqui who were daughters of a Khal no less. 

I really don’t want to extrapolate on the single overseer slave we saw but given Dothraki are from a violent culture that also engage in slavery and that they would generally be strong considering the harshness of their life would cull the weak, could it be possible that Dothraki make a good portion of the overseers? 

 

[astarkchoice]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Yes, I think Lhazareen and Naathi would make up a large percentage of all the slaves and therefore the entire population. Summer Islanders I’m not sure were we told of anything about them being made slaves in large numbers?

They fought wars to push slavers out and cerseis new master of ships raids one of their capitals, having limited steel i think they are raided often eventualy  fighting them off with their superior bows.

[Corvo the Crow]

3 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

They fought wars to push slavers out and cerseis new master of ships raids one of their capitals, having limited steel i think they are raided often eventualy  fighting them off with their superior bows.

Yes but Ghiscari live quite far off to the east,  selling them mostly to the western coast of Essos would make more sense.

[astarkchoice]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Yes but Ghiscari live quite far off to the east,  selling them mostly to the western coast of Essos would make more sense.

Yeah but the slaver cities.seem.to be where they are 'processed/trained '. It seems to be slaver pirates sre probably as big a source of slaves as the horselords.

The baslisk isles to the east of the summer isles are supposted to swarm with slaver corsairs.

Edited July 28, 2023 by astarkchoice

[Gilbert Green]

The elite are always a "minority".

[Corvo the Crow]

10 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

The elite are always a "minority".

Not all the Astapori/Meereenese/Yunkish are part of the slave trading elite though.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Not all the Astapori/Meereenese/Yunkish are part of the slave trading elite though.

The typical member of their society is a slave or freedman.

[astarkchoice]

21 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Yes, I think this is a good guess and good of you to remind the Dothraki as different khalasars attack eachother and make slaves of eachother like Irri and Jhiqui who were daughters of a Khal no less. 

I really don’t want to extrapolate on the single overseer slave we saw but given Dothraki are from a violent culture that also engage in slavery and that they would generally be strong considering the harshness of their life would cull the weak, could it be possible that Dothraki make a good portion of the overseers? 

 

They seem to be part of the overseers  ut then so could fellow slaves...a sort of caste system(like volantis) where the slave troopers actively assist supression of their fellow slaves (we see in volantis the tiger cloaks would normaly handle this but half are fire worshippers thus  the volantis old blood wanted to hire the golden company to wipe out the fire cult headquarters!!!) 

Now the ghiscari we do see still gave some strength themselves, the man who fights belwas is clearly a warrior hinting that maybe once upon a time all of ghiscari society freedmen probably fought in arenas as wee as waged war under in the ironp legions

We know in sparta some promising young men were slected to be the crypteia, a secret police culling  possible slave leaders and like them the ghiscari nobility do seem to organise their secret harpy  attacks quite quickly hinting they may have something similar. They also have assasin cults and professional gladiators to kill troublemakers (perhaps in quarth the wrarlock can forsee trouble/trouble makers and they terrify  f⅚

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

They seem to be part of the overseers  ut then so could fellow slaves...a sort of caste system(like volantis) where the slave troopers actively assist supression of their fellow slaves (we see in volantis the tiger cloaks would normaly handle this but half are fire worshippers thus  the volantis old blood wanted to hire the golden company to wipe out the fire cult headquarters!!!) 

Now the ghiscari we do see still gave some strength themselves, the man who fights belwas is clearly a warrior hinting that maybe once upon a time all of ghiscari society freedmen probably fought in arenas as wee as waged war under in the ironp legions

We know in sparta some promising young men were slected to be the crypteia, a secret police culling  possible slave leaders and like them the ghiscari nobility do seem to organise their secret harpy  attacks quite quickly hinting they may have something similar. They also have assasin cults and professional gladiators to kill troublemakers (perhaps in quarth the wrarlock can forsee trouble/trouble makers and they terrify  f⅚

FWIW, I think that the fierceness of the fighting for Meereen does suggest that there is a substantial body of citizen soldiers.  The Yunkish seem to rely wholly on slaves to do their fighting.

[astarkchoice]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

FWIW, I think that the fierceness of the fighting for Meereen does suggest that there is a substantial body of citizen soldiers.  The Yunkish seem to rely wholly on slaves to do their fighting.

Yeah in the 3 slaver cities (yunkai,astopor and mereen) its probably very few freedmen actualy fight/train .....id day its probably a hint of the decline of their culture when you look at new ghis by contrast. We can assume once upon a time many of their freedmen entered the arena too instead of a minority (esp as its tied to their religion) and all prepped for war and dis their time in the legions...but now sellswords, dothraki,slave gladiators, assasin cults, the brainwashed undullied  and  normal slave troops do all their fighting for them!...that and having new ghis across the water like a protective big brother  for the 3 main old  cities.

 

 

 

Side idea

As.all things in grmms world are tied to magic/gods etc you could argue the fact the ghiscari no longer water the arena with their own blood for their  gods is why their vast area dried up and is dying, that sacrificing slaves is no real sacrifice at all!!!

Edited July 29, 2023 by astarkchoice

[Lord Varys]

Ethnic or race concepts are silly in any case (just read up on the silly construction of 'hispanic' and 'latino' in the US in more recent times, not to mention the ridiculousness of identifying or being branded as 'caucasian').

No need to introduce such concepts into Martinworld. The few Ghiscari that are actually described are the inbred elite of the most powerful houses (they would marry only among each other and thus have a characteristic look that might be different from non-elite Ghiscari.

The notion the slaves would be mostly from somewhere else is not really confirmed. We know that debtors get enslaved in Lys, so we can easily assume that Slaver's Bay sees free men enslaved in similar easy ways. It might be for debtors, too, and criminals and offenders of every ilk.

This is first and foremost a slaver culture. Yes, they also make it their foremost business to train special slaves ... but that is their export business, not the reason why the old Ghiscari invented or introduced slavery.

Thus it is not that unlikely that a good chunk of the slaves in Slaver's Bay are actually Ghiscari themselves.

Modern Americans struggle with the concept of non-racialized slavery ... but it is the older concept. Even proto-forms of it at best had the notions that this or that foreign/savage people made good slaves for this or that sector, not so much the idea that their looks made them natural slaves. Even Aristotle - who wrote a lot of shit - only has (mentally) disabled people as natural slaves, not non-Greeks in general.