On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 15:52:13 -0400, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:

>We know that the Imperial does not accept chattel slavery. Would that over
>human trafficking? (Even for helping people to change planets or whatever?)

As the guy that wrote the text of the Warrant of Restoration, I can give
you my thinking on this subject.

The use of the word _chattel_ was very deliberate; TML discussions of
slavery in the 3I prior to the release of T4 and the actual text of the
Warrant thrashed out a whole series of conditions that might have been
claimed to be 'slavery', but which disallowing might well make certain
established aspects of the setting impossible - and yes, pretty much
anything can be abused by a mind set on such abuse.

My thinking on 'chattel' slavery was that a Person was being treated as
property that could be freely bought or sold, with no rights, or no
recourse to have enforced any rights nominally acknowledged, and no way
even in theory to earn/force manumission. This more-or-less matched the
'slavery' that was familiar to most Americans based on the antebellum
economy of the states that were on the losing side in the failed Rebellion
of 1861.

This 'definition' of chattel slavery for the 3I allowed the following:

* Debt slavery/Peonage/Indenture: In theory, paying off the debt would
  force manumission; nominally, you weren't a slave, but an indentured
  servant/laborer/worker/etc. who could eventually 'buy out' your
  'contract'. However, there was in practice nothing stopping a contract
  owner from setting the per diem and then charging things like
  employer-provided food, housing, clothing, et cetera, against the per
  diem, and doing so at such rates that there was no real way for an
  indenture to be paid off. This was common after the failure of the
  Rebellion of 1861 in the territories that had rebelled.

* Enserfment: A serf isn't a slave; rather, the serf is bound to the land
  that is the salable property, and cannot be alienated from it. The land
  can be freely bought and sold, and the serf comes with it; the serf works
  the land and its product belongs to the landowner, but the serf is
  entitled to a certain amount for his/her own use. The serf cannot be
  abused, and cannot be _compelled_ to service other than working the land
  he is bound to, to the detriment of his own entitlement. Generally, there
  is an expectation that the lord will also protect his serfs from such
  things as raids by bandits or other lords, and will permit and fund such
  things as rebuilding or repairing serf homes after a severe storm, and
  will in such cases partially remit the burden of providing the full
  amount of the productivity to the lord - but with a similar reduction in
  the amount permitted to be retained by the serf. Other enforceable rights
  the serf may [or may not] have might be marriage to another serf of the
  same lord, appeal to the lord for justice in a conflict with another serf
  of the same lord, or to be permitted time to worship as the lord does.

* "Company Towns": This starts out as 'normal' employment, except that
  there is no place to purchase things like clothing, food, etc., other
  than retail establishments owned and operated by the company that the
  customer works for. Prices could be set at a level that would make it
  difficult or impossible for the worker to save any money, and ultimately
  the worker would find himself in an effective peonage situation.

All of the above would generally be considered abusive in the 3I, with the
possible exception of enserfment, but would be legal under the Warrant
except where an enfeoffed Imperial noble's writ specifies otherwise.

The main constraint against abusive use of any of the above would be "Don't
make the local noble Have To Take Notice". If the local noble Has To Take
Notice, he may very well be annoyed enough to take punitive action just out
of pique, and you'd suffer for it. And yes, if you paid him enough in
advance, even the Anti-Slavery league shrilling to the Press might not be
enought to force him to Take Notice.

"Human [Sophont] Trafficking" is a very fuzzy term, and does not itself
fall under the definition of chattel slavery - but the situation that the
trafficked sophont may find himself in after being landed could very well
be chattel slavery, just misrepresented to the trafficked sophont
beforehand.

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