I want to learn more about the advent of slavery and the root causes for my own personal edification. I do understand that conquest resulted in the enslavement of the conquered, but I could not help but wonder what if there are ones who sold themselves to slavery because of their impoverished condition - they did not have the basic necessities for survival and thus had to sell themselves to continually meet this need. Is there any evidence of this particular kind of enslavement in the ancient world, if so could you provide a reputable source because I want to read more about it. Thanks!
Hi!
Hang tight, because there's a mini essay coming your way. (Reading list at the end.)
So, a quick word on "Mesopotamia", it has immense chronological, geographic and socio-political diversity (almost 3000 years of uninterrupted history). This means it's difficult to generalise about any subject. And there is a corresponding multiplicity of forms of subjugation/servility, so please forgive my choice to focus on the Old Babylonian Period, where we have some good sources.
Note: Due to poor seasonal flood times of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the land required a lot of intensive labour in order to farm effectively. The demand for labour far exceeded the supply of workers and the amount of land that could be farmed.
However! Enslaved people are not the source of a vast underbelly of enslaved people supporting the operation of Mesopotamian states. In terms of the "heavy lifting" of industrial labour and farming, you had free peasants. These were sourced in two ways:
Moreover, securing people en masse as slaves was a formidable challenge. It is also very difficult and expensive to maintain control over large enslaved populations.
There were captives enslaved after warfare, but not on the same huge scale as in ancient Rome.
Debt was a major social problem in the Old Babylonian Period (2000 - 1600 BCE). Many free Babylonians were obliged to enter slavery to pay off debts. There are multiple mīšarum (annulling of debts upon a king's ascension to the throne, but not the debts themselves) and andurārum edicts (much rarer freeing of debt slaves).
Note: the fact that kings are getting involved shows how large the problem is. However, this practise was not encouraged, as extensive debt slavery is very socially disruptive.
There were also practises of distraint (seizing someone from the debtor’s family as a hostage until the debt is paid), and slavery (the debtor goes into service for someone else).
There are quite a few laws in the Code of Hammurabi (e.g. #117 (distraint) and #118 (slavery)) concerning slavery. However, we know that there was a disconnect between the practise of the law and legal theory in ancient Mesopotamia.
However, the Code of Hammurabi does put protections in place for enslaved people:
We also know from these law codes (Hammurabi; Ur-Namma; Ešnunnna; Hittite Laws; Middle Assyrian Laws) that slaves were a highly regulated population. They were hugely restricted in terms of how they moved through society, as well as what they could and could not do.
The terms for slavery in Akkadian wardum/ardu/urdu comes from the verb waradum. "To bring low." Enslaved people held the lowest of social positions possible in society.
Commoners and members of the royal palaces could own slaves (cf. Code of Hammurabi #15 and #16).
However, there were relatively few numbers of enslaved people. They're generally known by name in legal documents and there are rarely more than one or two per household.
There were no vast workshops or latifundia full of enslaved people. They were not the source of concentrated extractive wealth. Instead, they were very much part of the domestic household and worked together with servants and possibly family members. Of course, they could be physically brutalised, but it was not unlike other subjugated members of the household, subject to the pater familias, who can sell them off. Enslaved people could also be expensive to feed/maintain/discipline, with added complications in terms of legal liability for the enslaved person’s actions. (The master would be prosecuted if the slave committed crimes.)
Enslaved people were status symbols for the elites, as well as a source of moveable wealth -- they had market value, through rights of ownership. They could be used as a source of credit/money.
They could also act as trusted agents of the legal owner, since they did not have free will (legally speaking). And if they had a good working relationship with their masters, then they could be totally reliable.
Ultimately from our sources, it is difficult to sustain the notion of a slave society in Mesopotamian cultures, because the numbers are very small. They didn't sustain the economy as a whole. It was a small localised exception, not a mass phenomenon -- there are only very limited numbers of slaves in our written sources, and almost nothing in the archaeological record.
Hope this helps you on the start of your journey and enjoy the reading!
Reading:
A good general source is:
Some more specific articles are:
Edit: spelling corrections, etc.