Slavery in China has taken various forms throughout history. Slavery was nominally abolished in 1910,Hallet, Nicole. "China and Antislavery ". Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition, Vol. 1, p. 154156. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .Gang Zhou. Man and Land in Chinese History: an Economic Analysis , p. 158. Stanford University Press (Stanford), 1986. .Huang, Philip C. Code, Custom, and Legal Practice in China: the Qing and the Republic Compared , p. 17. Stanford University Press (Stanford), 2001. . although the practice continued until at least 1949.Rodriguez, Junius. "China, Late Imperial ". The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Vol. 1, p. 146. ABC-CLIO, 1997. . The Chinese term for slave () can also be roughly translated into 'subordinate servant'. Despite a few attempts to ban it, slavery existed continuously throughout pre-modern China, sometimes serving a key role in politics, economics, and historical events. However slaves in China were a very small part of the population due to a large peasant population that mitigated the need for large scale slave labor. The slave population included war prisoners and kidnapped victims or people who had been sold.
General history
In Chinese society, slaves were grouped under a category of people known as the jianmin, which means "base" or "mean". Direct equivalents to large scale slavery such as classical Greece and Rome did not exist in ancient China.The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, p. 145 During the Shang dynasty and Zhou dynasty, slaves generally consisted of war captives or criminals, although peasants lived in a similar condition of perpetual servitude and were unable to leave their land or own it. Some people deliberately became slaves to escape imperial taxation, but they were still considered to be higher in status than traditional slaves, and inhabited a position somewhere between a slave and a commoner. From the Qin dynasty to Tang dynasty, slavery expanded beyond criminals and war captives. The Qin used large scale slave labor for public works such as land reclamation, road construction, and canal building.
Slavery declined during the economic boom of the Song dynasty in the 12th century. Advances in fertilizer, hydraulic, and agricultural technologies enabled the expansion of commercial crops such as medical herbs, mulberry, and cotton. The small land-to-population ratio enticed slaves to run away and seek better employment.The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, p. 5 During the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty and Manchu-led Qing dynasty, slavery of Chinese increased. These Chinese slaves to Mongols or Manchus were called bondsmen and became personal retainers of their imperial overlords. Some attained high positions and led other Chinese slaves. In the 19th century, due to concerted efforts to end the African slave trade, large numbers of Chinese laborers known as coolies were exported to replace slave labor. They were transported in cargo ships with conditions and practices nearly identical to the former African slave trade. Visitors to late 19th century China found little difference between the poor free and the slaves, both of which were treated as hired laborers.
A handful of emperors and officials throughout Chinese history have made efforts to limit or outlaw slavery. None were successful. In 100 BC, the Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu advised Emperor Wu of Han to limit the amount of land and slaves whom people could own. In 9 AD, Wang Mang ordered the nationalization of large estates and their redistribution to farmers. Part of his reform was changing the institution of slavery so that they would become tax payers, since some impoverished farmers sold themselves or their children into slavery. In the 13th century AD, the jurist Ma Duanlin promulgated a policy limiting the number of slaves owned by officials and commoners to 30. In the 14th century, the Hongwu Emperor ordered an end to all slavery, but in practice slavery continued without heed to his commands. In the 18th century, the Yongzheng Emperor made similar attempts to abolish slavery. In 1909, the Qing officially abolished slavery, but due to internal turmoil and its demise, the institution persisted until 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded.
History of slavery in China by era Ancient
The Shang dynasty engaged in frequent raids of surrounding states, obtaining captives who would be killed in ritual sacrifices. Scholars disagree as to whether these victims were also used as a source of slave labor. p. 301. reprinted in
The Warring States period (475–221 BC) saw a decline in slavery from previous centuries, although it was still widespread during the period. Since the introduction of private ownership of land in the state of Lu in 594 BC, which brought a system of taxation on private land, and saw the emergence of a system of landlords and peasants, the system of slavery began to later decline over the following centuries, as other states followed suit.
The Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) confiscated property and enslaved families as punishment. Large numbers of slaves were used by the Qin government to construct large-scale infrastructure projects, including road building, canal construction and land reclamation. Slave labor was quite extensive during this period.
Beginning with the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), one of Emperor Gao's first acts was to manumit agricultural workers enslaved during the Warring States period, although domestic servants retained their status. The Han dynasty promulgated laws to limit the possession of slaves: each king or duke was allowed a maximum of 200 slaves, an imperial princess was allowed a maximum of 100 slaves, other officials were limited to 30 slaves each. Sometimes instead of the death penalty, felons punished with castration during the Han dynasty were also used as slave labor. Deriving from earlier Legalist laws, the Han dynasty set in place rules penalizing criminals doing three years of hard labor or sentenced to castration by having their families seized and kept as property by the government.
As can be seen from the some historical records as “Duansheng, Marquis of Shouxiang, had his territory confiscated because he killed a female slave”(Han dynasty records of DongGuan), “Wang Mang's son Wang Huo murdered a slave, Wang Mang severely criticized him and forced him to commit suicide”(Book of Han: Biography of Wang Mang), murder against slaves was as taboo as murder against free people, and perpetrators were always severely punished. Ancient China can be said to be very distinctive compared to other countries of the same period (in most cases, lords were free to kill their slaves) in terms of slaves' human rights.
In the year 9 AD, the Emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 AD) usurped the Chinese throne and, to deprive landowning families of their power, instituted a series of sweeping reforms, including the abolition of slavery and radical land reform. Slavery was reinstated in AD 12 before his assassination in AD 23.
Medieval
During the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD), a social status intermediate between freedom and slavery—Buqu (部曲)—developed on the social stage. Those with this status were legally subordinate to their masters, and lacked the right to manage their farmland, but they were recognized as property owners, and armed in time of war to serve as their master's private soldiers. The large decline in demographic figures from the Eastern Han period through the Three Kingdoms period is seen as being related to the emergence of this status class.
During the period of division from the Jin to the Sui dynasties, due to years of poor harvests, the influx of foreign tribes, and the resulting wars, the number of slaves exploded. They became a class and were called jianmin (贱民). The word literally means "inferior person". As stated in the Commentary on the Tang Code: “Slaves and inferior people are legally equivalent to livestock products”. They always had a low social status: even if they were deliberately murdered, the perpetrators received only a year in prison, and they were punished even when they reported the crimes of their lords. However, when stability returned, perhaps because the increase in the number of slaves slowed down again, the penalties for crimes against them became harsh again. For example, the famous Tang dynasty female poet Yu Xuanji was publicly executed for murdering her own slave.
The law of the Tang dynasty forbade enslaving free people, but allowed enslavement of criminals, foreigners, and orphans. Free people could, however, willingly sell themselves. The primary source of slaves was southern tribes, and young slave girls were the most desired. Although various officials such as Kong Kui, the Jiedushi of Lingnan, banned the practice, the trade continued. Female slaves from Yue (an ancient tribe in the area of Guangdong) were eroticized in a poem by Tang dynasty literary figure Yuan Zhen.
Chan and Zen Buddhist monastic slavery grew in the Tang dynasty as monasteries became increasingly wealthy and acquired more land. Monks were not generally required to work the fields they owned, with cultivation of farmland left in the hands of free laymen employed by the temples and temple slaves, although temple slaves were a far more significant share of the labor force, with 150,000 such slaves being emancipated during the Huichang Persecution of Buddhism. Some temple slaves were criminals, orphans (who were allowed to enter the monastery in adulthood), or previous tenants of land donated to the monasteries. However, a majority were laborers left unemployed during consolidations of estates by the monasteries who sold themselves to earn a livelihood. Temple slaves were permitted to marry each other, but not free peasants.
Early modern
The Song dynasty's (960–1279 AD) warfare against northern and western neighbors produced many captives on both sides, but reforms were introduced to ease the transition from bondage to freedom.
The Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD) sought to abolish all forms of slavery but in practice, slavery continued through the Ming dynasty.
The Javans sent 300 black slaves as tribute to the Ming dynasty in 1381. When the Ming dynasty crushed the Miao Rebellions in 1460, they castrated 1,565 Miao boys, which resulted in the deaths of 329 of them. They turned the survivors into eunuch slaves. The Guizhou Governor who ordered the castration of the Miao was reprimanded and condemned by Emperor Yingzong of Ming for doing it once the Ming government heard of the event. Since 329 of the boys died, they had to castrate even more. On 30 Jan 1406, the Ming Yongle Emperor expressed horror when the Ryukyuans castrated some of their own children to become eunuchs to give them to Yongle. Yongle said that the boys who were castrated were innocent and didn't deserve castration, and he returned the boys to Ryukyu and instructed them not to send eunuchs again.
Later Ming rulers, as a way of limiting slavery because of their inability to prohibit it, passed a decree that limited the number of slaves that could be held per household and extracted a severe tax from slave owners.