groups, there was often little to distinguish slaves from other workers in terms of the labor they performed or the rights immediately available to them. But where slavery came to be a recognized and important institution, it was the lack of ties to the family, to kin, and to the community which finally distinguished slaves from all other workers. It was in fact, their lack of kin, community, and land which made slaves so desirable in the pre-industrial world. True slaves were persons without the bindings and linkages common to even the lowest free persons, and who were thus completely dependent on the will of their masters. Masters could use their slaves at far less cost in reciprocal obligations than any other labor group in their societies.

Although many pre- 15th-century societies held slaves, in most cases such slaves were only a minor part of the labor force and were not crucial producers of goods and services for others. Most complex societies rested upon the labor of settled village agriculturalists and of part-time artisanal specialists in manufactures, who equally shared the peasant status. These two groups were the primary producers, and slaves were relegated to very specialized work for the elite--domestic service in the better households--and sometimes very hazardous state enterprises, such as mining, to which even obligated peasants could not be assigned to work. Sometimes conquered warriors were enslaved and used in special public works activities, but in most societies it was the peasants who performed most of this labor.

Thus while slavery was an institution known to many complex societies, slavery as a system of industrial or market production was a much more restricted phenomenon. Most scholars now date its origins for Western society in the centuries immediately prior to the Christian era in the Greek city-states and the emerging Roman empire of the period. It is now argued that for slavery to

-2-