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"OFTEN THE WORKFORCES THAT SUSTAINED THESE 

SOCIETIES AND BUILT THEIR GREAT WALLS AND 

PYRAMIDS, TEMPLES, AND PALACES WERE COMPRISED OF 

SLAVES." 

Ancient Egyptian Slaves were crucial to the civilization's 

infrastructure. Without them, such great monuments as the 

Pyramids of Giza or the Great Sphinx would not have been 

erected. In this ancient illustration, slaves are toiling away at 

manufacturing bricks and piling them in an inclined fashion 

to create pyramids/tombs. 

"THE MAJORITY OF ROMAN SLAVES WERE PRISONERS OF 

WAR, CAPTURED IN BATTLE DURING THE CONQUESTS THAT 

EXPANDED THE EMPIRE. INSTEAD OF BEING KILLED AS 

ENEMY COMBATANTS, THEIR LIVES WERE SAVED, SO THEY 

MIGHT BE FORCED INTO SERVITUDE. CONSEQUENTLY THE 

WORD FOR SLAVE IN LATIN IS SERVI, FROM THE VERB 'TO 

SAVE.'" 

As the Roman empire expanded, the need for labor 

heightened; thus, slave labor grew increasingly over the 

course of Ancient Rome's reign. One vital task that Roman 

slaves were assigned was the construction of Roman roads 

that, as in Ancient Egypt, greatly improved the infrastructure 

of the civilization. 

"LONG AFTER THE ROMAN EMPIRE, COMPULSORY LABOR WAS 

STILL THE BASIS OF POWER AND WEALTH IN WESTERN AND 

EASTERN EUROPE. LAND-HOLDING ELITES MADE USE OF 

PEASANT LABOR ON THEIR LARGELY SELF-SUFFICIENT 

MANORS."

The feudal system that overtook European social strata by the 

Middle Ages turned free peasants into serfs due to the need for 

economic security and military, the impact of debt, and a lack 

of other unemployment options. When the number of 

individuals carrying out labor becomes very high, labor costs 

very little and as such, serfs received a meager salary if any at 

all. On the other hand, a great deal of land could outweigh the 

high rate of labor and therefore, increase the cost of labor. By 

1500, the Tsars of Russia had expanded the state to 7 times 

its original size and labor became a valuable commodity. 

"ISLAMIC LAWS THAT PREVAILED IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN PORT 

CITIES LIKE MAKASSAR FORBADE THE ENSLAVEMENT OF 

FELLOW MUSLIMS. BUT THAT DIDN'T PRECLUDE THE 

EVOLUTION OF OTHER FORMS OF ECONOMIC SERVICE,

IN PAYMENT OF DEBT, OR AS PUNISHMENT."

In Southeast Asian Islamic states, slaves and the elite were 

not differentiable by ethnicity. Instead, they were marked by 

whether or not they were forced to perform menial tasks of 

labor. 

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