At
first it had been shocking. We're all taught that slavery of any
kind is wrong. It's a dark chapter in the history of any country,
one that most people seem to prefer not to think about. This hadn't
seemed any different, and to be honest, when The Society was founded
it really wasn't. Very few had come in to it completely of their own
free will. The techniques were extremely primitive I was amazed
that this underground community had made it more than a few years. I
could barely get my mind around the ways people had brought new
slaves in to it. There were no rules, no guidelines, nothing to
protect those on either side of the whip. It was downright scary.
As with all things, however, The Society had evolved with the times.
The concept of one living creature being truly less than another
began to fade and the concept of slaves and such began to fall more
in to the sort of social hierarchy that has existed in all cultures
throughout time.
Within
two decades of the founding of The Society there were breeding farms
producing high quality, willing slaves for those who could afford
them. That was the catch, though. One had to be able to afford
them, and at the time there were few regulations on the pricing.
Unscrupulous traders set their prices so that only the wealthiest
could afford them, claiming to have the highest quality slaves
descended only from the very first slaves acquired when The Society
began. Acquiring, or abducting, new slaves was still the more common
practice. Some women were sold into Society slavery by their
families in times of financial hardship - which was often - as an
alternative to selling them to brothels. Some found themselves there
after being unable to repay a debt or committing some sort of petty
crime. The ones who to those who had known them simply vanished in
the night could have been taken for any number of reasons. With the
stark differences in the social classes of the times, this had been
an easier concept for me to come to terms with.
Mind
you that even before my formal training began I was more than
comfortable with the idea of consensual submission and slavery.
That's how I had found my way in to a Society Mentorship in the first
place. But the idea of forcibly taking someone and making them a
slave still weighed heavy on my mind. At least until I got through
the first several chapters of Society history. It took nearly a
hundred years, but eventually rules had been put in place. It took a
little longer for there to be more than a couple that looked out for
the safety of the one being acquired, but they were there. By this
time there had long been rules and regulations for the sale of born
slaves and auctions at the breeding farms had gained widespread
popularity. With this came a downturn in acquisitions, making the
problems with this tradition far more obvious to those in power. The
cruelest methods of breaking down and training an acquired slave were
outlawed and harsh punishments enforced on the Owners who used them.
It helped that more people were finding their way in to Society
slavery at least some what willingly.
The
early nineteenth century saw a global downturn in the slave trade and
as such forced The Society to take a good look at its accepted
practices. Suddenly I found I had far less of an issue with the idea
of acquiring slaves as this practice became less popular. With the
new regulations, most found it preferable to attend the auctions and
purchase slaves that had been born in to it, especially as a wider
range of set prices were put in place, making this a more viable
option for the masses. For those who did still use acquisition to
add to their stables the rules were tightened significantly. No
longer could these slaves be kept in dismal conditions, be starved or
beaten within an inch of their lives. Clothing or covering of some
kind was required for them in cold weather. While they were still
essentially human livestock, before this it was common for their
Owner's cows and sheep to be treated better than they were.
Cue
the modern era. Protocols were put in place to ensure the safety of
The Society, the Owners within it and any new slaves they acquired.
Groups were formed with the sole intention of tracking acquired
slaves who managed to escape or to help cover the tracks of an Owner
acquiring a new slave. At this point in my education I had acquired
slaves pointed out to me by my Mentor. I didn't even need that to be
able to see the differences between them and those who had been born
in or come in on their own. Some were happy and relatively well
adjusted, but most seemed to have a haunted look in their eyes. Most
of them had visible scaring that I could identify as having come from
a variety of tools and some even had clearly displayed brands of such
low quality that I had to wonder if they had been cared for at all
while healing. It seemed to me that there had to be a way to make
sure that your newly acquired slave didn't spend the rest of their
life behaving like a scared, semi-disfigured animal, but hours of
research resulted in very little. That's what set me on the path to
where I am today.
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