Chinese Slavery System in Xia and ShangDynasty
Hereditary slavery can be traced back to the Xia and Shang dynasties. From the beginning of the Xia dynasty until about 476 B.C., China's slave society lasted for more than 1,500 years.Although people did not know what a slave was at that time, the concept of slavery had quietly spread. A kind of so-called "equivalence" gradually showed up in the society. When a person was unable to pay a debt or pay for an item, he or she took a person in exchange. Under the socio-political and economic conditions of the time, this system was considered legal because it allowed for the production of a surplus of goods. In a typical slave society, slaves were legally recognized as the personal property of the slave master. The slave owner had the power of life and death and was free to enslave, sell, and murder them. The slaves had no personality, free will or power, and their descendants were therefore slaves for several generations. The British sociologist, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse pointed out that: in the evolution of civilization, such as in the Only if a worker could produce more surplus property than he needed, due to the advanced science and technology of the time, could he effectively use slaves. Therefore, the emergence of slavery was often limited to some more mature agricultural societies.( The Case of Sir John Cam Hobhouse and the Nottingham By-Election, 1834).
In the 16th century B.C., Shang Tang overthrew Xia Jie and established the Shang Dynasty. In the 14th century B.C., Shang King Pan Geng moved to Yin, so the Shang Dynasty was also known as the Yin Dynasty. During the Shang Dynasty, with the development of the slave economy, agriculture was also a prevalent economic sector, animal husbandry also held an important place at that time, while the land system was dominated by the well field. The most important thing was that the demand for bronze wares from the princes and nobles gradually increased. As a result, a large number of bronze wares appeared such as the Simuwu natural generous tripod produced in the late Shang Dynasty, which is also the highest bronze casting in the world today. So the Shang Dynasty was an important era for the development of bronze. At the same time, the Shang Dynasty also became the highest stage of economic development of Chinese slave society.
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