Homo floresiensis slave trade

That's not necessarily so. Dogs are basically retarded wolves, but when it comes to our definitions of intelligence, we have a much smarter animal than the wolf. A wolf cannot read human body language. But puppies, much less full grown dogs and bitches, can read our body language.

The original Homo floriensis mind might be gone, but then, we humans domesticated ourselves, as well. Our ancestors used to be much larger and with largeness in build comes physical aggression.

Or so says Nicholas Wade in Before the Dawn.

I apologize, the post wasn't clear.

What I was thinking was that dogs are presumed more intelligent because they can read our body language. It's why they enjoy this quasihuman status that no other animal is blessed (cursed?) with. But yes, your average wolf is more intelligent than its dumber inbred cousin.
 
But that would apply to chattel slavery. It was pointed out above that they wouldn't be very well suited to that. As house or luxury slaves they might well be treated better.

What you are talking about here is not really a slave. It's a pet. A slave is held in order to perform some form of useful labor.

Now if the question is, could Homo Floriensis be kept as a pet, yes probably. Chimps and monkeys can be kept as pets, and there is no particular reason why Homo Floriensis would be less able to be adapted to that role than a chimp or a monkey. But that is not slavery.
 
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What you are talking about here is not really a slave. It's a pet. A slave is held in order to perform some form of useful labor.

Now if the question is, could Homo Floriensis be kept as a pet, yes probably. Chimps and monkeys can be kept as pets, and there is no particular reason why Homo Floriensis would be less able to be adapted to that role than a chimp or a monkey. But that is not slavery.

Seems an odd definition. You'd classify an unskilled house slave in the American South or a sex slave in the Near East as a pet?
 
What you are talking about here is not really a slave. It's a pet. A slave is held in order to perform some form of useful labor.

Now if the question is, could Homo Floriensis be kept as a pet, yes probably. Chimps and monkeys can be kept as pets, and there is no particular reason why Homo Floriensis would be less able to be adapted to that role than a chimp or a monkey. But that is not slavery.

Now we're really talking semantics. Traditionally, a slave would refer to a human owned while pet is a specific kind of animal owned. It is quite conceivable that ATL owners wouldd consider Floresiensis as a pet rather than a slave (albeit likely a pet that could be taught useful things and possibly even used for sexual purposes). But the usual distinction that slavery historians tend to make is chattel slavery (slaves as investment goods for large-scale production) versus house slavery (slaves as subordinate members of the extended family used for personal service) and status slavery (slaves as high-value status goods used for conspicuous display and luxury purposes). THe there forms are almost unknown in separate, pure ioncarnations, but I would argue that Floresiensis would be useless only for the first. If the spoecies is intelligent enough to be a tool-user and biddable, a useful niche in the household could certainly be found. There are plenty of functions in premodern housekeeping that can (and are) carried out by children and adolescents after all.
 

HueyLong

Banned
Note that slavery of pygmies was not uncommon and they were much smaller than the Bantu peoples around them. (They were used for seasonal farming as well) So breeding a smaller hardier hobbit isn't all that hard. And they would consume less food due to their smaller body size. They might make good agricultural slaves.

Also, intelligence is not easily bred out (at least in OTL slave populaces) Admittedly, they will still be lower than homo sapiens, but much of their intelligence will be stunted only by the environment.

Also, in an analog to the American South, the supply will be limited, especially if barracks style breeding does not work well. You can't find the hobbits everywhere. And we don't really know when "heat" disappeared from our genetics (Great Apes go through it, IIRC)
 
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