States have introduced, in salt production, various forms of forced labour, from serfdom to slavery. The colonial State in Mexico, or the Chinese Imperial State have privileged farmers'compulsory labour, Enlightened Despotism transformed salt extraction works into poor productivity hard labour penitentiaries (Mediterranean islands and peninsulas), the Totalitarian State used war prisoners and deportees to mine mineral salt. In Subsaharian Africa, where the State had assumed the shape of powerful sedentary States, slaves were provided through two sources : the handing over to nomadic tribes of men made prisoners in wars or the assignment to forced labour of faulty debtors to the benefit of their wealthy creditors. Those who controlled salt supply were in a position to acquire everything they lacked, grain or others'labour. The empires of Black Africa and their military or trading aristocracies sent a workforce far away (deportation) to work in salt works, and the pastoral tribes were entrusted the duty to bring them the salt back. Desert slavery could thus have been a transfer of labour passed on to the nomadic populations by the savannah States who in return received the vital salt.

China Salt Middle ages Modern and Contemporary Period Labour Slavery Austria Mexico Africa

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