Mal and slavers? by slayer730

My feeling is that Joss wanted to shake things up a little bit. Everyone hones in on the fact that the Independants were like the Confederacy and the Alliance is comparable to the Union. But on several occasions where slavery is brought up it's all on Alliance planets which makes me think that slavery is legal in the Alliance even if slave traders (owners, not so much) are considered lowlifes.

Some evidence for this:

In Shindig the cutting remark to the useless society girl about needing 12 slaves to get her into her dress didn't raise any eyebrows.

When Mal and the slaver at the beginning of the expisode are talking about the slaver's modifications to the ship to carry them it didn't seem like he was going out of his way to be covert about how he made his money.

In Jaynestown the foreman says that most of the labor are indentured servants, to my mind the ones who weren't would be slaves most likely because Mudder work doesn't look like something that anyone would willingly sign up for.

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. But it seems to be that possibly the Independents were anti-slavery as part of their politics, they wanted each planet to govern itself as it saw fit, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to think that that belief also extended to every individual's rights. So a flip flop of the expected Civil War conventions would be something that I think Joss would do just to mix things up a little bit.

Pain is scary...

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:30 AM

Those are some very, very good points, I'd say. Another note on Jaynestown - Mr. Higgens says something about "owning people" when he's talking to Inara. At the very least, that's the way he FEELS about the mudders. I think they're supposed to be more of indentured servants. There's also Inara calling Mal an indentured servant in Train Job. I like the comment you made about flip-flopping the slavery issue from the Civil War. Might be Joss WAS thinking along those lines.

I don't know if it's strictly LEGAL in the Alliance, but slavery must be a pretty unenforced infraction if it's not.

I think the idea of Mal being against slavery for some secret reason is quite likely - Joss has kept his past very hidden, and the clues about hating slavers and even hating prostitution make it sound like Mal doesn't like people owning people (he tried to convince Saffron that she wasn't his property, either). Any hints we have as to why?

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:38 AM

BADGERSHAT

Quote:
Originally posted by Forrestwolf:
Those are some very, very good points, I'd say. Another note on Jaynestown - Mr. Higgens says something about "owning people" when he's talking to Inara. At the very least, that's the way he FEELS about the mudders. I think they're supposed to be more of indentured servants. There's also Inara calling Mal an indentured servant in Train Job. I like the comment you made about flip-flopping the slavery issue from the Civil War. Might be Joss WAS thinking along those lines.

I don't know if it's strictly LEGAL in the Alliance, but slavery must be a pretty unenforced infraction if it's not.

I think the idea of Mal being against slavery for some secret reason is quite likely - Joss has kept his past very hidden, and the clues about hating slavers and even hating prostitution make it sound like Mal doesn't like people owning people (he tried to convince Saffron that she wasn't his property, either). Any hints we have as to why?

I think we need to figure out, does "Indentured Servant" mean the same thing in Firefly as it meant here in the real world?

A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.

I think, Mal hates slvers for a mixture of reasons. One, he's basically a good and moral person (despite his career choices and such). Two, I think that, somewhere in his unrevealed past, he had a close encounter with slavery--maybe his mother was taken? , Maybe he himself had some time as a slave, escaped by joining the army, and found true meaning in the Browncoats?

Or, as has happened, mnaybe I haven't the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about.

--The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:47 AM

Thanks, wasn't sure if I put exactly what I meant down in a way that anyone but me could figure out what I'm saying. Very good point about Saffron too.

The feeling I get is that the Independants were politically on the anti-slavery side of the fence, but the other things you mentioned made me think a little about Mal specifically.

I think you're right that there is something more to it than politics, he has some reason to not just be against the idea of slavery but there's something deeper involved as well. When he's talking to Saffron he mentions his mother's ranch was pretty big, 40 hands, I work on a ranch and let me tell you to need to have 40 hands that's a pretty darn big ranch. The affection he obviously has for them makes me think that they weren't either slaves nor indentured servants, so either Shadow was always Independant leaning even before the outbreak of the war, or his mother just didn't go in for that sort of thing and hired all the hands. This could mean that Mal was brought up to not like slavery, but somewhere along the road it went from an intellectual dislike to downright hatred for it.

To my mind he'd be (ironically) something like the Union soldiers down in Georgia when Sherman marched to the sea, they were enforcing government policy by freeing the slaves, but I'm sure some of them did it just because it was policy, while others were doing it out of deep abolitionist beliefs.

Another thing he mentioned to Inara was something along the lines of,"Playing by their rules and doing what they say will only make you a slave." I think that could be part of the reason he doesn't like Companions, not out of sexual prudishness (which he does have some of) but out of the fact it's someone willingly enslaving themselves, which to his mind would be worse than being taken as a slave.

Or something like that. My take is it's a combination of Independant ideology, mixed with an anti-slavery upbringing and then *something* else happened to turn him into a 'true believer' abolotionist. I could be wrong, only Joss knows, but that's what makes the most sense to me.

Pain is scary...

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:56 AM

Quote:
I think we need to figure out, does "Indentured Servant" mean the same thing in Firefly as it meant here in the real world?

A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.

I think, Mal hates slvers for a mixture of reasons. One, he's basically a good and moral person (despite his career choices and such). Two, I think that, somewhere in his unrevealed past, he had a close encounter with slavery--maybe his mother was taken? , Maybe he himself had some time as a slave, escaped by joining the army, and found true meaning in the Browncoats?

Or, as has happened, mnaybe I haven't the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about.

--The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

There definately is a difference between indentured servants and slaves historically, and you were right on the money there.

I don't think they can be used as interchangable terms in the FF universe though. If using 'indentured servant' was just a socially polite way of saying slave then I think that Mal would have probably tried to take down Higgins instead of just smuggling the mud off the planet. I don't think he could do nothing based on his proven morality.

Then again he could just be picking his fights, he'd know that on Persephone slavery wasn't illegal or if it was the ban wasn't enforced, but he didn't try to kill all of the society types who possibly owned slaves, just Ath.

Taking on slaveholders on an Alliance planet where Feds are roaming around is different than taking out a little jumped up moon lord though. We know he'll do that from Heart of Gold...which puts a spin on why he'd fight to help whores, he sees an attempt to enslave them further so fights to help them.

Or I could just be overanalysing everything.

Pain is scary...

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 10:13 AM

BADGERSHAT

Quote:
Originally posted by Gunhand:
Quote:
I think we need to figure out, does "Indentured Servant" mean the same thing in Firefly as it meant here in the real world?

A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.

I think, Mal hates slvers for a mixture of reasons. One, he's basically a good and moral person (despite his career choices and such). Two, I think that, somewhere in his unrevealed past, he had a close encounter with slavery--maybe his mother was taken? , Maybe he himself had some time as a slave, escaped by joining the army, and found true meaning in the Browncoats?

Or, as has happened, mnaybe I haven't the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about.

--The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

There definately is a difference between indentured servants and slaves historically, and you were right on the money there.

I don't think they can be used as interchangable terms in the FF universe though. If using 'indentured servant' was just a socially polite way of saying slave then I think that Mal would have probably tried to take down Higgins instead of just smuggling the mud off the planet. I don't think he could do nothing based on his proven morality.

Then again he could just be picking his fights, he'd know that on Persephone slavery wasn't illegal or if it was the ban wasn't enforced, but he didn't try to kill all of the society types who possibly owned slaves, just Ath.

Taking on slaveholders on an Alliance planet where Feds are roaming around is different than taking out a little jumped up moon lord though. We know he'll do that from Heart of Gold...which puts a spin on why he'd fight to help whores, he sees an attempt to enslave them further so fights to help them.

Or I could just be overanalysing everything.

Pain is scary...

Nah, I doubt you're overanalyzing anything. It's kind of hard to do that here, since we have so little info to go on--everything's wide open, all stops pulled out, etc.

I think you're probably right about, well, pretty much all you posted... except he didn't really try to kill Ath, it was more defense with a dash of "If I Kill Him Defending Myself To Frikkin Bad For Him" thrown in...

--The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 10:23 AM

Good point about the duel, although if it would have been with one of those whole mess of guns they collected at the door I'm pretty sure Mal would have shot Ath in the head and that would have been that.

But since it was a duel with sw-whats, he decided that upstaging this great swordsman and then not killing him would be hi-lerrious so that's where he went with it. Mal does so enjoy mixing some laughs in with his violence.

Glad the slavery stuff made sense, good to see that expensive education wasn't *totally* wasted, knew all those Civil War and Reconstruction classes would payoff someday.

Pain is scary...

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 12:22 PM

HELL'S KITTEN

What about the 20 "immigrant workers" Mal hand delivered for the Alliance in the "Dead or Alive" script? Not saying that it means anything, but I thought I'd point it out just to see what comes of it.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 12:34 PM

HOWDYROCKERBABY1

In Our Dear Mrs. Reynolds he talks to Saphron about peoples rights to be free, so yes its pretty obvious he hates slavers.

Well isn't that...special

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 12:45 PM

PRETENTIOUS

In regards to whether "indentured servant" and "slave" have the same meaning in FFverse or closer to our meaning....

In "Train Job" Inara says that Mal is her indentured servant with 6 months left on his sentence...

Sounds like indentured servitude is a timed thing and possibly slavery, by contrast, is not.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 3:16 PM

The (shiny) Hat wrote:

Quote:
A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.

Actually, indentured servitude as practiced in the northeastern part of the U.S. was considered slavery by many. Typically, the servant borrowed money for passage to the New World, agreeing to pay it off over a period of 2-4 years. Problem was, the owner of the paper also provided clothing, room and board, then tacked the charges for those items onto the servant's bill. As a consequence, the term of servitude actually got longer as it was being served. Many had to be legally manumitted from their 'debt' after creatively-prolonged terms of service.

Now, let's see if Joss doesn't bring up sharecropping -- another thinly veiled form of slavery -- in future Firefly episodes (zoid prays most arduously).

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."

- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 4:20 PM

Theory: Actually, Mal WAS a slave - this idea from my wife (she wants credit).

40 hands on his mother's farm, eh? What do you want to bet SHE was a slave, on a farm with slaves, and Mal was raised as a slave from birth? The Independents = the anti-slavery side of the War, and they freed several slaves as they went. Who knows? Maybe the Alliance was officially pro-slavery...there's a real turn-the-civil-war-on-its-head thing going on here. What if you just change the colors of the coats, and the SOUTH won in Firefly?

Wow...okay, so I'm going WAY into speculation, but this blows my mind...all the signs are there, if you're twisted enough to believe them - Mal was raised religious (before he lost it), Mal fought with the losers of the war, Mal has a rough country (Southern?) accent, Mal's never mentioned his father (a telltale sign of a person with real-world slavery roots)...

So, what do you think?

As for the indentured servitude being pseudo-slavery, I agree - somehow, I'm betting the poor Mudders aren't able to buy passage off Higgen's Moon...

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 5:40 PM

Forrestwolf and other interested parties:

Many people today believe (a word that gets me in no end of trouble) that the American Civil War was "The War To End Slavery". While it's true the war did finally bring an end to the most heinous chapter in our cultural history, slavery was not the issue that caused the war. "States Rights" was the focal point of the debate that led to revolution. While to a certain extent the issue of slavery was always a hot topic, Northern states held more political power due to population density (especially considering that the South had many non-voting slaves) and passed several laws that included favorable tariffs for Northern manufacturers, at the expense of Southern agriculturalists. The Southern states held to the Jeffersonian ideal, that individual states could nullify Congressional acts that were outside the federal powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. By degrees the whole issue devolved into debate, anger and bloodshed (much like political threads on FFFn).

The Civil War officially began on April 12, 1861. The Emancipation Proclamation -- which only freed the slaves in Rebel states, not Union-occupied slaveholding states -- was decreed on January 1, 1863, nearly two years after the start of the war. All slaves were freed by Constitutional Amendment after the war in 1865. To be fair, a large faction of the States' Rights movement of the time became bellicose because they saw the hammer coming: Lincoln was going to free the slaves; Northern-controlled Congress was going to run it roughshod past any Southern opposition; and without an individual state's right to declare such legislation 'outside the Constitution's purview', Southern plantation owners were going to lose their cheap (despicably got and held) labor force.

According to Encarta, "As a further result of the proclamation, the Republican party became unified in principle and in organization, and the prestige it attained enabled it to hold power until 1884."

People today also believe (there's that word again) that Lincoln was a Democrat. He was in fact a founding member of the Grand Old Party. The Democrats were the South. So when you're asking if Joss might turn the tables on us, seems to me the history of the past 140 years has already done that, so... I'm getting dizzy...

What was the question again?

Oh, yeah, "Was Mal a slave?" Umm, I dunno. I tend to think he just disliked slavery the way many God-fearing, non-plantation-owning Southerners disliked slavery. 'Cause it was wrong. In lieu of further evidence from Joss -- and evidence of Mal's life before the Unification War is very sparse -- I prefer to believe that Mal, his Ma and their 40 ranch hands all lived in an anarcho-syndicalist commune, because their planet was originally settled by Monty Python aficionados.

BTW, I remember him telling Saffron that he grew up on a ranch, but I must've missed the reference to a specific number (40?) of ranch hands; where was that?

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."

- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 8:16 AM

"40 hands" was quoted by Gunhand - I was just repeating. I think Gunhand's right, from my vague recollection - but I'm not certain.

As for the War, I wasn't intending to get into a discussion of Northern vs. Southern intentions in the ACTUAL Civil War - as you've pointed out, there's a lot to history there that can be discussed at length. I'd say it's more a question of JOSS's interpretation of events, and where he's going with the series.

Which is where I get to slavery and freedom - I'd still maintain that one (certainly not the only) of the themes of Firefly is freedom. We really don't know for sure yet about Mal - we can hope there will be more tidbits in the BDM, but in the meantime, I'll take my wild guess and stick with it. One vote for Mal = slave :) You could be right - he could just be someone who understands the evils of slavery - but I'd guess there's some secret yet to be revealed...

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 8:35 AM

BADGERSHAT

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
Actually, indentured servitude as practiced in the northeastern part of the U.S. was considered slavery by many. Typically, the servant borrowed money for passage to the New World, agreeing to pay it off over a period of 2-4 years. Problem was, the owner of the paper also provided clothing, room and board, then tacked the charges for those items onto the servant's bill. As a consequence, the term of servitude actually got longer as it was being served. Many had to be legally manumitted from their 'debt' after creatively-prolonged terms of service.

Now, let's see if Joss doesn't bring up sharecropping -- another thinly veiled form of slavery -- in future Firefly episodes (zoid prays most arduously).

Respectfully,

zoid

Zoid--
Ask anyone who's gotta work for nothing or close enough not to make a difference... who has few or no rights... who is stuck in a place against their will.... I think they'd call it slavery.

I wasn't trying to say there's a world of difference between the two, just a technical difference. Slavery and Ind Serv looked the same on the surface, absolutely. But slavery had no time limit, whereas Ind Serv., even if the debt kept getting increased and pushed back, had an eventual expiration date of sorts.

But either way, they're both a whole lot of suckage...

Is this what people call "off on a tangent"? I do that a lot...

--The Hat

***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 8:42 AM

HOWDYROCKERBABY1

I think that Mal's mother being a slave is a really good theory, however i just watch Our Mrs. Reynolds just yesterday and he seemed to talk about his childhood with a kind of fondness, and yes he says there are 40 ranch hands (thats one big ranch!) something i don't think he would do if he was a slave, but i do agree there is probably some slave in his background!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Did I hear something about black market beagles? They have smallish droppings."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 9:12 AM

FFFAN1

Quote:
Originally posted by Forrestwolf:
Theory: Actually, Mal WAS a slave - this idea from my wife (she wants credit).

40 hands on his mother's farm, eh? What do you want to bet SHE was a slave, on a farm with slaves, and Mal was raised as a slave from birth?

Have to disagree with this theory. When Mal tells YoSafBridge about his mother, he says "Weren't nobody ran 'em [cattle] harder or smarter. 'Brand the buyer, not the cattle' she used to say..." (I'm paraphrasing slightly, but you get the gist) Sounds like the owner of the ranch, not a slave, to me.

They earned that with the sweat of their slave-trading brows.

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 9:23 AM

That's a pretty convincing bit of dialog, I've got to say. Sounds like I'll need to rewatch that scene tonight! Ah, well. It would have been interesting if he were a slave. Still wondering what the actual story is for his animosity towards slavers...

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:04 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Zoid wrote:

Quote:
Many people today believe (a word that gets me in no end of trouble) that the American Civil War was "The War To End Slavery". While it's true the war did finally bring an end to the most heinous chapter in our cultural history, slavery was not the issue that caused the war. "States Rights" was the focal point of the debate that led to revolution. While to a certain extent the issue of slavery was always a hot topic, Northern states held more political power due to population density (especially considering that the South had many non-voting slaves) and passed several laws that included favorable tariffs for Northern manufacturers, at the expense of Southern agriculturalists. The Southern states held to the Jeffersonian ideal, that individual states could nullify Congressional acts that were outside the federal powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. By degrees the whole issue devolved into debate, anger and bloodshed (much like political threads on FFFn).

The Civil War officially began on April 12, 1861. The Emancipation Proclamation -- which only freed the slaves in Rebel states, not Union-occupied slaveholding states -- was decreed on January 1, 1863, nearly two years after the start of the war. All slaves were freed by Constitutional Amendment after the war in 1865. To be fair, a large faction of the States' Rights movement of the time became bellicose because they saw the hammer coming: Lincoln was going to free the slaves; Northern-controlled Congress was going to run it roughshod past any Southern opposition; and without an individual state's right to declare such legislation 'outside the Constitution's purview', Southern plantation owners were going to lose their cheap (despicably got and held) labor force.

Bravo!!!

Well said my friend, well said. It is good to see that not all buy into the history written by the victors in reference to the War of Northern Aggression.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:05 AM

LIZ

i don't know... but i have to say that every time i think about young Mal and his Mom as slaves i have flashbacks to StarWars Episode 1 (phantom menace). i don't mean to...

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:15 AM

AWGH!!! How frightening...Mal as Anakin...eek. OK, nevermind. He was never a slave...bad, bad, stereotyped storyline...

*runs screaming from concept of Serentiy comparison to Episode 1*

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:47 AM

HOWDYROCKERBABY1

Quote:
Originally posted by liz:
i don't know... but i have to say that every time i think about young Mal and his Mom as slaves i have flashbacks to StarWars Episode 1 (phantom menace). i don't mean to...

That should be sin.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Did I hear something about black market beagles? They have smallish droppings."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:55 AM

ASTRIANA

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
BTW, I remember him telling Saffron that he grew up on a ranch, but I must've missed the reference to a specific number (40?) of ranch hands; where was that?

Here ya go:

Scene: Cargo Bay, Saffron has just expressed her desire to NOT be "wed to the large one."

YoSaffBridge: I could be useful on a ranch.
Mal: It's good work. My mama had a ranch - back on Shadow, where I'm from. Nobody ran 'em harder or smarter. (pause for breath) She used to tell me, 'Don't brand the cattle, brand the buyer, he's the one's likely to stray.'
YSB: She raised you herself?
Mal: Her an' about 40 hands. Why I had more family for a kid... Well now that IS odd...

(sometimes my memory for dialogue scares me

)

~A~

...I'm still free,
You can't take the sky from me.

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 11:29 AM

MIKECHANCE

Lincoln didn't have the power to free the Slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation was something he could not legally do. The abolishment of slavery by the union through the emancipation proclamation was a demoralization tactic - and an encouragement for slaves to revolt and go on murdering rampages. Most of those that didn't go on aforementioned rampages stayed on the plantation afterwards for barely anything. Really, most slave owners treated thier slaves well, a few horrid ones just made the rest look bad. Some slave owners even went to the trouble of educating thier slaves, and giving them a chance to earn thier freedom... but you never hear about them, do you? The same way a few dumb blondes make the rest look dumb.

And frankly, I'd lean towards something along the line of alliance-backed slavers having raided the ranch when he was young.

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 2:46 PM

Hey, 'coats:

Good day at work today? I hope so.

Lots of people responded to stuff I rambled on about, so I'd like to briefly (for a friggin' change) address specific questions raised.

Forrestwolf wrote:

Quote:
As for the War, I wasn't intending to get into a discussion of Northern vs. Southern intentions in the ACTUAL Civil War...

Yeah, I know you weren't going that way with it, but somebody had pointed out that maybe Joss was doing a switcheroo on the slavery issue, North-South/Alliance-Independent-wise. My point, in my very longwinded way, was that the intervening years had obscured the primary cause of the Civil War, and turned the tables politically. It's ironic that today the leading voice for States' Rights is the Republican Party, while an overwhelming majority of non-white voters identify themselves as Democrats. I'll state it as plainly as I can, in conclusion: I think the idea that JW might swap the roles of South (Independent) and North (Alliance) is very plausible; but if that is the case, it's just a matter of Art imitating Life...

Badger's - Hat (Eh? See? I got it right!) wrote:

Quote:
Ask anyone who's gotta work for nothing or close enough not to make a difference... who has few or no rights... who is stuck in a place against their will.... I think they'd call it slavery.

I wasn't trying to say there's a world of difference between the two, just a technical difference. Slavery and Ind Serv looked the same on the surface, absolutely. But slavery had no time limit, whereas Ind Serv., even if the debt kept getting increased and pushed back, had an eventual expiration date of sorts...

Apparently, indentured servants had a high 2-year incidence of mortality (they died before they got it worked off) and were treated so brutally in many cases that they ran away (like slaves did) and new laws were passed to increase their terms of indenture if they took flight. Still, I will readily agree that as bad as it sucked to be an indentured servant -- for instance your 'contract' could be sold to another Master, without regard to spouse or children that were left behind -- it was fundamentally superior to being a slave. And vast numbers of indentured servants did eventually become citizens. I just wanted to point out that being an indentured servant was not a great deal better than being a slave, in practice. ...And between 200,000 and 300,000 indentured Europeans came to America every year through about the 1830's.

Last thought on the indentured servant thing: Roman slaves usually served in a household for like five years, then were 'manumitted' or freed to become full citizens of the Empire. In today's America, how many more years will you have to work in servitude to your mortgage company, your credit card issuer and your automobile loan guarantor until you are 'freed' from your 'indentured servitude'? That's what credit is, baby, fancy advertising campaigns notwithstanding. I reckon I'll be a wage slave 'til they throw dirt in my face...

Astriana wrote:

Quote:
Mal: Her an' about 40 hands. Why I had more family for a kid...

Thanks. I didn't recall the specific number being mentioned. The only thing I'd say to characterize that statement in the conversation is that Mal is lightheartedly reminiscing about his happy childhood/adolescence on the family(?) ranch. One thing to remember about Southerners (and Mal's cultural style): we have a tendency to exaggerate to prove our points, when we're just jawing. Case in point, if I tell someone "I live at home with my wife, my two kids and about 600 dogs and cats", it shouldn't be taken literally that I have 600 dogs and cats. The intent is that I feel I've got way too many dogs and cats. If I say it with a smile, then having 600 dogs and cats is grudgingly okay with me. If I say it with a growl or a shrug of the shoulders, then having 600 dogs and cats is not okay with me, but what can I do about it? That's what I get for being married to an animal lover (umm, am I giving away too much data?). But I don't actually have 600 cats and dogs; maybe, since Mal was smiling when he said it, and he did say "about 40 hands", what he intended was that there was a 'passle' of hands who mentored him, played with him, taught him to hunt (since I reckon his daddy died before Mal got a chance to know him), etc. Another thing to think about: in the Old West, ranch hands were highly migratory seasonal hires. So it might have been a literal 40 hands, but in groups of 5, over ten years of cattle drives, with lots of new faces every year.

There! Wasn't that nice and brief? See? I can be terse; but I don't think I could manage laconic...

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."

- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 3:55 PM

(talking around the politics, which I really really don't want to go into)

Thanks for the quote - now I really AM wondering again..."don't brand the cattle; brand the buyer" eh? Hmmm....cattle....hands...human cattle or bovine cattle.

Again, I'll accept this could be way off - and I don't claim Joss is taking any sides here in history (in fact, I'd claim he's avoiding it specifically). But slavery could be a hidden motif here, and Mal might just be an ex-slave. Might.

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 4:26 PM

Long day today so I missed out some, but most of the points I was going to make have already been made. So that's a good thing.

As for the cattle and branding thing Forrestwolf, my opinion is that they were the mooing sort of cattle and not human cattle. Don't think Mal would be so blase about it if they were slaves that his momma was selling, plus I doubt you'd need a ranch to raise them. But ya never know.

Mal has some experience with cattle though from what we've seen in Safe. He knows what will spook them, seems like he's seen a stampede or two in his time (and they are NOT fun things to see) and he tells Jayne that they'll follow him without having to smack 'em.

Another thing that struck me is that Joss did a good job in Firefly of not retconning real world history. Inara talks about the Mona Lisa, Kaylee has a Han Solo in carbonite next to her hammock and Simon knows his ancient Egyptian beers which leads me to believe...and this is pure speculation here...That during the Unification War the Independents would have actually embraced US Civil War conventions to a point.

As in not only was he writing about a future analog to the Civil War but that the combatants could have adopted certain aspects of it for their own uses. Take brown coats, good color for combat in trench warfare yeah but most of the Confederate uniforms of the ACW weren't grey they were butternut, butternut is brown. The whole planetary rights vs centralized government thing maps pretty well too and even though we've never seen an Independent flag it wouldn't surprise me if it weren't some variation of the Battle Flag or Stars and Bars just with more stars.

Not much of the naval aspect is shown either but I'd be willing to bet that the Independents had a commerce raider named Alabama and that the first capital ship they slipped from dock was probably named Virginia. Yeah this is bigtime conjecture, but it wouldn't surprise me one little bit.

I guess what I'm saying is the Independents could have honed in on a romantacized notion of the Civil War and used that to help explain their cause to people when they started up the war against the Alliance. It'd give them an identity. Now I'm sure they wouldn't have exactly mapped to the Confederacy, but it would give them a baseline to work from. Just like people who are into Arthurian imagry and suchlike aren't buying into the real middle ages but a romanticized notion of it. Heck in some places in the US today you can see that with the Civil War, or War Between the States, or War of Northern Aggression depending on where ya live and who ya listen to.

Which reminds me of something in Jaynestown, basically Mal says that it isn't the fact of the thing that's important, but that people need something to believe in. The Confederacy as an ideal, not the fact of it, could have been not just a way of Joss to tell the story, but a way for the people in the 26th century to have a rock to cling to when they're about to go up against the Alliance.

Heck, Mal could even be stating that when he says that every person a statue was made of was one sort of sumbitch or another; he could know it was a romantic ideal of a bygone era, but people needed something like that to get up their dander to take on what looked like (and ultimately was) a losing proposition.

Pain is scary...

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Thursday, April 22, 2004 8:36 PM

LEMAT

Zoid,

You are right about there having been other tensions between North and South, most especially agriculture vs. manufacturing and the tax and trade policies that would flow from that conflict. IMHO, however, slavery, if not the central focus of the retoric for war, was truly central to the growing tension in the country. If slavery had died the rightious death the 1808 importation ban was ment to deal it, then there would not have been a war. It added an element of honor and morality to an economic conflict. (Southerners in the early founding period tended to view slavery as wrong, but, later, they tended to become quite shrill in their defense of the institution, especially as it became more profitable with cotton, and as they got tired of playing Badger to the North's Mal in regard to the morality of slavery.) The economic tension between manufacturing and agrarian interests would have been offset by the settlement of the Midwest, again, IMHO.

Jon

PS

Have I seen you say that you were a PoliSci grad of the Univ. of Houston? Should I say hi to Dr. Lutz for you?

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Friday, April 23, 2004 3:33 AM

Gunhand, I think you're probably right - he probably was talking about cattle (yes, he knows a lot about taking care of them, even if he says they're fed milk and all that :).

One more crazy theory - going way out on a limb - what about if he hates slavery because his mother was the slave owner, and Mal was an illegitimate son via a slave? Perhaps the slaves helped raise him (he says he had a big family). I know, this is nutty - next I'll be claiming he's an illegimate child of Thomas Jefferson or something :)

As for the history mix, I agree - Joss has done a great job blending a vast array of different historical references and cultures throughout the show, and it's unlikely to be accurate to say that one side or the other can be directly linked to any side in a historical war.

As for the Independents drawing on Southern sentiment - really interesting idea - but do we ever hear a name of a place that would tie it to the South? I wonder why not? Lot of good Southern names out there to use for planets. There's a lot of references (Londonium, etc.) to real-world names.

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Friday, April 23, 2004 4:37 AM

HEB

I don't know whether Inara supporting unification meant that she supported the Alliance as well but I couldn't see her supporting the alliance if they obviously supported slavery.

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Friday, April 23, 2004 1:45 PM

LeMat:

Looking forward to your weekend? I've got 6:45AM openers at the tower both days, so mine's shot; but that's what they pay me the 'big bucks' for (zoid says without laughing aloud).

As I said in the original post, for the vast majority of Southerners -- who were not wealthy plantation owners, just plain working stiffs and small farmers -- the fight was necessary because a Northern-dominated Congress was passing tariff laws that unjustly favored the Northern states. The little guy could really care less if slavery was abolished because he didn't own any, thought slavery was wrong, and/or couldn't afford a slave in any account.

As I also pointed out at least three times, Lincoln -- as the leader of his Republican party -- was dead-set on freeing the slaves, and had the backing of his party (again, the ones who dominated Congress and could pass any law they wanted, regardless the objections of the Democrats of the South). But they hadn't made that move before the start of the War.

So why did all those Southern boys and men, most of whom didn't have any first-hand dealings with slavery go to war? Because they didn't like the rich manufacturers of the North passing laws that basically devalued their crops, while jacking up the prices of manufactured exchange goods. Southerners not only considered that practice unfair, they considered it unconstitutional. Under States' Rights policy, an individual state could rule a federal law unconstitutional -- or more correctly, beyond the powers that the Constitution provided the legislative branch -- and repeal it as it applied to that state. This was a Jeffersonian ideal.

As I stated in that post, the powers that be in the South -- the minority wealthy, slave-holding plantation owners -- knew that the next thing coming down the pike was abolition of slavery. Without a viable States' Rights policy, Northern interests were going to bankrupt them. A good analogy exists between that stance and Big Oil today. If the US moves away from petroleum to a cheap and universal energy source like hydrogen fuel cells, they will have a hard time holding onto their wealth. Wealthy people didn't get wealthy by suffering their wealth to drain away without a fight. Then as now, it wasn't just the principals involved in losing money either, it was their investors as well...

So a fight was inevitable, then and now. But for the common man -- then, as now -- the fight was about justice and their right to live free from tyranny. Slavery wasn't that big an issue to them, just as I couldn't give a rat's patoot whether Big Oil goes the way of the dinosaur; but I do want to live free from the tyranny of terror. That's worth fighting and dying for.

I did attend the U of H (Eat 'em up, Eat 'em up, Rah, Rah, Rah!) from '76 through '78, but did not graduate. I pursued a promising, though ultimately unfruitful, musical career instead. (Youth is wasted on the young) Y'all stay in school, and like Chris Walken said, "Study your math, kids! It's the key to the universe!"

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."

- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard

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Saturday, April 24, 2004 11:29 AM

ANKHAGOGO

Ok, I read through this thread, and I have a pragmatic question for one and all:

Why does there have to be any deeper reason why Mal hates slavery? Look at it this way --I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that no-one here fought in the Civil War, but is anyone here forslavery, or okay with the concept of it? I don't think it has much to do with the fact that Mal is a freedom-loving guy in the "won't be held down by the man" sense; I think it has more to do with the fact that he's a moral man, and slavery is morally reprehensible. Yes, that is a sociologically instilled view and it hasn't always been the view, but that doesn't mean it was ever right. I think it would be much, much odder to find out that one of the crew had no strong feelings about slavery, because they're all fairly moral people--with the possible exception of Jayne.

Actually it would be interesting to find out if the Tams owned any slaves, now that I think about it.
I don't think the question should be "Why does Mal hate slavery?" so much as it should be "Why wouldn't he?" or "What has happened, on a galatic level, that has made slavery acceptable?"

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
What about the 20 "immigrant workers" Mal hand delivered for the Alliance in the "Dead or Alive" script? Not saying that it means anything, but I thought I'd point it out just to see what comes of it.

Well, like it or not, immigrant workers are doing that work of their own free will. They've chosen to do that for their own motivations -- they can't find work at home, they want to live somewhere else for whatever reason and immigrant work is the only thing they're currently qualified for,stuff like that. That sounds terribly cold, I know it; but there is a moral difference between transporting people who are going to literally be purchased, and transporting people who were forced, for economic reasons, to leave their homes and take seriously crappy jobs.

I kinda like what someone said about Mal thinking Inara was enslaving herself by being a Companion, but that, I think, is just his perception. From things Inara and Nandi have both said, the Companion's Guild seems to be set up to avoid that very thing -- a Companion chooses her own clients, so-and-so is Guild Law, etc. But if Nandi is any indication, a Companion can leave the Guild anytime she wants to -- it's not illegal for them to leave or anything like that. Now if a Companion gets used to the money and can't bear to leave because she's gotten used to a certain standard of living, that's her own personal choice. If she's unhappy, she can leave; if she doesn't leave, that's her own fault.
I think Mal considers the profession too obviously dependent on other people, which is funny, since his profession -- thieving or transporting -- is just as dependent on others.

I was going to write a whole thing about Mal's issue with Companions, but I think I'm going to just start a new thread, because I can go on about it for quite some time. So come on over there, if ya wanna.

"We're just happy to be doin' good works."

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Saturday, April 24, 2004 2:29 PM

The morality of slavery isn't something I really want to go into, of course anyone that is for it in the western world in the early 21st century is...well nuts. But at various times and places in history it wasn't considered to be morally wrong. Mapping our morality into the past (or the future) doesn't really do much except say something about our morals, in a relativistic sense our morality now may be seen as 'puritanical' or 'hedonistic' depending on whatever history hasn't happened yet. If we were tugged into the 25th century (ain't gonna happen unless you're Buck Rogers) we'd probably be spending a hell of a lot of effort debunking their theories on what our morality is/was.

That aside, the feeling I get from watching the show is that slavery is morally ambiguous in the 'verse. Persepohone may not be a Core world but it's hardly the frontier and slavery is treated as an everyday fact of life by the aristocracy. The slaver at the beginning of Shindig said the slaves were bound for a terraforming effort, that means either big government or big corporations, neither of which would be all that good at an underground, illegal slave trade, if it was done it'd be known about, which makes me think that it's legal in the Alliance.

Which swings all the way back to my initial hypothesis that the Independants were politically against it, although Mal seems to be of the 'true believer' ilk in regards to abolition, not just to the extent it being just a factional ideal, he believes that slavery is wrong in his heart.

So I agree with you to a point and disagree with you to a point. I see Mal as a very moral person even though he tries to be this cold and cool criminal mastermind sort, but to the people in the 'verse he'd be considered moral by some, being blind to the socio-economical benefits of slavery by others, and downright dangerous to yet others.

Pain is scary...

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Saturday, April 24, 2004 4:32 PM

DBELL46

Quote:
Originally posted by Annigerria:

Now, that's interesting. I took that scene as Badger passing that woman for work in the red-light district... will have to go back and watch it again. (Oh, twist my arm)

**************************************************
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour... The Galaxy Song, Meaning of Life, Monty Python
**************************************************

This thread touches on a real life issue that
I'm very interested in.

First of all, in the credits for Serenity, that
girl is refered to as Slave one. Also, one of the
most common forms of slavery practised today is
slave prostitution, so that girl could very well
be a slave who was assigned to a redlight
district.

Slavery today in the U.S. is the third largest
money maker for organized crime behind drugs and
guns. In europe, interpol estimates that the
international traffick in women and children
accounts for apprx. 19 billion euros a year. so,
assuming that there's been no major change in
human nature in the next 500 years, and given the
fact that the crew of Serenity make their living
on the fringes of the economy, they would run
into slavery quite frequently.

Its also interesting that the first time Mal
sees River naked in that box, he assumes that she
is a slave who's been sold to a border world
baron in a deal brokered by Simon.

We know that Mal's convictions about personal
freedom were/are strong enough for him to continue
fighting against long odds. From this, we can draw
some conclusions:
1.Indentured servitude is legal in the Alliance,
although its popularity would vary from planet to
planet.
2.If indentured servitude is legal, then slavery
is common since one tends to blur into the other.
(check out the history of the song THE YELLOW
ROSE OF TEXAS)

I don't believe that Mal's on a crusade against
slavery per se, but, because it is a constant
background phenom, would see it as another example
of Alliance oppression to be resisted.

If you are interested in the topic of modern
day slavery, I'd urge you to check out the web
site iabolish.com

*************************************************
If history is remarkably clear on one point,
it's that people don't learn from history.
*************************************************

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Monday, April 26, 2004 1:14 PM

LEMAT

Zoid,

I am about to repeat most of what you and I have already said, but with a slightly different emphasis.

Most of the folks in the South were not slaveholders, and the North was forcing economic policies that hurt the agricultural South. All I am saying is that slavery was an additional problem that the nation faced. In the early 1790's, many people, including slaveholders, looked at slavery as an evil stain on society, but that was ok because slavery looked to be on the way out. It had ever deceasing economic viability and so many felt that it was not an issue that had to be dealt with right away. It was a problem that would take care of itself. They were wrong.

The slaveholding class was making money hand over fist off of their slaves during the first half of the 19th century, and starting around 1800 the view of most Southerns--especially of the upper and upper midling sort--started to change. Many became much more avidly proslavery, and the issue begain to be associated with sectional patriotism. Keep in mind that the Antebellum South was a hierarchical society in which many took their cues from the "better sort." This would be especially true among those who were high enough up in the system to vote--which still entailed a property requirement in most of the South. So the people who made political decisions supported slavery. They supported it so much so that they were unwilling to work with people that they viewed as against them, and they became increasingly clannish about their support of their homeland against the perceived encroachments of the rest of the country. The rest of the population tended to support them. And when the Yankees started coming, gorramit all to hell if they were just going to sit around and take it. So ordinary farm boys who could not even vote were willing to fight and die for the rights of their country (read state) even when they had no real political rights. They were fighting in the name of sectional patriotism that had been fostered by a slavholding elite. The election of Lincoln, who was going to try to stop the spread of slavery, was really just the last straw.

I guess I am trying to argue that slavery poisoned the well between the North and the South. Without slavery, the issue of western settlement would not have become the political bomb it was. (The slave holding states needed to have half the states to be able to block anti-slave legislation in the Senate; incidentally, this goes back to Calhoun's idea of concurrent majorities that you seemed to be talking about.) Without the issue of slavery, the south could have joined with the western states in the Senate as they came into being to counteract the North/Northeast's power in the House.

Jon

(edited for spelling)

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Monday, April 26, 2004 7:01 PM