were controlled by the Corporations.
Opposition and insurrection, never able to organise widely, were always crushed with the instant and brutal finality of infinitely superior armaments. Headmen and chiefs colluded with the Bosses, who, working in the-interest of owners and Corporations, exploited the rivalries between tribes and the power struggles within them, while maintaining an absolute embargo on 'ideology,' by which they meant education, information of any kind from outside the local plantation. (On most plantations, well into the second century, literacy was a crime. A slave caught reading was blinded by dropping acid in the eyes or scraping the eyes from the sockets. A slave caught using a radio or network outlet was deafened by white-hot picks thrust through the eardrums. The 'Fit Punishment Lists' of the Corporations and plantations were long, detailed, and explicit.)
In the second century, as slave population shot As 299 'a>
FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS
up to the point of surplus on most plantations, a gradual trickle of both men and women towards the 'shop- strips' run by freedpeople grew to a steady stream. Over the decades, the 'shop-strips' grew into towns and the towns into cities entirely populated by freedpeople.
Although doomsayers among the owners began
to point to the ever-increasing size and independence of the 'Assetvilles' and 'Whiteytowns' and 'Dustyburgs' as a looming threat, the Corporations considered the cities safely under control. No large buildings were allowed, no defensive structures of any kind; possession of a firearm was punished by disembowelment; no slave was allowed to operate any flying vehicle; the Corporations kept tight guard on raw materials and industrial processes that could provide weaponry of any kind to the slaves or freedpeople.
'Ideology,' education, did exist in the cities.
Late in the second century of the Colony, the Corporations, while censoring, filtering, and altering information, formally gave permission for freedpeo-ple's children and some tribal children to be schooled up to age 14. They allowed slave communities to set up schools, and sold them books and other materials. In the third century the Corporations instituted and maintained an information and entertainment network for the cities.
Educated workers were becoming valuable- The limitations of the tribes had become increasingly evident. Rigidly conservative, most tribal chiefs and Bosses were unable or unwilling to change any practices in any way, at a time when the abuse of the planet's resources called for radical changes in meth-
a-O 300 vA-s
Notes on Werel and Yeowe
ods and objectives. It was clear that profit on Yeowe would increasingly come not from strip-mining. clear- cutting, and monoculture, but from refined industry, modem plants staffed by skilled workers capable of learning new techniques and following unfamiliar orders.
On Werel, a capitalist slave society, work was done by people. Slave labor, whether simple brawn-work or highly skilled, was hand labor, aided by an elegant but ancillary machine technology: 'The trained asset is the finest machine, and the cheapest.' Production, even of very high-technology items, was essentially traditional craft of very high quality. Neither speed nor great volume was particularly valued.
On Yeowe, late in the third century of the
Colony, as raw material exports failed, slave labor was used in a new way. The assembly line was developed, with the conscious purpose not only of speeding and cheapening production, but also of keeping the worker ignorant of the work process as a whole. The Second Planet Corporation, dropping the words Forest Woods from its name, led the new manufacture. The SPC quickly surpassed the old giants. Mines and Agriculture, reaping huge profits from the sale of mass-produced finished goods to the poorer nations of Werel. By the time of the Uprising, more than half the freedworkers of Yeowe were owned by or rented to the Second Planet Corporation.
There was far more social unrest in the mills and mill towns than on the tribal plantations. Corporation executives ascribed it to the increase in the number of 'uncontrolled' freedpersons, and many advocated closing the schools, destruction of
TW 301 SW
FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS
the cities, and reinstitution of sealed compounds for all slaves. The Corporations' city militia (gareots
hired and brought from Werel, plus a police force of unarmed freedmen) increased to a considerable standing army, its gareot members heavily armed. Much of the unrest in the cities and attempts at protest centered on mills that used the assembly line. Workers who, feeling themselves part of an intelligible process, would tolerate very harsh conditions, found meaningless work intolerable, even though working conditions were in some ways improved.
The Liberation began, however, not in the cities, but in the compounds of the plantations.
The Uprising and the Liberation
The Uprising had its origin in organisations of tribal women in plantations of Great Continent, joining together to prevent ritual rape of girl-children and to demand tribal laws against sexual enslavement of bondswomen by bondsmen, gang rape, and the beating and murder of women, for none of which was there any penalty.
dren of both sexes, then by demanding proportional voice in the all-male tribal councils. Their organisations, called Woman Clubs, spread across both continents throughout the third century of the Colony. The Clubs spirited so many girls and women off the plantations into the cities that the chiefs' and Bosses' complaints began to be heard by the Corporations. Local tribesman and Bosses were encouraged to 'go into the cities and get their women back.'
sws 302 a-*.®
Notes on Werel and Yeowe
These incursions, often led by plantation police and aided by the Corporation city militia, were often carried out with extreme brutality. City freed-people, unused to the kind of violence normal on the plantations, reacted with outrage. City bondsmen were drawn to defend and fight with the women.
In 61 BP, in Eyu Province, in the town of Soyeso, the slaves' successful resistance to a police raid from Nadami Plantation (APC) escalated into
an attack on the plantation itself. The police barracks were stormed and burned. Some of the chiefs of Nadami joined the uprising, opening their compounds to the rebels. Others joined in the defense of their owners in the Plantation House. A slave woman unlocked the doors of the plantation armory to the insurrection — the first time in the history of Yeowe Colony that any large group of slaves had access to powerful weapons. A massacre of owners followed, but it was partially restrained:
most of the children of the Plantation House, and twenty women and men, were spared and put on a train to the capital. No adult slave who had fought against the uprising was spared.
From Nadami the Uprising spread, by way of guns and ammunition, to three neighboring plantations. All the tribes joined, defeating Corporation forces in the quick, fierce Battle of Nadami- Slaves and freedpeople from neighboring provinces poured into Eyu. The chiefs, the grandmothers of the compounds, and the leaders of the insurrection met at Nadami and declared Eyu Province a free state.
Within ten days, Corporation bombing raids and land troops had smashed the insurrection.
aA 303 -Af-
FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS
Captured rebels were tortured and executed. Particular revenge was taken on the town of Soyeso;
all the people left there, mostly children and the old, were herded into the town squares and trucks and tread-wheeled ore-carriers ran over and over them. This was called 'paving with dust.'
The Corporations' victory had been quick and easy, but it was followed by a new insurrection at a different plantation, the murder of an owner's family here, a strike of city freedworkers there, all over the world.
The unrest did not cease. Many attacks on plantation armories and militia barracks were successful;
the insurrectionists now had weapons, and learned how to make bombs and mines. Hit-and-run warfare
in the jungles and the great marshes gave the guerrillas' advantage to the rebels. It became clear that the Corporations needed more armaments and more manpower. They imported mercenary soldiers from the poorer nations of Werel. Not all of these were loyal or effective troops. The Corporations soon persuaded the government of Voe Deo to safeguard its national interest by investing troops in the defense of the Owners of Yeowe. At first the commitment was reluctant, but 23 years after Nadami, Voe Deo decided to put down the unrest once and for all, sending 45,000 troops, all veots (members of the hereditary warrior caste) or owner-volunteers.
