Tibet Serfdom

The Tibet region was a typical slave society between the seventh and ninth century. Over the following centuries, slaves turned into serfs, land became occupied territory and villages became manors of serf-owners. Feudal serfdom replaced slavery around the mid-13th century. Tibet's feudal serfdom solidified and self-improved during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

In old Tibet,the local government, nobles and high-ranking monks in monasteries were called the three feudal lords. They possessed an absolute majority of production means in the region. They owned over 90-percent of the land, pastures and serfs. There were no land-hold farmers, freemen, or handicraftsmen who broke away from serfdom. Business occupied a very little portion in the social economy. Bartering was still a main form of trade in farming and stock breeding areas. The handicraft industry operated in the form of family workshops and production procedures were not divided by professions. As there were no workshop handicraft, no industry existed.

"Xika" in Tibetan means a manor in farming area, it also refers to a pastoral tribe. Xika was a basic economic organization representing the ownership, distribution and operation of land in the feudal serfdom period of Tibet. Xika was occupied by the three feudal lords. That is, Tibet's land, pastures, even mountains, forests and rivers all belonged to the local feudal government, monasteries and nobles.

The old Tibet was administered under theocracy - a joint dictatorship by monks and nobles. Its executive organ was named Gaxag. All the official positions were filled by upper-ranking monks and nobles. Gaxag's properties might have seemed to be public property but, in reality, only the minority of people with real power like the Dalai Lama had control over the properties.

In the old Tibet under theocracy, the monasteries had the absolute status and power. This came from theocracy and general belief. At the same time, it was supported by the massive amount of money and property owned by the monasteries.

Nobles were another group of feudal lords. They were officials who had rendered outstanding service in the government, as well as family members of upper-ranking monks during the alternation of power. They usually received their properties as bonuses or rewards from the feudal local government.

"Miza" was a fixed term used during the feudal serfdom period. Its direct translation is 'human root', meaning that everybody is tied to a fixed root that can't be separated. In the society of feudal serfdom under theocracy, every person had to be attached to a master, who were either officials, monasteries or nobles. They, in turn, had to be attached to the highest ruler of theocracy- the Dalai Lama.

The three feudal lords exploited and controlled the serfs by loaning land to them. Serfs were either "tralpa" or 'Duiqoin', who represented 90 percent of the total population of Tibet at the time.

Tralpa were people who tilled plots of land assigned to them... and had to offer their unpaid labor to the serf-owners. If a tralpa belonged to a monastery or a noble, he had to also work for the government. Tralpa didn't have ownership of the land... and couldn't sell it. They were also banned from leaving the manor at will.

Under normal circumstances, the government would only recede the land and distribute it to other serfs when the tralpa failed to pay the loan, went bankrupt or lost all their family members.

Duiqoin were the second-class serfs. They had to depend even more on their manorial lords because they had no land to till. The majority of laborers in most of the manors were thus Duiqoin.

Another group of Duiqoin cling to the manors on an immigration basis. Their relations with the lord were relatively loose.

Some other Duiqoin made a living by making handicrafts. But their social status was extremely low, especially for blacksmiths. They were regarded as pariahs and were rejected by society.

Serfs were often given to other manorial lords as dowry. Serf-owners could also loan and sell the laborers to other people. And serfs were even used as gambling stake or mortgage debt.

The Serfs' marriages were also restricted. They were normally only allowed to marry people within the manor to which they belonged. If that was not the case, they had to ask for permission from the manorial lords on both sides. A serf who wanted to leave his owner for his partner's manor had to pay a redemption fee. Alternatively, he had to be replaced by another serf sent by his future lord. Their children's fate was predetermined. Boys were owned by the father's lord, and girls belonged to the mother's side.

The Nangzan, which formed about five percent of the Tibetan population of the time, belonged to the bottom of the society. They were not considered an estate of serfs, but more like private slaves of the manors. In old Tibet they were called "talking livestock". They could be sold and presented as gifts and their owners could kill them if they wished. The children of Nangzan were also Nangzan.

In addition to the tralpa, duiqoin and nangzan, poor and low-ranking monks were also oppressed by society. They were forced to work in monasteries to make a living, avoid manorial labor or refill other monks' positions.

Ulag, a joint name of taxes, corvee and land rent, means forced labor.

There were so many Ulags in old Tibet that it's impossible to know the exact figure.

According to incomplete statistics, there were 1,892 kinds of Ulags levied each year by the Gaxag, the former local government of Tibet alone. Serfs had to contribute more than half or even 70 to 80 percent of their labor free to the Gaxag and the three feudal lords. Besides the external forced labor, serfs and slaves should donated material objects to and do forced labor for their masters.

Herdsmen also could not escape from the Ulag. There were two types of Ulag for herdsmen in old Tibet. One was Chiyod Skyeyod, meaning some are born while some die. It referred to a fixed number of rented animals. Herdsmen were asked to tend the rented animals and hand more than half of the butter produced by the rented livestock. The other was called Chimed skyemed, meaning no cattle are born and none die. It referred to rented animals and the butter they handed in were fixed. New breeding belonged to the renter, while, if some died, the herdsmen had to repay the owner.

For those herdsmen who didn't have tents to live in or livestock, they were still enslaved to pay forced labor to the livestock-owners. It shows that they were subjected to the control of livestock-owners, even though they didn't have steady employment.

Under feudal serfdom, serfs and slaves suffered from huge economic exploitation. This 366.6-meter-long file, preserved in the Tibet Archives, may be the world's longest report on various types of Ulags that manorial lords in old Tibet levied.

This 7-centimeter long file, with no more than ten characters, showed one serf's personal bondage to his serf-owner.

High-interest loans was also an important way that the three feudal lords often chose to exploit serfs. The profits they gained from the loans were a vital income source for them. About 10 percent of the annual income of the Gaxag came from high-interest loans. All monasteries and high-ranking monks lent money for interest and the three big monasteries in Lhasa lent money throughout Tibet. The interest accounted for 15 to 20 percent of the lords' total income. As the family of the Dalai Lama owned the most manors and lent much more money, 25 percent of the family's annual income came from interest on loans. Nearly every serf relied on high-interest loans to survive.

The huge gap between the rich and the poor and the miserable lives of the Tibetan serfs easily led to instability in the old Tibet society, which only served the interests of the three manorial lords.

In order to enforce the serfdom, the three manorial lords regulated a law system, which kept theocratic ideology as the center of the law.

The “13-Article Code” and the 16-Article Code of old Tibet divided people into three classes and nine levels, enshrining social and political inequality between the different levels in law. Serfs were seen as serf-owners’ personal properties. Serfs could be sold, transferred, given away, mortgaged or exchanged by their owners. Serf-owners said ‘there are no serfs that cannot be obedient after severe punishment, just as there are no oxen that cannot be obedient after being yoked.’ Those codes explicitly stated that the life of a person of the upper class was literally worth its weight in gold, while that of a person of the lower class was worth only the price of a straw rope. Serf-owners maintained their high social positions by cruelly and wildly punishing their serfs. The punishments included flogging, cutting off their hands or feet, gouging out their eyes and chopping off their ears. Sometimes serf-owners killed their serfs at will. Many serfs were forced to stray and beg for their lives.

The society of old Tibet was much similar to that of Medieval Europe, so many scholars called the modality of the society in old Tibet “feudal serfdom”.

For instance, Xika, as an unit of production, is similar to the manor in Medieval Europe. The corvee for serfs in old Tibet is also nearly the same as what the slaves suffered in Medieval Europe. The European Christian churches obtained manors and land by presentation and bestowal, the same way the Tibetan monasteries acquired them. With the establishment of European feudalism, people gradually lost their land and freedom and were downgraded to slaves, who were an appendage to the land of their masters, having no personal freedom at all. In old Tibet, serfs could not leave the farmland. They were also subjected to the three manorial lords.

Differences still existed. The Tibetan manor economy left more traces of slavery. In old Tibet, all the farmland and pastures belonged to manorial lords. Duiqoin did not have their own land or personal freedom. Besides, they also had to work for the manor owner without any difference from slaves. Nangzans were thrown into a more serious and miserable position in terms of their personal subordination compared with Thralpas and Duiqoins.

The feudal regime across Europe in the middle ages has been abolished for centuries. However, the feudal serfdom in old Tibet existed before the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959.

From 1959 to 1961, millions of serfs and slaves in Tibet finally became masters themselves. They annulled the theocratic system and the feudal privileges of the upper-class monks and nobles, abolished the feudal ownership of the means of production, and realized the historic change of the society in Tibet.