Editing Sogdia (section)

==Slave trade ==
{{further|History of slavery in China|Iranians in China}}
[[Slavery]] existed in China since ancient times, although during the Han dynasty the proportion of slaves to the overall population was roughly 1%,<ref>Hulsewé, A.F.P. (1986). "Ch'in and Han law", in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 520–544. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 524–525, {{ISBN|0-521-24327-0}}.</ref> far lower than the estimate for the contemporary [[Greco-Roman world]] (estimated at 15% of [[Demography of the Roman Empire|the entire population]]).<ref>Hucker, Charles O. (1975). ''China's Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 177, {{ISBN|0-8047-0887-8}}.</ref><ref>For specific figures in regards to percentage of the population being enslaved, see Frier, Bruce W. (2000). "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone (eds), ''The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 827–54.</ref> During the Tang period, slaves were not allowed to marry a commoner's daughter, were not allowed to have sexual relations with any female member of their master's family, and although fornication with female slaves was forbidden in the [[Tang Code|Tang code of law]], it was widely practiced.<ref>Anders Hansson (1996), ''Chinese Outcasts: Discrimination and Emancipation in Late Imperial China'', Leiden, New York, Koln: E.J. Brill, pp 38–39, {{ISBN|90-04-10596-4}}.</ref> [[Manumission]] was also permitted when a slave woman gave birth to her master's son, which allowed for her elevation to the legal status of a commoner, yet she could only live as a [[concubine]] and not as the wife of her former master.<ref>Anders Hansson (1996), ''Chinese Outcasts: Discrimination and Emancipation in Late Imperial China'', Leiden, New York, Koln: E.J. Brill, p. 39, {{ISBN|90-04-10596-4}}.</ref>

[[File:Contract written in Sogdian for the purchase of a slave in 639 CE, Astana Tomb No. 135.jpg|thumb|left|Contract written in Sogdian for the purchase of a slave in 639 CE, [[Astana Tomb]] No. 135.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pei |first1=Chengguo |title=The Silk Road and the Economy of Gaochang: Evidence on the Circulation of Silver Coins |journal=The Silk Road |date=2017 |volume=15 |page=40 |url=http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol15/srjournal_v15.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517030834/http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol15/srjournal_v15.pdf |archive-date=17 May 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
Sogdian and Chinese merchants regularly traded in slaves in and around Turpan during the Tang dynasty. [[Turpan]] under [[Tang dynasty]] rule was a center of major commercial activity between Chinese and [[Sogdian people|Sogdian]] merchants. There were many inns in Turpan. Some provided Sogdian sex workers with an opportunity to service the [[Silk Road]] merchants, since the official histories report that there were markets in women at [[Kucha]] and [[Khotan]].<ref>Xin Tangshu 221a:6230. In addition, [[Susan Whitfield]] offers a fictionalized account of a Kuchean courtesan's experiences in the 9th century without providing any sources, although she has clearly drawn on the description of the prostitutes' quarter in [[Chang'an]] in Beilizhi; Whitfield, 1999, pp. 138–154.</ref> The Sogdian-language contract buried at the [[Astana Cemetery|Astana graveyard]] demonstrates that at least one Chinese man bought a Sogdian girl in 639 AD. One of the archaeologists who excavated the Astana site, Wu Zhen, contends that, although many households along the Silk Road bought individual slaves, as demonstrated in the earlier documents from Niya, the Turpan documents point to a massive escalation in the volume of the slave trade.<ref>Wu Zhen 2000 (p. 154 is a Chinese-language rendering based on Yoshida's Japanese translation of the Sogdian contract of 639).</ref> In 639 a female Sogdian slave was sold to a Chinese man, as recorded in an [[Astana]] cemetery legal document written in Sogdian.<ref name="Skaff2012">{{cite book|author=Jonathan Karam Skaff|title=Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors: Culture, Power, and Connections, 580–800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qTm6Yka5GigC&pg=PA70|date=23 August 2012|publisher=OUP US|isbn=978-0-19-973413-9|pages=70–}}</ref> Khotan and [[Kucha]] were places where women were commonly sold, with ample evidence of the slave trade in Turfan thanks to contemporary textual sources that have survived.<ref name="TrombertVaissière2005">{{cite book|author1=Éric Trombert|author2=Étienne de La Vaissière|title=Les sogdiens en Chine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O44MAQAAMAAJ&q=slave|year=2005|publisher=École française d'Extrême-Orient|isbn=978-2-85539-653-8|page=299}}</ref><ref name="TrombertVaissière">{{cite web |url=http://history.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/hansen-silk-road-trade.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105062305/http://history.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/hansen-silk-road-trade.pdf |archive-date=5 November 2013 |url-status=live |title=Les Sogdiens en Chine: The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500–800 |first=Valerie |last=Hansen|website=History.yale.edu|access-date=25 July 2017}}</ref> In [[Tang poetry]] Sogdian girls also frequently appear as [[waiting staff|serving maids]] in the taverns and inns of the capital Chang'an.<ref>Rong, Xinjiang, "New light on Sogdian Colonies along the Silk Road : Recent Archaeological Finds in Northern China (Lecture at the BBAW on 20 September 2001)", in ''Berichte und Abhandlungen'' (17 December 2009); 10, S., p. 150.</ref>

Sogdian slave girls and their Chinese male owners made up the majority of Sogdian female-Chinese male pairings, while free Sogdian women were the most common spouse of Sogdian men. A smaller number of Chinese women were paired with elite Sogdian men. Sogdian man-and-woman pairings made up eighteen out of twenty-one marriages according to existing documents.<ref name="TrombertVaissière" /><ref name="TrombertVaissière2005 2">{{cite book|author1=Éric Trombert|author2=Étienne de La Vaissière|title=Les sogdiens en Chine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O44MAQAAMAAJ&q=slave|year=2005|publisher=École française d'Extrême-Orient|isbn=978-2-85539-653-8|pages=300–301}}</ref>

A document dated 731 AD reveals that precisely forty [[Bolt (cloth)|bolts]] of silk were paid to a certain Mi Lushan, a slave dealing Sogdian, by a Chinese man named Tang Rong (唐榮) of Chang'an, for the purchase of an eleven-year-old girl. A person from Xizhou, a Tokharistani (i.e. Bactrian), and three Sogdians verified the sale of the girl.<ref name="TrombertVaissière" /><ref name="TrombertVaissière2005 3">{{cite book|author1=Éric Trombert|author2=Étienne de La Vaissière|title=Les sogdiens en Chine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O44MAQAAMAAJ&q=Mi+Lushan|year=2005|publisher=École française d'Extrême-Orient|isbn=978-2-85539-653-8|page=300}}</ref>

Central Asians like Sogdians were called "Hu" (胡) by the Chinese during the Tang dynasty. Central Asian "Hu" women were stereotyped as barmaids or dancers by Han in China. Han Chinese men engaged in mostly extra-marital sexual relationships with them as the "Hu" women in China mostly occupied positions where sexual services were sold to patrons like singers, maids, slaves and prostitutes.<ref>{{cite book |last= Abramson |first=Marc S. |series=Encounters with Asia|date= 2011 |title= Ethnic Identity in Tang China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GLGnRspmcAC&dq=%22vast+numbers+of+non-Han+women+served+in+subordinate+positions%22&pg=PA20|location= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=20 |isbn=978-0812201017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Abramson |first=Marc S. |series=Encounters with Asia|date= 2011 |title= Ethnic Identity in Tang China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GLGnRspmcAC&pg=PA202|location= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=202 |isbn=978-0812201017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Abramson |first=Marc S. |series=Encounters with Asia|author-link= |date= 2011 |title= Ethnic Identity in Tang China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GLGnRspmcAC&dq=%22the+hu-chi,+mainly+Iranian+girls,+found+in+China+during+the+Tang+period%22&pg=PA235|location= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=235 |isbn=978-0812201017|quote=Katô Hakushi Kanreki Kinen Ronbunshû Kankôkai. 83–91. Tokyo: Fuzanbô. ———. 1948. Tôshi sôshô. Tokyo: Kaname Shohô. ———. 1961. “The hu-chi, mainly Iranian girls, found in China during the Tang period.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Light|first=Nathan |date= 1998|title= Slippery Paths: The Performance and Canonization of Turkic Literature and Uyghur Muqam Song in Islam and Modernity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mCRkAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+hu-chi,+mainly+Iranian+girls,+found+in+China+during+the+Tang+period%22|location= |publisher=Indiana University|page=303 |quote=... see Mikinosuke ISHIDA, " Etudes sino – iraniennes, I : A propos du Hou – siuan – wou, " AIRDTB, 6 ( 1932 ) 61–76, and " The Hu – chi, Mainly Iranian Girls, found in China during the Tang Period, " MRDTB, 20 ( 1961 ) 35–40 .}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |number=29 of Bibliographies and indexes in religious studies|last1= Israeli|first1=Raphael |last2= Gorman|first2=Lyn |date= 1994 |title=Islam in China: A Critical Bibliography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lLHgAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+hu-chi,+mainly+Iranian+girls,+found+in+China+during+the+Tang+period%22|issn=0742-6836 |publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=0313278571|page=153 |edition=illustrated, annotated|quote=... 1033 Chinese Mohammedans, " 9012 " How Can We Best Reach the Mohammedan Women ?, " 6025 " How Islam Entered China, " 1057 " The Hu - Chi, Mainly Iranian Girls Found in China during the Tang Period, " 2010 " The Hui and the ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last= Ling|editor-first1=Scott K. |date= 1975|title=近三十年中國文史哲論著書目: Studies on Chinese Philosophy, Religion, History, Geography, Biography, Art, and Language and Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QrlqXza9oKAC&dq=%22the+hu-chi,+mainly+Iranian+girls,+found+in+China+during+the+Tang+period%22&pg=PA209|publisher=Liberal Arts Press|isbn=9575475399|page=209 |edition=illustrated, annotated|quote=... 1033 Chinese Mohammedans, " 9012 " How Can We Best Reach the Mohammedan Women ?, " 6025 " How Islam Entered China, " 1057 " The Hu - Chi, Mainly Iranian Girls Found in China during the Tang Period, " 2010 " The Hui and the ...}}</ref> Southern [[Baiyue]] girls were exoticized in poems.<ref>{{cite book |last= 李 |first= 白|date= |title=全唐詩|url=https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%85%A8%E5%94%90%E8%A9%A9/%E5%8D%B7184#%E8%B6%8A%E5%A5%B3%E8%A9%9E%E4%BA%94%E9%A6%96|location= |publisher= |page= |chapter=卷184#越女詞五首 卷一百八十四}}</ref> Han men did not want to legally marry them unless they had no choice such as if they were on the frontier or in exile since the Han men would be socially disadvantaged and have to marry non-Han.<ref>{{cite book |last= Abramson |first=Marc S. |series=Encounters with Asia|author-link= |date= 2011 |title= Ethnic Identity in Tang China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GLGnRspmcAC&dq=%22documented+cases+of+marriage+between+Han+men+and+non-Han+women+occurred+when+the+Han+men+were+in+socially+liminal+situations%22&pg=PA158 |location= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=158|isbn=978-0812201017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Abramson |first=Marc S. |series=Encounters with Asia|author-link= |date= 2011 |title= Ethnic Identity in Tang China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GLGnRspmcAC&pg=PA218 |location= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=218|isbn=978-0812201017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= 劉 |first= 昫|date= |title=舊唐書|url=https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%88%8A%E5%94%90%E6%9B%B8/%E5%8D%B7193 |chapter=卷193 卷一百九十三}}</ref> The task of taking care of herd animals like sheep and cattle was given to "Hu" slaves in China.<ref>{{cite book |last= Abramson |first=Marc S. |series=Encounters with Asia|author-link= |date= 2011 |title= Ethnic Identity in Tang China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GLGnRspmcAC&dq=%22presented+the+captured+women+and+livestock%22&pg=PA136 |location= |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|pages=135, 136|isbn=978-0812201017}}</ref>