slaves and slavery

This is new territory for me and some insight would be apprreciated.
Am i right in assuming that slaves can be used to make up part or all of the manpower requirements of trade investments?
Merchant shipping. if part of the crew say 1/3 is made up of slaves, will they jump ship at the first opportunity?
Fishing fleets. if all the crew is made up of slaves will they just sail into the sunset never to be seen again.
Has anyone experience of an ottoman player using slaves to increase his military? After all Janissaries and Mamelukes are themselves technically slaves.
Naval units. Has anyone experience of using slaves to make up part of the crew complement of naval vessels. In my eyes there doesn't seem to be much difference between English press gang tactics and using slaves.
Aside from menial tasks, has anyone any experience of using them for other purposes?
in anticipation, many thanks.

slaves were used in galleys in north africa, so i dont see why you cant employ slaves as crew. Galley slaves can be chained to the oars but obviously sailing ships are different. i might experiment and use perhaps up to 1/4 of the crew at most as slaves in sailing ships.

I have also sent slaves down my mines (although i dont know the outcome yet) and in crop plantations.

slaves as the name suggests are slaves, hence trying to make them mn a ship could lead to desertions and trying to make them a military force? who knows use them as investments and in mines etc.... save your recruits for the armed forces.

It is an interesting question. I did once ask Richard (when playing Denmark) if it would be possible to recruit military forces from slaves, the short answer was "no", quite sensible really-giving slaves weapons...However I think the Asante Union are allowed to use slaves as warriors.

The slaves in galleys point is a good one, would be interesting to see what an in-game outcome would be!

For myself I have only used slaves either on plantations or in trade investments.

I think press ganging (which is allowed in the game?) is more like conscription than slavery

slaves on galleys is ok, BUT I would suggest they are hackled to the benches to stop desertions,

thanks for imput gentlemen. Pretty much as i'd thought. Yes conscription is a more appropriate description for press gangs. I guess them cotton fields are going to be busy.

re-reading Jeremy Black's European warfare 1660-1815 there is evidence that europeans did use slaves as troops. In 1794-5 the British raised units of slaves (presumably captured from the french in the west indies) and used them as fast moving light infantry.

this suggests that what might work is if you free slaves its worth trying to ask if they will join your army

Risky.......

Very Risky... The slaves would likely turn on the former masters and do exactly the same thing they did when the revolted. The population split made this nearly impossible in the Caribbean basin.

Interesting idea though.

well life is a risk! I have looked this up further and this worked in the american war of independence where former slaves joined the english side and fought succesfully.

Obviously the context is crucial.

In Saint-dominque the french army was about 25,000 in the eighteenth century. Only about 3,000 were white frenchman and the rest were mullatos. now, yes you will say come the french revolution they did actually turn on their french masters but at the same time it did work as a tactic for over 60 years.

so it can work, you just need to take care ( as you always do when using foreign troops). but given the scarcity of recruits it something i would look at seriously.

I've got some slaves under arms at present: I have indentured them in return for their freedom in several years time. I hope to have institutionalized them by then and either continue with them serving the colours or reverting to recruits. Really small numbers and only a proportion of the garrison/army strength.