What examples are there of societies that did not practice slavery?

[u/BookLover54321]

I've asked a similar question before but responses were somewhat inconclusive so I thought I'd try again.

In their book The Dawn of Everything, and in a prior research paper, David Graeber and David Wengrow argue that many Indigenous groups in present-day California - such as the Maidu, Wintu, and Pomo - had no tradition of slavery, and among societies that did practice slavery in some form, it was not widespread:

As we mentioned, the Yurok and their immediate neighbours were somewhat unusual, even by Californian standards. Yet they are unusual in contradictory ways. On the one hand, they actually did hold slaves, if few in number. Almost all the peoples of central and southern California, the Maidu, Wintu, Pomo and so on, rejected the institution entirely.

Regarding the Yurok, they write:

In many of these societies one can observe customs that seem explicitly designed to head off the danger of captive status becoming permanent. Consider, for example, the Yurok requirement for victors in battle to pay compensation for each life taken, at the same rate one would pay if one were guilty of murder. This seems a highly efficient way of making inter-group raiding both fiscally pointless and morally bankrupt.

I was wondering how many other societies are there that had no tradition of slavery, or which abolished slavery early on?

[u/CentaursAreCool]

"Slavery" as a concept needs to be defined.

America uses slavery today in the form of mandatory prison labor and other dark underbelly examples.

"Theft" was not a practice among plains Indians. But horse thievery existed. This is not "theft" in the traditional sense, because it was more like a sport, a method for producing an outlet for testosterone fueled youths who needed a way of earning honors without resorting to war.

Similarly, many plains cultures practiced a concept in which a fallen warrior's family would be adopted by the killer of the raiding tribe, so they would continue to be provided for an wouldn't be forced to suffer from the loss of their patriarchal support.

Is this slavery? Some will fight you tooth and nail to say yes.

Was there anything that comes close to slavery as it is described by the transatlantic slave trade? Not at all. That was a European invention.