The system or practice of enslaving people and treating them as serfs, particularly the oppressive condition of helots in ancient Sparta.
From Greek 'heilōs' (serf/slave) combined with the suffix '-try' meaning a system or practice. The term originally referred to the unfree laborers in ancient Sparta who were bound to the land.
Helots were so oppressed that Spartan citizens had to take a secret oath each year to kill any helot they found getting too ambitious—a chilling reminder that ancient 'glory' was built on brutal slavery.
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