Was slavery ever able to survive without a slave trade? Why were slave families possible and what form did they take?

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Slave trade seems to have existed in every slave system or slave society. Indeed, the transatlantic trade might be an exceptional phenomenon with its ten million victims in a few centuries but it is not the single one to have occurred in the History: "Long before the development of the transatlantic network enslaved persons were shipped by land and sea from the East Africa coast to India, and further East, to the island networks of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.? One can find for instance a slave trade by studying Spain between the XIth and XIIth centuries, the Aztec Empire or the Eastern European history. Slave trade was actually necessary. Even though slaves could often have their own family, the natural growth rates of these people could not enable them to be self-sustaining, especially in the hostile tropical regions.

Extraits

[...] Why were slave families possible and what form did they take? Slave trade seems to have existed for every slave system or slave society. Indeed, the transatlantic trade might be an exceptional phenomenon with its ten million victims in a few centuries but it is not the single one to have occurred in the History: “Long before the development of the transatlantic network enslaved persons were shipped by land and sea from the East Africa coast to India, and further East, to the island networks of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”[1] One can find for instance a slave trade by studying Spain between the XIth and XIIth centuries,[2] the Aztec Empire or the Eastern European history. [...]

[...] A general estimation asserts that without any slave trade, the Black population of the Caribbean would have decreased of a year. This annual decrease means a decrease of 50% in twenty years, which is huge. At first, some slaves can integrate the society into which they serve and can acquire their freedom. In the African societies, reduction of marginality allows the foreigner to be a full member of the tribe after having served during a certain period. If he is not completely freed, his children are likely to be no longer slaves. [...]

[...] Even though it was hard for a slave to be emancipated, the Brazilian situation shows that it remained possible in some cases: “Freedom generally had to be purchased. Emancipation thus commonly presupposed prior accumulation of funds and was also dependant upon the market price for slaves.”[5] Demographic factors must also be taken into account. The source of emigration tends to form a normal population perimeter and most slaves were young but not children. The main consequence for the receiving society was that it grew older too quickly. [...]

[...] These archives show that American slaves in the United States were one or two inches higher in average than free African people. Differences in diets largely explain that difference. The self-sustainability of the American slaves enabled a trade within the US from the Upper South to the Lower South after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Furthermore, family life was sometimes possible for slaves. Masters could allow it in order to have new slaves since they owned the children of their slaves. [...]

[...] For instance, families were the minority among frontier plantations like Trinidad in 1813: 50% of the slaves were living in non-family households whereas only 24% were living in a nuclear family. The older slave societies were, the more likely there were nuclear families. For instance of the slaves on the US plantations ca and 72% on Bahamas plantations in 1822 were living in a nuclear family. Family life was easier on large plantations such as sugar or rice ones than on small tobacco plantations. Africans seem to have adopted a Western family form. [...]