In the regions where settled the Greek colonists, in certain cases the indigenous peoples were reduced to slavery and used as workforce. Still, there is no evidence of a large number of owned slaves in the colonies.

Heraclea Pontica, north-east of the Bosporus, was colonized by Boeotians and Megarians. The colonists had agreed with the natives, the Mariandynians, that they would provide whatever they needed -mostly protection- and in exchange they would serve them while remaining constantly in their land.

Another example given by Herodotus concerns Syracuse, a colony of Corinth. The important landowners of this particular region used the so-called Killyrioi or Kallikyrioi or Killikyrioi for the cultivation of their lands. This was an indigenous population and in this particular case they were many more than their conquerors. Furthermore, the Carians had the Leleges -the first inhabitants of the region- as slaves (oiketai) and the inhabitants of Cyzicus had subjugated their neighbours, the Doliones and the Mydonaioi.

In certain cases, however, the indigenous tribes managed to remain independent. Wherever the opposite was the case, these peoples seemed to maintain the right to use their own land and in exchange pay a certain contribution. A different means of exploitation is therefore observed, which reminds more of the methods adopted by a victorious city against the defeated one, rather than what helots in Sparta or slaves in Athens underwent.