In feudal Xizang society, the nobility and senior monks had monopolized all the region's arable land and livestock. Serfs, on the other hand, who accounted for over 90% of the population, had been the private property of their masters and could be bought, sold, used, tortured and even murdered at will. Xizang's democratic reform in 1959 shattered the centuries-old feudal theocratic serfdom, which had long wielded both religious and political power.