I'm sorry for being so late in getting involved in this thread. It hasn't been that long ago that it wasn't unusual for people of any color to be slaves in one way or another. The term "indentured servant" is a perfect example of this. Many people didn't have the money to buy land, houses, and things of great value - especially when they were young and starting out. There wasn't any credit system like the one they have today, so many only had one thing to offer to get started - their labor. They gave "x" number of years of labor for a piece of land as an example. Another common example in the 1600-1700s was for payment of passage to escape oppression and tyranny. If you guessed escape to America, you would be right.
Another more recent example of something most people would call a form of slavery is share-cropping. This is really little more than working a piece of land in exchange for part of the crop. Whether this was fair or not depended on the land owner. My grandfather on one side of my family was a share-cropper, so this should give you an idea about how recent this was.
If one reads about early American History, they will find out that a fairly large percentage of the first settlers were slaves of one type or another of all colors. A fairly large percentage were also prisoners serving out sentences from England with their labor. I might add that many of those sentences involved religious crimes of heresy against the then Church of England. Many others were hunted for the same crimes, and this convinced them to become indentured servants to pay for their passage to the "New World". One must consider that LABOR was a major and accepted method of payment for all kinds of things: going to school, learning a trade, buying ANYTHING they didn't already have the money to purchase. As a result, there was a very interesting mixture of people settling the New World - from criminals - to voluntary servants - to involuntary servants. It's interesting to note that indentured servants had an enforceable contract. This was also a time when it was common to have a debtor prison system of some sort. Labor was a commodity that was bought and sold. So, voluntary servant would not be correct in many of the cases called "indentured servants". It would have been a crime to leave. The person holding the contract did own the servant until the contract was paid off. There were examples of all kinds that folks today wouldn't understand, but it was common practice at one time. Here's a couple more examples: 1) a man might trade a good horse or mule for a wife; 2) a man might make one of his children an indentured servant to buy a good horse or mule. If people didn't come from a rich family, labor was the only other thing they had to pay with. By the way, most of the transactions were NOT the type that one could change their mind.
So, people of all colors in just about all families have slaves of one type or another in their family heritage. A large percentage of people also have either religious criminals or people who served time for debts in their family heritage. Their labor was PROPERTY that was owned, bought, sold, and traded - SO they were property and NOT free to leave. I did not mention this to try and minimize in any way the suffering in Black Slavery. The vast majority of Black Slaves were completely innocent of anything, were captured like animals, and sold into slavery. There was NOTHING voluntary or right about this at all.Love In Christ,
Tom
Favorite Bible Quotes 298 - Matthew 22:36-40 Master, which is the
great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the
second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
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